When Ronan entered the common room, Malfoy and his goons were sitting by the fireplace. They all got up when they saw him coming in.

“Where have you been?” Malfoy asked.

“In the club room,” He simply said, acting nonchalant, “By the way, did you guys have your supper?”

Crabbe nodded, “We did, but where have you been? I went to check the club room, but it was locked,”

Ronan smiled, “Well, I fell asleep on my desk. Just woke up a few minutes ago,” Quickly formulating a plan he then asked a question, “And you know what, I am craving some food. The kind we ate on Christmas Eve,”

“Like what?” Goyle asked.

“You know what the best thing in the whole feast was,” he said.

“You mean turkey? I could also go for some turkey right about now,” Crabbe said, to which Malfoy just rolled his eyes.

Ronan smiled and asked Crabbe and Goyle if they could bring something similar from Kitchen. They were happy to go, and he went to his room to change. Malfoy chooses to remain by the fire.

While walking towards his room, Ronan smiled vanished, and turned into a frown. From what he could remember, he had never attended a Christmas Eve school, which had turkey as a main dish. Last year's main dish was roasted pork. Which meant the Christmas feast was over, there was a whole day missing from his memories. Now, he does not know much about mind magic, but from what he could guess, the other party tried erasing his memories, but his shields helped him to shield his mind.

In the end, they were able to only erase some of the recent memory. Now the question was why would someone erase his memory, it would be because he knew something that he wasn't supposed to know. And he needs to find out what exactly he knew…

***

Hermione was sitting on another end of the common room, working on the next term course. The boys were all busy playing chess and creating ruckus, that is why she was sitting on the other end of the room. It was then an envelop fell on her head, she looked around and saw that there was no one around. Curious she opened the envelope to find that it was a message from Ronan,

__________________________________

Dear Hermione,

I need you to bring the three fools with you to the club room. Immediately. I cannot stress this enough, but this is very urgent. Please bring them to the club room as soon as you get the message.

Ronan

________________________________

Alarmed by the strange message, she went to the boys and showed them the message. Everyone looked alarmed seeing the message.

“What do you reckon he wants from us?” Ron asked.

“Do you think that he is trying to blackmail us?” Harry asked.

“I dont like this,” Neville added, “Not even a little bit.”

“What do you think that we should do?” Hermione asked.

“Do you think that this could be a trap?” Ron said, “Well, maybe the real heir is this letter to bait us out of the common room,”

Hermione shook his head, “No that is not possible.” She said, “This is Ronan’s writing. And with Neville as the suspect of being heir, the real heir wouldn't do anything to him.”

“So what do you think he wants from us?” Harry asked, unsure what to think of the message.

“I dont know,” Hermione said…

Finally, after some back and forth, Hermione and her friends went to Ronan’s club. As they twisted the door knob and came in, they were greeted with Ronan staring at all of them with a grim face.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Come on in,” Ronan said with ice cold voice, gesturing towards the four chairs that were kept in front of his desk. Seeing the serious and angry expression of Ronan, Hermione got a bad feeling. Although till now she had never seen Ronan do something bad, but she had rumors from other kids that Ronan was an unhinged madman. Seeing his expression, made her think that today she would finally meet the madman.

They all sat in front of the desk. Then Ronan spoke, “Thank you for accepting my invitation.” Hearing his polite words, Hermione looked at the other three, who were surprised as she, “I called you four here because I have met the heir of Chambers of Secrets.”

They all looked shocked. Neville quickly asked, “What do you mean you met the heir? You know who it is?”

Ronan sighed, “I cannot remember.”

Ron then asked, “What do you mean that you cannot remember?”

“It is like this…” Ronan then told them what he had been doing since he had been framed as the heir. According to him, he started looking for clues as well and trying to find books that could tell him what kind of spells could petrify people. He realized that petrification is a very high level magic, that no young students could perform. So he started looking at seniors with suspicion.

