In the girls' bathroom, Anna arrived with Professor Snape. He had used a spell she didn't recognize to trace the steps of Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. The two looked down at the passage and Snape used Lumos to shine a light into the tunnel.
"This must be it," Anna concluded. "The entrance into the Chamber of Secrets."
Snape sighed deeply. "Have you told them about the Basilisk?"
The girl nodded. "I told them about its nature and the effects of its glare."
"Have you told them about the Basilisk's scales and venom?"
Annelyse looked up at Snape with wide, terrified eyes. "...I hadn't got the time!"
The professor took one long look into the tunnel. He was way past the age where he would enjoy crawling through tight, unexplored, filthy spaces that smelled of sewage, hunting down magical snakes, and yet, his students were down there, doing just that. Even with all the information on Basilisks, it was still tremendous work to kill one of those beasts - those kids didn't even have that.
Having heard the voice of their professor echoing through the darkness, Selena and Ron ran back to the end of the sliding tunnel.
"Professor!" Selena yelled. "Can you hear us?"
The call surprised him. "What is Selwyn doing down there?" he questioned Annelyse, but the girl shrugged.
"She ran off before I could tell them everything they needed to know about the Basilisk. Malfoy and Caesarius followed her."
Ron heard them talking and yelled as well.
"We have Professor Lockhart with us, but he's a fraud! He confessed to me and Harry, he lied about everything in his books, and then tried to erase our memories and escape on his own! Selena immobilized him!"
Annoyed by what looked to be an endless count of wrong decisions made by his and McGonagall's students, Snape made the jump. Annelyse didn't expect it, but she was quick to follow after him. He knew that hiring that charlatan for their school was a bad idea and he did warn Dumbledore about it - but when did Dumbledore ever listen to him?
Ron stepped back when he heard someone coming down the tunnel and so did Selena. Weasley had never thought he'd be glad to see Snape, of all people, but he was! He was absolutely ecstatic! Finally, a capable professor was coming to help.
"You two are getting detention once this is over," were his first words. "Where are the other three reckless idiots?"
Selena lowered her eyes in shame. "We apologize, Professor. They went that way to save Ginny Weasley."
That's when Snape saw that the dark-haired girl had followed him into the tunnels as well. "Did I tell you to come along and put yourself in danger?"
Anna looked up. "Um, n-no, but I just...-!"
"You just what, Rosier? I hadn't expected you to be this... thoughtless."
She lowered her eyes. "I wanted to help, Professor. I'm certain I couldn't get hurt while in your presence."
Sighing deeply, Snape took a look at Lockhart. "Has any of you done or said anything to Mr. Lockhart here that might put you in a position of being expelled?" he asked Selwyn and Weasley. Both students shook their heads no, without making eye contact. At least that was one good thing in this whole mess.
"Rosier, you come with me, since you volunteered. Weasley and Selwyn, call for help and cast the emergency signal. Do you know what that is?"
"Red sparks, Professor," Selwyn answered quickly.
Anna rushed to catch up with Snape and she threw one last smile over her shoulder towards Selena. It was going to be fine now.
Left alone once more, Ron rubbed his hands over his face and sighed deeply. "Man... we're getting detention for what? For trying to save my sister and for hunting down the beast that's been petrifying everyone?"
"...We've put ourselves in danger. Detention isn't that bad," she tried to show him a brighter side. "Perhaps we should have gone to Professor Snape from the start."
"No way!" Ron rejected her idea. "I would never trust him with my sister's life!"
"I know he seems a bit..." Selena tried to find the right word.
"Heartless? Cruel? Dark? A psycho who enjoys seeing us all scared of him and make our lives hell with a shitton of assignments?!"
"...severe," she chuckled, "but he does care about us. That's what Anna says, anyway, and she's been spending a lot of time around him."
"Yeah, I noticed. She's always the snitch who calls Snape for whatever happens at school."
"Not just him, though," Selena pointed out. "Anna also knows the entire rulebook by heart. She seems a bit mean, but she's really sweet if you get to know her."
"I always thought she was creepy when she said someone was breaking precisely whatever paragraph and even what lines of it. She reminds me of a lawyer and my family never trusts those people. Dad says lawyers are like snakes - they're on your side for as long as they have something to gain and will rip your head off as soon as it's in their advantage to do that."
"I never thought of lawyers that way..." Selena said in a low voice.
"The worst people of the worst are lawyers, bankers, and the Ministry wizards."
The girl took a moment to think it through. "Doesn't your father work at the Ministry, though...? I mean, I don't want to offend you! It just... came to me."
Ron took one good look at her, expecting some kind of amusement or irony or at least sarcasm. He saw none of that, just genuine concern. "...I'm not that easily offended. We came across Malfoy and his father while buying our books for this year. He insulted my whole family, along with Granger's, but mostly mine. We had to stand there and take it, but my sister cried that night. Our father didn't flinch - he just let Malfoy say his speech and walk away."
Selena looked down at the piles of small animal bones. "I'm sorry..."
"Nah... you didn't do anything," Ron mumbled.
"Neither did you," she pointed out.
Ron shrugged. "That doesn't matter. Malfoy's been picking on me and Granger from the beginning. When he offered to make friends with Potter and he refused, Malfoy started picking on him too."
"...We're not all like Malfoy," the girl mumbled in a low voice.
