Chapter Two
"Harry Potter must not return to Hogwarts." That's what the house elf had said. Bad things were going to happen at Hogwarts. Harry cursed himself for taking the elf even a little bit seriously. It was probably someone's idea of a joke. It was twenty to eleven and Harry was already settled onto the Hogwarts Express, waiting in a compartment for his friends.
Cedric looked over at his little brother and frowned at the frustrated looked on his face. "Come on, Harry!" Cedric burst out, unable to stop himself. "What's wrong? You've been off for a few days now. What's going on?"
Harry sighed and looked at his brother. He knew he shouldn't keep this to himself. If someone was playing a prank on him he should let someone know in case they took it too far. "A house elf appeared in my room a few days ago."
Cedric blinked; clearly he hadn't been expecting that. "And I'm guessing it wasn't one of our elves?" He thought he already knew the answer, Harry wouldn't be this out of sorts if it were a house elf he was familiar with, but he needed to be sure.
"Nope." Harry said, popping his 'p'. "It said its name was Dobby and, God Ced, it was sick. He was saying that he gets death threats and he was covered in bruises. It was horrible. I felt so bad for him."
"Harry," Cedric sighed, moving to sit next to his brother and putting his arm around the twelve year old. "I know some house elves have it rough, and it's sad when they're treated badly but most of them have good lives and they need to be tied to families, they feed of the family's magic."
Harry sighed this time, a noise of pure frustration. "I know, I know, they like their lives. Doesn't mean I can't feel bad for and try to help the ones that are mistreated."
"You should always try to help someone you think is being treated unfairly, no matter the situation. Now what did the house elf say that has you so ruffled?"
"It said bad things were happening, that I shouldn't go back-"
"Harry Potter should not go back to Hogwarts!"
Harry and Cedric were startled so badly they almost fell out of their seats as a loud and squeaky voice filled the compartment followed by a rather load 'CRACK'.
"Cedric, meet Dobby." Harry said, indicating the filthy creature that had just appeared in front of them. "Dobby this is my brother Cedric and my name isn't Potter anymore."
"Dobby is pleased to meet Harry Potter's brother." The elf bowed as he said this and Harry rolled his eyes. "Harry Potter's brother can stop Harry Potter going to Hogwarts."
"Why can't Harry go to Hogwarts, Dobby?" Cedric asked in his softest voice, not wanting to scare the little elf. Dobby's eyes went wide and he started to tremble, obviously he wasn't supposed to talk about what he knew. Probably the only reason he could even try was because it hadn't been a direct instruction. All house elves were under a general rule not to tell other people family secrets and while this seemed like a sound rule to have in place it didn't really work very well considering all pureblood families were interrelated in some way or another. The more immediate the family connection, the easier it was to get the information out of an elf.
Of course most purebloods didn't know this. Most of them considered house elves so far beneath them that they wouldn't even think to ask a house elf if they needed anything beyond house hold duties. Luckily, Harry knew better. He knew what it was like to be looked down upon, what it was like to be considered worthless and treated everyone he came across respectfully. That was why he was a favourite of the Diggory and Hogwarts elves.
"B- bad thi- things." Dobby managed to choke out. "Bad things is happening. His- history is re-repeating."
"History is repeating?" Harry asked, highly confused. "Whatever's coming? It's happened before?"
Dobby made a strangled sounded but managed a jerky nodded, as though physically fighting with his self to do so, before he disappeared with another loud 'crack'. Harry sat and thought about what little the elf had told them, unconsciously leaning further into the arm Cedric still had wrapped around his shoulders.
"If he's telling the truth," Harry started, looking up at the older boy who looked just as confused and uncertain as he felt. "And this isn't some elaborate and rather unfunny joke, it can't be that bad can it? Hogwarts is still considered the safest place in the world, surely it wouldn't be if something truly terrible had happened there."
"Hogwarts is considered so safe because of the wards." Cedric answered slowly, still thinking over what Dobby had said and trying to remember ever hearing of what could have happened first time round. "No one can enter the grounds with out permission. But it's still a magic school. A couple of hundred untrained magical children, accidents happen and sometimes people are still hurt, especially during Quidditch. If something horrible happened it could easily have been taken for an accident. Besides," He added, brightening as he pulled himself out of his reverie. "Nothing has happened yet and we don't even know if the elf was serious. Like you said, it could just be some tasteless joke from someone with no sense of humour. Plus, there's nothing we can do now so put it out of your mind. It's up to mum and dad whether or not we go to school and if something does happen we can tell someone what Dobby said. Okay?"
