Side Story 4

After a minute, once both parties were sure Potter was gone, Dumbledore dispelled the disillusionment on himself, shimmering into sight.

"Thank you for doing this Severus."

"Don't ever ask me to do something like this again Albus." Snape snarled at the Headmaster, venom dripping from his words, his eyes momentarily filled with murder. But then the sadness returned and Snape was looking back into the mirror, pain in his face. "I don't think you will ever understand how you have hurt me today."

In the mirror, the scene was much the same as it was the first time he'd looked into it. Lily was there, by his side, happy and alive, and between them was their child. Only now instead of a daughter that looked like Lily, now a son stood there...looking like Harry.


For the rest of the winter holidays, Harry was in a lethargic funk. Despite Snape's warning, Harry still went back to the classroom to see if the mirror was there, but it was gone like he'd said. He knew that he should just continue his search for the Chamber of Secrets, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. One thing that made him chuckle though was when the normally clueless Ron asked him if he was okay. After that Harry had made an effort to at least look like he wasn't brooding. Unfortunately, the few girls who had stayed at Hogwarts over the winter had already spotted his brooding and when everyone came back, the rumor mill exploded for some reason. Apparently a brooding Harry was pure gossip fuel. Harry tried his best to ignore the swooning first and second year girls when he passed them.

When Draco returned one of the first things he asked was about his luck finding the Chamber, and was frustrated when Harry said he'd been distracted.

"Oh come on, it's not like Filch is hard to slip past if you've half a brain, Potter."

"It's not that, slipping past him is even easier than you think thanks to a Christmas present I got."

"Present?"

"Yeah, look." Harry pulled out the shimmering cloak and draped it over one arm, making it disappear.

"Someone gave you an invisibility cloak as a bloody present?" Draco gaped at it as Harry chuckled.

"Well, more like returned it. Supposedly it belonged to my father and this secret person returned it to me."

"Returned it? They were holding onto this for ten years?" Draco looked at Harry's arm again, squinting and seeing no blur. "Did they maintain the disillusionment charm? Cloaks made from Threstral or Demiguise hair eventually darken."

"I don't know, probably?"

"But if you got this, searching the castle should have been easy! What happened?"

Harry hesitated for a moment before explaining the incident with the Mirror of Erised and Snape. Draco chuckled a bit at the end of of the story.

"Yeah, asking Snape what he saw in the mirror was a pretty dumb move Potter." But then Draco got serious as he thought about it. "The Mirror of Erised? I think that's one of the Artifacts of Atlantis, not one of the more powerful ones, like the Goblet of Fire, but it's still pretty impressive. Making enduring magic like that is much harder in today's world. And I think it had other powers than just showing what you desired...but those abilities still related to desires somehow. I don't know, I'd have to ask my father if he knows."

Harry shrugged at this, "Don't worry about it, it's not like I'm going to see the mirror again. Hey, tonight after dinner, let's go exploring with my cloak."

Draco brightened up at this. "Cool, should we bring Crabbe and Goyle?"

"Eh..." Harry chuckled nervously, "While I think there might be enough room under my cloak, I think it'll be hard to sneak effectively with four people bunched up under it."

Draco laughed as he took the cloak and held it up to see how big it was. "Yeah, it looks like it could cover maybe four of us first years if we stooped. It looks like it was made for a single grown adult to use."

Harry nodded, and they made plans about where to search.


A couple weeks later, Harry and Draco entered Draco's room, where Crabbe and Goyle were waiting. When they looked up, even they could tell from the looks on their faces that Harry and their boss hadn't had any success.

"No luck then?"

"None, we even went back over all the areas that Potter covered on his first run and didn't find anything."

Harry sighed as he folded up the cloak and put it back into his pouch. Harry was honestly a bit surprised that Draco trusted this whole Chamber of Secrets business to his minions(there was no point pretending they weren't minions, it had apparently been prearranged by their parents), as they didn't seem to be the brightest bulbs (an idiom that confused Draco) but apparently they were loyal. They were reading (slowly) through various books about the Chamber of Secrets, such as theories, rumors, and supposed anecdotes.

