Chapter 15: Once More Unto the Breach

We won the Cup. I caught the Snitch practically under Davies' nose. James was laughing about it the whole time, miming his dumbfounded expression. Even Remy managed to smile at his antics, despite how close we are to that time of the month. Never imagined I'd be part of the Marauders, it's a nice feeling.

Leo woke up late the following day, almost missing breakfast as he slowly crawled his way out of bed before showering and dressing. He hugged the wall as he slowly made his way down the stairs to the Great Hall, flopping down in a seat next to Harry and plopping his head on the table with a small groan, too tired to eat. Harry patted his arm sympathetically before informing him of what he had told Ron last night: Moaning Myrtle was the girl who died in the bathroom.

Leo squinted at him, raising an eyebrow as though to say 'well, obviously'. He'd put together that little puzzle not long after he figured out that the Chamber opened fifty years ago. When he told Harry this, his cousin merely grumbled for him to go back to sleep. He would've been more than happy to do so, but they had Transfiguration that morning as their first class. If it had been DADA or History of Magic, Leo would've bunked off in an instant.

Ten minutes into the class, McGonagall told them that their exams would start on the first of June, one week from today.

"Exams?" howled Seamus Finnigan. "We're still getting exams?"

There was a loud bang behind them as Neville Longbottom's wand slipped, vanishing one of the legs on his desk. McGonagall restored it with a wave of her own wand, and turned, frowning, to Seamus.

"The whole point of keeping the school open at this time is for you to receive your education," she said sternly. "The exams will, therefore, take place as usual, and I trust you are all studying hard."

She gave Leo, who was trying hard to keep his eyes open, a particularly stern look at this. He gave a wide grin in response, having never studied a day in his life and not planning on studying now. There was a great deal of mutinous muttering around the room, which made McGonagall scowl even more darkly.

"Professor Dumbledore's instructions were to keep the school running as normally as possible," she said. "And that, I need hardly point out, means finding out how much you have learned this year."

Leo took that moment to turn his rabbits into a pair of fluffy slippers and go to sleep for the rest of the class. McGonagall assigned him detention for the next day.

Three days before their first exam, McGonagall made another announcement at breakfast.

"I have good news," she said, and the Great Hall, instead of falling silent, erupted.

"Dumbledore's coming back!" several people yelled joyfully.

"You've caught the Heir of Slytherin!" squealed a girl at the Ravenclaw table.

"Quidditch matches are back on!" roared Wood excitedly.

"You're firing Lockhart!" Leo called out.

When the laughter had subsided, McGonagall said, "Professor Sprout has informed me that the Mandrakes are ready for cutting at last. Tonight, we will be able to revive those people who have been Petrified. I need hardly remind you all that one of them may well be able to tell us who, or what attacked them. I am hopeful that this dreadful year will end with our catching the culprit."

There was an explosion of cheering. Leo looked over at the Slytherin table and wasn't at all surprised to see that Zabini hadn't joined in. Git. Ron, however, was looking happier than he'd looked in days.

"It won't matter that we never asked Myrtle, then!" he said to Harry. "Hermione'll probably have all the answers when they wake her up! Mind you, she'll go crazy when she finds out we've got exams in three days' time. She hasn't studied. It might be kinder to leave her where she is till they're over."

"Studying is overrated," Leo snorted, stabbing a potato.

Just then, Ginny Weasley came over and sat down next to Ron. She looked tense and nervous, and Leo noticed that her hands were twisting in her lap.

"What's up?" said Ron, helping himself to more porridge.

Ginny didn't say anything but glanced up and down the Gryffindor table with a scared look on her face that reminded Leo of someone who had something important to say but couldn't quite get it out. His eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Spit it out," said Ron, watching her.

"I've got to tell you something," Ginny mumbled, carefully not looking at Harry.

"Is it about the Chamber?" Leo questioned, putting a potato in his mouth and chewing it as though this was a perfectly normal conversation to be having. "Did you see something?"

Ginny drew a deep breath and, at that precise moment, Percy Weasley appeared, looking tired and wan.

"If you've finished eating, I'll take that seat, Ginny. I'm starving, I've only just come off patrol duty."

Ginny jumped up as though her chair had just been electrified, gave Percy a fleeting, frightened look, and scampered away. Percy sat down and grabbed a mug from the center of the table.

"Percy!" said Ron angrily. "She was just about to tell us something important!"

Halfway through a gulp of tea, Percy choked.

