As Ron had predicted, the entire school was on high alert and the suits of armor were polished with their weapons sharpened. Larger torches and sources of light were put up all around the corridors and there were double the staff on patrol.
"I don't understand what the problem is," said Gilderoy Lockhart on his first hour of two. "I need my beauty rest and only need to be woken when the darn thing is in sight. Put me within casting distance of it, and I'll have the whole thing under control in–"
"Gilderoy, one more word of complaint from you and the beast will be the last thing you need to fear inside this school." Said Severus Snape, who was on his fourth hour of five on patrol.
The curfew was now set at eight o'clock sharp for all students, much to the bemoaning of everyone involved. Harry, on the other hand, while annoyed with the blatant knee-jerk reaction, looked at Hermione in her sick bed and was grateful Madam Pomfrey allowed him visitation after curfew.
Her temperature was a hundred and one for the first two days, but then her fever finally broke and she became far better on the fifth. He was very careful as he held her hand as she walked out of the hospital.
"Oh, Harry, I'm just a little stiff from being off my feet for so long. I'm not dying, you silly boy." She rolled her eyes playfully at him and his arms wrapped around her from behind as they stopped in the empty hall.
She leaned back into him and sighed. She leaned her head against his and he whispered in her ear. "I was a little worried about you."
"I'll be fine. I just needed a bit of rest. And guess what?" She said with a big smile.
"What?" He asked, looking at her with confusion as she widened her smile into a grin. "No one brought my Arithmancy Homework to me. Now I need to go and catch up on it." Her glee only widened as his face grew in horror.
Harry had noticed that Arithmancy was quite the subject. In fact, it was so much of a subject that if he stared at it too long, he began to see spots in his vision. How Hermione could churn out such ridiculous equations of magical properties in numbers was beyond him. It seemed like there was an entire subsection of Arithmancy itself devoted to the number 7. How anyone could place so many sevens in one paper was baffling. He was fairly certain she had to extend some of the parchment through Spellotape and scissors. It all looked nauseating.
Hermione took to the task with the greatest of ease, like the daring young man on the flying trapeze. After hours of Ron and Harry keeping her company while she scribbled away on her parchment, they sharpened their skills with their chess sets. That is to say, Ron showed Harry how he demolished him in several different moves that his grandfather showed him.
"Now, I'm only showing you these moves because you're me best mate, Harry. Don't go showing them to anyone outside this room." Ron warned him and Hermione looked over at Ron.
"Does that mean you can show me?" She asked with a smile on her face as she sat up next to the common room fireplace. Ron and Harry played on the floor as he hummed his confirmation.
"Yes, but that's only because I'm tired of winning so easily and I need you two in tip top shape." Ron admitted and both of them were rather okay with this.
"What do you think you're doing, giving away the Weasley secrets?" Ron's bishop with the worn off point in his hat scolded him.
"Yeah! Bilius entrusted you to keep it in the family!" The better conditioned knight agreed.
"They are family. Now shut up and go kill that rook. I want to show him how to get the queen." Ron said as the chess pieces gave a cry of outrage.
Their lessons became more difficult as the courses began to get into their primary subjects for the term. Professor Snape was showing them how to brew a potion that produced skin boils. "It is a rather delicate potion to brew. If the color is not at least partially on tenge, it can produce boils that grow too large or explode too easily."
There was a very silent wretch from the crowd as all of them began putting their frog livers at the bottom of the cauldron. As many moved onto dousing them all with the essence of flobberworm, there came a familiar, annoying voice from the Slytherin side of the room.
"So, I heard the Heir of Slytherin was set to strike again. Soon, the wizarding world will get a lot better, I'd say." Malfoy said to his cronies and Harry furrowed his brow at him.
"How? Are you finally going to shut up?" Harry asked, drawing Malfoy's attention.
"Yeah, and maybe stop breathing so much air better wizards could be breathing." Ron added, making the Gryffindor side of the room have to stop themselves from laughing too loud.
Both Crabbe and Goyle got their dukes into a beating position as they eyed them across the aisle. Neither Ron nor Harry seemed the least bit frightened, though. Neither did the rest of the Gryffindor class, who also gave them some notice.
"I suppose you didn't take my offer to duel me last year, Potter. I can see where your bravery lies." Malfoy grinned and Harry grinned right back.
"Oh, you suppose, do you? Because you weren't actually there in the first place. I was going to go duel you, but then the smarter side of me told me that was a stupid idea because you're not a duelist. You're a pompous daddy's boy who likes to talk big but can't actually back it up with any talent, just his family's money."
