Chapter 20
Duel Preparations, Part 2

Wednesday, 24th July, six days till the Duel
Mid-morning, in Moaning Myrtle's lavatory
Hogwarts SOW&W

Harry saw Neville and Daphne, who were first-time visitors to this lavatory, looking about and frowning. Harry could understand their frowns.

Of the five toilet stalls in this lavatory, the door to the leftmost stall was hanging askew, by only one hinge. The lavatory floor was damp and mouldy. Of the seven porcelain sinks, three were chipped. The giant mirror that spanned all seven sinks was cracked. In short, this was not only a lavatory that was haunted, this was a lavatory that any visitor would expect to be haunted.

But in the meantime, ghost-Myrtle just had spoken to Harry. "Yes, Myrtle, I'm back," Harry replied cheerfully, "and I've brought friends."

"One of whom is handsome," said the fourteen-year-old, bespectacled ghost-girl, as she smiled warmly at Neville. "Since you're a friend of Harry's, I'll let you stay in my loo."

"Erm, thank you, Myrtle," Neville said, as he shot Harry a What do I say now? look.

Myrtle turned towards Daphne, and now the ghost's face was not friendly at all. "I don't know you, pretty girl. You've never been in my loo before, have you?"

"No, I haven't," Daphne said haughtily. "Allow me to introduce myself: I am Daphne Greengrass, Heiress Greengrass, a Slytherin."

Myrtle got haughty right back: "Are you afraid of one little ghost? Is this why you haven't come here before? I guess you Purebloods aren't brave, like Muggle-born girls." Myrtle shot a quick smile at Hermione, before again glaring at Daphne.

"Be nice, Myrtle," Harry said. "I'm betrothed to Daphne. Actually, I'm betrothed to Hermione too."

"What?" Myrtle wailed. "You're betrothed to two girls, neither of whom is me? How could you, Harry?"

Myrtle turned into a streak of green ectoplasm and flew away. Seconds later, Harry heard a splash-glurgg sound. Roughly thirty seconds after that, water covered the entire floor of the lavatory.

Harry shrugged and said, "Let's do what we came for. §Open§." Part of the wall by the snake-faucet sink disappeared, revealing a down-sloping tunnel.

(When Harry's scar had had its horcrux removed, twenty-five days ago, he had lost the ability to speak and to understand Parseltongue. But a sheet with a particular rune-sequence, which had been copied out of elderly Harry's book-letter, gave young Harry these Parseltongue abilities back, when he wore the sheet under his shirt with the runes facing out.)


Three minutes later, in the Chamber of Secrets

The sixty-foot-long basilisk had been dead three years. It no longer stank, but it looked disgusting.

The corpse of the evil snake was just skin and bones now, with an ugly sludge underneath the body.

Daphne was staring at the basilisk. In a stunned voice, she said, "Harry, you killed this. You killed this. When you were twelve."

Harry shrugged. "I didn't kill her barehanded—I had use of the Sword of Gryffindor."

"I stand corrected," Daphne said drily. Then she turned and rushed over to Harry. She grabbed the front of his shirt with both hands, pulled him forward, and kissed him for at least ten seconds.

When Daphne broke the kiss, she said, "Harry, thank you for saving everyone in the school. Including the wankers in Slytherin."

Harry said, "Erm, it was Hermione who figured out that a basilisk was doing the petrifications. I wouldn't have come down here if not for Hermione's clue."

Hearing this, Daphne turned to face Hermione—

—and curtsied.

Harry felt a pang of disappointment at not seeing a girl-on-girl kiss.

On the floor, a few feet away from the basilisk's head was a big black blotch. In the sudden silence after Daphne's long kiss, then not-kiss, Neville said, "Looks like someone kicked over an ink bottle during the fight."

Harry said, "An ink bottle didn't make that ink stain. The ink came out when I stabbed the Voldemort-possessed diary with a basilisk fang."

Hermione said, "And this is where the basilisk bit you? You almost died right here?"

"Yes," Harry said, "but then Fawkes the phoenix cried on my wound. This cancelled the poison, then I was fine."

