The Serpent of Slytherin
NB: This story incorporates segments of both the novel's and the movie's sequence of events. Don't be confused!
Prologue
The night before Halloween:
The giant rat paused, sniffing, at the tunnel that provided much needed fresh air in this underground cavern. Many hundreds of feet above, he could sniff the gentle evening breeze wafting through the cave entrance. It was sunset, but light did not penetrate far into this cavern located directly under Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The only source was through this narrow cave entrance. A portal straight up into the rugged school grounds near the Whomping Willow and Hagrid's cabin.
There were many rats that thrived in the damp, unhygienic, dark and humid cavern that Salazar Slytherin had modified nearly a thousand years before to build his secret Chamber. Many small animals had become trapped and expired for unknown reasons in this cavern. Life was easy if you were a rat, and nothing and no-one had disturbed the peace for nearly 50 years.
The rat decided he wanted to do his exploration for food outside tonight. Sometimes the opportunities for scavengers became slim, and tonight was such a night. He began his long climb over hundreds of yards of broken, craggy rock, finally reaching the top many minutes later. He failed to notice the door at the far end of the cavern below with many stone snakes on it change its shape. The snakes began to move, and the door slowly crept open.
The Chamber of Secrets was open again.
Once outside, the rat sat on his haunches and began to lick his front paws. He was so engrossed by the fresh air around Hogwarts, the sight of the Great Hall lit up for the evening feast, and his paw, licking, that he failed to notice the tens of thousands of small spiders streaming up the cave tunnel, past him, and all moving in a tight band in the direction of Hagrid's cabin, and beyond, the reassuring cover of the Forbidden Forest.
He failed to notice the shadow fall over the grass at the cave entrance, and had no time to respond when a massive set of jaws grabbed him from above and from behind, impaling him on its massive teeth shining with venom, and swallowed him whole.
The mysterious monster retreated back into the safety of its underground lair, beginning to digest its meal of rat.
The objective had been completed.
It was game on for a year of terror for Hogwarts.
The next evening:
It was over three and a half hours into Harry's detention, and Lockhart had apparently noticed that Harry's productivity had declined significantly. He had answered only five of Lockhart's pile of hundreds of letters in the last hour, and Lockhart had noticed the lack of activity. Harry had simply paused for five minutes without doing any work. It was nearing the end of a long day. He and the Gryffindor team had had an unwelcome altercation with the Slytherin team, an incident that had resulted in Draco Malfoy's cruel "Mudblood" insult flung at Hermione, and Ron's furious retaliation, which had literally backfired and had him vomiting slugs all afternoon. Harry grinned at a thought he had. Come to think of it, his two best friends were exhibiting some curious behavior towards each other- all of it revolving around Lockhart.
Now, he was doing his penance for crashing the flying Ford Anglia into the Whomping Willow on September 1st. Two floors below him, in the dungeons, Ron was doing the exact same with Filch- polishing trophies. Hermione had done her best to stamp out the slug-eating spell, but at seven thirty, one slug still was still coming out every ten minutes or so- infuriating Filch.
Ron had told him that he thought Ginny had begun acting oddly over the last week or so. Stress no doubt, he had said. She for some reason had darted off during yesterday evening's feast to an out-of order toilet block on the First Floor and did not emerge for nearly half an hour. She had done the same tonight, but Ron had decided not to tell Percy or Fred and George before heading off for his detention. He'd decided to cut her a bit of slack- it was her first year after all.
Harry's train of thought was interrupted by Lockhart's airy, self-confident voice.
"Harry, Harry, Harry. Could you possibly imagine a better way to serve detention, than by helping me to answer my fan mail?"
"Not really," he replied.
"Fame is a fickle-friend Harry. Celebrity is, as celebrity does, remember that."
The oil lamp on Lockhart's desk slowly burned lower, and Harry paused absent-mindedly, half-thinking about events of that day, and of that bizarre, seemingly nonsensical comment that Lockhart had made. Distantly, he heard a vague, distant sound he'd barely detected, hidden under Lockhart's vain commentary. He slowly looked up as the candlelight burned lower. It was a vague slithering sound coming from far above and far behind him. His eyes widened as he heard a cold, menacing voice, capable of chilling even the bravest Gryffindor's bone marrow, faint at first, but moving somewhat closer, and becoming clearer.
