Part Two
Thankfully, after their close run-in with Amycus Carrow, the distance to the second floor girls bathroom was relatively short and they arrived at the door without any other hiccups.
Ron went to open it but Hermione said, "What if there is someone in there?"
"That's the only entrance we know of! We have to go in. Who do you think is going to be in there anyway?"
"I don't know. You-Know-Who might have people guarding it or something."
"He knows that we can get down there, and he doesn't know that we know to use Basilisk fangs, so it's not like he's going to hide another horcrux there or have a Death Eater waste their time and guard it."
"I don't know…"
"Hermione, you can stay out here if you want to. I am going in." Ron said with determination.
Hermione gave up, "Oh fine."
Ron opened the door a crack and they strained to hear the presence of anything human, or even non-human.
They heard nothing, so Ron opened the door more. He stuck his head in and then stepped inside. He looked around and then turned to Hermione, "There's no one here."
Hermione heaved a sigh of relief and then said, "It doesn't hurt to be careful."
Ron started looking at the sinks, "Whatever, look for the sink with the snakes on the side of the faucet."
"Right. Snakes." Hermione leaned over to examine each sink. When she got to the third one she saw the serpents and excitedly asked, "Is this it?"
Ron came over to make sure, "Yeah, that's the one. Brilliant. Now all we have to do is say 'Open' in Parseltongue." The confidence in his voice wavered at the last part.
Before they could even attempt to speak the language, a high-pitched voice pierced the air, "Well well well, nice of you two to visit after all these years. And where is Harry?"
Ron and Hermione turned around to face the person who was killed by the Basilisk more than fifty years ago and now haunted the bathroom they were in. Moaning Myrtle.
Hermione heard Ron groan, and she felt the same way. They did not have time to chat with her.
"Listen Myrtle, we'd love to catch up…" Ron said sarcastically.
"But we have something important to do." Hermione finished.
"Of course you do. You only come in here when doing something important."
"Well why else would we come in here?" Ron asked Myrtle.
Myrtle glowered at Ron. "I'll leave you two to do your snogging—oops, I mean, special mission." Myrtle giggled and started to drift away.
Before she could disappear though, Hermione, non-verbally, cast the langlock jinx on Myrtle, gluing her tongue to the roof of her mouth. They heard her start to gag as she went through the wall. "So that she doesn't go and blab about us being here." Hermione explained.
"Brilliant." Ron said.
Then, there was an awkward silence as they thought about Myrtle's last comment, during which Ron stared at the ground and Hermione looked around the bathroom, both trying to avoid each other's gaze.
"Are you ready?" Hermione finally said.
"To sn—I mean speak Parseltongue?" Ron said, his ears turning bright red. "I think so."
"Okay, erm, well, go for it."
Ron made several short hissing noises, probably just practicing different sound to see which one sounded the best. Then, he shook his arms and bounced from one foot to the other, it look like he was preparing to participate in a race or something. He glanced over to Hermione, who had one eyebrow cocked at him, and he stopped. He cleared his throat and gave a deep breath while he focused on the small picture of the snake. Finally, he let out a long hiss and Hermione held her breath.
Nothing happened.
"How quickly did it open last time?"
"Pretty quick. I'll try again." Ron didn't waste any time making another long hissing noise. But again, nothing happened. Ron sighed and tried again. Nothing. He made another hiss, but it sounded more like it was done out of frustration than actually trying to open the passageway.
"You can do it Ron, just keep trying."
Ron looked over at her and nodded. He took another deep breath to calm himself down and then stared at the snake. He closed his eyes as he hissed.
Hermione knew that this one was it. It sounded much different from the others, it sounded well…more real. She also saw Ron's reaction. Once he had finished, his eyes went wide in surprise at what had just come out of his mouth.
There was a loud noise as the sink moved and then disappeared from view, revealing a large hole in the floor of the bathroom.
Ron looked over at her and grinned.
"Ron, you did it!" Hermione exclaimed before going over and hugging him.
"Yeah, I guess I did." Ron said with pride.
They separated and Hermione stepped closer to the opening. "So we're supposed to go down this?"
"Yup. It's not as scary as it looks though. It's actually sort of fun if you think of it as some giant slide and not just some pipe that could be leading you to a giant snake."
"Thanks for pointing that out." Hermione said sarcastically.
"Well there isn't a live giant snake. There's really nothing to worry about."
"Are you sure?"
"Look, if you don't want to go down there, I can go by myself while you wait up here."
"No, I want to go down there!" Hermione said quickly. "I want to see what it looks like and everything. Plus, imagine the reactions of all the wizards that hate Muggleborns when they hear a Mudblood like me went down there voluntarily to help destroy You-Know-Who and came back out alive."
"I would love to see Malfoy's reaction. He'd probably look like you just punched him in the face again."
Hermione smiled at the memory. Even though it wasn't like her do something like that, she never regretted doing it.
Ron looked down the hole, "I'll go first."
"Okay. Be careful." Hermione didn't object because she was in fact a little afraid of going down there and would feel better if he was already there to meet her.
Ron sat down at the edge, "See you at the bottom." He gave her a cheerful smile and then pushed himself off the edge.
Hermione looked down into the hole but only caught a flash of red hair as he sped into the darkness and out of sight. She then sat down on the edge and collected herself. She looked out of one of the windows and wondered how long it would take for her to see daylight again. Hopefully not too long. She told herself, "The sooner I get down there, the sooner we can get the job done and come back up."
She took a deep breath, pushed herself off the edge, and down the pipe to the Chamber of Secrets she went.
