DISCLAIMER: Since the next chapters becomes longer and longer, I will
be dividing them in two parts, to upload them more often.
Please, be patient ! I don't have much time for writting and translating.
4. Chamber of Secrets
The Dark Arts fascinated Slytherin and there were neither witch nor wizard who would have studied them so thoroughly as he had done. After leaving Hogwart he burrowed in his old, family castle, hidden among the stony slopes of the Caledonian Mountains and began long, arduous studies, which several years later resulted in the Slytherin's most beloved work, the Chamber of Secrets.
For the first time I found out about it in a thick volume of the 'Hogwart: the history', in the chapter 'Myths and legends'. According to the olds stories, Slytherin had built a secret room in Hogwart that could have been found and opened only by himself or by his expectant heir. He hid there something terrifying, something that the heir of Slytherin was to set free in the future and so to rid Hogwart of the Muggle-born students. That was Slytherin's revenge. Of course, the authors of the book stressed in unison that the Chamber of Secrets was only a legend. For centuries many famous witches and wizard have tried to find the secret room. In vain.
The story made a great impression on me. I always thought that the legends didn't arise from nothing and that in any of them there was a bit of truth. Though I didn't believed in the stories about a hidden horror, which I took rather for a trick making it darker and more horrifying, I was sure that there was a secret room somewhere at Hogwart, untrodden from the times of Slytherin. I decided to be the one who would find the Chamber of Secrets.
I didn't expect, however, that the task would appear so difficult. The first obstacle I met as early as the next day when I tried to learn something more about the Chamber of Secrets. After a ten-hours long hard work and digging myself through the dozens of old books it turned out, to my rage and despair, that in the school library 'Hogwart: the history' was the only source of information about the Slytherin's secret.
I came to a dead stop and I completely didn't know what should I do; I couldn't ask a teacher for help, after all. Nothing remained but to search again through a huge pile of the books, which I had gathered on three adjoining tables in the library's corner, hopeful that I would find something I had missed during the first reading.
And I was in luck. It was about midnight and my eyes have already started to close themselves when I noticed a hand-written note, scribbled on a margin of a compendium: 'The greatest of the world from A to Z', in the chapter dedicated to Salazar Slytherin. The note, written in haste, was very poor readable but after a while I succeeded in making out its contents: The Great Ministerial Library. All sleepiness left me in a moment and I was ready to go to London in that very second. I believed that in the Ministerial Library, an immense source of knowledge, I would find a track leading to the Chamber of Secrets.
I started to count off the days till the end of the semester. Finally the exams had passed (I got the maximal marks from all the subjects) and the Hogwart Express took me back to the Muggle world. But instead of changing a train for the one to Liverpool, I went to look for the Ministry of Magic, provided with a precise plan of the city.
I quickly found the Ministry and after a while I stood, speechless, on the threshold of the largest library rooms I have ever seen. The shelves as high that their tops disappeared in the great distance extended through the whole chamber in dozens of rows. There must have been millions of book and I was sure that sooner or later (though I preferred not to specify too exactly that 'later") I would find among them what I have been dreaming about for weeks.
So I stared to look for. After six days of systematic work, which I began at dusk and finished after dark (I slept under the open sky on a small lane of the London suburbs, covered with the used newspapers; I had completely omitted the fact that I had no money!), I finally found a longed-for track. A book, which made my heart beating widely, was very old, worn out and didn't have a title page but judging by its contents I must have been written by someone from the Slytherin's family in the XIV or XV century. The book, a tribute paid to the famous ancestor, told in details the story of Salazar's life. From my point of view the most interesting chapters referred to his activity after leaving Hogwart, when, according to the legend, he was preparing his bloody revenge.
And there, among the yellowish pages of the old parchment, I found a clue to solve a riddle. It was a copy of Slytherin's original notes that, according to the author of the book, described precisely how to get to the Chamber of Secrets. That was what I was looking for ! Only one small hitch held me from giving a wild cry of triumph; Slytherin's note was completely obscure for me. And I don't mean it was written in a foreign or archaic language. It WASN'T language at all. The page was covered with strange, sinuous signs that joined in some greater structures, but they reminded rather drawings than letters and words. I had no idea what they indicated but I was sure that the piece of paper was a key to the Chamber of Secrets. I tore out the page and, decided to clear up the riddle of mysterious signs, I set off to Liverpool.
