Chapter 17: No One Left to Lie To
By the time the latter half of the year was upon them, Quidditch seemed about the only thing around Hogwarts that had remained normal, or at least unchanged. Neville and Ron now viewed going to matches, as they had so often done these first two years, as a sort of escape.
Most of the time, they were able to drag Hermione along with them, despite her continued and fierce insistence that she had no care for broomsticks in any capacity and would be caught dead mounting one. But at this particular mid-morning match, she was missing, having snuck out the night before to do some research on the Chamber of Secrets.
"She should have taken the Cloak last night – it's quicker and safer," Ron muttered, starting to sound a little worried. Neville tried to take this in with amusement if only to counter-act how he too was beginning to become concerned as well. Hermione's sudden absence aside, he'd been concerned all year, to the point where he and his friends had decided to try and solve this Chamber of Secrets business themselves. Thinking back to the odd comments Draco had made the night Miss Norris was attacked, the three had managed to brew Polyjuice Potion to turn themselves into Slytherins. Ron and Neville took on the personas of Crabbe and Goyle to get closer to Malfoy. Although Malfoy had expressed obvious admiration for whoever this Heir of Slytherin was, he had also made clear that it wasn't he himself attacking the school.
Then there had been the bizarre incident in which, while trying to cover up where they had brewed Polyjuice Potion in a never-used bathroom, the same bathroom had flooded, the toilet water only offering up a diary, its saturated pages eerily blank. Through a bit of lucky trial and error, Neville had learned not only that the diary was somehow alive, but that its owner, Tom Riddle, knew of what had occurred the last time the Chamber of Secrets had been opened, half a century before. Evidence shown to Neville seemed to imply that, whatever had happened, Hagrid had somehow been involved, all the way up to a death of a student.
So far, no students had died this time, though Miss Norris had only become the first in a string of Petrification cases, and the teachers were starting to insist no student walked to and from classes alone during the day, let alone break curfew at nighttime. They hadn't seen Hermione at breakfast, and knowing how the lady never missed a meal, this was probably what was causing Ron to fear she hadn't come back last night.
"Maybe she's studying up in the girls' dormitory," Neville theorized.
Ron nodded absently, now taking to scanning over the heads of the throng gathering for the match. Neville felt a twinge of sympathy for him. "You won't find her here, Ron; she only comes to Quidditch if we drag her…."
"Yeah, yeah." A pause and then: "She should have taken the Cloak off of Potter."
"You said that already. Anyway, at this rate, Harry should start charging people to sign it out…."
They hit the base of the stairs leading up into the stands, just in time to see the Gryffindor Quidditch team pass by on their way to the pitch. The squad was suddenly met by Professor McGonagall, looking all a-dither.
"This match has been cancelled!"
Oliver Wood looked appalled, even outraged. "They can't cancel Quidditch!"
"Silence, Wood!" Turning brusquely, the Gryffindor Deputy Head of House caught sight of Neville and Ron, only for her expression to shatter oddly. "Longbottom, Weasley: I think you'd better come with me…"
Befuddled, the boys followed their Deputy Head of House all the way to the Hospital Wing; after the way she had reprimanded Wood for simply talking out of turn, they daren't refuse her. Approaching two cots side by side, Ron went as white as Peeves the Poltergeist when in the first bed he found:
"Hermione!"
Neville and Ron's best girl looked impossibly small amidst the bedclothes, stiff enough that she might be mistaken for dead and in rigor mortis. Neville's grief was only compounded when his gaze shifted the next cot over to see that little Harry Potter had been attacked too.
"They were found together, early this morning, near the library," McGonagall seemed to almost whimper.
Neville took this in curiously. If Hermione hadn't borrowed the Cloak to get to the library, then perhaps she had met Harry on the way back and they…. he shook his head. Only he didn't see the Cloak anywhere on either of their persons. Peering closer at Harry, he looked again. There, peeking out from under his sprawled body was the corner of a hem. If McGonagall or Madame Pomfrey had discovered it as evidence, it didn't appear that way. While Ron was barraging McGonagall with rapid-fire questions that ironically would have made Hermione proud, Neville sidled closer to Harry's body and surreptitiously worked the Cloak free from under his frozen form; he stuffed it into his robes, just in time for McGonagall to ask of the boys:
"I don't suppose either of you can identify this?" And she held up a small, handheld mirror. "It was on the floor next to them."
Neville gingerly accepted the mirror from her by its handle, turning it this way and that. He sadly shook his head. Ron haplessly shrugged.
"'Mione may be a girl, but that doesn't mean we've ever known her to put on make-up."
Neville somehow got the feeling that wasn't what the mirror was for, but he wasn't about to voice any unhelpful theories. Each pressing a kiss to Hermione's forehead (with Ron lingering a beat too long), the boys left, heartbroken.
It wasn't until they were clear of the Wing that Ron showed Neville how he had uncovered and smuggled out a clue of his own: a crumpled piece of paper, likely a page ripped out of a library book, which didn't sound like Hermione at all.
Yet, after reading it, Neville realized how their clever girl had, in all likelihood, cracked the code, just before she was Petrified.