Hermione looked at Daphne and said, "For future reference, whenever Harry says 'I'm fine,' it never means 'I'm in robust good health.' What it always means is, 'I'm technically alive now, but this might change soon.' "

"Understood," said Daphne. "I gather I'll be applying this knowledge in the future?"

Hermione laughed. "Yes, often in the future."


Meanwhile, in Myrtle's lavatory

Hogwarts headmaster Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore was frustrated. Correction: He was raging.

The House ghosts had told the headmaster that Harry and two Gryffindor friends and Daphne Greengrass of Slytherin all were headed here, to the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. Myrtle the ghost had (clearly unwillingly) admitted to the headmaster that he had just missed Harry; Harry had, only minutes ago, opened and then had closed the tunnel entrance to the Chamber of Secrets, by Harry speaking Parseltongue.

Which Dumbledore could not speak. But on the other hand, Dumbledore was the headmaster. The castle's wards answered to him, and the ghosts and portraits obeyed him, so surely one tunnel entrance in one bloody lavatory would yield to Dumbledore's will.

That was the theory, anyway. In practise, when Dumbledore had commanded the snake-faucet tunnel entrance to "Open up," nothing had happened.

Dumbledore had tried every way he could think of, to command Open up! in English. He had even tried saying Please. He then had tried speaking in French, German and Latin. The tunnel entrance had remained closed.

Now Dumbledore tried a new tactic: pulling rank explicitly. Whilst ghost-Myrtle smirked with her arms crossed, Dumbledore yelled, "I am Headmaster Dumbledore. Hogwarts, I demand that you open this entrance to Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets!"

A female marble statue appeared, wearing robes that were coloured the four House colours and that displayed the Hogwarts crest. The statue-woman lowered her chin a bit to look down her nose at seated Dumbledore, then she spoke with an odd accent—

"Order refused. You do not have sufficient authority for this override operation. Opening criteria that were set by Founder Slytherin remain as requirements."

The statue-woman gave Dumbledore a disdainful sniff, then disappeared.

Dumbledore scowled. He would have spoken a long string of profanity, if not for the presence of the ghost-girl.


Back in the Chamber of Secrets

Harry faced the giant stone head of Salazar Slytherin and hissed. The head dropped its bearded jaw, revealing a tunnel beyond the sculpted mouth.

"Just out of curiosity," Daphne said, "what did you say?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "The passphrase, and I am not joking, is 'Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four.' "

Neville said, "Everyone knows that the true 'greatest of the Hogwarts Four' was Godric Gryffindor."

Daphne rolled her eyes.

Hermione said, "If that's the passphrase, this suggests one of three things: that A, Salazar Slytherin was the most conceited person ever to walk the Earth; B, Voldemort changed the passphrase; or C, Slytherin had a Weasley-twins sort of humour."

"To the third, please no," Daphne said. "This world does not need more humour like the Weasley twins'."

Harry pointed to stone-Slytherin's open mouth and the tunnel beyond it. "Shall we see what's on the other side?"


On the other side of the tunnel, so four Lumos lights revealed, was a big and empty room. The high ceiling, the floor, the back wall and the right-hand wall all were featureless flatness. The left-side wall had a door-sized cutout in it, but no door. The room reeked

"What is that odour?" Hermione demanded to know.

"The basilisk," Harry said. "This is what the basilisk smelled like when I was fighting it."

Foom—Harry heard the sound of a fire magically starting in a fireplace. Now Harry could see through the door-sized cutout in the left-side wall, to a fire-lit room beyond the doorway.

Harry walked through the doorway into another room, and the other three teens followed. As soon as Harry entered the room, four wall sconces lit themselves, adding more light to the fireplace's light.

In this room, besides the fireplace and the wall sconces was a painting of a king cobra in grass, with the cobra's hood spread; a green-upholstered couch that was wide enough for three adults; a green-upholstered chair that was set so it faced the couch but also received fireplace light from the right rear; and a bookcase. Hermione, no surprise, made a beeline for the bookcase—

—and immediately huffed in frustration. "I can't read any of these!"

"What do you see?" Harry asked.

