I actually have the best reviewers in the world. One of you actually thought I would forget about you while I was gone. Of COURSE not! Not a second went by where I wasn't thinking about each and every one of you and how much I missed your wonderful reviews.
So as you could have guessed, I've been very scatterbrained lately, so I forgot to mention a few things last chapter. First of all, I've gotten to 600 reviews, and that is INCREDIBLE! Thank you all so much for being so lovely. Second of all, this chapter is the one. This is the chapter where you find out who A is... it was supposed to be two separate chapters, which is why I didn't prepare you as well, but they were both ridiculously short so I ended up combining them.
So here's what I want you all to do: before you read this, take a moment to breathe, and work out your guesses in your head. Then write them down. So once you finish this chapter, type in your original guess and THEN your reaction to the real thing. I'm asking you all to keep your word here. Please comply.
And now, without further ado... the climax to this story. I've been waiting for forever for this moment, so I really hope you all enjoy. Oh, and as always, but especially this time, review your pretty little FACES off!
"How'd you find out about this room?" Hanna asked as the four girls stalked down the hall up to the corridor on the seventh floor, where this secret room apparently was located.
"I read about it somewhere," Spencer said breezily, but deep down she was scared. How convenient was it that she, out of all her friends, out of all the people in this school, knew about this room?
The girls had left Caleb behind, claiming they could do this on their own. They also needed someone to keep guard of the castle while they tracked down the room, and he was doing just that with the Marauder's Map ("I can't believe this room doesn't show up on the map! Nothing escapes the map!").
Once they got to the left corridor, Spencer pointed at a tapestry on the far side, showing Barnabas the Barmy trying to teach trolls ballet. It was a sculpted depiction of an ancient tale.
Spencer turned back to them. "Alright, now we just do what Lucas said: walk around this thing three times and think about – "
"I know what we're thinking about," Aria said abruptly, holding her hand up. The last thing she wanted to think about was purifying the wizarding world. As a muggle born, she tried to avoid that topic of conversation.
Spencer sighed. "Yeah, you guys know what to do. Let's go."
The girls walked around the tapestry, feeling like idiots doing it, but still keeping that horrible mindset: We need a hideout that will help us in purifying the wizarding world. We need a hideout that will help us in purifying the wizarding world. We need a hideout that will help us in purifying the wizarding world.
Within minutes, a door appeared. It wasn't a particularly special looking door; it was a deep shade of burgundy, and had hinges and edges and a knob like all other doors. But when Spencer reached for the knob to open it, it was made clear that this was no ordinary door.
As they entered through the door, the room they had entered was unlike anything either girl had ever seen before. Before them was a small, round table, with a desk chair in front of it. On the table was a small crystal ball, and neither girl could guess what would happen if you rubbed it. And even further down were bookshelves. So many bookshelves. And they stretched on even further than either of the girls could see. It was unclear what kind of books were on the shelves, but the girls didn't need to do so much as exchange a look to realize that they didn't hold the secret recipe for a kickass apple pie.
This looks familiar, Spencer thought to herself. Way too familiar.
Spencer took a chance and walked forward even further, past the round table and over to the bookshelves. She ran her hands along the shelves, feeling along the smooth surface of the wood as she walked along the aisle. It's all so familiar. But why?
Of course.
Suddenly, Spencer's breath caught in her throat as she whipped around to the other girls. Startled, the other three took a step back simultaneously.
"Spencer, what's wrong?" Emily asked concernedly.
"I know who it is," Spencer breathed, her heart pounding in her ears. This couldn't be happening. This really couldn't be happening.
Oh, but it was.
"You do?" Hanna took a giant step forward toward Spencer, grabbing her hands. "Who? Who is it?"
Spencer leaned backward, pressing her back against the bookcase. "I… I know because I had a dream about it. This was all in my dream."
"Wait, you dreamed all of this?" Aria repeated.
Spencer nodded her head. "I thought it was just the stress getting to me, but I think it's true. In my dream, I was in this exact same place. And… I kept hearing voices."
"Voices?"
"Not regular voices though," Spencer continued. "They weren't… human."
"Well, what else could they be?" Emily asked.
"Snake voices," Spencer said quietly after a few seconds had passed.
At this, Aria paled. "Wait… so you're – "
"A Parselmouth, yeah," Spencer said, bowing her head. "Just like the Heir of Slytherin."
"Spencer, what are you saying?" Hanna asked carefully. As much as she didn't want to admit it, Spencer was really starting to scare her.
Spencer put her hand up to her throbbing head, nearly smearing the sweat from her palm all over it. "Look, in my dream, the snake voices kept saying to look in the glass."
"The glass?"
