FACING THE MONSTER

Previously on LONP

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

"Ronald Weasley," said Professor McGonagall.

The three girls in the cupboard were stunned at what was told by the professors. Natasha felt a small tear coming out of her eyes. "Please let it be a dream, please!", she was begging to the gods above. She just might have lost one of her best friends. It was the very first best friend, that she had made in this world. Natasha saw the other two girls, who had stood next to her. Simran was looking horrified, and Natasha knew that she was not showing her true expressions. Ginny had fallen on to her knees, and was sobbing silently. Thankfully no sound came out.

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

The staffroom door banged open again. For one wild moment, Natasha hoped that it would be Dumbledore. But it was Lockhart, and he was beaming. Natasha did not know what to make of this, but she knew that he was a useless idiot. "So, sorry - dozed off - what have I missed?". He didn't seem to notice that the other teachers were looking at him with something remarkably like hatred. Professor Snape stepped forward.

"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 Professor Sprout. "Weren't you saying just last night that you've known all along where the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets is?"

"I - well, I -"sputtered Lockhart.

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

"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 Professor Snape. "Didn't you say that the whole affair had been bungled, and that you should have been given a free rein from the first?"

Lockhart stared around at his stony-faced colleagues. "I - I really never - you may have misunderstood-"

"We'll leave it to you, then, Gilderoy," said Professor 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."

Lockhart gazed desperately around him, but nobody came to the rescue. He didn't look remotely handsome anymore. His lip was trembling, and in the absence of his usually toothy grin, he looked weak-chinned and feeble. "V-very well," he said. "I'll - I'll be in my office, getting - getting ready.". And he left the room.

"Right," said Professor 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.

Natasha then opened the cupboard door, and came out with two other girls who had shocked expressions in their face. They then just walked down into the Gryffindor common room, and went immediately to the dorm. They found it empty as, the others were down in the common room. Then just after Simran reached the bed, she completely broke down into sobs. She was crying really loudly. Even Natasha was crying, but it was not as badly as Simran. Natasha knew that, Simran had something of a special friendship with Ron, and might even have a small crush on him. Natasha then went and hugged Simran, and tried to calm her down. Instead she was sobbing even more into Natasha's clothes.

Then the other girls of the dorm suddenly came into the dorm, and found them both in a really bad state. Simran was still crying, and Natasha was clinging on to her. They understood what was happening as, the Professor had come and explained what had happened to Ron. The other girls already knew what Ron meant to both the girls, and came to say what the professor had said. They then came and started calming Simran down. Simran then after so much of time, somehow managed to calm down, and then washed her face, and went into the common room.

She, Simran, Ginny, 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. Simran was totally mute the whole day, just sitting and telling nothing. But then when nearly went to their dorms, she came to Natasha and said, "I think we should inform about our findings to some teacher. Maybe Ron is not dead, and we can save his life."

Natasha nodded and said, "Yeah, we ought to inform one teacher about this."

Just then Ginny came opening the door and said, "What are you both talking about, telling about your findings? Are you telling me that, you found out the solution to all this?"

"Yeah, we did and we are going to inform a teacher about this.", Simran said.

"I will also come. I need to get to the bottom of this whole matter. How about Lockhart? I think we should approach him!", Ginny said.

"No! Not that idiot! He is a faker, Gin! I am sure that, he is nothing but a big fraud.", Natasha said.

"Maybe we should take a chance with him, he did say that he will go into the chamber, didn't he?", Ginny asked.

"OK, we will go to him. Maybe then we can prove that, he is nothing but a fraud, or he might just help us.", Simran said. Natasha did not have any other plans, as she was now two against one.

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. Simran knocked and there was a sudden silence from inside. Then the door opened the tiniest crack and they saw one of Lockhart's eyes peering through it. "Oh - Ms. Potter - Ms. Weasley – and Ms. Simran" he said, opening the door a bit wider. "I'm rather busy at the moment -if you would be quick-"

"Professor, we've got some information for you," said Natasha. "We think it'll help you."

"Er - well - it's not terribly -", The side of Lockhart's face that they could see looked very uncomfortable. "I mean - well - all right-"

He opened the door and they entered.

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. Natasha knew that, he was packing to go somewhere, mostly to escape this.

"Are you going somewhere?" said Simran looking at the room.

"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-"

"What about my brother?" , said Ginny angrily.

"Well, as to that - most unfortunate -" said Lockhart, avoiding their eyes as he wrenched open a drawer and started emptying the contents into a bag. "No one regrets more than I-"

"You're the Défense Against the Dark Arts teacher!", said Natasha. "You can't go now! Not with all the Dark stuff going on here! You are supposed to help us in this situation.". Natasha was almost shouting at her Professor in anger.

