"Speak" – Normal speech

Speak – Internal thoughts

/: Speak :/ - Magical languages translated

A/N: As always I don't own any of this. I apologize for not updating this faster, but I am working on other projects, not to mention my real job. I hope that you all enjoy this as much as I do writing it.

The first week of school seemed to fly by for the small trio that had formed on the Hogwarts Express. The rest of the school grumbled and talked in low tones about the classes that they were taking, specifically the fifth and seventh years complaining about not learning anything good in defense, but it seemed to be a good week overall for the school.

Harry had made a conscious decision after the first night that he would stick close to his friends no matter what, and so it was that the school was given an interesting display as Hermione, Harry and Daphne were all walking to class together. Most of the classes had Gryffindor and Slytherin matched up so Harry walked with Daphne almost everywhere; with Hermione in Ravenclaw it was a little more difficult, but the friends still made time for one another.

Another change came about when Harry decided that he needed more guy friends; the girls were fun loving and had a good sense of humor once he was able to get it out, but he needed guys to balance everything out. He had quickly started talking to the other boys in his dorm first and found a kind Neville Longbottom that he started to hang out with more. Ron Weasley attempted to implant himself with Harry, but never seemed to understand that he didn't want him around.

Harry felt that Weasley's bigoted attitude towards anything different was backwards based on how he was raised and what he had already seen in his short life. Neville, however, was a stark contrast; he was a pureblood, like Weasley, but didn't seem to hold the same prejudices as the redheaded boy. It was refreshing for the now quartet to get used to one another and for the school to find two Gryffindors, a Ravenclaw, and a Slytherin all hanging out together. It went off fine for a while, but inevitably the school would find someone to complain to.

It was the first full weekend back for the students and many were enjoying the last vestiges of the summer heat by being outdoors. The new foursome of friends was no exception to this and they could be found sitting under a large tree with books and parchment scattered around them. Hermione seemed to be helping out Neville by going through research for his potions essay; she refused to do it for him, but decided that proofreading things afterwards or even helping him in the research was just as good. Harry and Daphne were talking about their defense class, attempting to write an essay on trolls that just seemed to be stagnating.

It was, of course inevitable, that something would break the peace and wonderful time in the sunlight. This came in the form of a pompous and overly confident form of Ronald Weasley striding across the lawn towards the tree. Beside him were Parvati Patil and Dean Thomas; for some reason these two looked slightly apprehensive about approaching the black haired wizard and the small group around him. While the rest of the group appeared apprehensive, there was a smug quality to the smile on the redhead's face as he approached Harry directly.

"Come on, Mate. Why don't you come and play a little Quidditch with us? You don't want to hang around these losers, do you?" Now, Ron may have not had a single brain cell in his head, but he should have recognized the slight winces that rippled through the group around him. If it wasn't for that he should have noticed that most of the group had actually taken a step back away from him when he was finished.

"Weasley, I've told you before. These are my friends, and you are not one of them. We happen to be doing homework right now." Harry said this in such a calm and collected fashion that some people might have been fooled into complacency; some, but not his friends who cringed at the possibilities.

"Homework? You've been hanging around these bookworms way too long, you should be out playing Quidditch with the rest of us, not having your nose buried in a book." Weasley seemed overly confident about his clever responses, but no one else shared the sentiment.

Interestingly enough, the fates decided to intervene on this point and swept in another small group of people that were going to join the fray. This group however consisted mainly of the blonde Slytherin, his gorilla bodyguards, and a host of unseemly looking witches that surrounded the three boys. The girls looked more manly and closer to human than the bodyguards, but it seemed like Malfoy's radiant beauty made up for the lack of any femininity in the group.

"Greengrass, what are you doing consorting with Potter, a mudblood, and a squib?" Malfoy sneered. Harry put a hand out to prevent his friends from retaliating as he waited patiently. He wasn't disappointed to see Weasley's friends turn to the newcomers and do a little retaliating of their own.

"Sod off, Malfoy. No one invited you down here." Weasley roared at the blonde boy. At this point it looked more like two armies standing off against one another with the tree and the small circle of friends off to the side and directly in the middle.

As Malfoy and Weasley started hurling insults about each other's mother, the purity of their blood, and how easily they could defeat one another; the rest of the group waved wands in threatening fashion, Harry ignored them. He reached into the flat pockets of his robe and drew out a large steaming bag of popcorn and a nice large dish that he poured it in. Daphne smiled demurely before munching on it and Neville even came closer to watch the interactions; Hermione however stared at Harry's pockets and shook her head.

