A/N: Alternate scene from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, in which Harry and Ron decide not to be idiot heads and actually enlist the help of all the scary-competent Hogwarts professors to defeat the basilisk. Realistic? Of course not. This is Harry Potter we're talking about.

We all know Harry faces death with courage, so I thought I'd write about a Harry who faces something else: his worst fears about himself.

"The greatest battles of life are fought out daily in the silent chambers of the soul."

- David O. McKay

Harry listened, heart thudding, as Lockhart's footsteps retreated from the staffroom.

"He won't do it, the coward," he hissed at Ron. "No way."

Ron was hardly breathing beside him—grief, fear or fury, Harry couldn't tell. It was hard enough to separate them within himself.

"If he doesn't," Ron said at last, in a strangled whisper, "I won't rest until I rip that idiotic grin of his from—Harry, we've got to tell them."

It took a moment to sink in.

"What?" Harry was incredulous. "You really think they'd believe us?"

"What's the alternative?" Ron asked hollowly. "Go after Ginny ourselves? You know I'd do it, Harry. I'll fight that basilisk one-handed if I have to. But you don't send two pawns against a queen, not unless that's all you've got left. And we don't know what else is down there."

The two of them against a basilisk, and the mysterious heir of Slytherin. Ron was right. Harry took a long breath, released it, tried to focus the cold fire burning in his chest and quell the first, insane instinct to rush into the face of danger for Ginny's sake. He, like Ron, was absolutely mad enough to do it, in both senses of the word. But Ron was right. A couple more corpses in the chamber would solve nothing.

There was no doubt they had faced long—longer—odds before, but then Ron had been clear and cool-headed, ready to strategize. Harry doubted the pale, shaking Ron in the wardrobe beside him would be capable of that, and he didn't blame him. Ginny's life was on the line. If she's not already dead…don'tthinklikethatdon'tthinklikethatdon'tthinklikethat. Ginny was still alive, because the alternative was too horrible. Because the Weasleys deserved better than fate had stored up for Harry's own family.

Anyway, when he and Ron had gone after the Sorceror's Stone, they'd had Hermione with them. The Hermione in Harry's head was shouting at him not to make a habit of dangerous encounters. And even now, even Petrified, Hermione was still the best of them; the one person in centuries to have figured the monster out in the first place.

Ron broke into Harry's thoughts. "I don't care if I'm expelled, Harry—" his voice broke into a squeak, and the conversation outside seemed to die down for a moment. "I don't care if you are either! This is my sister's life we're talking about."

"Right," Harry whispered. "Better do it now then, before they all leave…"

He pressed an eye to the gap in the door again. Outside the wardrobe, the professors gathered in the staff room were discussing, hollow-eyed, the arrangements that would need to be made to send the students home the next day. All conversation stopped dead when two twelve-year-olds burst out of the wardrobe into their midst.

Harry was the first to find his tongue.

"Professors," he said rapidly, ignoring the storm that had gathered on Snape's face within the span of half a second. "We think we know where the Chamber is—"

"And what's inside it," Ron broke in.

The room dissolved into chaos.

"POTTER! WEASLEY!"

"-what in Merlin's name—"

"—common room, immediately!"

McGonagall's sharp voice cut across the uproar.

"QUIET, all of you!"

Only Snape's voice continued, soft and brimful of fury. "Precisely the sort of behavior I would have expected from these two—no emergency too dire for Potter and Weasley to stick their noses in—"

"That includes you, Severus! You two," McGonagall turned to Ron and Harry, "have thirty seconds to explain yourselves before I exercise my powers of delegation and turn you over to Professor Snape for discipline. As acting headmistress," her nostrils flared, "I have quite enough to do in the current state of emergency."

Harry, lost for words, dug in his pocket and shoved at her the wrinkled page they'd wrested from Hermione's hand. There was an indignant gasp from Madam Pince, behind them, which all ignored.

"What is this?" asked McGonagall sharply, smoothing it before reaching up to push her pince-nez against her nose.

"Hermione's research," said Harry quickly. "The reason she was in the library, that day…We found it crumpled in her hand, just now, in the hospital wing. The monster in the chamber, she figured it out; it's a basilisk."

Ron nodded mutely, and a portly man with several missing limbs (whom Harry vaguely recognized as the Care of Magical Creatures professor) sat down heavily, letting out a low groan.

McGonagall's eyebrows shot upward. "Your evidence?"

"Harry's been hearing voices," Ron said. "In the walls. Hermione figures that's where the snake's been hiding—pipes, look."

