"I swear to Merlin's sweaty ballsack if Harry disappears one more bloody time I am going to cast a permanent sticking charm on him!" Beatrice growled out as she frantically searched the halls for her wayward badger.
Sometime between Harry's final class of the day and dinner time, Harry had gone missing, again.
Cassius was even worse than Beatrice as he and the other Slytherin fourth years cornered anyone they passed in the hall to interrogate whether they had seen their Little Ray.
The professors had been alerted to their missing badger. Still, Dumbledore refused to bring in any additional help for a single second-year student who probably just got lost in one of the abandoned areas of the castle. Cedric had to hold Beatrice back from throttling the old man with his beard.
They were nearing curfew and not even the house ghosts could find Harry.
Beatrice was minutes away from calling Madame Bones to demand Aurors to search for Harry even if they had to tear the damn castle down brick by brick.
Thankfully for all involved, Hagrid found Harry on the second-floor corridor, covered in slime and smelling like dust and rot, but he did find him.
"Where the hell have you been?" Beatrice shrieked when she saw just what state Harry was in.
Harry blinked slowly, his unfocused eyes seeing straight through Beatrice. "I found a friend. They were lonely. Very lonely and very hungry."
Beatrice was confused but mostly concerned about getting Harry clean, warm, and fed.
Cassius was the next one to reach them once he heard that Harry had been found. He hugged Harry tightly, not caring what Harry might be covered in. "You scared us, Little Ray."
"Sorry, Cassy. But Marshmellow was lonely and sad and hungry." Harry insisted green eyes semi-focusing on Cassius.
Cassius paused.
Marshmallow…
Cassius knew Harry had a very Hagrid-like tendency to name dangerous things with sweet-sounding names. Half of the Thestral heard was named after muggle candies thanks to Harry.
"Harry, who or what is Marshmallow?" Cassius asked. Beatrice paused her frantic cleaning of Harry having caught on to Cassius' thought process.
"Um, she is a very lonely lady. Says she is very old, as old as Hogwarts! She is so hungry but someone blocked off her access to get food. We can't let her starve Cassy. It hurts not to have food." Harry's voice was one of experience and it made Cassius want to hurt Harry's relatives all over again.
"Where is Marshmallow located? ….so we can feed her." Cassius reluctantly asked.
"You wanna meet her?" Harry eagerly asked them. Looking back and forth between Beatrice and Cassius.
"Ah yeah, Little Ray. Maybe not tonight. But tomorrow we can get a professor or two to help us feed your new friend." Cassius decided to resign himself to meeting whatever beast Harry had found now, but he was bringing back up.
"Let's go get you cleaned up, and into jammies, and I will get the house elves to deliver hot cocoa and dinner to the common room for you Harry. Cassius, will you alert the other professors if Hagrid hasn't told them yet that Harry has been found safe?" Beatrice asked as she cast one more cleaning charm on Harry before giving up. Only a shower with hot water and soap was going to get the rest off.
Cassius hugged Harry one last time, telling him to behave for Beatrice, before going to spread the word on Harry's return and his possible discovery of a dangerous beast somewhere in the castle.
Tomorrow was going to be a long day.
Cassius was right about the day being long.
Harry had led him, Beatrice, Professor Snape, and Professor Sprout into the second-floor girls' loo. Moaning Myrtle was thankfully nowhere to be found.
"Mr. Potter you know it is inappropriate to be coming into the ladies' bathroom?" Snape drawled curiously.
Harry just blinked blankly up at the dark man causing Snape to sigh.
"So where is your new friend Harry?" Beatrice asked softly, hoping Harry had just found a spider or something small crawling around.
"Down there." Harry pointed at the sinks and then made a hissing noise that caused Professor Snape to flinch and Cassius to gasp.
Cassius wanted to immediately demand to know how long his Little Ray had been able to speak Parsletongue, but then the sinks lowered themselves to reveal a slimy dark hole in the ground, leading deep underneath the school.
"I have a bad feeling about this Severus." Professor Sprout muttered.
"Little Ray we need to talk about your Gryffindor tendencies. No exploring random holes in the ground in the future okay?" Cassius said a little stressed out.
"It's okay Cassy. Come on, you'll like Marshmallow." And before anyone could think to grab the small Hufflepuff, Harry jumped into the hole nearly giving Beatrice and Cassius a heart attack.
"What the actual fuck…" Beatrice said stressed, looking down into the hole to see if she could see Harry.
"Language Miss Haywood." Severus intoned.
"Is now really the time?!" Cassius snapped at his head of house.
"Come on Cassy, Bea!" Harry called up from the dark hole.
"Miss Haywood, I don't think - " Before Sprout has the chance to suggest they don't follow Harry down into the hole, both Cassius and Beatrice are jumping into the hole next.
Snape stares at the ceiling of the girls' bathroom wondering if this was his karma for joining the death eaters. Taking a deep breath he gathers his wits. "Pomona I suggest you alert Minerva and maybe Madame Bones where we are in case we need help coming back to the surface. I am going to keep the imbeciles from being killed."
Sprout nodded nervously, watching Severus drop down into the hole and into the depths of the school before scurrying off to alert everyone.
Harry was certainly proving to be one of her more difficult badgers.
Snape found his wayward students down one of the tunnels from where he had landed on an unnerving amount of small animal bones. Miss Haywood and Mr Warrington were staring at something in shock and maybe some fear. Snape moved quickly and then saw what they were staring at.
