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Chapter 38: The Chamber of Secrets... That Means More Than One Secret
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The whole Torchwood team were currently standing outside a relatively innocuous door on the second floor.
"You're sure this is where he said it was?" Jack asked.
Owen nodded curtly, "Yep, finally weaselled it out of the Weasley." he said, grinning darkly.
"This is where the girls said the messages were." Gwen put in.
Jack nodded slowly, staring at the door as if half-expecting it to bite. "Matches Draco's story, too." he admitted.
"So how do we do this?" Tosh asked.
"Walk in the front door?" Jack suggested, grinning.
"How are you not in Gryffindor?" Ianto sniped, rolling his eyes.
Jack didn't answer, simply stepped forward and pushed the door open. Behind said door was an equally innocuous bathroom. It felt disused, but at least it wasn't filthy.
"One of the sinks, mate." Owen said, shrugging.
Tosh stepped forward, pulling out her scanner. After a moment, and a bit of beeping from the scanner, she pointed to one sink in particular. "There's traces on that one. I think it's a locking spell, like on the common rooms."
"Password, then?" Ianto suggested.
"Weasley said it was Parseltongue. Snake-hissing." Owen sulked, eyeing the sink darkly.
They all looked at each other for a moment, then Gwen shrugged and made a noise that sounded like a cat being strangled.
Nothing happened. "Was worth a try." she said when they all looked at her oddly.
"That's not what snakes sound like." Owen sniped, "They're more like..." and he tried his own impersonation of hissing.
"Not like that, silly boy!" a girl's voice all-but shrieked at him. They all looked up to see a ghost-girl floating overhead, looking supremely indignant at their very presence here.
"Moaning Myrtle." Tosh said with a sigh, as if this should explain everything anyone needed to know about the girl.
Jack eyed Myrtle up, "Besides being dead, what's she got to moan about?" He smiled that trademark cheesy-captain grin at the ghost, "She's cute."
Myrtle stared at him for several seconds, then swept down to floor-level, so that she was face-to-face with him, "You're lying." She made it sound like a question, hopeful of a vehement denial. And she was not to be disappointed.
"I am not. You're very pretty." Jack said in his most charming tone. He then reached a hand up to the side of her face, making a gesture as if to brush hair behind her ear. Naturally it had no effect on the ghost, but she giggled all the same.
"I think I'm going to be sick." Owen muttered darkly, "That's necrophilia right there!"
Myrtle visibly bristled at this, but Jack distracted her quickly, "I really don't think I care. I'm considering jumping off the astronomy tower right now, she's just so damned cute."
Myrtle giggled again, and it did look like she was blushing... the way the silvery shade of her cheeks deepened slightly.
"Never kissed a ghost before..." Jack added, grinning.
"Oh!" Myrtle giggled some more, "I like you."
"Tell me how to open this, and I promise I'll come back." Jack suggested, "One way or another."
After a great deal more giggling, Myrtle turned to the sink, "It sounded like this..." The noise she made was closer to Owen's attempt than Gwen's, but it was definitely unique. And the sink slid away out of sight, leaving a deep chute headed downwards.
"Are we sure this is a good idea?" Ianto asked warily.
Tosh took out her wand and waved it at the chute. "Lumos Longinquus." The expected flare of light appeared from the tip of her wand... then shot downwards. The light faded fast, completely out of sight.
Owen gave her a look as if she'd done something that really wasn't all that smart at all. Then he dropped a stone down the chute. Where he got it from was entirely unexplained, but it did rattle down into the distance, with no indication of reaching the bottom.
"Well, that was informative." Ianto muttered darkly.
"Harry and Weasley got down there just fine." Jack insisted, "It can't be a fatal drop." Before the others could argue with him, Jack jumped down into the chute and out of sight.
"Damnit!" Owen yelled.
"It's safe!" Jack shouted up, after only ten seconds, "Kinda fun, too! I wanna go again!"
The team exchanged exasperated looks, then one after another they followed him.
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Tosh's light spell was hovering overhead, easily illuminating the tunnel for them. She guided it with the same technique that any first-year would a levitated feather, as they followed Jack along the only path open to them. They had been walking for quite some time, past animal bones, an absolutely giant snakeskin, and what looked like a partially cleared cave-in.
"How do we get out of here?" Owen asked suddenly, from behind the rest of the team.