Hermione pulled a book off a shelf of the bookcase and flipped through it. "The front-cover text, the spine text and the text inside—it's all the letter s, in different sizes. The title of this book is Sssssssss sss Ssssss."

"May I see it? Harry asked. Hermione handed the book to him.

"I guess it's written in Parseltext," he said. "I can read it easily. The title, by the way, is Dementors and Demons."

Harry opened the book to a random page. After a pause, he said, "It says here that if you put someone who is affected by a Love or Lust potion near a Dementor, the two magics cancel each other out. The person doesn't get depressed by the Dementor, but the potion in him stops working. So if you want to stop a Love potion that is working on someone but you can't brew a purging potion for some reason, grab a Dementor."

Neville made a face. "I think in that case, I'd flip a sickle."

A little more exploration of the room revealed a door to a bedroom. In the bedroom was a large and posh canopy bed, but no more books.

When Harry returned to the sitting room, Neville said, "For a Founder's secret hideaway, this is disappointing. I've been in Professor Sprout's faculty quarters, and her bookcase is just as big as this one."

Harry stroked his chin and thought hard. "Maybe Salazar called it 'the Chamber of Secrets' for a reason."

Harry hurried out through the cut-out doorway and into the smelly "snake room." When Daphne, Hermione and Neville stood in that room too, Harry called out, "§Reveal hidden doors§."

On the left-side wall, nothing happened. But a door appeared on the back wall and a door appeared in the middle of the right-side wall.

It took a little trial-and-error, but Harry eventually discovered that the back-wall door opened when he said, "§Unlock this previously-hidden door§."

Beyond this door was a combination potions lab and ritual floor. Harry decided that whilst the room was well worth exploring, Harry would not bother doing so until after Voldemort and his minions were shut down. Harry let everyone glance in; then he shut the door, locked it and hid it.

The door on the right-side wall, it turned out, opened into a library that was half as big inside as the regular Hogwarts library, and (according to Daphne) was bigger than the Ravenclaw Common Room library.

When Hermione stepped through the door and saw Salazar Slytherin's hidden library, she started breathing hard—which made her cough and choke.


Every horizontal surface in the library—the floor, the tabletop, the chair seats, the tops of the chairs and the chair armrests—all were covered with a coating of grey dust that was thicker than Harry had ever imagined. Vertical surfaces—the green spines of books, the edges of wooden bookshelves—had a greyish tinge.

When Harry walked into the library, two things happened. The first was that grey dust on the floor swirled around his feet and legs. The second thing to happen was that he started coughing because of the thick dust.

Harry conjured four surgical breathing masks, and handed the masks out to the other teens. Neville and Daphne had to be shown how to don the masks.

Harry was just about to summon Dobby to come get rid of all the bloody dust when Hermione squeezed his forearm. "Harry, do you notice something? Something that is not here?"

When Harry shook his head, Hermione said, "Footprints! I see no footprints on the floor, and no handprints on the table. Now, would you say this is fifty years' worth of dust, or hundreds of years' worth of dust?"

"Hundreds and hundreds of years," Daphne said, her voice slightly distorted by her breathing mask. "Which means—"

Now Harry was grinning (though nobody else could tell, because of the mask that covered his face). He theatrically gestured from right to left, to claim all the books in the room. "This, ladies and gentleman, is another part of the 'power the Dark Lord knows not.' Dobby!"

Harry soon learnt that removing a thousand years of dust from a big room made a house-elf truly joyful. Dobby at the end was crying, he was so happy.

When Slytherin's library was dust-free, and Dobby was thanked and was gone, Harry looked at his friends and said, "Let's get to work."


Back in Myrtle's lavatory

Dumbledore thundered, "Hogwarts School, harken! I, Headmaster Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, demand that you immediately open this tunnel entrance to the Chamber of Secrets!"

Silence. Stillness.

Then Myrtle murmured, "What a blighter."

The tunnel entrance did not reply to Dumbledore's command; but it still did not open, either.

Dumbledore scowled, as he thought mean thoughts about both Salazar Slytherin and Harry Potter.


In Salazar Slytherin's hidden library

Laying in the centre of the big table was a slim book whose cover was Parseltext-titled §Read This First§.

