A.N I dont own anything, probably not even my own ideas. This is my first attempt at FF, so please be kind. I would also be grateful for any faves and follows. thanks
The Spidermage
The fourth, fifth and sixth time Harry should have been killed all happened in his second year of Hogwarts.
The fourth time Harry potter should have died was in a car accident.
This at first glance seems to be a perfectly muggle and reasonable reason to die. A car ride in which Harry just so happens to be the passenger, and he car just so happens to crash into a tree. However this car in question was a flying car and the tree in question was semi-sentient and had a penchant for swinging its branches at anything that came near it.
To get context for how this came to be, we have to go back to the end of last term and the Quirrell incident.
Harry had woken up in the infirmary, feeling a lot better than he had ever felt before. He was groggy and was fumbling around the bedside table looking for his glasses, in the process he knocked over the glass of water that was also on the table. This must have made a fair bit of noise as he soon heard the matron bustling out of her office and making her way towards him.
Harry found his glasses and quickly put them on, he turned his head to see the stern visage of the matron looking down at him. She then commanded him to lie still and went about waving her wand at him looking at things only she could see. She informed him that he had been in the hospital wing for the last week suffering from severe magical exhaustion, a partially crushed trachea and a concussion. She told him that he had been brought into the hospital covered in blood by the headmaster and that she had rarely seen the headmaster angrier.
She then proceeded to tell him that he was physically fine and much healthier than he was after the forest unicorn death incident. She then told him that the headmaster wished to speak to him.
Harry could only nod his agreement at that and asked the matron about his friends, in particular about the health of Ron. Madam Pomfrey looked down at him reprimandingly and told him that was fine and that he been brought in with a broken right arm and concussion. She then told him to lie back down on the bed and wait while she informed the headmaster.
It took the headmaster about 10minutes to get down to the hospital wing. This was Harry's first time meeting with the headmaster face to face.
He was an incredibly tall man, probably the tallest man Harry had ever seen, excluding Hagrid obviously, but his presence was even larger. There was a weight to presence, this incredible gravitas, like the man could walk into any room and all the people in the room should bow. He was also surprisingly spry for a man of his age (110) and seemed to move around with a surety of a man in his fifties. He had a long white well groomed beard that reached down to his waist and the most incredibly piercing blue eyes Harry had ever seen.
The headmaster walked calmly towards Harry, he asked Harry if he could sit down. Then, with a flick of wand, he silently conjured a supremely comfortable looking stuffed armchair. The headmaster asked if he could talk to him about the incident. Harry shrugged in agreement, not like he had any choice.
Harry went through the events, from the incident at Halloween and the unicorn attacks in the forest. About Hagrid winning a dragon egg and how the loser seemed interested in Fluffy. He then went through the events of that night, about going through the traps and finding Quirrell at the end of the obstacles. He then talked about Quirrell revealing Voldemort on the back of his head. Dumbledore then ask what Voldemort said to Harry, so Harry told him about what Voldemort said about the night he attacked the potters, about how Voldemort was actually targeting him. About how the dark lord tried to spare the adult potters, Harry was weeping by this point, about how the dark lord gloated that even at the end the potters begged for Harry's life, not theirs.
Harry then explained how Voldemort had offered him a place at his side, how to show his defiance Harry had tackled the dark lord into the mirror. He told the head master about the struggle for the stone and how the stone exploded when he tried to grab it with his teeth (Harry was unaware of the half in his mouth liquefying).
Then it was Harry's turn to ask some questions. This was the point where Dumbledore realised Harry wasn't a meek sheep to be herded by the great shepherd Dumbledore. the first question Harry asked was why were the traps designed especially for Harry and his friends: the chess set for Ron the chess prodigy, a plant trap for Neville (who was Harry's closest friend outside of Ron and Hermione) the herbology adept, a logic puzzle for Hermione, an aerial broom fight for the youngest seeker in a century, also the final obstacle was an artefact that Harry had come across before. To Dumbledore's credit, he didn't deny it and said that he expected Voldemort to attack Harry on Harry's return to the wizarding world. He told him the trap was deliberately easy to fool Voldemort into thinking that the trap was for Harry and that Voldemort would meet Harry at the end of the obstacle course.
His second question was about why the mirror gave him the stone, Dumbledore smiled at this question, seeming pleased. He explained that the stone could only be retrieved by someone trying to get the stone but not use it. He seemed to think it was one of his more ingenious solutions. He also told him that the Flamel's had known the stone was going to be destroyed and were already in the process of setting their affairs in order.
As a matter of fact, this particular philosopher's stone was an out dated model and they had moved on to a newer stone. The affairs that were setting in order were new identities.
The secret to the philosopher's stone was that it was created using human life-force; the first stone was fuelled by life-force of the millions of deaths caused by the black plague, and their latest variant was created by the loss of life in both the 20th century world wars.