"What sort of thing?" he said, coughing.

"Leo just asked her if she'd seen anything odd, and she started to say..."

"Oh — that — that's nothing to do with the Chamber of Secrets," said Percy at once.

"How do you know?" said Ron, his eyebrows raised.

"Well, er, if you must know, Ginny, er, walked in on me the other day when I was — well, never mind — the point is, she spotted me doing something and I, um, I asked her not to mention it to anybody. I must say, I did think she'd keep her word. It's nothing, really, I'd just rather—"

"Nobody cares about you snogging your girlfriend, Perce," Leo rolled his eyes, mildly interested when Percy choked on his drink again. "We've got more interesting things to talk about, like Goblin Rebellions."

Percy did not look amused at this. Instead, he stammered a bit before his face turned red and he moved further down the table away from them. Leo merely grinned and continued eating his potatoes.

Midmorning, they were being led to History of Magic by Gilderoy Lockhart. Lockhart, who had so often assured them that all danger had passed, only to be proved wrong right away, was now wholeheartedly convinced that it was hardly worth the trouble to see them safely down the corridors. His hair wasn't as sleek as usual; it seemed he had been up most of the night, patrolling the fourth floor. Leo felt he had something to do with his appearance as well.

After spotting Lockhart alone on the Map, Leo had taken Harry's cloak and rushed down to the fourth floor. He had various sets of armor rattle and made echoing whispers bounce around the hall. Once Lockhart was well and truly paranoid, he ran in place, making it sound as though someone was chasing after him. Lockhart screamed like a girl and ran down the corridor, only to trip when Leo hit him with a Trip Jinx. Leo smiled fondly at the memory.

"Mark my words," he said, ushering them around a corner. "The first words out of those poor Petrified people's mouths will be 'It was Hagrid.' Frankly, I'm astounded Professor McGonagall thinks all these security measures are necessary."

"I agree, sir," said Harry, slapping a hand over Leo's mouth as Ron dropped his books in surprise.

"Thank you, Harry," said Lockhart graciously while they waited for a long line of Hufflepuffs to pass. "I mean, we teachers have quite enough to be getting on with, without walking students to classes and standing guard all night..."

"That's right," said Ron. "Why don't you leave us here, sir, we've only got one more corridor to go —"

"You know, Weasley, I think I will," said Lockhart. "I really should go and prepare for my next class —"

And he hurried off.

"Prepare what?" Leo snorted when Harry lowered his hand. "He doesn't even teach anything!"

They let the rest of the Gryffindors draw ahead of them, then darted down a side passage and hurried off toward Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. But just as Harry and Ron were congratulating each other on their brilliant scheme -

"Black! Potter! Weasley! What are you doing?"

It was McGonagall, and her mouth was the thinnest of thin lines.

"We were heading off to the hospital wing," Leo said, thinking quickly. "We wanted to see -"

"Hermione," Harry finished, catching on. "We haven't seen her for ages, Professor, and we thought we'd sneak into the hospital wing, you know, and tell her the Mandrakes are nearly ready and, er, not to worry —"

"And make sure she's prepared for the exams in a few days. She'll flip if we don't forewarn her," Leo added when Harry seemed to be running out of things to say.

McGonagall was still staring at him, and for a moment, Leo thought she was going to explode, but when she spoke, it was in a strangely croaky voice.

"Of course," she said, and Leo, amazed, saw a tear glistening in her beady eye. "Of course, I realize this has all been hardest on the friends of those who have been...I quite understand. Yes, you three, of course you may visit Miss Granger. I will inform Professor Binns where you've gone. Tell Madam Pomfrey I have given my permission."

The three walked away, hardly daring to believe that they'd avoided detention. Leo was a bit disappointed at this, he was shooting for a record. As they turned the corner, they distinctly heard McGonagall blow her nose.

"That," said Ron fervently, "was the best story you've ever come up with."

"Clearly, you've never seen me escape detention with the twins," Leo snorted. "That's true art right there."

They had no choice now but to go to the hospital wing and tell Madam Pomfrey that they had McGonagall's permission to visit Hermione.

Madam Pomfrey let them in, but reluctantly.

"There's just no point talking to a Petrified person," she said, and they had to admit she had a point when they'd taken their seats next to Hermione. It was plain that Hermione didn't have the faintest inkling that she had visitors and that they might just as well tell her bedside cabinet not to worry for all the good it would do.