Hermione's brow went straight up at this and Ron's mouth clenched completely shut to keep from howling.
"Watch it, Potter."
"I'm not hearing any disagreement." Harry said, and he began to pick up on a growing tension in the room.
Malfoy was basically head of his class of Slytherin, in grades and in wealth. An attack on his character is an attack on the house and all of them were starting to eye Harry like he was beginning to tread on thin ice.
Harry was no slouch when it came to his status in Gryffindor either. The two sides of the room started eying their pickled monkey brains with more intensity.
"I'm warning you, St. Potter. One more word."
"Then it's a duel?" Harry asked, his eyes shooting over toward Malfoy, who shot him a glare, shocked.
There it was. Both sides of the room were starting to creep their hands toward their wands.
"Yes!" Snape declared right behind both of them, causing every one's eyes to fix on him. "I would say, that is, indeed, a duel." He eyed both of them with a malicious grin as both Malfoy and Potter drew their gazes away and directed them at each other.
It was on! The Ministry of the Duel was formed as an official guide to show students how to perform the art. Harry and Malfoy would be the front runners.
Hogwarts exploded with talk of the Ministry of the Duel, or "MoD" for short. Harry had a renewed excitement about him from the crowd as he walked by. It was as if Harry had gained his own band of cronies without even knowing it. Without even trying, the band was back together with some new members. Slytherin came out, but Gryffindor came out far more bombastically.
"Harry, this is getting rather out of hand." Hermione said as she did what she could with her curls and a black hair clip. "I'm really proud of how you stood up to Malfoy, but this Ministry of the Duel seems really dangerous. Not to mention, Snape is going to be overseeing it."
"He seemed just as eager to see what Malfoy can do as I do." Harry admitted as he got on his uniform.
"That seems awfully reckless…" Hermione looked at him with some concern.
"Look, if I want to get Malfoy off my back, I need to show him that I'm not afraid to take him on. If that means doing it in front of a crowd, that's what I'm going to do. I'd rather it be in secret or in a more organic environment, but I'll take what I can get." Harry said as he paced about the room, psyching himself for it.
Ron was absolutely no help. He came into the room, grabbing Harry by the shoulders and shaking him with some intensity. "You ready, Harry? You an hard man? You going to knock his block off?"
"Yeah, that's right." Harry nodded, putting on a hard face as he held his wand and swung it as he took deep breaths.
Hermione suddenly felt a wave of anger that came and went as if it were a short-lived bubble. She took a deep breath and sat back some. Both of the boys took notice of this and looked at her with some concern.
"I'm fine! You boys are just making me overly anxious. Both of you, settle down!" She said with a harsh edge to her voice that made them both sit in the loveseat, very close like scolded children. Then they looked at each other as if they just noticed what had taken place. "Come on, it's time." Hermione said as she started toward the door and the two of them nodded and followed her out.
The Great Hall was absolutely packed with students. Students from all years and from all houses showed up. In fact, it looked as if there were some staff members who came to spectate as well. Professor Mcgonagall clearly wasn't wanting too much notice as she sat in the back of the room in the staff table with a better view.
Harry's blood began to rise in pressure as he entered the room, flanked by Hermione and Ron and held in the utmost respect by their peers. Though, they were sneered at by the Slytherins as they passed.
Malfoy glared at them with Crabbe and Goyle flanking him. He looked quite angry that he seemed to pull off the team dynamic far better as he didn't look so short compared to his goons.
As the two groups came to a halt in front of each other, in a huge parted dueling stage with two ends. As Harry didn't back away his glare toward Draco, it was clear that the Slytherin was starting to sweat as they were in such a huge room full of their peers and superiors.
"Greetings, ladies and gentlemen!" A familiar voice was the only thing that ripped Harry's gaze from Malfoy as he rolled his eyes. "Welcome to the first meeting of the Ministry of the Duel, hosted by yours truly, Gilderoy Lockhart and partnered with the greatest Potions Master of our age, Professor Severus Snape!"
As he said this, he walked in, flanked by Snape, but most certainly not undertaken by him. The grave looking Snape eyed him as he stopped in the middle of the Hall, and passed him in his footsteps, obviously more confident where he was going.
"All students will listen and listen very closely. For, what I have to say is a very time-honored tradition." Snape said in a voice that was far less flamboyant but far more demanding of the students' attention. "The art of the duel is never to be taken lightly, nor is it to be performed without adequate reason." Snape said, eying both Harry and Malfoy as he said this. "Professor Lockhart, by all means." He couldn't hide his twinge of annoyance as Gilderoy was so obviously bursting at the seams with every intention of interrupting.