His final question to Dumbledore was when Dumbledore was going to tell him about the prophecy Harry was subject to. The grabbed Dumbledore's complete attention, to a person like Dumbledore if you had 25% of his attention you were doing well, so to gain his complete attention was impressive. The air around the hospital wing changed, it grew thicker. There was a palpable tension in the air. He asked Harry how he knew about the prophecy. Harry's answer surprised him; Harry told him that there was no other reason why a dark lord would personally target a baby. that it was to personally confirm that the prophesised child was killed before it became a threat. Harry told him that this was a common movie trope.
How this all relates to Harry almost dying again is that, at the end of the conversation the headmaster told Harry that he must return to his relatives' home at the end of the term.
He told him this was because of the blood wards that were around his house and that they protected him against any people who might attack him. He told him that the blood wards around the house had been triggered four times since he had been placed there. That all four times the attackers had been the followers of the dark lord and that each times the house blood wards had triggered and protected him against the attackers.
Thus Harry ended up back at his relatives' house on number 4 privet drive Surrey.
Harry's life back at privet drive wasn't as bad as he imagined. This was mainly down to Vernon not knowing that Harry wasn't allowed to do magic in the muggle world. it also didn't hurt that the metal plate in his jaw reminded him of what happened the last time Harry was in the same room as him, knowing that Hagrid was only an owl away from coming there and rearranging his face. Uncle Vernon gave Harry all the space he needed; he barely even looked at him. Whether this was because he was afraid of him or because he was trying to contain his undying rage at him, Harry didn't know. It also kept his aunt petunia from giving him too many chores and also kept him relatively well-fed for the first few weeks of his stay there.
Hogwarts let out a few weeks earlier than normal schools and so Dudley was still at his boarding school called Smeltings. On a side note, Smeltings was a weird place for a boarding school In the 1990s. It seemed like a caricature of a boys-only boarding school from the 1930s, written from the perspective of a woman who had never been to a boys-only boarding school. It seemed to actively encourage violence and bullying amongst its peers. The boys wore shorts and knee high socks with maroon blazers and hitting sticks and old fashioned straw hats. It had no business being open in the 1990s. Of course uncle Vernon had been sent there as a child so he thought it was the best school in the world. But Harry got the impression that everyone else thought it was the sort of place Hyacinth Bucket (from the show keeping up appearances) might send her children. Pretentious.
This allowed Harry to catch up on his homework and the work he missed whilst convalescing in the hospital wing. He also managed to read ahead on some of the subjects but couldn't read a head on all of them because he didn't have all of the Books he needed such as the standard book of spells grade 2.
By the end of his third week at privet drive Harry was starting to get a little worried. None of his letters had been answered by his friends and he hadn't gotten any other mail from anyone else like Neville or Seamus Dean all students from his house. Eventually he became desperate enough to look into the yellow pages for the Granger's dentist clinic. He managed to find the phone numbers for the Grainger's clinic in the yellow pages and proceeded to call them, his phone call was answered by the receptionist who told him that she would inform the doctor's Granger to pass on the message. Later that evening around 7 the Dursleys got a phone call from the Granger's and asked if Hermione could speak with Harry, initially reluctant to let her speak to him but realise that the Granger's were perfectly normal family and didn't want to appear abnormal. Hermione quickly got on the phone as soon as Harry picked it up and proceeded to bombard him with multiple questions about why he hadn't been answering for mail and why he hadn't sent them any letters either. This confused Harry as he had sent her at least two letters and haven't heard back from her at all. Eventually they realised that someone must have been messing with Harry's male and Harry told Hermione to send Ron a letter informing him of this fact. But even that letter didn't get to Ron
This eventually led to Ron arriving at Harry's house to rescue Harry. Ron had somehow managed to convince himself that Harry had been locked up and needed rescuing. This actually turned out to be necessary and Harry had actually managed to get himself locked up earlier that week. This was because of a crazy house of arriving at the Dursleys and informing Harry that he would be facing grave danger at Hogwarts this year. The House elf named dobby warned Harry from going back to Hogwarts, and told him he was the one stealing Harry's mail, so that Harry would think that he had no friends and this would make Harry not want to go back to Hogwarts.
The house of Dobby also somehow managed to trigger the ministry's magic detection wards and caused Harry to get a letter from the department of underage magic usage, giving him a warning for the use of magic in a muggle area. This had the unfortunate side-effect of informing uncle Vernon in the Harry couldn't perform magic whilst at their home. This allowed uncle Vernon to grow bald and gave him the courage to lock Harry in his room, installing a cat flap through which Harry would receive his food and only allowing Harry to go to the bathroom once a day.
