****IF YOU HAVEN'T REREAD CHAPTER 8 YET, GO BACK AND READ IT. I COMPLETELY CHANGED EVERYTHING (EXCEPT FOR DRACO'S SECTION).****
I do not own Harry Potter.
And if you forgot again, Parseltongue = "Bold"
Harry gently ran a finger along cool metal. The distinct indention of a snake surreptitiously beckoned to him and a wry smile graced his lips.
So, Timothy was good for something after all.
Harry had been enduring one day too many with the non-magicals and his magic was beginning to become restless. Going for months on end with the non-magicals had begun to wear on his nerves and his control had been fraying at the edges. So when Timothy came springing out of physical education, babbling nonsense about winning against the seventh years and offering Harry one of his sympathetic smiles, Harry had taken a quick escape. Oddly enough, the first free area he had found himself in was the girl's bathroom on the second floor.
Harry was ashamed to admit that it had taken fifteen minutes alone in the bathroom to figure out that something was off. Having absorbed a piece of the Tom's soul, he had moments when some unbidden knowledge would hit him, something that only the Dark Lord could know. Harry had been so suffocated and stifled with the Light atmosphere that it had taken fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes. Back in the Dark, he could recognize and act upon such impulses within seconds. Honestly, Harry was beginning to wonder whether this whole escaping to the Light plan had been his most brilliant one.
Timothy's infuriating attitude had driven Harry to this bathroom. In a twisted way, Harry was a slightly indebted to the Squib.
Tom had never mentioned a…Chamber of Secrets before. Harry raised his eyebrows as the name came unbidden to his mind and almost laughed aloud. Really, the Chamber of Secrets? Couldn't Slytherin have been a little more inventive? You just didn't go around naming your secret hideout the Chamber of Secrets if you didn't want other people poking their head in.
But silly name or not, Harry had finally found a sanctuary all to himself. Perhaps good, old Slytherin was watching him from above (or below).
"Open."
A mere moment later, Harry was staring down a grimy and gigantic pipeline leading down into the depths of the castle. Interesting. Not only did the great Parseltongue founder deem it wise to name a secret chamber the Chamber of Secrets, he had also decided that a great, disgusting slide was the way to travel. Marvelous.
In a way, it was rather hilarious to see how wrong Tom was about his (their) great ancestor. The way his guardian painted it, Slytherin had been a man of great dignity, always poised, perfect, and stoic. Just like Tom behaved day in and day out. From the way things were looking, Slytherin hadn't been quite the humorless character Harry had thought him to be. What kind of dead-serious man made the entrance to his majestic chamber a slide?
Harry chuckled to himself and decided to oblige the Founder's little joke. Perhaps there was a way to call stairs if he said so in Parseltongue, but where was the fun in that? He'd get slime all over his robes, but that was what the House Elves were for. They would do anything you wanted…if you knew how to play them just right. One innocent smile, one "thank you", and soon the entire elf population worshipped you. It had been so easy to manipulate them into his favor that it hadn't even been funny.
Harry grinned and jumped down the chute after quickly murmuring, "Close." He didn't want anybody following him, right? How silly would if be if he forgot to close the entrance after himself?
It was a little embarrassing to admit that the slide down was fun. It went against everything he had been taught in terms of etiquette, but Harry figured that he deserved a little laugh once in a while. Tom just didn't know how to enjoy the cruder details of life sometimes.
Harry's little bout of self-weakness disappeared when he reached the bottom though. He was actually rather disgusted to find nothing beneath his shoes but brittle bones of long-dead animals (and people?). He winced as one particularly fragile skull shattered underneath his weight and pressed a hand to his scar as a brief memory of a gigantic snake flitted across his mind.
So Slytherin had kept a Basilisk down here. In a way, it made complete sense. The man was a Parselmouth. Of course he would choose the King of the Snakes. Another smile graced Harry's lips and he allowed his hand to fall away from his forehead to idly swing at his side as he made his way further into the chamber's depths.
It was cold and damp down here. Harry could feel the moisture clinging to his skin and it was difficult to see anything in the dim light (and where the light came from, Harry had no idea). It might have been a terrible place for a normal snake to live, but Basilisks loved the colder weather and preferred darker, wetter environments where they could best raise their young. Harry was rather excited to see the one residing underneath Hogwarts's very structure. He knew he had nothing to fear from the creature and he had grown up with the gift of Parseltongue. He had always loved snakes and Nagini had been a kind companion during some of Tom's harsher moods.
Harry came to stop at a large, circular door adorned with metal snakes. He curiously stared at the wiry forms and noted the glittering rubies that acted as eyes.
"Open."
One by one, the snakes slithered inward and the locking mechanism automatically unlatched and the entrance swung open of its own accord. Well, at least now Harry knew where Tom had gotten his flair. Slytherin certainly did know how to make his little hideout interesting.