Ron looked at her, unsure if he had heard it correctly, but Selena blushed and turned her back on him, pacing around. "W-we should... call for help, as Professor Snape said."
"Yeah, let's do that." Ron attempted to shoot sparks from his wand, but they turned out blue and flew straight at his face.
Although she tried not to, Selena couldn't help a smile. "What happened to your wand?"
"...Long story," Ron sighed. "Yeah, go ahead and laugh, everyone does that."
"We've got time if you feel like sharing. Can I see it?"
Reluctant, Ron landed her his wand that he had stitched together with transparent tape. "Harry's living with his aunt and uncle, and they treat him like shit. They're muggles, but really scared of magic - that's the excuse he uses if you ask him why they act like that. I think they're just horrible people, but we don't choose family, right?"
Selena unwrapped the tape carefully to see the damage. "That's awful..."
"They tried to prevent him from returning to Hogwarts and put bars on his window, like an animal in the zoo! Such people... So I borrowed my father's car and drove there with Fred and George, pulled the bars off from the wall, and rescued him."
The girl saw the wood of the wand completely broken, but the core seemed alright. "Can I try to fix it? I'm not sure it will work, though."
Ron nodded. "Yeah, go ahead. It's trash anyway... So Harry lived with us for a few days, and then we had to come to Hogwarts, right? But something closed the gateway to the platform and we missed the train. I stole my dad's car again and we flew it all the way here. We nearly got expelled because some muggles saw us before I figured out how the invisibility mechanism works! Snape would have definitely expelled us!"
Selena cast Reparo and Ron's wand seemed alright. The wood had stuck together - it honestly looked brand new!
"Awesome!" he gasped as he picked up his wand. "Hermione said it wouldn't work on a wand, though..."
"I'm not sure if it worked," Selena admitted. "Can you try it?"
Excited, Ron aimed it towards the sliding tunnel and tried to shoot the red sparks, but then his wand fell apart again and the sparks had spread around them. "Shoot...!"
The girl saw the disappointment on his face. "I'm sorry... I tried."
Giving up on his wand again, Ron sat down on a dry patch of ground. "It was too good to last, I guess..."
"So... how exactly did you break it?"
"When we arrived, I lost control of the car and landed in the Whomping Willow, and it attacked us. The car got destroyed and my wand broke, but Harry and I managed to get away somehow with only scratches and bruises."
Selena tried hard to hold back, but couldn't help a small chuckle. "At least you got away."
Ron gave her a small smile. "I guess..."
"Why don't you ask for a new wand?"
"I can't... My parents are already making sacrifices to keep all of us in school. With Ginny starting this year, it's been hard enough for them. Wands are expensive, I don't want to burden them. I've been saving some money, but I don't think I'll be able to afford a new one until summer."
Selena nodded slowly. Her family never had that problem. She didn't even know the price of half the items she bought.
As they were talking, Sanpe and Annelyse kept making their way through the tunnels. They found the metallic door open and the real entrance into the Chamber of Secrets. Their robes were soaking up water from the ground, filthy with residues of all kinds, but at least their shoes were leather and rejected the murky waters. The closer they got, the more Anna saw of Snape's concern for her colleagues. She was certain he wasn't a bad man because a heartless and cruel man wouldn't have gone through such trials to save his students. She also knew he was anything but a bad professor, as he was more worried about getting everyone to safety than he was about her having failed to warn Draco and Katherina about the Basilisk's reflective scales and deadly venom.
They saw the three students battling the beast. Draco had cast the severing charm, Diffindo, right as the Basilisk was about to chase after Harry. This drew the snake's attention, but the spell ricocheted off its scales. Katherina noticed it and pushed Draco out of the way. Fawkes, Dumbledore's pet phoenix avoided the blast with ease, but it was headed for the entrance. Snape caught Annelyse by her cloak and pulled her away from the imminent target of the spell.
Anna found herself between the cold, damp wall and Snape's arms as she watched the severing charm go right through the door behind which they were hiding. If it hadn't been for the professor's quick reaction, that would have been her head.
Draco looked up. In an instant, he found himself on the ground with Katherina over him. Her ponytail had scattered around them. She quickly rolled off of him as they saw the Basilisk's mouth gaping over them.
"Reflective scales," was all she could manage to say.
"Shit," Draco gasped as he attempted to drag himself away. "Let's split up!"
Following his plan, the Slytherins ran in opposite directions of the beast, attempting to confuse it.
Snape looked down at Rosier. She seemed alright. The girl then noticed the bleeding cut on his arm and reached for it, but he stopped her hand.
"Professor-!"
"It's a scratch. I want you to go back, understood?"
All she needed was one look to understand his intentions. Anna shook her head. "You can't go in there!"
"Use Colloportus to lock the door behind me, then run back to Selwyn and Weasley." Snape reached into an inner pocket. "Have one of them drink this - don't do it yourself. It will make them light as a feather. Once that happens, have the person float you all to the surface, and go tell Sprout, Pomfrey, and Dumbledore."
Anna tried to argue, but then she noticed that Snape was somehow even more serious than usual. She nodded.
Taking one look to see that the coast was clear, Snape went into the Chamber, but not before Anna had time to cast Episkey. Before he could argue, the door shut closed and he heard Annelyse running away, as instructed.
Author's notes:
There it is! Have you seen it? There's the trigger to The Losing Game!