"You can already do a space expansion charm on your robes?" She asked in a hushed whisper, not wanting to draw attention to the group again from the two warring factions in front of them.

"Space expansion charm? Not really, it's something my dad taught me how to do. It has to do with the transcendental nature of the dimensional changes, you see…" Harry's voice was drowned out as he proceeded to explain to Hermione about what a space expansion charm actually did; without actually performing the charm itself.

Daphne and Neville were having a wonderful time with one another, munching on the popcorn and watching the banter back and forth between their housemates. Their eyes flicked back and forth from one side to the next in an odd imitation of a tennis match, watching the volley from one being returned by the next. Every so often they would throw in their own comments in hushed whispers about what someone might have said, but over all they were ignored and simply watched what was going on. By the time the bowl of popcorn was completely done with, their fun had come to an end in the form of the booming voice of Professor Snape, the potions master.

"What is going on here!? Break it up, immediately." From his relative position closer to the castle he had to wade through the Slytherin students before reaching the small gapped divide between the two factions; his eyes immediately locked onto Harry whom was just finishing up his explanation to Hermione. "Potter, I knew that you were at the center of this. What have you done this time?"

"Pardon, Professor?" Harry looked up as if just noticing that a large crowd was standing directly in front of his tree. "Oh, yes…of course. By me being the center I suppose by the nature of quantum mechanics…" His voice trailed off as he tried to judge the distance from the tree to the exact center of the open space between Slytherins and Gryffindors.

"Enough! You will tell me this instant what you did." The potions master was now becoming quite upset, his face turning a slight red and purple at the same time. In another universe, Harry would have likened the color of the man's face to his Uncle Vernon; sadly this Harry had never met Uncle Vernon or his wonderful color changing face.

"I've done nothing, Sir. I believe you should ask Mister Malfoy and Weasley about what this is all about. My friends and I were just finishing up our homework." He indicated the three students still on the ground with him and Snape winced when he saw Daphne among them.

"Greengrass, what are you doing? Consorting with the enemy, have you?" Snape drawled in a manner much like how Malfoy spoke; in fact Harry wondered if that was where the blonde ponce had learned it.

"Professor, I believe I can consort with whomever I want." Daphne petulantly stuck out her lip and then her tongue before going back to her essay in front of her, pointedly ignoring her head of house.

By this time the groups had started to slowly slink away from the enraged potions master fearing that the more of them there the more points would be lost; even the Slytherins were starting to get scared with the color changes on the man's face. Snape, for his part was beyond livid. It seemed that not only was Potter infesting one of his snakes with different ideas, but he was changing her whole outlook on life. He had to do something fast.

"Ten points from Gryffindor for your presumptuous nature, Mister Potter, as well as detention with me for the rest of the week." Snape figured that this would illicit a reaction from someone; he had already tried and failed once to get under Harry's skin during potions class with no success.

"Professor, that isn't fair!" The lone voice of rebellion came not from Harry or his friends, but the nitwit that started the entire thing. Harry merely shrugged both at the punishment and at the outburst from the redhead.

"I don't believe you heard me, Mister Potter. You will be cleaning out cauldrons without magic for five days." Sneering, Snape thought for sure that this would get some kind of reaction out of the boy, but still he simply shrugged his shoulders and stared off at a point over the professor's left shoulder.

"Sir, I don't believe you have any right to do either of those things, based on Hogwarts by-laws. Furthermore…" Harry started to speak only to be cut off by the aforementioned enraged potions master.

"Just as arrogant as your father, thinking you know more about rules of Hogwarts than a Professor. Make that two weeks detention and an additional twenty points from Gryffindor." Snape was grasping at straws now, attempting to find something that would make the boy mad.

"You've never met my father. Unless you're speaking of my biological father, in which case I really have no idea." Harry stood and brushed his robes off slightly as he hefted his bag onto his shoulder. "As for the punishments, sir, I believe them to be unfair and will be taking this up with a higher authority."

It was at this point that Snape actually started to calm down. The only higher authority that he knew of was Dumbledore and he would wholeheartedly support the punishment that was given out. The aging headmaster had told Severus at the beginning of the term that he had free reign when it came to Mister Potter and any punishment would be enforced; even if the old man would tell the boy that his hands were tied and probably convince him that it was for his own good that he should sit the detentions.