"Okay." Harry agreed, seeing his brothers reasoning. There really was nothing they could do, their parents weren't going to pull them out of school over a warning from a house elf who may or may not have been ordered to give them the warning in the first place.
In the following weeks Harry was a lot more cheerful since he had shared Dobby's ominous warning with someone. He hadn't realised just how much it had been weighing him down on the run up to school. He wasn't completely back to himself until mid-September when he was finally able to assure himself that the house elf was lying after almost three weeks with no disasters. In fact by the end of September Harry and Cedric had completely forgotten ever meeting the little elf that came with dire warnings.
Even when things started to go wrong at Hogwarts, Harry didn't remember Dobby, which was probably unwise but couldn't be helped.
It was as Harry, Hermione and Luna, a first year they had befriended, were heading back to the common room that Harry had first heard the snake's voice. It had taken Harry a while to be able to tell the difference between when he was hearing real English and when he was hearing a snake but once you had realised the undertone of hissing was there, you never missed it again.
Despite the rather threatening things the snake was saying, Harry hadn't paid it much attention. They weren't uncommon things for a snake to hiss while it was looking for pray. Harry remembered the first time he had heard such things from a grass snake that was passing him in the garden, he still blushed as he thought about they way he had screamed like a little girl. In all fairness he had only been eight but it was still rather embarrassing as far as Harry was concerned.
So Harry had ignored the voice inside the walls, assuming it was a loose familiar looking for its dinner.
It was the next day at breakfast when Harry realised how much of a mistake that might have been.
"Did you hear?" Padma asked excitedly, Harry and Hermione shared a look. Padma Patil was the resident gossip of the Eagle's Nest; having a twin in Gryffindor, friends in Hufflepuff and a contact in Slytherin meant she had ready access to the gossip in every house. Well any gossip that will be talked about in front of twelve and thirteen year olds, she hadn't quite reached the level for pregnancy scares and relationship scandals yet. Give her till fourth year. "Filch's cat was attacked!" That got Harry and Hermione's attention. That damn cat was a pain in the bum to any nighttime wanderer but Mrs Norris was only doing her job. As annoying as she was, who would actually hurt her?
"Do we know who did it?" Hermione inquired; interested for once because this wasn't gossip and speculation, this had to have been fact. One look at Filch's blotchy face confirmed that.
"No," Padma replied in a sufficiently dramatic voice, pleased to have someone new to tell. "But whoever did it left a message on the wall though. It said 'the Chamber of Secrets has been opened, enemies of the heir beware'. It's still there, apparently Filch spent all last night trying to scrub it off but it wouldn't budge."
"The Chamber of Secrets?" Hermione repeated, her brow furrowing. "But that's just a legend according to 'Hogwarts; A History'."
Padma just shrugged. "There's no smoke without fire and the story of the Chamber is as old as Hogwarts itself. You never know."
Harry wasn't as familiar with the story as Hermione; his go to Hogwarts guide was 'Hogwarts: Marauder's Secrets' which only covered what a student might come across in their everyday lives. It didn't really touch on the history of the castle. "That's Slytherin's legend isn't it?" Harry clarified, not 100% sure of himself. "Saying that Old Sal built a hidden room under the school with a monster that only his heir could control…"
Harry's voice trailed off as everything clicked into place and the metaphorical light bulb went off over his head. Only Slytherins heir could control the monster, Slytherin's line had the gift of Parseltongue, the snake Harry had heard the night before. Harry's eyes widened, the monster was real and it was travelling through the walls.
Hermione gave her friend a worried look, noticing how pale he had gotten. "Harry, are you okay?"
"We need to go see Flitwick." He told her instead of answering, standing up before she even had chance to comprehend what he'd said. Harry was already stood in front of their head of house when Hermione caught up. She arrived just in time to her what Harry had to say to the half-goblin professor.
"I know what Slytherin's monster is."
