The Hiding Place
On Wednesday, Harry did not Disapparate immediately after the DA meeting, but stayed with his son in the secret room.
"Well," he said after Julian had been the last to close the door behind him, "now I'll show you the hiding place for Hermione."
"Why didn't Mum come?" asked Albus, who had been looking forward to seeing his mother. "You want me to decorate the hideout with her, don't you?"
"Next time she will be here," his father comforted him. "But I had to promise her to change the hideout in a way that she wouldn't recognise it."
"She once was there?" Albus was surprised.
"Oh yes," his father said, "and it's a memory she doesn't love at all. We will bring Hermione to the Chamber of Secrets."
Albus shivered. In the Chamber of Secrets, his parents had almost been murdered as children by Voldemort and Salazar Slytherin's Basilisk. He loved being told this story and had listened to it many times, enjoying his goose bumps. However, it was one thing to feel scared in the comfortable living room at home, but quite another to enter the Chamber itself. His knees were getting a little weak now, but he wouldn't have let his father notice.
"Can we?" asked Harry.
"Sure!" replied Albus, trying to make his voice sound as deep, manly and determined as possible.
They checked the Marauder's Map to make sure no one was around, took their brooms, slipped under the Invisibility Cloak, and left the secret room.
"We need to get to the derelict girls' bathroom on the second floor." Harry spoke in a whisper, although it wasn't necessary given the deserted corridors. "I hope Moaning Myrtle isn't there, she's the last person I need now."
"Can she see us?" asked Albus.
"No, under the Invisibility Cloak, even ghosts like Myrtle can't see us. But I have to show you how to get in and out. For that we have to speak, and she will be able to hear us."
"Would that be bad? I mean, would she tell on us?"
Harry grinned. "Not if you're a bit nice to her. The only problem is: Once she falls for you, and that's something she does quickly, you're lumbered with her forever. If she saw me, I'm sure she would make a loud scene for I haven't visited her for more than twenty years. And she will be quite offended when seeing my wedding ring. On the other hand, I'm probably way too old for her. You'd be much more her type ..."
"I also think it's better she doesn't notice us," Albus said, less than thrilled at the prospect of being stalked by a ghost girl in love for the next seven years.
As it was nearly nine o'clock, most of the students were already in their common rooms. Those of the Slytherins and Hufflepuffs were in the basements, the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws had their towers. Harry and Albus were therefore the only ones hanging around on the second floor. Fortunately, Myrtle also seemed to be spooking around elsewhere.
In the darkness, the old girls' bathroom that had not been repaired for over seventy years, namely since Myrte haunted it, looked even more desolate than Harry remembered. They took off the Invisibility Cloak and lit their wands. The tap with the sculpted serpent's head looked ominous and threatening.
"Open up," Harry said in Parsel. The sink slid down, opening the pipe that led down to the Chamber of Secrets, as Albus knew.
"I chose this hideout because it can normally only be opened by a Parselmouth," Harry said, "so at the moment it's only you or me. First, we try it out. Tell the snake to close the entrance."
"Close the entrance," Albus ordered the snake. The opening slid silently back.
"We now have the problem that at least Ron knows how to get in. He doesn't know Parseltongue, but he can imitate it, and he has managed to get in here before. If all goes well, he won't even get the idea, but I want to eliminate any risk."
He turned to the snake. "Can you answer me?"
"Yes, I can" hissed the snake.
"If I told you to open access only on a password, would you do so?"
"This would change the spell on me," the snake replied. "Are you entitled to do so?"
The question stunned Harry. "I don't know ..."
"You are a Slytherin ..." said the snake.
"... no, a Gryffindor!", Harry interjected.
"The Sorting Hat," the snake said, sounding displeased even through the monotony of her Parseltongue, "would never send a Parseltongue to Gryffindor!"
"He didn't want, I had asked him to."
"That was silly."
"I am a Slytherin!" called Albus.
"So tell me: What's the name of the serpent protecting the entrance to your common room?"
"Cassiopeia," Albus replied without hesitation.
For a moment the serpent remained silent. Then it said: "I am awaiting your commands, Master!"
Father and son glanced at each other in surprise.
"What am I supposed to do now?" Albus looked unsettled.
"Give it a password."
Albus thought about it, then asked the snake: "What's your name?"
"Pollux."
"Does anyone but us know this name besides us?"
