It was a warm sunny afternoon and Vernon Dursely was smiling as her drove home from work. It was approaching a year since he had left that Potter boy in Kings Cross Station with instructions to wait at a platform that surely did not exist. Although he and his wife had raised that boy for ten years, he was not the least bit concerned that he had not heard from the boy since then. In fact, he was relieved. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened during the boy's absence and that was how things should be. As he pulled into his driveway, he wondered what Petunia would have ready for his dinner. He had noticed a decline in the quality of meals since the boy stopped cooking them but that was a small sacrifice in return for such a wonderfully peaceful, ordinary life.

With that thought, he opened his front door to find Petunia standing absolutely still in the doorway of their living room. She did not acknowledge his arrival and he could not hear or smell any signs of cooking. He had already opened his mouth to tell her off when he noticed her expression of fear and disgust.

He followed her gaze downwards to the dozen or so strange creatures standing in the living room. They were small with creepy eyes and large, floppy ears. They appeared to be wearing towels instead of proper clothes. Above all they were certainly not normal and they had no business being in his living room.

"Get out!" he roared, waving his arms as if her were shooing away a swarm of flies.

"We will leave as soon as we have discussed an important matter. It will not take long," said one creature calmly.

Mr Dursley shivered. That thing could talk. In fact, it sounded intelligent. "What are you?" he demanded.

"We are house elves and we have come to talk about arrangements for your nephew."

Of course the boy has something to do with this, Mr Dursely thought. Even after a year, they still could not escape his abnormality. He was surprised and a little irritated when his wife spoke next.

"So if we talk to you, you'll go back to the North Pole or wherever and never bother us again?" Petunia asked, her voice trembling slightly.

The elves nodded. Some of them looked amused but the one that spoke had a serious expression. "In the following days, someone will visit to ask about Harry Potter's whereabouts last night. You will say that he was in this house – he ate dinner with you, watched television with you, and then slept in his room. If they ask to see him, you will say that he is visiting a Muggle friend. Furthermore, you will maintain his room as if he still occupied it."

Mr Dursley interrupted. "What has the boy done now? I won't lie to protect him from whatever punishment he deserves."

"We know that you mistreated him. He has not said much but we listened carefully and he gave away more than he thought. You did not feed him enough. You forced him to sleep in a cupboard and locked him in it when he accidentally used magic."

"This – this is outrageous! How dare you make such accusations?" Mr Dursely said.

"It would not be difficult to prove if someone chose to investigate. You made him do more housework than any child should have to do, including things that he was not old enough to do safely. You verbally abused him and encouraged your son to hurt him."

"We didn't ask to be responsible for him," Petunia protested.

"Nonetheless you were and yet you neglected your duties. Usually, there would be severe consequences, under both Muggle and magical law. But this is not a usual case. Harry Potter is famous among magical humans and other beings. If they knew how you treated their hero, many would want revenge."

The elf paused to let this sink in. Mr and Mrs Dursley trembled and said nothing.

"We are willing to hide your awful secret for now but only if you continue to convince everyone that Harry Potter is living with you every summer until he turns seventeen. Will you do that?"

Mr and Mrs Dursley nodded frantically.

"You mean he won't be coming back here?" Mr Dursely asked hesitantly.

"He will not," the elf replied decisively, "He is safer with us."

There was nothing more to say. The elves vanished leaving the terrified Dursleys staring at the now empty living room.

In another house in a nearby street, several cats dove under a sofa and Mrs Figg shouted in surprise as the elves began a similar message in her living room, accusing her of ignoring evidence and not intervening to protect Harry.


Although Harry was overjoyed to hear that the Dursleys would be his alibi for the night he took the diary and more importantly that he never needed to live with the Dursleys again, he still had something to worry about. If Dobby followed through with his threat to reveal that Harry stayed at Hogwarts during the summer, he feared he would soon find himself back with the Dursleys, regardless of anything the elves could do. Plus the elves could get in trouble for helping him. He needed to convince Dobby that it would be safe for him to remain at Hogwarts during the coming school year and that would not be possible so long as a basilisk waited somewhere in the school, ready to slither out of the girls bathroom.