Every teacher within hearing distance had a different reaction to Harry's words. Flitwick looked surprised but willing to hear his student out, Snape just called him a moron and told him to sit back down while McGonagall just insisted the monster didn't exist. However it was Dumbledore's reaction that got Harry's attention. He just nodded sagely like he'd expected Harry to know all along. Harry was half tempted to kick the aging headmaster.
He had never really known what to make of Dumbledore. It was obvious the man cared about his student, cared deeply about the young lives in his school but Harry didn't like where the students stood on the man's list of priorities. Care about them he may but every single student in the castle was cannon fodder for the 'greater good' as far as Dumbledore was concerned. He'd proved this last year when he agreed to house the Philosopher's stone despite the fact it would put all the children in the castle at risk.
Harry remembered when he was eight years old and he'd met Dumbledore for the first time. The first thing he had thought was that he'd never seen a man so old. How the Hell could he even be alive? Of course at eight, even with his curiosity and childish lack of tact, he'd still been too intimidated by strangers to ask such a question.
Harry's opinion of the man had been rather neutral during the small talk and pleasantries but the first words out of Dumbledore's mouth when he finally got down to business had incited instant hatred in Harry and Cedric, who had known who Dumbledore was but never met him. He'd insisted Harry go back to his relatives.
For a split second Harry had been terrified his new parents would agree and he'd have to go back to his cupboard, never seeing his big brother again. Fortunately, Mary and Amos were having none of it. They flat out refused and Dumbledore could do nothing to force them into handing their youngest song over.
He'd even tried to go to the ministry so they could force Harry back into the custody of the Dursley's but even if Uncle Cornelius had wanted to send Harry back to that magic-hating household there was nothing even he could do. The paperwork had been finalised and legal for well over a year and Dumbledore's hand were tied. Even then, Harry hadn't liked the looks the old man gave him and he didn't like them now.
Within half and hour Harry and Hermione were firmly ensconced in Dumbledore's office with half the teaching staff, the young Ravenclaw explaining how he'd come to the conclusion that Slytherin's monster was some sort of snake. Even Snape could refute Harry's logic and agreed that he was probably right. Both Dumbledore and Lockhart said that they'd suspected all along that Salazar would have used some kind of snake; Harry didn't believe them for a moment.
The only question that remained was what kind of snake could live for more than a thousand years and was capable of petrifaction? Harry didn't know, he was hardly an expert on snakes, magical or muggle, even Snape didn't know what kind of creature they were dealing with.
In the end the students had been told to put it out of their minds, there was nothing that could be done without more information, and to report it immediately should Harry hear the snake again. Harry had also been instructed to tell as few people as possible about being a Parselmouth, the students were already unnerved and if they discovered Harry possessed a gift believed to be dark suspicion would instantly fall on him. For one Harry agreed with the headmaster.
Before Harry knew it, it was mid-December and his first ever Quidditch match. Despite the hour Harry had spent convinced he was about to humiliate himself, the first hour of the game had passed relatively easily.
It was the second half of the game that had given Harry reason to never play another match. A rogue bludger had been charmed to target only Harry. That's what he'd had to put up with. In a series of move he could barely recall, Harry had managed to catch the snitch in spite of the broken arm the bludger had left him with.
The real challenge had been trying to take the idiot Lockhart out of trying to fix the arm himself. Harry had only just managed it saying he knew that some healing spells could go wrong very easily and God forbid something should go wrong when, knowing Mary Diggory, there was going to be some sort of inquest into the jinxed Quidditch ball. Lockhart would have been in a lot of trouble if it had been found out that he'd used medical magic when he wasn't a certified healer.
Harry had been right as well. The Diggory's had called for a full investigation of how such a magical item, like a bludger, had been cursed to only target a specific person. It was only when Harry had been inform that traces of house elf magic had been found that he remembered Dobby and his warnings.
Harry and Cedric had instantly confessed almost everything they knew. They left out Dobby's name though, not wanting to make thinks worse for the elf should his family find out that he'd warned Harry, especially now as his warnings were coming to be.
However much to the brothers' frustration, they were once again told to put it out of their mind. Nothing could be done on the information they had. The boys knew it was true but that didn't stop it being annoying to hear.
