Author's Note: This is a really long chapter, almost twice as long as my typical ones, but there just wasn't a really good place to break it off in the middle, so it remains one of the longest chapters in the story. Aaannndd, I am so completely bored and totally procrastinating doing the dishes, that I've decided to give you another chapter on top of this one, so with out further ado, I present two chapters; "The Chamber of Secrets Has Been Opened" and "Quidditch".
Disclaimer: I do not own, and the message on the wall comes from JK Rowlings "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets." Binns' explanation and Filch's reaction were paraphrased from the aforementioned book and I attempt not to do so if at all possible.
Warning: Snape and Jamie actually sit down and discuss the Dursley's so memories of Child Abuse and Neglect. Mild British Language.
Jamie Snape and the Chamber of Secrets
Original Dark Angel
Chapter 7: The Chamber of Secrets Has Been Opened
"Brr. Why is Filch giving you that look, Har-er-Jamie?" Hermione caught herself just in time.
"I, uh, kind of read one of his letters." Jamie hurried to defend himself. "It was lying open on the mail table and all fancy. I thought that it was some sort of notice. It was just something about a kwikspell course."
Ron sprayed pumpkin juice across the table. "Filch does kwikspell? He's a squib? That's rich!"
Hermione saw Jamie open his mouth but close it again and turn away. "Jamie?" He turned back reluctantly, pleading in his eyes not to ask him anything. So she changed the subject. "Are you feeling good enough to go to the deathday party tonight?"
Jamie nodded half-heartedly. Rumor had it that Dumbledore booked a troupe of dancing skeletons, and the house-elves had been in a frenzy all week to cook up the treats. Malfoy had been sure to inform them of every last detail in an attempt to derail the plan to attend the party, but Hermione couldn't let an opportunity like this pass them up. "Yeah, Professor Snape bought me some new warm clothes so I'm all set. We'll head down after last class?"
"Yes. Tell Malfoy, if he's still insistent on coming with us."
"I'm right here Granger. And yes, I'm going down with you all."
Hermione ignored him and joined Ron just ahead when she heard Jamie ask, "Draco, what's a squib?"
"Opposite of a mudblood. Muggle born to Wizard parents. Where did you hear it?"
"Ron."
Hermione turned red and tuned out the rest of the conversation. She was a little hurt that Jamie didn't feel safe asking them questions, but could ask Malfoy. Those muggles really messed up her best friend.
"Well, that was a complete and total waste of time!" Draco sniffed. "Let's get back to the feast before all of the decent food is gone." For once, it appeared that Weasley agreed with him, but Jamie stopped short, apparently listening to something. "Jamie?"
"Do you hear it? It's that voice again! It's going to hurt someone!" Jamie took off running and Draco set off after him.
"Jamie, stop! Get a teacher!" he shouted after him, but it didn't so much as pause the younger boy as he searched desperately for the source of whatever he heard.
"It's coming from the walls or something!" He stopped short and Draco almost ran into him, barely stopping in time.
The floor was covered with a pool of water. Foot high letters painted in some sort of silver paint read 'THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED! ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE!' Hanging from a torch bracket by her tail was the much-reviled Mrs. Norris apparently frozen solid, her eyes open and accusing.
Weasley spoke first. "Let's get out of here."
"We need to help," Jamie started in confusion. "Mrs. Norris . . ."
"We don't want to be found here, kid," Draco insisted, starting to pull Jamie and the mudblood away.
"What does it mean?" Jamie whimpered in fear from his friend's reaction.
"It means that if Granger values her life, she'll go home tonight." It was too late for them to escape the area. A thunder of feet said that the feast was over and waves of people were upon them seconds later, a shouting Filch and all of the prefects at the head.
"What is going on here?" At the sight of his cat, the man purpled. "Mrs. Norris?" He rounded on Jamie and grabbed him up by the throat. "You've killed my cat!"
A black shadow slipped past Draco and freed Jamie, shifting the small boy's weight to his hip. "Keep your hands off my son, Filch." Snape's tone was so murderously low that it threatened any number of painful things to the man who had set off Jamie's trembling and soon desperate use of the inhaler.
"Not now. Come with me. You three too. Everyone else get to bed!" Dumbledore ordered, freeing Mrs. Norris. Lockhart directed them to his office looking self-important. While Dumbledore and McGonagall examined the cat with Filch crying and Lockhart saying stupid things meant to be comforting, Draco focused on Snape and Jamie.
