Chapter 25: Something Wicked This Way Comes
As morning rose the next day Elizabeth awoke in her bed with a start, her mind flashing back to the night before. She sat up sharply looking around, confused for a moment as to where she was before recognising the room as her own, the bed was hers and she noticed that she was feeling remarkably calm about everything. She looked around the room, half expecting a threat to jump out at her at any moment. As she looked around the room, she stopped looking at the sofa where a blanket was pulled up over a figure, she smiled softly realising that it was Harry from the messy black hair that was visible as he slept peacefully on the sofa. It was strange to her, Halloween was feeling quite detached, she could remember it clearly, but she didn't feel anything towards it, or much of anything at the moment, she just felt relaxed. She continued looking around the room, her chair for her desk was gone, replaced by a lounger where Bathsheda slept, a blanket resting in her lap and an open book still held in her hand that rested on her lap. On her desk she noticed two empty potion bottles and realised that she must have been given them during the night after falling unconscious.
Should she be angry? She didn't think so, but she didn't know if that was due to the potion or just her respect for the two of them for stopping her from doing something reckless and stupid in the condition, she had been in. The Boggart had done a number on her, all those fears and self-doubts, one after the other with no pause had been too much and then confronting her with Atlas, to face something that she had done the best she could to sperate herself entirely from. The thoughts about Atlas were still there, the questions and theories that had struck her half-crazed fear-stricken mind were still floating about but they were more neutral and clinical with how they were there. She reached to the side where her robe was hanging, she was still clothed but she pulled it on anyway as she stood, barefoot on to the rug that sat on the floor, tickling her feet with every step. she walked into the ensuite bathroom, closing the door behind her and leaning back against it.
To think a few weeks ago, Lockhart had spoken about underestimating the possible threats of their enemies like the pixies that had almost broken out in his class, yet here she was doing the exact opposite side of the spectrum, overconfident to a level that could have gotten her killed if it had been something even remotely more dangerous. There was still too much that she didn't know about this world or the threats that it held. She pushed herself off the door, shedding her robe as she turned on the shower, holding her hand under the water for a moment to test the temperature and wait for it to slowly rise to a comfortable level as her thoughts drifted back to Rapture. "Will I ever be able to look at water without thinking of that place?" She questioned with a whisper as she turned around, starting to undress, placing her clothes in the laundry box that the House Elves would take away to clean later. "To be haunted by those visions?" She muttered, stepping into the shower and letting the water run over her body. "Even here it creeps up on me."
Maybe it would have drifted away and would have been buried if I never took Harry to Rapture?" She laughed as she ran her hand through her hair. "Is this my own hubris and overconfidence kicking back or is it that I want to go back?" She questioned herself, resting her forehead against the wall just letting the water hit her as she tried to use the calmness to think things through.
A short time passed, and she flicked the water off, grabbing a towel and stepping out of the shower. On the side, sitting on top of the basket she had thrown her clothes in before sat new clothes with a folded note resting on top. She reached over, a still wet hand grabbing the parchment, the water absorbing into it as she flicked it open
Elizabeth,
Had an elf bring some clothes, didn't think you wanted to walk back out to get some with Harry and myself here. But there's something else that's come up. Something happened last night after your event. All students are to wait in the Common Room's and all staff are to report to the Staff Room as soon as.
-Bathsheda
P.S. Harry won't leave until he speaks to you, stubborn kid, isn't he?
She continued to look at the note, knowing how she should feel but not sure how she currently felt towards it, the lingering effects of the calming draught still dulling anything that she could use. But as she screwed the note up and threw it into the bin, she knew she still had to rush. If they were going to be waiting for her, she should hurry up.
A few more minutes passed and she exited the bathroom, dry except for her hair which she pulled back into a ponytail, she threw the towel onto her bed, probably not the best idea to just leave the wet towel there but it'd do for now, either she'd fix it when she returned from the meeting or the elves would fix it while the room was empty. Now to focus on the next part, she turned and faced Harry who was sat on the sofa, the blanket folded up next to him, the pillow resting on top, his robes and clothing creased and ruffled from where he had slept in them. "Hey," She greeted calmly getting a smile from Harry.