The very first thing Harry noticed when he stepped into the actual chamber wasn't the gigantic carving of an ancient man's face in the rock at the end of the hall. Nor did he notice the gigantic columns carved into the shape of snakes lining the walkway or the elegant architecture that adorned the roof. He didn't notice any of the grandeur or the magnificence of the place. All that was inconsequential, miniscule, compared to the euphoria that suddenly swept through him.
Harry had been going for weeks without his magic. He hadn't been able to do more than touch it before something rebuffed him and kept him away. At first, it had been a mere inconvenience. Something to ignore to achieve his larger goal. But after some time, Harry had begun to long for the power that was rightfully his and he had begun to go mad without it. Every time he saw somebody perform magic, he felt a deep longing in his soul to do the same and it frustrated him to no end. He missed his magic. He missed the ability to create miracles just by the sweep of a hand. He missed it all.
But more than anything, he had missed the Dark.
Harry had grown up surrounded with it. Even before he had been able to control his magic, the Darkness had always welcomed him, loved him. He knew it and it knew him. Sometimes he hated it, hated its addictiveness and seduction. Other times, he couldn't live without it.
How much of that came from his environment and Tom's soul? How much of that was actually his? Harry was hardly squeamish, but sometimes the way Tom dealt with his enemies and followers just didn't sit right with him. He had learned to ignore it, to even enjoy such methods of discipline, but something just always came back to remind him that something was a little off.
But it was too late now for something as silly as a conversion to the Light. Maybe, if Harry was lucky enough, he could learn to use Light magic as well. He was learning the theory well enough in classes now. Performing it was another thing altogether. Would his body even allow it? Harry had never had a chance to try it out back in the Dark territory because Tom had always forbidden it. Maybe here, he could learn to use it. Learn to use it, but never actually become to devoted to it. Harry knew himself better than that. The Darkness had too firm a hold in him already. At best, he could learn Light magic, but his soul would forever belong to the Dark.
Harry sometimes didn't know whether he wanted to rejoice or weep at such a prospect.
But all such thoughts disappeared from his mind the second he stepped inside chamber. The very second his feet had touched the stone floor, whatever restraint that had been keeping his magic back had vanished and now Harry could taste his power, his birthright, again.
A hiss of pleasure escaped his lips and he allowed the Darkness to caress his body.
Really, it had been too long.
Almost as if in response to his regained control of magic, the torches attached to the snake columns roared to life with black fire and an eerie glow of dark light illuminated the chamber to an appropriate level.
If Slytherin had been alive, Harry would have kissed the man. The wizard hadn't made this place just for his own claim and Basilisk. No, he had made it so that any descendant of his could still attend Hogwarts and continue their Dark magical heritage to their own liking. Harry just knew that any Dark magic performed down here would go undetected from above. After all, the great Light barrier that Dumbledore had erected didn't apply down here. Down here, nothing could touch its true purpose and true nature.
A smirk found its way on to Harry's face and he strode down the stone pathway with his hands clasped neatly behind his back. The air surrounding him throbbed with magic just waiting to be used and he could taste that sweet chocolate that always seemed to come with it. His shoes made no sound as he walked and his grimy robes were clean with one glance. The carved snakes came to life as he passed and soon, he could hear their whispers and their greetings.
Suddenly, a much larger his magic sensed a larger presence in the hall and the smirk already on Harry's face grew ever wider. Gigantic coils the width of a twenty people smoothly surrounded him and the other snake carvings grew silent in the face of their ruler.
"Greetings, Slytherin's heir," a distinctly female voice hissed into his ear. "It has been a while since you have returned. I have been so ever bored." Harry felt a tongue flicker for the briefest of moments against his face. "But you…smell different. The same, yet different."
Harry turned to face the Basilisk and he almost gasped at her beauty. Her scales were a brilliant, deep shade of green and she was so massive she seemed to barely fit within the hall's confines. Her second eyelids were closed, allowing him to look at her in the eye without fear of instant death.
"I am the same. Just a different person." Harry's smirk turned almost gentle and he reached his hands out to stroke her lowered head. "I suppose you could say that I am only…a piece of the heir you once knew."
A sigh almost seemed to come from the gigantic snake's mouth. "That is a pity. I rather liked the whole you."
"Don't worry," Harry grinned. "I think you're going to like this version of me a lot better."
The Basilisk laughed (if a sort of jolted hiss could count as a snake's laugh) and reared her head higher, away from Harry's hands. "Indeed. Either way, I am rather pleased to finally have company."
Harry liked this Basilisk. She was definitely better company than anybody he had yet to meet. "May I ask your name?"
"I do not have one," she said. "My first master did not name me and your whole self did not name me. I find a name unnecessary and rather tedious to remember."
Harry was a little surprised. He would have thought such a noble creature would have a name. But names were power and perhaps Slytherin had wanted his Basilisk to be loyal to his line only and a lack of name would prevent any other accidental wizard from changing that.
"If that is your wish."