"Worst case scenario?" Ianto asked, "Back the way we came, and some very careful levitation charms."
"Wha-?" Owen asked blankly.
"I think we're here." Jack said, stopping... the rest of them also turned to look up at the vast round door engraved with seven snakes.
"What was that noise Myrtle made?" Gwen asked, frowning at the incredibly realistic carvings. It felt like the stone snakes were watching them.
Ianto mimicked it, and the door slowly creaked open. They all stared at him, and he shrugged, "I've got a good memory. Why are we surprised?"
Jack laughed, turning to follow the ball of light that Tosh had just sent through the door. It flew up to several feet overhead, lighting up a vast chamber lined with statues of snakes. "What's the word for loving snakes too much?" Owen asked, awed by the grand architecture.
"Ophiophilia." Jack said automatically.
"It really disturbs me that you know that." Ianto muttered.
"I've got a good memory, too." Jack said with a sly grin.
"It's like some sort of atrium, or temple." Tosh said, following her light into the middle of the chamber. She carefully read her scanner, turning on the spot, as she did so, "Atrium." she said with a nod, "There's a concealment spell at the feet of that statue."
"Well that'll be the only one with feet, then." Owen said, nodding sagely. Tosh blushed a little, and nodded in agreement.
"All these giant snake statues..." Gwen muttered, eyeing them warily, "Didn't the legend say there was a giant killer-snake down here?"
"A Basilisk." Ianto corrected.
"Yeah, but Potter killed it." Owen said dismissively.
"Still, probably better not to look into scary statues' eyes, anyway." Jack muttered idly, following Tosh over to the concealment spell. He stopped, however, staring behind a pillar. "Dead giant snake over there." he added, pointing.
Gwen and Ianto rushed to see this dead snake, Owen close behind them muttering, "Morbid sods, the lot of us, huh?"
The snake was rotten and decaying, its scales faded to grey like the shed skin back in the tunnel. The smell was oddly localised, not permeating much further than a few feet of air beyond pool of dried blood it was lying in. It was missing a fang, but vivid green venom seeped from the one remaining fang, still liquid even after the rest of the beast had reached this state.
Gwen covered her mouth in shock, "A real twelve-year-old had to fight that thing?" she asked, eyes wide and utterly shocked by this concept.
"Kinda feel sorry for the golden-boy, now." Owen muttered, "I don't wanna imagine trying to fight this thing even with all our resources at Torchwood."
"I've got it!" Tosh declared, tapping the wall next to the feet of the statue with her wand. A portion of the wall slid back, revealing an immaculate hallway.
They all stared at it for a moment, before Owen spoke up, "Feels kind of wrong to go in there when we're all dirty from the slide."
"I'd try a Scourgify charm, but that's sixth-year level." Tosh offered, shrugging slightly. Still, none of them made a move to enter the corridor.
Ianto was the first to step towards it. "Tosh, is the scanner picking up anything around the doorway?"
"Yes, just one signal, but I can't identify it. It reads on the same frequency as the Muggle-repellents around the castle grounds, but I-" She looked up suddenly, as she thought of a possible explanation. "You don't think it's...?"
"Mudblood repellents?" Ianto suggested darkly.
"Language, Jones!" Owen sniped, grinning all the same.
"Fuck off, Harper." Ianto retorted, before taking another step towards the corridor. He carefully drew his own wand, "Finite Incantatem."
Suddenly the corridor didn't feel that bad. Gwen took a step forward, then Jack stepped past Ianto and into the mouth of the corridor itself. "Tosh, keep us posted if you see anything in here." She nodded, and the tiny but powerful ball of light whizzed past Jack's ear and into the corridor ahead of them.
Gwen peered back over her shoulder into the darkness, at the dead snake... and shivered. Then quickly turned to follow the others into the spotless hallway.
Then she turned around and yelped in shock. The others all turned around to see their own slimy footprints vanishing from the floor behind them.
The cleaning spell spread to their shoes, and then swept quickly up their legs, seeming to have the same effect in seconds as thoroughly laundering and pressing their pants. And this might be the first time any of them had seen the natural colour of Owen's trainers! It just kept going, magically removing all the slime and dirt from their clothes and skin. From the soles of their shoes right up to the tips of their fingers and hair.
