Wow, that's longer than I expected. Sorry about that. On to the story:
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Chapter Twenty-One: The Tapestry Revelation
With Daedalus restored and winter dragging on, March became a haze of boredom. Beth's mad scramble to fix the Polyjuice potion had been like a breakthrough; after that, Alchemy wasn't nearly as much of a struggle. The S.S.A had gotten nowhere on their search for the Heir or the Chamber of Secrets. There hadn't even been an attack since before Christmas, and people were starting to say that the Heir of Slytherin was in hibernation.
"I think we should prank the Gryffindors," Melissa said lazily, as they lounged in front of the fire one afternoon.
Beth, doodling snakes on a scrap of parchment, didn't even look up to say, "Doesn't that take work?"
"Yeah, you're right," sighed Melissa, snuggling farther into her chair. "Too much trouble for one little laugh." She twirled a piece of hair around her finger. "What about the Hufflepuffs?"
"Have a heart, Mel," said Bruce, who was engaged in a halfhearted game of chess with Mervin on the floor. "They took enough of a beating at their last Quidditch match."
Melissa giggled. "Oh right."
There was a pause.
"I guess that leaves the Ravenclaws then."
"Mel, we're not going to prank the Ravenclaws," Beth said patiently. She thought for a minute. "Unless you come up with something really good."
"Boo-yah! Who's your daddy?" bellowed Bruce from the floor, as one of his bishops dragged off Mervin's last knight.
"Not you," sniffed Mervin, ordering his rook forward.
Beth stared into the fire, getting sleepy. She roused herself and sat up. "I have to go for a walk, or I'm going to fall asleep," she announced, although no one was listening to her. She stepped over the chess game and went to the door, only to hear a whoop from Bruce and the familiar clunk of a chess piece getting knocked out.
"Oh," said Mervin dejectedly. "Maybe you are my daddy."
The halls of Hogwarts were fairly silent; one or two students were on their way to the library or a study session, but on the whole there were very few people about. Beth meandered through the corridors without purpose. On a whim, she turned into the Great Hall and walked around the empty tables, which would stand silent until dinner. She smiled at the picture of Helga Hufflepuff, turned up her nose at the tapestry of Godric Gryffindor (who eyed her suspiciously), and stopped in front of the tapestry of Salazar Slytherin.
"Where's your Chamber?" she said idly, gazing into the long, goateed face. "Where've you hidden your legacy?" But the embroidered face remained stern and silent; Salazar Slytherin had nothing to say. Only the plumed serpent at his feet wound sinuously, as if feeling cooped up by the constraints of cloth.
It was really a fantastic tapestry, Beth thought. The knotwork design around the edges was so intricate: bands of gold, interwoven like a wicker basket ... they seemed to have an unusual irregularity ... but yet an obvious, continuous purpose ...
Beth leaned closer to the portrait until her nose was right up against Salazar's face. "Tell me your secret, greatest of the Hogwarts four," she breathed, staring into the embroidered slit eyes.
There was a sound of tearing. Beth jumped back. The serpent was flexing its long coils, winding around the space at Salazar's feet. Then it slithered out of the center of the picture and up to the edge of the knotwork. It flicked its tongue at one thick strand of gold; then it slithered onto the band and started following it around the edge, ducking under crisscrossing bands as if they were bridges.
Beth watched, fascinated, as the little plumed snake circled the border. It came out into an open space at the bottom, twisted around a bit, and then took the same path back to where it had come from. It coiled contentedly at Salazar's feet.
Incredible, thought Beth. It had followed the design as if was a tangle of roads ... or of tunnels ... or hallways --
"Show me that again," she said suddenly.
The snake flicked a lazy tongue and remained still.
She racked her brains for the words she'd said before. "Tell me your secret!" Nothing. "Come on, you stupid snake!" The serpent hissed and buried its head in its coils. "Follow the path again -- greatest of the Hogwarts four!"
The cloth serpent raised its head grudgingly and slunk to the edge of the portrait, where it started following the knotwork path. "That's the same path you took before," Beth wondered. The serpent hissed as if that should have been obvious. It reached the open space at the bottom of the tapestry and stopped, giving Beth a very meaningful look. Then it retraced its trail once again.
Beth's eyes widened. "Oh," she said stupidly. "If that place at the bottom is the Great Hall -- and you follow that ribbon -- you get to --"
The serpent had reached the center of the tapestry and was bobbing its head expectantly.
"The Chamber of Secrets!"
Melissa sat up with a start as Beth came skidding into the common room, bowling over several of Mervin's chess pieces.
"Hey, I was winning!" said Bruce in annoyance.
Beth dropped down into their midst. "I know how to get to the Chamber of Secrets," she said in a low voice.
The reaction wasn't nearly as dramatic as she'd hoped. Melissa wrinkled her brow skeptically. Mervin, gathering up his chess pieces, didn't seem to have even heard her. "What are you on about?" Bruce demanded, over the complaints of his chessmen.