"Hey," he responded with a slight look of relief. There was an awkward silence in the room, both unsure of where to start. Both tried to start the conversation, but both ended up interrupting each other leading to a slight chuckle shared between the two
Elizabeth was the first to take the lead and end the silence, "I need to thank you." She started, stepping over to him as he stood up, "you came to help me from the trap I walked into. You helped stop me from making one of the biggest mistakes of my life by doing something so stupid that I probably would have died." Elizabeth said and Harry looked slightly stunned by that.
"You wouldn't have died." Harry tried to protest, and she shook her head.
"I wasn't thinking clearly, I was ready to do something drastic, even if I had lived, I probably would have died on the inside, doing something that I should never willingly do. At least, not in the way that I was ready to go about it." She explained softly, "we both said we'd look out for each other, I find myself failing you more than helping you." She said sadly before pulling him into a hug. "That changes today." She whispered softly to him, holding him tight. Harry froze for a moment in the surprise of the hug before returning it, his arms wrapped around her, slightly awkwardly.
"You've done more than enough, you helped me with the Dursley's, you've turned my life completely around, shown me places that I never thought I'd see in my life. You've shown me infinite possibilities." Harry said holding her tighter. "We both agreed, we're in this together. I'm not going to abandon you; you're not going to abandon me either."
They stood in silence in the hug for several moments before Elizabeth slowly broke away. "You're one of a kind, don't ever forget who you are." Elizabeth said, brushing a small tear away from her eye. "Somethings happened, all the staff have to..."
"I know, Bathsheda told me." Harry said with a nod, "go, I'll go back to the Common Room and wait there with the rest." He said stepping towards the door that led to the Common Room. "You'll let me know what's going on?" He asked and she nodded her head.
"Have I kept secrets from you yet?" She asked with a cheeky grin.
"Not yet, though you haven't told me everything." He said with a pointed look and she shrugged.
"There's not enough time in the day to cover everything, some things just don't need to be told yet. I will tell you what you need to know when it's needed. Just, it's not easy for me to deal with all of it, as you can probably imagine." She responded and Harry nodded, holding up his hands in surrender.
"I was joking, I was joking." He pleaded in surrender, "I know you'll tell me if I ask, I know you haven't kept anything from me when needed. We're on the same side." He said with confidence before opening the door and walking into the Common Room.
Elizabeth rolled her eyes, leaving her room and moving into the corridor making her way to the Staff Room. She moved down, acutely aware that a few of the portraits were watching her carefully and she found it made her skin crawl in this situation. That they had seen her in such a vulnerable situation and that they were now talking about it left her feeling uneasy. It was also weird seeing the corridors empty during a time when all the students were in school. At the holiday it would be expected but now, it gave an eerie feeling for the old castle.
She arrived at the Staff Room, the rest of them already there. "Miss DeWitt, glad you finally arrived, I hope you're feeling better after last night's incident?" Dumbledore asked and she nodded her head.
"I think that's more the potion than anything else, it's strange, it feels like everything is kind of detached." She admitted, curious as to who told Dumbledore and the rest of the staff though she guessed it was due to the portraits or possibly Bathsheda. Not ideal for her that they all knew and that her moment of weakness was shown to the world. Thankfully the portraits would not be able to tell what happened inside the classroom.
"The potion should wear off soon, but that's not the reason why we are all here." Dumbledore said looking over the staff as Elizabeth took a seat. "Outside of the incident that you were involved in, there was an attack, shortly after yours if the timing is correct." Albus paused as he thought how he was going to phrase this. "A student was found petrified in the second-floor corridor by the woman's toilets." Albus said and there was muttering between the staff. "Argus found him there yesterday evening. Above him a message had been written, 'Enemies of the Heir beware, the Chamber of Secrets is open.' A worrying turn of events to strike the school."
"Just like the warning." Elizabeth muttered lowly to Bathsheda though from the quick glance that Dumbledore had given her, it had not been quiet enough. "What do we know about the Chamber of Secrets?" She asked looking around at the other Professors seeing many of them show looks of doubt and scoffing slightly.
