Confined to Gryffindor Tower as he was, Harry still smiled as he read the article.
His memories had apparently been enough evidence to launch a raid on Malfoy Manor, and even to bring a renowned auror (apparently a magical police officer) by the name of Alastor "Mad Eye" Moody out of retirement. From there Dobby had taken the lead, subtly guiding them towards dark artifacts, including a mother load in a magically concealed cellar.
Lucius had apparently slipped an unknowing student (left unnamed for their own protection) a cursed diary that had once belonged to Voldemort, which was enchanted to open the Chamber of Secrets and release the monster within.
Topping it off, Dobby had been freed using an old, little used or remembered law because Lucius had verified under veritaserum that he abused the house elf.
And once freed, Dobby had had revenge. Apparently he'd used his freedom to help interrogate Lucius!
Lucius wasn't just not a victim of the Imperius curse, but a willing follower of Voldemort who'd been part of the villain's inner circle. Narcissa did not herself have the Dark Mark (apparently a tattoo given to all of Voldemort's most loyal followers), but sympathized completely with the group, and Draco had been brought up with the same toxic beliefs and mindset. The Malfoy family also apparently had routine gatherings with other willing but escaped Death Eaters (apparently what Voldemort's followers called themselves) to reminisce about the "good old days" under their master.
Harry decided to thumb his nose at the headmaster today by going down for the rest of breakfast since the newspaper had all but exonerated him.
The mood at the Slytherin table was somber, and Harry could hear some of the Weasleys giggling over Draco's enraged outburst at the article. Apparently Snape had whisked him away back to the Slytherin common room to vent, and many of the Death Eaters' children were none too pleased at the idea of their parents being found out.
"Hello Harry."
"Good morning Luna," Harry replied, "How may I help you?"
"My housemates were wondering how Parseltongue works, and since none of us seem to know of any books that describe it, I thought I'd ask you."
"Well it's really odd as second languages go, because I never realize that I'm using it. I have to be looking at or at least imagine I'm talking to a snake to even speak it, and I just think I'm speaking an ordinary language unless someone says something."
Luna nodded her understanding, and Harry decided to ask, "Why are your housemates so interested in Parseltongue now?"
"Oh, well since the article came out and people know how much you and Draco dislike each other, everyone is sure that you're not Slytherin's heir now. But now people are wondering who is and if there's a way to tell."
Harry shrugged. "Short of making everybody try to talk to a snake I don't think there is. And besides, doesn't the article say something about a cursed diary?"
"It does, but nobody wants to bring out their diaries for some reason."
Smiling at the very thought, Harry jokingly says, "I wonder why."
Somewhat sagely, Luna replied, "I suspect that they don't want to risk exposing the deep secrets they have in their diaries to the world."
Harry nodded, still smiling, and the two parted ways to finish their breakfast.
Over the break dorms were searched at random by visiting aurors, and occasionally suspects were instructed to try to speak to a conjured snake, but while there were a number of cursed diaries discovered, all of them were minor curses designed to ensure privacy, nothing on par with a Dark Lord who'd brought a magical nation to its knees. Furthermore, it seemed that no one apart from Harry could speak Parseltongue, leading to a simple but frightening deduction.
The diary was now stashed in the Chamber of Secrets, and the curse - however it worked - somehow could bestow and remove the ability to speak Parseltongue as needed.
This meant that there was only one way to solve the mystery: to locate the legendary Chamber of Secrets. Unfortunately, this lead to a number of harebrained theories circulating through the rumor mill, so the only place anything productive could happen was in the quartet's private study room.
Harry, Neville, Hermione, and Luna were sitting around practicing the minor elemental curses when Hermione brought the subject up again.
"Can you believe that some people actually believed the Chamber could be entered by flying through a closed window?"
"To be fair," Neville replied, "Those were members of the Slytherin quidditch team falling for something I hear Fred and George cooked up, and I hear they aren't picked for their brains."
"Where do you think the Chamber of Secrets' entrance is Neville?" Luna asked.
Neville shrugged. "You know my thoughts as well as anyone here Luna, we don't know anything new. It's probably a snake since Slytherin was a parselmouth, and to move through the castle unnoticed it has to be small, invisible, or move through the walls."
"Not to mention able to petrify people. That's very powerful dark magic."
Hermione suddenly asked, "Does anyone know who died the last time that the chamber was opened?"
"Wait, someone died?" Harry asked, "I only knew that the chamber was opened before, never that someone died from it."
"Haven't you read Hogwarts: A History?"
Harry, Neville, and Luna all took turns glancing at one another, revealing the answer to be a resounding no.
"It might have actually been poor Myrtle," Luna said.
"Myrtle?" The rest of them asked.
"Oh yes. People call her 'Moaning Myrtle.' She mostly haunts a toilet on the second floor. Poor thing. I talk to her sometimes because she seems so lonely. I've never asked how she died, but she once said offhand that it was around fifty years ago."
There was a pregnant pause as everyone digested this information.
"Should… should we go ask her? As a group? I mean… this might be a big breakthrough."
