While Ron and Harry go down in the Chamber of Secrets...
LILY XIV
She was giving herself a respite. The last few days had seen her buried under a gigantic amount of work. Lily needed to rest this evening. She just sat there, in her armchair, tired.
She wondered what Harry was doing right now. She wished that she could see him, comfort him in some way. Her son had taken Hermione's Petrification very hard. They wrote each other more than ever. In the past, Lily felt she was the one who needed her son to write to her. Today, she felt that roles were reversed, and that Harry needed to write to her. She had to concede that it must not be easy to be confined to your common room most of the time, especially not with summer approaching. Children were not meant to remain stuck inside. Despite reading a lot and not having a lot of friends before he arrived in Hogwarts, Harry had always been a very active boy who spent a lot of time outside, and Lily didn't think that the other students took this confinement any better than her son.
She knew that some parents removed their children from the school after the last attacks. Lily was tempted to do the same, but she refrained in the end, like most parents. She tried to reassure herself, reminding herself that Harry was not Muggle-born, and as such he wasn't targeted by the monster. But it wasn't enough. Only her studies and her training that took almost all her time helped her not to think about the dangers at Hogwarts all the time.
They just completed their study block on investigation techniques. The principles behind these were not that different from what Lily heard and watched of the techniques used by policemen among Muggles. They had to find clues, ensure they were usable during a trial, and use them to track culprits and catch them. Only, instead of using infrared lamps and laboratories to examine exhibits, they used magic. Having worked for a Muggle company, Lily knew that bureaucracy and procedures were important in the Muggle world, but they were just as important at the Ministry of Magic. Lily hoped it wasn't as important as it seemed to be. After working for the Order of Phoenix, where paperwork was just as important as your parents' age, she hoped she wouldn't be buried in procedures so much that she wouldn't be able to perform her duty once she would be an Auror.
Lily stayed there, eyes closed, trying to relax. She had to stop worrying about everything and every time. Still, sometimes, despite being happy about returning into the world of wizards, she thought with envy about the time she lived alone with her son among the Muggles. Things seemed simpler back then. The worst she had to worry about back then was to be late in buying the present Harry wanted for Christmas. Now she had to worry about Voldemort trying to kill her son and a monster invading the corridors of Hogwarts. Really, life had gotten much more complicated.
Her fireplace lit up with green flames. Lily knew it before she even opened her eyes. There was only one reason why a fire would start so suddenly. She expected Minerva McGonagall to walk into her apartment, like she sometimes did, but instead only her head appeared.
"Lily?" Her former teacher noticed her as Lily stood up and approached the fireplace. "Ah, good heavens, you're here. You must come to Hogwarts immediately."
"What happened?"
After the events of last year, along with this year's events, she feared the worst as she looked at McGonagall's concerned face.
"Your son disappeared." The words of her former teacher sunk deep into her. But she reacted quickly.
"I'm coming," she said shortly.
"Come into Dumbledore's office."
McGonagall's head disappeared and the fireplace went numb. Not again. Where was Harry this time? Where did he go? Unless this time, he didn't go anywhere, but someone kidnapped him. Lily put those fears aside for now. She had to focus about what to do. She threw some Floo powder into the fireplace, pronounced her destination and walked through it.
A few moments later, she emerged into Dumbledore's office, as she intended.
"Good. You're here, Lily." She turned to see Albus Dumbledore standing behind his desk.
"Dumbledore? I thought you were suspended," Lily said.
"Lily." An instant later, she found herself with Molly Weasley hugging.
"Molly?" Looking around, she saw that Molly's husband was there as well, just like Minerva. "Arthur?" She broke the embrace in which Molly brought her. She wanted to ask what they were doing here, but Molly spoke faster than she did.
"That's horrible! I can't believe this happened. I thought our children would be safe. They're not even Muggle-born!"
"Wait! What's going on?" Lily asked, confused about the presence of all these people here. It was Albus Dumbledore who answered in his usual calm voice.
"I had you come here, Lily, because Harry disappeared. But he's not the only one. Ronald and Ginny Weasley are missing as well."
Lily was in shock. She looked back to Molly, who was standing close to her. It was obvious that she already cried a lot. "Molly, I'm so sorry." She turned to Dumbledore. "Where are they?"
"We don't know," McGonagall replied immediately. "Miss Weasley disappeared this morning. Professor Flitwick led her to the hospital wing because she didn't feel well. She never showed up for her Transfiguration class later, and Madam Pomfrey says she never walked into the infirmary. As for Mr Weasley and Mr Potter, they were last seen an hour ago, leaving Gryffindor's common room."
"You told us that you ordered students to stay in their common rooms," Artur Weasley shouted, obviously angry, but also desperate.
"We did. But somehow... The other students didn't try to stop Potter and your son from leaving. Not even the Prefects tried to stop them."
"Why not keep a teacher in front of the entrance?"
"Because all teachers were either occupied preparing the departure of students tomorrow or searching for your daughter."
"Wait! What do you mean, departure?" Lily asked. It seemed like there were a lot of things she missed.
"We are planning to send the students back home tomorrow in the morning, Lily," Dumbledore said. "Ginny Weasley did not only disappear. She was kidnapped by Slytherin's heir, or at least the person who makes people believe he is his heir. New writings were left on the wall that she would stay in the Chamber forever."
"But why?" Molly screamed and cried at the same time. "Ginny is pure-blood. Why attack her?"
"We don't know, Molly. But we are doing everything we can to find her."
"Can you promise that you will find her?" Arthur asked the Headmaster.