But as the attacks progressed, he saw a pattern in the attacks. That being, all the victims of the attack were somehow connected to Neville. He recalled Harry’s altercation with Filch, Colin Creevey, Justin, and the ghost. From this, he realized that maybe, someone is desperately trying to frame Neville. And based on victims, the suspect could be a person that is close to their group…

“That does make sense,” Harry said. “But I dont think that anyone that regularly hangs out with us could be the heir,”

Ron nodded, “Yeah. There is a very low chance that someone from Gryffindors was responsible for such a mess,”

“That is exactly what I thought as well,” Ronan said, “Then I got another piece of valuable information.. The chamber was opened 50 years ago. Do you know what that means?”

They all looked at each other, so Ronan clarified, “It meant that the heir of Slytherin must be a person whose dad or mother is at least 50, which upon investigation turned out to be futile. No one fits the description. But then I came up with another theory, which led to yesterday’s incident,”

“What happened?” Hermione asked.

“I was attacked,” Ronan said, shocking everyone, “I dont know who attacked me. But I dont have any recollection of what I did on Christmas Eve or what happened yesterday. I woke up in the club room in the evening, my brain in shambles. Someone used a oblivating spell on me. And if I am right, maybe I realized who the real killer was. That is why I was obliviated.”

Ron asked, “Are you sure that you dont have the memory of Christmas Eve,” there was a sly smile on Ron’s face, which Ronan noticed.

“No,” Ronan said simply said. “But what I am sure of is, that I was attacked,”

Harry then suggested, “You should go to Madame Promfrey, she might be able to return your memory.”

Ronan shook his head, “Mind magic is not that simple. If someone had obliviated that memory from my brain, I won't be able to recover it, ever. Unless I have a copy of memory lying somewhere,”

Ron then asked, “You can make a copy of memories?”

Hermione then chimed in, “Yes, he can. He is a natural Occlumen,”

“What is that?” Harry asked.

“We dont have time for this,” Ronan said. “If you wanna know what an Occlumen is, go find it in the library… I have called you guys here because you are the only one other than me who is actively trying to find the heir. I will give you the information that I have, and in return, you tell me information that I dont know.”

Ronan stared into their eyes, as if they were the culprits, “I know for a fact that you guys lied during the first incident. You knew something, but you deliberately hid some information. You tell me what you know, and I will tell you what happened to me. If we were to combine our strengths, then maybe we would be able to find the culprit,”

Neville turned towards his friends. It was Harry who spoke, “Tell him Neville.” He said, “He could help us,” Even Ron nodded, and it was then Neville started telling him about the voices that he heard that particular day. And then Ronan told them about his way of finding the culprit from the presence of Filigia…

“Do you reckon that the person that broke into the club is the heir?” Hermione asked, after hearing his story.

“There is a chance,” Ronan admitted. “Because not many students have the power to break through the defenses of the club room,”

“Who could it be?” Neville thought out loud.

“Did you guys see me act differently towards anyone?” Ronan asked.

“You were looking around the feast table,” Harry admitted. “But other than that I had not seen anyone that was behaving strangely,”

“Forget about it then,” Ronan said, “Now with the missing piece in my hands, we know what exactly are we dealing with. We can take some precautions,”

Everyone looked at him with confusion, “What?” Ronan asked.

“What do you mean what we are dealing with?” Hermione asked.

“Isn't it pretty clear now?” Ronan asked as if it was the most logical thing. No one knew what he was talking about. Hence Ronan sighed and spoke, “We are dealing with a creature whose voice only Neville could hear,”

The boys didnt understand a thing, but then Hermione immediately stood up, “You dont mean to say…”

Ronan nodded, “Yup. The monster is a snake. It collaborates with my house’s symbol. As well as, I know a beast, who is a snake, who can petrify or kill people with its stare and is known to live for thousands of years.”

“What is it?” Neville asked.

“It is called a basilisk.” Ronan said while leaning back, “Now that we know that, all we need to do is find the chamber and catch the culprit.”