A/N: And another crazy chapter of Flaming Chickens. Enjoy!
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Chapter 2: Slytherin's Hair
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It took four days, but Riddle finally relented in showing Harry the 'cool' thing that he had promised. Harry was slightly confused when they stopped outside a girl's bathroom, but he went along with it and stepped inside. The bathroom was empty, as he figured it would be in the middle of the night, but there was a slight layer of water on the floor. Harry had great fun splashing his way over to the sink.
"This really is a cool thing, much cooler after having to set something on fire in order to be told about it," Harry told Riddle within his mind.
"The water is not what I want to show you," Riddle retorted. "A floor of water would not be worth setting the chicken coops on fire."
"Oh." Harry shrugged and went back to splashing. "It's still cool."
"Go over to the sink," Riddle ordered Harry.
"And add more water?" Harry's eyes lit up at the idea.
"I though you were supposed to be a pyromaniac," Riddle grumbled. "There's an etching on one of the sinks, I want you to find it."
"Okay." Harry pouted, but he went over to the sink to look. The first faucet that he looked at was clean, but the second did have something etched on the metal. "We B Here?"
"Not that one!" Riddle exclaimed. "Look for a snake."
Harry hummed and went back to inspecting the sinks. He went around the sinks in a circle before finding the small etched snake on the sink next to the first one that he had looked at. "Found it," Harry said and neither of them noticed that what he was saying wasn't English.
"Now tell it open," Riddle told Harry.
Harry blinked, not noticing the difference in languages once more. "Open?" Harry hissed out in Parseltongue. The sink started to open up and Harry jumped back in shock before bouncing in place. "You were right, this is cool!"
"Now, go down the tunnel and do exactly what I say," Riddle told Harry.
Harry wrinkled his nose at the amount of grime in the pipe, but he slid down anyway. He cheered all the way down and then, sufficiently hyper, he bounced his way down the passage. Riddle was content to let him go, vaguely directing him whenever Harry showed signs of traveling off down the dead end tunnels.
Harry came to a stop in front of the large doors, bouncing in place while he waited for Riddle to tell him how to get past the doors. "Tell it to open again," Riddle instructed.
"Open," Harry called out. The snakes slowly slid back on the door and it clicked open. Riddle was telling Harry something else, but Harry just ignored the voice in his head as he burst into the room. He spared half a glance at the large statue at the end of the room, but more focused on the giant moats at the side of the room. With a loud whoop, Harry splashed into the nearest source of water.
"You have to be careful here, Maxwell, there's a basilisk in the mouth of Salazar Slytherin's mouth. You need to call him out and let me speak to him, but you can't look him in the eye," Riddle tried to tell Harry. Harry just continued to splash around in the murky water. "For heaven's sake, Smart, you aren't supposed to be playing in the water!"
"Because you want me to talk to the statue?" Harry asked as he paused in the middle of the moat.
"Yes!" Riddle exclaimed, glad to have finally gotten through to the boy.
"Hey Slytherin!" Harry called out. "I hear you don't like muggle borns, which is silly, because you should just kidnap people instead. It's the muggles that are the problem. Anyway, how do you feel about the color pink? Because you look really washed out and you could use a bit of make up."
"I didn't mean for you to just ramble on. Look, repeat after me, okay?" Riddle asked.
"Okay," Harry repeated.
"Good. Now say, Speak to me, greatest of the Hogwarts Four," Riddle said.
"Good. Now say, Speak to me, greatest of the Hogwarts Four," Harry repeated, using the exact tone and pitch that Riddle had used within his head. Riddle chose not to notice this, as it still got him what he wanted.
Slytherin's mouth slowly opened and Harry ran forward. Before Riddle could say anything, Harry was clambering up the statue. He swung into Slytherin's mouth and slithered his way down the tunnel. "Help, help, Slytherin is eating me!" Harry called out as he made his way down.
