AN: a new week, a new chapter, but always the same disclaimer that I own nothing.
CHAPTER 32 – Sidealley dodge
Draco Malfoy was worried. It was understandable: despite having caught some of the Gryffindors practicing magic in a collapsed secret passage, professor Umbridge wasn't in her office to punish them, nor she was anywhere else in the castle if the note she had left was to be believed. The real problem though was that every moment he expected to see the door crumple into ashes and Potter –he was never going to call her anything as disgustingly muggle as Nalaar– march into the room to rescue her followers. It was the kind of stupidly Gryffindor thing he had come to expect of her.
Pansy Parkinson was worried too, albeit for a completely different reason: if Nalaar attacked as she was liable to do, the young double agent would be forced to either defend herself –saving her cover but risking the redhead's anger– or to help the pyromancer, which would in turn expose her and potentially displease her Lady. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place.
Chandra Nalaar wasn't worried in the least. It wasn't the first time she had had to sneak someplace to steal something –even if it actually was the first time the something had been four people– so she had simply dusted one of her old plans, done the due corrections, and went for it. No time for worries at all, they were just distractions.
Hermione was incredibly worried. Chandra had somehow came up with a ludicrous plan, and the bushy haired girl was arguably sure her friend was certifiably insane: most people would have broken in through the door or a window, but the pyromancer had planned a more radical approach of going through the ceiling. Because apparently walls were too foreseeable, if the redhead was to be believed. Bloody mental, that's what Ron Weasley would have called her, and for once in her life, Hermione felt inclined to agree with him.
That was an accurate depiction of every major player in the room when, thirty-two minutes after the Gryffindors had been brought in, the high, pointed roof started glowing red hot before melting right above Umbridge's desk and Chandra jumped down from the resulting opening. Malfoy, Crabble and Goyle had barely the time to take out their wands before a volley of fireballs impacted the ground in front of their feet with concussive force, sending them flying in the walls and into Dreamland.
"Lay down your wand and nobody gets hurt," ordered the pyromancer in Pansy's direction while sending a fourth fireball at the locked door.
Recognizing the order as the easy way out it was, the heterochromatic girl threw her wand away and raised her hands in surrender, right on time to for Hermione to cross the heavily damaged door.
All in all, the whole debacle had taken around a minute.
"Wow, that was cool!" commented Weasley looking at Chandra with awe in his eyes.
"Yeah!" agreed Thomas next to him getting up and retrieving his wand.
"Less talking, more getting out before the Toad gets back," ordered the pyromancer cutting the praise-giving short "And someone stun Parkinson!"
Hermione complied, knowing that they had to save appearances, and soon they were barreling down the practically deserted corridors towards the second floor. The few students around hastened to get out of the way from the six runners.
"Moaning Myrtle's bathroom?" asked Patil amid gasping for air "Why are we here?"
"We need to flee the scene," explained Chandra as she guided the group "Umbridge won't take this attack lying down, she's sure to let her dogs at us, possibly even without proof. Minerva and the others won't be able to protect us for much longer, not without consequences. Luna was the only one to provide a hiding place."
"Lovegood is looney," commented Weasley looking behind his shoulders to see if they were being pursued "You cannot possibly believe the Chamber of Secrets is in a bathroom!"
"The ghosts confirmed her words," explained the pyromancer rounding the last corner "Let us hope the others found a way in, or this will be a very short lived rebellion."
They found the rest of the group inside said lavatory, with Bones and her friend Abbot keeping watch just outside the door while the others were scouring the place for some kind of secret passage with Myrtle's help.
"I think they didn't," muttered Hermione coming up next to Chandra.
"Luna, how's it going?" asked the pyromancer making her way towards the petite blonde, who was standing near the faucets.
"I'm great, thanks!" chirped the silver-eyed teen "I wish we could find the entrance though, it's remarkably well hidden…"
"Great, just great… Ok new plan: Brown, Patil, you've got eye for detail, help the others search. Hermione, you and the Weasley twins think up some alternative if this doesn't pan out. I want four wands out of here checking the corridor, while me, Bones and Davis organize the defenses. Everyone else keep looking!"
After having experienced Chandra's taskmaster mode while training, everybody went and did as ordered with no hesitation. It wasn't that they feared some kind of punishment –even if Ron and a couple of others had been subjected to those a number of times– but rather they trusted her to make the smart decisions, what with her being the most experienced of them all.