He tried discussing it with Dobby.

"The diary teaches people how to open the Chamber of Secrets. I can keep it hidden so the heir of Slytherin never gets to use it." He did not particularly want to keep it but, since neither he nor any of the elves could find a way to destroy it, he had not choice. "So there's nothing to worry about."

Dobby looked at him stubbornly. "Harry Potter is finding the Chamber of Secrets without the diary. Riddle is doing the same fifty years ago. So why is not someone else finding it?"

Harry sighed. The elf had a good point. "But we both just got lucky and I had a lot of information from the elves. Plus if someone does open it, I need to be in Hogwarts so I can tell the basilisk to stop."

"Harry Potter is not knowing that the basilisk is listening to him when another Parselmouth is already controlling it."

That was true. He had no idea how the basilisk would handle contradicting orders from two Parselmouths and did not want to find out. But he also did not want to get in trouble for staying at Hogwarts and have to return to the Dursleys. He was willing to take the risk of facing a basilisk that he could not control, if only Dobby would let him.

Unfortunately it did not seem likely that Dobby would budge so long as the basilisk lived in Hogwarts. For Harry, this lead to one very clear conclusion that he knew nobody, especially the very protective house elves, would agree to. He needed to kill the basilisk.


Harry had avoided going anywhere near Hagrid's hut all summer for fear of being discovered. That night, however, he sat by a window in the castle, waiting impatiently for the glowing light coming from the hut to vanish.

Then he set off quickly across the grounds. The muffled sound of snoring came from within the hut as he walked passed, confirming that Hagrid was asleep. He did not dare use any light so he stumbled around in the dark, tripping over gardening tools and walking into fences.

Finally he located the chicken coop. As he opened the door, the chickens began to stir and then to squawk as he accidentally tripped over some of them. He heard Fang bark once from within the hut and a grumbled response. After a few minutes of standing very still, surrounded by chickens, there was still no sign of movement from within the hut.

Being careful not to touch any more chickens, he cast a gentle version of the stunning spell on a nearby rooster and carefully lifted it. Carrying the unconscious rooster under his invisibility cloak, he returned to the castle as quietly as he could.


The next morning, Harry was startled awake by the sound of a rooster crowing very nearby. He quickly reached for his glasses and realised that the rooster had regained consciousness and was now wandering around his room, apparently searching for food. He reached for his wand next and stunned the rooster again. Soon he was fully dressed. Too nervous to even think about breakfast, he quickly got dressed and left the room with his broom, his invisibility cloak, and the rooster.

He walked into the girl's bathroom, startling the elf that had been dutifully standing guard over the opening to the Chamber of Secrets all night. He lowered the hood of his invisibility cloak to reveal who he was but kept the rooster hidden.

"What is Harry Potter doing here?" the elf asked politely as he relaxed. Myrtle drifted through the door of a stall, looking curious.

"I need to go into the Chamber of Secrets. There's something I can do."

"Harry Potter is not being safe there!"

"It's important. Ask the other elves. They will agree."

The elf paused to think before saying, "We is having a meeting in the kitchen to talk about this."

"Okay. I'll just wait here. Someone needs to guard the Chamber."

"I can do that," Myrtle interrupted proudly.

"Someone solid!" he said impatiently. Myrtle looked so hurt that he added, "I'll be your backup."

Myrtle smiled and drifted into position in front of opening to the Chamber.

As soon as the elf vanished from the bathroom, Harry said, "I'm sorry Myrtle." Then he focused on the snake engraving on the tap and exclaimed, "Open!" The tap glowed and spun.

"Stop!" Myrtle shouted but the sink behind her had already started to move. Soon the large pipe beneath it was accessible. Myrtle rose above the opening, holding out her transparent arms as if to push him away. "Don't do it," she pleaded.

"I have to," Harry said, feeling incredibly guilty as he mounted his broom and flew into the hole, going right through Myrtle. It was an incredibly cold, unpleasant sensation.

"Be careful, Harry!" he heard Myrtle shout into the pipe as he drifted downwards, "Remember how easily it killed me!"

