Chapter 28: The first attack

Ivan, Harry and Hermione were the most popular people at the Day of the Dead party, and countless ghosts surrounded them, which took a long time.

countless ghosts surrounded them, which took them a long time. When they finally got rid of all the ghosts, the stomachs of all three roared with hunger.

Hermione said, "Amazing, I've never seen such passionate ghosts before."

Ivan walked down the hallway as he rubbed his stomach and said, "Yes, they can be quite annoying, I'm starving, I hope they didn't eat all the pudding."

Harry said quickly, "Wait, we should find Ron first. I wonder if he was successful in apologizing to Myrtle the Weeper."

Ivan said, "That shouldn't be easy, so let's go to the girls' bathroom on the third floor, I still have something to ask Myrtle, besides, the party will be over soon, maybe Colin and Ginny remembered to bring us something to eat."

The three of them went up the stairs, but Harry soon stopped.

Ivan looked at him and said, "What's wrong Harry?"

Harry's face looked confused and he said, "Did you hear a voice?"

Hermione froze, turned around to look at Harry and said, "What voice?"

Harry paled and said, "It's the cold, murderous voice I told you about the other day, the one I heard in Lockhart's office, the voice said: hungry...hungry...for so long..."

Ivan's thoughts froze for a moment before he came to a conclusion: "Damn it, it's the basilisk! The Chamber of Secrets was opened, it couldn't be Ginny again, could it?"

Harry looked up at the ceiling as he said, "It smells blood, it's going to kill someone, guys, it's moving fast, follow me!"

With that, Harry ran off, running up the stairs and into the hall, where the laughter of the Halloween party in the Great Hall echoed. Harry ran up the marble stairs at full speed to the second floor, with Ivan and Hermione stumbling after him.

Hermione gasped for a few moments and asked, "Harry, where are we going?"

Harry pricked up his ears, "Shhhh!"

He heard the voice again and again.

Anxious, Ivan wiped beads of sweat from his face as he said, "Harry, let's hurry, where is he?"

Hermione, exhausted and panting, said, "Phew, phew, what are you looking for? I didn't hear anything."

But after looking around, Hermione pointed to a hallway and said, "Look!"

Something was glowing on the wall of the hallway. Slowly they approached the wall, squinting in the dark to try to identify what it was. Between two windows and a foot on the floor were a few words flickering under a lit torch.

Ivan read the text quietly as he felt like fainting: "THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE!"

Hermione suddenly grabbed hold of Ivan's shoulders as she pointed to the wall and said, "What's that hanging under the words?"

Ivan looked in the direction Hermione pointed and saw a blurry dark mass, so he said, "I don't know, let's get closer and see."

They approached cautiously, there was a large puddle of water on the ground that almost made Harry slip.

The three of them got closer and closer to the letters on the wall, their eyes fixed on the dark mass hanging below the letters, but when they saw what it was, they jumped back, causing the water to splash.

Even though Ivan knew the plot beforehand, it was still terrifying to see Mrs. Norris hanging on the wall. She looked horrible, her tail dangling from the torch holder, her body stiff as a board, her eyes wide open as if she was terrified.

Suddenly they heard someone coming down the hall, which startled the three children and made them turn around hurriedly, their hearts pounding with fear.

It was Ron, who was coming out of a room at the end of the hallway, and he looked at the three with wide eyes and a pale face.

Ron, his voice clearly trembling, said, "Harry, what's going on? what did you do to Filch's cat?"

Harry hastily explained, "It wasn't us, we just got here."

Ivan looked at Ron suspiciously and asked, "What were you doing here?"

Ron raised his voice and said, "What else but doing what you said and apologizing to Myrtle the Weeper? But then I saw you and the cat!"

Ivan, realizing that Ron was in the bathroom with Myrtle the Weeper, quickly asked, "Apologize? Was anyone else in the bathroom next to you?"

Ron, remembering his experience in the girls' bathroom, said with disgust in his voice, "I don't know, I was in the bathroom with Myrtle the whole time, she's been crying a lot and pouring water everywhere, it took a lot of effort to get her to listen to me. This is the stupidest thing I've ever done, and if Percy finds out that I snuck into the girls' bathroom, I don't know how to explain to him that it was to apologize to a crying ghost."

Ivan said with a serious expression, "Ron, think again, when you were apologizing to Myrtle, was there anything unusual?"

Ron swallowed as he saw how serious Ivan looked and said, "Well, I think I heard something, a sort of hissing sound, but I'm not sure, why do you ask? the girls' bathroom is out of order, and there was no one in there but Myrtle and I just now, wasn't there?"

Ivan nodded stiffly as he said, "Yes."

Someone had gone into the girls' bathroom and opened the Chamber of Secrets, but Ron hadn't noticed, and Ivan wasn't sure who had done it.

Although Ginny made it clear that she had never seen Tom Riddle's Diary, she could have been lying. If she was under Tom Riddle's control at the time, Ivan feared that Tom Riddle would begin to suspect him, which was simply the worst-case scenario.

But at the same time, he was lucky that Ron had been in the cubicle, because if he had come out, he probably would have been killed.

Harry looked at Ivan and Ron who were talking and was quick to interrupt him and said, "Ivan, Ron, whatever you have to say, you can say later, first we should see if we can still rescue the cat."

Ron looked at the Cat, then at Harry and said, "I don't think that's a good idea mate, since we haven't done anything to the cat, we'd better get going, I don't want them to find me here."

But it was too late, as his words finished leaving his mouth, from both ends of the hallway they were in came the sound of hundreds of feet climbing the stairs and the pleasantly loud laughter of students who had had their fill of food.

Then, students made their way down the hallway from both ends.

When the people leading the groups saw the cat hanging upside down, they all stopped, and the merry chatter soon died down as well.

Ivan, Harry, Ron and Hermione were alone in the middle of the corridor, and the students were silent, crowding around to watch the terrible scene. Ivan saw Ginny and Colin standing in the middle of the crowd, startled, they looked like they wanted to approach, but were afraid to do so.

Suddenly, someone spoke loudly, breaking the silence, "ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE! You're next, you dirty blood!"

Draco Malfoy had pushed his way in front of the crowd, cold eyes glaring at them, and his usually pale face was a rosy red.

He looked down at the dangling cat and then looked up at Ivan with a giant grin.