A/N: I know y'all, it's been minute since I updated! Life has been cray. I'm growing not one, but two tiny humans inside me. It's insane. Finally feeling inspired on this pic again though, which is awesome! I think I'm also feeling a Sirius POV for the next chapter perhaps? WE SHALL SEE. Mad props to my awesome beta, kanewolf, for her expert beta skillz! As always, your reviews keep me going and I treasure them forever!
oOo
"The Chamber of what?" Sirius asked, porcelain face askew with confusion.
"Secrets," supplied Remus.
"What kind of secrets?"
The werewolf shrugged, "...Secrety secrets."
Sirius nodded knowingly, index finger rubbing his chin. "Ahh, but of course. I should have known."
"How McGonagall hasn't killed you both by now, I'm really not sure." Hermione sighed, gathering the map in her hands. "Get ready; we're floo'ing to Hogwarts in ten."
"Ten what?"
"Minutes, Sirius."
oOo
A flick of her wrist closed and locked the door behind them, and the witch quickly cast a silent notice-me-not before eyes crafted of liquid amber turned to shrewdly examine the room before her. Little had apparently changed in the second-floor girls' lavatory from the early 80's into the 90's. In fact, Hermione suspected little had changed in this particular room since Hogwarts had installed indoor plumbing if the art deco carvings were any indication.
Hermione swept her gaze about, quickly locating the sinks which seemed to be in order, along with the toilets, tiled floors, mirrors, architecture- everything was the same except for one extremely complicated difference: there was no wailing ghost.
"Myrtle?" Hermione called out hopefully, stepping towards the sink. "Moaning Myrtle?" She tried again.
Sirius frowned and turned to Remus, who shrugged in return.
"Should we also be calling for this mystery person? This moaner?" Sirius practically drawled and then suddenly cocked his head. "Moaning Myrtle? What an absolutely filthy name. Tell me, Hermione, do you know this Myrtle the Moaner due to business or pleasure?"
Hermione choked on her own breath and snapped around, sending the wizard one of the most wrathful glares she had ever mustered and Sirius, for his part, seemed wholly unperturbed. The wizard didn't even acknowledge her. Instead he began wandering around calling out for "Myrtle the Moaner."
Oh my gods, I'm going to kill him. Murder! Murder is on the agenda today! You won't even make it to the Department of Mysteries, Sirius Black! I'll send you across the Veil myself.
With a determined huff, Hermione furrowed her dark brow and turned her thoughts inwards and away from obnoxious wizards.
Was Myrtle never killed? Or did her spirit simply move on? The witch wondered, stepping carefully around the sinks. Was the Chamber not opened in the 40s by Riddle? Or was it opened but the basilisk not released? That seems unlikely. Why wouldn't Riddle want to be murdering the innocent at any given time? Wait. Hermione bit her bottom lip. Was Myrtle his first murder? She quickly but efficiently flipped through her mind like the pages of her beloved tomes, turning through everything she knew regarding Tom Riddle and all she could find under "First Murder" was Myrtle. Yes, because the diary was an accidental horcrux, he didn't know what he was doing yet. Maybe there simply is no basilisk this time around, in which case, how the bloody fuck am I going to learn to control fiendfyre to destroy these horcruxes? Fuck, what if there isn't even a Chamber? No no, you reread this universe's Hogwarts a History, you know there's a Chamber.
"Y'know," Sirius began, peeking into one of the stalls. "I don't believe I've ever been in this lavatory before."
"You've never been in- wait, how many of the girls' lavatories have you been inside?" Remus asked incredulously, hands stuffed in his pockets as he gawked at the pureblood.
Sirius opened his mouth, but Hermione hastily raised a hand.
"I absolutely do not care to know." The witch cut in, prompting an impish grin the crawl across Sirius's pink lips.
Ignoring the insufferable wizard, Hermione began reaching out her hand to inspect each tap carefully as in her head she continued to to sort through years of information regarding the Dark Lord and the Chamber. Curiously, Remus followed behind the witch, bending over to watch her shrewd investigation as Hermione examined each tap, above and below, and then proceeded to turn each tap on. When water would run from the tap, Hermione would murmur under her breath, turn off the water, and move on to the next.
Finally, after letting this go on for about five taps, Remus inquired, "Are we looking for something?"
The witch muttered a low confirmation, only barely aware he had spoken.
"And what, pray tell, would that be?" Sirius glided to where Hermione was hunched over a sink and dropped easily into a squat beside her. She was a petite witch and the act of bending to inspect the sinks stooped her even further down, way below tall pureblood and even taller werewolf.