No matter Dumbledore's warning, which he had fully been intending to heed, Harry had been forced to reveal that he was a Parselmouth during the farce of a duelling club sent up by Lockhart. Even when he'd seen the snake, Harry had been intending to keep his mouth shut but after fraud had managed to piss it off enough for it to go for a student, Harry knew he had to step in.
He'd seen the fear and shock on people's faces as soon as they realised what he was doing. It wasn't Harry's fault that the majority of the student body decided to believe he'd been goading the snake on. Even if he had want Justin Finch-Fletchy attached, did they really think he was stupid enough to do it in front of a hall full of people? He was a Ravenclaw! For Merlin's sake! He wasn't that stupid.
It certainly didn't help that the stupid Hufflepuff and the Gryffindor ghost had to go and get their selves petrified only a few days later. Harry was certain the heir, whoever it was, had set that one up on purpose. Telling the snake to go for Justin just to make things harder on Harry. The young Claw was just thankful his friends believed him. The rest of the school could go to Hell as far as he was concerned; he still had Hermione, Neville and Luna, not to mention Cedric and the twins. They made everything bearable.
Speaking of Weasley's, Harry was almost thankful for Valentine's Day. As ridiculous and embarrassing as the day was, at least it was drama that had nothing to do with the recent attacks and who everyone thought Harry would target next. He sort of felt sorry for Ginny; she'd obviously grown up on stories of the Boy-Who-Lived and had developed a bit of an infatuation. He probably should have shown a bit more tact in the face of her singing valentine but it had been so absurd Harry couldn't help the fit of giggles he'd burst into, it wasn't his fault she'd been walking past him in the corridor when he'd got the bloody thing. And Hermione really wasn't one to talk, she'd laughed just as hard.
Unfortunately, Harry's light-hearted mood had only lasted until the next attack, though Harry would have been a bit worried if he'd managed to maintain his cheerfulness when another student was now lying in the hospital wing. Towards the end of April Penelope Clearwater, a sixth year Ravenclaw who'd been known to help lower years with their homework in the common room, had been attacked while the rest of the school had been making their way down to the Quidditch pitch for the Ravenclaw/Gryffindor match.
Things had happened quickly after that. Within days of Penny's attack, Dumbledore had been removed as headmaster due to the fact he obviously couldn't keep his students safe. If that was the real then why in Merlin's name had they appointed McGonagall headmistress for the rest of the year? She's been there the whole time and obviously wasn't having any better luck than Dumbledore. It was also rumoured that the reason the gamekeeper, Hagrid, was missing was because he'd been arrested.
Apparently Hagrid had opened the Chamber in his third year. If that was true Harry would be leaving Hogwarts forever. It obviously wasn't that great of a school if Hagrid the gentle yet still intimidating giant could figure out the location to an ancient chamber when Dumbledore, the greatest wizard alive, had failed multiple times.
It was a week after that another message was left on the wall. Directly under the first one left all those months ago on Halloween.
'Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever'
It had been haunting to read it and Ron Weasley had done nothing to help Harry's state of mind. It had been his little sister that had been taken and he'd decided it was Harry's fault. At least he didn't think Harry had done it.
According to Ron, Ginny had gone looking for the monster in an effort to impress Harry. He'd highly doubted that but his doubts had done nothing to assuage Harry's feelings of guilt and helplessness. In the end, he'd taken refuge in Myrtle's bathroom, dragging Hermione, Neville and Luna with him.
They'd barely been there a moment when Myrtle herself popped out to see who was there. It seemed that someone had been coming in and hissing but they were always gone by the time Myrtle got there.
"Hissing?" Harry asked, completely baffled.
The ghost nodded sadly. "I've heard the noise before." She whispered dramatically, her eyes exceptionally wide behind her ghostly lenses. "I heard it right before I died."
The pieces started to fit together but Harry needed a little more information to finish the puzzle completely. "And what did you see Myrtle, right before you died?"
"A great big yellow eye, right over there." She pointed to the sinks and Harry immediately walked over to them. He ran his hands over the taps and froze when he felt something scratched into the side of one of them. It was an engraved snake.
The entrance was here. And it only responded to Parseltongue. But what kind of snake waited inside. It was a suicide mission to go in blind.
