AN: Readers under 15 are advised to skip Heidi's dream!
Chapter 7: Christmas tale
"Did you pack enough socks dear?" Petunia asked while scooping through the drawers. "Your red wooly ones are still here!" she cried and ran after Dudley.
"Mom! I'm not taking those girl socks with me!" Dudley snapped. "I'd be the laughing stock of the century!" The chubby boy was currently wearing his best garments which consisted of a pair of woolly black trousers and a black plover with blue lines.
"No you wouldn't," Diana protested. "Neville isn't that type of guy!" The red head came striding into the room all dressed up in aquamarine trousers and a blue jacket.
"I'm still not taking them!" Dudley said stubbornly.
"What about you pumpkin, did you pack your pajamas?" Petunia asked turning to look at her daughter.
"MOM!"
"She did," Heidi joined the crowd. She was dressed in an emerald sweater and wooly black pants and supported a stuffed jean back-pack on her shoulder. "I packed her things since yesterday."
Diana kissed her sister on the cheek and said: "Thank you!"
It had been three days already since the girls came back from school. The semester had ended with no little altercation between the twins and Hermione because:
1) the twins had been true to their words and therefore, had spent the last two weeks of term torturing the Slytherins. Diana had taken to speaking Parseltongue fluently whenever Draco Malfoy or Pansy Parkinson were nearby and had gone as far as to sabotage the blonde's potion in their last class. Heidi had also scared Flint shitless by promising him that he'd be the next in line to get petrified, something which neither Hermione nor Neville found amusing. And it seemed that Wood himself had a problem with the matter because he had taken Heidi aside in order to talk, but the whole ordeal had ended in an all out shouting match and Heidi canceling her trip to see the Quidditch match in France.
2) Hermione had at some point in time (right after one Justin Flinch-Fletcher and Nearly-Headless Nick were found petrified to be exact) suggested that they brew Polyjuice Potion in order to sneak into the Slytherin common room and find out if one of them was the real Heir of Slytherin, to which no one had agreed, and so the girl was still sore because her perfectly laid out plan had been so bluntly dismissed.
The end of the school semester had however placated her somewhat, since her exam results came back, and she was only too proud to boast about being the top of the class (alongside Heidi). And Heidi of course had sweet-talked her out of any resentful state that might have lingered. So, by the end of the last week of school the four kids had agreed to spend the Christmas holidays at Neville's house (especially since Aunt Marge had invited Petunia and Vernon over and the girls were only too eager for any excuse as to not go).
They had agreed on meeting on the third day of the holiday start, since the girls wanted to spend some time with their parents. Neville had promised to come and pick them up and assured that he wouldn't mid at all if Dudley came along (the girls were a bit reluctant to leave him home, since that would unambiguously mean that he had to go with his parents to visit their Aunt).
"Say hi to Aunt Marge for us and give her our best regards," Heidi said.
"I will cupcake," Petunia assured. "Now you kids take care of yourselves and make sure to eat properly and-"
"MOM!" the three protested.
"We'll be fine, seriously!" assured Diana in an exasperated tone.
"Oh, I know dear, it's just that…" Petunia burst into tears and hugged the three children to her chest.
"Mom, this is embarrassing," Dudley complained.
The door bell rang much to the kids' relief and Diana marched forward to open the door.
"Neville!" she cried delighted and hugged the chubby boy. "Hermione!" she nearly choked the girl. "Missed me?"
"I didn't miss the strangling," Hermione said while Neville nodded his head slightly pink in the face.
"This is my gran," he introduced and pointed towards an old woman dresses in a green suit with an eagle hat on top and a red purse on her right hand.
"Augusta Longbottom," the woman said in a strict tone and nodded her head stiffly.
"It's a real pleasure to finally meat you Madam," Diana gave a tentative smile. "Neville has told us so much about you."
The kids didn't manage to leave the house up until Petunia and Vernon stated their demands on the treatment of their children. They were mildly impressed by the strict old woman and couldn't help but regret their decision to leave the children in her care as they watch them go out the front door and disappear in a flash of colors.