"Wonder if she did see the attacker, though?" said Ron, looking sadly at Hermione's rigid face. "Because if he sneaked up on them all, no one'll ever know..."

"Well, she had a mirror, so it's likely she saw something," Leo replied, thoughtfully tapping his chin.

At that moment, Harry spotted a crumpled wad of paper in Hermione's hand and pointed it out to the other two. He tried to pull it out, almost tearing it in the process when Leo shooed him away and flicked his wrist, taking his wand out. He muttered a quick "Reducio" before taking the shrunken paper, re-enlarging it, and handing it off to Harry.

It was a page torn from a very old library book. Harry smoothed it out eagerly and, knowing that Leo wouldn't lean over to read it alongside them, read aloud:

"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."

Leo stared at the paper before turning to the other two and saying, "I bloody told you so."

The two groaned, knowing that Leo would never let this go. And they were correct. Over the years, Leo would constantly bring up the year where he bloody called everything whilst everyone else ran about like chickens with their heads cut off.

"So, the monster in the Chamber's a basilisk — a giant serpent! That's why I've been hearing that voice all over the place, and nobody else has heard it. It's because I understand Parseltongue..." Harry began excitedly, ignoring Leo as he continuously hummed 'I told you so'. "The basilisk kills people by looking at them. But no one's died — because no one looked it straight in the eye. Colin saw it through his camera. The basilisk burned up all the film inside it, but Colin just got Petrified. Justin...Justin must've seen the basilisk through Nearly Headless Nick! Nick got the full blast of it, but he couldn't die again...and Hermione and that Ravenclaw prefect were found with a mirror next to them. Hermione had just realized the monster was a basilisk. I bet you anything she warned the first person she met to look around corners with a mirror first! And that girl pulled out her mirror — and —"

Ron's jaw had dropped.

"And Mrs. Norris?" he whispered eagerly.

"Water, water everywhere," Leo sang, recalling the wet floor. "Myrtle's bathroom was flooded -"

He suddenly gasped, clapping his hands to his face.

"Because the snake came out for the first time in fifty years – the Chamber's beneath the girl's bathroom!"

They sat there, excitement coursing through them, hardly able to believe it.

"This means," said Harry, "I can't be the only Parselmouth in the school. The Heir of Slytherin's one, too. That's how he's been controlling the basilisk."

"What're we going to do?" said Ron, whose eyes were flashing. "Should we go straight to McGonagall?"

"Let's go to the staff room," said Harry, jumping up. "She'll be there in ten minutes. It's nearly break."

They ran downstairs. Not wanting to be discovered hanging around in another corridor, they went straight into the deserted staff room. It was a large, paneled room full of dark, wooden chairs. Leo, Harry, and Ron paced around it, too excited to sit down.

But the bell to signal break never came.

Instead, echoing through the corridors came McGonagall's voice, magically magnified.

"All students to return to their House dormitories at once. All teachers return to the staff room. Immediately, please."

"Bollocks, that's never a good sign," Leo stated before grabbing the two and dragging them into a nearby wardrobe.

From between the musty folds of the cloaks, they watched the teachers filtering into the room. Some of them were looking puzzled, others downright scared. Then McGonagall arrived.

"It has happened," she told the silent staff room. "A student has been taken by the monster. Right into the Chamber itself."

Leo felt bad that he felt relief at not being the one who was kidnapped this time. Flitwick let out a squeal. Sprout clapped her hands over her mouth. Snape gripped the back of a chair very hard and said, "How can you be sure?"

"The Heir of Slytherin," said McGonagall, who was very white, "left another message. Right underneath the first one. 'Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever.'"

That sounds very... theatrical. Leo's eyebrows knitted together in confusion. Almost like he's daring someone to go find her.

"Who is it?" said Madam Hooch, who had sunk, weak-kneed, into a chair. "Which student?"

"Ginny Weasley," said McGonagall.

Leo felt Ron slide silently down onto the wardrobe floor beside him.

"We shall have to send all the students home tomorrow," said McGonagall. "This is the end of Hogwarts. Dumbledore always said..."

The staff room door banged open again. Leo was grateful that the sound was so loud, otherwise the teachers would've heard his very audible groan. It was Lockhart, and he was beaming.

"So sorry — dozed off — what have I missed?"

Today or your entire life? Either way, the answer is everything, you twit.

He didn't seem to notice that the other teachers were looking at him with something remarkably like hatred. Snape stepped forward. Leo leaned forward slightly, his breath bated.