"Well - I must say - when I took the job -" Lockhart muttered, now piling socks on top of his robes. "nothing in the job description - didn't expect-"

"You mean you're running away?" said Ginny disbelievingly. "After all that stuff, you did in your books-"

"Books can be misleading," said Lockhart delicately.

"You wrote them!", Simran shouted.

"My dear girls," said Lockhart, straightening up and frowning at the three of them. "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 harelip. I mean, come on-"

"So, you've just been taking credit for what a load of other people have done? You mean you are just a fraud just like I suspected?", asked Natasha angrily. There was fire in her eyes. It was not at all surprising for her, but it made her really anger.

"Natasha, Natasha," 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, Natasha. It's not all book signings and publicity photos, you know. You want fame, you have to be prepared for a long hard slog.". He banged the lids of his trunks shut and locked them.

"Let's see," he said. "I think that's everything. Yes. Only one thing left."

He pulled out his wand and turned to them. Natasha knew what was going to happen, so she started grabbing her wand in her pocket. "Awfully sorry, girls, but I'll have to put a Memory Charm on you now. Can't have you blabbing my secrets all over the place. I'd never sell another book-"

Natasha reached his wand just in time. Lockhart had barely raised his, when Natasha bellowed, "Expelliarmus!"

Lockhart was blasted backward, falling over his trunk; his wand flew high into the air; Ginny caught it, and flung it out of the open window. The two other girls looked at her in awe, and said a silent congrats. Natasha said a silent thanks to her favorite professor, for teaching her that spell.

"Shouldn't have let Professor Snape teach us that one," said Natasha furiously, kicking Lockhart's trunk aside. Lockhart was looking up at her, feeble once more. Natasha was still pointing his wand at her.

"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 Simran, forcing Lockhart to his feet at wand point. "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. Ginny looked at the bathroom with wide eyes and asked, "Please don't tell me that, the entrance is in the of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom!"

"Unfortunately, it is inside this.", Natasha replied.

"Who would have thought?", said Ginny wondrously.

"I think that exactly was the point, or the bathroom was built afterwards.", Simran said opening the door.

They sent Lockhart in first. Natasha 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 Natasha. "What do you want this time?"

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

Myrtle's whole aspect changed at once. She looked as though she had never been asked such a flattering question. "Oooh, 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 Simran curiously.

"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 the four of them. "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."

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

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

The three girls hurried over to it. Lockhart was standing well back, a look of utter terror on his face. It looked like an ordinary sink. They examined every inch of it, inside and out, including the pipes below. And then Natasha saw it: Scratched on the side of one of the copper taps was a tiny snake.

"Do you know what the monster is?", Ginny asked.

"Yeah, we think it is a basilisk.", Natasha said nodding.

"B-basilisk? What is that?", Ginny asked with terror in her eyes. She knew that, it must be something really bad.

"It is giant snake that can kill with just one look.", Natasha said, and then noticed a broken wand in Ginny's pocket. Natasha recognized it as Ron's.

"How did you get Ron's wand?", Simran asked noticing the same.

"Professor McGonagall had given Ron's things, that were found at the scene. I decided to keep it.", Ginny said.

"That taps never worked," said Myrtle brightly as Natasha tried to turn the tap with the snake carving.

"Natasha," said Simran. "I think we need to try something in Parseltongue."

"But -", Natasha thought hard. The only times she'd ever managed to speak Parseltongue were when he'd been faced with a real snake. She stared hard at the tiny engraving, trying to imagine it was real.

"Open up,", she said. She looked at Simran but she just shook her head and said, "I think it was English," he said. Simran came looked at the sink. Natasha looked back at the snake, willing herself to believe it was alive. If she moved his head, the candlelight made it look as though it were moving.

There was a round of shivers at that thought. "Open up," he said. Except that the words weren't what she heard; a strange hissing had escaped her, and 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. Natasha heard Simran and Ginny gasp and looked up again.

"Well, I think we have the entrance here.", Natasha said looking at the moving blocks.

"Well, you hardly seem to need me," said Lockhart, with a shadow of his old smile. "I'll just-"

He put his hand on the door knob, but Ginny and Simran both pointed their wands at him. "You can go first,", Ginny snarled. White-faced and wandless, Lockhart approached the opening.

"Girls," he said, his voice feeble. "Girls, what good will it do?". Natasha jabbed him in the back with her wand. Lockhart slid his legs into the pipe. "I really don't think -" he started to say, but Simran gave him a push, and he slid out of sight.

Natasha then looked at the three girls. "What if we say it to give stairs? Do you think it will give?", Ginny asked looking nervously at the depth of it.

"Only one way to find out.", Simran said and went to the opening and whispered, "Stairs.". Just then stairs appeared at the entrance. Ginny looked at the stairs in wide eyes. Then Natasha said, "Parselmouth are not at all rare in India, even among muggleborns."