"Did you two find anything?" Harry asked, sitting down on the edge of Draco's bed while Draco took a seat on a sofa.

"Not much, sorry. I found a thing about the incident fifty years ago. Apparently the last time the Chamber was opened, that Hagrid got blamed for it. They snapped his wand and everything because someone died."

That left Harry stunned as he went over it in his mind. Hagrid had mentioned something about being expelled, was that it? Hagrid did seem to love scary creatures, but the idea that one of Hagrid's pets would kill someone seemed farfetched. About as farfetched as the idea of Hagrid being the Heir of Slytherin and speaking parseltongue.

"Aren't you friends with him?" Draco asked, wisely refraining from referring to Hagrid as he typically would. He had no positive opinions about Hagrid, but as long as Harry did and he was trying to get on his good side, there was little point in verbalizing them.

Harry nodded slowly, "Yeah, I'll ask him some questions..."


The next Friday after classes, Harry made his way down to Hagrid's. That morning during mail call, he'd asked Hedwig to bring Hagrid a message saying he'd been over, which seemed to make the snowy owl happy. As he approached, he spotted Hagrid sitting on a barrel outside his house.

"'Ey there 'Arry, got yer message." Hagrid waved.

"Hey Hagrid! Thanks again for the present, I really like it!" Harry smiled brightly. He loved that flute, though he didn't seem to have much talent for it. Still, he was making progress and had learned two simple tunes so far.

Hagrid chuckled, looking extremely pleased at Harry's words.

"Did ye come by 'cause ye wanted lessons?"

"Actually...um...me and some friends were doing some research on Hogwarts history stuff, and we found a thing about something that happened...fifty years ago..." Harry quickly became uncomfortable from how uncomfortable Hagrid seemed to get.

"'Arry, I-I don't want to talk about tha'."

Hagrid was already trying to shut down the conversation. Trying to think fast, Harry spotted a garden snake slithering through Hagrid's garden, which Harry quickly hissed at it, "You, come here!"

Hagrid's eyes bulged at Harry's hissing, and more so when the snake crawled over to him and into his hands.

"Hagrid, I'm a Parseltongue, apparently a gift from Voldemort, and if you help me find the Chamber of Secrets, I might be able to prove your innocence for what happened. But I can't do that if you won't talk to me."

Hagrid was stunned, but he wasn't telling Harry to drop it anymore.

"Do you know who actually opened the Chamber?"

"It...it was Riddle, Dumbledore told me that Tom Riddle became You-Know-Who, and that it was him what killed Myrtle..."

Harry nodded, not terribly surprised that Voldemort would somehow be the actual culprit, but then his brain crashed for half a second before he almost shouted, "Moaning Myrtle!?"

Hagrid nodded sadly. "Aye, poor Myrtle, people were always picking on her for somethin' or other. They found her dead in a bathroom, like she'd been scared to death."

"Bathroom? Wait, the one she still haunts?"

"Aye, it's an unfortunate habit of ghosts, to haunt where they died."

And that's when it clicked in Harry's head, that in his searching of the castle, the one spot he couldn't really search was Moaning Myrtle's bathroom because of the hissy fit she through when she thought a ghost was trying to mess with her (actually an invisible Harry).

"Thanks Hagrid, I think I know where the entrance is now!"

"Wait! 'Arry, what about Slytherin's monster? It's too dangerous!"

"I'm a Parseltongue, I'm sure I'll be able to control it." Harry said with a smirk as he sprinted back towards the castle.


A short time later, Harry came to the bathroom and went in, seeming to startle Myrtle who was floating by the stalls.

"Wha-what's a boy doing in here? Don't you know this is the girl's bathroom?!" She asked, seemingly indignant at first as she flew right up to Harry's face, before suddenly switching gears and looking pissed. "Are you here to make fun of me?!"

"No! I hate bullies, I'd never make fun of someone! I wanted to ask-" Harry cut himself off, causing Myrtle to give him a funny look.