"I had heard rumors…" said McGonagall softly, staring at Harry.

"It's true," said Harry, looking away; for some odd reason it felt like a shameful thing to admit this in his head of house. "I speak Parseltongue. It's why…" he choked. Professor Snape's eyes were boring into him. "It's the reason I've been near so many of the Petrified victims, Professor. I heard this voice in the walls, talking about tearing, and killing, and followed it…"

"Yet you gave us no warning?"

"There was never any time. And…I just thought…it was better not to mention it."

"Everyone already believed that rubbish about Harry being mad or evil," Ron broke in defensively. "Half our year won't even talk to him—"

McGonagall swept around. "Silvanus," she said to the magizoology professor. "Could this be true? Could the monster be a basilisk?"

He nodded woodenly, staring at the wall. "It would explain…much."

"Petrification," Harry said urgently. "No one died because they didn't look at it directly, but even a reflection was enough to turn them to stone. Spiders flee before it… you must've seen them leaving the castle in droves. Hagrid's roosters strangled… it all fits."

"I'll expect a fuller account of your investigations later," said McGonagall with the sort of glint in her eye that told Harry she knew they had gone beyond book research. "In the meantime, I move that we act upon this lead immediately. Weasley, Potter, you say you know where the entrance to the Chamber lies?"

Harry and Ron glanced at one another.

"In the girl's bathroom on the second floor," said Ron, voice hollow. "The out-of-order one."

"Minerva, if I may."

Snape, who had been silent since the deputy headmistress's rebuke, stepped forward. "It is clear to everyone in this room that these students have broken dozens, if not scores, of school rules in order to obtain this information. It is equally clear that Potter has some sort of link with the monster that bears…investigation, at the very least." His lip curled. "I move that before acting upon these mad claims, we subject the boys to a proper questioning…I have a few potions on hand that will elicit the full truth…"

Harry's stomach lurched, but before he could speak—

"There's no time!" Ron shouted. "You read the message! My sister's down there!"

"An understandable display of family concern," began Snape, but McGonagall was shaking her head.

"They're underage, Severus, with no evidence of criminal activity. It would be worse than unethical. And Weasley is correct that there is no time."

"Severus may have a point," said a witch in a dark purple set of robes. "Upon the boy's own confession, we must at least consider that he could be the Heir. Perhaps his presence in the castle, whether knowingly or not—"

"That's preposterous," someone protested behind her. "You can't unintentionally release a monster…"

Murmuring arose, and Harry felt his heart sink. They were getting nowhere, they were wasting time…

"Maybe it's true," he said, surprising himself. Harry could hear his own heart pound as the room fell silent. He had not admitted these words even to himself, yet here they were, spilling from his mouth. He locked his eyes on the stone floor, tracing the patterns in it, wishing he could distract his ears the same way—but his voice rang cold and hollow across the room.

"Maybe I am Slytherin's heir. My parents are dead. All I know about the Potters is that they were pureblood. I don't know why I can speak Parseltongue. And at my Sorting, the Hat wanted to put me in Slytherin. But I do know this." Harry raised his head defiantly, meeting as many eyes as he could. "In the end, the Sorting Hat put me in Gryffindor. If any of that Slytherin stuff is true…well, I didn't ask for it. I didn't hurt anyone. Someone else set that monster on my friends, and they're going to keep doing it… and if the lot of you won't help us, well, Ron and I will go after it ourselves!"

Ron stepped up beside him. "Harry's my best mate," he said boldly. "We're hardly ever apart. He hasn't got time to be the heir of Slytherin. If he were, I'd know—and I bloody well wouldn't let him set a basilisk on my sister! Or our best friend!"

"You can stick me in prison or whatever you want once all this is over," said Harry dully. "I know everything's stacked against me. But I didn't attack those people. They'll tell you that when they're awakened. But if you don't believe me, now, Ginny will die."

"Is that good enough for everyone?" asked McGonagall icily, looking around the room.

Pale faces and nods.

"And you, Severus?"

"I request proof," said Snape stubbornly.

"Everything possible has already been furnished."

"But—"

"I will not," hissed McGonagall, advancing on him, "allow the death of a child in my care, through inaction based on distrust of two heretofore honorable students! Potter and Weasley have already demonstrated courage and opposition to the Dark Arts far beyond their years!" She lowered her voice. "We need your help, Severus. With Albus absent—"

"Precisely why this timing is so convenient!"

McGonagall jerked her head.