Ron along with his brothers, the twins Fred and George had arrived at Harry's window 3 days after Harry had been locked up. The fact that they arrived at his window was surprising since his window was on the second floor. Harry quickly looked outside the window to look at how they manage this fact and saw them sitting in a flying car. Harry and the Weasleys had to break Harry's window down for him to be able to fit his trunk into the car, and then Harry managed to clamber himself into the car. The breaking of the window was not exactly quiet and so had uncle Vernon rushing into his room, only for uncle Vernon to see Harry floating off in a 1970s ford Anglia.
The rest of Harry's summer was relatively uneventful, except for that time where he somehow managed to end up in knockturn alley instead of diagon alley when he tried to use the floo for the first time. On the same day he also managed to see Mr Weasley fight Draco Malfoy's dad Lucius Malfoy in Flourish and Blott's
No the accident happened on the way back to Hogwarts. Harry and Ron were the last people to go across the barrier to the train station, but for some reason the barrier had become solid and would not let them through. Harry and Ron were panicking about missing the train, but could only sit there and wait for someone to come and collect them. After waiting by the barrier for about 10-minutes and getting weird looks from nearby people looking at the two unaccompanied boys, they decided to go back to the car and wait there. It was a very sunny day and they both felt very warm in the direct sunlight, so they decided to sit inside the car. Harry fell asleep, only to wake up about a half hour later to find Ron flying the car toward Hogwarts. Ron had somehow managed to convince himself that this was the fastest and most prudent way to get to Hogwarts instead of waiting for his parents, who at some point presumably would realise that Harry and Ron weren't on the train but the rest of Ron's siblings, also at some point Ron's parents would also notice the car was missing. Thankful Iran have somehow managed to avoid a massive breach of the statute of secrecy by engaging the invisibility mode in the car , so at least they weren't going to end up in prison.
Unfortunately 12-year olds aren't known for being the world's greatest drivers. Ron had no idea how to land the car. Thankfully for Ron it didn't seem like flying was going to be an issue for much longer, unfortunately that was because the flight charms were failing. This was going to result in both Harry and Ron dying from the crash either from the impact of the car landing on the ground or from the petrol leaking and making the car go boom. Both Ron and Harry grabbed each other and close their eyes, praying to any god that might hear them to save them from their impending fiery Doom. God must have been listening because instead of crashing into the ground they crashed into the upper branches of a willow tree slowing the car down considerably before stopping. Unfortunately for them the willow tree they somehow managed to crash into was the whomping willow, willow tree famous throughout Hogwarts for attempting to beat at things with his thick branches trying to brain students occasionally.
Somehow, though the gods only know how, the car managed to get sentient at that exact moment and decided it didn't like being beaten up by the tree, and thus decided to escape the tree and landed safely on the ground. The car then forcefully ejected both Ron and Harry out of the car and threw out their trunks as well. Then the ford Anglia decided celebrate its new found freedom and sentience by going on a joyride into the forbidden forest.
The fifth time Harry potter should have died was by being eaten by giant spiders.
Harry potter second year didn't seem to be any quieter than Harry potter's first. It all started on Halloween again, Harry had been invited to the death day party of Sir Nicholas who was the Gryffindor house ghost. The deathday party was fairly uneventful except for peeves the poltergeist somehow managing to upset another ghost. The food was terrible however, it was old and rotten which is apparently how ghosts like their food... Feeling hungry the trio decided to head back towards the Halloween feast in the main hall. On the way back they were waylaid by some strange hissing noises coming from the walls, but to Harry those hissing noises weren't noises at all; to him those hissing noises sounded like someone speaking. And that someone was saying it was hungry, and it wanted to kill something. Naturally being the Gryffindors that they were, they followed the hissing noises and went towards the thing saying it wanted to kill something. Only for the trio to end up near the second floor girls bathroom, which was flooded again. This wasn't anything unusual however as the second floor girl's bathroom had a tendency of flooding, mainly because of the ghost of moaning Myrtle getting upset and throwing a fit. But what was unusual was that, there was what at first glance appeared to be a dead cat hanging on the walls nearby, with the message saying that Salazar Slytherin's secret chamber had been opened and that the enemies of the heir should beware.
Naturally this was the scene the rest of the student body at Hogwarts came to; seeing the trio looking at the dead cat surrounded by a macabre message written in what appeared to be blood on the walls.
Then came a horrified strangled gasp as Mr filch managed to barge his way into the front of the queue. He looked at the cat, recognising it as his own pet Mrs Norris, and decided that Harry had been the one to cause its apparent death. He went towards Harry looking like he was about to choke him only for him to pulled short by the sharp voice of the headmaster calling for him by name.
Hearing the edge in headmaster Dumbledore's voice Argus Filch stopped immediately but he continued to glare at Harry. Filch turned to look at the headmaster and then immediately whirled his head back towards Harry and accused him of murdering his cat.