"Ask what?" She nearly screeched, making Harry flinch.

"Um, bugger, I...I'm not sure if this is something that's rude to ask a ghost, sorry. I was going to ask about how you died..." Harry mumbled, embarrassed and hoping it wouldn't upset her. Much to his surprise however, her cheeks seemed to become more opaque, which he realized on some level was how a ghost blushed.

"No one's ever asked me that before..." She whispered, looking pleased for a moment. "But, why do you want to know?" Her eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Ah..." Harry hesitated only for a moment before opting for honesty. "When you were killed, my friend Hagrid was blamed. I think I know who the actual killer is, and I'm trying to follow a lead that might help prove his innocence, and maybe help you find justice."

At this point Myrtle was looking skeptical, "You're not trying to help me 'move on' or some shite like that are you? I've had enough Muggleborns try that crap."

"Um, no, I actually hadn't thought about that...but you make it sound like that's not an option?" Harry questioned.

Rolling her eyes, Myrtle explained, "A ghost is born when a witch or wizard refuses to 'move on' at the moment of their death, there doesn't need to be any kind of 'unfinished business' for it to happen, as far as I know. When I died...I was scared of what was through...that thing...I refused to go 'beyond' and now, like all ghosts, I am barred from going through. I'm stuck here, for the rest of eternity as far as I know."

Harry was quiet for a moment as he absorbed this, a particular train of thought coming up and being put down. A hope he hadn't even realized had been sitting in the back of his head was crushed. "So, there's no way to talk to my parents..."

Myrtle sighed, pinching the bridge of her ghostly nose. "You damn Muggleborns...No. There's no credible magic for summoning the dead from the afterlife, and even if there was, I'd advise you not to do it, especially if it'll make them stuck here like me. The dead are not meant to be in the world of the living. Even fairy tales that talk about bringing back the dead talk about how unhappy those spirits are. Try reading the Tales of Beedle the Bard. It's commonsense for wizarding people."

"Okay, thank you Myrtle." Harry was now deep in thought, at least until Myrtle snapped her fingers, getting his attention back.

"Weren't you here to ask about how I died?"

"Oh, right! I'm sorry. Hagrid said you were found in this bathroom, do you remember what happened?"

Myrtle rolled her eyes at Harry, but then thought about it. "I remember I was in that stall over there," Myrtle pointed, "Crying because someone had made fun of me again. I'd heard a noise, and hissing I think, and a voice I thought was a boy's. I had stepped out of my stall to tell him off, and the last thing I remembered was a pair of big, yellow eyes, over there." Now she pointed at the sink. "The next thing I vaguely remember was the arch, and then I was back here, roughly a week after I'd died and Hagrid was expelled."

"Thank you Myrtle." Harry smiled at the ghost before walking over to the sink and looking it over. It didn't take long to find the snake on one of the faucets. "Hah, open!"

Harry quickly stepped back and Myrtle gasped as the sink opened up, revealing a hole leading deep into the ground. "Okay, Myrtle, can I ask a favor?"

Myrtle eyed the young boy suspiciously, "Depends on what it is."

"Can you not tell anyone about this? I kind of want to find out what's in the Chamber of Secrets before I share it with anyone else. It'll be our secret."

Myrtle paused for a moment as she realized a couple things, "Wait, hold on a second, I thought you were a Muggleborn, are you the Heir of Slytherin? How does that work?"

"Ah, well, technically I'm a Half-Blood, Pureblood dad and a Muggleborn mum, but they're dead, and I was raised by Muggles. But I am in essence a Muggleborn in how little I know about the Wizarding World."

"Oh, okay." Myrtle hummed for a moment, thinking, "What's your name again?"

"Harry Potter. Nice to meet you Myrtle." Harry said, moving to hold his hand out to shake hers, before stopping himself and laughing nervously, "Sorry."

To his surprise, Myrtle giggled, "That's fine Harry. I'm not sure about keeping this a secret though. This is related to why I died, and I'm still cross about that."