"I know how to get to the Chamber of Secrets," she said again. "The tapestry in the Great Hall shows the path. You ask it, and a snake shows you how to go."
Finally, the others started to catch on. "You mean -- Salazar's Chamber of Secrets?" Melissa said, her eyes suddenly bright.
"Yeah, that's what I've been telling you! All we have to do is follow this path, and it'll take us right there!"
Mervin looked, as usual, skeptical. "Why do we even want to go in there? There's some enormous monster down there, remember?"
He had a point. "Well -- if we can sneak in, we might be able to see it without getting attacked," Beth argued valiantly. "Once find out what's been attacking students, maybe Professor Lockhart can teach us how to fight it."
Bruce snorted. "Or maybe he can teach us how to smile and talk at the same time."
"All right then, Kettleburn," Beth snapped. "Or Dumbledore, or Snape, or anybody else, for crying out loud. The important thing is that we get in to see!"
"Do you have a map?" asked Melissa.
Which is why they found themselves back in the Great Hall, begging the embroidered serpent to make its rounds one more time.
"All right, do your thing," Bruce ordered, to no avail. The serpent shook its plumed head doggedly.
"Please?" said Melissa, biting her lip.
"Show us the path, greatest of the Hogwarts four," Beth said dramatically, and the snake, heaving a sigh of resignation, started around the tapestry again while Mervin recorded its path on a piece of parchment, muttering all the while.
"Left turn ... under a bridge -- wait, now it's over ... right, right again ... through a little loop ... wish he'd slow down a little!" The snake reached the bottom and turned around. "All right, double-checking now ... got that ... got that ... turn here ... all right!" Mervin exclaimed, when the plumed serpent once again coiled around Salazar's feet.
He laid the finished map on the table and they crowded around it anxiously.
"So we're here ..." Bruce murmured, tapping the map with one finger. "If this is the Great Hall, you go out and turn ... right ... down the hall ... what's this mean, where it overlaps another line?"
"It's a staircase," Melissa said excitedly. "Going up." She snatched up the map. "Come on, let's not just look at it!" And she took off, parchment in hand.
They got lost twice before Bruce took control of the map. He led them through four floors and down innumerable hallways, all the time muttering things like "Left ... then another left ..." and "Well that might do it."
They came into a hallway and Bruce pointed down at the map. "Straight stretch," he grunted. Beth leaned over his shoulder excitedly.
"Look, this is the end!" Beth said, forging on ahead. "You just follow this hall -- go so many steps -- and it takes you right to --"
"A lavatory," said Mervin.
Beth looked up. They stood in front of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. She let out a groan.
"Where did we go wrong?"
Bruce was looking at the map, turning it around and around and muttering to himself. Finally he looked up and shook his head.
"I don't think we did."
"Right, Salazar Slytherin hid his secret chamber in a girls' room," said Mervin sarcastically.
"And why not?" Melissa bristled. "It would keep all the chauvinists away at least." She crossed her arms.
Mervin held up his hands. "Okay -- all right -- maybe this is it. Sheesh."
They crept inside, careful that no one was in there. Beth looked around.
"Myrtle?"
There was no answer. "I'll bet she got flushed," Melissa guessed, with a little grin. "Sometimes she ends up in the lake. All the better. It's hard to think with her moaning about."
Bruce was poking around in the corners already. "Must be a door here somewhere," he muttered, crawling around on the floor. "Trapdoor -- lever maybe -- a marker at least --"
Suddenly Melissa let out a squeal of excitement. "Look here! On the sink!"
They crowded around the sink where she stood. Mervin stood up too quickly and smacked his head on a toilet before coming over to join them. Melissa eagerly pointed toward a copper pipe leading towards the faucet.
There was a tiny snake etched into the pipe. "The symbol of Slytherin," Melissa said dramatically. "This is it. I can feel it!"
"There isn't a keyhole," Mervin noted dourly, rubbing the back of his head.
Bruce was inspecting it closer. "It's got to be password-protected. What would the password be?"
There followed a clamor as everyone did their best to crack the password.
"Open the Chamber of Secrets!"
"Alohomora!"
"Salazar Slytherin is my hero!" This from Bruce.
"Open Sesame!"
"Open in the name of Slytherin!"
"Open your chamber, greatest of the Hogwarts four!" Beth said triumphantly.
Nothing happened. Beth felt her face get red. "Well -- that was my best guess," she said, embarrassed.
Everyone stood looking at the pipe, but no one offered any more passwords.
Suddenly Mervin's face fell. "Oh no," he moaned, covering his face with his hands. "It's a snake guarding the entrance. We have to talk to the snake to make it open. And to talk to snakes --"
"You have to be a Parselmouth," Melissa finished in despair.
They stared at the pipe helplessly.