Harry Potter and the Secret Treasures - H.P.S.T Chapter 1688: The Hidden Passage

No matter how many spells and defensive enchantments the Ravenclaw family’s castle once possessed, none of them remained now.

Evan easily reached the top of the tower. Compared to the lower levels, the structure here was relatively simple: a circular chamber densely packed with bookshelves, stacked to the brim with magic volumes — tens of thousands of them.

“So this is the Ravenclaw family’s library?” Evan murmured.

He did not see the strange ghost he had glimpsed earlier. The room was utterly silent.

Then, on the bookshelf before him, he noticed a book discussing reversal spells — a gray parchment scroll.

Evan recognized this book; he’d seen references to it in a book kept in the Restricted Section at Hogwarts. That book had quoted a passage from this very work, and he had long wanted to read the original text.

But he couldn’t find it anywhere, because it was too ancient and had long since disappeared.

He had never expected to see it here.

On second thought, it made perfect sense — this was the Ravenclaw family’s library from a thousand years ago!

Evan reached for it, but the next second, his hand passed right through the book, unable to touch it as he had before.

The real book was gone!

Only a phantom remained, and unlike before, under the influence of the evil gods’ power, the blue light and magical energy that made up the surrounding scenery were getting weaker by the second, like a candle guttering in the wind, on the verge of dissipating at any moment.

Evan could no longer touch the apparitions as he had earlier, when they had felt almost as real and graspable as solid objects.

Besides, now was not the time to study magic.

The flow of time and magic around him grew increasingly chaotic. The time left to Evan was rapidly running out. Below, the once resplendent castle was becoming more and more grotesque, gradually reverting to its true state — like a terrifying beast, poised to devour anyone it could seize.

Evan passed straight through the bookshelves and walked forward.

This place wasn’t large; if there were any secrets, they could only be ahead.

Now, standing atop the tower, he could see the surrounding scenery of the castle much more clearly.

The sky was thick with roiling storm clouds, churning incessantly, the light dim, a terrifying scene reminiscent of a dreadful apocalypse.

At the ruins of the Veil of Death in the center of the lake, besides the two enormous phantoms of the evil gods in the sky and the illusion of the Veil of Death itself, many figures had appeared in the plaza below — phantoms of the Ravenclaw family wizards, reenacting the ancient ritual of opening the Veil.

There weren’t many people in front of the Veil of Death, but Evan could not tell which of the shadowy figures was Harry and which was the Dark Witch.

From this distance, they all looked much the same.

Directly above the tower, the phantom of the Valkyrie statue flickered in and out of existence, radiating an indefinable air of majesty and power.

In this area, only the phantom of the Valkyrie statue could rival the aura of the evil gods. If the Ravenclaw castle’s magic were still intact, this would have been the very heart of the entire spellwork.

“Wait, where did those monsters go?” Evan suddenly remembered the monsters that had resurrected in the garden earlier.

He had thought those monsters would turn back to attack him, but they hadn’t; after reviving, they had soared into the sky and flown out of the castle.

Where had they gone?

Evan scanned the surroundings, and then he saw it: far to the east of the castle, at the place where he had arrived via Apparition earlier, a massive cluster of dark shadows was in motion. Flashes of white, red, and blue spell light flickered intermittently.   

Who were those monsters fighting?!

Wait, could they be wizards from the Order of the Phoenix?

Judging by the time, he’d sent Dobby the house-elf back to report; it did seem like the moment when reinforcements should be arriving.

If that was the case, then this was truly bad.

Evan quickened his pace, soon reaching the end of the room, but found nothing there.

“Could it not be at the very top?” He wasn’t sure. The only thing he knew was that Ravenclaw’s Diadem could open the library, and judging by that, the circular room in the tower definitely wasn’t the true library. Evan couldn’t see anything that needed to be opened.

And where was the powerful magic the ghost had mentioned?

He certainly wasn’t referring to the books around him, valuable though they were.

Suddenly, the strange music started again.

This time, Evan could clearly hear where the sound was coming from, because it was very close.

Really close. He followed the sound to a huge bookshelf, where the music was coming from intermittently.

“This spot… above this should be the very center of the Valkyrie statue,” Evan said, studying it. Setting aside the blue magical light and shadows, there was barely any of the actual structure left. There was no obvious reason why music should be coming from here.

Then it struck him. This bookshelf might contain some kind of special magic, like the Room of Requirement.

Like the Room of Requirement!

To the casual eye, it looked exactly like an ordinary wall, but it concealed a space inside. Only after repeatedly thinking about the room you needed and walking back and forth across the corridor outside the wall three times would the hidden Room of Requirement reveal itself.

This was extremely rare and powerful magic; Evan had never seen it anywhere else. However, that didn’t mean it didn’t exist. Perhaps this room had been created by Rowena Ravenclaw. Magic of this kind appearing within the castle would not be strange at all.

The way to open the library was Ravenclaw’s Diadem!

Evan wasn’t sure what exactly he should do. He tried gently tapping the Diadem with his wand.

A crisp sound rang out, and the next second, ripples spread across the blue light that made up the enormous bookshelf.

Like a whirlpool, the bookshelves receded to either side, revealing a narrow, pitch-black passageway.

It really was, and his guess was right!

Without hesitation, Evan hurried into the upward-slanting passage. The incline was steep, and the walls on either side were rough, as though the tunnel had been forcibly hacked straight through the stone — much like the passages inside a pyramid.

Those corridors had been left for the laborers, mages, and priests who built the pyramids. But the ancient Egyptian pharaohs had clearly given little thought to their convenience: the passageways were brutally inhospitable, and their walls were lined with all manner of curses and defensive spells.

Come to think of it, the craftsmen and shamans left inside when the pyramids were finally completed were meant to be buried with the pharaohs; the pharaohs had probably never intended for these people, who held the core secrets of their tombs, to leave alive.

For some reason he couldn’t quite explain, Evan suddenly found himself thinking of the pyramid corridors again, unsure of what might lie ahead.

Judging by his physical position, he should now have been at the very top of the castle’s central tower, or somewhere near the Valkyrie statue above it. In reality, however, the passage kept climbing, stretching into a strange, magical space…

A sudden, inexplicable mix of unease and emotion washed over him — he’d just realized that everyone around him was a hidden powerhouse, and he himself was nothing but a complete rookie!

Translating_Wizard

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