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Chapter 16 ~ Chamber of Secrets
"What?" Harry asked dimly.
"What?" Ron echoed.
"Huh?" Becky asked dumbly.
"The parchments and quills were spelled. I had to write down everything I had found out, what was going on. How everyone was reacting to certain things- like James and Lily." His eyes grew to three times their normal size. "I didn't mean to!" he stuttered. "I couldn't help it! I'd never turn in Lily on purpose! I'd never want to! I mean, I didn't want to! And I didn't want that to happen to Soup, either!"
"How did you get in contact with Voldemort?" Ron asked. Harry collapsed into a chair nearby, and Becky stayed where she was, still staring at Doug with the same blank expression.
"My mum."
"What?" Harry asked.
"What?" Ron echoed.
"Huh?" Becky asked feebly. She face was pure white by now.
"I don't know how she got in contact with him, but I think she's known about him for a long time."
"No wonder," Ron muttered as he sank into a chair.
"Excuse me?" Harry asked, incredulous.
"In Diagon Alley, I kept hearing her talk about Voldemort and other things involving the wizarding world. I thought that perhaps Neville had filled her in, but now that I think of it, he would have never mentioned Voldemort's name."
They sat in silence for a while in shock. Becky managed to squeak another "Huh?" towards the end.
"So Voldemort was here the entire time," Harry spat.
Ron nodded silently. Doug looked down at his feet.
Suddenly, the door opened, and Hermione and Malfoy rushed in. "Harry!" Hermione shouted. "James is missing."
"So is Lily. It was Voldemort, Hermione. He was here the entire time, and we never even knew." Harry went on to explain about the letters from Doug to his mum and Voldemort.
"May I see the parchment and quills?" Hermione inquired.
Doug nodded and ran to get some of the spares he had kept. Within a few seconds, he was back. He handed the objects to Hermione, who sat down with them and started muttering over them with her wand.
Finally, she looked up. "He's right. These things were spelled. He couldn't resist writing, telling the truth, and he couldn't tell anyone about it. I could find out more, but I'd need time and the laboratory."
"Then how come he told us?" Becky asked.
Hermione smiled crookedly. "I think Voldemort keeps making the same mistake. Love can do a lot."
"I don't love Lily!" Doug nearly shouted quickly.
Ron and Harry looked at each other, but they couldn't resist small grins.
"Of course you don't, dear," Hermione said, imitating Madam Pomfrey. She grinned at Doug to show she was kidding. "That isn't the only kind of love, Doug."
"And I can assure you," Harry spoke up, "that even if you and Lily did love each other in 'that way,' I'm not going to let her out of the house for centuries after this, and it'll be longer until she starts dating."
Malfoy cleared his throat. "I think the Wonder Team is making plans for a future that may or may not be there."
Everyone stared at him in disbelief, disbelief that not only they hadn't been worrying about Lily, but that they had been making plans for her future while she was in Voldemort's hands, and the fact that Malfoy had been the one to speak up about it.
"What?" Malfoy asked irately. "It's true. Don't you think we should get those two away from Voldemort first?" He cleared his throat loudly as he realized he had said "we."
"Are you saying that you want to help us?" Harry asked slowly.
Malfoy wrung his hands around his wand. "Not exactly- Well, maybe. I think so, but then again... I think..."
Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked at each other. They quickly looked away, not wanting Malfoy to see how shocked they were. It was common knowledge that Malfoy's family had fought with Voldemort, but Malfoy seemed to be offering to fight against him.
Becky jumped up from where she was sitting. "The spiders!" she shouted.
Everyone looked to the wall she was pointing at. Spiders were indeed crawling through the cracks and covering everything. Ron and Malfoy moved back a few steps unconsciously.
Becky walked closer to the wall until she picked out Brownie. She tried to remember the Areanatu she had learned from Lily and Brownie.
Hello, she said in halting Areanatu.
Girl, keep your day job, Brownie recommended. Becky, however, didn't hear her. The girl's ears weren't sharp enough to catch it.
"What is she saying?" everyone behind her asked at once.
"I don't know," Becky said irritably. "I can't hear her, anyway."
Brownie thought hard. She needed a way to speak to them, but they couldn't hear her. The spiders knew where Lily and James were, but these humans were too deaf. Athena curse them!
Suddenly, though, Brownie had an idea. She called to the other spiders and watched, slightly pleased although it wasn't the proper time for it, that Malfoy jumped onto the couch and tried to use Ron as a wall. Ron pulled him off the couch and jumped on himself.
Brownie gave instructions and directed as four rows of spiders, varying in color and size, formed a straight line. She slowly directed the ends of the line to curve together.