After a surprisingly long time, he reached the bottom of the pipe and found himself in a tunnel. He landed and put his broom on the floor. He really hoped he could return to it soon. He lit his wand and pointed his wand into the darkness. Then he started walking.

He followed the tunnel for what seemed like an eternity until he found a wall with carvings of two snakes. At his Parseltongue command, the wall opened.

Looking into the large room, lined with pillars, he knew without doubt that he had reached the Chamber of Secrets. Somewhere nearby, a giant, lethal basilisk was waiting, having been confined to the Chamber since it killed Myrtle fifty years ago.

He walked to the end of the Chamber and looked up at the incredibly large statue of what he could only assume was Slytherin. It seemed so typical of Slytherin to want a monument to himself.

"I am the heir of Slytherin," he said but he was so nervous that he could hardly hear his own voice. He swallowed and reluctantly repeated himself a little louder, "I am the heir of Slytherin!"

His words echoed in the silent chamber. He strongly suspected that he had spoken in English. He concentrated on one of the snake carvings wrapped around a nearby pillar and said, "I am the heir of Slytherin and, um, I'm here to, um, purify the school."

He gasped as mouth of the statue of Slytherin start to open. For a moment, he stared in terror at the widening hole, knowing what would emerge from it. Then he remembered to squeeze his eyes shut and, just to be sure, covered them with the hand he was not using to hold the rooster. In that moment, he felt very much like the eleven-year-old boy he was.

A sinister, unfamiliar voice rang through the Chamber, making Harry shudder. "Hungry! So hungry! Time to kill!"

He really wanted to turn and run out of the Chamber, to the safety of the school above that had become his home. Even the Dursleys would be better than a bloodthirsty basilisk, eager for Harry-sized prey. But, so long as this monster lived beneath the castle, nobody at Hogwarts would be safe. He could already hear its massive body slithering onto the floor of the Chamber; he needed to focus.

"I smell blood," hissed the basilisk from somewhere alarmingly close. "Kill! Kill!"

He pulled his wand from his pocket and clumsily directed it towards the rooster, keeping his actions hidden beneath his cloak. "Rennervate," he muttered. The rooster did not stir. With his eyes still closed, he could not even be sure he was pointing his wand in the right direction and he had never performed this spell, or really any spell, under such pressure.

"I smell badness." The basilisk sounded suspicious, in as much as its strange voice could convey the emotions of humans and good creatures.

Harry realised that the basilisk could detect the scent of the rooster.

"Enervate!" he said desperately. Still nothing. He began to really panic, certain that the snake would pounce on him at any moment.

Then he remembered the ridiculous claim he had made in order to lure the basilisk out of its nest. But for all the basilisk knew, he could be the heir of Slytherin, eager to follow his distant ancestor's murderous obsession with blood purity. Riddle had believed him.

"Ignore the smell!" He commanded, trying to sound confident, "I have been killing roosters in preparation for your release so my robes may be contaminated with their scent. I have opened this chamber on the instructions of my grandfather, Tom Riddle. The mudbloods are not yet in the castle but there will be plenty for you to kill in a few weeks. First look away from me so that I can see you, great basilisk of Slytherin."

He heard the massive body shifting. He did not risk actually looking at it but instead looked down the front of his cloak at the rooster and his wand. Now that he was able to see what he was doing and could focus since he seemed a little less likely to die at any second, he easily revived the rooster. As it began to squirm in his arms, he said the incantation for a spell that he had found in a dense book on magical poultry farming, intended to let owners control when their roosters crowed.

Cock-a-doodle-doo!

It seemed like the most beautiful sound Harry had ever heard.

There was a loud, angry hiss followed by a massive thump that shook the floor. Cautiously, Harry lifted his head and finally looked at the basilisk. It was even larger than he had imagined. But it was also lying unmoving at the feet of the statue of Slytherin.

He felt numb with relief as he retraced his steps out of the chamber, picked up his broom and flew back to Myrtle's bathroom, where several very worried looking house elves and one tearful ghost were waiting for him.