"No one. No wizard, no witch, no Squib, no Muggle."
"Then in future you will open and close the pipe only when the one asking you to do so calls you by your name."
"That's how it will be done, Master."
"One more question," Harry cut in again. "If we ask you to close the entrance behind us and then come back up and order you from inside to open up again, can you hear us?"
"Yes, I can, and I will obey your command even then."
"That's fine," Harry now said to Albus, "I didn't dare to close the chamber when I was in. For our present purposes, however, an open entrance would be revealing. Now open the Chamber – Master!" Both grinned.
"Pollux," said Albus, "open up, and when we're both inside, you close behind us." The sink slid down again. Albus stared into the endless black maw of the pipe. "And you're sure it's safe to jump in, Dad?"
"We could also fly down on our brooms, but jumping is more fun," Harry replied cheerfully. "I'm going ahead, you follow me. Keep a firm grip on your broomstick, we'll need it to get out again," said Harry and slid into the pipe. Albus mustered all his courage and did the same. He couldn't hear the entrance closing above him. At breakneck speed, he shot through the seemingly endless pipe, deeper and deeper into the bowels of the castle.
After he had slid over a damp stone floor at the end of the pipe, it took him a moment to pick himself up.
"Well?" asked his father, who had been waiting for him with his wand lit.
"I could get used to it," Albus said, although he didn't feel as cool as he pretended.
Harry led his son into an oblong hall edged by scary man-sized snake-head sculptures. As if that wasn't spooky enough, Albus was struck by the gruesome sight of the skeleton of the Basilisk that Harry had killed there a quarter of a century ago. Being over sixty feet long, even the mortal remains of the Basilisk still looked impressive.
"That's him?" he whispered in awe.
"Yes," Harry replied, "I killed the beast with the sword of Gryffindor, the only weapon that was a match for that monster. You saw the sword in McGonagall's office."
"I remember. But I couldn't use it, could I?"
"No, it only serves Gryffindors, and only in extreme danger. Be glad if you never get into a situation so desperate that it would be useful."
"Well, but what if I do? You say yourself that what we are doing is dangerous. Is there a weapon of this kind for Slytherins as well?"
"Not that I remember," Harry replied. "The only equivalent to it was this Basilisk."
Shuddering, Albus looked around. The room seemed to get creepier and creepier the longer he looked at it.
"This is where you're going to lock Hermione up?" he asked his dad incredulously. "Didn't you say she should feel comfortable here?"
"She will do. First, let's get this out of the way." Harry pointed his wand at the Basilisk skeleton. "Reductio!" he called.
The skeleton vanished into thin air before their eyes. Several knife-long fangs, however, remained.
"I hadn't thought of that," Harry muttered. "These fangs, you should know, are powerful magical weapons that can even destroy Horcruxes. Ron and Hermione fetched some of them during the Battle, but not all. I should have known that I can't just magic them away. We'll have to put them away so Hermione can't arm herself with them. We must find a hiding place for them, but there is enough time left to do so."
Harry drew a square outline in the air with his wand and a large bag of solid leather appeared out of nowhere. Then he collected the fangs with a flick of his wand and let them disappear in the bag.
Albus now saw his father transform the entire hall with a series of intricate wand movements and muttered spells: First of all, the snakehead sculptures disappeared, then the damp grey walls turned white and dry. At a height of about fourteen feet, Harry created a white ceiling, then gave the room a parquet floor. By the standards of the wizarding world, nothing of this was particularly spectacular. But what amazed even Albus, who had grown up with magic, were the windows his father created out of nothing, flooding the room with pleasant bright sunlight. It even got warmer.
"Wow!" exclaimed Albus, stepping to one of the windows that offered a view over a lovely park. "Can they be opened?"
Harry laughed. "You'd be pretty disappointed, we're still in the Chamber of Secrets. No, you can't open them, and the beautiful view is just an illusion. I know Hermione loves French castles, so I modelled the room on them. Your mother will arrange the decoration together with you. Now that there is nothing left to remind her of the old Chamber, she can come."
"Are you actually just doing this out of friendship," Albus demanded, "or do you make it so comfortable because you hope it will help you to free her from the curse?"
"That's what I hope. You heard Sulphangel's text. Her soul is walled up in her own head and is losing vitality every day. As long as I have not eliminated the intruder, we must at least do all we can to strengthen her soul. I want her to feel that she is loved."