And so the quartet went downstairs to the girls' loo (after the boys made sure no one was looking).
After only a few minutes of "conversation" (which here means listening to Myrtle moan about how few people talk to her) Harry decided that the way she looked at him creeped him out, but he persevered. He would not be scared away by a mere toilet ghost.
"So you've all come just to ask me about how I died?" the ghost girl asked.
Deciding that honesty was the best policy, Harry said "Yes."
"Oooh it was dreadful!" She began, diving backwards into the toilet, prompting Harry to reflexively close the stall to block the splash. He reopened it once the sound of sloshing subsided. "It happened right in here. 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've 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... I died."
"Just like that?"
"Just like that."
"Do you remember seeing anything right before you died?"
"Actually… now that you mention it, I do: a pair of great big yellow eyes, right over there." She pointed to one of the sinks.
Harry walked over to the sink in question and started examining it. There was a faint reptilian smell around it, but he couldn't see anything distinctive about it that would mark it as a potential entrance, except…
"Wait a moment… the tap here, it has a small snake engraved on it."
There was only one way to test whether or not this was the entrance. But as Harry opened his mouth to speak, Hermione stopped him.
"We need to research what might be down there, and Myrtle just gave me an idea."
"I did?"
Hermione didn't answer, she had already run off.
"Where's she going?" Harry wondered aloud.
"The library of course." Neville and Luna responded together.
They set off after her at a leisurely pace, aware that in one of her researching moods they would never catch up to Hermione, nor be much help since she preferred not to tell them her ideas until she found some evidence to show them.
"Rip, tear, kill!"
Harry's blood ran cold.
"Harry?"
Harry broke into a run, trying to outpace the voice, "It's the voice again, and it sounds excited this time!"
He heard Neville and Luna quicken their pace as they tried to follow him.
However the creature was moving, it was simply faster than they were and it moved downward far too quickly for them to keep up.
Still, Harry's instincts were screaming at him that he knew where it was going and he raced to the library, Neville and Luna right behind him.
When they finally arrived, the air was thick with the scent of a serpent, albeit one Harry had never smelled on Monster Island, the floor had been transfigured to have a reflective sheen, and several figures were frozen.
Hermione had an expression of shock on her face and a small mirror in one hand angled around a corner. A prefect Luna recognized as Penelope Clearwater from Ravenclaw looked afraid and had her own mirror slightly above her head. Several students were trapped looking at the floor with expressions of confusion. Finally the school librarian, Madam Pince, had her wand out and a determined expression on her face.
The trio inspected Hermione, unsure what to do. She had a book in her hand, her thumb marking a page in particular, and judging from the scene had shared some suspicions with the people nearby.
Harry attempted to pry the book from Hermione's death grip while Neville and Luna ran off to alert someone. They didn't know why reflective surfaces were important, but they grabbed the mirrors from Hermione and Penelope to look around.
Eventually, Harry got the book out (with some tears, but nothing a simple "Reparo" couldn't fix) and read the page Hermione had marked.
The entry sent a chill down his spine.
"Of the many fearsome beasts and monsters that roam our land, there is none more curious or more deadly than the Basilisk, known also as the King of Serpents. This snake, which may reach gigantic size, and live many hundreds of years, is born from a chicken's egg, hatched beneath a toad. Its methods of killing are most wondrous, for aside from its deadly and venomous fangs, the Basilisk has a murderous stare, and all who are fixed with the beam of its eye shall suffer instant death. Spiders flee before the Basilisk, for it is their mortal enemy, and the Basilisk flees only from the crowing of the rooster, which is fatal to it."
Neville and Luna returned with Professor Flitwick as Harry finished reading the entry.
"Mr. Potter, do you know what happened here and why there are so many reflective surfaces here?"
"Hermione figured out the identity of the monster. Slytherin's monster is a Basilisk."
The castle was evacuated. The entire student body was gathered outside, as though the integrity of the castle itself were compromised. A Basilisk's direct gaze could kill, but Hermione had apparently advanced research on the creature by figuring out that an indirect gaze - such as through a camera lens, translucent ghost, or a reflective surface - only petrified a victim. And now a veritable army of aurors had descended on the castle.
Many of the students were uneasy being so close to the Forbidden Forest; too many rumors about werewolves haunting it, but that was just absurd.
Although considering all the honking coming from it, there might have been a weregoose. A big weregoose.
And suddenly students were screaming and running back towards the castle as professors drew their wands because a truly enormous spider crawled out from the trees - only to be anticlimactically run over by a Ford Anglia with a very familiar driver.
"UNCLE JJ!" Harry cried, running up to the robot without a moment's hesitation and giving him a hug, a gesture that the android reciprocated.
But as this reunion happened, Harry heard a professor cry out in sudden panic. "We're missing a student! Where is Ginevra Weasley!?"
Author's Note: Hello everyone! I hope you've enjoyed this chapter - I apologize for not using the basilisk yet, but some other things needed to be handled first. I assure you though, chapter 24 will be quite a show...