"Very well, we will go the headmaster presently and you will give your reasons why you think you should not sit these detentions." Snape sneered and moved towards the castle, expecting the young boy to follow him. After a few feet he realized that the boy was not following him and spun on his heel to stare at the boy. "Well then, come on with you, I haven't got all day."

Harry stared back at Snape, his eyes glowing slightly with a rim of gold around the edges of the emerald that they were normally. Hermione had been the only one to notice this change before, but even now no one seemed to really see that it was happening. "James Potter saved your life. You blame him for the pranks he pulled on you, and yet you're grateful that you're alive. You're angry at him because he did it; and the fact that now you owe a life debt to a dead man that you can never repay. You were also in love with my mother." Shaking his head, Harry smiled and walked past the stunned and pale Professor up into the castle.

XoXo

By that afternoon the tale of what had happened out on the lawns had grown to epic proportions, even based on Hogwarts normal standards of inflating rumors. Some said that Harry challenged Snape to a duel and successfully beat the older man to get the points back; others said that Harry wrote to the Board of Governors and they would be arriving soon to inspect the school. The Slytherin students were propagating their own rumor that Snape had brow-beaten the young Potter and that he had cowardly given in; even though no one listened to this story it was still fun to hear circulating around.

Indeed it did see that Harry had appealed to a higher authority as a letter had been delivered to Snape's office informing him that no punishment was to be recognized. The hourglasses in the Great Hall that had usually keeping track of the points awarded and taken away showed no subtraction during the morning and even more than a few were being added as the students ate lunch. Snape was furious and brought the letter to Dumbledore, complaining that the letter was not valid, but a magical check showed that it was; however even Dumbledore was at a loss as to whom it had come from. Even after speaking to the students and the rest of the faculty it was a mystery as to whom Harry had actually spoken to; giving even more credence to the rumor of the Board of Governors showing up at any moment to do a review of the entire school.

Harry, for his part, ignored the rumors and told his friends to do so as well. If he, or any of his friends, defended a rumor or attempted to put it down it would only stir the rumor mill onwards to create something even more outlandish; so they just let it be. After lunch, Harry told his friends that he had something important to take care of and headed along the first floor humming a jaunty tune that only he could really make out.

"So Reel me in, my precious girl, come on take me home, Cause my body's tired of traveling, and my heart don't wish to roam." Harry sang softly as he put his hands in his pockets and moved towards the doorway of a nearby girl's toilet. Checking around him, he slipped through the door and disappeared.

A pair of blue eyes darted around the corner stone of one of the hallways of the massive castle as it trailed behind its target. The blue eyes were shaded by a curtain of red hair and watched as the target disappeared into a girl's toilet. The boy winced and groaned a little thinking that Harry had lost his mind walking into the wrong toilet, but he didn't dare follow him in. Harry might have been a true Gryffindor, but Ronald Weasley was not brave enough to set foot somewhere boys feared to tread so he kept hidden around the corner in wait for the target to appear once again.

Harry slipped into the door of the girl's bathroom and then stared at the large round obelisk that was supposed to be a bank of sinks. They didn't seem to have been cleaned in decades and water dripped hazardously from one of the pipes under it down onto the floor creating a large mess. As Harry was about to touch one of the taps he could hear a soft sobbing coming from one of the cubicles just down the wall from the sinks. Thinking that a girl might have slipped in ahead of him he tried to back towards the door discreetly, but his overwhelming sense of morality won out.

"Hello? Do you need any help?" He stepped forward towards the cubicle when the sobbing stopped.

"You're a boy; you're not supposed to be in here. Go away!" The voice cried out in a harsh voice.

"Look, I just wanted to see if you were ok. I'll go away though since you really want me to leave." Harry moved towards the door and let it creak open slightly before the voice stopped him once again.

"Wait! You really care about me? I mean….you want to really make sure that I'm all right and not just tease me about everything." The voice seemed to be a little cautious of Harry and a little bit disbelief that he would even care to ask about how she was doing.

Harry shrugged, before remembering that the mysterious girl couldn't actually see him. "Of course, you seem to be in some distress and I would like to help you in any way that I might be able to." A squeal could be heard from the cubicle and a ghost flew through the door straight at him. Normally, when Harry is accosted with strange apparitions he is able to move out of the way, but this ghost seemed to be intent on tackling him as best a ghost could; interestingly enough she passed straight through him and then circled back around to float directly in front of him.