"It's a myth." The Muggle Studies Professor, Charity Burbage said with dismissal, "this is most likely the act of someone who managed to get an artefact into the building and used it without knowing or thinking about it. Now trying to cover it up with superstition."
"Be that as it may," Elizabeth started to argue but a look from Dumbledore stopped her.
"The Chamber of Secrets is real, I assure you Charity," Dumbledore interrupted, "this is not the first time it has been opened, though I am curious as to how it has been opened this time." Dumbledore said thoughtfully, scratching his chin as he pondered on the topic.
"No one has ever found it before Headmaster, how are you so certain that it's real?" Bathsheda asked, she was dubious on it, there had been plenty of times it had been searched for in the past, students always looking to make a name for themselves and more. But nothing had ever come up.
"It was open once before, fifty years ago." Dumbledore clarified, "the one who opened it then should not have been able to open it currently." Dumbledore explained, looking to his deputy Headmistress.
"You're talking about him, aren't you?" McGonagall said, keeping to the evasive pronoun game that seemed to be going around, though with the looks from the other staff they had quickly picked up on who she was referring to.
"Voldemort." Elizabeth muttered thoughtfully, it kept coming back to him. "Okay, let's try and puzzle this out, if it's him, then we know he can't be here in person."
"Correct, the most recent sources that I've heard from have him somewhere in Albania."
"Huh, interesting, any idea as to why?" She asked curiously before waving off that thought, "never mind not the time for that. "Gilderoy?" She asked, switching to first name basis for the Blond defence teacher, bringing him out of whatever was distracting him.
"Hmm?" He asked, his voice slightly nervous as everyone brought their attention to him. "I'm listening, what's wrong?"
"Any ideas as to where we can begin to look for this Chamber?" She asked, getting a hesitant shrug from Lockhart.
"Not a clue... I mean, not yet at least, what do we know about the thing that did this?" He asked, with a slight cough, his bravado slowly coming to the front.
"It petrified the student without leaving a mark," Madam Pomfrey started to explain, "It's not a weak level petrification, to free him we're going to need the mandrakes that are being cared for."
"Could we not order some?" Elizabeth asked getting a shake of the head in response from Madame Pomfrey.
"Ideally they would be, but they're a regulated plant due to the inherent dangers that come with growing them, their scream capable of killing a person when they're matured, they're pretty much pre-ordered with little to no extras." Professor Sprout explained. "Not to mention the cost of trying to get out of season ones."
The point had to be conceded, money makes the world work and schools weren't known to be swimming in money. "So, what do we know?" Elizabeth asked looking around the room, surprising several people at her willingness to take charge in to the investigation that was starting to appear.
"How do you mean?"
"Do we have any guesses as to what is responsible? A creature? a spell? A magical Artefact of unknown power?" She asked looking at Dumbledore, the conversation that they had in the past regarding Harry's trip to the alternate Hogwarts.
"There are too many possibilities to choose from so far."
"Then we work on eliminating the options," Lockhart interrupted with his trademark smile. "With that we can narrow it down. Let's start with the outlandish, everyone believes the Chamber is not real, so we find evidence to remove that."
"So how do we go about proving or disproving the chambers existence?" Bathsheda asked, surprised at the analytical nature that Lockhart was taking, their previous conversations having not shown much of this before.
"What do we know about the Chamber, what myths and legends pop up around it?" He questioned as Elizabeth grabbed a quill and a piece of Parchment, ready to take notes to look back over.
"Allegedly opened fifty years ago." Professor McGonagall was the first to speak, she didn't truly believe that was what had happened, but the rumours were there.
"It was said to be created by Salazar Slytherin back when the school was first created, a chamber with a creature that would only respond to him or his heir. Though no evidence has ever been shown for its existence other than a few different notes that have appeared over the years." Dumbledore explained, remembering the notes and tales that he had come across during his own research in to it.