The headmaster took one look at the situation and then took a moment to gather his thoughts. He then dismissed all the students, excluding Harry, that were gathering in the corridor. By this point some of the other teachers had also gotten wind of the commotion happening and had made their way to the second floor corridor. The headmaster then took Harry, the caretaker filch, the deputy headmistress McGonagall, the potions professor Snape and, for some bizarre reason, the new defence against the dark arts professor Gilderoy Lockhart into a nearby room, to discuss what had happened. Before Harry could even start to explain what happened; professor Snape accused him of not being at the Halloween celebration, Harry stammered for a second and then tried to explain that he had been invited to Sir Nicholas' deathday party and that he attended that along with Ron and Hermione. He then explained that they were making their way to the main hall to get some food as the food at the party was not fit for human consumption. he mentioned coming across the cat and not initially noticing it due to the flooded second floor corridor, he also explained that he had only gotten there moments before the rest of the student body and would not have had time to do anything to the cat, he told them that Ron and Hermione were with him and they would tell them the same thing. A visibly distraught Filch ignored the reasonable explanation and accused Harry of murdering his cat in revenge for the forest detention last year.
At that point, the headmaster, who had been waving his wand at the cat trying to analyse what happened to it, told Filch that the cat wasn't actually dead but merely petrified. At that point, Gilderoy Lockhart who by this point in the year had been well established (at least with the male and non-straight female population of Hogwarts) as a useless, ineffectual fop; tried to interject that he had come across something similar in a made up place doing something for one of his many made up novels.
All the teachers gave him a dismissive look, knowing that whatever he was speaking was nonsense. And turned their attention back towards the headmaster who told them that likely that whatever or whoever attacked the cat was far more advanced than any second year could ever hope to be. He then asks Harry to go over what happened once again, whilst looking straight into Harry's eyes, hoping that Harry might remember something he had missed the first time. Harry did so again, again failing to mention what he heard through the hissing noises, as both Ron and Hermione had told them they couldn't hear anything either and he didn't want to appear to sound crazy.
Naturally since he had been eliminated as the possible cause of Mrs Norris' petrification everyone assumed it was him who caused it. But even though he was the main suspect people really didn't care that much because no one like Mrs Norris or Argus Filch. What people were more interested in was the writing on the wall which said that the chamber of secrets had been opened once again, Malfoy was particularly happy because he thought that muggleborns were going to be the target of whoever the heir of Slytherin was.
The majority of the school spent the next few weeks trying to find anything they could about the chamber of secrets and basically found nothing but rumours. Even the ghost professor of history, professor Binns, knew nothing about the chamber of secrets and dismissed it as some sort of fantasy folktale or fairy tale lost to time and made into legend through various retellings.
Things kept plodding along as normal with one exception, that exception being Professor Lockhart somehow exploiting the incident around the chamber of secrets into reopening the dueling club. People got really excited about the dueling club hoping it was being taught by the former dueling champion professor Flit wick, only to be disappointed when they were met by professor Lockhart and professor Snape at the first dueling club meeting.
The dueling club was a major disappointment and the only thing they learnt was the confirmation of Lockhart being an ineffectual fop. At least Lockhart had arranged professor Snape to be his dueling partner. During the demonstration Lockhart proceeded to demonstrate how to not do anything and promptly lost his wand to a simple disarming hex.
Eventually, somehow, at the suggestion of professor Snape, Harry and Malfoy will voluntold into to performing a mock duel against each other. The two second years were told that they were only allowed to use the disarming hex at each other during the duel. So naturally they decided to use all the other hexes they knew, except the disarming hex, at each other.
Harry was managing to hold his own and was even pushing Malfoy back a little bit when Snape stopped the duel. He then proceeded to whisper Malfoy some advice in his ears, reminded them that they were only allowed to use the disarming hex, and then told them to resume the fight. Harry fired a disarming hex at Malfoy, as he had been instructed. Malfoy sidestep the curse and proceeded to use the snakes conjuring spell summoning a black mamba on to the dueling piste. Gilderoy Lockhart stepped in at this point and fired nonsense made-up chant at the mamba. The spell didn't do much except toss the snake about 5-ft into the air and 2-ft backwards; and made the snake angry. The snake tried to show its displeasure by starting to hiss and spit noisily and went towards the nearest student it could find, which happened to be a boy called Justin from Hufflepuff. Harry then told the snake to back off and leave Justin alone, not realising that the ability to speak to snakes wasn't a very common ability and was only found in wizards and witches descended from Salazar Slytherin himself, at least in the British Isles.
When Harry noticed that everyone was looking at him suspiciously. He just looked back at them confused and said that he only asked her to leave Justin alone and why everyone was looking at him like he killed their pet dog.