"Do you even know what's down there?" Riddle yelped. This was his last chance, he needed his host to be alive and that wouldn't happen if the boy just blindly ran into the Basilisk's gaze.
"Nope, but that's why I'm down here! It's my job to figure out the things that people don't want me to know about." Harry grinned as the tunnel started to open up into a large chamber.
"There's a basilisk down there, which can kill you if you meet its eyes," Riddle explained.
"I'll be sure to introduce myself to the whole animal and not just it's eyes, then." Harry cheerfully hummed as he walked up to the large scaly beast. He poked its side, but the beast did nothing. Harry then took out his trusty box of matches and struck one up. Reveling in the sound of Riddle screaming in his mind, Harry held the flame as close to the scales as he could.
To his disappointment, the scales didn't turn out to be flammable, but the change in heat did wake the basilisk up. "Close your eyes!" Riddle screeched when the snake first started to move.
Harry winced and closed his eyes, slapping his hands over them as well. "Now what?" he asked.
"Now repeat after me and tell the basilisk that I am Slytherin's heir and that it shouldn't kill you," Riddle informed Harry. If he had a body, well, he wouldn't be in this mess, but he would also be biting his nails as he worried what Harry would say.
"Hi hi, Basilisk, I am Slytherin's hair and he would look kind of weird bald, so would you please not eat me?" Harry asked, speaking in parseltongue before Riddle could tell him the exact words.
"Wait, you can speak parseltongue?" Riddle asked, blinking in shock. "Why didn't you say so?"
"Because you spoke it as well, and so does everyone else in my life," Harry replied, still not realizing that he was speaking in another language.
"Parseltongue is snake's language, which means that your so called friends do not speak it. You just haven't learned how to tell the difference just yet." Riddle frowned as he thought this over. What did it say that this boy could actually speak parseltongue?
"Whatever you say, voice in my head." Harry dropped his hands from over his eyes, but still kept them closed.
"Who is this who dares to disturb me?" the basilisk finally spoke and this time Harry could slightly hear a difference.
"Like I said, I am Slytherin's hair. I got bored of sitting in his head, or else he got mad and yanked all of me off of him, but he ate me and so here I am. Since I've already been eaten once, I'll ask not to be eaten again, please." Harry grinned as he waited for a reply.
"You are a strange creature, but you do speak my language and you do feel like the boy I spoke to so long ago. What is it that you ask, Strange One?" the basilisk asked.
"Do you think that Slytherin would like the color pink?" Harry asked.
"I am afraid that I have no concept of what this pink is, Strange One. Tell me, I am so hungry, will you provide me with food?" The basilisk decided to stick with what he knew.
"I'll have the house elves get right on it." Harry nodded in determination. Through Riddle's awesome playback option, Harry knew that Hogwarts had a whole kitchen full of the strange things. They should know what to feed a basilisk and how to get it down to the beast. "So, is there any way for me to keep my eyes open and not get killed by you?"
"I am afraid that there isn't," the basilisk answered and Riddle agreed with it.
"Okay, then, I'll figure something out myself. Anyway, I've got to go, so I'll see you later." Harry blew a kiss at the snake before heading back up Slytherin's throat. He made the appropriate throwing up noises when he climbed out of Slyherin's mouth.
Riddle was berating him all the way out of the chamber, telling him to go back and to order the basilisk around. Harry ignored him as he closed the chamber up and headed over to the tunnel up to the girl's bathroom. "Now, how do we get up?" Harry asked as he peered up the tunnel.
"Tell it up," Riddle told Harry.
"Up," Harry hissed and he was sucked up the tunnel. He flew across the room when he reached the top of the tunnel and the sinks automatically started to close. "Wizarding transportation hates me," Harry grumbled as he got up and brushed himself off.
He put on his invisibility cloak and headed back to the Gryffindor tower, already thinking of when he could slip down to ask the house elves for the food for the basilisk. He vaguely thought that maybe he should have warned the basilisk not to eat the house elves, but maybe all he had to do was just warn the house elves and everything would be fine.