Harry was at a loss. The snake had killed Myrtle but only petrified everyone else. Did its power weaken with age? No, it couldn't if it was still strong enough to affect Nearly Headless Nick. But Nick was already dead so it couldn't kill him, he was only petrified and what if Justin had only seen the snake through Nick so he was petrified instead of dying like Myrtle had.
Harry couldn't be sure and he didn't know the circumstances of the other attacks to confirm it but it was the only theory he had. That narrowed things down, what else did he have to go on? Had anything else weird been going on? For the first time in his life Harry wished he listen to the gossip that went round the school. The only thing he knew of were the roosters that had turned up dead. It might be completed unrelated but probably not.
That narrowed it down even more. What snakes could live for hundreds of years, could kill by looking at you and didn't like roosters? Even after a few minutes the only answer he could come up with was…
"A basilisk."
Two hours later, Harry was stood at the entrance to the Chamber again. This time Professors McGonagall, Snape, Flitwick and Lockhart accompanied him. Merlin knew what that over bleached moron was doing there but there he was. He'd just used Parseltongue to open the doorway when it dawned that Harry was the only Parselmouth and would probably be needed to open more doors and such along the way.
Harry was then given a ten-minute lecture telling him to stay out of the fray and leave anything dangerous to the teachers. He had to grit his teeth to stop himself yelling. They were wasting time! Ginny might be dead! By the time they entered the main cavern, Harry was ready to kick someone.
He could see Ginny at the other end of the room and only Snape's hand on his shoulder stopped him from running to her much to his frustration. Though this turned out to be a blessing in disguise when the basilisk came charging out of what Harry had assumed was an alcove but was actually a side tunnel.
Snape, who'd been expecting something like that, managed to shoot of a blinding hex but not before Lockhart crumpled to the floor dead. The spell Snape used had been dark but even McGonagall couldn't deny that it was needed; though she need cringe at the creatures agonizes shrieking as the spell melted its eyes.
Harry lost track of what happened after that. Even blind, the basilisk was still something to be wary of and the teachers had their hands full. Harry ended up crouched next to Ginny, trying in vain to wake her.
"She can't hear you." Said a soft voice to the left. Harry looked and couldn't stop his jaw from dropping at the sight of the handsome boy in front of him. He was only about sixteen and looked striking in his finely pressed Slytherin robes. This was the person who'd opened the Chamber?
"You brought her here?" Harry asked, wanting to verify before he accused.
"She brought herself." He said factually before admitting. "But only because I told her to. If she'd have been in her right mind, I doubt she'd have been as willing."
"You're controlling her?" The Slytherin nodded. "How?"
"The diary." The boy said, indicating the little black book in Ginny's arms. "She's been writing in it since the summer. Writing to me."
"She gave you access." Harry realised. "She opened up her soul just enough for you to slither out of the diary and into her."
The boy nodded, a look of pride on his face. Though whether he was proud of Harry for figuring it out or of himself for coming up with it in the first place was a mystery.
"Why are you telling me this?" Harry asked warily, wondering what the boy was planning.
"Because I want you to join me, Harrison." He wasn't even the slightest bit surprised that the boy knew his name. "I want you to stand at my side, while I conquer the world."
Harry's eyes went wide. That was the last thing he'd been expecting. It hadn't even crossed his mind that the boy might want him.
"But… but…" Harry stuttered, completely out of his depth. "You hurt people. I could never do that. Never."
The boy was about to speak again but was interrupted by a high pitched shriek. They both turned sharply, just in time to see the giant snake take its last breath, bleeding heavily from several deep gashes up and down its back and sides. The Slytherin screamed in grief, obviously very attached to the snake. During his moment of distraction, Harry ripped the diary out of Ginny's limp grasp, throwing it in the direction of the teachers.
"Destroy it." He shouted. "Or Ginny dies."
The teachers froze at his words, all except Snape who instantly level his wand at the diary the moment it landed.
"Fiendfyre." He hissed. The diary immediately burst into flames.
Harry almost jumped out of his skin as the boy next to him let out an ear-splitting scream and feel to his knees. Harry dropped down next to him, devastated that he had caused the death of another person, even if it was a person who'd tried to sacrifice Ginny's life to save his own. Harry never wanted to make that choice again. The only reason he'd made it in the first place was because he knew the boy wouldn't have stopped at Ginny. This boy wanted to rule the world and he'd have killed anyone who got in his way.
