Chapter 146: Master of Deduction
Night fell, and the rainstorm showed no sign of stopping. Instead, it grew heavier.
Rain lashed against the castle windows like a whip, making a terrifying crackling sound.
In the Gryffindor Common Room, Harry and Ron were huddled together in an armchair in the corner, both looking grim.
"The professors won't say anything right now."
Harry irritably ran a hand through his messy hair, keeping his voice very low.
"Professor McGonagall only told us to stay in the common room. We have no idea what's actually happening."
"Maybe we should listen to Tamara?" Ron said hesitantly.
"She might be right. We'd only get in the way if we went... even Dumbledore can't do anything..."
"No."
Harry snapped his head up, a stubborn light flashing in his green eyes.
"If we don't do something, then we really are just a burden."
He glanced out the window at the pitch black grounds. A faint light flickered from Hagrid's hut.
"Let's go find Hagrid."
Harry made up his mind and pulled the shimmering Invisibility Cloak from beneath his robes.
"He's been at Hogwarts for so long. Maybe he knows something."
Trekking across the muddy lawn under the Invisibility Cloak was a miserable ordeal.
By the time they finally knocked on the door of Hagrid's hut, both of them were soaked to the bone and shivering with cold.
"Who's there?!"
Fang's low growl came from inside, followed by Hagrid's panicked shout and the sound of a crossbow being loaded.
"It's us! Hagrid! Harry and Ron!"
The door swung open immediately.
Hagrid was still holding that enormous crossbow, his shaggy face etched with anxiety and fear.
Only when he saw that it was them did he breathe a small sigh of relief. He quickly pulled them inside and slid the bolt back into place.
"You shouldn't have come here!" Hagrid whispered like a startled bear. "It's too dangerous outside right now... if it's about those attacks..."
"We need to know the truth, Hagrid."
Harry did not bother wiping the rain from his face. He looked Hagrid straight in the eye and asked point blank,
"You know about the Chamber of Secrets, don't you?"
Hagrid froze.
The hand holding the pot of hot tea trembled violently, spilling scalding tea onto the table.
"I... I don't..."
Hagrid stammered, trying to avoid the question, but under Harry's persistent, almost burning green gaze, the big man finally slumped into a chair.
"That's... a very bad memory."
Hagrid covered his face, his voice muffled and tinged with old pain.
"The Chamber of Secrets was opened once before, fifty years ago."
"I was caught up in it too... someone reported me. I was expelled, my wand was snapped... but I'm innocent! Aragog never killed anyone!"
"Then who reported you?" Ron caught the key point, showing a rare moment of cleverness.
Hagrid was silent for a long time.
Thunder roared outside, illuminating the complex expression on his face.
Fear.
Anger.
And a deep sense of guilt.
"It was a student."
Hagrid finally spoke, his voice raspy.
"He was a prefect then, a model student. All the professors liked him... everyone believed his word. No one believed a big oaf like me."
"His name was... Tom Riddle."
Boom!
A bolt of lightning split the sky, bathing the room in ghostly white light.
Harry felt his heart skip a beat.
"Tom Riddle?" Harry's voice was a little dry. "You mean... Riddle?"
Ron looked incredulous.
"The same surname as Tamara?"
"Yes."
Hagrid looked up, his beetle black eyes full of regret.
"That's why... when I first saw her last year... I acted so surprised."
"She looks so much like him, Harry."
Hagrid gestured, a trace of lingering fear in his tone.
"That black hair, that pale skin, that cold gaze... when I first saw her, I thought Tom had come back."
"I thought she was just like Tom... a cold blooded Slytherin."
At this, Hagrid sniffled and pulled out a dirty handkerchief to wipe his eyes.
"But I was wrong."
"She's a good kid... truly."
Hagrid's voice softened, as if he had fallen into some memory.
"She not only comforted me and said what happened back then wasn't my fault, but she also helped me settle Norbert... honestly, she's not like the other Slytherins."
Harry was stunned.
He remembered that.
Back in their first year, the first time they had invited Tamara to meet Hagrid, she had said some ambiguous things that moved Hagrid to tears.
Looking back now...
"She knew all along."
Harry muttered to himself as a heartbreaking truth slowly took shape in his mind.
"She knew the truth about fifty years ago all along. She knew Tom Riddle framed Hagrid."
"That's why she went to comfort Hagrid... she was atoning for that bastard with the same surname."
A strong sense of empathy instantly flooded Harry's heart.
He thought of himself.
Bearing the title of The Boy Who Lived, he was pointed at wherever he went. Everyone expected something from him or looked at him differently.
He knew better than anyone the weight of being burdened by fame and swept along by fate.
And Tamara?
She carried the surname Riddle, bearing the shadow of a name that had once framed an innocent person.
Hagrid's prejudice, everyone's suspicion, the darkness of Slytherin...
"No wonder..."
Harry clenched his fists, his nails digging deep into his palms.
"No wonder she was so angry when she saw Hermione had been Petrified."
"No wonder she wanted to handle this alone."
"Because she feels it's her responsibility."