"But if he created it, then surely, he'd do something that would protect it from outside eyes, something that only he or his family would be able to do. What were they known for?" Lockhart continued, more glimmers into the man who had apparently done so much for the wizarding world showing through the vain exterior he presented.
"Dark Magic?"
"Pureblood superiority?"
"Parseltongue?"
"Wait, Parseltongue? I've not heard that before." Elizabeth said as she continued to scribble down the notes.
"It's the ability to talk the language of snakes. In areas, it's considered the sign of a dark wizard, mostly due to the actions of this family, outside of Europe though there's a lot of positivity towards it." Bathsheda explained, her study of ancient runes having also helped her learn about various other bits of trivia regarding the Wizarding World.
"So, if the chamber is real..." She trailed off, tapping the parchment where she had jotted down the translation, "it stands to reason that it would either be locked behind Parseltongue and that anything contained inside will most probably be related to it as well. What do we know about magic snakes?"
"How long do you have?" Snape said sarcastically.
"Okay, that was perhaps a bit vague and you were maybe just a bit sarcastic," She retorted with a pointed look at Snape. "Do we know of any snake that could paralyze like what happened?"
"There are a few that could do something like that but not without biting, of which there were no signs." Madame Pomfrey quickly interjected before the two could start arguing. "If the chamber is real though, and we're to look for it, how do we go about looking for the Chamber when we have no way to open it?" She questioned looking around at the rest of the staff, the silent decision to search
"In times like this, you look at the evidence you have, see what puzzle pieces are filled and try and work out any missing pieces." Lockhart explained, "though, it's important to look at everything objectively otherwise our preconceived notions may corrupt how we look at it. I talk about it in a book I'm working on based on my last escapade that I think I'm going to call Investigating the Indonesian Imp." He bragged getting many an eye roll though he didn't notice it.
"So, what do we know of the incident in question?" Elizabeth asked, getting them to repeat what they had said on her first arrival, they hadn't had much details other than the basics and she was hoping that someone had a bit more detail.
Bathsheda took the lead, repeating the first part of the information. "The student was found on the second floor, petrified outside of the girl's toilets."
"Do we have any identification on the spell? or was it even a spell?" She asked, looking over to the Mediwitch.
"The student was coated in magic, whether that was due to what happened or something else, I can't tell yet. It'll take time to wear off, but I can guarantee that it wasn't done by a potion." Madame Pomfrey confirmed.
Writing down the cause of the injury as unknown, she stopped. Realising they had been evasive on saying the name. She looked around at each of the Professors and noticed that Dumbledore didn't make eye contact with her and she frowned, was it someone she knew? "Out of curiosity, who was the student that was attacked, no one has actually said their name yet."
"The student in question was a Slytherin second year student." Dumbledore started, watching Elizabeth carefully as she flinched, noticing her grip on the quill getting slightly tighter, she had a gut feeling as to who it was and with it she also realised that the potion that had been keeping her calm was almost gone as she could barely hide what she was feeling.
"It was Blaise Zabini." Snape finished and Elizabeth's hand twitched, almost snapping the quill that she was holding as she struggled to contain the amusement that was in her mind at the boy who had just made her suffer was now taken out of action.
'Karma' She mused happily, 'It's a bit of a bitch.' Pushing the thought down before she could continue that thought out loud, she steadied the quill and wrote the name down. "Any... Any idea what he was doing up there? It's a bit far from the Slytherin Common Room?" She observed already knowing what it was, but she'd rather keep it quiet if she could, she didn't want everyone to know about what had happened to her the night before.
"No clue, he was seen by the portraits coming from higher up in the Castle but they're not sure which one." Lockhart answered, having been the one to do the initial investigation, with the assistance of the other professors, but being the Defence Professor and with all the experience that he had for the task at hand, he had been pushed to take the lead of the investigation. "But we know his wand was used to etch the writing in the wall."
"Do we know if the attack was by chance or if he was targeted?" McGonagall questioned, understanding how the situation was being looked at and asking something that had been in her mind since the attack. "It would be unusual for him to be targeted I would think, Slytherin was known for favouring Purebloods and the Zabini's are an old family." She said getting many nods in agreement.
