Chapter 8: Another Attack
Lockhart seemed to think he himself had made the attacks stop. Dawn was on her way to her classroom when she saw Lockhart and McGonagall talking.
"I don't think there'll be any more trouble, Minerva," he said, tapping his nose knowingly and winking. "I think the Chamber has been locked for good this time. The culprit must have known it was only a matter of time before I caught him. Rather sensible to stop now, before I came down hard on him." Dawn rolled her eyes as she looked at McGonagall who gave her a nod in agreement. "You know, what the school needs now is a morale-booster. Wash away the memories of last term! I won't say any more just now, but I think I know just the thing…"
He tapped his nose again and strode off.
"I don't understand why Albus even hired the idiot," Dawn said. "Anyone with half a brain would know half his books were works of fiction and the other half was likely plagiarized. Take his Voyages with Vampires for example. It's fiction, nothing more."
"I've had this same conversation with Albus myself," McGonagall said. "He said he knows now the mistake he made in hiring Gilderoy. And that even if Professor Binns does not return next year that he will not be asking Gilderoy back."
"Do we know what this sabbatical was?" Dawn wondered. "Isn't it kind of weird that a ghost who had not even known he was dead to suddenly want to take a sabbatical."
"Indeed it is," McGonagall said. "Albus and I think he may have finally seen the light and moved on. We'll know more next year."
Dawn found Lockhart's idea of a morale-booster became clear on February fourteenth when she and Buffy entered the Great Hall for breakfast.
The walls were all covered with large, lurid pink flowers. Worse still, heart-shaped confetti was falling from the pale blue ceiling. Lockhart was wearing lurid pink robes to match the decorations and waved for silence. The teachers on either side of him were looking stony-faced.
"Happy Valentine's Day!" Lockhart shouted. "And may I thank the forty-six people who have so far sent me cards! Yes, I have taken the liberty of arranging this little surprise for you all—and it doesn't end here!"
Dawn looked at Buffy and rolled her eyes as she wondered who had sent the idiot him cards. Probably teenage girls infatuated with him.
Lockhart clapped his hands and through the doors to the entrance hall marched a dozen surly-looking dwarfs. Not just any dwarfs, however.
Lockhart had them all wearing golden wings and carrying harps.
"My friendly, card-carrying cupids!" beamed Lockhart. "They will be roving around the school today delivering your valentines! And the fun doesn't stop here! I'm sure my colleagues will want to enter into the spirit of the occasion! Why not ask Professor Snape to show you how to whip up a Love Potion! And while you're at it, Professor Flitwick knows more about Entrancing Enchantments than any wizard I've ever met, the sly old dog!"
Professor Flitwick buried his face in his hands. Snape was looking as though the first person to ask him for a Love Potion would be force-fed poison.
All day long, the dwarfs kept barging into Dawn and Buffy's classes to deliver valentines, to their annoyance.
At least with all the commotion Lockhart's dwarves made everyone seemed to forget that Dawn could speak Parsletongue.
Then one day when Dawn and Buffy were at lunch, someone snuck into their classroom and took Riddle's diary.
"I wish electronics worked here," Dawn said to Buffy when they found the diary missing. "I would have put up a video camera."
And then she heard it.
"Kill this time… let me rip… tear…"
"Buffy," Dawn said.
"All I hear is the sound of something hissing," Buffy said.
They rushed out of their classroom and down the hall following the voice. They found Colin Creevey lying on the floor his camera held in front of his eyes.
"Is he?" Buffy asked as Dawn knelt down next to Colin.
"He's petrified," Dawn said. "I'd say looking through the camera is what saved him." She opened a portal and stuck her head through. "Albus, another attack."
A second later Dumbledore had joined then and sighed.
"He's petrified, I think the camera saved his life," Dawn said.
"Maybe he caught who is controlling the basilisk on film," Dumbledore said as he took the camera from Colin's hands and opened it.
The film was melted.
"So much for that," Buffy said. "We were on our way to Myrtle when Dawn heard it again."
Dumbledore nodded. "Tbe basilisk. As we found out you can speak Parsletongue and the basilisk is in effect a large snake. I would suggest you head straight for Myrtle. Find a way into the Chamber."
"Albus," Dawn said as she looked up at the wall. "It appears that Colin may not have been the only victim."
Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever.
And then Dawn gasped out as a memory surged forth.
Professor Flitwick burst into tears.
"Who is it?" said Madam Hooch, who had sunk, weak-kneed, into a chair. "Which student?"
"Ginny Weasley," said Professor McGonagall.
"Ginny Weasley," Dawn said. "It's Ginny Weasley. Buffy, get Ron, Harry and Hermione and meet me in the Myrtle's bathroom."
"Ms. Summers-Lehane," Dumbledore said. "In my office is a sword. It could prove useful."
Buffy nodded and ran off.
Dawn turned and took off in another direction. Harry felt Ron slide silently down onto the wardrobe floor beside him.