The kids' first impression of a Porkey was that it was indeed better then Aparating, but worse then walking, or driving a car. Diana was hastily ushered to the bathroom by Missis Longbottom upon arriving, thankfully, or she might have vomited on the floor.
One thing you could say about the Longbottom estate was that it was impressive! It was quite a specious house, with two floors and a small basement. The rooms from inside were well decorated and large. The ground floor consisted of the living room, library, dining room and kitchen. There were a number of elves which hung around the house cleaning or cooking the day's meal, but the rest of the house was unnervingly empty, almost devoided of life, and the place itself gave you such an uneasy feeling that it would seem like a sin if you dared disturb the order of on single strand.
Neville was eager to show the girls his green house, but his gran snapped at him and told (more like order) him to show the guests to their rooms. Neville guided Dudley to the last floor where his room laid while Augusta took the girls to the first floor and gave them the guest rooms which were furthest from the stairs while mumbling nonsense about not allowing any misbehavior to take place in her house.
Heidi's first impression of the woman was that she definitely needed to lighten up, while Diana pitied Neville for having to live with such a strict woman for all his life, she could dang well understand now where all the low self-esteem came from.
The first day was spent mostly unpacking and familiarizing themselves with the house. Augusta, as it turned out, didn't actually fancy being around guests that much and so she retreated in the library for most of the day, only coming out for lunch and diner (which the kids soon found out were served at regular and precise intervals during the day).
Neville finally came around to showing them his greenhouse at about two in the afternoon.
"See Hermione, this here is a Viole plant," Neville pointed at one of the most beautiful plants the girls had ever seen. It had the lower part shaped like a bell who had its head lifted towards the sky and out came a Lycoris flower which had its leaves damped in every color of the rainbow.
"It's beautiful!" Diana commented looking in wonder at the plant.
"It's supposed to be one of the most poisonous plants around —" Neville ranted, sounding nothing less then Hermione after she had just swallowed a text book, "— and the legend goes that on every full moon, around midnight, the plant starts crying. The tears are supposed to have the reversed effect of a Phoenix tears and grant death to the one who drinks them instantaneously. But they're also used in some very advanced healing potion that's beyond NEWT level, so we'll never learn about them."
Hermione regarded the plant gleefully. "Have you ever verified if it's true? About the poisonous tears I mean?" she asked hastily.
"Yes I have," Neville assured. "They're real."
"What about this one?" Dudley's voice drew the kids attention. "What does this do?" He was pointing at a peculiar little plant with its leaves shaped like a pentagram and right in the middle sat a magnificent flower with crimson petals shaped like needles which were sticking out in every direction.
"This," Neville came to stand by Dudley and crouched down beside the plant, "is called the Spiga Rosso. It's a very useful plant when it comes to making blood replenish potions. My great uncle Algie gave it to me for my ninth birthday."
"Blood replenish potion?" Dudley asked confused.
"In the wizarding world they don't have transfusion D," Heidi explained, "they use blood replenishing potion when someone has lost a considered amount of blood."
"So, what, do they swallow it?" Dudley asked befuddled.
"Yep," Heidi answered.
"Ew! Gross!" Diana and Dudley said at the same time with a disgusted expression on their faces. The other three were laughing hard on behalf of the two's discontent while Diana and Dudley proceeded to throw a few colorful insults their way.
It was late that evening when the kids decided to turn in for the day. Neville honestly never felt so glad to be home and have a full two weeks all to himself to do with as he pleased. He was positive that this vacation was going to be the best he'd had so far and had a content smile carved on his face that night when he finally closed his eyes and let sleep wash over him.
-------
Heidi was dreaming about the accursed forest again. She had her mouth glued to Voldemort's and her tongue was captured in a well rehearsed dance with that of the others; the slick, copper sent of the silver liquid had engulfed her tastes and her breathing was coming in irregular pants.
She didn't quite understand why, but she found that she couldn't actually struggle against the cloaked figure, and what worried her most was that she didn't actually want to. No freaking way! This was better then flying (ok, that worried her quite a bit)! She actually found herself distracted by the night's dreams sometimes (something which bothered her more then she'd like to admit).