"Yes, first, the two of you are aware that you are to duel. There is a challenge! Professor Snape, I challenge you to a duel!" He pointed toward him in a most dramatic way while Snape, continuing to look upon him like a petulant child younger than first year students.
"I accept." He said in a way that would take the air out of any room.
"Next, you take both of your wands out and hold them in the time honored position of the duelist." Lockhart held his wand vertically in front of his face, "make sure you are at least ten paces away, within wand casting distance. Then, take the casting stance of your choice!"
Once again, overly complicated in his hand waves and poising, Gilderoy looked like a pompous peacock while Snape merely held his wand aloft and held his other hand to his side as if prepared to lunge.
"And the duel begins!" Gilderoy said, but before his theatrical casting could commence, Snape struck like a snake!
"Expelliarmus!" Snape shouted, knocked Gilderoy's wand from his hand and caused him to flip over onto the stage, landing on his face.
Harry, Ron and Hermione couldn't contain their laughter, neither could Gryffindor. Even Malfoy seemed overtaken with joy at such a mediocre wizard getting stomped by his head of house. So strange that such an idiot could be something both could agree on.
"Very… very good, Severus." Gilderoy coughed as he rose and blinked his bleary eyes of fog. "Your execution, most skillful and great. However, I let you win so I could–" As finally stood up, Snape was already directly in front of him with a malicious grin on his face as he handed his wand back to him.
"Quite done?" Snape asked, and Gilderoy looked around with hesitation before nodding. "Good." Snape gave him a overly sweet smile, which melted into a sneer before he turned toward Potter. "Duelists, take your places. The other two on each side shall act as counter balances, should the odds become unfair. In a duel, there is to be the utmost adherence to the rules. Here in this school, there is to be no attempts to kill. Doing so shall result in immediate expulsion." Snape glared at both Harry and Draco as he said this. "You are also to begin the duel on the count of three… Duelists at the ready!"
Both Potter and Malfoy stepped forward toward the center of the stage and held their wands upward. "Very good." Snape confirmed and both of them took on their stances. Harry had no idea how he looked but he simply held his wand upward with a sideward stance.
"One, two and three!" Snape chopped his hand downward.
"Stupefy!" Malfoy shouted and Harry shouted back.
"Protega!" Harry created a shield in front of him that launched the stunning spell straight back into Malfoy. Though, he blocked it with his wand, he was still knocked back, skidding onto his knees as he lost balance.
The Harry supporters roared with cheers as the first round went to him. Both Ron and Hermione smiled big and stood triumphant as both Crabbe and Goyle scowled at both of them.
To his credit, Malfoy got to his feet and stood ready without much complaint. His face looked far more concentrated then. The room quieted down as they went back to their ready positions. Then, once again, on the count of three, the two waved their wands.
"Impedimenta!" Harry shouted, firing, but Malfoy dodged it to the side and sent out an attack.
"Serpensortia!" Malfoy shouted as he sent out a snake that slithered onto the ground toward Harry. The crowd was taken aback with fright as the snake made his way across the stage toward Harry with bared fangs.
"Sira sishna." Harry whispered toward the snake, making him stop in his tracks as he told it to. As soon as this happened, the room went silent and the grin on Malfoy's face was gone in an instant. As the snake moved toward one in the crowd, Harry pointed his hand toward it and then commanded it to back away with "Seera siha!" He spat and the snake obeyed once again.
As he said this, Hermione began to waver a bit and her eyes began to dim. Every time he spoke the language, she began to feel somewhat faint.
That was when Harry grinned toward Malfoy and pointed his wand toward him. "Oppugno!" As soon as he shouted this, the snake reared back and then began to charge full force at Malfoy!
"Ah! Evanesco!" Malfoy shouted and he made the snake vanish into thin air mere centimeters away from striking him.
"Expelliarmus!" Harry shouted and suddenly Malfoy's wand was knocked from his hand and he stumbled backward. He caught Draco's wand and then immediately dropped it to the floor.
There was a stunned silence in the crowd as they all looked at Harry with something of both fear and admiration. After a very long moment, Seamus was the first to shout with his fists punching the air. "That's given' it to him, Potter!"
His Gryffindor class, including Ron gave him a cheer, but there was still a stoney atmosphere to the room. It wasn't long before all of the Weasleys and Hermione were escorting Harry out of the hall while the rest of the class were growing more and more frantic over what just occurred. Harry was growing more and more concerned as he looked around to see all of their faces. Snape, especially, looked upon him with great curiosity and concern, as well as the edge of a fascination.