But during the holidays I didn't move a single step towards the understanding of Slytherin's notes. Now I was counting off the days to the beginning of the school year and to coming back to my beloved magic.
*
Apart from Persus Potter I didn't have enemies in Hogwart. I didn't have
friends, either. My classmates treated me kindly and with a sort of esteem, my
voice was respected in every discussion and anyone who needed help in his
homework came to me. However, I didn't strike up a closer friendship with
anybody. Maybe it was due to my childhood in the orphanage or maybe I was a
solitary by nature, the fact is that I didn't need company, totally absorbed in
discovering of the amazing magical world. Beside, though more than a year had
passed since the death of Elias Homer, I still couldn't forget why I wanted to kill
myself that horrible night. So maybe I subconsciously didn't look for new
friends, fearing of bringing a misfortune on somebody else.
I didn't expect that everything would change in autumn...
Amis Dumbledore was a grandson of Aberforth Dumbledore, a younger brother of the transfiguration teacher. He began learning in Hogwart one year after I did. He was sorted to the Slytherin and, as he confessed me later, form the very first day he was sure that I would become his best friend.
I have no idea what made him draw such a supposition. If he had know me he would have realised how much we differed from each other. And yet, as it was to turn out in the future, we had more in common than any of us could have expected...
Amis was a shy and quiet boy. His family name, already famous and esteemed in the magical world due to Albus Dumbledore, overwhelmed him. He considered, and no without a reason, that the whole family expected him to follow in his grandfather's brother footsteps, whereas Amis, though shrewd and intelligent, didn't have Albus Dumbledore's talent. And he was aware of it. He was often telling me that his greatest dream was to burrow in some high mountains and dedicated to the astronomy, which he loved.
If Amis was afraid that he would be favoured by the teachers because of his surname, he could have a sigh of relief. He was treated like the other students and many times I have been poring with him over the books till midnight, helping him in his Transfiguration and Potions homework lest he fails his next exercise.
That obvious fact seemed not to convince Persus Potter. As I threatened his megalomania with my talent, so Amis did with his surname. But if I was usually very resistant to his provoking, Amis took deeply to heart all rancorous remarks and many a time he came back to the dormitory with tears in his eyes.
I think that it was Potter's hostility against both of us, which caused that I began to notice Dumbledore's quiet grandson, that to sympathize with him and finally we became friends. And who had once overcome Amis' mistrust and really knew him, couldn't not to love him.
*
A year had passed and there were still no results in my searching for the
Chamber of Secrets. Slytherin's note was still as obscure as the day I had seen it
for the first time in the Ministerial Library. Despaired with lack of any progress
in that field, I decided to assail this task in another way. For several months I
have been systematically coming out Hogwart, hopeful to find a slightest trace
of the Chamber of Secrets. In vain.
During the holidays I visited London again (it was the last moment; several weeks later a Battle of England began) and once more I spent long hours over the old books but I didn't find out anything new.
I was really frustrated. For the first time in my life I met a problem I couldn't solve and it put me in a rage. I have been staring at the Slytherin's note for hours, trying to search a secret hidden in it.
I came back among the safe walls of Hogwart with relief (the war was storming in the Muggle world) and I began the third year of studies. Sometimes I wanted to share the secret of my descent with Amis but always something held me back. Beside, I promised Dumbledore.
September was particularly warm and sonny so we past most of our free time outside the castle. One afternoon, when we Amis and I were sitting at the lake, we noticed a first-year Hufllepuff boy wandering close to us.
A first-year usually associates with someone small and rather inconspicuous, but that didn't suit Rubeus Hagrid at all. Of an adult man stature, broad-shouldered and of powerful build, he had thick, dark, matted hair and small, black eyes, now looking intently for something in the grass. He didn't notice us until he stepped on Amis.
'Ups, sorry.' he mumbled in confusion 'But I'm lookin'...mean...didn't see a snake ?'
We looked at each other bewildered and in unison shook our heads negatively. Hagrid looked disconsolate.
'Escapin' me all the time' he said in a tone of explanation, mumbled excuses once more and started to comb out the rushes at the lake shore.