To make sure Hermione's theory was correct, Neville and Ron had gone to Hagrid for answers. Using the Cloak they had taken off of Harry's Petrified body, the boys listened, invisible, as Draco Malfoy's father somehow strong-armed Dumbledore into temporarily leaving his post as Headmaster while also bringing Hagrid up on what Ron fluently swore were bogus charges. Before leaving his cabin, knowing the boys were concealed inside, Hagrid had said something bizarre: advice about "following the spiders."
Neville had then led a now very reluctant Ron into the Forbidden Forest, where they met with a giant spider who had been accused of being the monster unleashed from the Chamber fifty years prior. Aragog, once a pet of Hagrid's, denied any wrongdoing, and had seemed almost insulted by the insinuation, enough that he sent his brethren after the boys. Only thanks to a well-timed appearance by Arthur Weasley's now-wild car had Neville and Ron barely escaped with their lives.
One other thing Aragog had claimed was that, whatever the monster was, it was something the spiders refused to speak of, and even took pains to avoid…. which is what now brought Neville back to the library page Ron had taken off Hermione's body.
"Spiders flee before it…. it all fits!" he told Ron. "The monster attacking students is a basilisk!"
Ron studied the sketch on Hermione's library page, and from the look of horror on his face, Neville knew his best mate had just found another magical creature around which to develop a debilitating phobia. "But how's a basilisk been getting around the place? You can't exactly hide a giant snake – someone would have seen…."
Neville shook his head. "Anyone who might have seen it isn't talking – they can't, because they've been Petrified! As to how it might be getting around…. Hermione's answered that too." And he pointed to her loopy, beautiful cursive written in the margins. Just one word was printed there.
"Pipes?" Ron looked disgusted. "It's using the plumbing?" His auburn eyebrows furrowed in thought. "Hang on – if the only people who would have ever seen the Basilisk are the Petrified victims…. How is it they're only Petrified… and not dead? Look here:" he tapped the page earnestly. "It says a person can die from looking a basilisk in the eye!"
"Except no one attacked did look it in the eye…." Neville's brain started to turn. "Not directly at least!" He began to run away with his theory, and his feet carried him aimlessly along with it, he and Ron now running through the castle. "The mirror…. I bet you it does belong to Hermione, and she was using it to look around corners, in case the snake came along. At some point, she met up with Harry, who… he probably only saw the Basilisk through the translucent fabric of the Invisibility Cloak! Assuming he was under it, the Cloak's fabric would have protected him, and possibly Hermione too!"
"And Mrs. Norris?" Ron demanded, playing devil's advocate. "I'm pretty sure she wasn't carrying an Invisibility Cloak or a mirror, Neville!"
Neville thought back to the night of Halloween, and that's when he recalled:
"The water – there was water on the floor that night. She only saw the Basilisk's reflection!" His eyes shifted, pondering. "But where would the water have come from…?" Then he answered his own question. "Ron, remember how I said Riddle's diary told me about the Chamber victim from fifty years ago? How she died in a bathroom? …." Goosebumps were alighting his flesh. "What if she never left? The bathroom. What if she's still there?"
Ron turned a ghastly pale. "Moaning Myrtle… That's why no one ever uses that bathroom!"
Neville nodded grimly. "And a bathroom has lots of pipes in it. Which means…."
"The entrance to the Chamber is in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom." Ron's voice had dropped several octaves in equally grim amazement and horror.
A sudden stampede of feet made the boys run and hide, as a herd of teachers dashed into the corridor. McGonagall, Pomfrey, Sprout and Flitwick all appeared scared out of their wits.
"….. a student has been taken by the monster into the Chamber itself!" McGonagall was shrieking.
"Who has the monster taken, Minerva?" Sprout inquired.
"…. Ginny Weasley."
Next to him, Neville felt Ron gasp, then nearly topple over into him. Among the teachers, even Snape looked disturbed.
Lockhart chose this precise moment to casually stroll into the midst of his colleagues, apparently unbothered. Though he did seem shocked by the message on the walls his colleagues now showed him.
"Someone ought to go in after the beast and recover Miss Weasley, if she still lives," Snape opined. Then, very deliberately, he nudged Lockhart. "Congratulations, Gilderoy – your moment has come at last."
"My….. my moment?" Lockhart stuttered. If they weren't in such shock, either of the boys might have smirked. Some of the teachers looked like they might be tempted, even in the face of possibly losing one of their first-year students. In any case, McGonagall's smile was one of relief.
"Then it's settled. We'll leave you to deal with the monster, Gilderoy. Your acts of bravery, after all, are legend."
Gone was the swaggering Lockhart from days past, or the Lockhart described (always annoyingly in the third person) in his books. The normally well-put together gentleman now looked weak-chinned and feeble.
The teachers finally departed, Lockhart in a sort of daze. Neville and Ron were left to read the bloodied message on the wall that had made the Hogwarts faculty so spooked:
"Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever…" Ron whimpered. "Ginny…."
"Lockhart may be useless, and he may not know how to get into the Chamber, but at least we can tell him what we do know!" Neville rationalized, steering himself and Ron on a resolute path towards Lockhart's office.
