Harry Potter and the Room of Things no one Knows About
Did McGonagall really expect Lockhart to defeat the Chamber of Secrets?
Chapter 17
By
Jason Richard
The next day Harry and Ron visited Hermione in the hospital wing, feeling very sad. Well, sad and a little amused. Hermione's face was still stuck in mid-sneeze mode. Still, Harry tried to keep his amusement to himself.
Ron, on the other hand...
Harry: "Put the camera down Ron."
"Oh come one!" said Ron, holding Colin's camera. "I'll never get another chance! Don't tell me you're not laughing at this a little."
"Hermione will kill you once she's made better," said Harry. "I mean...wait...what's that?"
He saw something in Hermione's petrified hand. He reached over and found a piece of paper. He opened it, and suddenly, as he read the little slip, the mystery of the Chamber of Secrets became clear.
"Ron," said Harry. "The creature is a basilisk, a giant snake, that's why I can hear it. It kills by looking people in the eye but petrifies them when you look at their eye indirectly. That's what's happened to the other students. Hermione also wrote the word ''pipes." That must be how it's getting around without anyone seeing."
"Wait," said Ron. "It hides in the pipes? I get how students and even teachers might miss that, but what about the ghosts? They go through walls all the time. Why didn't they stumble across it? We haven't seen any other ghosts petrified, and I think they would have mentioned seeing a giant snake in the walls."
"But then," said Harry. "If a ghost got petrified while it was in the walls, passing through the pipes, how would we know about it? Actually, I haven't seen ghosts in a while now that I think about."
...
In the sewer pipes, dozens of ghosts in various places waited, petrified, each of them thinking the same thing.
GET ME OUT OF HERE!
...
"Well, that's not important now," said Harry. "The point is we know what the monster is."
"So how do we fight a basilisk?" Ron asked. Before Harry could answer, however, Neville Longbottom came running up.
"Harry," said Neville, panting. "I don't know who did it, but you have to come and see."
...
Earlier:
Ginny Weasley sat in the library studying and trying not to cry at the betrayal of the boy from the diary when she heard something.
"Say," said another student. "Did you know Harry's been reading a diary he found in a girl's bathroom?"
"That," said his study partner. "Sounds disturbingly incriminating."
Ginny: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH"
She fled, and the other student said, "Sheesh, what's her problem?"
Ginny darted through the halls to the Griffyndor common rooms and tore Harry's dorm apart trying to find that diary. She was determined to get rid of it for good. She was also determined not to let this memory called Tom Riddle trick her again.
Finally, the diary spilled out onto the floor, it's pages open. Ginny immediately moved to pick it up, when she noticed what was written on the page.
Some month 22, I forget which year: I, Harry Potter, have decided to finally tell Ginny that I love her.
Ginny: "Wha...Harry...he...he...love...me...Ginny...in diary...he said...love...harry..."
Riddle, from within the book, thought, easiest trance ever.
...
Harry found his dorm room ransacked, and the diary gone. A shame. He was going to grill Riddle for more information. Riddle had blamed Hagrid and said that a girl had died years ago in a girl's bathroom.
"Hey," said Harry. "Wait a minute, I know a dead girl who hangs out in a bathroom."
"That," said Ron. "Could so easily be taken the wrong way."
Before they could go talk to Moaning Myrtle, however, a magical voice announcement went off. Someone else had been taken by the monster.
Her skeleton will lie in the chamber forever, Ron and Harry saw written on the wall as they hid around the corner. The professors gathered round, disturbed looks on their faces.
"So," said Professor McGonagall. "Professor Lockhart, your moment has come. Weren't you saying you knew where the monster's lair was all along?"
"Did I?" asked Lockhart, instantly regretting the boasting he'd been doing earlier. "Well...I'll get right on that then."
He gave a nervous chuckle and walked off, secretly planning his escape from Hogwarts. Harry and Ron followed discreetly, figuring they could at least tell Lockhart what they'd discovered about the chamber.
As they left McGonagall turned back to the other professors, who looked at each other with grave faces.
Before suddenly bursting into hysterical laughter.
"Yeah right," said McGonagall. "As if that buffoon could take on whatever is in that chamber. Alright, let's be serious now. Fifty galleons says he's gone in half an hour."
Professor Sprout: "I bet fifteen minutes!"
Flitwick: "Twenty!"
Snape: "Five minutes!"
McGonagall: "You're on!"