"Unless the current legacy of the family has angered the heir?" Bathsheda suggested, the implication was clear. With all the 'suspicious' deaths that had occurred around his mother and the old rich Purebloods.
"It's possible, his mother does have a reputation." Bathsheda agreed, though from the look on McGonagall's face she disagreed. "But the message doesn't work with what we know of the heir and the first victim. Zabini isn't an enemy of the heir, his family would line up with Slytherin's ideals."
"We'll come back to it then," Lockhart said with a wave of his hand, leaning forwards eagerly, into the talk and investigation that they were doing, to him it was possibly a way to add to his fame. "There was something else about the corridor." He added, "the floor was flooded from the toilets, it ran half way down the corridor. It seems Moaning Myrtle is up to her old habits still."
"Wait... Myrtle?" Elizabeth asked herself mid writing, her mind jumping back to the conversation she had with Binns before he had disappeared, a person who died and the name that he couldn't remember, something beginning with M. "I don't think I've met someone by that name," she said louder, to the rest of the room just in case she was a student. Though she doubted it as she didn't think that Lockhart, as tactless as he could be wouldn't be THAT rude about a student. would he?
"Miss Myrtle is a ghost who haunts the Second-floor girls' bathroom, I'm surprised you haven't met her yet." Flitwick spoke drawing Elizabeth out of her thoughts, "She died fifty years ago if I remember correctly?" He asked looking over at Dumbledore who nodded solemnly.
"Fifty years ago," Elizabeth muttered before she realised the event that was clearly linked. "But that would be..."
"Correct, the last time the Chamber was open."
"Wait!" Elizabeth held up a hand in disbelief, surely the answer couldn't be that obvious. "Did anyone question her ghost after the incident?"
"I don't believe so," Dumbledore added thoughtfully, stroking his beard as he sat thinking back to the previous incident. "By the time her ghost appeared, the belief had been that the attacker had been caught and the attacks had been stopped, so many didn't want to dig too deep."
"Okay, I can partly understand why it wasn't investigated, though we have to fix that." Elizabeth said through gritted teeth, the lack of common sense and drive to fully investigate the situation was getting borderline stupid. 'Actually, forget borderline, it's gone so far beyond that the borderline has been lost on the horizon.' She mused in frustration, every time it seemed that wizards were willing to rely on the word of a person with limited evidence or if they saw that it had stopped, they wouldn't look any further. "So, lets jump back fifty years then?" She suggested.
"And what good does the incident fifty years ago have to do with the incident now?" Snape tried to dismiss but Dumbledore was the first to step in.
"Because it leads itself to a pattern. What happened before can be used to predict what will happen now." He explained patiently. "Throughout the year of the incident, students were being petrified, the victims were all Muggleborn and half-bloods. Though there were whispers of it being the Heir due to Slytherins reputation, nothing was ever definitively proven."
"You mentioned someone was caught? That sounded pretty definitive." Charity interrupted and Dumbledore turned to look at her over the rim of his glasses.
"It was not definitive because the man they blamed could not have opened it."
"Who was it?" She questioned.
"Hagrid."
"Hagrid?" Elizabeth said in surprise and then wondered how unlucky the man was. One of the nicest people she had ever met, while he may look like someone who could cause problems, but the moment you got to know him any one could see that it would have been impossible for him to do something like that.
"Hagrid has a love for dangerous creatures, sometimes he underestimates the potential that they have. he was found smuggling in a restricted creature, but it escaped. With no proof as to what the creature was and the attacks stopping at the exact same time, a conclusion was drawn. An incorrect conclusion but the Headmaster at the time refused to listen." Dumbledore explained as he removed his glasses, cleaning the lenses.
"But what was the creature?"
"Hagrid never said at the time, though I know it can't have been the thing that was causing the attacks." Dumbledore said with a finality that stopped any possible push that Hagrid would be responsible. The aged Headmaster knew what the creature had been and knew that it couldn't be responsible.
"So, mystery attacker, mystery powers, possible connection to Slytherin. But there's an issue if we go with the Parseltongue logic." Lockhart said, re-joining the conversation. "Do we know anyone who can speak it?"