A snake skin that was probably more than 15 meters long in a poisonous green color with scales as thick as a dragon.
"Is that what I think it is?" Miss Haywood finally said.
"A giant snake?" Cassius commented sounding a little dazed.
Harry was already moving further down the tunnel without them.
"Wands at the ready. Merlin knows what Potter has befriended." Snape ordered the two older students before following Harry. Beatrice and Cassius keeping in their Professor's shadow.
They heard the sound of metal scraping before turning the corner to see what looked to almost be a vault door covered in snakes opening up to admit the small Hufflepuff inside. Before Snape could stop him, Harry was calling out.
"Marshmallow! Come here, girl! I want you to meet my friends!"
Harry was then hissing in parseltongue again.
Cassius observed the long cavernous room with massive snake statues lining the way. At the end of the room was a massive carved wall in the form of what looked to possibly be Salazar Slytherin.
"Professor…. What are the possibilities that we might be in Salazar Slytherin's chamber of secrets?" Cassius asked nervously. Of course, all of the Slytherins had heard the rumors and stories of the famed hiding place of their founder and the hidden monster inside.
"Becoming more than likely by the minute Mr. Warrington," Snape muttered.
The mouth of the statue then opened, the sound of grinding stones echoing off the walls. Beatrice took ahold of Cassius' hand nervously, wand held high.
Cassius wanted to go and grab the tiny Hufflepuff standing much further into the hall than they had walked. Harry looked so small and fragile and Cassius was afraid to see what was going to come to the small boy's summons.
As soon as the nose of the beast appeared out of the opening Snape yelled, "Close your eyes and do not bloody open them for anything!."
Cassius didn't even think of disobeying, quickly snapping his eyes shut but listening to what sounded like a massive snake slithers into the chamber with them.
Harry was speaking in parseltongue again and the beast sounded like it was hissing back at the boy.
"Come on guys. Come meet Marshmallow!" Harry said joyfully.
"Mr. Potter…. That is a basilisk." Snape sounded like he didn't know what else to say to the small boy who decided to name the King of Serpents after a muggle confectionary treat.
"Harry…" Beatrice started, clearing her throat nervously, "It is very nice that you have made a new friend but…uh Marshmallow is rather dangerous toward humans."
"She won't hurt you. She has her eyes closed so you can look!" Harry chirped cheerfully.
Snape cautiously opened his eyes, and Harry was correct the massive beast towering over the small boy had its eyes closed. The beast made some hissing noises at Harry, showing off its fangs that were bigger than small Hufflepuff.
"No need to be afraid. Marshmallow won't hurt any of you. You are my friends and she likes me. She just needs help getting out to the forest. She is very hungry." Harry pouted.
Beatrice and Cassius had cautiously opened their eyes as well and Beatrice was gripping onto Cassius in an effort not to faint.
Cassius knew that the small boy was going to give him grey hairs before he managed to graduate.
"Does she want us to bring her food?" Cassius asks slowly.
"There's a tunnel, this way, it's broken so she can't get out to hunt," Harry said mournfully as he started to pet the giant snake-like he would the thestrals.
"Can you fix a cave in sir?" Cassius looked to a paler-than-normal-looking Snape.
"In theory, yes. Depends on the damage. But it would be dangerous to release a fully grown Basilisk out into the forest." Snape muttered.
"If Harry is right then this Basilisk has been here and hunting in that forest since the time of the founders. Probably not a bad idea to ask Madame Bones if she can get in contact with one of the Scamanders to relocate her though." Beatrice butted in.
"So fix the tunnel, let the Basilisk out, grab Harry, and then go see Madame Bones." Cassius summarized.
"I think your Hufflepuff will also be talking you into petting the beast," Snape observed as Harry eagerly tried to wave them over.
"Beatrice if you ever ask me to come help with another of your badgers ever again, the answer is automatically no." Cassius snarked.
"Oh shut up. You love that badger even more than I do." Beatrice snapped back.
"Children. Now is not the time to argue." Professor Snape interrupted. "Let's get this done so we can get back quickly. I imagine that Mr. Potter will have a bad reaction to the calvary arriving and trying to kill his pet." Snape sneered before walking cautiously farther into the chamber and closer to Potter and the massive snake.
Harry grabbed both Cassius and Beatrice's hands when they got close, dragging them to pet Marshmallow.
"Which tunnel is the one that your…friend needs?" Snape asked almost nicely.
"That one over there." Harry pointed to another dark tunnel to the left side of the Salazar Slytherin statue.
"You three stay together while I go fix the tunnel." Snape order.
"Marshmallow will protect us, Professor!" Harry happily informed him before turning back to Beatrice and Cassius to tell them all about Marshmallow.
An hour later a very happy Marshmallow was able to quickly move out into the forest to hunt for the first time in nearly fifty years.
Snape took the kids back up into the school and to the headmaster's office where Madame Bones, the Minister, the Headmaster, Pomona, Minerva, and Mr. Haywood were all arguing about how to 'save' them.
"We made it back in one piece. Albus, I can now confidently tell you where the Chamber of Secrets is hidden and the fact the golden boy of Hufflepuff is not only a parselmouth but decided to befriend a centuries-old basilisk." The others all stared at the slime-covered group in disbelief.
"B-b-basilisk?!" The minister shouted in alarm.
"Her name is Marshmallow!" Harry cheerfully informed them.
Snape did not get paid enough to deal with this.