"Right, like I said, it's just a favor, you don't have to if you don't want to. If you do tell someone, you should probably tell the Headmaster first."

Myrtle giggled again, "Okay, I'll keep your secret for now Harry." She looked down into the tunnel. "You're going to go in there, aren't you?"

"Was planning on it, yeah."

"Be careful Harry, though, if you die, you're welcome to share my bathroom with me."

"I..." Harry blanked for a moment, "I have no idea how to respond to that."

Myrtle started laughing then, greatly enjoying young Harry's reaction. Shrugging, Harry dropped into the hole, hitting the slide and having to suppress the urge to laugh as he slid deep into the bowels of Hogwarts.


After landing in a pile of bones, and making his way through a door with snakes on it ("Open?") Harry found himself in a large chamber with serpent columns coming out of the water along the sides of the path, and at the end of the path was a giant statue of a bearded man.

"Hello? Er, I mean, Hello?" Harry called out, having to take a moment to correct himself to speak Parseltongue, in case that was important. Which seemed to be the case as the mouth of the statue opened up and a giant snake started slithering out.

"You ssshould avert your eyesss, young one. My gazzze is death." The snake hissed out as it dropped to the floor, splashing the water before rising to look down at Harry, who was averting his eyes at the ground. Harry instantly recalled Quirrell's brief lesson on Dark Creatures at the beginning of the year, where he'd went through basic information on virtually all known Dark Creatures. This was a Basilisk. Bloody Hell! That explained what happened to Myrtle then. "You're the youngessst one to find my home yet."

Wait, what? Did the Heirs of the past not tell their descendants where to find the Chamber? Huh, maybe its a test, to see who's worthy, you have to figure it out on your own.

"I'm actually proud of myssself for figuring thisss out." Harry grinned, daring to let his eyes follow the snake's body up to it's neck, but no higher.

"Asss you ssshould be. Tell me little one. Will you be the one to purge thisss ssschool of the mudblood filth?"

Harry hesitated for the briefest moment before answering. "Not for sssome yearsss to come. I ssstill have much to learn before I risssk thisss ssschool closssing."

In his peripheral vision, he saw the snake nodding as it did a hissing laugh. "The lassst Heir sssaid sssomething sssimilar when he told me to sssleep after killing the girl."

"Ssso are you the sssecret of thisss chamber, or the protector of itsss sssecrets?"

"Both, little one. But the ancient sssecrets I hold for my true massster's heir mussst be earned. I will not give power to you lightly, little one."

Harry nodded, that made sense. Stories in both the muggle and wizarding world told of how dangerous it was to gain power without earning it. Salazar, one of the founders of Hogwarts, would likely know this lesson well, and have ingrained it into his pet to prevent his heirs from doing anything stupid before they were ready.

"I'll come here asss often asss I can. I'm eager to learn."

"We'll sssee little one."

"How do I get back to the entrance?"

"Go to the ssslide, sssay 'up'." The serpent was returning back into the statue to rest as it spoke, leaving Harry to make his way back.


A short time later, Harry landed back in the bathroom, the slide having somehow levitated him back up when he'd hissed 'Up' at it.

"Harry!" Myrtle cried out, happily flying over from her stall. "Well? What did you find?"

"Close." Harry hissed first, causing the sink to close back up before talking to Myrtle. "The creature is a Basilisk. That's why you died the moment you met its eyes."

"I see." Myrtle looked contemplative for a moment. "Thank you for telling me Harry. I take it the creature is still alive?"

"Yeah, I have some degree of control over it, it had asked me if I was the one who would 'purge the mudblood filth', but it didn't seem to mind when I said not yet."

"Are you going to tell the Headmaster now? He could probably have the creature killed within the day."

"Ah, well, see..." Harry became uncomfortable, realizing that if he wanted to learn the magic secrets the snake held, Myrtle would have to let him do that. "The Basilisk apparently has a lot of Salazar's lore, which he teaches to Heirs as they come to Hogwarts and find the chamber. If the Basilisk is killed, that's a lot of magic secrets that will be lost. But...I understand that you would want it dead, so..."

