Chapter 33: Plan delay
After weeks of delay and of observing, I decided to take the matter into my own (and the boys' hands). Of course, Harry couldn't know about the others, so I was to give him different tasks. One more boy was petrified, from Ravenclaw, and, unfortunately Ron and Hermione. Ron while he was coming back from the kitchen in the middle of the night, and Hermione while she was coming back from the Library. Prof Sprouts' Mandrakes were ready and there only were two more days before the petrified ones were to be brought back. I went to the Library to search on giant snakes and to meet with Draco, because I had to tell him at some point. We met in one of the most hidden place, between two rows of books about History, where no one dared to come, thanks to professor Binns.
"Hey, did you bring the book?" I asked as soon as he arrived
"Yes, but why…"
"I'll tell you after I search for what I need. Now give me the book please, and after that we'll talk"
He handed me an old book in a worn out green cover with a very beautiful written title: "The life and work of Salazar Slytherin" My fingers were aching to open the book, to find out a clue about the favourite part of the castle of something about where the Chamber might be hidden. I carefully opened the old book. A cloud of dust rised from between its pages as I shuffled though them until I found what I was looking for near the end.
"When looking for the mysterious Chamber of Secrets, the three founders carefully searched through Salazars own built library, where he seemed to spend most of his time behind the closed doors, supposedly deciphering old manuscripts. Although they never found anything, they kept looking until they demolished the entire room and built another bathroom at the requests of Helga Hufflepuff.(…)"
"That's it! That's Moaning Myrtle's bathroom!"
"What are you talking about?" Draco was becoming anoyed.
"Ok, listen: Remember what happened when I touched your father's diary? Well, it seems like it wasn't a coincidence. The Heir of Slytherin isn't in this school. He or she is posessing Ginny through that journal and it is trying to kill muggleborns with a giant snake. I saw it too but it didn't kill or petrify me, and I don't know why. So we have to fiind the Chamber of Secrets, kill the snake, free Ginny and find out whos posessing her and get rid of the journal,all before Christmas."
"What? Why before Christmas?"
"Surprise. You'll see after you get back from the Holiday. Now, let's find something about that snake."
"We started seaching everywhere through the library for books on magical snakes, and Merlin, I never thought there were so many species of them. Eventually we eliminated nearly all of them and had only 3 left : the Amazonian giant snake, the Basilisk and the Norwegian Slange. They were all giant snakes but there was a problem: the Basilisk killed people by staring at them, and the other two were related, just from other countries, but they only petrified people. The decision was made when we saw the life expectancy: while the Amazonian and the Slange lived between thirty and fifty years, the Basilisk could live up to thousands of years. While the last opening was 50 years ago, Slytherin lived nearly a thousand years ago so the monster was a Basilisk. The problem was…its only weakness was the song of the rooster, and we didnt have something like that. Draco left to his common room and I went to the twins. We decided to go and search for the Chamber in the bathroom that night.
Maybe we were lucky and the…person was there. But our plan was completely destroyed just after dinner, again. On the same hallway where Mrs Norris was found some weeks ago, the three of us found a red wall with three feet long letters on it. The sight wasn't as bad as the pain I felt through my body as I read: "Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever".
The boys froze in place while processing what they read. Their sister was taken by the one who posessed her in a chamber with an unknown place with a giant killing snake and there was a posibility that they weren't going to see her ever again. And it was all my fault that I didn't do anything earlier…. We saw Lockhart trying to get out of trouble when the teachers saw the wall:
"Yes, Gylderoy, yesterday you said that you know the exact place where the chamber is. We trust you that you will save the girl. Good luck!"
As we heard the loud voice of the headmaster telling us to go to our common rooms, the three of us headed to the Great Hall.
"Come to the bathroom of Moaning Myrtle. No time to explain now, I'll tell you when you get there. And, try to be nice.""Be nice with who?""See you there."
I found Harry somewhere near the door leading outside. He was pale after both our friends got petrified, but now there was color again in his cheeks because they were going to get back tomorrow. He seemed lost in the ocean of people.
"Harry, let's go!"
"Go where? Sel, what's going on?"
"We are supposed to go to bed because the monster took someone and it's written again on a wall"
"Whats written this time?" he said, face going slightly green.
"Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever. And…it doesn't matter how we know, but the one that has been taken is…Ginny."
His face was a pale green now. His soulmate was taken, but he couldn't say anything because he tought no one knew. And I wasn't going to tell him anything. It was his choice and his choice only.
We entered Lockhart's study to get him to help us find the Chamber.But…he wasn't getting ready, he was packing.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"I…I have to go…something urgent…"
"But our sister is…"
"…going to die thre."
"Look, kids, I can't do that, Im not good with that…"
"But you wrote lots of books and done so many things."
"Look, the only thing I'm good at is narating and memory spells. Now, you can't tell this to anyone. Where's my wand?" he asked as a cracking sound was heard.
I looked up at him innocently, with a broken wand in hand.
"I'm sorry, this is it? I tripped over it. Why did you let it on the floor?"
"There's the Slytherin side…" the twins mumbled
"You come with us, or everyone will find out the truth. At least you should help save a little girl…"
We began running to the meeting place.
"And you should try to be nice too." I told Harry
"What do you mean be nice too? And be nice to who?"
But I shut him up as we arrived to the bathroom. There was no time for their drama now and there was time to ask questions later if we were to survive. But then we entered.
"Selene, is that you? What did you mean with-" but Draco didn't get to finnish his sentence cause he made eye contact with Harry.
They said at the same time: "What does he-" but I cut them short.
"Shut up, both of you. Now it's more important to save Ginny and get rid of the bloody snake than it is for you two to fight. And if you want to get out from there alive, stop arguing. Understood?"
They looked at me and nodded.
"Whoah, calm down…"
"fire hair." The twins whispered. Bloody hair…
" Lets go. Look out for anything odd in the bathroom."
We eventually used a spell that detected magic traces because the room was too big. That led us to a water tap that had a snake engraved in it. I told it to open itself, because Harry was too busy shooting dagger like glances at Draco and recieving others too. A nearly vertical tunnel opened and I sat on the enge of it, ready to slide.
"You boys come after me, ok? Better, you should send Mr Fraud here right after me, so he can't escape. I'll get his broken wand, just to be sure, ok?"
"Ok" they all said, except Lockhart, who was desperately looking for a way out of this.
"You're all crazy and you're going to get us all killed, crazy kids!"
"Oh, shut up!"
I got my hands in the opening of the tunnel and slid down into unknown darkness.
A/N : Hey, thanks for understanding me and for reading. Hope you liked the chapter.
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