"Oh, thank you. No one has cared about me in years, decades even. They all avoid my bathroom because they don't want to hear me crying." The ghost girl wasn't unattractive in her Hogwarts robes. She had a pair of glasses perched on her nose that reminded Harry of his own when he was younger. She had attractive black hair that was pulled back into a pair of ponytails on either side of her head.

"I'm glad to help, really, but who are you if you don't mind me asking?" Harry leaned forward to inspect the ghost girl. He was familiar with ghosts, having seen quite a few in his short life, but this one was different with quite a lot of detail in the robes that she was wearing.

"Oh, how silly of me. I'm Myrtle. Most people around here call me Moaning Myrtle because of my crying." She seemed to pout slightly and then look down at the tiled floor. "No one has spoken to me in so long; I seem to be at a loss as to what to even talk about." She seemed almost embarrassed that she couldn't carry on a conversation with a living person, but Harry smiled encouragingly.

"That's all right; I don't talk much with ghosts myself. If it's not too much, would you mind telling me about that sink over there?" He moved a hand towards the bank of sinks that were rotting and festering. The ghost girl, Myrtle, shivered slightly as best as she could as she was a ghost.

"Oh, that's how I died. I was in here crying because Olive Hornby teased me about my glasses. She was a horrid girl, really, but everyone loved her for some reason. Anyway, I was crying here in the bathroom and I heard a boy come in, just like you did. He seemed to be saying something, but all I heard were hissing noises. There was a creaking and movement of stone, but I was too upset to really pay attention. When I looked out to yell at the boy, I died." She sighed softly. It seemed like she had wanted to talk about this for the longest time, but there was no one that she could go to.

Harry moved towards the sink that she had indicated, feeling a slight indentation in the tap just behind the main valve. It was odd seeing a small snake there, but he seemed to understand what it meant as he smiled over to Myrtle. "Would you like to see what it was that killed you?"

Myrtle seemed to shiver again, but smiled as best as she could. Her face seemed to have forgotten the act of smiling, but it was slowly relearning as she grinned at first. "You know, if you die, you can always share my toilet." She blushed light silver in her cheeks as she kept her eyes on the floor.

Harry let out a low hiss that seemed to be just what was needed as the sink dropped down into the floor and slid apart to reveal a large gaping hole in the ground. Shaking his head he slowly moved around the hole and shook his head once more noticing that something was amiss. He let loose another hiss that Myrtle couldn't understand and a set of winding stone stairs appeared that stretched down into the darkness of the shaft. Giving one last look to Myrtle, Harry descended the stairs slowly and cautiously, keeping his wand out and held high in case anything came out at him.

The darkness of the shaft ahead of him stretched onwards and forever winding down in a circle; after several hundred feet Harry had to look up at the sole shaft of light coming down from the bathroom above. Deciding to take the quicker route he emitted a hiss that slowly closed the entrance above him. A second hiss removed the stairs beneath his feet and he started to drop down into the darkness. He could feel the pipe start to slope slightly and his back caught on the side of it, sliding downwards until he slowly came to a rest just at the edge of it.

He was assaulted by the smell of decaying bodies, of small decaying bodies that seemed to litter the floor of the massive chamber that was just beyond the pipe. This wasn't his final destination though and as he continued onward he waved his wand in complicated movements muttering charms under his breath. The chamber at the bottom of the pipe slowly cleared away of debris, old snake skins vanishing and even the flooring being cleaned up; finally the roof was shored up by wooden beams and torches placed along the walls leading up to the massive vault door encircled by a snake.

/: Open :/ Harry hissed once more as the locks on the massive door started to click open and then swing wide to the left slowly revealing the large circular entrance to the Chamber of Secrets.

As Harry moved into the massive stone room the torches situated along the walls flared to life giving an eerily orange green glow to the rest of the room. The sides were each lined with columns and statues presumably of Slytherin himself or some of his descendents that had found the chamber themselves. He moved down the center of the stone statues and up towards the large one at the head of the line. This he knew to be Slytherin himself, in all his glory looking up towards the heaven as if the world itself revolved around him.

