The next day, weekend morning.

Harry and Ron staggered out of the dormitory and saw Hermione sitting in a chair in the lounge.

As soon as they sat next to her, they saw Hermione slam a newspaper on the table.

"I knew it!" the little witch said angrily.

Harry and Ron suddenly woke up. They looked at each other and Harry asked, "What happened, Hermione?"

"Remember the book the professor showed us? The one about Principal Dippet. At that time, there was a copy of the Daily Prophet on Professor Happ's desk. I felt something was wrong. This morning I found the newspapers of the past few days... That woman, Rita Skeeter! How dare she slander Principal Dumbledore..." Hermione was so angry that she trembled all over.

Harry quickly picked up the newspaper, and Ron sat down next to him and leaned his head over.

It was yesterday's Daily Prophet. The most eye-catching thing was the photo of Dumbledore looking up with a head full of white hair. Judging from the shooting effect alone, he looked old and sinister, and the name of the headline on the front page was "Dumbledore's Big Mistake".

Harry had a bad feeling, and he quickly began to read -

"Our special correspondent Rita Skeeter reports that the headmaster of Hogwarts School, the eccentric Albus Dumbledore, has always been a very controversial wizard."

"Recognized as the greatest wizard of our time, Dumbledore has been hiding in the castle of Hogwarts since he defeated the dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, and has rarely appeared in the public eye."

"Everyone praises him for this, thinking that he is guarding the hope of the British wizarding world and continuously supplying all kinds of magical talents to the wizarding world, but is the truth really like this?" "

The author recently received letters from some parents of students saying that a horrific attack had occurred in the school, and the murderer has not been found yet. Mrs. Firion of Top Hill wrote: My children are trembling in fear at school every day, fearing that their lives will be threatened, and the professors are helpless and do nothing about it! I had to let my children go home for Christmas."

"The author found the parent who cared about the child with indignation and interviewed her. The matter was far more serious than imagined - this was not the first attack. The attack had already happened more than a month ago. It was just that the victim was a cat, but the news was strictly blocked!"

"In order to reduce the impact and avoid being discovered and criticized by the outside world, the headmaster did not hesitate to make up a sensational lie - he blamed it all on Hogwarts' thousand-year-old legend, Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets."

"The funny thing is that he did a similar thing as early as fifty years ago. At that time, the headmaster was still a professor of Transfiguration. During this period, a poor Ravenclaw witch unfortunately died. Hogwarts once caught the suspect, but Dumbledore had a huge influence on the then-headmaster Armando Dippet. With his mediation, the matter was eventually dropped and the suspect was simply expelled from the school." "

Three days before the author wrote this article, two weeks had passed since the second student attack, but the outside world knew nothing about it, and the murderer was still at large. We have to worry about this matter. Is the omnipotent Dumbledore really old?"

"The author will follow up on this matter and give you the truth. In the next issue, we will start with the work of this headmaster and reveal a more realistic image of Dumbledore."

The main text ends here, but at the bottom of the page, there is a small line of text, which is a preview of the next report. It says:

Dumbledore has always dared to hire controversial teachers, such as Gilderoy Lockhart and Felix Hep this year, but are these two people really suitable? Let us wait and see (informed people are welcome to break the news, contact: Rita Skeeter, the gold medal editor of the Daily Prophet, the author of twelve best-selling books, and the best-selling book record holder).

"How can she say that about Dumbledore!" Harry said angrily. "And the matter of the Chamber of Secrets, we saw it with our own eyes, how could it be a lie!"

"You can't believe a word that this woman Rita Skeeter says, she often makes up gossips and rumors about celebrities." Ron said knowledgeably, "A few years ago, the news of her quarrel with Lockhart in the newspaper was particularly big, and my mother hates her very much."

"It seems that we already know what kind of person this woman is." Hermione said sarcastically.

Ron picked up the newspaper, "Have you noticed that this woman actually wants to do a series of reports, and the next issue is about Professor Lockhart and Professor Happ. How will she arrange them?"

Hermione said helplessly, "Principal Dumbledore has been portrayed as a conspirator by her, and I guess the two professors will not be immune."

"I don't care about Lockhart, he is just a pretentious person. Do you think Professor Happ will rush into the Daily Prophet building and give that woman a bat curse?"

"Ron! That's illegal, how could a professor do that!"

The three discussed the matter, and the final result was rather pessimistic.

Harry pointed to a sentence in the newspaper, "She said that a suspect was caught fifty years ago. Who is she referring to?"

"Come on, Harry, do you still believe that woman's lies?"

"Of course I don't believe it, but--" Harry's eyes were fixed on Hermione.

Her face quickly turned pale, "Fifty years ago, he was expelled... The suspect was Hagrid?"

Ron licked his lips nervously.

Harry said quickly, "I believe Dumbledore, Hagrid will not be the murderer! But since he is listed as a suspect, he must know something!"

The three of them were preparing to go to the Forbidden Forest Lodge in the snow. As soon as they walked out of the castle, they ran into a burly figure. It was Hagrid. He was covered in snow, his thick beard was covered with ice, and he was holding a dead chicken in his hand.

"Hagrid, oh--" Harry bumped into him directly.

"Watch out! Little guys." Hagrid said in a rough voice, waving a soft chicken in his hand, and a few chicken feathers flew in the air with his movements...

That evening.

Harry, Ron and Hermione had just returned from the abandoned classroom in the basement, and everything went well with the Polyjuice Potion.

Harry carried with him the magic scroll given by Professor Hepp, and translated the language of Parseltongue word by word. In the empty abandoned classroom, hoarse, eerie and terrifying voices would echo from time to time.

This made Ron, who was dozing off, unable to sleep well - in a half-awake state, he always saw a witch brewing a potion like mud, and a wizard making a "hissing" sound like a snake.

Earlier in the afternoon, they finally heard first-hand information about the Chamber of Secrets from Hagrid.

At this moment, they were hiding in the corner of the lounge.

"Almost everything matches!" Hermione said suddenly.

"What?"

"The monster in the Chamber of Secrets! Wait for me--" Hermione obviously had a complete thought. She hurried back to the dormitory and soon brought back a piece of parchment.

The three of them gathered together and looked at the text on it. It was about a terrifying magical creature called "Basilisk".

After Harry and Ron finished reading the information, Hermione told them the clues she had collected these days one by one, "Basilisk can hibernate for a long time, Basilisk's eyes are lethal, Basilisk is the natural enemy of spiders, Basilisk is afraid of chickens... What did you think of?"

"So, the monster in the Chamber of Secrets is the Basilisk?" Ron asked excitedly.

"No doubt!" Harry slammed his fist on the table.

There are two main pieces of information they got from Hagrid: one is that the chickens he raised always died inexplicably; the other is that he raised an eight-eyed giant spider fifty years ago, and the eight-eyed giant spider was very afraid of the monster in the Chamber of Secrets and refused to reveal even a word.

They all match!

"But there is still one biggest problem, which is that the basilisk cannot petrify people. I initially ignored it because of this, but now, the circumstantial evidence is very sufficient." Hermione said very seriously, "Maybe I should find time to ask Professor Hepp if there is any way to reduce the damage caused by the basilisk's gaze..."

She hit her head with some hatred, "It's really strange, I feel like something is right in front of me, but I can't find it..."

Harry swallowed hard, "Hermione, I think I know."