"What has you so worked up tonight?" a chilling voice reached her ear and drew her attention towards the stunning red orbs above her.
Heidi lifted an amused eyebrow at him and said: "So you can actually speak? I thought the cat had sliced your tongue off."
Voldemort chuckled, a cold and unsettling sound which sent shivers down Heidi's spine. "Of course I have a tongue, I though you'd know that by now."
He bent forward and trailed his tongue over her lips. Heidi couldn't help herself as she opened her mouth and captured that of the other's in a heated kiss. Voldemort pulled back after a few minutes, his lips shrews into an arrogant smirk.
"And I believe you've gotten quite accustomed to it in the last couple of months."
Heidi sent him a reproachful glare. "I didn't ask for this!" she snapped at him.
"But you're enjoying it," Voldemort said in an arrogant voice and brought his head down to her neck where he placed a tender kiss. Heidi shivered slightly and felt butterflies start popping up in her stomach.
"Stop it," she said in a quivering voice.
"I don't think so," Voldemort purred beside her neck, his soft breathing tickling the already sensitive skin. He bit her neck slightly and made his way up to her ear, planting soft kisses along the way. "You see, I've long grown tired of this snogging game and decided to try something more…physical for tonight."
"What do you mean by that?" Heidi asked slightly alarmed. The ministration on her neck felt damn good, but the thought of this snogging game turning into something more… indecent scared her.
"Let me show you," Voldemort said crashed his lips down upon hers before she could utter another word. The kiss was demanding, mind-blowing. Voldemort pushed his tongue inside her mouth and explored it unremittingly while his hands, which had been standing innocently on either side of her head, wrapped around her small frame and crushed her towards his chest.
Heidi panicked, feeling more then a little claustrated when she found herself trapped between the other's slightly muscular frame and the concrete ground. Voldemort had never touched her in her other dream. He might have snogged her enough to last a lifetime, but his hands had stayed firmly around her head. Now they were trailing down her back, up towards her neck, through her hair, along her side, exploring every single part of her small frame, and damn she loved every minute of it. Voldemort's lips had moved to place kissed along her jaw and had stopped at her neck where he proceeded to bite the sensitive skin, making her gasp slightly.
"Sto-" she tried to say but his lips were upon her once more, covering up any protest. He trailed his hand over her ass and gave it a slight squeeze which had her yelp in surprise forcing her hips up into his arousal.
-------
Heidi awoke with a start and a burning sensation which enveloped her from head to toe. Her breathing was labored and she was blushing furiously as she scanned around the dark room for any sight of the pedophilic bastard. Her hand dashed under her pillow where she kept her wand and pulled it out in one swift motion, lighting the tip in the process. After scanning the room for a good five minutes and finding nothing out of the ordinary, she decided that she did NOT want to go back to sleep and got out of bed, heading for the bathroom on her left.
After a long and distressful shower, in which she tried to not think about the most recent dream she had and failing miserably, she walked out of the bathroom feeling positively worse than when she had walked in. One untrusty glare at her bed later, found her heading down the stairs, and towards the Longbottom library. She didn't want to close her eyes knowing what was waiting on the other side and considering her sleepy state, she was afraid of falling asleep.
Nothing that a good read can't heal, she thought jovially and opened the door to the library.
It was a neat old place, dyed in the same no-nonsense feeling as everything else in the house. The shelves were neatly polished and well kept, and the books were sitting tidily on top, all arranged in alphabetic order, and by field of expertise. There was a yellow tablet, which looked like it was made out of gold, placed at the beginning of every ledge, with the name of the subject the books addresses and the letters of the alphabet which could be found on the shelf.
Heidi snorted, amused by the rigorousness of it all, and began wondering the shelves.
Hmm… let's see… Transfiguration? No. Herbology? No. History of Magic? No. Care of Magical Creatures? What's that? Heidi mussed as she looked upon the two or three selves that seemed to be dedicated entirely to the subject. Oh, yeah, it's one of those subjects which we can take in third year. She remembered and decided to trail along the lines of books. Diana would be at home here, she thought with a slight chuckle.