Harry shook his head slightly at the emphasis put on the man and then hissed out a command and let it stand as it reverberated across the stone architecture and towards the large statue. Almost immediately a small opening began to appear and grow larger near the feet of the statue and was soon large enough for a manticore or similar large creature. Almost immediately Harry closed his eyes and focused instead on his other senses, hearing a massive shape moving towards him. Before it got too close, he could smell the foul water coming off of it and hearing the droplets as it came closer, he could smell the death and decay on the fangs as it got closer.

/: Down, girl. :/ Harry spoke clearly and with conviction in his voice, a type of command that one would give to a dog or another pet. He could hear the massive creature draw itself up short of him and then a loud thump could be heard throughout the chamber.

XoXo

Ron Weasley was anything but a patient person. He had waited a total of five minutes outside the hallway where Harry had disappeared into the girl's toilet before he had started to pace before the door debating with himself as to whether or not he should barge in and see what was taking him so long. Harry could have fallen into the toilet and drowned; he could have slipped on the floor and hit his head on the sink. Ron started to create scenario after scenario that ended with poor Harry dead on the floor of the bathroom while Ron the coward had been just on the other side of the door.

Squaring his shoulders, Ron was determined to go in there and rescue Harry from a fate he was sure would be much worse given the fact that it was in a girl's toilet. As he put his hand on the door however and pushed it open slightly he could hear a pair of female voices speaking just inside of the door. He paused to listen for a moment as he was curious, and of course because he was still working up the courage to actually open the door.

"You say that he seemed genuinely interested in you?"

"Yes, he even asked me about my past. I mean, I know that it's personal for each of us, but I really wanted to talk to him, and he was so nice about it."

"Do you think he would be willing to speak with some of the rest of us?"

"Oh, I'm sure that he would be more than willing to do more than talk…"

"Mister Weasley!" This voice came not from inside of the bathroom but from down the hall as the stern transfiguration teacher was heading this way.

Immediately Ron jumped back from the doorway, his hands falling to his sides as the door swung shut with a loud bang. It would have attracted anyone's attention now that he was standing there red faced and seemingly ready to enter a toilet definitely not his own. As he stood there staring down at the floor he kept thinking about his best friend still trapped in there with those two girls, who knows what kind of things they could be doing to him; his pre-pubescent mind went immediately to make-up and dresses.

"Mister Weasley, what do you think you are doing?" McGonagall put her hands on her hips and stared down the small redheaded first year. She didn't particularly enjoy intimidating the younger years, but it worked well when they were supposed to be disciplined.

"Professor, thank god that you're here. My friend, Harry Potter went in there a few minutes ago and I just heard these two girls talking in there. I think they have some ne..ne….some really bad plans for poor Harry." Ron was so convincing that McGonagall actually started to think that maybe some precocious sixth years had captured the celebrity and were holding him hostage for whatever reason.

"Very well, Mister Weasley, I will investigate the matter personally, but you will remain here until I return, is that understood?" After receiving a nod from the young boy the older woman disappeared into the toilet.

Ron kept pacing back and forth thinking of all the terrible things that a pair of cootie filled girls could do to his poor best friend. He wouldn't be satisfied until he knew that Harry was all right and that the professor was going to award him for his bravery in the situation; it was only natural since he had been the one to bring it to her attention and had been ready to charge in there to save his best friend. After a few minutes, the stern woman, with a diminishing blush to her cheeks, exited the bathroom and close the door slowly.

"Mister Weasley, the two women that you heard speaking was a pair of ghosts that roam these halls. They asked not to be mentioned by name, but I can assure you that they have no….ill will towards Mister Potter. Furthermore, he was not present in that bathroom and the ghosts told me that he had not been there." Smoothing down her robes she eyed the young boy before her. "You will be accompanying me to my office to draft a letter to your mother explaining why it is that you were lurking outside a girl's bathroom, is that clear?"

"No, Professor, you don't understand. I saw him go in there; he has to be in there. I've been standing out here the entire time and no one has come in or out in that entire time." Ron tried to continue protesting as the stern witch took him by his ear and proceeded to drag him away from the door to the girl's bathroom.

As luck would have it, just as Ron was dragged out of sight of the door, it opened to reveal a thick black head of hair and green eyes. Harry quickly surveyed the hallway making sure that coast was clear before sliding out the door and calmly walking down in the opposite direction towards the Great Hall and what promised to be a good lunch. He kept thinking over what had just happened down below the school and shook his head gently, thinking to himself.

I'll have to bring her a cow next time for her thoughtful insight into the castle.