Ch 14: Build Your Own Adventure

As the grinding of stone filled the Chamber of Secrets, Harry, from behind his black blindfold, said, "What's happening?"

Dumbledore said, "My eyes are also closed, but I have other ways of detecting my surroundings. The mouth of the stone statue is opening, and a large snake is exiting it. A basilisk, if I'm not mistaken."

Snape said, "A basilisk. Albus, kill it now or retreat."

"So long."said a harsh-voiced snake.

"Hi, I'm Harry. What's your name?"

"An Heir! Food. The Heir brings food. Twist them. Tear them. Rip them. So sweet." He heard it winding quickly close, loud, as if a bus slithered. The snake, the basilisk, was very large.

Food? Could it mean...? "Stop," said Harry. "These two are not for eating."

Its motion stopped. "Let me! Let me crunch them. Crush them. Rip them. Drink their blood. So hungry. So long asleep."

Within his pocket, the brown grass snake he'd conjured curled into a ball and whispered, "Death."

Harry said, "Professor Dumbledore, could you give it anything to eat?"

Harry heard a pop, and the snake said, "Mouse. Giant mouse. Magic but real."

There was a meaningless hiss, followed by a snap and crunch.

The snake said, "Animals. Not as good as humans. Muggles. No-magic-wizard children. Mud in bloods."

Harry said to Dumbledore, "It's vicious, and it likes eating humans. It wants to eat you two."

Dumbledore said, "Ask it about other Heirs."

Harry said, "How many Heirs have there been?"

"Heirs, Heirs, you are an Heir. So long. Set me to hunt."

"When was the last Heir?"

"So long, I slept. So long. I must hunt."

Harry said,"You can hunt later."

It... resisted. Snakes had always done whatever he'd told them to do, and he'd never thought anything of it, never known he was exerting his will on the snakes because none of them had ever pushed back before. This one was pushing back.

So Harry clamped down and said firmly, "You will hunt later."

"Will hunt later," it agreed.

Harry said to Dumbledore, "It's not very coherent. I think it sleeps between Heirs." He asked a question of his own volition. "With the last Heir, did you kill any humans?"

"Only a mud in blood. For the others, the Heir made me look at them as though off water."

Harry was seldom confused as to what snakes meant, but that was cryptic. Harry said, "It killed a human with 'mud in blood' and looked at the others 'as though off water.'"

Dumbledore said, "That confirms it. Mud in blood is surely a mangling of mudblood, an extremely rude slur for muggle-borns. It was by the basilisk's gaze that Myrtle Warren, the ghost in the lavatory, died. As for 'as though off water...' Meeting the gaze of a basilisk means instant death. However, I believe that an indirect view, a reflection, would only petrify, which indeed happened to several students when the Chamber was last opened. An event which I have many questions about. Ask for how many years the previous Heir visited the Chamber."

So Harry asked the snake Dumbledore's questions, relaying the answers, sorting what meaning he could from its ramble, which was full of sleeping and crunching and ripping and sweet blood, and it never responded when he asked its name.

Harry wondered if it had eaten the ghost's body. If it had devoured it as the ghost looked on, rip and crunching, words that sounded wrong to Harry, because snakes, as best he knew, didn't normally rip or crunch, just strangled and swallowed.

But he continued his role, and by the time Dumbledore's questions were finished, he was getting hoarse and the snake was getting antsy.

Professor Dumbledore said, "Perhaps we can find a place for the snake in the forest."

"Capital idea," said Snape. "Perhaps next to the acromantula nest you've so generously allowed to flourish within an hour's walk of the school. It's not as if students ever sneak into the forest. And the centaurs will be tickled pink to meet their new neighbor."

Dumbledore said, "There's no reason to be sarcastic, Severus. I'm sure we can arrange a suitable array of precautions, just as we have with the acromantulas."

Harry said, "I've spoken to smarter conjured snakes. It's stupid, mean, dangerous, and insane. Just kill it."

Harry felt both men's surprise as if it were tangible, and Professor Dumbledore's voice dripped with concern. "Harry, there's no need for such drastic action. This is a creature that's survived a thousand years. To kill it simply because it's inconvenient to us..."

Harry said, "It's had a nice long life then."

Snape said, "It's a murderous abomination of dark magic. And if the boy is, as you say, the Heir of Slytherin, it's his snake. He gets to decide what to do with it."

Dumbledore said, "Severus, you were earlier advocating for preserving the Chamber as is."

"Preserving history. Not monsters. It was made to kill students and it's killed at least one. It could easily, no, even accidentally, kill another."

Professor Dumbledore said, "Harry. Are you quite sure?"