"Filius," she threw over her shoulder. "Contact Albus immediately. Patronus, not owl. Time is of the essence. Then prepare to accompany myself, Severus, and Silvanus into the Chamber. Poppy, we will all be best served if you spend your time with Pomona seeing to the Restoration Draught. Charity—" turning to a dumpy, kind-looking witch Harry had never met, "Meet Professor Dumbledore at the front gates when he comes and apprise him fully of the situation." She turned back to Snape. "Do I have your assistance, Severus?"

"You would risk our lives on the word of that boy?"

"If Potter's word is untrustworthy," McGonagall returned, "then there will be no access to the Chamber in any case. Do I have your assistance?"

Silence.

"I hope that will never be in question, Minerva," Snape snarled at last. "Clearly my presence is unwanted here, however. I will be in my office, gathering supplies." He stalked to the door, fixing Harry and Ron with a last, malevolent glare before he vanished.

The word supplies seemed to strike a chord with McGonagall; she straightened as she turned to the room at large. "Rolanda, your best brooms. Four of them."

Madam Hooch nodded, but before she had time to hurry from the office, Ron cleared his throat.

"Professor, there's something else."

McGonagall hushed the murmur that had arisen with an impatient wave of her hand.

"We were thinking," he said quietly, "About what Professor Binns said in class. How even the 'likes of Dumbledore' couldn't find the Chamber after centuries of searching. What if…what if you have to be a Parseltongue to get in?"

Silence fell.

"None of you, I'm guessing…" Ron looked around, eyes resting on the teachers he knew to be Slytherins, but all mutely shook their heads. "You need Harry, then. And I'm coming too."

"Out of the question."

Ron's jaw clenched and his face reddened; Harry sensed a shouting match coming on.

"It's what Dumbledore would do," he said quickly, meeting McGonagall's eyes. Her nostrils thinned.

"Leave it to your elders to decide what Dumbledore would do—or, better yet, to the man himself when he comes. You, Potter, will accompany us to the entrance of the chamber and open it for us. Weasley, in light of your personal reasons for concern, you may come too. Both of you will remain there…under supervision," she added, as they exchanged glances. "In case we require Potter's assistance further along. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Professor," muttered Harry quietly, while Ron nodded. Harry's mind was racing, as he knew Ron's was. Invisibility Cloak…how to get it from here? Hermione would have known…

Already the teachers were dispersing, faces set, to go about their assigned tasks. McGonagall drew Harry and Ron aside with a furtive glance at the others.

"Potter," she said earnestly, looking him in the eye. "Be straightforward with me. Do you suppose there is a chance you could control the beast?"

Harry stuttered, caught utterly by surprise.

"I…I don't think…"

"I'm not accusing you," said McGonagall impatiently. "I was present when Severus informed the headmaster what had occurred during your duel with Mr. Malfoy. He said the serpent seemed to settle down at your command."

"I guess that's true," Harry muttered. It hadn't occurred to him that Parseltongue might go beyond mere communication. What had induced the animal to obey him? Sheer surprise, he supposed, most snakes probably didn't meet an intelligible twelve-year-old human every day.

"Has anything similar ever occurred?" McGonagall asked him. Ron too was listening curiously, but the only tale Harry had to share he had already related in brief to Ron and Hermione.

"Er, once," he said awkwardly. "I was at the zoo with the Dursleys, a few weeks before my Hogwarts letter came. There was a Brazilian boa constrictor there, and my cousin was pounding on the glass trying to waken it. I guess I felt sorry for it, all caged up, because I started talking to it. The thing was…it understood me, Professor. We had a proper conversation. And then my cousin hit me, and I accidentally made the glass vanish—the snake escaped in the end. I think it went back to Brazil."

McGongall was looking rather faint. "And it never occurred to you that this was out of the ordinary?"

Harry stared at her. "I'd turned my teacher's wig blue before school ended, and flown onto a roof the month before that. I suppose by then I was feeling open-minded."

"He didn't have a lot of, er, context," Ron broke in. "Hermione and I asked him the same things after the duel—"

"Can you speak Parseltongue at will?"

"I think I have to be face to face with a snake. But…what you're thinking won't work, Professor," said Harry, shaking his head. "The real Heir is somewhere in the Chamber. Whoever's been controlling it all this time. I could maybe confuse the basilisk a little—"

McGonagall sniffed. "The inquiry is academic in any case, Mr. Potter. Neither you nor Mr. Weasley will be accompanying us. Knowing your fondness for obedience in that regard, I shall personally station a member of the staff at the entrance to keep an eye on you."

Harry nodded, and Ron grimaced, but each knew the other was thinking the same thing.

We need an ally.

Moaning Myrtle.