Harry paused before meeting Myrtle's eyes. "Can I have your permission, to let the Basilisk live, at least until I've learn everything it can teach me?"

Myrtle floated there, thinking, she looked over the boy, who she admitted to herself was cute. She did want the creature to be killed at some point, but after fifty years of waiting, she could probably wait a while longer, especially since... "You realize that if you're going in and out of that chamber to talk to that snake, you'll be coming and going out of my bathroom a lot, right?"

"Of course." Harry said with a nod, not yet seeing where she was leading with this.

"Which means you'll be spending a lot of time with me, since it would be rude to not talk to me when you're coming and going."

"That's true." Harry admitted, now starting to see it, somewhat.

Myrtle grinned now, "And you don't have an issue with that? Talking to me?" She watched Harry closely as he spoke.

"I don't see why I would. You've been...pretty nice actually. I've only heard a couple rumors about this place, but it doesn't seem like you're anything like what's said."

This seemed to make Myrtle very happy, as she could tell he was being sincere. "Great! I can't wait to spend time with you Harry!"

Myrtle's happiness made Harry smile as well, glad that she wasn't...well...'moaning' like her nickname. She honestly did seem to be a nice enough ghost.

"One thing though, Harry. I get the feeling you're not the type of boy who pays much attention to gossip." Harry nodded firmly at that. "Hehe, well, one condition for our 'arrangement' is that I'd like you to pay attention to the gossip and rumors and other stuff happening around school, so you can talk to me about that stuff when you're here."

"I think I can do that, if you'd like." Harry agreed, before glancing at his watch. "Ack! How is it already 6 o'clock!? I gotta get to dinner Myrtle. I'll probably be back either tonight or tomorrow to see what the snake will teach me."

"Okay Harry, enjoy your dinner, see you soon!" She positively cooed at Harry, waving as he left.

As Harry made his way to the Great Hall, he quickly came to a couple decisions. First off, he wasn't going to tell anyone, not the Headmaster or Draco that he'd found the Chamber. Even if he wasn't a proper Heir, he somewhat felt like it was rightfully his secret to keep. This of course meant that Harry needed to master his Occlumency as soon as possible. He was collecting important secrets in his mind, and they needed safekeeping.

Things at Hogwarts were getting interesting.


Author's Commentary

OMG, another chapter already? It's like I've got a muse or something, lol. I actually seem to have a lot of drive for my HP fic at the moment, let's hope it keeps going. If I keep this up I could finish year one within a month or two. I had a bit of a stumble while writing this chapter, as I debated whether or not Harry would, or should tell Dumbledore/Draco about the Chamber. I had originally planned to have him tell both, but I realized that issues could come from that. I need Harry to learn magic from the Basilisk to help explain some of his future growths in knowledge and power, but Dumbledore would likely have the snake put down asap if he learned about it. And Draco, while a good Slytherin, might not be the best person to share secrets with. Especially if Draco were to learn that the snake has ancient magic lore that its teaching Harry. Draco will pretty much demand that Harry share that knowledge with him, and wouldn't hesitate to blackmail Harry if he tried to refuse. But Myrtle is the trickiest bit, since she sits right there blocking the entrance most of the time, Harry would need to have some kind of agreement with her, and since in Canon Myrtle does actually crush on Harry, I figured that I might have Harry pretty much accidentally woo her into keeping his secret. He's still a relatively oblivious first year, but later on he'll realize what's going on.

Responding to Reviews:

Duellist: That is pretty much exactly the reaction I was going for when I wrote that chapter, lol.

TinySlippers: That should come up in the next chapter, which I think will ultimately cause a lot of changes for both Ron and Neville's magic abilities.

Fast Frank: I'm not sure what you mean about the AU thing, Hogwarts was established in 993 A.D. according to the wiki and that's what I'm working based on, and I'm not sure if I've said anything to contradict that.