We were observing him for a while and then we returned to reading. A half an hour had passed (Hagrid had already reached the opposite side o the lake) when I heard a strange, hissing whisper, coming from the nearby reeds.
'He hasss finally gone,' somebody said with a distinct satisfaction 'Now I can return to the foressst.'
I fixed my eyes on the rushes, expecting some human being to emerge from them in a moment. But nothing happened. I was about to get up and look for the owner of a mysterious voice, when I heard it again, this time somewhere very close.
'Foressst, foressst,' now it was almost a joyful singing 'My sssweet home.'
I looked in the direction the sounds were coming from and I leapt to my feet; The Runs textbook fell into the water with a splash. A small, green-brown snake was creeping along the lake.
'Foressst, autumnal foressst' it was humming.
I was staring at it, completely crestfallen. I understood it and that meant I was a Parselmouth. But how could it be? The only wizard who could ever speak that strange language was...SLYTHERIN !!!
And then I understood. It was so unexpected that I almost lost my breath and sat down on the grass heavily.
Slytherin's note has been written in the Parseltongue.
*
Though that discovery was undoubtedly a great turn, I was still far from reading
Slytherin's notes. First of all, I had to know Paresltongue better. To this end I
asked Hagrid to supply me with a snake, which I was going to greed in the
dormitory as a kind of a teacher. Rubeus performed this task unexpectedly fast
and at the end of November I put a small terrarium on a night table, with a thin,
black snake inside.
A conversation with that extremely intelligent creature was always very interesting and instructive, and not only in respect of linguistic. Esculap, an old reptile, came from Egypt. He arrived to England, against his own will, by a merchant ship, where he fell asleep after devouring an exceptionally tasty mouse. When he woke up after several days, he discovered with horror that the whole world had shrunken to the size of a big house, from all sides surrounded by water. Till today he was in wonder that he hadn't lost his mind during this terrible journey. When the ship had finally harboured in a port, Esculap shot from the deck like a rocket and he didn't stop until he reached the forest. For some time he has been healing his shattered nerves there and then he started on a journey across the unknown county, which to his great disappointment turned out to be an island; a very big one, but still an island. Finally he got to the Forbidden Forest where Hagrid caught him.
Esculap always talked with a great nostalgia about his lost homeland. He assured me that for thousands of years the magic has been very well developed there and he was sure I would find many interesting things there. Listening to those stories I decided that after finishing Hogwart I would go to Egypt. I promised Esculap to take him with me and he was beside himself with joy. If only the snakes could cry he would have tears in his eyes.
After a year of our friendship I knew the syntax and grammar of the Parseltongue. Now I could begin a laborious translating of Slytherin's instructions, which surely were the unique recording of the reptile language. I felt as if I was trying to break a very complicated code or Egyptian hieroglyphs.
It took another year but finally, at the end of July of 1942, I had an exact translation of Salazar Slytherin's note in front of my eyes.
I knew where the Chamber of Secrets was.
*
I came back to Hogwart with only one wish: to open a secret room. I realised,
however, that now when I was so close, I must have been extremely careful. I
didn't want to ruin everything with a one rash step. I couldn't open the Chamber
of Secrets with hundreds of students wandering around. Someone could see me
and four years of a hard work would be lost. I decided to wait till Christmas.
Those were the longest four months in my life. I couldn't focus my thoughts on nothing else but the Chamber of Secrets. Every night I spent sleepless hours, wondering what I would find behind the hidden entrance, mentioned in the Slytherin's note. Some new, unknown powers? Might of my ancestor that I, his heir, was supposed to acquire ? Or something completely different ? The note didn't precise it so I was inventing the most weird possibilities, completely rendering trite the fact that the Chamber of Secrets was a fruit of vengeance.
Every now and then I was seized with anxiety. And what if after recovering the Chamber I won't be able to open it ? If I will have to use the Dark Arts I knew nothing about those days? Though Slytherin wrote that the main trump card of the future discoverer was his inheritance, it didn't dispel all my fears. I could only hope that indeed Salazar's instructions told everything what I should know.