The younger boy rocked back and forth on Snape's lap, but pulled away from all of his friends' touch. Unconsciously his hand went to the bruises forming around his throat. Snape gently pulled it away. "Don't. I'll take care of it soon." Jamie nodded unhearing, staring into space almost in shock. "Jamie? Look at me," Snape ordered firmly, turning the boy's face to him.
The blank expression caved and full realization sank in. "He . . . he hurt me!" Jamie gasped but not from asthma, from the fact that the statement was true. Another adult, a Hogwarts employee had hurt him in full sight of hundreds of people. "He hurt me! He grabbed my throat and . . . and . . ." He subsided into tears, burying his face in Snape's robes. "Why do people keep trying to hurt me? I never did anything."
Snape held onto him tightly. "No, of course you didn't. It won't happen again. I won't let it." Only once Jamie had cried himself to sleep, did Snape lay him on the sofa and join the group of Professors around the desk.
Draco shifted so that he could see both Jamie and the professors. Dumbledore looked at them solemnly. "She is not dead. She has been petrified but how, I can not say."
"He did it! He knows that I'm a squib!"
"No second year could have performed such a dark piece of advanced magic, Argus. Jamie must have stumbled onto Mrs. Norris, perhaps frightened off the attacker and saving her life."
"My cat has been petrified! I want to see some bloody punishment!" Filch shouted, his tearstained face blotches of four shades of purple and three of red.
"I think that what you did is more than enough punishment for anything," Snape said coldly, gesturing to where Jamie lay asleep curled unconsciously into a tiny protective ball, his face tearstained and troubled. "Rest assured, Filch, that if it was not for your understandable upset at Mrs. Norris's condition, I would throttle you bare-handed and without the aid of a wand for daring to lay hands on my son. As soon as Sprout's mandrakes are ready, I will brew the antidote personally for Mrs. Norris so she can hunt down troublesome students by your side once again, though I expect an apology to Jamie before then."
"I will do it," Lockhart offered enthusiastically. "I've brewed it hundreds of times. I expect that I could do it in my sleep after all of these years."
"I do believe that I am the potionsmaster of Hogwarts," Snape sneered.
"Well, yes. Yes, of course, Severus. Quite right. I just thought I'd offer to help. Love to be of service, you know," Lockhart stuttered, blathering on for a while.
"Shut up, Gilderoy!" Snape snapped. "Headmaster, I'll leave the other Gryffindors with you for an account of the evening, but I'm going to go put my son to bed. He'll be staying in my chambers tonight. Draco can come with me. I'd like to know what's going on too."
"Of course, Severus. I apologize for what happened to Jamie. He can be excused from his classes tomorrow."
"Thank you, Albus. Come along, Draco." Snape scooped up Jamie and left the office with Draco trailing after.
Snape sat in the chair beside Jamie's bed. Albus had offered to cover his classes so he could sit with Jamie today. After last night, he couldn't put off talking about what those despicable muggles had done to the boy. Plus he wanted to hear an account of what had happened last night from Jamie, so he could hopefully determine why no one but Jamie could hear this mysterious voice.
Very carefully, he shook the boy's shoulder to wake him, and said calmly, "Good morning, Jamie."
"Good morning, sir," the boy said shyly. "What time is it?"
"Ten after ten. The headmaster has excused you from today's classes. The house-elves brought up a tray for you, so why don't you start in on your breakfast. Then I want to talk to you about a few things."
The boy dutifully pulled the tray to him and ate a few bites, but mostly pushed the food around. After he finally pushed the tray away without eating half of it, Snape vanished the tray and prompted the boy to sit up more.
"I want you to tell me about the muggles. And about what they did to you."
Jamie's eyes grew large. "Please, sir-"
"I know that you don't want to talk about it. I don't blame you. But I need to know in order to help you. I do not want what happened last night to repeat itself and Argus Filch has been warned in the most descriptive of terms and in several languages about what would happen to certain parts of his anatomy, should he ever touch you again."
"You'll know what a freak I am," Jamie whispered, tears in his eyes. "You won't want me anymore."
Snape was pleased to know that the boy finally felt wanted, but disheartened that the boy thought that he could lose it so easily. "The adoption was permanent. I've become quite fond of your company, actually. No matter what you do, you will always be Jamie Snape for as long as you choose to be. No matter what those muggles told you, that will never change."
"They called me a freak, an abnormality. They said I deserved to be punished and that I ought to be grateful to them for taking me in. They barely fed me even when I was little and they made me live in a cupboard!"
Snape blinked. "A cupboard?"
