"We have a problem," Hermione whispered once Bryt and Ron returned to the post near the cabinet, "Harry could find the last one, but what good will that do? We have no way to destroy it."
"We don't..." Bryt whispered with a sigh. She'd gotten so wrapped up in the events that happened recently, she forgot about the fact they no longer had the sword of Godric Gryffindor.
"Wait, we do have something!" Ron said in an excited whisper, "We were able to use the sword because it was impregnated with basilisk venom, right?"
"Yeah, well, we don't exactly have any venom lying around, do we?" Bryt rolled her eyes.
"But we do!" Ron said, grinning brightly, "The Chamber of Secrets! There's a giant basilisk corpse down there, we could get the fangs from it!"
Hermione gave a gasp at that and Bryt's eyes widened.
"Ron, you're a genius!" Bryt said, cupping his face in her hands and leaning up, kissing him, "An absolute genius!"
"We should get going while we can," Hermione said, starting to open the cabinet door.
"Bryt?"
Bryt spun around, surprised to see Megan Jones had come over, frowning at them.
"If Harry asks, tell him we went to a bathroom," Bryt said quickly, hoping Harry would understand the meaning. But they couldn't say much.
"No, I wanted to ask you something," Megan said, "When...Well, when you were doing whatever you were doing, did you ever come across my cousin? Noah?"
"What?" Bryt asked, staring at Megan, "He's not here at school?"
"No," Megan shook her head with a frown, "I don't know what happened to him...He and his parents never showed up for Christmas during the holidays, their house was broken into and ransacked, but there's no sign of them..."
"Oh..." Bryt whispered, looking at Hermione and Ron. Bryt couldn't help but feel a bit guilty for thinking Noah was preferring to save his own skin. Now it seemed something had happened to him...
"I don't know, I'm sorry," Bryt turned back to Megan, who looked devastated, "I'm sorry...I have to go, this is important."
"Oh, okay," Megan sighed, "Thanks, though. Good luck."
"Thanks," Bryt muttered, giving another glance around the room. Fred and George were apparently trying to cheer up Mike and Drew now, Sofí and Julio were nearby, staring over at Bryt, Ron, and Hermione. Julio was focused on Hermione solely, and Sofí was just staring at htem like it was the first time she'd ever seen them. Bryt grinned at them, telling herself she'd talk to them soon, then disappeared through the wardrobe, following Ron and Hermione.
"What do you think happened to Megan's cousin?" Bryt asked.
"Maybe they went into hiding," Ron said.
"Without telling their family?"
"I'm sure they're fine," Ron said, "Come on, we should be quiet, there's no telling what we'll run into."
Bryt nodded, falling silent as they reached the door. Ron checked for if the coast was clear, then the three ducked out of their hiding place and started down the hallway, trying to stick to shadows. Every movement, every noise made Bryt jump. She was suddenly very aware of how hard it was to sneak through the castle without the Invisibility Cloak. The last time they had to do this, they were eleven years old, sneaking out for a duel with Malfoy that had been a set-up attempt to get them expelled.
They tried to stay along the walls, moving in shadow as much as they could. Occasionally, they would duck behind a statue or into an alcove when they heard footsteps, Bryt's heart pounding the entire time. They only made one stop along the way, opening a window and summoning a couple of brooms from the Quidditch shed since they would need them to get out of the chamber again. Once they had them, they set off again back down the hall.
It was a long, slow process, done in silence until they finally reached the bathroom usually occupied by Moaning Myrtle, the ghost of a young Muggleborn killed by the basilisk over fifty years ago.
To Bryt's immense relief, as they ducked into the bathroom, Myrtle wasn't there. Though as she looked around, Bryt suddenly became aware of a problem they hadn't thought about before.
"How are we going to get into the chamber?" she asked, "None of us can speak Parseltongue."
"I think I can mimic it..." Ron said slowly, "I heard Harry speak it to the locket, telling it to open. And, well, when he kept trying to open the Snitch when he thought that Resurrection Stone was in it..."
Bryt and Hermione glanced at each other, remembering those times, when Harry thought they weren't paying attention, he sat in the tent, saying 'open' in Parseltongue over and over to the Snitch.
"It's worth a shot," Hermione said, "We have to get in there somehow."
Ron moved towards the sinks, checking each of them until he found the one that had the engraving of a snake on it. He started trying to imitate Harry, making odd noises, but nothing happened.