Time hung heavy in my hands and yet it was passing irrevocably. Loads of homework and new duties, related to my Prefect function, allowed me to hold out till December. Snow covered the school-grounds, Christmas decorations appeared in Hogwart and finally a longed-for day had come when most of the students left the school for two long weeks. Only a few persons remained and, to my silent satisfaction, none of them was from the Slytherin. I stayed in the dungeons alone and that was exactly what I needed.
As usual, the Christmas feast took place in the Great Hall. There were only two teachers: Headmaster Dippet and professor Solaris who lectured Astronomy. From their side I didn't expect any problems. Dippet was too busy to lose his precious time for patrolling the corridors while Solaris never left at night his office on the top of the Northern Tower.
Hogwart stood wide open.
*
I DID IT. After more than one thousand years the heir of Slytherin opened the
Chamber of Secrets.
If I hadn't acted so naively and recklessly, could we have avoided everything that happened later ? If I had taken seriously the legend about the horror concealed in the Chamber of Secrets, would I have hesitated before I opened the hidden door?
I don't know...besides, it doesn't matters now. I can't change the past. I will never again help Amis in his homework, Esculap will never see the proud shapes of his beloved pyramids. I have innocent blood on my hands, which still burns me like an infernal fire.
And it all happened because I had underestimated the power of hatred... I found neither mighty forces nor a deep knowledge in the Chamber of Secrets. Nothing, that would make me a wizard as powerful as my famous ancestor.
Instead, I found a basilisk. When I saw it for the first time - huge coils of a dark grey, scaled body, slowly emerging from the stone mouth of a gigantic statue of Slytherin - I thought it was a guardian of the Chamber. I spoke to it in the Parseltongue but I had an impression that the reptile had known perfectly well before, who I was. It crept to me, its grey scales rubbing softly against the stony floor, and put its head on my feet in a gesture I interpreted as a respectful bow.
'Ave, the heir of Ssslytherin' it hissed pronouncing a consonant 's' in a reptilish manner.
'Who...who are you ?' I uttered.
The basilisk rose proudly its head and only then I noticed that its eyes were closed.
'I'm a Ssslytherin'sss vengeance,' it said solemnly 'And they alssso call me Tanathosss, an Incarnate Death. I'm who carriesss death to the impure onesss.'
Beast's ominous hiss was filled with such a horrible hatred and cruelty that I shuddered. I knew almost too well who the word 'impure' referred to. And I realised that Thanatos was nothing else but a secret weapon of Slytherin, by means of which his heir (that is to say: me) was to settle accounts with all Mudbloods, profaning the holly grounds of Hogwart.
If I had listened to reason then ! If I had closed the Chamber of Secrets before Tanathos started to take its deadly toll... But I couldn't find it in my heart to do that. I didn't want to. I had spent more than three years of my life on searching, three years of hard, laborious work. I couldn't ruin it just like that. I couldn't renounce a dream of glory and power.
Tanathos was a basilisk; its look could kill. Millenium is only an instant for those long-lived reptiles, which can remain for centuries in a strange lethargy, resembling more death than a dream. But now Thanatos has already woken up.
It was hungry. And blood thirsty.
In the middle of January the first student was attacked.
4. Chamber of Secrets
The Dark Arts fascinated Slytherin and there were neither witch nor wizard who would have studied them so thoroughly as he had done. After leaving Hogwart he burrowed in his old, family castle, hidden among the stony slopes of the Caledonian Mountains and began long, arduous studies, which several years later resulted in the Slytherin's most beloved work, the Chamber of Secrets.
For the first time I found out about it in a thick volume of the 'Hogwart: the history', in the chapter 'Myths and legends'. According to the olds stories, Slytherin had built a secret room in Hogwart that could have been found and opened only by himself or by his expectant heir. He hid there something terrifying, something that the heir of Slytherin was to set free in the future and so to rid Hogwart of the Muggle-born students. That was Slytherin's revenge. Of course, the authors of the book stressed in unison that the Chamber of Secrets was only a legend. For centuries many famous witches and wizard have tried to find the secret room. In vain.
The story made a great impression on me. I always thought that the legends didn't arise from nothing and that in any of them there was a bit of truth. Though I didn't believed in the stories about a hidden horror, which I took rather for a trick making it darker and more horrifying, I was sure that there was a secret room somewhere at Hogwart, untrodden from the times of Slytherin. I decided to be the one who would find the Chamber of Secrets.
