Unto Oblivion

Harry followed Hermione at a run, dragging Lockhart along and wondering where she was finding such speed from. She bounced off a wall - literally bounced, with a flash of magic playing over the wall where she struck, though she didn't seem to notice - and skidded into the perpetually flooded hallway just ahead of him. The door to Myrtle's bathroom was open, which was not normal. The ghostly girl in question floating before it, pulling on her pigtails with worry and moaning softly, wasn't either.

"Oh Harry," she wailed, gliding over, right through Hermione who finally came to halt at the sound, "I saw her, I saw her go down, why would she go down there?"

"Down where?" Lockhart demanded, shaking off Harry's grip.

"The sink, it opened up, and… Oh, I'll show you!"

Myrtle tried to grab Harry, which ended predictably, but he let her lead him into the bathroom. Hermione entered alongside him, wand at the ready, and Lockhart came in just behind, heroic as ever. Myrtle swooped over to an ornate set of sinks, circling it twice before coming to agitated rest before it.

"Right here," she sniffled. "The sinks just opened up, opened up, and she went right down. I tried talking to her, but she didn't listen. Screamed at me, she did, then looked right through me with these big blank eyes… Oh it was horrible! Oh I can't!" Myrtle cried, throwing herself into a stall and down a toilet.

"How helpful," Lockhart remarked sarcastically. "And what utter nonsense, sinks opening up. Wherever did that silly ghost get such ideas?"

"That ghost is our friend!" Hermione protested, which was pushing the definition of the word, but Harry didn't correct her.

He was too busy studying the sinks. They were old - ancient, unlike most amenities in the castle which he supposed got broken and replaced now and then. But these sinks looked as venerated as the very walls of the castle they stood in, their gilded taps rusting away and the delicate serpentine carvings almost crumbling beyond discernibility.

"You, girl, need better friends," Lockhart scoffed.

Part of Harry rankled at the indirect insult. Most of him fixated on the way those snakes weren't so much carved into the stonework, as out of it. As though they might start slithering around at any moment, seeking warmer places to bask.

"Harry?" Hermione asked, as he hadn't spoken in a while.

"Ssssh!" he urged, trying to focus on the puzzle before him, or at least figure out where to start.

The snake nearest him pulled away from the masonry at the noise, and turned its head to appraise him. He might have thought he was imagining things, but being in Hogwarts it was safer to assume whatever weirdness was occurring was actually happening.

"Salutations," he hissed, slipping so easily into parseltongue it still felt like English, save the flickering tongue.

He fell backwards in surprise as the whole arrangement of marble, metal and stone came to life, the snakes winding just as he had imagined and somehow taking the sinks with them. The process was not smooth; it happened with an ominous grinding and shaking of the floor.

"My word," Lockhart remarked, "just as she said."

"What happened, Harry?" Hermione asked, waving her hand around in his direction.

He stood and touched her fingertips with his own to let her know where he was, then described what he was seeing.

"The sinks slid apart. There's a - tunnel? - beneath them. Or a pipe? Can't see how far down it goes."

"Nor do we need to," Lockhart interrupted. "Dark tunnels are not for exploring."

"Ginny's down there," Harry said, fuming at the man's continued reluctance.

He was too busy glaring at his useless defence teacher to take note of Hermione edging closer to the opened tunnel. He only knew she had done so when, with an alarmed yelp, she fell headfirst into it. Her shout disappeared into the distance, echoing through the pipe she was uncontrollably sliding down. Harry shared a horrified look with Lockhart who, much to Harry's surprise, paused for only a moment before grabbing the boy and jumping in after her.

Hermione was not enjoying her day so far. She'd managed through frantic and painful scrabbling to get herself sliding feet first, and that was the best she could say for her current predicament. The pipe was the grimiest thing she'd ever touched, and perversely she had to be thankful for that, as the viscous gloop acted to both slow her descent and lubricate her sliding against what was surely either rough stone or rusty metal.

That was what her rational mind was thinking. Emotionally, and at the fore, her thoughts were more along the lines of 'Aaaaaargh!'

The sound of Harry screaming similarly somewhere above her was comforting - assuming they weren't sliding directly into the waiting mouth of a giant murderous snake, which was more of a possibility than it had any right to be.

The pipe levelled out - mercifully, as a second later it disappeared from under her and she was sent briefly flying through the air to land in a wide pile of something. Something hard, slightly damp, and very irregular. She couldn't identify it by smell, as all she could smell was sewer. No time to mull over it either - Harry's scream, which had at some point turned into an excitable yell (Such a Gryffindor!), was fast approaching.