Flanked now on either side by curious wizards, Hermione was forced to look up into baffled grey eyes.
"I've told you," the witch sighed, "the Chamber of Secrets."
"You keep repeating that as if we should know what it is." Sirius almost snapped, his own impatience growing. "But you've given us absolutely no indication of what a chamber- that's somehow full of secrets- is and now you're investigating the plumbing situation in a girls' lavatory. Calling out to this Myrtle character. Explaining nothing to the poor sods who got dragged into all this. Is the "Chamber of Secrets" code for toilet? Is this some sort of alternate universe thing we don't know about?"
"Yes," Hermione deadpanned, her mouth as straight as a pole. "This has been an elaborate ruse to get you to come join me in a girls' lavatory by way of special alternate universe code words. You're brilliant."
"Well, I have to admit, that doesn't make any sense." Sirius folded his arms across his slender chest.
"Of course it doesn't." Hermione rolled her eyes, but internally did concede that Sirius' point was valid: she had not let them in on what the Chamber was or why it was relevant to their mission. Harry would have understood. She thought with a brief pain in her chest. No, that's not true, Harry didn't know what the Chamber was second year either, he just knows now not to question you. Now the witch had to concede her own point.
Hermione stood up and leaned against the sink. "Have either of you read Hogwarts a History?" She asked, though the witch was sure she knew the answer.
"Of course," Sirius replied, "at least once a year. Biggest swots in Britain, us two." He motioned to himself and Remus.
The witch pinched the bridge of her nose. "I am going to lose my mind completely one day because of you."
Sirius grinned.
"Well," Hermione continued, "if you had read the book, which I highly suggest, it is an informative and fascinating read-"
"-Oooh such glowing praise-" Sirius gushed.
"-then you would know that Salazar Slytherin, founder of House Slytherin, before he left Hogwarts and subsequently disappeared into the annals of time-"
"Godric, he did what to time?"
"-STOP INTERRUPTING ME." Hermione stomped her foot and then rushed on before the wizard could say anything more. "Salazar Slytherin built a chamber under Hogwarts where he kept his pet basilisk, a chamber that can only be opened by his heir in order for said basilisk to be let loose through these hallowed halls on a muggle-born killing rampage." Hermione let out a breath as the words finally stopped tumbling out of her.
Remus and Sirius exchanged a wary glance before the werewolf spoke, "Sounds like a right tosser, this Salazar."
"Indeed." Hermione nodded.
"Salazar Slytherin, biggest prick in Hogwarts history," Sirius agreed, "but what does that have to do with the mission? Why do we need to find this chamber?" The wizard frowned and ran a hand through his ebony locks.
"For two reasons," Hermione continued, holding up two dark fingers. "The first of which being that inside the Chamber is a basilisk" - Godric, I really hope- "and basilisk venom is one of the few things that can destroy a horcrux and second," Hermione locked her eyes on Sirius' own, watching them darken like clouds that herald a storm with understanding, "Tom Riddle, who preferred to fancy himself the Dark Lord, is the last remaining direct descendent of Salazar and thus the Heir of Slytherin."
"Why," Remus ran a hand down the side of his unshaven face, "do these things always seem to come back to Slytherin?"
"Because they're all a bunch of gobshites." Sirius all but spat, his wand hand twitching.
"Ugh, alright," The werewolf began, cutting off what he knew would be an inevitably long and fiercely worded Slytherin rant, "so we're on a basilisk hunt- oh my gods I just realized how insane that sounds, you are absolutely the craziest witch I've ever met-"
"Thank you." Hermione smiled with a nod.
Remus sighed. "So we're going on a basilisk hunt in the Chamber of Secrets and I'm assuming this lavatory has something to do with the Chamber? How to get in I'm guessing?"
"Yes," the witch agreed, "or at least, I hope. In my timeline the entrance to the Chamber is accessible via a hidden door in...here." Hermione cast her arm in a sweeping motion. "One of these taps should be broken and it should have a snake engraved onto it, but thus far all of these taps seem to be in-"
"Found it." Sirius called from the other side of the pillar of sinks.
"Wha-what?" Hermione scuttled over to Sirius, eyes round, and watched as the wizard continuously turned one of the taps on and off again, but no water ran from the pipes. "Does it have a snake engraving?" The witch rushed over to Sirius to get a better look.
"Mmmhmm," Sirius nodded, tracing a pale finger over a delicately carved snake's head, so expertly rendered to blend with the ornate decorations on the taps, that a less keen eye would have surely missed the serpent.