She was leisurely passing though, looking at random titles from time to time, when a particular one caught her interest. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander. The title brought up the whole incident of the Chamber of Secrets in her mind so she pulled out the book, hoping that it would give her some sort of clue as to what might be in the chamber. She rushed up at the front of the shelves where a medium sized oak table lay, surrounded by three chairs, where she took a seat and opened the book, eager to start reading.
There was a whole bunch of useless things decorating the first pages, including a speech from Albus Dumbledore himself (which the girl decided to leave for another time), an introduction (which didn't grab her attention all that much), something about Muggles and a whole bunch of Ministry blabs, and then finally after about 10-20 pages of pure boredom the list of the beasts began.
And the very first looked like a likable candidate for her Chamber monster: the Acromantula – though it had one problem…or two: 1. It was big, which meant that it had no where to hide, and therefore someone would have seen the enormous beast stumbling around (though if it was controlled by an evil bastard, lets say…Snape, it wouldn't be so hard to hide the enormous thing). 2. There was no way the spider could petrify someone. Paralyze, yes, but petrify, no.
Then there was this small fire creature called the Ashwinder which seemed relatively harmless in Heidi's opinion. Then there was the Augurey – a bird thought to be able to foretell death, or curse the person that heard its song to die. That was all nice and peachy, but there was no way that that little bugger could be responsible for all the petrifications that had been going on.
The forth one was called a Basilisk also known as King of Serpents…HOLY SHIT!!!
The Basilisk is a brilliant green serpent that may reach up to fifty feet in length. The male has a scarlet plume upon its head. It has exceptionally venomous fangs but its most dangerous means of attack is the gaze of its yellow eyes. Anyone looking directly into them will suffer instant death!!!
Heidi stood there glaring at the piece of paragraph, unable to believe what she was reading.
There's no freaking way that the monster in the chamber is a Basilisk! She tried to assure herself. Something that big would have been seen as it wandered through the castle! It sais right here that even dark wizards have stopped keeping them! And that there hasn't been a sighting of one in Britain for over 400 years!
She tried to reassure herself that there was no way such a beast could exist at Hogwarts right underneath Dumbledore's nose. Though there was a voice in the back of her head that said otherwise. That said that Salazar Slytherin was a Parselmouth and would therefore have no problem controlling such a monster. And if the Chamber of Secrets was truly hidden under parsel-protective spells, then neither Dumbledore nor anyone else except a Parselmouth would be the wisest and with the chamber sealed, there was no way that people would have know about it, since Salazar Slytherin lived for over 1000 years ago…
NO! She snapped stubbornly and turned the page. There has to be some other monstrosity here that can fit the requirements better. Like…a Chimera! She pondered on whether that would be any better, and came to the conclusion that, yes, it would. But it was impossible, since a Chimera could not petrify people. What about a Dragon? It still couldn't petrify people! The Nundu was a damn good candidate, if it weren't for that paragraph were it specifically mentioned that it had never been subdued by anything less then 100 wizards working together.
She finally found it! The Runespoor! It was a favorite among the Dark wizards, it was a snake! But it didn't usually have a long life…
"Damn you!" she snapped closing the book with a bang. "I am NOT going to believe that a Basilisk is hiding somewhere underneath the school! No fucking way!" She left the book lying on the table and ran out of the library, up the stairs and back into her room where she jumped in her bed and tried to sleep the matter off. BAD IDEA!!
----
Something was wrong with her sister, Diana could feel it…and it was kind of obvious, seeing as she woke at 11:30 (which was way to late in her sister's schedule), she had dark circles underneath her eyes and she was unusually grouchy for no apparent reason. Hermione was shooting her concerned looks, while Neville was looking at his shoes, probably convinced that all of this was his fault, even Dudley had noticed that something was off with his sister and had asked her so.
"What's happened to you?"
"Hmm?" Heidi turned towards Dudley to give him a distant look, her mind clearly in other places.
"I asked what's happened to you? Why are you so unbearably irritating today?" Dudley repeated his question.
"I'm not irritating," Heidi protested finally giving Dudley her full attention.