Ginny looked at Simran in amazement. Simran just gave her a small smile, and was now ascending the stairs. Natasha and Ginny followed immediately. When they reached the bottom, Natasha scanned the room for her professor. Lockhart was just getting to his feet a little way away, covered in slime and white as a ghost. He must have had a hard fall, Natasha thought.

"We must be miles under the school," said Simran, her voice echoing in the black tunnel. "Under the lake, probably," said Natasha, squinting around at the dark, slimy walls. Ginny was looking really sick and scared. The climb down the stairs was not pleasant due to the really bad smell.

All four of them turned to stare into the darkness ahead. "Lumos!", Natasha muttered to her wand and it lit again. "C'mon,", she said to the other three, and off they went, their footsteps slapping loudly on the wet floor. The tunnel was so dark that they could only see a little distance ahead. Their shadows on the wet walls looked monstrous in the wandlight.

"Remember,", Natasha said quietly as they walked cautiously forward, "any sign of movement, close your eyes right away...". But the tunnel was quiet as the grave, and the first unexpected sound they heard was a loud crunch as Ginny stepped on what turned out to be a rat's skull. Natasha lowered his wand to look at the floor and saw that it was littered with small animal bones. Trying very hard not to imagine what Ron might look like if they found him. All the three girls had determined looks in her face, as they walked more and more into the chamber.

"Natasha - there's something up there -" said Simran hoarsely, grabbing Natasha's shoulder. They froze, watching. Natasha could just see the outline of something huge and curved, lying right across the tunnel. It wasn't moving.

"Maybe it's asleep,", she breathed, glancing back at the other two. Lockhart's hands were pressed over his eyes. Natasha turned back to look at the thing, her heart beating so fast it hurt. Very slowly, her eyes as narrow as she could make them and still see, Natasha edged forward, her wand held high. The light slid over a gigantic snake skin, 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.

"My god!", said Simran with a fearful tone. "And this is just the skin!"

There was a sudden movement behind them. Gilderoy Lockhart's knees had given way. "Get up," said Ginny sharply. Lockhart got to his feet - then he dived at Ginny, and took a wand from her pocket. Natasha and Simran jumped forward, but too late - Lockhart was straightening up, panting, a wand in his hand and a gleaming smile back on his face. Natasha now noticed that, he was carrying Ron's wand, which Ginny had kept with her.

"The adventure ends here, girls!" he said. "I shall take a bit of this skin back up to the school, tell them I was too late to save the boy, and that you two 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, "Obliviate!". The wand exploded with the force of a small bomb. Natasha and Simran flung their arms over their heads and ran, slipping over the coils of snake skin, out of the way of great chunks of tunnel ceiling that were thundering to the floor. Next moment, they were standing, gazing at a solid wall of broken rock.

"Are you ok?", Natasha asked Simran who was standing next to her.

"Yeah I think so. I just have a lot of dust on me.", Simran replied back.

"Ginny!", Natasha shouted. "Are you okay? Ginny!"

"I'm here!" came Ginny's muffled voice from behind the rockfall. "I'm okay - this git's not, though - he got blasted by the wand-". There was a dull thud and a loud "ow!" It sounded as though Ginny had just kicked Lockhart in the shins. "What now?" Ginny's voice said, sounding desperate. "We can't get through - it'll take ages..."

Natasha looked up at the tunnel ceiling. Huge cracks had appeared in it. She had never tried to break apart anything as large as these rocks by magic, and now didn't seem a good moment to try - what if the whole tunnel caved in? There was another thud and another "ow!" from behind the rocks. They were wasting time. Ron had already been in the Chamber of Secrets for hours... Natasha and Simran knew there was only one thing to do.

"Wait there,", she called to Ginny. "Wait with Lockhart. Me and Simran go on... If I'm not back in an hour...". There was a very pregnant pause, "I'll try and shift some of this rock," said Ginny, who seemed to be trying to keep her voice steady. "So, you can - can get back through. And, to both of you-"

"See you in a bit," said Natasha, trying to inject some confidence into her shaking voice. "See you.", Simran also called out. And they set off alone past the giant snake skin. Soon the distant noise of Ginny straining to shift the rocks was gone. The tunnel turned and turned again. Every nerve in Natasha's body was tingling unpleasantly. Simran was also growing even and more scared second by second. Both of them wanted the tunnel to end, yet dreaded what she'd find when it did. And then, at last, as they crept around yet another bend, Natasha saw a solid wall ahead on which two entwined serpents were carved, their eyes set with great, glinting emeralds.

Natasha approached, her throat very dry. There was no need to pretend these stone snakes were real; their eyes looked strangely alive. Simran followed her and looked at the door. She could guess what she was supposed to do, and "Open," said Simran, in a low, faint hiss. aThe serpents parted as the wall cracked open, the halves slid smoothly out of sight, and Simran and Natasha shaking from head to foot, walked inside.