"Whoa, that was... interesting." Jack announced, grinning a bit too much.
"Don't know who you think you're fooling, Jack." Gwen muttered, "I didn't feel anything."
"Still beats a sonic shower on a Terran militia freighter, any day." Jack muttered, running his fingers through his suddenly-clean hair.
"Let's just hope the rumours aren't all true, and that was the only sort of 'cleansing' old snake-lover's gonna wanna have done on intruders." Owen muttered, staring at his fingernails, which had been cleaned so thoroughly.
Jack shook his head, "I'm sure we're safe enough for now, Owen. Let's keep going."
At the end of the corridor, they discovered a large and spotlessly clean room, containing a vast collection of unusual artefacts. But not a spec of dust marring any of it. "Well, we know he likes the place clean." Ianto muttered.
"You must be related." Owen sniped weakly, staring around in awe.
There was a collection of cages off to one side, of varying sizes. A heavy wooden desk covered in potions equipment and ingredients. What looked like a bird's nest sitting perfectly preserved to one side, and several rolls of parchment piled up next to it. In one corner stood a notably elegant, polished wooden stand, taller than any one of them, which was clearly designed as a perch for a bird.
Owen was at the potions equipment in an instant, while Tosh carefully scanned and then picked up a roll of parchment. She paused, waving her scanner at the other things on the table, confirming that Owen was not about to touch anything dangerous. She seemed satisfied, and unrolled the parchment, which appeared in no way old or fragile.
"There's spells all over this room, but aside from cleaning I think all it's doing is preserving and maintaining the equipment and materials here." she explained. Then she frowned, "Oh, I hate Ye Olde English." she added, muttering, "Prefer alien languages, slightly less confounding."
Jack laughed and took the parchment from her, scanning it easily, "These are research notes on magical creatures and experimental potions and spells."
"So what, he was like the wizarding world's version of a scientist?" Gwen asked.
"Mad scientist, if you ask me." Owen muttered, prodding a jewelled cauldron with interest.
"I could have told you that, Gwen." Ianto said, eyeing the cages carefully, "He wrote a dozen textbooks on potions, charms, enchantments and magical creatures." Suddenly he froze, "Speaking of which..."
Everyone turned to look at the cages. A shadow shifted in the largest one. Jack took a step closer, while Tosh held up the scanner. "It's reading as magic, not organic." she said nervously.
Jack stopped at the bars of the cage, peering in. The shadow came forward quickly, and stopped eye-to-eye with Jack. Yes, now it had eyes... glowing white eyes. And it growled quietly at him.
It was still more shadow than anything corporeal... but the shadows took a form that seemed very much like that of a dog.
"Well aren't you gorgeous?" Jack said. Only he could grin like that at a clearly dangerous beast. It tilted its head, staring at Jack intently with those eerily blank eyes.
"Cwn Annwn." Ianto whispered from behind the rest of them.
They all looked at him, and Gwen laughed shakily, "Very funny, Ianto."
Ianto shook his head, "No, I'm not kidding. It really does look like a..."
"A Grim." Owen said with a nod.
"A what?" Tosh asked, frowning.
"It's an omen of death." Gwen said, watching the creature with morbid and intent fascination, "And Salazar Slytherin got one in a cage."
"Looks like he had some other things in cages, too." Owen muttered, pointing to the cage next to the Grim.
Unmoving, and clearly slashed in several places, laid a tattered cloak that looked like it had once belonged to a Dementor. Gwen shuddered involuntarily, while Tosh carefully scanned this cage and then several more, "It looks like the Grim is the only thing still alive down here. As far as I can tell."
Jack let out a breath he had been holding since he had seen the unnatural cloak, and then looked back a the Grim, "You're not so bad, are you?" he asked it. It sniffed at him through the cage bars, and then whimpered and backed down, blatantly submissive, like a scolded puppy.
"The omen of death is scared of Jack Harkness. Why am I not surprised?" Owen asked, deadpan.
Jack rolled his eyes, standing up and reading the parchment in his hands, "You should hear the stuff this guy's been researching. Potions that our textbooks say were only invented a couple of centuries ago... creation of magical species." He hesitated for a moment, staring blatantly at the page, before continuing in a noticeably more awed tone, "Life-cycles of perpetual parthenogenesis and genetic memory-"
"It doesn't say that." Owen interrupted snatching the parchment out of Jack's hands. Then he read it, "Although that's a pretty good rough translation."
