CW: snakes, lack of sleep, food
:THIRTY-ONE:
Kreacher pretended he hadn't missed the two men when they were gone, but Remus knew better. He'd made Sirius' favorite food, which Sirius felt slightly guilty about.
"Maybe he's not as bad as I thought." He grumbled when they had gone back to researching.
Remus hummed, choosing it'd be best not to respond with an 'I told you so'. They went to bed soon after, intent on getting an early start the next morning. Except, instead of waking up peacefully the next morning, they were greeted by the frantic beating of Hedwig's wings as she delivered an equally frantic letter from Harry.
Remus read it first, his eyes bleary from sleep. Hedwig landed on top of the dresser, clicking her beak to wake Sirius up.
"Wha's it?" Sirius croaked, rubbing at his face.
"We've got to get to work." Remus said, getting up quickly and heading over to the desk to write back to Harry. "A student was petrified last night."
"What?" Sirius grabbed the letter, reading through it quickly and looking confused. "Wait...isn't Colin that boy Harry was just talking about yesterday?"
"Yes," Remus replied, not looking back at Sirius as he wrote. "I'm going to see if someone's gotten in touch with Colin's parents. His father is a muggle, so I doubt they contacted him. Harry says they haven't cured Mrs. Norris yet either."
"Well, yeah." Sirius nodded. "That's because the potion is really rare and difficult to make. St. Mungos makes it, but I doubt Hogwarts will have the budget for it."
"You're probably right." Remus sighed in frustration. "Still, Colin's family deserves to know what's happening."
He finished his letter to Harry, sealing it and giving it back to Hedwig. Remus stroked Hedwig's head gently while he carried her over to the window, releasing her back into the open air. When he turned back to Sirius, Remus' face looked incredibly focused.
"Let's solve this, Sirius." Remus said firmly, coming back to the bed to pull Sirius up. "Before anyone else gets hurt."
Sirius nodded, following Remus to get dressed. "I'm concerned about this Dobby character too, aren't you?"
"Yeah," Remus nodded. "But he gave us a clue as well. This has happened before, which is useful information."
"It had to have been before our time though." Sirius commented as they headed into the library. "Maybe in Hagrid's time?"
Remus hummed in response, pulling the stack of books Kreacher had pulled out towards himself.
"Kreacher!" Sirius called for the house elf, who appeared with a crack.
"Would you bring us some breakfast, please?" He asked the house elf, who bowed low and went off to cook immediately.
They men worked tirelessly for the next several days. The only times they stopped their research were for meals and to respond to Harry's letters. Sirius wanted to go see Harry because the kid was being bullied even more than before, but he knew the best way to help him was to solve this problem.
They came to the solution in the middle of the night at the end of the week.
"It's a basilisk!" Sirius shouted, holding up the book like it was treasured gold.
"A wha?" Remus said haggardly, looking up from his ancient book on the Hogwarts' founders.
"A basilisk!" Sirius shoved the book underneath Remus. "See? It fits all of the facts we currently know and it fits Slytherin's style."
Remus looked over the information, his face brightening as he read.
"Could it be so simple?" He murmured. "Bringing in a... rooster?"
He began to laugh, borderline hysterically. Sirius clapped him on the back, laughing as well.
"We did it!" He shouted excitedly, bouncing around the room.
"Yes, yes," Remus said. "But we do still need to uncover where the Chamber of Secrets is and exactly who we're dealing with here."
"Oh!" Sirius waved him off. "We made a huge leap, Remus! That's enough for one night."
He tugged Remus off of his seat. Dragging him to bed, they crashed almost immediately.
Sirius' high spirits continued the next morning, as he whistled all through getting ready for the day and going down to breakfast. Remus insisted on bringing one book down with him, but complied to eat breakfast in the dining room for a change. Kreacher even looked more cheerful as he set the breakfast things down.
To top it off, they got a relatively nice letter from Harry that morning.
"He's poking about the 'crime scene'." Remus sighed, reading the letter to Sirius.
"Did he find anything useful?" Sirius asked in a muffled voice, as he'd just taken a bite of sausages.
Remus shot him a disgusted look, but continued to read the letter to him.
"Apparently, Harry and Ron spoke with the ghost that haunts the bathroom near where Mrs. Norris was attacked. They found spiders climbing out a window nearby, and an empty journal someone had attempted to flush away."
"Well," Sirius said in a very satisfied sort of voice. "That just proves the basilisk theory even more - spiders are terrified of it."
But Remus ignored Sirius, looking thoughtful.
"Don't you think it's a little suspicious?" He asked. "That the first attack happened right next to that bathroom, there's a ghost that haunts that same bathroom, and someone tried to get rid of a seemingly empty journal there?"
Sirius pondered that as he chewed. Once he'd swallowed his food, he nodded.
"I agree. I've been thinking about how a giant snake like that must get around too. Harry said in the letter that the voice has seemed to come from inside of the walls, so there must be a mechanism built into the castle for it already. Maybe, if we go with your bathroom theory, it's the pipes?"
Remus beamed at Sirius, standing up immediately. "I'm going to write to Harry - we ought to pick up a rooster and head over there now!"
"But you haven't eaten anything!" Sirius called after him, sighing as Remus ran from the room.
Remus came back a few moments later, holding a book and Harry's finished letter.
"Sirius…" Remus pondered, taking his seat and half-heartedly picking at his food. "Once we get there - how exactly are we supposed to get into the Chamber?"
Sirius blanched. "Well…"
"Exactly." Remus opened up the book and shoved it at Sirius. "Look in here - it's the best history of Salazar Slytherin I could find. See if there's anything he has or would use to get in there."
Sirius sighed, pouting as he turned the pages. "It'll probably just be parseltongue, you know. And we have a Harry for that."
But Remus shook his head. "Parseltongue is very rare. Unless you're saying Harry's been doing all this from go, it's not likely."
"If my godson wanted to get rid of Mrs. Norris -" Sirius began indignantly, but then he abruptly stopped.
"What is it?" Remus looked over Sirius' shoulder at the picture of Salazar Slytherin.
Sirius pointed at an opulent necklace around Salazar's neck. "That's just upstairs, in the drawing room."
He immediately sprang up to grab it, returning with the thing swinging in his hand.
"Maybe it can tell us something about the Chamber!" He said triumphantly, trying to open it up.
He struggled with the thing, but couldn't quite get it open. Sirius and Remus didn't even notice Kreacher come in with more food until they heard a loud crash.
"You can't touch that!" Kreacher yelled from the corner. "That's Master Regulus' locket!"
Notes:
Ooh things are about to get good! Also sorry about yesterday - the site kept giving me an error 503?
Anyway, I've sped up a couple events, like Ginny tossing away the diary. It also really bothered me that no one seemed to contact the victim's parents when they were petrified, and that St. Mungo's never got involved with the cases, so I accounted for that. I'm hoping to wrap up the Chamber business by Christmas.
Happy Reading!