Ron and Hermione quickly dragged Harry outside the dueling club and informed him that he was speaking to the snake in something called parseltongue and it was a well-known ability of Voldemort. Harry just looked at both of them blankly and told them it was a language and Voldemort was also known for his grasp of the English language, and no one else seemed to have a problem with people speaking English.
His ability to speak parseltongue had been spread far and wide by the next day and it all but confirmed to most of the student body that Harry was the heir of Slytherin and murdered Mrs Norris. Things didn't get better for Harry as he found out that the next victim of the heir of Slytherin was none other than that boy Justin.
And the next victim was also someone Harry was said not to like, Colin Creevey, Colin was an aspiring photographer but for some reason was taking inspiration from the modern day paparazzi. He would seem to constantly follow Harry around, trying to take photos of him. This annoyed Harry, as Harry was still very shy person and didn't like the attention. Unfortunately for the Hogwarts rumour mill Harry could not have possibly attacked Collin as he was in the hospital wing that night. Having been sent there after a Quidditch accident; and the situation being further exacerbated by Lockhart somehow managing to vanish the bones in Harry's broken arm. After learning that harry was stuck inside the infirmary; most of the intelligent students of Hogwarts stopped suspecting Harry of being the heir of Slytherin. So maybe 25% of the student body didn't believe that Harry wasn't the Slytherin.
In the meanwhile the golden trio somehow managed to convince themselves that Malfoy gloating about muggleborns meant that he was the heir of Slytherin. So they somehow managed to break in into professor Snape's store cupboards to get access to restricted ingredients in order make a highly restricted potion called polyjuice potion in order to impersonate Crabbe and Goyle.
Somehow the trio, although mainly Hermione, managed to brew a highly complex and advanced potion in the abandoned second floor girls bathroom. They used this potion to impersonate Crabbe and Goyle, and gained access to the Slytherin common rooms. during the sneaky interrogation of Malfoy, they discovered that Malfoy didn't know who the heir of Slytherin was, but according to his father the heir of Slytherin had attacked students before in the 1940s and that at least one student had been killed. Malfoy also hoped that the next victim was Hermione and that he hoped she was killed.
Malfoy's wish almost came true as the next victim of whatever was attacking the student was indeed Hermione. She was found alongside the Ravenclaw prefect Penelope Clearwater, both holding what appeared to be a cracked hand mirror and we'll both found petrified on the second floor.
Harry and Ron both desperate for answers looked through the library trying to find out about the attack that happened in the 1940s. What they found shocked them both. Culprit responsible for the attacks in 1940 had been found and then sent to Azkaban. Apparently what had attacked and killed the student in the 1940s was an acromantula owned by a student named Rubeus Hagrid and that the student had been expelled from Hogwarts and been sent to Azkaban for 6-months.
Of course they didn't believe that Hagrid was really responsible for the attack and quickly decided to go confront him about the article. Unfortunately for them the minister of magic had had the same idea as them, and was in the process of arresting Hagrid for these latest attacks. When asked by professor Dumbledore if the minister had any actual proof of Hagrid's involvement, the minister frankly told him that he had to be seen to be doing something.
Hagrid who had been about to tell Harry and Ron about what happened in the 1940s (they were in the room hidden under Harry's invisibility cloak), had a final thing to say before he was escorted to prison, and told them to follow the spiders.
They had no idea what that meant. Luckily for them a few days later, they noticed that all of the spiders in Hogwarts were escaping towards the forbidden forest. Not wanting to go, but having no real other choice, they followed the spiders at night and went into the forbidden forest. What they found was a veritable swarm of giant car sized spiders. the leader of the spiders was called Aragog and that Aragog was sentient enough to have conversations with humans in English. Aragog told them that he used to be Hagrid's pet, that he had been given to Hagrid as a final gift from his dying father. that Hagrid had brought him to Hogwarts and let him hatch from an egg and raised him inside a trunk. Aragog told them that Hagrid had been falsely accused of being the heir of Slytherin in the 1940s and that he had promised Hagrid to never attack humans.
When asked why all of the spiders were escaping from Hogwarts, Aragog told them that it was due to Slytherin's monster. But he refused to tell them what the monster was. Only that it was their mortal enemy and that no spider would ever go near it.
At that point, knowing they wouldn't get any more answers, Ron and Harry bowed their heads towards the spiders. thanked them for all the help and tried to slowly back out of the forbidden forest. Only to be interrupted by Aragog who told them that they weren't going to leave, and that whilst Aragog had promised to not kill any humans, his children were under no such obligation.