Bryt suddenly felt thirteen again, standing in this bathroom with Harry, Ron, and Gilderoy Lockhart, trying to get into the Chamber of Secrets to save Ginny. They stood there, as they were now, waiting for Harry to hit the right moment of speaking Parseltongue to the very sink Ron was now...Like before, when Ron finally managed the right phrase, the taps started spinning and the sink slowly sunk into the floor, leaving a large, dark hole angled downward.
"I did it!" Ron said gleefully, looking at the others with a grin, though after a moment, his face turned serious again, "I'll go first, okay?"
Bryt almost argued, but Ron had already disappeared down the pipe. Bryt rolled her eyes, following with Hermione.
Again, it was a flashback to her thirteen-year-old self, rushing down this same pipe like a slimy, dark slide, the air whipping past her and pulling at her ponytail. She found herself relieved when the pipe leveled out and she was sent tumbling out, ramming right into Ron just as he was starting to get up.
"Bryt!"
"Sorry," Bryt said, getting up. She heard Hermione come from the pipe in the darkness and Bryt pulled out her wand, "Lumos."
The cavern they were in was exactly as Bryt remembered it. Large, dark, and the floor covered in skeletons of animals. Bryt hated it.
"Which way are we going?" Hermione asked. Bryt looked over at her, then suddenly remembered Hermione hadn't been with them the last time they came down here. She had been Petrified in the hospital wing at the time.
"I think it's this way," Ron said, starting off. Bryt followed close behind with Hermione. She started running her thumb along the band of her ring, that comforting motion that helped steel her nerves.
They walked in silence, only broken by the crunching of the bones beneath their feet. Again, it was so similar to their trip here five years ago. Eventually, they reached an area Bryt remembered too well. There was a pile of rocks from a cave in, though there was an opening to the top they could climb over and through.
Bryt felt a faint throb at the back of her head. She remembered this. Lockhart had stolen Ron's wand and tried to erase their memories here. Though Ron's wand had backfired, caused the cave in. Bryt had been hit in the back of the head with one of the falling rocks and had been knocked unconscious. She still hadn't quite forgiven Lockhart for that, even after she saw him at St. Mungo's a couple of years ago.
"Come on," Ron said, starting up the rocks, reaching to help Bryt and Hermione.
Bryt climbed along behind, letting Ron help when she needed it. They soon were on the other side of the hill, making their way down and ending up in a long, winding tunnel.
"I guess Harry went down this to get to the chamber," Ron said.
Bryt nodded. She moved closer to Ron as they stared down the tunnel and Bryt couldn't help but start to wonder what was going on up in the castle. Apparently, Hermione was thinking the same thing.
"Do you think Harry found the diadem?" she asked.
"I doubt it," Ron said, "He'll know what it looks like, but that won't do any good if the thing is lost, will it?"
"Is there even any chance that the diadem's a Horcrux in the first place?" Bryt asked, "I mean, they said it's been lost for centuries."
"I wouldn't be surprised if You-Know-Who found it," Hermione said bitterly, "He's cruel and heartless, but he is clever."
"Unfortunately," Bryt said, then after a pause, "Do you think everyone's okay in the Room of Requirement?"
She was really meaning her brothers, but she wasn't going to say that. She had a feeling Ron and Hermione knew, though.
"I'm sure they are," Ron said with a grin at Bryt that seemed odd in the wandlight with the shadows cast across his face. It gave it a very eerie look that didn't suit Ron.
"You're right," Bryt sighed, "I'm just worried about nothing. They'll be fine."
They'd reached the end of the tunnel now, where opened doors led into a larger chamber. Bryt raised her wand to look around. The chamber was massive and long with statues of snakes lining the path. Bryt slowly moved forward with Ron and Hermione, closer to the end where there was a large statue, which took up nearly the entire height of the chamber. The man was imposing, with a long beard that reached the end of his robes.
"Salazaar Slytherin..." Hermione whispered, staring at the statue with a mixture of awe and disgust. After all, this was one of Hogwarts' founding members. But at the same time, this was the man who didn't want Muggleborns at Hogwarts. He was the one who created this chamber and hid a basilisk here for some future heir to use it to kill Muggleborns.
"Bit full of himself, wasn't he?" Ron asked, "No one would ever see this place, but he still has this statue. Wonder what he was compensating for."
Bryt couldn't help herself. She laughed. It was nice to have the tension broken in any way.