"Just the man," he said. "The very man. A girl has been snatched by the monster, Lockhart. Taken into the Chamber of Secrets itself. Your moment has come at last."

Lockhart blanched.

"That's right, Gilderoy," chipped in Sprout. "Weren't you saying just last night that you've known all along where the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets is?"

My arse.

"I — well, I —" sputtered Lockhart.

"Yes, didn't you tell me you were sure you knew what was inside it?" piped up Flitwick.

If he did, he wouldn't still be at the school.

"D-did I? I don't recall —"

"I certainly remember you saying you were sorry you hadn't had a crack at the monster before Hagrid was arrested," said Snape. "Didn't you say that the whole affair had been bungled and that you should have been given free rein from the first?"

Lockhart stared around at his stony-faced colleagues. Leo felt like Christmas and his birthday fell into his lap on the same day.

"I — I really never — you may have misunderstood —"

"We'll leave it to you, then, Gilderoy," said McGonagall. "Tonight will be an excellent time to do it. We'll make sure everyone's out of your way. You'll be able to tackle the monster all by yourself. A free rein at last."

I really hope the snake eats him. Go two for two on the DADA professors.

Lockhart gazed desperately around him, but nobody came to the rescue.

"V-very well," he said. "I'll — I'll be in my office, getting — getting ready."

And he left the room.

"Right," said McGonagall, whose nostrils were flared, "that's got him out from under our feet. The Heads of Houses should go and inform their students what has happened. Tell them the Hogwarts Express will take them home first thing tomorrow. Will the rest of you please make sure no students have been left outside their dormitories."

The teachers rose and left, one by one. On the way out, Flitwick remarked that they should have done that sooner and that he now understood Leo's constant desire to make snide comments toward Lockhart. Leo's grin widened when there were murmurs of agreement and even Snape nodded his head slightly.

It was probably the best and worst day of Leo's entire life. Seeing Lockhart getting decimated by the teachers was what he had wanted all year. Having Ginny get abducted was not. Leo, Harry, Ron, Fred, and George sat together in a corner of the Gryffindor common room, unable to say anything to each other. Percy wasn't there. He had gone to send an owl to Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, then shut himself up in his dormitory.

No afternoon ever lasted as long as that one, nor had Gryffindor Tower ever been so crowded, yet so quiet. Near sunset, Fred and George went up to bed, unable to sit there any longer. Leo rose to his feet at this.

"Where're you going?" Harry inquired.

"To rescue Ginny, of course," Leo replied, flicking his wand out of his holster. "I know what it's like to be kidnapped by a lunatic and desperately waiting for someone to come save you. We can't just leave her there."

"D'you know what?" said Ron. "You're right. I think we should go and see Lockhart. Tell him what we know. He's going to try and get into the Chamber. We can tell him where we think it is, and tell him it's a basilisk in there."

Leo thought this was a terrible idea but decided to go along with it. At the very least, he could use the man as snake bait. The Gryffindors around them were so miserable, and felt so sorry for the Weasleys, that nobody tried to stop them as they got up, crossed the room, and left through the portrait hole.

Darkness was falling as they walked down to Lockhart's office. There seemed to be a lot of activity going on inside it. They could hear scraping, thumps, and hurried footsteps. With a raised eyebrow, Leo hefted up his foot before kicking the door open, startling Lockhart as he stood bent over a trunk. Figures he'd try to run.

His office had been almost completely stripped. Two large trunks stood open on the floor. Robes, jade-green, lilac, midnight blue, had been hastily folded into one of them; books were jumbled untidily into the other. The photographs that had covered the walls were now crammed into boxes on the desk.

"Black, Potter, Weasley, I-"

"Are you going somewhere?" said Harry.

"Er, well, yes," said Lockhart, ripping a life-size poster of himself from the back of the door as he spoke and starting to roll it up. "Urgent call — unavoidable — got to go —"

"Bollocks," Leo snorted. "You're scarpering like the coward you are."

"You're running away?" said Harry disbelievingly. "After all that stuff you did in your books —"

"Books can be misleading," said Lockhart delicately.

"You wrote them!" Harry shouted.

"My dear boy," said Lockhart, straightening up and frowning at Harry. "Do use your common sense. My books wouldn't have sold half as well if people didn't think I'd done all those things. No one wants to read about some ugly old Armenian warlock, even if he did save a village from werewolves. He'd look dreadful on the front cover. No dress sense at all. And the witch who banished the Bandon Banshee had a hairy chin. I mean, come on —"

"So you've just been taking credit for what a load of other people have done?" said Harry incredulously.