Harry had killed a bird once. A baby bird with hardly any feathers that had fallen out of its nest, a mud nest in the eaves of the house, much too high to reach. He'd looked at the baby bird as it chirped pathetically on the ground, and known that if he left it alone, it would die slowly of thirst and nibbling ants. So, as a kindness, he had hit it with a shovel, buried its body in the dirt of the garden, and felt weird all the rest of the day.

This wasn't any different, except the snake was large, old and murderous.

"I'm completely sure," said Harry.

"Very well. I won't say that I don't see your point." There was another pop, and the snake said, "Giant mouse." Another strike and crunch as the snake ate the giant mouse. Followed by silence. And silence. Then a high, hissing shriek that vibrated his gums. And silence.

Dumbledore said, "You may remove your blindfolds."

Harry pushed it up over his head, ruffling his hair as he did so, and though he'd known from the sound that the snake was very large, he gasped at what he saw lying on the Chamber floor.

Its diameter was past four feet, and its length was equal not to one bus, but four or five, stretched carelessly across the chamber floor in vast dull yellow eyes were the size of his spread hands. It looked the part of a doomsday weapon, yet its defeat had been simple and quick.

"It's dead?" said Harry.

Dumbledore's voice was bitter. "Quite. Nothing simplifies murder so well as the victim's trust. And now we have a valuable carcass to dispose of. A profitable murder. Harry, how does a fifty-fifty split between you and the school sound?"

Harry said, "But I'm the one who told you to kill it. I shouldn't get anything."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Then it all belongs to the school. Most of it will be sold, discreetly, and the proceeds added to funding, but I may have a use for the venom. Severus, I assume you'd like the eyes and a few gallons of blood?"

"A quart or two of bile would not be amiss," said Snape.

"It will be done," said Dumbledore. "Now, Harry, if you won't accept money, is there anything else I can do for you?"

"I would like a thousand house points," said Harry.

"That's... quite a few," said Dumbledore. "May I ask why? You did not seem very interested in points last year, from what I was told."

"I didn't know about how we're broken into teams and we're competing to see who can have the most points of the end of the year. No one told me. Ron really fell down on the job there. But now I know, so I want to win. So I've been trying to get points for a few days, and it's a lot of trouble. I don't like it. So I thought if I could win a thousand points, we'd win no matter what and I could go back to doing what I like."

Behind Harry, Snape shook his head rapidly back and forth.

Harry continued, "And I found this Chamber, and I helped you find this big snake that killed a student once, so that should be worth a thousand points easy."

"You may be right," said Dumbledore. "You should also get an award for special services to the school. But I can't very well give you a thousand points and a Special Award and not tell anyone why, and I would like to keep the Chamber of Secrets a secret for the nonce."

"So in a few weeks?" said Harry.

"Possibly. Or possibly in a few years."

Harry mulled that over. "I would like a hall pass and a ghost."

"The hall pass I can arrange, but ghosts aren't prizes I can give out. You'll have to befriend one yourself. But for now, let us continue our tour of the Chamber. I shall be disappointed if it proves to only hold one secret."

#

#

There were nooks and crannies, and hidden rooms, one clearly a library, the walls covered in shelves, but all were empty. Every last treasure had been carted out by one Heir or another, until only stone and a giant snake remained.

It was disappointing. Like being back with the Dursleys, almost. He had to make something happy and ridiculous happen to make up for it.

Dumbledore had made a recording of him speaking parseltongue, and it opened the entrances, so Dumbledore could get in and out as he liked. He was going to put a lift at each entrance. And then Harry would have a Clubhouse of Secrets, and he would make it beautiful and happy, and fill it with secrets of his own. He had an invisibility cloak, a hall pass, classes, friends, and a magic wand. There was no end to the number of happy and ridiculous things he could make happen.

Best get cracking.

He lengthened his stride, making for the Great Hall, and found his friends in the midst of dinner.

He stopped at Luna's table, told the little Ravenclaw to meet him after dinner, and proceeded to his own table, where he ate with a frown on his face and didn't answer his friends' questions; a task made easy by the fact that they didn't want to ask directly with so many people around who might overhear.

When they'd finished, Luna came over, and Harry led them to the library, to a table at the back with no one near.

Ron said, "Make it quick. I've got homework."

Harry stared at him, fear burbling through his gut. "Homework? What homework? Last week was a half week and we mostly just went over syllabi. There was homework?"

"Summer homework," said Ron.

"Whew. Thank god. You still have that? I finished weeks ago. I was planning to put some more doodles in the margins before turning it in, but otherwise it's done. Right."

They took their seats, and Harry cracked his knuckles. Harry said, "I've called this meeting of the Order That Hasn't Been Named Yet to discuss our agenda for the year."