Come, come…..to me…Come to ME!
Harry looked up at the ceiling, trying to track the source and movement of the disembodied voice, and his eyes widened, as with each pause, he heard a progressively louder slithering sound. His eyes widened further.
"What?" he questioned out loud.
"Sorry?" said Lockhart half-mindedly, a vaguely smug expression still on his face.
Harry pulled his eyes down from the ceiling. He tried to hear the voice again, but couldn't- the moment was gone. "That voice," he said, mouth half-ajar.
"Voice?" queried Lockhart, looking genuinely nonplussed.
"Didn't you hear it?" Harry asked incredulously.
"What are you talking about Harry?" Lockhart asked, still puzzled. "I think we're getting a bit er…." He grinned. "…drowsy." He looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. "And…great Scott! No wonder! Look at the time, we've been here nearly four hours. Spooky, how the time flies when one's having fun, eh?" He grinned again as he dismissed Harry.
But Harry looked again at the very spot on the ceiling from where he'd last heard that venomous voice. "Spooky," he repeated absent-mindedly.
Yes, spooky definitely described the scene, all right, he thought.
...
In the Gryffindor Common Room, Fred and George were in high spirits. The fire was burning away happily, and they had decided, while no-one was around, to pull out their prized trophy- the Marauders' Map, which they'd nicked from a furious Argus Filch in their first year. Filch was still trying to find that map to no avail.
George opened the map and began searching for his siblings.
"Look there's Ron," he said, grinning at Ron's dot standing in the dungeons with Filch, still yet to complete his detention. They also saw Harry, in detention with Lockhart in the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher's office.
Fred also picked up Ginny, slowly making her way out of the girls' bathroom, which, they knew, was haunted by Moaning Myrtle, a most depressed and depressing bespectacled ghost who had died while still at Hogwarts many decades beforehand. They saw her pause by an adjacent wall for about a minute, before moving back towards the feast, which was slowly coming to an end.
"Look, Ron's now out of detention," Fred reported to George. The twins both watched Ron's dot beat a hasty retreat away from Filch and up towards the Great Hall. They noticed a dot detach itself from a whole line of Gryffindors including Seamus Finnigan, Dean Thomas, Angelina Johnson, Katie Bell and Oliver Wood. The dot labelled 'Hermione Granger' moved away from the Great Hall, and met with Ron's dot. Close together, both dots headed down the stairs past the Great Hall towards Lockhart's classroom. George pinched Fred.
"Ow. What was that for you silly clot?"
"Look at Ron, the sly git," George said, pointing to the pair. "What's the bet the pair of them are arguing their heads off like an old married couple?" He grinned at Fred, who broke into an identically evil grin.
"Aah," he sighed overdramatically, clutching a hand to his chest. "Yong love."
"You honestly think our silly clot of a brother who can't tell one end of a Cleansweep Seven from another would fall for the super-smart bookworm?" George asked, shaking his head. "If you're right, then the Chudley Cannons will finish top of the league this year."
"Then what about the time Hermione was going weak at the knees because of that blue-robed git in Flourish and Blotts? Honestly, the only time I've seen Ron more annoyed was after we turned his teddy bear into a spider!"
Fred snorted with laughter, remembering that glorious prank, before challenging George.
"Five Galleons?"
"Why not?"
"Well, we now know how to blackmail him if we don't get first dibs on Chocolate Frogs."
They were so focused on their prey, that they didn't notice another dot appear by the First Floor toilets.
After another minute of banter as to whether or not their brother's relationship with Hermione was entirely platonic, Fred interjected.
"What the bloody hell is that?"
He was pointing to the dot still lurking around the toilets. It was marked 'Basilisk'.
"Dunno."
Fred and George didn't have time to further ponder this mysterious arrival, because there was a rustle outside the portrait hole.
George quickly whipped out his wand, whispered "Mischief Managed" and the ink on the map slowly faded to parchment colour. Unseen to the twins, a dot labelled 'Mrs. Norris' was now climbing the stairs to the first floor, pausing to sniff here and there.