"O?" Harry asked.
Brownie shook her head and directed the ends of the lines to pull apart a little.
"I think it's a 'C'," Hermione said. The others nodded in agreement.
Brownie straightened out the "C" and brought in two more lines of spiders.
"H," everyone present muttered.
Brownie kept directing other spiders to make letters. Soon, the humans had a chain of them.
"A."
"M."
"B."
"E."
"R."
"O."
"F."
"S."
"E."
"C."
"R."
"E."
"Chamber of Secrets!" Harry shouted as he jumped up. Brownie applauded with her two front legs and dispersed the spiders. The rest of her eight-legged friends spread out over the wall, waiting to watch and see what happened next.
"We need a plan," Hermione muttered to herself.
Ron was about to say that they didn't, but he stopped himself in time and sat in silence, thinking deeply.
Harry gave up on thinking. "Hermione, if it's taking you this long to come up with a plan," he finally said after thirty seconds, "then there probably isn't one to come up with."
Hermione bit her lip. "There has to be something Voldemort forgot," she insisted.
"Voldemort?" Malfoy asked. "You honestly think he would let something be forgotten when he has the chance to kill Harry? He's probably taken care of everything- even if it's so menial as to be a stray hair. Trust me, I'd know. If I tried to kill Harry- not that I have," he noted with a small but unmistakably evil grin, "but I'd make sure I got it right the third time."
"So there's nothing we can do..." Hermione said more to herself than to them. "Maybe we could wait him out?"
She looked up to the faces of everyone else in the room, all staring at her as if she were an idiot.
"Or not. But there must be something!"
"How about this?" Harry proposed. "We go in there. We're a group. We can take him on."
"Well, we could at least get some more help then."
"The teachers are all busy in the infirmary. The ghosts are helping them. The paintings can't do anything."
"Surely-"
"Hermione," Harry said forcefully.
Hermione sighed. Her eyes suddenly lit up. "Wait here!" she shouted back to them as she dashed off.
"But Lily and James!" Harry shouted after her. When he got no response, he sank into a chair. He was perfectly willing to fight Voldemort, but he knew he was much better off fighting him with Ron and Hermione at his side.
* * *
Lily eyes blinked open. Besides feeling a bit groggy, she felt perfectly fine. Not even a scratch on her. There was a pipe sticking into her back, but that was nothing major. She moved a bit and relaxed. She started as she saw James sitting next to her, his back against a wall.
"Hey, Lily," he said softly.
"James?" she asked.
He nodded. He looked to something slightly behind her, as if checking it. She didn't have the nerve to see what he was looking at.
"What happened?" she asked.
"Voldemort happened," James said dryly. "He got enough energy and power and all that from the two of us to become human again." Lily sat up and scooted onto the wall next to him, still not looking at what he had looked at seconds before. "He's using us as bait to get Harry here."
"He isn't-" Lily flashed back to her dreams from when she had been younger. She gasped and covered her mouth with a hand. "He wouldn't-"
James looked at her evenly. The light was dim, but Lily could still see that his eyes were red a slightly puffy. Suddenly, he hugged her. She hugged back. So James was James again. Her brother was back. Too bad Voldemort would kill them all now.
"We can't let him do it, James. We can't."
"I know. But I can't-" James swallowed. "I can't go up against him again, Lily. You have no idea what he-" He cut himself off and shivered. "I couldn't do a thing, Lily. I couldn't do a thing."
She hugged him. "It's all right now. But we have to try and get out of here. Tell Harry that Voldemort is in his own body again."
James slowly nodded.
"Do you know where we are?"
James nodded and sniffled a bit. He shivered again and then became calm again. "We're in the Chamber of Secrets."
"Chamber of Secrets," Lily muttered to herself. She grinned a little as the life and vivaciousness sprang back into her eyes. "James?" she asked.
"Hmm?"
"Can you still talk to snakes?"
He looked up at her. "Parseltongue? Of course I can. But how? All the snakes left, remember?"
Lily nodded. "But they're in the Forbidden Forest, and Parseltongue carries, just like Areanatu. See that pipe?" Lily indicated the pipe near her back. "I think that pipe goes outside. If we're lucky, it'll still reach the Forest."
"If."
Lily nodded again and shrugged. "But it's the best bet we have."
"How will it help us, though?"
"Because those creatures, along with spiders, outnumber any creatures in this place, And Voldemort can't fight off all of them."
"But surely some of them will-"
Lily nodded, understanding. "Sure, but they want to get back at Voldemort. And they have a witch and wizard to help them."
* * *
Hermione dashed back into the Gryffindor House's common room. Her smile was erased from her face when she saw that the room looked nearly bare. Harry, Ron, Malfoy, and the kids were there, but for some reason, the room still looked incredibly empty. She realized what it was with a shock.