They tried to run away, but they knew it was a hopeless situation. They knew that they were probably going to get eaten by the giant spiders, never to be heard from again. They had almost fully accepted their fate when rescue came from the most unusual of avenues. They were rescued, in the middle of the forbidden forest, by a rusty blue ford Anglia. The same rusty blue ford Anglia that used to belong to Ron's family. Apparently the now sentient car had made the forbidden forest its home, and as a final favour to Ron's family had decided to rescue them.
The 6th time Harry potter should have died was due to a snake bite.
After escaping the forbidden forest and vowing to never go towards the giant spider colony ever again. Harry and Ron made their way back into the castle. They hadn't learnt too much from the spiders but they knew that whatever was attacking the student was a creature and it was despised by spiders. They continued to look through the Hogwarts library trying to find any creature that might match the description: the ability to petrify, extremely long lived (at least 1000 years presumably), probably some kind of snake, and large enmity with all spiders.
They did not find anything. They weren't the researchers of the trio, that was mainly Hermione. Their big break came when they were doing there daily visits to Hermione in the hospital wing. Harry noticed that Hermione was holding something in her hand; it appeared to be some kind of parchment. They gently pried the piece of paper out of Hermione's hand, and looked at what it was. It turned out to be a piece ripped apart from a book, a very specific book looking at exotic species of snakes. This particular piece of paper was about the king of all snakes: a basilisk.
According to the sheet of parchment basilisks were magical snakes that were created from a dark magical ritual involving a chicken egg and a toad. they was said to be able to kill with just a look, their venom was said to be the most toxic substance ever discovered, they were said to be functionally immortal and could theoretically live forever, it was also said that's spiders could not stand to be in the presence of a basilisk and their mere aura would drive all spiders in a nearby vicinity far away. It was said the only way to kill a basilisk was through the crow of a rooster, since their creation involved a chicken's egg and something about the rooster's crow was fatal to the basilisk.
Excited about finding out what was petrifying the students, they rushed off towards the staff room in order to inform the teachers. But what they found when they got to the staff room was utter pandemonium. They found out that earlier that day Lucius Malfoy along with the rest of the Hogwarts board of governors had sacked professor Dumbledore. They also found out that just a few minutes ago another student had been attacked, but this time instead of petrification the student was kidnapped.
They tried to speak to professor McGonagall but were brushed off by her. She told them that she didn't have enough time to speak to them, and that the school would have to be closed down temporarily. At least until they found out what was causing the petrification and dealt with the problem. She then told them to return to the common room, and that the entire school would probably be evacuated soon.
Disappointed they went back to the Gryffindor common room to find out who had been kidnapped, only for them to be shocked to find out that it was Ron's own sister Ginny who had been kidnapped, with the message saying that her body will lie there in the chamber forever.
They both looked at each other knowing that they were the only chance for Ginny to be rescued. But they soon realise they had two massive problems: firstly they didn't know how the students were merely petrified instead of being killed by the basilisk stare. Secondly, and more importantly, they didn't know where the entrance of the chamber of secrets was.
Ron was the first to figure out how the people were petrified instead of killed when he realised that all of the people and cat had not looked directly into the basilisks eyes. Ron realised that they all looked at the basilisk through something, the cat through the reflection of the flooded floor, Creevey through the reflection of the single lens reflection (SLR) camera Hermione and Penelope through the reflection on the hand-held mirror, Justin only partially saw the basilisk through the ghost of sir Nicholas and obviously sir Nicholas could not be killed a second time because he was already dead.
Figuring the how was easy compared to figuring out the where. They look through everything they had including the piece of paper Hermione was holding when Harry noticed something scribbled in the corner of one of the margins; scribbled in one of the corners was a single word... pipes.
It took a moment for the thought to percolate through Harry's mind before he realised the significance of the word pipes. He realised that the snake had been travelling through the school in the pipes, and the hissing noises he had heard was the snake speaking through the pipes.
Thinking about pipes made him think about water, and the flooding that had happened outside of moaning Myrtle bathroom. He realised that 3 of the incidents had happened near moaning Myrtle's bathroom: petrification of the cat, Hermione and Penelope's petrification and Justin and nick were also found near or on the second floor corridor. Harry had no idea where Colin had been found since he was in the infirmary at the time but he was willing to bet it was somewhere near the second floor girls bathroom.
There was also something else that was niggling at him in the back of his mind, something Malfoy had said, something about one of the victims from the 1940s dying.
With a start Harry came to the realisation that may be the victim from the 1940s never left Hogwarts and was still haunting the bathroom in which she was killed. When Harry explained his thought to Ron, Ron seem to get excited thinking that they might have a chance to rescue his little sister.