The dots were on a collision course, before they vanished from the parchment.
Neville Longbottom entered, just in from the feast. "Hello Neville," Fred said, trying to stuff the now-disguised map into his pocket, but Neville noticed.
"What's that?"
"Potions homework," Fred lied. Neville looked decidedly unconvinced.
"Rubbish," he snorted. "You two never do homework."
"Well, we have to do Potions homework roughly once a month, just to ensure that greasy-haired slimeball doesn't drown us in our cauldrons," George pointed out straight-faced.
Neville laughed.
"Okay, just kidding, we're trying to figure out how best to blackmail our brother. Nothing out of the ordinary."
The portrait hole opened again to admit Dean, Seamus and Oliver.
"Exploding Snap you four?" Fred asked as he pulled out his cards. All the boys joined in. It was Halloween- most definitely not a time to do late homework.
Meanwhile, the mystery of that dot remained, forgotten. Neither twin would remember it the next day when they woke up to hear there was an attack.
Curiosity petrifies the cat
Mrs. Norris was nosy by nature. Apparently magically connected to her master, she always had had a knack of coming across students right when they were in the middle of a misdeed. She had even seemingly detected Harry under the invisibility cloak when he was going to see the Mirror of Erised.
Now, she was on the prowl, looking out for that first-year student with red hair who had been acting suspiciously just a few minutes ago on the First Floor corridor. That corridor was rapidly becoming sopping wet from water flowing out from the haunted bathroom Filch had instructed her never to enter because of a ghost by the name of Moaning Myrtle. The girl, even from fifty feet away, smelled like paint. The cat sniffed the air, and followed her back down to the feast. Her hands, although she didn't seem to know it, were bright scarlet.
A creaking noise from the wall to her right distracted her as she neared the Entrance Hall. The groaning, seemingly from the large concrete drainage and sewer pipes that spread to every corner of the castle, continued along the corridor, back up the stairs, and towards the flooded corridor. She followed at a trot, aware that the caretaker would still be in the dungeons with yet another rebellious red-headed student.
As she rounded the corner quickly, she came across yet more water. Moaning Myrtle was in a full tantrum then. Infuriated at the mess that her master would have to clean up, the cat gathered pace, running towards the source of the water. It was flowing in masses from under the door. Mrs. Norris paused and sniffed the air.
Something very fishy was going on here.
The noise had returned. She crouched, and took a sniff under the door.
The sinks in the bathroom had separated from each other, and pouring out of the resulting gap, hanging vertically upwards gracefully as it did so was something with greenish-grey, scaled skin, and at least a foot wide. She couldn't see its head, but knew this unwelcome creature was dangerous. She hissed angrily and retreated about twenty metres back down the corridor. Smelling paint, she turned.
Written in scarlet, blood like paint, a message was written on the wall.
THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HIER… BEWARE.
Mrs. Norris couldn't read English, but she knew a threatening message when she saw one. Infuriated at this menacing graffiti, she began to trot away to find Filch.
A hiss made her turn around. The water on this part of the floor was only a few millimetres thick, but it was enough to reflect any movement on the ceiling above. A ripple of movement reflected in the water caught the cat's eye. She stared at it for a split second.
Two yellow dots were suddenly reflected in the water. With a final yowl, Mrs. Norris stiffened, rigid as a board, and fell sideways to the ground, landing with a soft splash as she did so.
Ahead of her nose, two large scorch marks had appeared in the floor, seared into the stonework by a deadly gaze from an embroidered arch high above.
Her stalker disappeared from view again, making a loud splash as it retreated towards its lair.
Thirty seconds later, a pair of shaking, first year hands picked her limp body up, and hung her by the tail from a torch bracket. Those hands, covered in paint, continued to shake as their owner fled the scene, carrying a diary.
Ten seconds after that, Harry, Ron and Hermione appeared halfway along the corridor, close to the ominous message.
Harry's point of view- five minutes earlier.