I didn't expect, however, that the task would appear so difficult. The first obstacle I met as early as the next day when I tried to learn something more about the Chamber of Secrets. After a ten-hours long hard work and digging myself through the dozens of old books it turned out, to my rage and despair, that in the school library 'Hogwart: the history' was the only source of information about the Slytherin's secret.
I came to a dead stop and I completely didn't know what should I do; I couldn't ask a teacher for help, after all. Nothing remained but to search again through a huge pile of the books, which I had gathered on three adjoining tables in the library's corner, hopeful that I would find something I had missed during the first reading.
And I was in luck. It was about midnight and my eyes have already started to close themselves when I noticed a hand-written note, scribbled on a margin of a compendium: 'The greatest of the world from A to Z', in the chapter dedicated to Salazar Slytherin. The note, written in haste, was very poor readable but after a while I succeeded in making out its contents: The Great Ministerial Library. All sleepiness left me in a moment and I was ready to go to London in that very second. I believed that in the Ministerial Library, an immense source of knowledge, I would find a track leading to the Chamber of Secrets.
I started to count off the days till the end of the semester. Finally the exams had passed (I got the maximal marks from all the subjects) and the Hogwart Express took me back to the Muggle world. But instead of changing a train for the one to Liverpool, I went to look for the Ministry of Magic, provided with a precise plan of the city.
I quickly found the Ministry and after a while I stood, speechless, on the threshold of the largest library rooms I have ever seen. The shelves as high that their tops disappeared in the great distance extended through the whole chamber in dozens of rows. There must have been millions of book and I was sure that sooner or later (though I preferred not to specify too exactly that 'later") I would find among them what I have been dreaming about for weeks.
So I stared to look for. After six days of systematic work, which I began at dusk and finished after dark (I slept under the open sky on a small lane of the London suburbs, covered with the used newspapers; I had completely omitted the fact that I had no money!), I finally found a longed-for track. A book, which made my heart beating widely, was very old, worn out and didn't have a title page but judging by its contents I must have been written by someone from the Slytherin's family in the XIV or XV century. The book, a tribute paid to the famous ancestor, told in details the story of Salazar's life. From my point of view the most interesting chapters referred to his activity after leaving Hogwart, when, according to the legend, he was preparing his bloody revenge.
And there, among the yellowish pages of the old parchment, I found a clue to solve a riddle. It was a copy of Slytherin's original notes that, according to the author of the book, described precisely how to get to the Chamber of Secrets. That was what I was looking for ! Only one small hitch held me from giving a wild cry of triumph; Slytherin's note was completely obscure for me. And I don't mean it was written in a foreign or archaic language. It WASN'T language at all. The page was covered with strange, sinuous signs that joined in some greater structures, but they reminded rather drawings than letters and words. I had no idea what they indicated but I was sure that the piece of paper was a key to the Chamber of Secrets. I tore out the page and, decided to clear up the riddle of mysterious signs, I set off to Liverpool.
But during the holidays I didn't move a single step towards the understanding of Slytherin's notes. Now I was counting off the days to the beginning of the school year and to coming back to my beloved magic.
I didn't expect that everything would change in autumn...
Amis Dumbledore was a grandson of Aberforth Dumbledore, a younger brother of the transfiguration teacher. He began learning in Hogwart one year after I did. He was sorted to the Slytherin and, as he confessed me later, form the very first day he was sure that I would become his best friend.
I have no idea what made him draw such a supposition. If he had know me he would have realised how much we differed from each other. And yet, as it was to turn out in the future, we had more in common than any of us could have expected...
Amis was a shy and quiet boy. His family name, already famous and esteemed in the magical world due to Albus Dumbledore, overwhelmed him. He considered, and no without a reason, that the whole family expected him to follow in his grandfather's brother footsteps, whereas Amis, though shrewd and intelligent, didn't have Albus Dumbledore's talent. And he was aware of it. He was often telling me that his greatest dream was to burrow in some high mountains and dedicated to the astronomy, which he loved.