They got closer to the statue and Bryt noticed the dark shape at the statue's feet. Bryt frowned, studying the shape as she raised her wand. It was a giant snake, but it didn't look much like a snake anymore. It was clear that decay had set in long ago. There was nothing left of it but the bones and leathery skin that was beginning to break apart. It reminded Bryt a bit of the thestrals.
"Can you see where the head is?" Bryt asked, moving along the large, skeletal creature.
"I think it's up here," Hermione said nearby, "Yes, here it is."
Hermione's face was pale in the wandlight. Bryt wondered what she was thinking. After all, the last time Hermione had seen the basilisk, she was using a mirror to look around a corner, and had become Petrified.
"You okay?" Bryt asked as she got closer.
"Yes, I'm fine," Hermione nodded, "Come on, let's get these teeth and get out of here. How many do we need?"
"I don't know," Ron said, staring at the snake's head, "Maybe we should grab as many as we can? There's no telling if we lose them again, we could use the extras."
Bryt stared at the snake's head herself. The eye sockets were empty now, the skin agains the skull pulled tight and starting to rip in some places. One area, the skin had ripped in a long gash, the roof of the mouth in that spot having a small hole, in comparison to the head. That must have been where Harry had stabbed it. When the sword of Godric Gryffindor became infused with basilisk venom.
"Will the fangs even still have venom?" Ron asked as he squatted down, staring at t the teeth.
"Yeah, most likely," Bryt said, coming over, "Basilisk venom lasts forever. Why don't we just grab four, one for each of us? That way if one of us loses ours, we have more. I don't think all four of us could end up losing these things."
"And they'll be easier to carry than getting armloads," Hermione nodded, squatting down next to Ron and raising her wand, "Diffindo."
One of the teeth broke from the jaw of the giant snake, falling to the ground. Bryt and Ron cast a couple of severing charms themselves, and soon they had four teeth waiting to be taken. Bryt grabbed hers and the extra, being careful to avoid the point of the teeth, and turned to see Ron looking at Hermione.
"Pull out the Horcrux," he said.
"What?" Hermione asked.
"Well, we have the teeth here, now, why don't we destroy the cup Horcrux now?"
"Ron's got a point," Bryt said, "There's no point in waiting."
"One of you two should do it," Ron grinned, "You haven't had a chance yet."
Bryt and Hermione exchanged a look at that.
"You can," Bryt said, "I'll get the next one."
Hermione nodded. She Summoned the cup from her bag, then put it down on the ground in front of her. Bryt reached over, wrapping her hands around the cup to steady it for Hermione. Hermione took a deep breath, gripping the fang in her hand and then stabbed it hard down into the cup. Bryt jerked her hands back as it became icy cold, then watched in horror as it seemed to fill with some type of black, inky liquid. She could have sworn she heard a scream, though it was faint, as if it came from somewhere off in the distance.
"Well, at least we definitely know the fangs still have venom," Ron said grimly, nudging the smoking cup with his foot, causing it to fall over and the inky substance to spill across the ground.
"Yes," Hermione said, picking up the cup cautiously and slipping it into her pocket, "Come on, let's get out of here."
"My thoughts exactly," Bryt said, pulling out some cloth to wrap the fangs before putting them in her pocket, careful to be in a way where they couldn't puncher through to her skin.
The three couldn't get out of the chamber fast enough. They made their way quickly back through the winding corridor and back to the first room. Ron and Bryt mounted their brooms, Hermione getting on Bryt's behind hers, and they made their way back up the pipe.
Bryt was relieved to be back in the castle itself, back into Myrtle's bathroom and out of the Chamber of Secrets. Though the relief was short lived. The second they dropped their brooms, a voice echoed all around them, as if it were coming from everywhere at once:
"I know you are preparing to fight. Your efforts are futile. You cannot fight me."
Bryt stared at Ron and Hermione, fear tightening around her, her heart racing in her chest and she felt short of breath. Voldemort. This was Voldemort's voice. He knew they were there. He knew they were hunting his Horcrux within the castle...Did he know the others were now destroyed?
"I do not want to kill you. I have great respect for the teachers of Hogwarts. I do not want to spill magical blood. Give me Harry Potter and none shall be harmed. Give me Harry Potter, and you will be rewarded. You have until midnight."
Bryt frowned. She doubted even if Harry was handed over—which she knew would never happen—that Voldemort wouldn't have kept his word. He'd kill all of them without a second thought.
And Bryt's brothers were currently hiding within this castle. Bryt felt a cold wave of nausea at that.
"We'd better get going," Bryt said quickly, "I want to make sure my brothers get out of here as soon as possible."