They knew they had no chance of facing off against a basilisk. Harry talked to Oliver the Gryffindor Quidditch captain and 6th year, to transform a rock into a crowing rooster. He also told him to temporarily turn that rooster into something more portable so Harry could undo the charm and turn it back into a rooster with a tap of his wand. The then went back into the staff room hoping to find another staff member to assist them in in Ginny's rescue. Unfortunately the only one in the staff room was Gilderoy Lockhart and they've quickly realised he would be more of a liability than help. So they left him there and proceeded to the second floor girl's bathroom. In the bathroom they found Myrtle throwing another fit. Apparently some red headed little girl had said something mean to her. Realizing that the redhead was probably Ginny, this further confirmed to them that this was probably the entrance to the chamber of secrets.
Harry subtly interrogated Myrtle about how she died and found out that she had died right here in this bathroom and the last thing she remembered seeing was a pair of glowing yellow eyes. She then told them that she had seen a boy hissing something at one of the sinks and that was the last thing she remembered seeing before the eyes. The two boys proceeded towards the sinks and proceeded to look for a clue as to the entrance to the chamber of secrets. It took them a little bit but Harry noticed that one of the sinks had a small etching of a snake on it.
Harry tried hissing the word open a few times at the sink trying but failed as the words he spoke came out in English. He succeeded on his 5th try when he somehow managed to get into some sort of trance whilst looking at the etching of the snake. The sink split apart to show a tunnel leading down somewhere underground. Having no other choice they decided to slide down the tunnel into the deep dark unknown. They then slid down into the tunnel to be stopped by a pile of animal bones and slowly got up, they didn't even want to think about what manner of filth they were covered in. The two boys continued forwards down the tunnel only to be stopped by a noise from behind them. They whirled around with their wands pointed towards the source of the noise just in time to see Gilderoy Lockhart crash into Ron.
It took a moment of scrabbling for them to come apart and then Lockhart was pointing a wand at the both of them. Lockhart then proceeded to gloat at them about how he stole all of the adventures that he wrote about in his books from other people and then claimed them as his own by the use of memory charms. How he was going to write his newest masterpiece about the tragic life and loss of Harry potter, and how he, Gilderoy Lockhart, valiantly tried to save Harry potter from the chamber of secrets but got there too late.
Lockhart then pointed the wand at both of them preparing to cast the obliviation charm in order to erase both of their memories, not noticing that Harry's wand was still in his hand. Lockhart proceeded to do his over exaggerated flourishes and pointed the wand at both Harry and Ron.
Unfortunately for Lockhart the wand he was holding in his hand was not as own, it was Ron's. Somehow in the scramble he had grabbed Ron's wand instead of his own, and Ron's wand had been badly damaged from the crash into the whomping willow at the start of the year. And secondly Harry still had his wand in his hand. As soon as Lockhart started chanting, Harry fired off a disarming spell at Lockhart. Somehow the collision of the disarming spell with the broken wand, shattered the wand completely; and the obliviation spell that was coming out of the wand had turned itself towards the caster and super powered itself in the explosion.
The explosion resulted in Ron and Lockhart both being flung into the wall opposite Harry and causing a minor cave in. trapping Harry on one side and Ron and Lockhart on the opposite.
Lockhart had been knocked out and at least that the problem was dealt with. Harry told Ron that he was proceeding forwards towards the chamber of secrets and told Ron to try and clear out the cave in so Harry and Ginny could make their way back.
Harry made his way down the tunnel towards the entrance to the chamber of secrets. At the mouth of the entrance he found an ornate golden gate covered in snakes with emerald eyes, the same emerald shade eyes as his own.
Again it only took him hissing the word open for the gates to open. Harry than slowly and cautiously made his way into the chamber of secrets. His first look into the chamber of secrets revealed a massive antechamber surrounded by statues of snakes looking like ornately carved pillars all pointing towards one end of the chamber, where there was a small pond behind which there was a truly massive statue of a face. It wasn't a particularly nice looking face, in fact, the face was actually fairly hideous, the face somehow reminded Harry of an orang-utan and its teeth were grotesque.
Just before the mouth of the statue, he saw the body of Ginny. She was lying there; deathly still, holding onto what looked like a diary in her clutches. Standing above Ginny was a translucent ethereal form of a boy around 16 year's age.
Harry cautiously approached Ginny with his wand clutch tightly in his hand, as he got closer to Ginny he noticed that the boy was chanting something. Realising whatever he was chanting was probably not good for Ginny's health, and that most likely it had something to do with the diary she was clutching, Harry sent a disarming hex at the diary causing the diary to be sent flying away. This caused a reaction from the boy who looked back at Harry angrily.
He revealed himself to be someone called Tom Riddle who had gone to the school in the 1940s. He revealed he was a half-blood who was sorted into Slytherin and went on to become prefect and that this diary was his greatest creation.
That the diary had been left in the care of his classmates who was also one of his most ardent followers, as a testament to his greatness. He then told him how very interested he was in the great Harry potter, and how he had been looking forward to meeting him.