"Then why the long face?" asked Diana.
Heidi turned to look at her sister, a perturbed expression on her face. Should she tell them about the Basilisk? Of course she should! If there was a Basilisk in the school then Hermione, Neville and especially Diana needed to know about it and make sure they staid out of trouble. But should she tell Dudley? He might tell their parents… No! What was wrong with her? She could trust Dudley to keep a secret!
"I have to show you something," Heidi said and rose from her seat at the table.
------
"A Basilisk?" asked Hermione in a small-quivering voice. Neville was green in the face and sat on the chair like he would fall off at any given time. Diana and Dudley were still reading the paragraph about the beast.
"It's the only creature that fits," Heidi admitted reluctantly.
"But it doesn't make sense!" protested Neville. "The victims were petrified not killed!"
"That is the one thing that I haven't fully understood myself," admitted Heidi.
"It's easy," Diana said. The other kids turned to give her a baffled look. "What if the victims didn't look at it in the eye but through something else…lets say a mirror, water, a ghost? Well Nick's already dead, so he couldn't have died again," Diana argued though you could tell by the look on her face that she wasn't completely convinced.
"She's right," Hermione said after a few seconds of silence. "And being a snake, it might have used the pluming system to get through the castle unnoticed."
"And the heir of Slytherin being a Parselmouth would be able to control it," Heidi finished looking miserably. There was no denying it now, the evidence was too overwhelming.
"You guys have some pretty dangerous things in the wizarding world," Dudley commented from his seat at the oak table.
Absolute silence followed his statement. Hermione and Heidi had a gloomy expression to themselves while Neville was shaking in his seat. Dudley was not looking like his usual proud self, but he tried to keep a cool exterior (if only for his sisters' sake), while Diana had an unreadable expression on her face.
"So, what do we do?" asked Dudley once he got bored of the eerie silence that seemed unending.
"We have to tell Dumbledore!" Hermione said in a commanding voice. She was not to ken on arguing with her friends, but if Heidi and Diana turned unreasonable like last year, then she would fight to the teeth to prove her point.
"You're right," Heidi nodded, much to Hermione's surprise. Neville shock his head vigorously, approving to the girls' suggestion. The other occupants of the room turned to look expectantly at Diana. Truth be told, Hermione feared her answer the most, because Diana could be quite irrational when it came to animals and therefore would be less likely to agree to something that put them in danger.
To her surprise Diana nodded. "If the monster in the chamber is truly a Basilisk… then it would be a matter of time before someone is killed. Don't get me wrong, I know that the Basilisk will most probably end up dead, but… I can't risk the life of the first years for his sake!" she tried to make it sound convincing, like she actually agreed to their suggestion, but her eyes were turned to the side and her palms fisted and shaky. "There's that Weasley girl that Neville likes among them-" she turned towards Neville, her face slightly more determined then last time "-and we are not going to stand by and let the snake get her, or anyone else for the matter! So we'll tell Dumbledore the moment we get back to school!"
The other kids gave a unanimous nod while smiling proudly at the girl.
"Glad to see you finally grew up," Heidi beamed at her.
"That doesn't mean that I'm not gonna try and find the Basilisk before Dumbledore does," Diana assured. "In case you've forgotten, we don't know where the chamber is!"
That brought a groan of discontent out of the other four kids.
------
The four kids soon agreed that there was no way in convincing Diana to give up on her stupid obsession on finding the chamber (she had actually made herself a map with places where she suspected the chamber might be), so Heidi had come up with the brilliant idea of practicing the defensive and offensive spells they should have learned in Lockhart's class, and of course some extra work couldn't hurt (since the DADA third and forth grade textbooks were rotting away in the Longbottom library, Heidi decided to make good use of them), something which pleased Hermione quite a lot.
"But we're not allowed to perform magic outside school," Neville protested.