"Harry, we just got done talking about how we're best mates, right?" Ron asked, and got a quizzical look in return. "I only ask because you're a parselmouth and you never told me."
"I'm a what?" Harry asked and Hermione shook her head, still trying to wrap her head around this.
"Wait, you told me there was an incident where you accidentally sent a python after your cousin." Hermione seemed to just remember this. "Did you speak to it in its own language?"
"No, I spoke to it in English. I spoke to that snake in English too." Harry reasoned, pointing back toward the Hall.
"No, you didn't, mate." Fred said from the other side.
"You were speaking some serpenty language if I ever did hear it." George said and he looked over toward both of them on either side.
"What? There's no way. I only spoke English… or… at least… I think I did." Harry said, trying to get his head wrapped around this whole situation.
"This is not good, Harry." Hermione admitted as they got to the portrait hole and spoke the password, "Long Johns". All of them gathered into the common room with the large fire roaring in the grate as they all sat in the old shabby but comfortable chairs.
"Alright, would anyone like to explain to me what's so bad about me talking to snakes?" Harry asked and Hermione was quick on the uptake.
"Salazar Slytherin was famous for being a parselmouth." She said, simply. "And so was Lord Voldemort." That's when all of them gave a shudder and a bit of a recoil from the name but Harry stared at her.
"What?" Harry said, then looked back at all of them. "Lord Voldemort was a parselmouth?"
"Yeah, mate. That's why everyone thought he's the heir of Slytherin." Ron said, looking at Harry. "He spoke Parseltongue."
That's when it clicked. Oh, shit. The heir of Slytherin just opened the Chamber of Secrets, whatever that was. This wasn't going to turn out well, and Harry knew it beyond the shadow of a doubt. Obviously, the entire school just witnessed him talking to a snake.
Of course, as if he were a divination expert, it came true. Everyone began avoiding his gaze in the hallways, especially those who knew that they were muggleborn. Some of them even crammed themselves into their own bags to avoid his gaze, if they were small enough.
Then, of course, as if to accentuate his point, Fred and George began following him with black hoods over their heads, pointing out people as nonbelievers and asking how they dare stand in the way of the great and powerful Harry Potter, true master of the Chamber of Secrets.
"You two are really starting to grate on my nerves." Malfoy pointed toward them as they were walking down the hall. Fred immediately turned on him.
"Oh, Malfoy, you're just jealous that someone else got the title of the Heir of Slytherin and not the lapdog of Slytherin." Fred pointedly leaned toward him in his black hood for darker effect.
They walked off laughing, leaving Malfoy pink in the face.
Harry came to Defence Against the Dark Arts as Hermione rolled her eyes at Fred warding off supposed heroes with a snake sock puppet. Ron waved them off as they came into the room and Gilderoy Lockhart was startled to see Harry.
"Ah! Harry! Rupert."
"Ron." Ron corrected him, not for the first time.
"Right, welcome! One and all! This class, we will be learning about the Bandon Banshee of Bandon Town! The pesky banshee was frightening many children and all of them were relieved as I came in to save the day! Who would like to be the banshee?"
As he asked, Parvati and Lavender Brown immediately raised their hands, and so did, Hermione, though more hesitantly. She simply wanted to have a good grade, and that meant participation, unfortunately. Her hesitance was warranted, as he called upon her.
"Yes, good, now, who shall be the poor villager boy? Yes, Harry! Come on over! Now, who is going to play me? Yes, Mr. Finigan, come on over! Now, all of you, I need villager extras and someone who can faint on command."
They set upon making a scene where Hermione terrorized them all with her horrific screams of terror and nightmare inducements. All of this was just so very quaint, considering she had fought a real banshee just last year and it was quite horrific. This was probably why she nearly punched Gilderoy in his smug face as he said "The ghostly wench was nothing but a girl with a bit less flesh and a slightly louder voice!"
Then she felt better as she gave a mock scream into Harry, and then bit him on the neck, nearly making contact with a grin. As she did this, though, she felt it again. That's when his hand went to his scar.
Such hunger, such hatred ran through her veins in that instant. Her heart throbbed against her chest as her head began to swirl with confusion and a bit of dizziness.
"Miss Granger, are you quite alright?" Gilderoy asked as he looked at her, then looked at Harry. "And you too, Mr. Potter, is something wrong?"
"Oh, it just became rather cold over here and I've been feeling under the weather." Hermione said, and began to calm herself down.
"I just have a headache." He said, and both of them were excused and recast into the play.