0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0
Moaning Myrtle was sitting on the tank of the end toilet.
"Oh, it's you," she said when she saw Dawn. "What do you want this time?"
"To ask you how you died," said Dawn.
Myrtle's whole aspect changed at once. She looked as though she had never been asked such a flattering question.
"Ooooh, it was dreadful," she said with relish. "It happened right in here. I died in this very stall. I remember it so well. I'd hidden because Olive Hornby was teasing me about my glasses. The door was locked, and I was crying, and then I heard somebody come in. They said something funny. A different language, I think it must have been. Anyway, what really got me was that it was a boy speaking. So I unlocked the door, to tell him to go and use his own toilet, and then—" Myrtle swelled importantly, her face shining. "I died."
"How?" said Dawn.
"No idea," said Myrtle in hushed tones. "I just remember seeing a pair of great, big, yellow eyes. My whole body sort of seized up, and then I was floating away…" She looked dreamily at Dawn. "And then I came back again. I was determined to haunt Olive Hornby, you see. Oh, she was sorry she'd ever laughed at my glasses."
"Where exactly did you see the eyes?" said Dawn.
"Somewhere there," said Myrtle, pointing vaguely toward the sink in front of her toilet.
Dawn hurried over to it just as Ron, Hermione, Harry and Buffy entered from the corridor.
"I can't believe it," Ron said. "Ginny?"
"Yes, Ron, I'm sorry," Dawn said. "But if I am not mistaken she met yet still live. We have a chance to rescue her."
She looked at the sink and examined every inch of it, inside and out, including the pipes below. And then she saw it: Scratched on the side of one of the copper taps was a tiny snake.
"That tap's never worked," said Myrtle brightly as Dawn tried to turn it.
"Dawn," said Ron. "Say something. Something in Parseltongue."
Dawn nodded as she stared at the tiny engraving, trying to imagine it was real. "Open up," she said.
"English," Buffy said.
Dawn dug down to the Key knowing that where the power to speak Parseltongue lay. "Open up," she said.
Except that the words weren't what she heard; a strange hissing had escaped her, and at once the tap glowed with a brilliant white light and began to spin. Next second, the sink began to move; the sink, in fact, sank, right out of sight, leaving a large pipe exposed, a pipe wide enough for a man to slide into.
Ron gasped. "I'm going down there," he said.
"No," Dawn said. "I want you, Hermione and Harry to remain here."
"I want to help Aunt Dawn," Harry said. "I need to help for Aunt Willow."
Dawn looked to Buffy.
"He's your nephew," Buffy said. "But now you know how I felt before you got Tom's memories."
Dawn nodded. "And remember how I helped you afterwards?"
Buffy nodded. "I do."
"Alright, Harry, you can go," Dawn said and looked at Hermione and Ron. "You two remain here. If were not back within an hour. You will notify Professor Dumbledore of where we went. Under no circumstances are you to follow us down." And then she stepped over the edge of the hole the retracting sink had revealed.
It was like rushing down an endless, slimy, dark slide. Dawn could see more pipes branching off in all directions, but none as large as this one, which twisted and turned, sloping steeply downward, and she knew that she was falling deeper below the school than even the dungeons. Behind her she could hear Harry and Buffy.
And then, just as Dawn had begun to worry about what would happen when she hit the ground, the pipe leveled out, and she shot out of the end with a wet thud, landing on the damp floor of a dark stone tunnel large enough to stand in. Behind her Harry and Buffy shot out also.
"We must be miles under the school," said Harry, his voice echoing in the black tunnel.
"Under the lake, probably," said Dawn. "Which would explain why no one ever found the Chamber. It's actually not in the school."
All three of them turned to stare into the darkness ahead.
"Lumos!" Harry muttered to his wand and it lit up.
"C'mon," Dawn said and off they went, their footsteps slapping loudly on the wet floor.
"Remember," Dawn said quietly as they walked cautiously forward, "any sign of movement, close your eyes right away…"
But the tunnel was quiet as the grave, and the first unexpected sound they heard was a loud crunch as
"There's something up there—" said Harry.
Dawn and Buffy followed Harry's gaze and saw the skin of a huge serpent. "It's just its shedding," Dawn said as they passed the snake skin.
The tunnel turned and turned again. Buffy and Dawn's Slayer senses were tingling the closer they got to the Basilisk's lair. As they crept around yet another bend, they saw a solid wall ahead on which two entwined serpents were carved, their eyes set with great, glinting emeralds.
Harry, Dawn and Buffy approached.
Harry put a hand on Dawn's. "If I can understand you when you speak Parseltongue. I want to know if I can speak it also."
Dawn nodded as Harry stepped up. "Open," said Harry, in a low, faint hiss.
The serpents parted as the wall cracked open, the halves slid smoothly out of sight, and Harry, shaking from head to foot, walked inside followed by Buffy and Dawn.