"No, we aren't," Heidi nodded in agreement. "But, there is a way around that rule," she said in a mischievous voice. "You see, the Ministry underage magic detectors are just that, magic detectors. They can't establish the magical signature of the person who performed the spell, so, if a child who lives in a wizarding family performs a spell, the ministry detectors will pick a trace of magic being performed, but they won't be able to tell whether the underage child performed it or one of the other members of the family, so it overlooks this. If however the child casts a spell in a public area filled with Muggles, or he is the only wizards in a ten feet radius, then yes, he will get caught."
"So," Neville began slowly. "As long as there's an adult wizard within ten or less feet of us, we can perform spells?"
"That's right," Heidi nodded.
She had never seen Hermione or Neville look happier – it was almost like Christmas had come early. The two promptly agreed to begin their holiday training right away, and Diana and Hermione practically vowed to spend the summer holidays at Neville's too.
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"It says here that the cry of the roster is fatal to is!" Heidi pointed at the paragraph of the book she mentioned.
Hermione had insisted on finding out more information about the Basilisk before practicing any spells so that they could concentrate more on something that would defend them from the ferocious beast.
"Cry of the roster?" Neville asked sounding worried.
"Yes. Is something wrong Neville?" Hermione asked looking concerned at the boy.
"Well, you see," Neville began stuttering while he said: "I saw Hagrid a few days before the winter holidays started. He told me he wanted to go to Professor Dumbledore and ask for permission to put a charm on his place because something was killing his rosters!"
"More like someone," Heidi grunted. That was the final proof – the monster in the chamber was indubitably a Basilisk.
"Look's like Dobby was right," Diana muttered. "Terrible things will happen at Hogwarts this year."
"Dobby! How could I forget about him?!" Heidi slapped her palm over her head. "Dobby knew about this whole ordeal! Which means that either Dobby's masters or someone close to them must be the perpetrator behind the whole Chamber incident!"
"Great, so who is Dobby's master?" prompted Hermione.
"Lucius Malfoy," Heidi answered.
"Malfoy?!" Diana asked looking disbelievingly at her. "And you didn't see fit to tell me about it?"
"Well, you were dating the blond prick, so, you would have stubbornly refused to believe it, just like you do with any other thing that's not to your liking," Heidi sated diplomatically.
Diana glared at her. "You know, if this didn't give me one more reason to hate that blond brat, I would have so scalped you right about now."
"Ok, enough with the fighting! We have to figure out who is the heir of Slytherin!" Hermione snapped.
"It's not Malfoy," Diana assured. "The coward runs like hell if I start speaking in Parseltongue."
"It could be a farce. You know to mislead people," Hermione argued.
"Yeah," Neville agreed. "I mean the whole lot of his family has been in Slytherin and they're damn proud of their pureblood heritage and they loathe Muggle-bornes."
"Do you guys remember that Angelina mentioned that Dumbledore talked about the Chamber of Secrets as if it had already been open once?" Heidi asked.
The other kids nodded.
"Well, we can get a lot more concrete information out of someone who has been around and experienced first hand what it was like last time," Heidi said.
"You're right," Hermione agreed. "But we don't know when that happened and who to ask!"
"Well, let's think this logically. How old is Dumbledore?" Heidi asked looking around.
"I'd have to say about 100-109. Somewhere around that line," Hermione said, she had her face shrewd in a pensive mask and was biting her bottom lip quite furiously. "111!"
"Are you sure?"
"Positive!" Hermione nodded.
"Right. Well, let's assume that the whole incident happened somewhere around the time when he was out of Hogwarts–"
"Why out of Hogwarts?" asked Hermione.
"You remember what Angelina said: they were talking, so she meant Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall!" Heidi said.
"Makes sense," nodded Diana.
"Right, so, that would imply that the chamber incident took place a few good years before we came to school – since the whole thing has apparently been forgotten – but it was before 1937, that being McGonagall's first year. Do we know anyone who attended Hogwarts at the time?" Heidi asked looking at the other kids.
"Aside form McGonagall herself," mussed Diana. "No."
"My gran attended school with McGonagall, she was two years behind her," Neville said. "Though I don't know if she knows anything about the incident."
"If the chamber incident took place during McGonagall's years at Hogwarts, then she must have heard something about it, and it wouldn't hurt to try," Heidi said and stood up.