Hermione scrambled in a direction she hoped was perpendicular to the way she'd arrived, ignoring how much the impact had hurt until she was safe. Harry smashed through a moment after she was clear, sounding much heavier than expected, and oofing in stereo.

He brought Lockhart along then. Or the idiot grew a spine.

Hermione didn't rush over. She was bruised in so many places, nauseous, and out of breath. Hurt from head to toe - literally, between smacking her head at the start and stubbing her toe in the landing - she sprawled on the floor and tried not to heave. Her companions were making similarly discomforted noises, rattling about on the pile.

The collective groaning went on for a very long handful of seconds, until Hermione remembered why they were down there. Ginny!

She sat bolt upright - a bad move considering, but the pain was suddenly a lot less important, and so what if she threw up in her mouth a little?

"Come on Harry," she urged after swallowing with a grimace, "we need to find Ginny!"

"Hang on," he muttered, "I can't find my wand… I had it when we landed in…"

"Gah!" Lockhart cried over him. "Bones!"

"Yeah, that. Now help me find me wand," Harry grumbled.

Hermione staggered to her feet, where she stood feeling useless. She couldn't effectively help search, and having learned the pile was a bunch of skeletons - small rodents and such based on the one she had to shake out of her sleeve - she was hesitant to anyway.

"Ha! Got it!" Lockhart shouted triumphantly.

"Brilliant!" Harry exulted. "Let's have it, then we can go find her."

Lockhart was oddly silent, but for the sound of him extricating himself from the pile.

"Professor?" Harry asked, worried. "My wand? Come on, we need to get Ginny."

"I'm afraid we won't be doing that, children," Lockhart intoned with a sudden menace. "You see, as admirable as your bravery is, I have no intention of facing down Slytherin's monster."

"But Ginny-"

"-Buh Ginny!" Lockhart mocked. "Really Potter, do you think I'm about to put some silly schoolgirl's wellbeing above my own?"

"It's your job!" Hermione asserted, though it came out more shocked than anything. She'd clocked Gilderoy for a fraud, but this level of cowardice? And had he just stolen Harry's wand!?

"Oh my dear, you have no idea what my job is. No-one does, in fact, but let me enlighten you. It's only fair, considering. You see, the great Gilderoy Lockhart is not, in actuality, a fabled hunter of dark beasts and rescuer of fair damsels," he said with derision. "What I am, is very good at memory charms. One little flick, a few tweaks to the old noggin, and everyone believes it was I who bested the latest foul creature; even the one who truly performed the deed is left none the wiser. Now as much as I'd like to take credit for your vanquishing of today's beast, I'm afraid you pair simply don't stand a chance; it seems my next bestseller will be the tragic tale of Ginny Weasels' demise, and my valiant rescue of Harry Potter, who had so nobly rushed to save his young love. Oh, I can see the reviews now."

Hermione took creeping steps backwards until all too soon her back found a wall. She realised she was so disoriented she couldn't even point to the tunnel, and had no idea if there was another way out.

"You won't get away with this," Harry declared.

"On the contrary my dear Harry; two flicks of this wand and I already have," Lockhart bragged.

Hermione raised her wand in his direction, taking a protective step closer to Harry, keeping her left hand on the wall. She knew she didn't stand a chance against an adult in a fair fight, even one so incompetent as Lockhart. It was good for her chances, then, that she was not intending to fight fairly.

Really, she was hoping she wouldn't have to fight at all. Her mind was whirring as Harry thankfully kept talking, stalling the professor.

"Dumbledore will know what you've done," she tried.

"Old Albus has no clue about me. I've pulled the wool over that fool's eyes as easily as any other. Now, there's no need to be unpleasant about this; why don't you both sit down, make sure you don't bash your heads while you're unconscious?"

"Wait," Hermione ordered, as her thoughts fell into place.

"Whatever for, girl?" Lockhart laughed nastily. "My glory awaits!"

"We can make a deal," she offered, desperately hoping her rapidly constructed plan wasn't too full of holes.

"A deal? What deal?" the professor cruelly laughed. "What leverage do you think you have?"

Hermione waggled her wand as an answer, and pressed on with her offer.

"We'll give you the story you want - maybe even a better one, but you needn't mess with our minds to do it."

"How so?" Lockhart asked, and she knew from his voice that she had him intrigued. Now she had to hope she was offering a tasty enough morsel.

"We'll go ahead without you to save Ginny," she said carefully. "If we make it, we'll give you the credit - neither of us are after the fame anyway. If we don't come back, you're free to concoct whatever tragic tale you please."

"You would give up your shot at stardom so freely?"

"Better that than my mind, wouldn't you say Harry?"

Hermione fervently hoped Harry would agree, and convincingly at that.

"Yeah. I don't like being famous, it's hard bloody work."

