Heaven alone knows that I can't possibly run into a professor now. I shouldn't be in the castle at dawn after my trip to London, nor should I be aiming for the girls' lavatory, let alone carrying Salazar Slytherin's locket back to the Chamber of Secrets.
But how else could I approach his ancient basilisk, hungry since centuries?
The locket weighs down my neck, cold and with no mercy, yet it's well hidden underneath my cloak. And if anyone should ask what I'm doing here –
"Tom! What are you doing here?"
Bloody hell.
I inwardly groan into the universe, but judging from the voice, that's no professor at least. Still I'm surprised when I turn around in the corridor.
"Hagrid?" I stare up at his face in utter disbelief. I'm tall, but I'll never be that tall, let alone that wide. Even the huge wooden box in his hands would be too heavy for me, but to him, it seems the equivalent of a cardboard. Still, I well notice the way he's been figuratively looking up to me ever since our exercises in the Room of Requirement. Despite the skepticism of his house, he thinks I'm a role model, Hogwarts' shining primus inter pares … So I collect myself in a flash and hear me say, "I'm a Prefect, so I gather the question ought to be what you're doing here."
"My father hasn't arrived yet," he readily tells me, sounding as though this circumstance had broken his heart two days ago. "And my mother has left us anyway, I don't need to wait for her."
"So melancholic?" I ask. "Because your father's late?"
"Yes, yes, it makes me quite sad," he confirms.
"Why were you allowed to stay in school?" I proceed my questioning nevertheless, I have no time for his feelings. How often have I begged Dippet, Dumbledore and Slughorn in vain to let me spend the holidays at Hogwarts instead of going back to the orphanage.
Thanks for nothing, gentlemen …
"Well, Professor Dumbledore knows that Dad'll fetch me tomorrow at the latest. So that's why."
"Ah." I mutter. "And what now? Are you going to linger in the corridors all by yourself? Not a good idea, Hagrid. Go to the library and do something useful with your time. Read a book or –"
"I'm supposed to be helping the Keeper of Keys and Grounds in the Forbidden Forest," he tells me, his eyes wide. "Do you think that's useful, too? Or should I ask if I'm better off reading?"
"No, it's fine if you already have something to do," I reply, nodding at what he carries. "And what's that box?"
"It's … from the Keeper of Keys and Grounds. I'm supposed to … put it safely away in the castle."
"I'll rephrase – what's its contents?"
"Oh that … I don't know myself," he claims, nodding hastily. "It's a secret!"
"A secret," I repeat with an incredulous glance. "Well – then keep it for all I care."
"And what are you doing here?"
"It's still none of your business, Hagrid." I sigh, already realising that I'm only cutting into my own flesh this way due to his even greater interest. So I add with some cunning, "But if you wouldn't tell anyone, and you could keep yet another secret …"
"Yes! I can for sure!"
"Also certainly, and especially in front of the professors?" I look at him with mocking doubt. "I don't know, Hagrid. You wear your heart on your sleeve. That's not too convenient, if you ask me."
"I can really keep quiet, I promise! Tell me what are you doing?"
He's so excited he doesn't even realise that I merely hooked him. And using Harper as a cheap excuse is basically nothing I'm fond of – but the end justifies the means.
"Sullivan, the girl from Ravenclaw I sometimes have breakfast with –"
He immediately chuckles and says, "You're together all the time, not just for breakfast, even in Gryffindor everyone's talking about Harper and you."
"You don't say," I mutter. "Don't you heroes have better things to do? Tests of courage, or Quidditch?"
"Are you a couple?"
I can't believe I'm having this conversation, and he can tell. He instantly knows that I'm not going to answer that.
"Sorry, I'm being too nosy, aren't I? I shouldn't have said that …"
"Listen, I thought I'd surprise her for her birthday in May." What an exasperated charade. "But I can only prepare that when she's not around, and of course, the professors mustn't know about it either."
"What's that?" he asks in excitement. "What are you planning?"
Does he have to be unconsciously probing like that? That uses up my creativity for a whole year at lightning speed! I don't even have the faintest idea what I'd plan.
But he who asks leads …
So I look up at him and lower my voice. "Think about it, Hagrid. What would you do in my place?"
"Hide presents in the Ravenclaw tower?"
That's … surprisingly sufficient.