If Amis was afraid that he would be favoured by the teachers because of his surname, he could have a sigh of relief. He was treated like the other students and many times I have been poring with him over the books till midnight, helping him in his Transfiguration and Potions homework lest he fails his next exercise.
That obvious fact seemed not to convince Persus Potter. As I threatened his megalomania with my talent, so Amis did with his surname. But if I was usually very resistant to his provoking, Amis took deeply to heart all rancorous remarks and many a time he came back to the dormitory with tears in his eyes.
I think that it was Potter's hostility against both of us, which caused that I began to notice Dumbledore's quiet grandson, that to sympathize with him and finally we became friends. And who had once overcome Amis' mistrust and really knew him, couldn't not to love him.
During the holidays I visited London again (it was the last moment; several weeks later a Battle of England began) and once more I spent long hours over the old books but I didn't find out anything new.
I was really frustrated. For the first time in my life I met a problem I couldn't solve and it put me in a rage. I have been staring at the Slytherin's note for hours, trying to search a secret hidden in it.
I came back among the safe walls of Hogwart with relief (the war was storming in the Muggle world) and I began the third year of studies. Sometimes I wanted to share the secret of my descent with Amis but always something held me back. Beside, I promised Dumbledore.
September was particularly warm and sonny so we past most of our free time outside the castle. One afternoon, when we Amis and I were sitting at the lake, we noticed a first-year Hufllepuff boy wandering close to us.
A first-year usually associates with someone small and rather inconspicuous, but that didn't suit Rubeus Hagrid at all. Of an adult man stature, broad-shouldered and of powerful build, he had thick, dark, matted hair and small, black eyes, now looking intently for something in the grass. He didn't notice us until he stepped on Amis.
'Ups, sorry.' he mumbled in confusion 'But I'm lookin'...mean...didn't see a snake ?'
We looked at each other bewildered and in unison shook our heads negatively. Hagrid looked disconsolate.
'Escapin' me all the time' he said in a tone of explanation, mumbled excuses once more and started to comb out the rushes at the lake shore.
We were observing him for a while and then we returned to reading. A half an hour had passed (Hagrid had already reached the opposite side o the lake) when I heard a strange, hissing whisper, coming from the nearby reeds.
'He hasss finally gone,' somebody said with a distinct satisfaction 'Now I can return to the foressst.'
I fixed my eyes on the rushes, expecting some human being to emerge from them in a moment. But nothing happened. I was about to get up and look for the owner of a mysterious voice, when I heard it again, this time somewhere very close.
'Foressst, foressst,' now it was almost a joyful singing 'My sssweet home.'
I looked in the direction the sounds were coming from and I leapt to my feet; The Runs textbook fell into the water with a splash. A small, green-brown snake was creeping along the lake.
'Foressst, autumnal foressst' it was humming.
I was staring at it, completely crestfallen. I understood it and that meant I was a Parselmouth. But how could it be? The only wizard who could ever speak that strange language was...SLYTHERIN !!!
And then I understood. It was so unexpected that I almost lost my breath and sat down on the grass heavily.
Slytherin's note has been written in the Parseltongue.
A conversation with that extremely intelligent creature was always very interesting and instructive, and not only in respect of linguistic. Esculap, an old reptile, came from Egypt. He arrived to England, against his own will, by a merchant ship, where he fell asleep after devouring an exceptionally tasty mouse. When he woke up after several days, he discovered with horror that the whole world had shrunken to the size of a big house, from all sides surrounded by water. Till today he was in wonder that he hadn't lost his mind during this terrible journey. When the ship had finally harboured in a port, Esculap shot from the deck like a rocket and he didn't stop until he reached the forest. For some time he has been healing his shattered nerves there and then he started on a journey across the unknown county, which to his great disappointment turned out to be an island; a very big one, but still an island. Finally he got to the Forbidden Forest where Hagrid caught him.
Esculap always talked with a great nostalgia about his lost homeland. He assured me that for thousands of years the magic has been very well developed there and he was sure I would find many interesting things there. Listening to those stories I decided that after finishing Hogwart I would go to Egypt. I promised Esculap to take him with me and he was beside himself with joy. If only the snakes could cry he would have tears in his eyes.