"The last person to speak it was also the last one to open the Chamber, Lord Voldemort." Dumbledore said gravely, a collective flinch in the room from everyone that wasn't the Headmaster or Elizabeth.
"There are spells that mimic voices and languages, do you think a student could have an item enchanted to speak Parseltongue?" Charity asked trying to follow the logic
"It's highly unlikely, there have been attempts to recreate Parseltongue using those spells but there is an inherent magic with the language that can't be replicated." Bathsheda explained.
"So, the likelihood of someone being the heir is limited, short of shoving a snake in everyone's face we can't really expect them to reveal the language." Lockhart reasoned.
"Why would that force them to speak the language?"
"The inherent magic, looking and focusing on the snake would switch the language, half the time they don't know they're speaking it."
"So, with next to no way to prove there is an heir in the school, we look at another likely option and much more definitive to prove, someone has managed to sneak a dark magical item into the school." Lockhart said with a clap of his hands, drawing many out of their thoughts.
"Much easier to prove?" Elizabeth asked in confusion.
"It's simple, we do a search, all the dorms and all the students," Lockhart said casually and Elizabeth had to nod her head in agreement. "By we, I mean the heads of houses."
"It would not take long to do." Dumbledore mused, "though I dislike the idea of treating all the students as criminals."
"Then you don't have to," McGonagall interrupted him before he could talk himself into stopping it. "There's an unknown dark artefact, we don't know what it does, perhaps they're not acting on their own free will." McGonagall offered as a suggestion; she didn't want to think that any student could be doing something like this. It was the best possible outcome for them to be under someone else's control.
"Yes, of course." Dumbledore nodded his head. "The Heads will search their students and their trunks, the rest of you will start a search of the school, working in pairs, if the one behind all this or even the heir if he is here decides to react then we do not want to confront him alone."
"It would be wise not to have the Heads search their own dorms, especially alone." Lockhart interrupted, drawing several looks from the heads, frustration that he felt they would be biased and annoyance that he was possibly questioning their abilities.
Elizabeth to one side resisted the urge to groan at the phrasing. "Can I interrupt him for a moment?" Elizabeth asked drawing everyone's attention. "All four heads search all four dorms, even if you weren't going to be biased." She saw the looks now directed at her, "which I'm sure you won't be. To the students there is a perception, especially regarding Slytherin." The looks she was given relaxed and were now ones of understanding. "This prevents any form of bias, gets the search done quicker and allows a more accurate search because that way one-person won't overlook as much. And if you want to make sure that no one is above reproach, start with Harry and myself." She finished looking around at them.
"But you're innocent, we know you're innocent." Bathsheda protested, knowing full well where Elizabeth and Harry had been the night before.
"Perhaps, but again perception. It is common knowledge that Harry, and I have issues with Blaise, no doubt several of you have heard about the numerous conflicts and arguments." She again paused, hesitating to introduce the incident from last night. "Start with us, continue on from there and we'll clear any doubt and also give the staff a starting point."
"Then it's settled, for now that is how we'll proceed. Thank you for the offer Miss DeWitt we will start with you and Harry."
Elizabeth sighed.
This was going to be a long couple of days.
TBC
Slightly shorter but I felt like the end of the meeting was a valid point to stop. I realise that I'm kind of cutting out a lot of the Chamber of secrets story with how they're looking at it, but part of me thinks that they never did just sit down and try this. It was a case of "They're paralyzed, we can't do anything with what we have so we'll just move on from there and see what happens."
Again we get to see a bit more of the competent Lockhart, I'm actually kind of beginning to like this interpretation I'm writing of him, there will still be the bumbling and the vain side of him kicking in but at the moment he's getting to show off a bit with no threat to himself in the slightest so I figured he'd jump at the part to get involved.
Also, more professors! If evidence was shown, I'm sure they'd be a bit more pro-active in looking for something or someone that was responsible.
Who knows what else they could find while they perform this search?
Who knows indeed…?
Oh wait I do.
Next Chapter: The Search! A Secret Revealed!