Harry opened the book to the beginning of the text, and read for a minute. Then he said, "This is interesting."

Harry walked to the shelves, pulled five green-covered books off the same shelf, then carried the green-covered books to the table. "§Conjure translations§," Harry said, as he drew a reverse-D with the tip of his wand.

Instantly five blue-covered books appeared next to the five green-covered books. Harry slid the five blue-covered books to his three friends. "These books, you should be able to read."

Hermione smiled at Harry. "The translations are even in a modern serif font." Daphne and Neville agreed that they could read the other blue-covered books without difficulty.

Harry smiled at his friend Neville, and at his future wives. "Now you can help me with library research, even though you can't read Parseltext."


Ten minutes later

Neville found a sneaky offensive spell, §Slowly§. The victim moved slowly, spoke slowly and fell easily; and perceived everyone else as zipping about and talking too fast to understand. Even when the victim knew the cancelling spell, §Stop Slow§, it took the victim "to near the count of twenty" to speak those two Parseltongue words.


Thirty minutes later

Hermione lowered the blue-covered book she was holding and said, "Do you like zombie movies, Harry?"

Harry shrugged. "Don't know. Have never seen one."

"In this book, Jinxes, Hexes and Curses for the Vengeful, they describe the Living Decomposition Curse. It doesn't affect your internal organs till last, the book says, but your skin and muscles decay so that you look and smell like a rotting corpse. You go blind almost instantly."

Harry smiled. "Hm, a curse that makes a living person seem like a zombie. Whoever came up with this curse was using his brainsss."


Thirty minutes later

Harry laughed. "Oi, everyone, here are two interesting spells. Now watch this, §Gladius§."

Harry's eleven-inch, holly-wood wand turned into a steel, forearm-length sword. The sword was two inches wide, with no taper at all except at the tip; the centre of the sword was a half-inch thick. Harry ran his left index finger across the sword-edges; he discovered that the left and right edges were not fearsomely sharp.

"But notice," grinning Harry said, "it still works as a wand. Lumos."

The pointy tip of the sword-wand glowed brightly.

"Bloody brilliant," said Daphne.

Harry still was grinning. "Now watch this. Nox. §Finite gladium§. §Become rose§."

The gladius-sword turned back into Harry's holly wand, before shifting again to become a red rose with an eleven-inch stem. Harry then proved that the rose in his hand could cast spells almost as well as his holly wand could.


Meanwhile, in Myrtle's lavatory

Dumbledore had conjured a grand chair, and had seated himself by the snake-faucet sink. When Harry left the Chamber of Secrets, and walked up the tunnel and into the lavatory, Dumbledore would be waiting for him.

Dumbledore considered the problem of how to Obliviate all of Harry's today-gained knowledge, when he eventually would emerge from the tunnel with three friends with him. Such a task would be a challenge for Dumbledore, since he no longer had the use of the Elder Wand; plus, his Obliviating of Harry would have three witnesses.


Hours later: 6:20 p.m.
In the library of the Chamber of Secrets

The teens by now had looked through more than sixty green-covered books or their blue-covered translations.

All four teens had discovered spells that could be used in the upcoming duel: both offensive and defensive. They had made notes about each spell, plus the title of the blue-cover book that each spell was described in.

The four teens then shared their findings. Alas, nobody had found the Holy Grail of defensive spells: a spoken Parseltongue spell that would block all three Unforgivables. However, Hermione had found a supercharged Parseltongue version of Protego that lasted longer before attacks could destroy it. (Alas, §Protego§ also magically exhausted its caster much faster than did regular Protego.)

After everyone shared their findings, Harry copied the matching green-cover, Parseltext books, then the green duplicate-books were dropped into Hermione's beaded handbag.

Harry vanished the blue-cover translations and put the green-cover books that had come from shelves here, back on those shelves. (For respecting library books, Harry was given a kiss by Hermione.)

By now, everyone was hungry, so it was time to leave the Chamber of Secrets. But how could the four teens leave the Chamber, when surely Dumbledore was waiting to pounce?