"There was a panel of glass," Spencer said, feeling lightheaded as she continued talking. She wanted so much to just slide down the bookshelf and curl up into a ball, but she couldn't. She had to hold herself up and keep telling the story. "Like a… a mirror. And when I walked up to it, I just presumed it was a mirror. And the snake was telling me that when I looked into the 'mirror', I'd see the Heir of Slytherin. I'd see the person behind all of this."
"And?"
"And the person in the glass looked exactly like me," Spencer said breathily, her speech wearing out slightly. She was going to be sick, she just knew it. "But I know now."
"Spencer, what do you know?" Aria egged on.
Spencer finally lifted her head. "I know that it wasn't me."
All of the other three girls fell into silence. Aria could feel the pace of her heart quickening, to the point that it was going to explode out of her chest. No. Spencer's going to figure it out. She can't know!
"What?" Emily finally said as she tilted her head to the side. "Spencer, how could it be you? Why would you even consider that?"
"I've had my suspicions for a while," Spencer said softly. "For one, there was my dream. And a few months ago, I discovered that I'm a Parselmouth. And with the article Rita Skeeter did – "
"But Rita Skeeter doesn't know anything, Spencer," Hanna said comfortingly.
Spencer bowed her head, staring down at her wobbling knees. "That's not important now, though. Not after what I just figured out."
"What, Spence?"
"A snake," Spencer blurted out, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. "If my dream is correct, that means there's a snake loose in the school. And the one snake that is able to petrify students like that is the one that was destined to be in the Chamber all along."
"The Basilisk?" Aria asked, hoping her voice didn't give away how dry her throat felt. "Spencer, we talked about this. That thing is dead!"
"Not if it's brought back to life," Spencer said absently. Her eyes had a dead look in them, as though the horrid knowledge that they held was sucking the life out of them completely. "In my dream, the person in the glass that I thought was me was holding something. I thought it was just an old rock, but…"
"It's the resurrection stone?" Aria gasped, internally scolding herself for feigning figuring it out so quickly. "And they used it on the Basilisk?"
"Exactly." Spencer nodded her head weakly, still staring blankly ahead. "And it all fits, you guys. If the Basilisk was roaming this school this whole time, I should've been able to hear it talk, right? But someone must've known about that, and told it to keep quiet."
"The Heir of Slytherin," Emily answered. "They can also speak Parseltongue!"
"And they've let it roam free around the school, petrifying people – "
"Who were in front of windows," Hanna piped in, happy to have figured something out. "All the attacks were in front of windows, remember? They were all in that same hall!"
"Yes! And that's why no one has been killed!" Spencer explained. "But its aim is to kill. Especially muggle borns. That was the whole point of the Chamber in the first place."
"But what about the fangs?" Emily asked. "What do those have to do with it?"
"Well, that leads me to who's behind this," Spencer said, her voice reaching the lowest octave it could as she propped herself off of the bookcase and turned toward the far end of the hall, narrowing her eyes as she did so. "I can think of one person. One person who hates me, and as an effect all of you, enough to make us feel like we're in danger, and send us those fangs to make us feel like we're targeted. One person who's ambitious and controlling enough to want this much power, to want to rid the world of muggles just as Salazar Slytherin intended. One person who thinks they're great enough to follow Voldemort's footsteps. One person who fits the criteria of the Heir of Slytherin in the same way that I thought that I have since we share some of the same DNA."
As Spencer spoke these words, there was an earth shattering noise at the far end of the room, and the other three girls ducked, shielding their faces and their ears from the sound. But Spencer stood her ground firmly, still looking far ahead at the source of the noise.
The very same panel of glass that Spencer saw in her dream, the one she thought was a mirror and had nearly convinced her that she was unknowingly behind all of this, shattered to pieces. Spencer took a few steps forward – not so close that she could get hurt, but close enough that she could face the person who was about to emerge from the glass. Sure enough, a hand shot out of the glass, feeling its way around as it removed each shard from the puzzle, creating a small crater for them to make their way out of.
"Reducto!" a menacing voice shouted, and the glass still intact in the frame completely combusted, and a very familiar person stepped out of it, her slim frame decked out in a pair of black skinny jeans and a slightly-too-big hoodie.
"Congratulations, sis," Melissa cooed, a malicious smile on her face as she clenched her fist, completely immune to the blood trickling from her palm and the pain that came with it. "You figured it out."
Boom.
A couple of you did guess that it was Melissa, so hats off to you. So now that the girls know who A is, things are REALLY going to heat up. And I mean REALLY! The next ten chapters (also the last ten :( might as well tell you all now) are going to be so action packed that after reading them you won't even be able to tell which hand is your left and which is your right. So take the next 24 hours, more or less, to catch your breath, and I'll see you on the other side! Don't forget to review your faces off!