"Give the boy a gold star," Leo remarked dryly, twirling his wand in his hand.

"Harry, Harry," said Lockhart, shaking his head impatiently, "it's not nearly as simple as that. There was work involved. I had to track these people down. Ask them exactly how they managed to do what they did. Then I had to put a Memory Charm on them so they wouldn't remember doing it. If there's one thing I pride myself on, it's my Memory Charms. No, it's been a lot of work, Harry. It's not all book signings and publicity photos, you know. You want fame, you have to be prepared for a long hard slog."

"You mean be prepared to be a complete and utter git with nothing substantial to offer the world other than utter mediocrity?" Leo corrected him. "It would be one thing if people actually learned things from the rubbish you're selling, but all your books will do is get people excited for their own adventures and get them killed after trying the nonsense you wrote."

Lockhart banged the lids of his trunks shut and locked them. He then pulled out his wand and turned to them.

"I should've done this when I first had the chance, Black," Lockhart stated, his face an angry shade of red.

Lockhart had barely raised his wand, when Harry and Leo both bellowed, "Expelliarmus!"

Lockhart was blasted backward, falling over his trunk; his wand flew high into the air; Ron caught it, and flung it out of the open window. Leo strode toward the man, his face a mask of rage as he pointed his wand at Lockhart's face.

"Try something else, I dare you."

"What d'you want me to do?" said Lockhart weakly. "I don't know where the Chamber of Secrets is. There's nothing I can do."

"You're in luck," said Harry, walking over and helping Leo force Lockhart to his feet at wandpoint. "We think we know where it is. And what's inside it. Let's go."

They marched Lockhart out of his office and down the nearest stairs, along the dark corridor where the messages shone on the wall, to the door of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.

They sent Lockhart in first. Leo was pleased to see that he was shaking.

Moaning Myrtle was sitting on the tank of the end toilet.

"Oh, it's you," she said when she saw Harry. "What do you want this time?"

"To ask you how you died," said Harry.

Myrtle's whole aspect changed at once. She looked as though she had never been asked such a flattering question. Leo couldn't help but question her sanity at this moment.

"Ooooh, it was dreadful," she said with relish. "It happened right in here. I died in this very stall. I remember it so well. 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 have 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 —" Myrtle swelled importantly, her face shining. "I died."

"How?" said Harry.

"No idea," said Myrtle in hushed tones. "I just remember seeing a pair of great, big, yellow eyes. My whole body sort of seized up, and then I was floating away..." She looked dreamily at Harry. "And then I came back again. I was determined to haunt Olive Hornby, you see. Oh, she was sorry she'd ever laughed at my glasses."

Leo snorted, imagining that he'd most likely do the same to Lockhart or Zabini if the opportunity presented itself.

"Where exactly did you see the eyes?" said Harry.

"Somewhere there," said Myrtle, pointing vaguely toward the sink in front of her toilet.

Harry and Ron hurried over to it. Lockhart was standing well back, a look of utter terror on his face as Leo had lowered his wand somewhat to rest at a place no man wanted a wand pointed at.

It looked like an ordinary sink. They examined every inch of it, inside and out, including the pipes below. Harry was inspecting one of the taps closely.

"That tap's never worked," said Myrtle brightly as he tried to turn it.

"Harry," said Ron. "Say something. Something in Parseltongue."

"But —" Harry frowned.

"Open up," he said.

He looked at Leo – who was sending small puffs of fire from his wand and watching gleefully as Lockhart flinched each time – and Ron, who shook his head.

"English," he said.

Harry made a strangled hissing noise. At once, the tap glowed with a brilliant white light and began to spin. Next second, the sink began to move; the sink, in fact, sank, right out of sight, leaving a large pipe exposed, a pipe wide enough for a man to slide into. Leo drug such a man closer.

"I'm going down," Harry said determinedly.

"Me too," Leo said before prodding Lockhart's back with his wand. "Cowards first."

"Boys," he said, his voice feeble. "Boys, what good will it do?"

"It'll be hilarious," Leo replied before unceremoniously pushing him down with his foot.

Not hearing any screams of terror, Leo jumped down after him. It was like rushing down an endless, slimy, dark slide. He could see more pipes branching off in all directions, but none as large as theirs, which twisted and turned, sloping steeply downward, and he knew that he was falling deeper below the school than even the dungeons. Behind him he could hear Harry, thudding slightly at the curves.