After a year of our friendship I knew the syntax and grammar of the Parseltongue. Now I could begin a laborious translating of Slytherin's instructions, which surely were the unique recording of the reptile language. I felt as if I was trying to break a very complicated code or Egyptian hieroglyphs.
It took another year but finally, at the end of July of 1942, I had an exact translation of Salazar Slytherin's note in front of my eyes.
I knew where the Chamber of Secrets was.
Those were the longest four months in my life. I couldn't focus my thoughts on nothing else but the Chamber of Secrets. Every night I spent sleepless hours, wondering what I would find behind the hidden entrance, mentioned in the Slytherin's note. Some new, unknown powers? Might of my ancestor that I, his heir, was supposed to acquire ? Or something completely different ? The note didn't precise it so I was inventing the most weird possibilities, completely rendering trite the fact that the Chamber of Secrets was a fruit of vengeance.
Every now and then I was seized with anxiety. And what if after recovering the Chamber I won't be able to open it ? If I will have to use the Dark Arts I knew nothing about those days? Though Slytherin wrote that the main trump card of the future discoverer was his inheritance, it didn't dispel all my fears. I could only hope that indeed Salazar's instructions told everything what I should know.
Time hung heavy in my hands and yet it was passing irrevocably. Loads of homework and new duties, related to my Prefect function, allowed me to hold out till December. Snow covered the school-grounds, Christmas decorations appeared in Hogwart and finally a longed-for day had come when most of the students left the school for two long weeks. Only a few persons remained and, to my silent satisfaction, none of them was from the Slytherin. I stayed in the dungeons alone and that was exactly what I needed.
As usual, the Christmas feast took place in the Great Hall. There were only two teachers: Headmaster Dippet and professor Solaris who lectured Astronomy. From their side I didn't expect any problems. Dippet was too busy to lose his precious time for patrolling the corridors while Solaris never left at night his office on the top of the Northern Tower.
Hogwart stood wide open.
If I hadn't acted so naively and recklessly, could we have avoided everything that happened later ? If I had taken seriously the legend about the horror concealed in the Chamber of Secrets, would I have hesitated before I opened the hidden door?
I don't know...besides, it doesn't matters now. I can't change the past. I will never again help Amis in his homework, Esculap will never see the proud shapes of his beloved pyramids. I have innocent blood on my hands, which still burns me like an infernal fire.
And it all happened because I had underestimated the power of hatred... I found neither mighty forces nor a deep knowledge in the Chamber of Secrets. Nothing, that would make me a wizard as powerful as my famous ancestor.
Instead, I found a basilisk. When I saw it for the first time - huge coils of a dark grey, scaled body, slowly emerging from the stone mouth of a gigantic statue of Slytherin - I thought it was a guardian of the Chamber. I spoke to it in the Parseltongue but I had an impression that the reptile had known perfectly well before, who I was. It crept to me, its grey scales rubbing softly against the stony floor, and put its head on my feet in a gesture I interpreted as a respectful bow.
'Ave, the heir of Ssslytherin' it hissed pronouncing a consonant 's' in a reptilish manner.
'Who...who are you ?' I uttered.
The basilisk rose proudly its head and only then I noticed that its eyes were closed.
'I'm a Ssslytherin'sss vengeance,' it said solemnly 'And they alssso call me Tanathosss, an Incarnate Death. I'm who carriesss death to the impure onesss.'
Beast's ominous hiss was filled with such a horrible hatred and cruelty that I shuddered. I knew almost too well who the word 'impure' referred to. And I realised that Thanatos was nothing else but a secret weapon of Slytherin, by means of which his heir (that is to say: me) was to settle accounts with all Mudbloods, profaning the holly grounds of Hogwart.
If I had listened to reason then ! If I had closed the Chamber of Secrets before Tanathos started to take its deadly toll... But I couldn't find it in my heart to do that. I didn't want to. I had spent more than three years of my life on searching, three years of hard, laborious work. I couldn't ruin it just like that. I couldn't renounce a dream of glory and power.
Tanathos was a basilisk; its look could kill. Millenium is only an instant for those long-lived reptiles, which can remain for centuries in a strange lethargy, resembling more death than a dream. But now Thanatos has already woken up.
It was hungry. And blood thirsty.
In the middle of January the first student was attacked.