She nodded her massive head and quietly looked at Harry for a moment before asking, "I am assuming you know your way around?"
Another memory flashed, this time a layout, a mental map of the chamber and its maze-like structure beyond the grand hall. Harry blinked and a vision of falling rocks, closing off a certain room blinded him for a moment.
"Did I…block a room by any chance?"
"You did. Before you left the Chamber after your last visit here, you decided to take all of my first master's materials from the study and collapsed the room in case of any future wanderers."
Harry pursed his lips in annoyance. So this was where his guardian had found all of those scrolls and books. Harry had always wondered. But did Tom really have to be so paranoid all the time? Now that he had taken all of Slytherin's private books and notes for his own, Harry couldn't study them here.
He spun on his heel and strode towards the eastern wall. "I think I shall go visit that room and salvage what I can."
The Basilisk didn't reply but hummed in acknowledgement before slowly uncoiling herself and following.
Harry found the collapsed room quickly enough, especially since he had the entire layout in his head thanks to Tom. Had he been anybody else, he would have been hopelessly lost by now if the Basilisk hadn't already killed him on the spot.
Harry turned a corner to see a mass of the passageway abruptly cut off in an avalanche of rocks. He curiously looked at it and then trailed its source to the roof of the area. It seemed like a stroke of pure luck had kept the place from falling in on itself all these years. Yes, there were rocks blocking the way but the actual passage itself could be repaired. Had the roof caved in like it should have, Harry had no doubt that the rest of Hogwarts would have noticed a section of its floor sinking in.
Harry was fairly sure that he wouldn't find anything of great value if he cleared it up. Tom was thorough and he had most likely left nothing behind to find. But it was probably worth and a try and he didn't want to run the risk of the roof actually caving in and losing his only sanctuary in a world filled with Light.
Harry envisioned the rocks returning to their original positions and sent his magic to do its work with a wave of his hand. In a matter of seconds, the entire passage was clear, the rocks all in their perfect places and a neat wooden door waiting slightly ajar for him at the end of the corridor.
"You are certainly just as powerful as you were when you were whole. I missed the taste of power," the Basilisk murmured.
Harry couldn't stop a smug smile and he felt the chamber's Dark magic weave itself around him in soothing layers. "I'm flattered." He strode towards the door and opened it before peered inside with a slight flutter of anticipation.
There were multiple desks in a moderately sized room scattered in seemingly random spots. Empty bookshelves lining the walls were even more abundantly placed and a mass of parchment lay strewn about in a strange chaotic order. A single, elegant bed was almost carelessly shoved in the right corner of the room and there was a door adjacent to it that Harry suddenly knew led to the bathroom. The entire color scheme was, of course, silver and emerald and a black fire flickered into existence at the fireplace close to the bed as he scanned the room.
Harry felt like he had died and gone to heaven despite the obvious lack of material in the bookshelves. This was almost exactly like his room had been like back in the Dark territory. Harry had never been one for large, ostentatious rooms and moderately sized ones like these suited him better.
Harry stumbled forward a bit as the Basilisk nudged her head inside and eyed the place.
"You even completely fixed the room to its previous state. It is exactly as you left it after taking the notes and books."
Harry felt a little twitchy at being addressed as if he were Tom, but, in a sense, he was. It didn't mean he liked being addressed as such.
"I go by Harry now. I would be very pleased if you called me such."
The gigantic snake gave him a look that almost seemed skeptical. "Such a commoner's name. Are you sure?"
A quick flash of irritation flared through him. "I am completely sure."
The Basilisk seemed to sense his mood switch and nodded wordlessly before departing, leaving Harry alone. He actually felt a little guilty at snapping at her, but he had never taken references to his lower pedigree very well. It probably had a lot to do with his damned upbringing again.
But such remorse quickly disappeared as his magic stirred restlessly again and he grinned to himself.
Now that he was alone and his magic free again, perhaps a review of his magical repertoire would do nicely…
Alright, before you spear my head off...I know this was a ridiculously short chapter. It really was. I planned on making it longer but I was just taking so long to do so that I just decided to post whatever I had so far :(
You're probably wondering why I didn't name the Basilisk. Truth to be told, I just couldn't come up with one. Half I came up with sounded too "holier than thou" and the other half sounded too girly. It just wouldn't work. And besides, the Basilisk is a great, mystical creature. No point in making it overly familiar, I suppose. But if you REALLY want a name I suppose I could just plant one in later.
And for those of you begging for Harry to get his magic back...happy day for you :P Even though it IS only in the chamber for now and he wouldn't be able to flash it about in all its glory for others to gawk at him. But all in due time, all in due time ;)
Just curious...what do you want next chapter: Draco, Snape, Voldemort, Timothy, Astoria, Blaise, or Ron? There's going to be Harry, of course. I just wanted to know who you guys wanted to read more about and maybe work from there :)
And thanks to all my reviewers again! It's one of my greatest motivations besides just simple pleasure in writing this weird story XD