"Nonsense," Lockhart muttered, distantly as a man in thought. "You know, your offer has merit, Granger… But I simply can't trust you to keep quiet. So it's a no."

Damn. Damn and blast it.

"It's for the best, really, you see? You don't have to fight a basilisk; I get the credit for saving the pair of you; everyone wins."

"And Ginny?" Harry challenged.

"It's adorable that you think the girl is still alive. I wonder if your girlfriend here really would have run off after Clearwater had I not found her first."

Girlfriend!?

…

Found me first?

"What?"

"Oh come now, don't be upset; I quite possibly saved your life."

"I… don't remember that," she said softly. In all her dreams she had never seen Lockhart there; they always ended at the fall, or before. She remembered nothing after, until waking up. She remembered nothing after…

"Well, you wouldn't would you? That's the whole point of an obliviation."

"No, I banged my head…" she murmured, her emotions struggling to catch up with the sickening truth.

"Oh that you did, girl, but it takes a little more than a bump to lose all that memory. No, you don't remember because I didn't want you to. I mean, there you were ranting on about a ruddy basilisk in the school, how it had taken Penelope and I just had to go after it. That wasn't going to do at all - I mean, me, Gilderoy Lockhart, against a basilisk. In a book, certainly, but in real life? No thank you!"

Hermione nearly cursed him right there and then. Just when she thought her opinion of him could fall no lower…

"You knew! All this time you knew, because… because I worked it out and told you! You knew and you did nothing; and now Ginny might be dead; and you violated my mind!"

"Oh, I'm getting tired of this. Stupefy!"

Lockhart's spell sizzled through the air, but with the warning he gave Hermione had time to dodge to her left, feeling it barely miss her. With his attack, the last tether of restraint in her snapped.

How dare this pathetic bastard think he could rifle around in my mind and get away with it? How dare he go gallivanting about like a hero, then abandon my friend in the darkest hour? And then want to mess with my mind again! My mind! Well if he's so scared to fight a snake, let's not give him a choice in the matter!

"Serpensortia!" she yelled, whipping the motion off fast enough he would never be able to stop her spell completing. She put everything she could into that one spell, all her rage and power, pushing for the biggest, or meanest, snake she could think of. Most snake species she knew were dainty little things, but only most; she'd read of a few more exotic and infinitely more venomous varieties. No time for games, no other recourse, and frankly no desire to show mercy; it was the deadliest she called forth.

The snake hit the ground with a solid thump, and Hermione immediately found a flaw in her plan: In all her practice of the spell with Patricia, she had never mastered the art of having the snake follow her commands. She willed it forth to attack, but there was a resistant pulse in her magic as it ignored her, preoccupied with evading Lockhart's effort to vanish it and hissing its displeasure at being there. Then Harry hissed, and Lockhart screamed.

Using his lack of focus, and homing in on him through his shrieking, Hermione shot off an expelliarmus. She held out her open left hand, willing Harry's wand to land there, which it did. Tossing it to Harry, she didn't allow herself to dwell on the strange sensation grasping it had given her - a flooding warmth up to her elbow, deep as bone, that resonated with her angered flush.

"You bitch!" Lockhart yelped. "Get this thing off me!"

Suddenly, hands made hard contact with both of Hemione's shoulders, and she was slammed backwards into a wall. Her head was set to spinning, one ear ringing, the other feeling stuffed full of cotton wool.

"Incendio!" shouted Harry, and an acrid smell of burnt hair flooded her nostrils.

"My hair!" Lockhart gasped, releasing Hermione to slump down the wall. "My beautiful, award-winning locks! What have you done?"

"Get. Away. From her," Harry snarled. "Or your stupid hair will be all that's left of you."

Logically, Hermione knew Harry wasn't capable of such a thing, neither magically nor mentally. Reflexively, the depth of fury in his voice had her convinced he could end Lockhart with a casual thought. Lockhart must have felt the same, as his hair was forgotten.

"Now, now, Harry," he laughed nervously, backing away. "No need to - ouch - be mean about this. Cursing a professor is - ow, bloody snake! - a very serious offence you know? Think how terrible that would look on your record."

"Which record is that?" he challenged. "I was under the impression this story was being written by whoever makes it out unscathed."

The venom in Harry's voice was terrifying, yet exhilarating in equal measure because it was there for her. Harry was no longer the stupid boy throwing incendios on a misunderstanding, nor talking down a snake with no idea what he was doing; he was more the gallant young hero from those terrible books Ginny and Lavender read. He was angry because Lockhart had dared to threaten his friend, but he held his emotions under control, Merlin knew what spell hovering on the tip of his wand. Hermione was extremely glad to have him on her side.