And then, just as he had begun to worry about what would happen when he hit the ground, the pipe leveled out, and he shot out of the end with a wet thud, landing on the damp floor of a dark stone tunnel large enough to stand in. Lockhart was getting to his feet a little ways away, covered in slime and white as a ghost. Leo stood aside as Harry and then Ron each came whizzing out of the pipe, too.

"We must be miles under the school," said Harry, his voice echoing in the black tunnel.

"Under the lake, probably," said Ron, squinting around at the dark, slimy walls.

"Sure hope you can swim," Leo grinned at Lockhart. "Lumos."

The tip of his wand lit up and Harry followed his lead, lighting his own wand. Leo pushed Lockhart to the front, sure the man would alert them if a giant snake came slithering along to eat them all. But the tunnel was quiet as the grave, and the first unexpected sound they heard was a loud crunch as Ron stepped on what turned out to be a rat's skull. Leo glanced down briefly to look at the floor and saw that it was littered with small animal bones. They rounded a dark bend in the tunnel.

"Harry — Leo - there's something up there —" said Ron hoarsely, grabbing Harry's shoulder.

They froze, watching. Leo could just see the outline of something huge and curved, lying right across the tunnel. It wasn't moving. Leo walked forward cautiously, growing more confident when he didn't hear any loud breathing. He lifted his wand a bit higher. The light slid over a gigantic snakeskin, of a vivid, poisonous green, lying curled and empty across the tunnel floor. The creature that had shed it must have been twenty feet long at least. Harry walked up beside him to examine it curiously.

"Blimey," said Ron weakly.

There was a sudden movement behind them. Lockhart's knees had given way.

"Get up," said Ron sharply, pointing his wand at Lockhart.

Lockhart got to his feet — then he dived at Ron, knocking him to the ground.

Harry jumped forward, but Leo grabbed him by the back of his robes and pulled his cousin behind him. He leveled his wand at Lockhart, who was straightening up, panting, Ron's wand in his hand and a gleaming smile back on his face.

"The adventure ends here, boys!" he said. "I shall take a bit of this skin back up to the school, tell them I was too late to save the girl, and that you three tragically lost your minds at the sight of her mangled body — say good-bye to your memories!"

He raised Ron's Spellotaped wand high over his head and yelled, "Obliv-"

"Depulso Maxima!" Leo shouted, pointing his wand at the man.

Lockhart flew backward as though hit by a small bomb. Leo grabbed Harry dragged him away quickly, slipping over the coils of snakeskin, out of the way of great chunks of tunnel ceiling that were thundering to the floor. The next moment, they were standing alone, gazing at a solid wall of broken rock.

"Ron!" Harry shouted. "Are you okay? Ron!"

"I'm here!" came Ron's muffled voice from behind the rockfall. "I'm okay — this git's not, though — he got blasted by the wand —"

"Is he still breathing?" Leo questioned.

There was silence for a moment.

"Yeah, he's just out cold," Ron finally replied.

Leo gave a small sigh, relieved by this. Despite how much he hated Lockhart, Leo didn't really feel the need to personally go two for two on his Defense teachers.

"What now?" Ron's voice said, sounding desperate. "I can't get through — it'll take ages..."

Leo looked up at the tunnel ceiling. Huge cracks had appeared in it. He didn't think trying to take the rocks apart by magic would be a very good idea – the tunnel seemed likely to cave-in at any moment. They didn't have time to take it apart either. He exchanged a look with Harry, who seemed to understand.

"Wait there," he called to Ron. "Wait with Lockhart. We'll go on...If we're not back in an hour..."

There was a very pregnant pause, "I'll try and shift some of this rock," said Ron, who seemed to be trying to keep his voice steady. "So you can — can get back through. And —"

"We'll be back soon," Leo informed him, grabbing Harry's arm and pulling him along the tunnel.

Soon the distant noise of Ron straining to shift the rocks was gone. The tunnel turned and turned again. Leo was looking about, scrutinizing every dark shadow and turning his head at every sound. At last, as they crept around yet another bend, they saw a solid wall ahead on which two entwined serpents were carved, their eyes set with great, glinting emeralds.

"This one's all you, cousin," Leo informed him, stepping to the side to give Harry a better view of the snakes.

Harry gave a low, faint hiss. The serpents parted as the wall cracked open, the halves slid smoothly out of sight, and Leo walked in, Harry shaking behind him as he followed.