"What's it mean?" Gwen asked.
"Magical species like phoenixes and ashwinders don't breed like normal animals." Owen explained, squinting at the fine handwriting and old-fashioned spelling as he read and drastically paraphrased, "Says here that if ashwinders- more snakes!- are only allowed to lay a single egg, the offspring show evidence of remembering everything their parent knew. Short life-spans, but over time he trained a bunch of them right up, from dumb animals intent on nothing more than laying eggs that'll burn your house down, to really smart little magical helpers. He was also researching phoenix life spans, and trying to identify what made them regenerate when they died... says he was hoping to find a way to transfer or copy this attribute into other species."
"Virtual immortality." Tosh said, with dawning comprehension.
"Yeah, something like that." Owen said, still reading.
Jack cleared his throat suddenly, "Yeah, well... we can look into all of this in more detail, later. But first, I think we need to try and find another way in or out of this place. I doubt someone like Slytherin would have the only access to his top secret lab in the sewers."
"Yeah. You're probably right." Owen muttered, reluctantly putting down the notes, and continuing to eye them longingly for several seconds, before shaking himself out of it.
"There's two more magically hidden doors, in here. Let's see what we find." Tosh said, looking up from her scanner and nodding to the side wall.
The first door they tried led to a store-room, just as immaculate as the main laboratory, and containing a vast array of potion ingredients and magical apparatus, some of which none of them could identify.
The other door led to a large room that smelled of dust but still remained as spotless as the other two. The room was surrounded by yet more statues, just as the first chamber had been. But aside from that, the only thing here was a stone plinth in the very centre, illuminated by a dim shaft of natural daylight, which rippled as if filtered through the waters of the lake. The plinth itself had strange writing on it. It looked like some kind of ancient runes.
Tosh scowled at it for a moment, then started typing into her scanner, frowning in deep concentration as she worked.
"She'll get it." Owen said with a confident nod.
"Whatever it is. This room feels like a tomb." Ianto added darkly.
"Oh, come on, don't be so pessimistic." Gwen insisted nervously looking around in spite of herself, "There's no coffins or anything."
"It won't translate!" Tosh protested, "I copied all of 'Ancient Runes Made Easy' and 'Advanced Rune Translation' into this thing. This must be a different language."
"Is there anything else in this room?" Ianto asked, stepping up beside her at the plinth.
She scanned around them carefully, "No... just this. It's giving off a strong magical signal, though."
"It must be here for a reason." Jack said with a frown, "And the only other way out is back through the slime." He paused to think for only a second, not long enough for the others to come up with any suggestions, "If we don't figure it out in another hour we'll go back that way."
While the others worked on the translations, Gwen searched the edges of the room. Coming up with nothing new, she sat down on the floor and stared up at the light source for a minute, "Hey, couldn't we get out that way?" she asked, pointing up.
They all looked at her. Then up at the ceiling. "It's through the lake." Owen pointed out edgily, "Probably be easier to do the Second Task than to get out of here that way."
"But maybe that's what this is? A magical elevator?" Tosh suggested, indicating the plinth.
Jack checked his watch and shook his head, "We can come back to it another time." he said definitively, "Now how were you planning on getting us back up that slide, Ianto?"
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Moaning Myrtle was very excited when the Torchwood team came back up from the Chamber of Secrets. She flew circles around Jack twice, then stopped in front of him, bobbing in midair as if she was alive and able to bounce on the balls of her feet.
"Ooooh, did you have fun down there?" she asked, eagerly.
"Yes." Jack said, flashing his trademark grin at her, "Thank you, Myrtle." He stepped towards her, and she in turn floated down to be on eye-level with him. Never before had the phrase 'her lips ghosted over his' been more accurate. And it sent a shiver up his spine at the sheer cold of it. And when he stepped back she was giggling quite madly. "I promise we'll come back, some time soon."
Leaving the girls' bathroom and the gleeful ghost-girl behind, Ianto muttered, "You're completely shameless, Jack."
"I can't help it if I'm irresistible." Jack said, grinning, "But you know you're the only one I really want."
"Of course." Ianto answered dismissively, although Jack really couldn't tell if he was genuinely flattered or sarcastically sceptical.
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