Soon the strategy proved fruitful: Lavender Brown spotted a small snake engraved on one of the faucets, and that if nothing else meant they were on the right track. Unfortunately, that wasn't the only aspects of the plan that proved useful: the younger Creevy brother run into the bathroom mere moments after the discovery saying that the Inquisitorial Squad was coming.
"Ok, let's not lose our cool," said Chandra patting Denny's head to show he had done a good job and to calm him too "I'll go buy us some time, Bones and Davis are in charge. Focus on slowing tactics and opening that passage. If worse comes to worse, blow the blasted thing up!"
"Myrtle, you saw Ginevra open the chamber, no?" asked Hermione as the pyromancer stalked out of the room, her hair igniting, "How did she do it?"
While her group of rebels discovered that they were a parselmouth short to open the Chamber's entrance, the literal hothead was molding mana in advance, knowing full well that in situations like hers she had a lot of metaphorical heavy lifting to do. The fact that said situation was a conflict between her and a bunch of school children was briefly considered and then ignored.
As soon as she spotted the assailants coming, with Umbridge herself at their help to booth, Chandra created a wastefully large conflagration mere meters ahead of them as a distraction, before starting to retreat while summoning three sequential walls of fire.
"This should buy us some time," she muttered running back.
Meanwhile Hermione and the Weasley twins were trying fruitlessly to emulate the hissing sounds Myrtle remembered from three years prior.
"It should be more shaa and less hiss," tried explaining the pigtailed ghost floating just above the marked faucet "A bit higher now."
"Can we even open this…"
"… Or are we just making fools of ourselves?" wandered the elder Weasley brothers doing their usual twin-speak, which helped none in calming Hermione.
"We'll know only if we try," replied the bushy haired witch sounding more and more exasperated.
"But my less handsome brother," went on one of the two, apparently ignoring the girl's words "We always make fools of ourselves!"
"Right you are Gred!" replied the other nodding sagely before resuming with his hissing.
"Wait, I thought I was Forge!"
"Stop fooling around!" ordered the obviously irate witch.
"What's going on here?" asked Chandra, who had entered the bathroom in that moment.
"The Chamber is locked with a password in Parseltongue," huffed Hermione glaring at the twins "And this two buffoons aren't helping any!"
"Just trying to lift the general mood," said the one the claimed to be Gred lifting his hands in a placating gesture.
"Ok, no harm in a little joke now and then but let's focus now. Anything I can help with?" asked the pyromancer looking at Hermione and Myrtle.
"Unless you can speak Parseltongue I don't think so…" sighed the bushy haired teen "It's the language of snakes, a pretty rare talent."
"The password sounded something like this," continued the ghost before adding a hissing sound "Only a tad higher pitched."
Chandra shrugged and gave a shot in replicating the hiss, pretty sure that it would be a bust, so she was understandably surprised when the sink in front of the started sliding into the ground with the grating sound of stone on stone, a feeling mirrored by the four around her. Their surprise was short lived though: cries of warning came from the advanced defensive teams to indicate that their pursuers had finally started passing Chandra's walls of flames.
"One team here with me to defend the entrance," called the pyromancer over the din of the scared students "All the others, down this chute!"
As her companions started getting down the slippery slope that was the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets with Myrtle as a vanguard, Hermione, the twins, Bones and Abbot gathered around the planeswalker.
"Ok people we need to buy time for the others so it needs to be suppression fire," explained Chandra "As long as you can cast it fast and repetitively it will be fine. Now follow me."
She jumped out in the open corridor, a salvo of smallish fireballs leaving her hands to fly at the incoming High Inquisitor. The others followed right after her shouting a random assortment of incantations to pelt the Inquisitorial Squad members, who dived for cover behind suits of armor, corners, each other, and everything else that could be used for protection.
"Get them!" shrieked Umbridge as she shielded herself from the initial assault while moving toward the nearest cover.
Unfortunately they were at a standstill: none of the attackers would chance getting taken down only to maybe hit one of the defenders, who in turn had to stand their ground and keep casting. After a couple of minutes though things started to change: while Chandra and the twins were still going strong, the other three were starting to tire and slow down, an opportunity the assailants used to return fire. Two lucky hits got Hermione and one twin, forcing the rest to retreat back to the bathroom.
Fortunately for them, the others had finished evacuating and the sinks were starting to slid back into place so they didn't waste any more time, grabbed their unconscious friends and dived down into the darkness, with only Umbridge screams following them.