"You brilliant, wizard." Hermione whispered under her breath gleefully, prompting both the wizards in the room to shoot her startled glances; though admittedly Sirius' expression quickly morphed into one of barely contained pleasure.
"Finally she begins to get it." Sirius tapped on his chest. "Top notch Auror, right here."
Remus chuckled, "Alright, but now what?"
Hermione's body stilled and she looked sideways at the wizards, particularly Sirius, understanding that what she was about to do would not go over well. "I have to open it," she began, "but in order to do that I'll have to… well, just watch me and withhold your judgements for later."
"Our judgements…?" Sirius perked an ebony eyebrow, regarding the witch gingerly as she stood back from the sink and motioned for the wizards to do the same.
Hermione took a deep breath. Alright, Granger, just like we practiced it.
Parseltongue is an odd language not simply because it's the language of snakes, but mainly because to speak it is almost to transform oneself. There is the brief loss of humanity in communicating with a beast.
Hermione twisted her spine, unknowingly adopting a more serpentine stance, as she felt the cold whisper form in the back of her throat to slither up past her barely parted lips. "Ssssshaheeeessss."
Sirius opened his mouth to speak, eyes wide with something akin to horror, but before he could muster a sound the sink began to shake and then, sink down into the floor and out of sight, leaving a set of spiral stone stairs in its place.
Stairs? What happened to the giant pipe? Though confused, Hermione smiled at her work all the same. She had been pouring over books from the Black Family library all night, combining that information with what she remembered from Harry and Ron, to piece together the command in parseltongue. If Ron could open the Chamber by just by listening to Harry talk in his sleep, then Hermione Granger was damn sure she could too. Still, the confirmation of her abilities was quite satisfying.
Remus clucked appreciatively. "Interesting," the werewolf breathed.
"Was that- was it," Sirius stuttered, "parseltongue?" The last word more a curse than a name.
The witch's smile dropped from her lips and she nodded, her back instinctively straightening. "Indeed, it was."
"You speak parseltongue?" Sirius asked, still in partial astonishment. "You're a parselmouth. Y-You speak to snakes?"
"Well no," Hermione shook her head, chestnut curls bouncing, "I don't speak to snakes, but that was parseltongue I used to open the first entrance."
Remus bit his bottom lip, "First entrance?"
"Yes," the witch agreed, quick to jump on a subject change, "this just leads to the passageway, there's another door for the Chamber itself."
We knew Sirius was going to be a complete arsehole about the parseltongue. Anything related to pureblood or Slytherin culture is completely taboo...
"Hold up," Sirius interrupted, his voice stiff, "how do you know parseltongue if you don't in fact speak it yourself?"
Uuuuuugh.
"Because," Hermione sighed, "I'm an unbelievable swot."
Both wizards had to nod at that. Oh stop nodding your heads! Wankers.
Hermione bit the inside of her cheek nearly hard enough to draw blood to keep the mental images the word "wankers" conjured from invading her thoughts.
Pull it together, Granger!
"And," Hermione turned from them, to hide the heat of a blush on her cheeks at her own reminder of the events from that morning, "Harry talks in his sleep." The witch started down the staircase, thankful for the rush of cold air that cooled her heated face.
Because she now had her back to the wizards, Hermione missed the brief but intense look of shock that shot across Sirius' pale face before the wizard quickly schooled his features, though Remus was instantly aware of the shift in Sirius' mental state. The pureblood wore his emotions on his sleeve, or in his scent as the case was.
"Wait, Harry?" Remus asked, quickly following after Hermione. "As in Harry Potter? The little infant we saved a few weeks ago? James and Lily's Harry?"
"One and the same." Hermione slid her wand from her sleeve and flicked it, casting a silent lumos.
How odd that this is a staircase, I swear Harry and Ron had said it was a pipe they had to slide down. Has it always been stairs? A small little difference in realities? Or was the pipe transfigured into stairs? And if the pipe was transfigured, why would it have been-
"Harry is going to be a parselmouth, hmm?" Remus mused. "How odd, I didn't think the Potters had any Slytherin blood in them, as pureblood as they are or were, I mean."
"They don't," Hermione explained absently as the stairs gave way to a vaulted stone passage, "Harry wasn't a parselmouth his whole life, just for the first eighteen years or so, it's actually a very long story."
"We've got time." Sirius called from behind Remus.
"I'm afraid we've got bigger snakes to fry as the case may be." Hermione responded, holding her illuminated wand into the darkness.