His interest in Harry stemmed from, Harry being the boy who defeated, according to him, the greatest dark lord of all time, lord Voldemort. When Harry asked him why he had been looking forward to meeting Harry and he why he was so obsessed with Voldemort, since both Harry and Voldemort were well after his time. He grew boastful and told him that Voldemort was both his past present and future. Revealing that his full name was Tom Marvolo Riddle and that that it was an anagram for the phrase "I am lord Voldemort."
Tom then hissed at the mouth of the statue saying "speak to me Salazar greatest of the Hogwarts four". This caused the statue's mouth to split open and the lower jaw to descend down, opening a gateway through which the basilisk started to slither through. Harry quickly closed his eyes and tapped the block of wood Oliver had given him, causing the wood to transform back into the form of a crowing rooster. The rooster immediately started crowing loudly, this seemed to cause the basilisk a lot of pain. But it didn't kill the basilisk, maybe this was because the rooster was a conjured rooster and not an actual live rooster or maybe it was because the basilisk was over 1000 years old and had grown some sort of immunity to the crow of a rooster. Whatever it was, the crowing of the rooster did keep the basilisk distracted while Harry tried to think of a way to kill the basilisk. Harry started running around the chamber, hiding behind the pillars, desperately praying for something that might help him kill the basilisk. As if to answer his prayers Fawkes, Dumbledore's phoenix, appeared into the chamber of secrets in a ball of flame carrying what looked like a ratty old hat. Fawkes dropped the ratty old hat near Harry's feet and then used its fiery talons to claw out the eyes of the basilisk. This meant that Harry no longer had to keep his eyes closed at all times so that he wouldn't die from the basilisks killing stare.
Harry looked at the ratty old hat and shrugged. He put the hat on his head knowing he didn't have anything to lose. Only to realise that it was not an ordinary hat but the sorting hat. He realised this when the hat spoke to him in his head. the hat seems slightly amused at the situation Harry was in, and told him that perhaps he had been sorted into the correct house (the hat had initially wanted to sort Harry into the house of Slytherin but Harry didn't want to go to Slytherin because he didn't like Malfoy, so he had begged the hat to sort it into some other house). Harry desperately begging at the had to give him something that would aid him in killing the basilisk and the hat dropped something large and heavy on top of his head nearly giving him a concussion. Harry took off the hat and put his arm inside, he felt something heavy, with a wire wrapped grip, and he decided to grab on to the hilt and then pulled out a very ornate looking, ruby encrusted, sword made out of goblin silver
By this point proto-Voldemort, Tom Riddle was screaming at the basilisk to ignore the phoenix and attack Harry instead. The battery started listening to Tom and flickers tongue sending for Harry and then attacked him Harry dodged a couple of times but eventually was trapped literally between a rock and a basilisk. Seen the basilisks lunch towards him and having no escape path Harry desperately thrusting sword forward managing to impale the bus list through the top of his mouth at into the brain of the basilisk killing it instantly unfortunately the mental of a 60 foot tall 5 wide basilisk meant still crashed hard into Harry almost crushed him completely and one of his fangs punctured Harry through the chest. Luckily for Harry it was the right side of the chest so his heart wasn't impaled. Unluckily for Harry it was still a massive fan that had pierce through his body. To top it all off there was now basilisk venom coursing through his body. Harry somehow managed to extricate himself from that situation keeping the basilisk fang lodged in his chest to hold some of the blood flow. Harry knew that he was probably going to die and in his final moments wanted kill Riddle alongside him he used to Saud still covered in basilisk venom and stabbed it through the diary this goes the diary to give her horrifying piercing shriek and Tom Riddle to disappear into smoke.
Something strange was happening with the basilisk fang maybe due to still having what was essentially liquefied philosopher's stone in his body; Harry's body was trying to assimilate the basilisk fang into itself. Eventually after an excruciating 2-minutes the basilisk fang dissolved itself into Harry's body. How was in agony and was still dying due to the venom in his blood but his death was being kept up babe by what was essentially pure undiluted elixir of life. But folks seeing that Harry was in pain quickly flew over to him and started crying on the wound. Normally a single drop of phoenix tears could bring a man on the brink of death back to life but it took 21 drops of focus phoenix tears for Harry's wound to heal.
Harry then gathered the diary, the sorting hat, the sword, and Ginny still unconscious body and carried everything towards the collapsed tunnel full stop by the time he got back to the collapse Ginny had still not woken up but she had regained some of her colour. Ron by this point had managed to clear out some of the collapse and Harry was able to pass Ginny the hat and the diary of cross and then crawl out with the sword still in his grasp. They all them grab onto each other and forks phoenix flash them into Hogwarts infirmary.