"The one under the stairs. They only let me have Dudley's second bedroom when my Hogwarts letter arrived. They thought that they were being watched. I used to sleep in the cupboard and they would lock me in it for days if I did any accidental magic, but I didn't even know what I was doing, because they told me that magic didn't exist. They tried to beat it out of me." Tears started to trickle down Jamie's face, but now that the dam had been broken the words came as a flood. "They hated me! I never did anything to them, but they hated me! I was their slave, worse than a house-elf."
Snape focused on one thing. "Tell me about the chores."
"I had to do inside and outside chores before my Uncle got home, or I would be punished and sent to the cupboard without eating. It was always this huge long list that was impossible for an adult to get through. I always had to clean the entire house, and weed the garden, mow the grass or shovel the walk. Then there'd be other things on the list like paint the fence or clean the shed and the attic. I could never finish them. It was too hard. If I did get dinner, it was the stuff that they couldn't eat or didn't like. I only got breakfast if I burned theirs. They'd force me to eat it since 'I had no appreciation for the value of food.' I had to make breakfast since I was four years old. And the stove always burned me. Dudley knocked me into it on purpose." Jamie lifted the hem of his shirt and showed a smooth raised scar on his stomach in a half-circle. "I was making scrambled eggs and standing on the chair. Dudley shoved me and the skillet burned me. Aunt Petunia made me finish breakfast first and then made me sit in a cold bath until it didn't hurt anymore."
"You told me about her baths before. Is there anything else that you omitted?"
"Only that after I could bathe myself, I wasn't allowed hot water or more than ten minutes in the bathroom. The first time I showered at Hogwarts, I stayed in there for three-quarters of an hour under the hottest water I could stand."
"Your bathroom at the manor is your own to use as you please. At Hogwarts, there is a whirlpool in our apartment and you are welcome to use it at any time. No one will prevent you from doing so." Snape sat back and thought about what he had just been told. "I do not want you to continue believing that you are a freak. There are millions of witches and wizards throughout the entire world, and you are certainly not abnormal for being one yourself. They did nothing deserving your gratitude, so you owe them absolutely nothing. If for some reason you have misbehaved in a way that demands punishment, I will determine an appropriate one. Such punishments will not deprive you of food, hot water, your bedroom, or cause harm to your person. I find that preparing some of the more noxious potions ingredients is unusually effective on teenagers. Should that not suffice, an earlier curfew or loss of flying privileges certainly will. Do you feel that any of these punishments are unfair?"
"No, sir. But I promise not to ever misbehave."
"Excuse my disbelief in that particular promise, Jamie. You are a child and I expect you to behave as such. I just ask you to use your common sense or more preferably Miss Granger's." Snape picked up the charmed glass sphere from the bedcovers. "I believe this to be her handiwork?"
"Yes, sir. I'm scared of the dark. The cupboard was always dark, but it was worse in the Second Bedroom when I was being punished. So Mione made me the nightlight. Draco said that he'd help her improve it so that it only lights up when I need it, and it'll be a little smaller, but he hasn't found the right spell yet."
"I'm glad to see that they can put aside their differences and work towards a common goal. I would not have expected it from either of them. Apparently you work some sort of greater magic on the inevitable house rivalries." Snape set the sphere down and smoothed Jamie's hair back. "I can see that you're tired again, and I apologize for causing it. Try and get some more sleep until lunch, and then we'll play some chess."
"Jamie! Are you okay? We wanted to come see you but Professor Snape said that you were sleeping this morning. You are alright, aren't you?" Hermione finally stopped talking and settled for a quick hug, stepping back before Jamie got distant or frightened. "Well?"
"I'm fine, Mione," he laughed. "You'll have to fill me in on what happened today in all of our classes, but other than that, I'm good. I got a day off, talked with my da-er-guardian, and played some wizards chess. And slept a lot. But I feel really good now, so why don't you and Ron tell me what you've been doing?"
"Trying to calm down Ginny," Ron muttered. "She loves cats, particularly Mrs. Norris. That really upset her. I kept trying to tell her that once she really got to know what a nuisance the cat was she wouldn't mind. Said it was a pity that the maniac didn't petrify Filch too and she wigged. Percy's talking to her now. It was just a joke. Honestly."
"It wasn't very funny," Hermione lectured. "I've been trying to borrow Hogwarts, A History from the library all day, but every copy is gone and there's a two week waiting list."
Jamie looked at her funny, and asked, "Mione, don't you own that book?"
She sniffed. "It wouldn't fit in my trunk with all of the Lockhart books." Before Ron could have too good a laugh at her expense, she went on. "It contains a chapter on the Chamber of Secrets, but I simply can't remember the details. I know it was Slytherin who built it, and something about a monster, but for the life of me I can't remember anything else."
Ron perked up. "Does Professor Snape know anything about it?"