"Exactly," I confirm, nodding with a vague smile. "I hate to risk being expelled, but for her –"
"You would do anything?"
I sigh. "Off to the forest with you."
"She'll be thrilled," he prophesies. "Harper, I mean, because of the surprise …"
"I did get that." As he's already moving on, I follow him again. "Hagrid?"
"Yeah?" His eyes widen.
"While we're at it, what exactly are people saying about us?" Asking a naive third year who oddly put his trust in me can't hurt. As bitter as it is, there's no denying in a certain curiosity regarding Harper and me, so why not learn more …
"Well, that you make a handsome couple and –"
"The truth, Hagrid. Tell me."
Hesitantly he admits, "Well, Raymond and the others always say you're not a good influence on her. Because they think dark magic surrounds you, which is complete rubbish, isn't it?"
I closely eye him. Then I just nod, because he wants me to do just that so badly.
"Yeah, well," he continues, "and a couple of girls, on the other hand, don't like Harper because they probably have a crush on you but couldn't ever show up with a Slytherin in their homes and –"
"Alright, thank you, you know what?" I moan, resigned to fate. "Never mind. All smoke and mirrors."
He shrugs, then I shoo him back down the corridor.
"And Hagrid? Not a word to anyone, yeah?"
He nods at once. "Until the next meeting in the Room of Requirement, then! And good luck with Harper's surprise! Bye, Tom!"
"Goodbye."
I wait until he's gone and clearly out of earshot, then I finally head to the end of the second floor until I'm standing in front of it.
The girls' lavatory.
Fate couldn't have provided for a more embarrassing entrance …
And I can't give in to the urge to hesitate any longer, there's no more turning back now. I snuck into the castle using umpteen protective spells that should hide my presence from any premonition – especially Dumbledore's – and now I can't waste any more time.
I need to see if I'm right. Whether I've really heard a basilisk over and over again, or whether I've simply lost my mind.
Whether I'm not just Slytherin's Heir for the sake of blood.
I need to know who I am. Far away from everyone, out of sight, and without Harper, too. Where I'm going, she can't come with me.
My family history might inevitably separate me from her. This is a thought I've been reluctant to allow into my consciousness ever since my research began, but all the prejudice, the madness around blood purity … How could I ever wash myself clean of such a profound original sin? What if Harper learns what Gormlaith had thought of her? When she hears that Salazar Slytherin is my ancestor, he who would've chased her out of Hogwarts due to her blood status …
I decide that she must never find out and take one last furtive look around.
But no one's here. There are no more excuses to avoid the inevitable.
And so I finally enter and stride straight through the anteroom, breathing in deeply until I'm already going for the engraving on the defective basin. The curvature of the cold metal my fingertips touch sends a shiver down my spine, and yet I bend over the tap until I can see the snake.
And I just know what I have to do.
"Hésha chassáh," I whisper and step back in amazement. The basins begin to magically move away from each other, all in their individual line of flight. Only the basin without water sinks into the floor, supposedly buried by one of the grids.
Like a step into nothingness, it now lies below the ground, and a huge tunnel, directly behind and below the white marble, is now irrevocably exposed.
I stumble.
What now?
Is fate seriously asking me to step into the unknown black and break my neck after another visit to the girls' toilet?
Should I jump?
That can't be it …
But it likely is. I get over it, concentrate and close my eyes for a moment, then, as I have done so often in the Room of Requirement, I dissipate into the black smoke that defies all gravity.
I circle the sinks a few times until I'm quite sure I have control of my flight, then I descend into the narrow shallows Corvinus has preserved. Which Slytherin built and a basilisk guards. I follow the path that would have been the result of a leap into the unknown, always concentrating so as not to lose myself in the many junctions of this underground system.
Until, after a practically vertical dive – it may have been a lifetime, perhaps only a few seconds short – I see the ground again in a vault. I touch down there with my feet while the last breath of smoke becomes me again.
It's astonishingly bright down here, considering that I'm deep under the Black Lake – and the last rays of dawn can only have strayed into this hell through some of the side tunnels.
Every little movement makes bones crack beneath me. The ground is covered in skeletons, dead rats and mice, remains of bird feathers and disturbingly large scraps of ancient snake skin.
I let my gaze wander from bottom to top while I adjust my tie.