"Oh Merlin," said Ron.

"First, we need a name, so I want everyone to be thinking about that. The Order of the Very Nice Clock Assassins or something cool like that, but shorter. Second, Hermione, could you be the scribe? We should treat this like a group project."

Hermione took out a parchment and a quill and wrote Name? on it in her fine hand.

"Third, obviously, I'd like to revolutionize wizarding law as it relates to house-elves. As a sub-goal, we should meet some house-elves and talk to them. Neville, could you get on researching that? I'm particularly interested in if they have weddings and whether we can go to any.

"Fourth, the Clubhouse of Secrets. The monster of Slytherin was a big snake, a basilisk. It's dead now, and Dumbledore's putting in two lifts, one at each entrance, but the old place needs a face lift something awful, and I'd also like to put some secrets in it, because it doesn't have any left, so for that, we need to create secrets. So think about that, and we'll have a brainstorming session later. Dumbledore says about two weeks until the permanent lifts are done, so we have until then."

"Fifth. We found the Clubhouse of Secrets. What else is there in Hogwarts? I'm sure there's lots of things. Hidden things. Let's find them, and, where possible and appropriate, make them ours.

"And finally, and really, this should've been first, the first full week of classes starts tomorrow and goal number one should always be to get better at magic. So, for Hermione and I, that's going to mean a lot of self-study, but Nevald, you're probably good with just mastering the material in class. I don't know about Luna yet."

"Nevald?" said Ron.

"Just a fun name for you and Neville together. Hermione and I could be Harmony. Add Luna, and it's, oh, Larmony, I guess."

Luna said, "So Ron and I would be Runa."

Harry said, "Maybe, but I'm afraid that creates unrealistic expectations that you'll both be rune masters. Lon, maybe. Oh, and you and I would be Larry or maybe Huna, probably Huna, and you and Neville would be Leville, sounds like level, as in flat. Now, does anyone have any other suggestions for the year's agenda?"

Luna said, "We should prove nargles are real."

Harry said, "The little invisible mischievous gremlin things you told me about? They're not proved?"

"No. It's very sad, but their existence is still controversial."

"Sounds great. Hermione, add it to the list. Anything else?"

Hermione said, "We should get the school a ski slope, and maybe a half pipe too."

"I don't know what the second one is, but it sounds fantastic. Anything else?"

Ron said, "We should get the food in the Great Hall changed to include more chocolate and bacon."

"No, Ron, I mean, that's nice, but I'm asking for serious ideas here. Things that are actually achievable. Do you really think the head cook or whoever would actually listen to a few students? Feeding this many people is massive logistical operation that can't be changed on the basis of a few students' whims."

Hermione said, "I would like more leafy greens."

Harry said, "On the other hand, no harm in trying, add it to the list."

#

#

Once Snape and Dumbledore were alone in the Headmaster's office, Snape looked sharply at the headmaster.

Snape said, "Why did you lie to him about his being the Heir of Slytherin? If the Potters had any history of being parselmouths, it would be known."

"I did not lie. If he is the Heir of Slytherin, it is not through the Potters. But many muggle-borns have squib ancestry, and any squib of Slytherin's direct line would be banished from the House. You see my train of thought."

Snape's eyes narrowed. "Lily was not a parselmouth. I would've known."

"Such gifts are seldom present in all members of a family. The lie fallow in one generation, and sprout in the next. Of course, I cannot confirm this supposition, but how else do you propose Harry became a parselmouth? You cannot deny that there is a poetry to Voldemort's equal being an Heir of Slytherin from a squib line. Destiny loves such convolutions."

Dumbledore saw the moment that, with pursed mouth, Snape accepted the theory, affected by the implication that the woman he'd loved had been the Heiress of Slytherin.

Dumbledore knew of a far more likely explanation as to why Harry Potter was a parselmouth, but it was, as the muggles said, need-to-know, and Snape did not need to.

:::

There was a temptation to meet reader expectations by having Harry insist that Dumbledore shrink the basilisk so Harry could keep it as a pet. But the basilisk is a creature that kills people by looking at them, and while Harry may be fun and zany, I have never thought of this as a story where everything is sunshine and roses and ridiculous gags.

I hope there were a couple slight hints in first year that this Harry can be scary, and we'll see a lot more of that this year.

Any ideas for a name for Harry's group. The Order of the Time Killers? Magic Scouts? The Golden Pentuplet?

Once again, I plug my book. Monstrosity, by JLL, (L, J L) available on amazon. Check the books department. This Harry has a bit in common with Sam Greg, high school basketball star of that book.

It may be a bit until GoM has an update. I have life stuff, and I'd like to update We Ditched the Graveyard Early, and I need to put together a short story collection.