Jamie shook his head. "We talked about it after lunch. Not much more than Hermione. He said that Salazar Slytherin was kind of a combination of McGonagall, Hagrid, and Snape. Strict, sneaky, and loved big and scary monsters. So if there really is a room like that I'm to stay clear of it."
"Believe me, everyone's staying clear of that hallway. Filch is standing guard and is an even worse temper than usual. He gave Katie Bell a detention for breathing loudly, and Hannah Abott got one for looking happy." Ron stroked his chin thoughtfully in a manner that Hermione knew led to mischief and/or rule breaking. "I for one wouldn't mind taking a look around."
Hermione surprised herself by agreeing (Malfoy's comment about her needing to leave had really gotten to her and she wanted to know exactly what he meant), but Jamie shook his head rapidly. "I promised not to."
"Come on, Harry," Ron pleaded.
"Jamie," the boy said tersely. "No. I'm going up to the common room to start my homework. See you later."
With a sigh, Hermione followed Ron in the opposite direction, not quite certain that this was right, but couldn't stand not knowing more.
Ron hadn't had a chance to speak with Jamie again until the next day in History of Magic. Professor Binns was droning on about the International Warlock Convention of 1289, so he leaned over and whispered, "Guess what we found yesterday. Scorch marks, and the water from last night was all cleaned up. Came from some Out-of-Order girls bathroom, where that annoying ghost we met at the deathday party lives. Moaning Myrtle, remember? Well, she gets upset and floods the place regularly according to Hermione."
"We found some interesting spiders too, didn't we, Ronald?" Hermione teased, having taken notes on the lecture the first time Binns had delivered it last week. Ron immediately flushed as Jamie asked what Hermione meant. "Ron's scared of spiders."
"Look, Fred turned my teddy bear into a spider when I was three. You wouldn't be able to stand them either if you had that memory," he huffed. "Besides that's not the point. We did some detective work getting caught by Percy of all people and lived to tell the tale. Snape's none the wiser."
"I'm not getting into trouble again. I've had more than enough trouble."
Hermione mouthed 'oh' in surprise and raised her hand quickly. It threw off Professor Binns completely. He had obviously never been interrupted before, live or dead. "Yes, Miss Granger?"
"Can you tell us about the Chamber of Secrets?" The entire class was suddenly at full attention. "After all, legends always have a basis in fact?"
"This legend-and I stress the word legend-is a sensational, even ludicrous tale." The ghost took a deep and completely unnecessary breath. "The school was founded by Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin. They worked together for many years before Slytherin began to protest allowing certain students to enter the school. He wanted to train only purebloods. It led to an argument with Gryffindor, and Slytherin left the school angrily. Supposedly he had previously built a hidden chamber in the castle, called the Chamber of Secrets. Only his heir would be able to open it and loose the monster within to purge the school of all muggleborns. It is all nonsense. The most learned witches and wizards have been unable to find any evidence, so it most certainly doesn't exist. Now if we could please return to the study of facts and my lecture on the extremely important topic of the International Warlock Convention of 1289 as it most certainly will be on you OWLS if any of you actually reach your fifth year and the important testing!"
Within seconds the class was asleep again, and Ron and Hermione started talking again. "I bet its Malfoy. He hates muggleborns and Jamie told him about Filch being a squib. Bet it's something real nasty too. He's always claiming to be pure-blooded. He could easily be a descendent of Slytherin."
"Don't be ridiculous," Jamie insisted. "He was with us the entire time."
Ignoring him completely, Hermione continued. "We could find out for sure. Pretending to be three of the Slytherins, we could ask Malfoy anything we want. All we'd need is Polyjuice potion."
"That's dangerous!"
"Wait, what's Polyjuice Potion?" Ron asked with a totally baffled expression on his face.
"It's dangerous," Jamie stated folding his arms across his chest. "Not to mention illegal, and immoral. It changes the drinker into someone else. The ingredients are almost all poisonous if used incorrectly and the recipe is only in Moste Potente Potions and it's in the restricted section of the library. No way."
"You could talk Professor Snape into signing a note, I'm sure," Hermione breathed.
"Won't do it, and you're not either. No professor is that thick."
"Except for Lockhart," Ron laughed. "He'll autograph anything that holds still." He paled upon realizing what he had said. Not only would Hermione love an autograph, Lockhart really was thick enough to do anything his best student asked of him. "No, Hermione. No."
Next Chapter: Quidditch
Excerpt: "Mr. Malfoy! Have you been resorted?" Madame Hooch waved him away from the Gryffindors, but didn't seem to have overheard his threat. "Ready to resume play?"