Harry walked along a deserted dark corridor, his thoughts in a blur, mostly about that murderous voice he had just heard. What scared him most about the whole experience was that Lockhart didn't even notice it. He was genuine Lockhart was telling the truth. He had looked as if Harry should've been sent off to the Hospital Wing for insanity.
Then, heart pounding, he heard it again, sounding more dangerous than ever. He paused to listen, the lack of lighting casting unusual shadows playing against the walls. He swore one pillar even looked like a hooded cobra for a fraction of a second.
Blood, I smell blood. Let me rip you, it breathed, icy cold from a spot slightly behind Harry. Let me kill you… The voice tailed off into a rattling hiss, and Harry decided it must be issuing from the wall beside him. Feeling the wall as he went, he pushed on.
Kill, kill, KILL!
Each time, it got progressively louder, and Harry heard- no-felt a slithering vibration underneath his hand. Becoming increasingly agitated, he sped up, racing the voice from torch bracket to torch bracket….
…only to nearly collide with Ron and Hermione, bickering as per usual.
"My behavior doesn't excuse that git putting me to work doing Muggle labour!" Ron complained as Hermione rolled her eyes. "And to make things worse, I kept vomiting slugs over the Special Awards trophy of some bloke called Tom Riddle, who looked twice as insufferable as Percy!"
Hermione laughed, looked up and saw a wide-eyed Harry grape-vining along the wall, from time to time touching it.
"Harry," she smiled.
But Harry wasn't in the mood for pleasantries.
"Did you hear it?"
"Hear what?" asked a very puzzled Ron, slightly annoyed at the change in atmosphere.
"That voice," Harry responded, with a sense of déjà-vu.
All traces of a smile left Hermione's face. Looking around wildly, wide-eyed, she asked "Voice? What voice?"
Still straining to hear the next words from the voice, Harry looked around once, saying, with a tense edge to his voice "I heard it first in Lockhart's office and then again just…" His words tailed off as he heard a hiss further down the corridor and a final sentence, fading to an ominous rattle.
It's time…
"It's moving," Harry said of the rapidly-fading voice, staring past Ron and Hermione's heads. "I think it's going to kill."
"Kill?" enquired Ron, but Harry had already begun running along the corridor.
Hermione turned and chased Harry's disappearing figure, calling out cautiously "Harry, wait! Not so fast!" Ron followed suit.
Harry stepped out onto the First Floor corridor, noticing the floor was soppy. He turned and ran in the direction he had last heard any suspicious sound, Hermione and Ron racing behind him at full speed.
Harry stopped and peered at a formation of spiders scuttling out a missing tile in a coloured window, out into the night air.
"Strange," he said to his friends now behind him, watching too. "I've never seen spiders act like that."
Ron shuddered, and said, in a voice that had gone up an octave, "I don't like spiders." Hermione looked at him sideways, half frowning with both irritation and seeming amusement at this newly-revealed phobia.
Ron, wanting to change the subject, turned and noticed and revealed an unusual reflection in the water. "What's this?" The trio turned their gaze upwards at the message Mrs. Norris had seen barely two minutes beforehand.
Hermione read out the message. "It's written in blood." She grimaced at the sight of it.
But Harry had seen something even more terrifying. Mrs. Norris was suspended by her tail from a torch bracket, completely motionless, except perhaps for a vague breathing movement. "Oh no," he exclaimed as he walked towards her.
Ron and Hermione looked at each other as if thinking of fleeing the scene, but before they could ask Harry his opinion, they heard a commotion. Dozens of students, heading back to their dormitories, were approaching them from all three directions, gasping at the sight of the message, the trio, and most of all, the motionless cat.
Among them was Draco Malfoy. Grinning like he had won a million Galleons, he pushed forwards to the front of the crowd. "Enemies of the Heir… beware?" he read out. He turned to stare directly at Hermione. "You'll be next, Mudbloods!" Ron's right hand curled into a fist.
But Harry was staring at Mrs. Norris' glassy eyes, trying to comprehend what exactly had hit her.
I have to say, I wondered if the Marauder's Map could show the Basilisk. Also, anyone note some minor references to the original crime scene in the novel? Poor Mrs. Norris. Next, Colin has an unexpected meeting in the dark with Slytherin's pet.