In his mind, Harry completed the logical loop for Tamara.
She was not cold.
She was too proud.
Proud enough to want to clean up the mess left by her surname all by herself, without letting anyone see her vulnerability.
"She must be so tired."
Harry stared into the hearth fire, his expression becoming extremely complex.
In that suffocating silence...
Knock, knock, knock.
A series of sharp, heavy knocks suddenly rang out, shattering the silence in the hut.
"Quick! Hide!"
Hagrid's face changed drastically. He grabbed Harry and Ron, shoved them under the Invisibility Cloak, and pushed them into a corner.
The door opened.
It was not some monster that walked in.
It was a solemn Albus Dumbledore and a panicked Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge.
"Bad business, Hagrid."
Fudge did not even dare look Hagrid in the eye as he entered, speaking rapidly.
"The attacks have caused too much of a stir. The Ministry must do something... the Board of Governors has applied immense pressure... I have to take you away."
"Take me away? Where? Azkaban?" Hagrid cried in terror. "But I didn't do it! I'm innocent!"
"It's procedure, Hagrid... you'll be back once the culprit is caught..."
Just as Hagrid tried to argue, the door was pushed open again.
The person who entered this time made Harry, hidden under the Invisibility Cloak, nearly grit his teeth to pieces.
Lucius Malfoy.
He was wrapped in a heavy black travelling cloak, a cold, triumphant smile on his face.
"I think it is time for you to be on your way, Hagrid."
Lucius spoke slowly, then turned to Dumbledore and pulled a long roll of parchment from his robes.
"And you, Dumbledore."
"This is a suspension order from the Board of Governors. All twelve school governors feel you have lost control of the situation."
"Since you cannot stop these attacks... perhaps it is time for someone else to run this school."
Dumbledore calmly accepted the parchment, his blue eyes showing no ripple of emotion.
"Since this is the decision of the Board, I shall, of course, comply."
"However, you will find that I will only truly have left this school when none here are loyal to me."
Dumbledore took a long look at the corner where Harry and Ron were hiding before turning and walking out into the rainy night.
Hagrid was also led away by Fudge.
Before leaving, the big man could only shout desperately toward the empty room,
"If anyone's looking for some stuff... follow the spiders! Follow the spiders!"
The door to the hut closed once more.
Only the crackling of the firewood in the hearth remained in the room.
Harry and Ron threw off the Invisibility Cloak, both pale and despairing.
Dumbledore was gone.
Hagrid had been arrested.
Now, Hogwarts' final line of defence had completely collapsed.
"We're finished..." Ron slumped into a chair, his voice trembling. "Even Dumbledore..."
"No, it's not over yet."
Harry stared fixedly at the door, all the information he had gathered tonight flashing through his mind.
Tom Riddle.
Framing.
Tamara's comfort.
The Chamber of Secrets.
"Ron, I've figured it out."
Harry turned his head, the confusion in his eyes completely gone, replaced by an unprecedented determination.
"Since it was Tom Riddle who reported Hagrid fifty years ago..."
"Since Tamara knew about it and went out of her way to comfort Hagrid, showing that she knew he was innocent..."
"Then there's only one possibility."
Harry took a deep breath and voiced the most logical conclusion.
"The real culprit, the one who actually opened the Chamber of Secrets..."
"Was Tom Riddle!"
Harry's voice echoed through the cramped hut, trembling with the shock of discovering the truth.
However, what met him was an awkward silence.
Ron sniffled and looked at Harry with a blank expression.
"But, Harry..."
Ron frowned, his tone full of doubt and confusion.
"Look, I'm not great at maths, but fifty years is a long time."
He pointed outside, trying to use common sense to wake his somewhat obsessed friend.
"Hagrid went from a student to... well, this. That Tom Riddle... he graduated ages ago. Or he's an old man. Or maybe even dead!"
"Is he supposed to have crawled out of a grave, or travelled miles back to the school to open the Chamber?"
"If so, why hasn't anyone seen him?"
Ron's questions were like a bucket of cold water, instantly dousing the sparks of deduction Harry had just ignited.
Right.
Tom Riddle was from fifty years ago.
"Maybe... maybe he left something behind?" Harry argued, unwilling to give up. "Or some kind of Dark Arts curse? Or..."
Ron interrupted him, pointing toward the castle with a trembling hand.
"The thing that attacked Hermione, and all these petrifications... there has to be something physical, right?"
Ron looked into Harry's eyes and asked the core question.
"If you say Riddle is the mastermind, then who is the one actually doing it now?"
Harry opened his mouth.
Countless names flashed through his mind.
Malfoy?
Unlikely. A coward like him could not pull off something this big.
Snape?
He was nasty, but surely not this evil.
Tamara?
No. Absolutely not.
She might be a Riddle, but she was clearly trying to stop this. And the way she had looked at Hermione earlier...
That had been genuine anger.
Harry's throat moved, as if something were stuck there.
After a long while, he slumped his shoulders and managed a few words.
"I don't know."
"...But Hagrid said spiders. Maybe we can go look for clues."
.....
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