The silence was eerie: there was no sign of a Basilisk, or Ginny Weasley, or Potter, of Slytherin's heir. Leo and Weasley walked forward in silence until they reached a large door with a snake engraved on it. The door was shut.
"Parseltongue, I'm guessing," said Leo. "Which would mean that we can't get through it." Even so, he looked around for a handle or some obvious way of opening it. There was none. He tried another Bombarda, but the spell hit the door without any effect at all.
They stood in silence, staring at the door. Leo tried another couple of spells, but without any more success.
"We're stuck, then," said Weasley.
"I think so." It was at that moment that the full horror of the situation hit Leo for the first time. They were trapped in the Chamber of Secrets, with no way to help Potter (if he was still even alive) and potentially not even a way out of the Chamber.
Weasley swore.
Leo wasn't the type for swearing, but the word Weasley had used summed up his feelings of the situation pretty accurately. He stared at the door and said "Open." It was extremely unlikely that he was a secret Parselmouth (particularly when he definitely wasn't Slytherin's descendant) but worth a try.
"Why do you keep looking at me like that?" asked Weasley.
"Looking at you like what?" Leo asked in reply, puzzled.
"Like it's beneath you to talk to me."
"What do you mean?"
"Every time I speak to you, I feel like you're insulting me or calling me stupid… like I'm making some mistake by just trying to talk to you…"
"I don't think you're stupid," said Leo, struggling to put his thoughts into the right words, "but there are a lot of different kinds of intelligence, and you don't have all of them. And that annoys me."
"What kinds of intelligence don't I have?" asked Weasley angrily.
"You judge people for the wrong reasons," said Leo slowly. "You distrust me because I'm a Slytherin, and because of – my parents. I mean, there are sensible reasons to distrust me, but it's not those ones which are important. It just feels unfair. And then you… you have no subtlety, no logic, you're just completely driven by emotion and what you feel like at that particular moment."
"Subtlety!" yelled Weasley. "Look where your subtlety got us! My sister could be dead because of your decision not to go to the teachers!"
That hurt Leo, but he refused to show it and did his best to control his rising anger. "I made a mistake," he said carefully. "That happens. I'm sorry, and I was trying to fix it. That's why I'm down here. It's not my fault."
"You're only doing this because of that girl, that Marisa, aren't you?"
"No," said Leo. "I'm doing this for everyone who's been hurt by Slytherin's heir. I want to show that not every Slytherin believes in blood-purism or the innate superiority of wizards."
Weasley studied him suspiciously.
"In the interests of trying to actually have decent relations between Slytherins and Gryffindors," said Leo, having thought of an idea, "what would you say to a game of chess when all this is over? Assuming we get out alive?"
"Sure," said Weasley. "If you like."