"Yeah, but who's gonna ask her?" questioned Diana. The kids took a minute to look among themselves, there was reluctance written all over their faces, and none seemed to kin to offer himself up for the task.
"I'll do it," Heidi snapped. "Now let's get a move one!"
------
Augusta Longbottom was sitting peacefully in the living room, silently sipping on a cup of tea, when the five children walked in and stopped right in front of her, a determined look mixed with no little fear in their eyes.
"Missis Longbottom, we would like to ask you a few questions," Heidi said resolute.
Augusta shot them a suspicious glance and motioned for them to sit down.
"And what might that be?" she asked in a soft, somewhat mistrusting voice.
The kids sat on the couch across from her, all squirming in their seats. Neville and Diana had their eyes glued to their shoes, while Dudley and Hermione were looking expectantly at Heidi, who was sitting rigidly beside them.
The girl took a deep breath and finally spoke.
"We wanted to know if you had heard anything about the Chamber of Secrets?"
Augusta dropped her tea straight in her lap and looked at them in utter shock. Whatever she was expecting that they wanted to ask about was certainly not this. And, unfortunately, the reaction was practically a confirmation to Heidi's question.
The old woman's shock turned to anger and she looked ready to usher the children away, but Heidi promptly cut her off.
"The monster in the Chamber is a Basilisk! So if you know something about it I'm pleading you to tell us! Our lives might be at stake here!"
August regarded each of the five children's pleading faces and heaved in a sigh.
"Very well," she relented. "I shell tell you about the Chamber of Secrets." The kids shared a relieved smile and turned to look expectantly at the elder woman. "But first you must tell me how you came to the conclusion that the monster is a Basilisk."
The children nodded and guided Augusta in the Library where they proceeded to bombard her with all the twists and turns they had stumbled across while coming to the conclusion about the monster's identity; needles to say that Augusta was looking awestruck by the end of their speech.
"Adults cold not make the connection that mere children so easily unraveled?" She gave the children a glowing smile which brought Neville close to tears, his gran had never looked at him with such pride and content before.
"Very well, I shell tell you what happened the first time when then Chamber of Secrets was opened." Augusta said, with one last beaming smile sent towards her grandson. The children hastily gathered around the oak table of the library and pulled up seats, while looking eagerly at the old woman in front.
"It happened nearly fifty years ago, when I was halfway into my third year at Hogwarts," Augusta said with a note of melancholy in her voice. Her eyes had taken a distant glimmer as she recalled a time so long ago in the far-away past. A time that she longed to extinguish from her aging mind, but unfortunately it never seemed to want to wash away along with most of her early memories, but stayed rather stoic in place, sometimes coming back to haunt her.
"It was all so unexpected," she sighed sadly. "One minute we were merely chattering in the Great Hall, the other… we were screaming our lungs out when we found the seemingly dead body of Roxanna Stewart in the corridor of the second floor. That girl was a sixth year prefect and was apparently making her patrol throughout the corridor when she was attacked. The Headmaster, it was Armando Dippet at the time, held a brief speech the next day in which he told us that the girl had been merely petrified and was not in fact dead as we all feared and assured us that he would find the perpetrator."
"A few weeks later we all but forgot about the incident. Most people thought it all was a joke played on the girl, after all, not many seemed to like her, but when the second attack came round, the scene was a lot more gruesome. There was blood on the ceiling, that clearly said: The Chamber of Secrets has been opened; Enemies of the Heir beware."
"It was mass hysteria. The Professors took over a week to try and calm us children down with little to no results. We had found out that the two that had been attacked were in fact Muggle-borns and so most of those with Muggle heritage – and mind you there was quite a number of them in my age, probably more then nowadays – they panicked, not wanting to end up as Roxanna and James Pears – some of them even abandoned the school."
"The Headmaster had a rough weight settle on his shoulders, and the heads of House were no better. All the letters from the discontent Muggle families came pouring down in the next week or so, the high table was always filled with millions of owls fighting each other to deliver their message."
"Two months later and the fear had taken a tool on every child in school, pureblood and Muggle-born alike. The Professors kept assuring us that everything was under control, but two more students had already been petrified in the mean time, and one was found dead. A girl in my year I had little to no interaction with: Mirtle Carter."