Everyone left the library and entered the "snake room"; then Harry locked, then hid, the library door. The four teens walked out of the "snake room" tunnel and stepped out of stone-Slytherin's open mouth.

Now Harry was again in the main chamber, and he again saw the corpse of the slain basilisk. A thought occurred to him: This monster snake was a thousand years old when it died. How did it eat? Surely it ate more than whatever rats wandered in. There must be a way the basilisk could leave here to go hunt.

Then a way to solve this mystery occurred to Harry. "Greyclay," he called. Unlike Dobby and Winky, Greyclay had no connexion to Hogwarts at all; if the Hogwarts wards would let Greyclay enter the Chamber of Secrets, then Dumbledore would have nothing he could threaten Greyclay wi—

Pop. The Potter head house-elf asked Harry, "How can Greyclay serve Lord Black-Potter?"

Harry said, "The dead basilisk here, somehow it could leave the Chamber of Secrets to hunt. Find out how it left."

"Greyclay obeys Lord Black-Potter." Pop.

All the teens were silent whilst they waited for the house-elf to return. Ten seconds after the house-elf disappeared, he popped back.

"Lord Black-Potter," the house-elf said, "Greyclay found sneaky-sneaky tunnel that big evil snakey used."

"Walk us there, don't magically transport us just yet," Harry commanded.

From the Myrtle-lavatory tunnel and the gap in the caved-in ceiling, to Slytherin's stone head, was a wide stone walkway with statues of hissing snakes on either side. Harry had not noticed, three years ago—his mind had been busy with other thoughts at the time—but the hissing-snake statues were far enough apart from each other that the basilisk could have slithered between them.

Now Greyclay walked on the stone walkway towards the cave-in, but between the fourth and fifty snake-statues on the right side, Greyclay turned right. When Harry turned to follow Greyclay, he saw ahead a weakly-glowing hole in the Chamber's wall ahead. Greyclay led Harry right up to the hole in the wall; now Harry could smell fresh air. Harry saw that the hole was just big enough that he could stick his hand, up to his thumb, in the hole.

Greyclay said to Harry, "Lord Black-Potter must say the same snakey-words that brought Lord Black-Potter to big room, to open this tunnel."

"§Open§," Harry said. The tiny hole enlarged itself, till nothing blocked the four teens from entering a tall, wide tunnel beyond the wall. The tunnel was long as well—the glow of sunlight was far ahead.

Harry waited till his three friends had stepped into the tunnel, then spoke "§Close§" to return the configuration to having a stone wall at the end of the tunnel with a small hole in the wall.

Then Harry said, "Greyclay, please let us know when we're beyond the wards." Harry let Greyclay set the walking-pace, whilst Harry and the others followed the house-elf.

Maybe two minutes later, four teenaged humans and a house-elf were walking along the much-brighter tunnel. Greyclay said, "Lord Black-Potter, Greyclay now is beyond the wards. Step forwards and Lord Black-Potter will be beyond the wards too."

Harry stepped forwards—and felt like he received a static-electricity shock.

Seconds later, Harry, Hermione, Daphne and Neville all were outside the Hogwarts wards.


Meanwhile, in Myrtle's lavatory

Dumbledore suddenly leapt up from his chair. "No, not the basilisk tunnel! How did Harry find out about that?"

Ghost-Myrtle sneered, "Did my handsome Harry escape the castle without talking to you? Aww, poor ickle overreaching headmaster."


Back in the basilisk tunnel

Out of curiosity, Harry continued walking out of the tunnel. At the end of the tunnel was an iron grate, with the horizontal and vertical bars so close together than no creature bigger than a kitten could enter the tunnel. Outside the grate, Harry saw trees, nervous squirrels and a twenty-foot-diameter spider web between two trees.

"§Open§," Harry said. With a loud noise, the iron grate rose up out of sight.

"§Close§," Harry commanded. The grate noisily moved down again, to again block anyone who was outside from entering the tunnel.

"This last little part of the hike was for you, Hermione," Harry said. "I knew you'd be curious."

Hermione grinned at Harry and kissed him.

At Harry's command, Greyclay elf-popped the teens from the basilisk tunnel to Potter Manor.