"You said you couldn't hurt anyone." The boy whispered, agony lacing his every word. "But you've hurt me."
Harry sobbed, those words cutting at his heart like a knife. "I'm sorry." He cried. "I'm so sorry."
"Tom." The boy said out of the blue. "My name is Tom."
"I'm so sorry, Tom, I'm sorry." Harry's eyes, which were squeezed tight in sorrow, flew wide open as he felt Tom's lips brush gently over his own.
"You're forgiven."
Harry couldn't have even tried to resist as Tom lurched and his lips over Harry's own. They were so gentle and insistent that he couldn't help but surrender and open his mouth to that probing tongue.
Tom pulled back just as Harry's lungs started to burn. He gave the younger boy one last sad smile before disappearing in flash of light. Harry only had chance to release one more choked sob before darkness claimed him.
It took three days for Harry to wake, as he later found out from a rather frantic Hermione, and the first thing he saw was a pair of golden half moon spectacle and a long white bread. The talk with Dumbledore about what had gone on in the Chamber was probably the most awkward conversation Harry had ever had, even worse than the sex talk with his father. This was a teacher! And old teacher! Harry must have shuddered at least three times.
But even Harry's mortification couldn't detract from his guilt over what he'd done to Tom. Dumbledore had tried to reassure him. Telling him who Tom had grown up to be but it didn't help. Harry had taken a life, sort of, and he felt horrible, it didn't matter whose life it was. He had no right to take it.
His interest was peaked however when Lucius Malfoy walked into the hospital wing, accompanied by none of than Dobby. Harry knew better that to say anything but it broke his heart to see the amount of distain Lucius regarded his servant with.
"Harry." The headmaster said quietly as they watched Malfoy Senior walk away. "Did you know house elves are fascinating creatures but so underestimated? There are books upon books in the library full of house elf lore but very few people bother to read it. You might find it interesting."
Harry ginned at the headmaster for the first time. He was definitely going to be having a look at those books. Or he'd ask Hermione to, at least.
They still had a month or two left of term and Harry spent them quiet and withdrawn. He felt nothing for Tom but the guilt was still eating him alive. It took him until the day of the train ride home to come to terms with what he had done and what he'd seen done to Lockhart but even though he'd gotten over that hurdle, there was still one left to face and he needed Hermione to do it.
The second they got onto the train he commandeered a compartment and asked her for a private word.
"Harry, what's wrong?" She asked as soon as the door was closed behind her. "You've been acting strange since you got out of the hospital wing."
Harry sat down with a sigh as he began to spill everything. His horror over watching Lockhart die, guilt over killing Tom and his confusion over the kiss. "I liked it." He whispered almost shamefully, flinching when Hermione gasped. "Not who it was." He hastened to reassure just in case. "But the kiss itself was nice. He was gentle and his lips were soft and…"He broke off and blushed a rather beautiful apple red.
Hermione smiled and moved onto the seat next to her closest friend, taking his hand and cradling it in both of hers. "What else is it, Harry? It's okay to enjoy a kiss so what else has you so worried?"
Harry looked at her with wide, terrified eyes. Silently begging that she not reject him over this. It took all Hermione's willpower not to burst into tears then and there. "I liked that it was boy." He admitted, bringing his shoulders up defensively as though he expected to be hit.
Hermione cursed herself for not asking him these questions earlier. Cedric had told her that when Harry was really feeling out of sorts and unsure he still reverted to the scared little boy he'd been all those years ago at the zoo. "Oh, Harry." She threw her arms around her best friend and pulled him close. "It's okay to like boys and its okay to be confused. I think, at this age, we're supposed to be confused. This is the sort of thing we'll figure out as well get older. Don't worry yourself over it now, okay?"
She cupped his cheeks and forced him to look at her properly so, if he didn't want to believe her words, he could read the truth in her eye. Harry examined her closely for a long minute before breaking into one of the most beautiful smiles Hermione had ever seen.
"Okay." He whispered and pulled her close, giving Hermione a grateful hug. She almost fell off the seat when she felt him tense in her arms. "Oh my Godric." She heard him mumble.
"What?!" She demanded pulling back.
"My first kiss was with Lord Voldemort."