The grey walls are damp and covered with moss as well as greenish shimmery, dripping algae formations – including dark spores. They radiate nothing but clammy cold, and every breath results in trepidation due to seemingly toxic, centuries-old air.
Living history, Hogwarts' best kept secret – and no more than death is to be found down here.
I light my wand, but the sheer dimensions of the tunnels couldn't be illuminated with a hundred torches.
I concentrate on every sound, but apart from constant dripping of sewage, bouncing through ridiculous heights onto the floor as if in some fabled cave, I can hear nothing.
No ancient, ravenous snake …
I resist the urge to breathe too much – it smells worse than the backyard of the orphanage here – and decide without further ado to follow the biggest of all tunnels.
From the cylindrical antechamber, I enter a rather wide and narrow corridor, much darker and covered with stalactites that must've been hanging from the ceiling of this cave for eons.
And again I find snakeskin.
But this time not in shreds, almost in one piece.
A barely ending piece that actually horrifies me. Reading of a basilisk's size is one thing, seeing it, though … I must be mad to even be here.
Yet I follow this more than obvious trail, quietly, as grotesque as it may be.
And apparently I'm on the right track. I soon spot a huge hatchway at the end of the cave passage, and the closer I get, the more impressed I am.
The massive iron gate, round and dark, that soon stretches out before me in all its glory, is decorated with – how could it be anything else – snakes. Seven in number.
You'd think it was heresy.
Is it not sacred, the number seven? And the snake even symbolism of the profane?
Shouldn't there be six creatures of seduction stretching from the hinge to the other sides?
But what is sacred, what is sacrilegious? Isn't the serpent in the end also a part of creation? Instrumentalised in the Garden for seduction by a fallen morning star, a lost angel, and yet the animal got saved by the heavens before the flood nevertheless …
Just like Harper seeks to save my soul.
No, the serpent has no good reputation since the events in Eden. But if it could find salvation and survive to this day, then perhaps so can I.
Carefully I let my hand glide over one of the snake's heads. The metal is similarly cold as I had imagined, but once again the opening mechansim will hardly be triggered by force …
"Hésha cassynhe chassáh sehshé," I whisper, backing away a step as one snake after another contracts with a metallic click. An eighth one meanders its way along the remaining heads from the bottom to the top back of the hinge – until finally, after a deafening clack, the gate opens a crack wide.
I can't hesitate any longer.
If I should die down here, it's no tragedy. Harper's tears might be a shame, just like my wasted talent, but apart from that, I have nothing else to lose.
I'd end up in the very place all the madness of my ancestors began. It would be ironic, but a cynic like me could hardly give a damn about that.
The omnipresent paranoia that yellow eyes might have already been following me for some time is stuck in my bones, but there is only one direction left for me now – deeper into the abyss.
I push the gate open a little further, regardless of its rusting and groaning, then I enter.
This is it.
This is the fabled Chamber of Secrets.
I have rarely ever been thoroughly impressed in life. But this is greater than anything I could ever have imagined.
My searching heart quits its duties for a brief moment of recognition – for despite the moldy smell, the clammy, cold air, the brackish water to the left and right of the elongated platform – I've never seen anything more imposing.
Snake sculptures, symmetrically arranged with huge heads on either side, lead along the way straight to the far end of the catacombs – over which a huge head of stone reigns.
If I didn't know better, and if it weren't impossible in terms of time, I'd claim it was sculpted by Michelangelo's own hands. Yet he'd hardly have dared to enter Slytherin's Purgatory.
Oh, but well …
Anyone who'd painted hidden symbolism on the ceilings of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican for years, swearing and muttering upside down with poisonous colours in their hands and lungs, would probably also lose all inhibitions regarding this.
It's a strange world, after all.
I put one foot in front of the other, as if magically attracted by the sheer megalomania. Every shaped stone here is testament to it. And even after all these centuries, Salazar Slytherin's critical gaze lingers on his realm at the end of the chamber.
Chamber.
Whoever called this structure of monumental size a simple chamber would probably fall into hysterical laughter at the sight of these high halls …
It all comes together down here, so much closer to the glowing core of the earth than the castle high above me. Slytherin's syncretism at its purest, the ultimate synthesis of craving for recognition and delusions of grandeur, ideology and bloodlust.
The locket around my neck seems to become almost warm on my skin, as if it knew it had found its way back after all this time.
With me.
The Heir of Slytherin.