"Where are the spiders?"
Becky shrugged. She was playing chess with Doug, waiting until they could go into the Chamber. "Don't know. They left. I tried to find out why, but Brownie didn't answer back."
"If they understood what she was saying," Doug said. "Becky shouted in English, so we know they heard. I think the Ravenclaws heard, and the Hufflepuffs, so the spiders definitely must have heard. They just either didn't understand us or ignored us." He ordered one of his bishops to take one of Becky's knights and watched, pleased, as the bishop lifted its staff and knocked the knight off its horse. Becky pouted indignantly and nearly put her king in check.
Malfoy looked up from the cookies he was eating in the kitchen. Hermione saw that he had drowned them in vanilla ice cream. "I'm glad those blasted creatures left. I've finally gotten my appetite back." He stuck a spoonful of slop into his mouth and gave a happy sigh.
"I never thought I would agree with Malfoy," Ron said regrettably, "but I do."
Hermione's brow creased in disapproval. Harry had fallen asleep while waiting for her. She was glad he was finally getting sleep; he hadn't had a perfect night's sleep in years, but he could choose the absolute worst times to catch up on his beauty rest. She kicked the chair he was in and he snorted awake. Becky giggled, and one of her chessmen tried to cheat. He was beaten off by Doug's queen.
"Well, if you're interested," Hermione said, "I've brought help."
Professor Nadim stepped through the portrait hole. Along with the Yellow Lady and Nearly Headless Nick.
"Hope we can tag along," Nick said. "Hermione figured we could do some good, since we can walk through walls and- well, of course you know all that."
"They do, dear. They do," the Yellow Lady told him.
"You know me, Lady," Nick said with a grin. "Always trying to make sure everyone knows everything."
The Lady covered her mouth daintily and giggled.
Becky and Doug looked at each other, along with everyone else in the room, both looking as if they wanted to throw up.
Professor Nadim, behind them, stepped forward. "The other teachers didn't need me for anything. I thought I might help somewhere along the way."
Harry nodded gratefullly. "Thanks, Woodrow. I appreciate it."
"We appreciate it," Ron corrected.
"We," Hermione agreed.
"Yeah, Woodrow," Malfoy said with a sneer. "Thanks for going along with us on our suicide mission. Want some cookies n' cream? Muggle food. Awful, but it falls into the tastes of people around here."
Hermione covered her hand with her mouth and bit her finger, staring at the "muggle food" with a murderous look in her eyes. Harry and Ron smiled at each other uncertainly.
Malfoy grinned at her, and Hermione gave a small humph and made a book appear with her wand in the air. Holding her hands out, she let the book fall into her arms. "These are some spells we'll need to know. Mostly for protection. Becky, Doug, you two will be staying here."
"But Hermione!" Doug and Becky shouted.
"Harry, don't let her," Becky begged.
"Yeah, Ron. You too! Don't let her!" Doug joined in.
"No," Hermione said firmly. "It's too dangerous."
"She's right," Ron said slowly.
Becky and Doug's mouths dropped. Becky stepped back and sniffled quickly. She took one last look at Hermione, who looked away, and dashed off to her bedroom. After giving Hermione a quick glare, which the woman pretended not to notice, Doug went after her.
Hermione cleared her throat when they had gotten out of earshot. "Now," she began.
It seemed like forever, but they finally left.
"Ready?" Doug asked.
"Aren't I always?" Becky retorted.
"You know, I know you won't like my saying this, but I don't think a bunch of protection spells taken from our first year DADA (Defense Against the Dark Arts) books are going to help us much."
"Shows what you know. Come on." Haughtily, Becky led the way downstairs.
Doug wrung his hands around his wand nervously. "Becky, we don't even know where the Chamber of Secrets is."
"You don't," she replied. "They were going to destroy it. There were a whole bunch of plans for it and everything, but then Malfoy figured he wanted it for his Potions classes." Doug shivered at the thought of having Potions somewhere worse than the dungeons. "Yeah," Becky said, seeing him try to cover up for it. "He was trying to convince everyone to let him, but he brought everything to a standstill. That was two or three years ago. I doubt anyone knows about it now."
"We still can't defeat Voldemort," Doug pointed out.
"We aren't going to beat him, just help out Harry, Ron, and Hermione a bit. All right?"
Doug mumbled something in response.
Becky quickened her pace. She wasn't going to admit it to Doug, but she was following the two pearly and yellow-colored ghosts in front of them. If they didn't go to the Chamber of Secrets and changed their minds or something, Becky and Doug were out of luck.
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