"But, Neville: we don't know how to get into the Chamber," Ron pointed out.
"Not yet," Neville amended determinedly.
They burst in on Lockhart without knocking to find the man looking frazzled, his office almost completely stripped bare. From the wild fear in his eyes, Neville suspected he and Ron had just walked in on him…. skipping out.
"Are you going somewhere?" Neville spluttered with dawning disgust.
"Yes. Urgent call and it's…. unavoidable," Lockhart shrugged in a 'Welp-what-can-you-do?' fashion, as he tore a map off the wall and started to roll it up. "Got to go…."
"What. About. My. Sister?" said Ron jerkily, daring to take a threatening step inward.
"Well…. as to that," Lockhart hedged, wrenching open drawers and literally dumping the contents into cases and bags. "Most unfortunate – no one regrets more than I…"
"You're the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, or so they say!" Ron barked, apoplectic. "You can't go now! Not with all the dark stuff that's been going on here!"
"Well, I must say, when I took the job, hardly anything in the job description – didn't expect…."
"So you are running away!" Neville gawped. "After all those things you did in your books?"
"Books can be misleading," said Lockhart delicately.
"Oh, really?" Ron bit back savagely. "Because we currently have a Petrified friend in the Hospital Wing who wolfs down books like they're water, and I'm pretty sure she'd have a different opinion!"
"Misleading…. You WROTE THEM!" Neville shouted.
"My dear boy," Lockhart huffed, nearly at his wit's end. "Do use your common sense! My books wouldn't have sold half as well if people actually thought I did all those things!"
His normally bright, confident eyes went huge the moment after he said this, and Neville's did too, in growing comprehension. "So you've been taking credit for what other wizards have done? You're a fraud!"
"Godric, what a shocker," Ron muttered sarcastically. "So, other than flirting with underage girls, coiffing your hair and getting your ass beat in dueling, is there anything you can do?"
"Yes," Lockhart's face suddenly hardened. "I'm rather adept at Memory Charm curses – how else do you think I could have taken credit for banishing the Banded Banshee? Otherwise, I'd never have sold another book!"
Thankfully, Lockhart was apparently also not good at concealing his hand, so that by the time he threateningly whipped his wand out, Neville and Ron were ready for him.
"Don't even think about it," Neville snarled. Despite the fact that his wand was still hanging by a thread and lots of Spellotape, Ron's grin was brutally wolfish.
Holding their "teacher" at wandpoint, Neville and Ron forced him into Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Studying the markings on the faucet taps, Neville acted on a hunch and commanded the sink to open in Parsletongue. To his shock and delight, it did, revealing a dark tunnel.
Ron leerily peered over the side. "Didn't we already do this dance last term? Dropping down chutes without knowing if there's a bottom?"
Lockhart chose this moment to try and pussyfoot away, and all with a squeaky "Cheerio!" Neville and Ron wrestled him back, violently enough that they pushed him over the side and into the Chamber chute below. The Doppler effect of Lockhart's girlish scream all the way down was rather comical.
Bravely, Neville and Ron followed, emerging into an underground cavern whose floor was chillingly littered with bones.
And that wasn't all they found.
"It's…. a snake…." Lockhart breathed, the bastard somehow managing to keep his voice even.
"It's a snakeskin," Neville corrected, moving up the scaly hide.
"Bloody hell! Whoever shed this must be 60 feet long – or more!" Ron hypothesized. If any further evidence was needed about what a pussy little bitch he was, Lockhart fell into a dead faint. Ron looked thoroughly done with this codswollop, shooting Neville a look. "Hard to rely on this one."
A sudden, desperate shout erupted, as Lockhart shoved Ron to the side and leapt to his feet. He'd been faking unconsciousness the entire time. His eyes were wild, and he didn't look remotely handsome anymore – indeed, there was something dark, something sinister about the man.
"The adventure ends here, boys! But I'll tell everyone how I was…. too late to save the girl. How you two tragically lost your minds at the sight of her mangled body." His darting eyes landed on Neville. "You first, Mr. Longbottom. Say goodbye…. to your memories…."
Neville caught a reflective glimpse of something catching the light in the moment before Lockhart bellowed, "OBLIVIATE!"
A cry of shock went up immediately following as green light hurled Lockhart back and up, nearly into the Chamber's ceiling. The impact started a cave-in, driving Neville back to take cover, huddling against the snakeskin.
When the crashes and smoke cleared, the Boy Who Lived was dismayed to find that a wall of rock now separated him from his best friend and the man who had attempted to betray them.
"Neville?!"
"Ron! Ron, are you OK?!"
"Fine! This bastard's not, though – he bloody punked himself! Lockhart's memory charm backfired! He hasn't got a clue who he is, or who we are!"
"Remind me to tell you to fix your wand if we get out of this," Neville deadpanned, his smirk one of relief. "Keep him company and try to clear this rock so we can have a way to get back through! I'll have to go on and find Ginny!"
"OK…."
Neville turned to the yawning dark and rocky terrain awaiting him. Taking a deep breath, he advanced further into the Chamber.