Chapter 2 : Back to the Chamber

I do not own Harry Potter

17:30| Second-floor girls' lavatory| Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry| June 12th 1993

Coming to a stop in front of the basin, Harry pulled off his cloak of invisibility. He had mulled whether or not he should bring his friends with him, but he had eventually decided not to. It was mostly because he knew if he even gave a hint of his intentions to them, it would kill his chances of ever being able to come back. There was a very strong chance that Ron, and every chance that Hermione would tell McGonagall of his plans, who would then tell Dumbledore, who would without question seal the entrance forever. He was extremely curious about the statue, and in the end, it was a fairly easy decision – he would go by himself. To be honest, he felt a guilty about keeping secrets from his friends, but it was just one visit, wasn't it?

"Open."

The sink started to disintegrate, revealing a shaft, the bottom of which was barely visible. There really wasn't a reason NOT to go back down there, was it? He had been very curious to explore the chamber in its entirety, especially the statue where the basilisk had come from, and with the snake dead, there was no danger in going, was there?

"Steps".…. nothing happened.

"Stairs". From inside the walls of the shaft, thick stone slabs started moving out in a looping pattern, creating a spiral staircase. So, he was right.

Ginny had gone down to the Chamber at least 5 times. Fawkes had flown them out the fifth time, but she had to have had a different way of leaving the first four times, didn't she? He had considered her using a broomstick, but that was highly unlikely. She didn't have one of her own, and it would be extremely difficult, not to mention inconvenient, to continuously steal one from another student or the school. Still, he had brought his Nimbus with him, just in case. He had considered other options, like unassisted flight (something Voldemort was known to be capable of), or the existence of another exit, before arriving at the possibility of summonable stairs earlier in the day.

Harry, accompanied by Ron, made his way back to Gryffindor Tower from practice for the now reinstated Quidditch Cup.

The Quidditch Cup hadn't been cancelled in over 150 years, and apparently the headmaster had no intention of breaking that tradition. The announcement made at breakfast the previous day had sent the school into sheer pandemonium, and it had taken cannon-blast charms from half the staff to get the cheering to subside. Understandably, students who had their OWLs or NEWTs were forbidden from playing, as OWLs would be starting from the 15th, and NEWTs from the 16th. Fortunately for Gryffindor, their team would remain intact; Harry was in his second year, Katie in her third, the Weasley twins, Alicia and Angelina were in their fourth, and Oliver, who was red in the face from all his screaming, was in his sixth. Considering none of the team members had exams to appear for, one didn't exactly have to be a seer to know that the coming days were not going to be kind to the bodies of the Gryffindor Quidditch team.

There were 4 matches to be played before the end of the term - the 30th of June. The first match would be Gryffindor Vs Ravenclaw on the 20th, followed by Hufflepuff Vs Slytherin on the 22nd, then Slytherin Vs Ravenclaw on the 25th, and finally Gryffindor Vs Hufflepuff on the 27th .

Tradition wasn't the only reason that the staff decided to continue with the tournament. The closing term had been extremely morose and frightening, for students and teachers alike. The Quidditch Cup would certainly go a long way in healing some of the trauma the students had suffered, whether out of petrification of themselves or someone close to them, or just out of the fear they had lived in, in the preceding months.

As Harry walked up the stairs, his body sore from the afternoon's practice, his mind wandered back to a question that had been on his mind the past couple of days, "How did Ginny transit in and out from the chamber?". So lost was he in his musings that he had completely tuned out what Ron was saying (something about the Chudley Cannons) and wasn't paying attention to where he was walking. He got caught on the infamous tripping step, and fell over, just managing to shield his face with his hand.

"Woah, Wood really put you through the grinder today huh? Only Neville gets caught on this step now!" said Ron, snickering at his fallen friend.

"Ha-ha, yeah Quidditch maniac that one! He did push us a little too hard for our first training session since March!" Harry lied, as he got up and wiped dust off of his Quidditch slacks.

"Stupid magical staircase!".

Harry immediately got lost in his thoughts again, more or less looping the statement "No way did she dive in every time, someone would've noticed her dirty robes every time she came out, which is at least four, and how did she leave anyway? I doubt Fawkes runs a taxi servi-"

And then it hit him. What if there was a magical staircase, concealed… justlike the entrance. He had decided today would be the day he would make his way back down into the chamber, and while he had decided on using his Nimbus to go up and down, he had another theory to test.

Happy with himself over his deduction, he hopped onto his broomstick and made his way down the shaft and into the underground tunnel. Moving ahead from the shed-skin and through the gap in the cave-in caused by Lockhart (where, in an ironic ending, the obliviating, credit-stealing fraud had wiped his own memories), Harry arrived at a large metallic vault door, decorated with a number of metallic snakes. Getting off his broom and placing it on the ground, he hissed, "Open."

One by one, each snake coiled up, as if alive, and the door slowly swung open.

Taking in a deep breath, as his eyes registered the corpse of a giant snake laying against the stone floor, for the second time in his life, Harry Potter made his way into the fabled Chamber of Secrets.