Over time, the incident was forgotten, but then Hermione opened the planner she had been writing her schedule in and for some reason, it seemed to be doing the work for her. Was it learning how she took notes? She knew she had not just marked her Arithmancy homework finished, because she had just finished it some midday in October, so close to Halloween.
That's when she took a closer look at the diary and noticed that it did not have a price, nor did it say that it was from Flourish and Blotts. In fact, it looked rather old, but also in perfect condition. It looked in such good condition that all of her other books looked worn by comparison. "T.M. Riddle" was written across the bottom of the back cover.
As she got to the current page of note taking, the page had words on it that she did not write.
"What's on the schedule today?" It asked, then below those words came, "Another stroll with Harry Potter? Can you write more about him?"
Hermione sat there for a moment as these words began to appear on the page and there came another part of her. Why did these words sound so curious? It's a diary, why would it want to know her thoughts about Harry Potter? Who was asking this question? That was it.
"Who are you?" She wrote on the paper, and there came another faint swooning feeling as she sat at her desk in her dorm room. She felt hot, nauseated even.
"No need to fuss. I was simply curious. My name is Tom." She read, then looked at the back cover again. Tom M. Riddle, was it?
"That's short for Thomas, yes? What does the 'M' stand for?" She asked, then dipped her quill in ink once again as the book replied.
"Marvolo, Thomas Marvolo Riddle, how very observant of you. I am no ordinary diary. In fact, I am quite special." It wrote, sounding quite high on itself. Interesting that a diary would possess a full name, complete with a surname that sounded quite genuine.
"Were you a person at one point?" Hermione asked through ink and the diary did something very strange, it laughed.
"Haha. Yes. I was a person and still am to this day. This is simply a way to communicate with myself through different means." It wrote and this brought about every single question in the book and the largest red flag she had ever seen. It certainly wasn't something you wanted to read at nine o'clock at night right before bed.
"I do not believe I understand quite what you mean. Are you spying on me? Are you deriving some sick pleasure from this?" Hermione asked, not entirely knowing what she meant, but also knowing that it was a very uncomfortable feeling that was growing in the very depths of her stomach. Once again, she began to feel ill, even more so than before.
"Oh, that is the question, isn't it?" She could feel the journal grin as it wrote this. "Well, the fact of the matter is that, yes, I am spying on you. You can attempt to stop me from doing so, but you have already given me more than I could have ever dreamed."
The icy feeling in her stomach began to expand to her heart. "What do you mean? I haven't given you more than some schedule and a few dates with Harry."
"No, you see, the ink from your other journal. The one you poured so much love into," her jaw began to drop as her eyes widened, horror stricken to her very core, "the ink was something of a feast. You poured your pleasure and your pain to such a degree that I can do basically anything at this point."
"I'll destroy" was all that she wrote before her hand stopped moving. To her growing terror, the book continued to write and she could not look away or grab it to throw it into the fire.
"Be a good mudblood girl and go fetch."
She obeyed.
OoooOooOoooo
After an hour, there came a very sharp "wake up!" in Harry's ear, and he was jolted to a sitting position. As he opened his eyes, he noticed that an envelope dropped from his face to the bed and he looked down at it. He quickly pawed the side table until he found his glasses and put them on as he opened it.
"Go to the Great Hall now. There is something you need to see.
–Hermione", he read. It was certainly her handwriting but there was something strange about the message itself. Still, he got on his robes and noticed that his invisibility cloak was gone. He found this strange. Did Hermione take it? Either way, he got out of the portrait hole, ignoring the fat lady's warnings of being out so late.
It was very quiet. In fact, it felt like a lifeless, ancient castle that had been standing for ages. The only evidence of life was the limited amount of torches that dimly lit the corridors. For having double security, there was a very present absence of sound. Even the enchanted suits of armor and the portraits all along the hall seemed too frightened to move.
Then there was movement. If he didn't mistake it himself, he could have sworn it was a hissing noise. Was someone whispering? "Kiss you with fangs, kill you with love…" it whispered and there came the feeling of his insides going still. He pulled his wand from his side and turning toward the back.
"Harry Potter!" He heard from one of the unlit sconces. He turned to see Dobby was on top of it. His eyes were closed as Harry lit his wand with "Lumos".
The whispering, the slithering, it was drawing closer. "Kill you with joy, love you with dread, come pass through my body, in the world of the dead…"
"Harry Potter! You must run! It's coming!"
"What! Dobby! What's coming!?" Harry asked, pleadingly as he gazed into the very thick darkness that only seemed to grow thicker.
"DON'T LOOK IT IN THE EYES!"