"The Ministry issued an order for Dippet to either solve this madness or let them take over, which literary translated to: Bring this to an end or we will close down the school. Truth be told we were quite scared when Dippet took the stand and told us that night of the Ministry's decision – I for one was sure they'd send us packing the next morning, but they didn't. In fact the most interesting thing happened the day following Dippet's speech: They caught the perpetrator!"
"Everyone was celebrating and rejoicing the next day. Everyone was relieved that the whole incident was over, that we barely took notice, that in all the bull that Dippet droned to us in that speech of his about morals and social right, he forgot to mention the name of the one who had put us through hell for the most of five months."
"Though there was a rather fishy coincidence that Rubeus Hagrid was expelled the next day and Tom Riddle was given an Award for Special Services to the School, but we continued to play dumb, and enjoy the feel of piece that settled once more on the castle grounds," Augusta finished in a cheerless voice. She took a deep breath and exhaled sadly, her mind still lingering on the tale she had just disclosed upon the children. Her eyes flickered to the silent faces of her guests and grandson. They hadn't interrupted once, sitting stiffly in their chairs, like unblinking little porcelain dolls.
Heidi and Hermione were doing a throughout analysis of the story they had heard (if their expressions were anything to go by), while the other three were looking out into space, a blank expression adorned their young faces.
"So," Diana was the first to break the silence. "You think that Hagrid was the one responsible for all this?" she asked slightly doubtful.
"No child," Augusta stated. "The ministry thinks Hagrid was the one responsible for the whole Chamber incident. I am certain of this because my son and his wife worked as Aurors for the Ministry, and I asked them to look into the case files for me. I am not sure who the perpetrator was, but I am positively convinced that it was not Rubeus who did all those terrible things."
"No, Hagrid is not capable of doing something like that," Heidi agreed. "He's clumsy, and extremely gullible. Add his unhealthy obsession with animals to the list and he's the perfect candidate to be framed for such an incident."
"You really think someone framed Hagrid?" asked Neville.
"We're positive," said Hermione. "The question is who?"
"Nope," Heidi disagreed. "The question is how?"
The kids and old woman gave her a baffled look, but didn't quite come around to question her as to the meaning of her words, because the girl turned to Augusta and asked:
"Moaning Mirtle, the ghost which haunts the second floor bathroom was killed during the attack?" she asked looking slightly suspicious.
"Yes," Augusta nodded.
"And the first victim was found in the second floor corridor?" she persisted.
"That is correct," Augusta said, still not sure as to where this whole thing was going, but Hermione had apparently figured it out because she asked:
"And the message regarding the Chamber was found…?"
"On the second floor corridor, right where the second victim la–" something seemed to click within Augusta's head and she looked in utter shock at the two girls.
"How did I not see the connection?" she asked something between shock and resentment clouding her voice.
"What didn't you see?" asked Dudley impatient. He had been lost for most of the conversation, and was feeling rather hurt for being left out.
"The second floor corridor," Hermione exclaimed, giving Dudley a desperate look. "That's were the message was last time, and this time too! The first victim was found there both in the past and present! Moaning Mirtle died in the bathroom of the second floor corridor! Don't you get it? It means the Chamber of Secrets is located somewhere in the second floor corridor, where all the events took place!"
"Oh," Dudley said, too shocked to be able to phrase anything else.
"I don't believe it," Neville shock his head, surprise still clear on his face.
"We found the chamber," Diana spoke like in a sort of trance. "We found the chamber!" she said more clearly then the last time and a blissful smile spread on her young, pretty face. The smile soon edged on all the surrounding children and in mere seconds the Longbottom library was engulfed in uproars of cheers and cries of joy as the kids jumped up and down and hugged each other in excitement.
Missis Longbottom was sitting silently in her chair and smiling jovially at the childish display of happiness as she lamented the IQ of today's society. After all, four seconds years and a Muggle boy were able to solve a mystery that left the adults baffled…
She sighed sadly.
What is the world coming to?