He hissed, and her snake came to wrap itself about her, climbing her leg and torso to take up guard on her shoulder. She could smell blood on its breath - Lockhart's blood. Which meant it had struck true, at least once. Buoyed by its presence she clambered to her feet.

"Unscathed, eh? You know, I don't suppose you could even cast a harmful spell, could you boy? I certainly haven't taught one all year," Lockhart chuckled, growing confident again.

Hermione almost pitied him for his naivete. Her snake had bitten him, and one bite was all it took. The venom would already be coursing through the professor's veins, congealing his blood and attacking his nervous system. He had a chance of survival; it just wasn't good.

"He doesn't need one," she told him, sorrowfully. "Not with me here."

"Ha! You? You little bookworm, what do you know about duelling?"

"Not much."

"So what are you going to do?"

"I've already done it, professor. And for what's it's worth, I'm sorry. But you didn't give me a choice."

"What are you talking about?" - the thud of man abruptly falling to his knees - "What? Ow! My leg, why is my leg… Ow. Ow!"

"Hermione, what's happening?" Harry asked, his voice that of a troubled young boy once more.

"Snake venom," she answered, not wanting to go into it. Not wanting to explain to Harry what she had just done.

"We should help him," Harry whispered as Lockhart writhed and cried in pain.

"We need to find Ginny," Hermione vehemently disagreed. "He can help himself."

She sent her snake on ahead as a scout, not even noting how it was suddenly responsive to her wishes, her mind too torn between worry for Ginny and whatever she was feeling for the man she was leaving to die. It was like an intense apathy; she was upset to have killed him, but not that he was dying. She understood Harry's desire to help, it simply didn't exist within her too. His cries of pain pierced one ear like the harshest torture, only to slide right out the other without sticking.

Numb. That was the word. Just numb.

"We'll go back for him, right?" Harry asked as they left Lockhart to his fate.

Hermione said nothing. She was turning her focus to the task ahead of them; they still had to find Ginny, assuming she was alive to be found, and get out without running into the basilisk. Collecting the professor didn't fit anywhere into that plan. She told herself it was too risky; lugging him all the way back up would slow them down; leave them vulnerable. It was a comforting lie.

Harry let Hermione lead him away from the professor, still writhing on the stone floor. The hardness in her voice when she'd asserted he could help himself… it was scary. And not the usual 'angry Hermione' scary that broke him out of his reckless mindsets; no, this was genuinely terrifying. Cruel. Even knowing she was on his side, he walked a little further away from her than he would normally.

Hermione just walked on like she'd done nothing. No hesitation, no response the one time he asked if Lockhart would be alright, just guiding her summoned snake out to scout. It was returning now and then to sit by a fork in the labyrinth of pipes and tunnels they were wandering, where it would hiss as it set off down the scouted path. It couldn't know the right direction, but it could plot a safe course.

The weird thing was, it didn't hiss actually words. It had understood his parseltongue instructions earlier - he tried not to think about his part in having it poison the professor - but now it was just making senseless noise for Hermione to follow. He tried to engage it conversation at one junction, ask what was ahead; it hissed back, "mistress follows," and went on its way.

So they crept on quietly, for what must have been ten minutes. He kept expecting to see a basilisk slither out from every pipe, rear up at them round every corner, but they were alone. There weren't even rats or bats skittering about - judging by the skeleton pile, any that hadn't fled had been killed. The only break from the oppressive gloom and dripping was when they came upon a shed snakeskin.

A fifty foot long snakeskin, wide as the tables of the great hall were across, so thick and strong it mostly held up under its own weight. It could almost be mistaken for a snake in its own right, save the complete lack of movement and collapsed head. Harry gulped on beholding it, the enormity of what they might be facing finally sinking in.

Hermione just ran a hand along it, muttering something to herself sadly. He caught her hand quivering, but whether it was from terror or barely suppressed rage, he couldn't tell. It could even have simply been how damned cold it was down there. He didn't dare ask. He did have one thought though; his invisibility cloak was still in his pocket. He took it out and draped it over her shoulders, explaining what it was. He thought she might thank him, but she took it with no more than a slight, stiff nod.

Must be rage, then.

Two twisting turns later, they came upon a great vault door, covered in snake carvings acting as hinges, locking bolts and decoration. Harry hissed "open," and as he expected it sprang to some semblance of life, the bolt-snakes retreating until it could swing open to reveal what lay beyond: A massive chamber, lit by burning torches in ornate sconces, the ceiling supported by carved columns and great snakehead buttresses. At the far end, a giant bust of a severe looking man was carved into the wall. To either side the floor fell away into flooded channels.

In the centre, unmoving, sprawled the form of a redheaded girl in Gryffindor robes.