"I can't, Arthur. I'm sorry. The Chamber of Secrets was never found in centuries. But I promise that I will not rest until all your children are found and safe."
He also looked at Lily while saying that. Lily shook her head. That didn't make any sense. Why Ginny? Lily remembered the girl very well. There was no reason to kidnap her. And why kidnap her? Why not Petrify her, like all the others? And why did Harry and Ron disappear too? Were they kidnapped as well?
"What about Harry and Ron?" Lily asked. "You said they disappeared. Do you think they were captured as well?"
"They are not inside the limits of the school," Minerva said. "That's the only thing we can be sure about. I'm afraid they might have gone to try and find Miss Weasley and got captured as well."
"But... you say they're not inside the castle? Nor in the park?" Minerva nodded to show she was right. "Then where are they? Could they have left the limits of the school?"
"No. The gates are closed. There's no way they could get out. Anyway, all doors of the castle are locked. They couldn't even have gone through the Forbidden Forest. No door was opened leading to the outside anyway, that's the first thing we checked."
"So they didn't leave the school grounds. They didn't leave the walls either, but they are not inside the school?" Lily summarized.
"They must be somewhere our spells cannot reach them. We couldn't locate Ginny Weasley either with our spells. That's why... I think they were both kidnapped, just like her."
"In any case," Dumbledore said, "we must assume they are all in the Chamber of Secrets, somewhere. We've got to find it."
"How are you going to find it if it remained hidden for centuries?" Arthur asked.
"We must keep looking, Arthur. There is no other way to find your children."
"Then let us help you." Everyone turned towards Lily who just shouted the words. "You're trying to find something that's been hidden for centuries inside a huge castle. You'll need every wand you can get."
"Of course. Thank you, Lily," Dumbledore said.
"Wait, Albus. I'm not sure this is such a good idea. We have someone or something in the school abducting our students. And Lily… is Muggle-born. She's going to be a target."
"I don't care," Lily retorted. "My son is missing. If the heir of Slytherin or whoever he is wants to take on me, he is welcomed to try."
She wouldn't stand aside while her son was in danger. She did not hesitate to go deep into the school's dungeons last year to save him, and she wouldn't hesitate today either. And she wasn't a defenceless student either.
"I appreciate your will to help, Lily, but Minerva is not entirely wrong." Dumbledore said. "Anyway, no one is allowed to wander alone in the corridors anymore. Minerva, Lily, I ask you to stick together. Molly, Arthur, you're coming with me. We're going to the Gryffindor common room. I have questions to ask to the other students. They might give us clues as to where Harry, Ron and Ginny are. Your other children might have noticed something."
"We will be coming with you," Minerva said.
"No, Professor McGonagall. I want you and Lily to go on the second floor, where the first attack took place."
"Why?" Lily asked. "We're looking for Harry, Ron and Ginny. I don't see how going at a place where a cat was Petrified months ago might help."
"Lily, ever since the beginning, the other professors and I have been exploring and checking the places where the Petrifications happened again and again. We've been scouring the whole castle, trying to find the Chamber of Secrets. We haven't found a single clue that could give us the beginning of an answer. But a new look at the scenes of the crime could bring them under a new light. You've learned investigation techniques as part of your Auror training if I'm right."
"Yes, I have."
"Then it's time to use them in real life, Lily. And bear in mind that we probably don't have much time."
Dumbledore didn't need to remind her about this. The truth was that Lily just wanted to look through every crack, under every rock to find the Chamber of Secrets. But Lily knew it wouldn't be productive or efficient if they hoped to find the place where Harry was being held. So she followed Dumbledore's orders and followed McGonagall to the second floor. Well, she almost did it without question. She stopped in her track just as she was turning on her heels.
"Dumbledore, wait. There's something I need to know first. Has Hagrid anything to do with the Chamber of Secrets?"
The Headmaster replied very calmly, like always. "No, Lily. Hagrid is innocent. He never opened the Chamber of Secrets, and he never knew anything about it."
"Then why was he expelled fifty years ago? And why did the Ministry of Magic put him under arrest after the last attacks?"
Dumbledore looked much older as he answered. Arthur and Lily looked thunderstruck. "Because… Hagrid was expelled after being accused of harboring a magical creature that would have killed the girl who died fifty years ago. But even that wasn't true. Hagrid was raising a giant spider into the school, it is true. A big mistake, but it wasn't the spider who did it. The girl had no mark, no injury, no sign of attack by any creature. She was just dead, as if she was hit by a Killing Curse. I don't know who opened the Chamber of Secrets the first time, but it wasn't Hagrid."
"Anyway, Hagrid cannot have kidnapped Miss Weasley, Mr Weasley and Mr Potter. He's at Azkaban right now," Minerva reminded them.
"Indeed. Whoever did this today, it wasn't Hagrid."
Lily didn't push the matter further, she never really thought that Hagrid could have opened the Chamber of Secrets. The simple idea of him being the heir of Slytherin sounded ludicrous. She left with McGonagall.
Lily recognized several spots of Hogwarts she knew back when she was a student, but she was too worried for her son to care about it. They finally arrived at their destination, and Lily could see with her own eyes what Slytherin's heir wrote on the walls, in a very dark red.
THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED.
ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE.
And lower, other words appeared, just as red as the ones over but in a much brighter tone, flashing under the light of torches.
HER SKELETON WILL LIE IN THE CHAMBER FOR EVER.
"The message below is obviously more recent," Lily stated, trying despite herself to not shudder at the writings' sight.
"Filch found it this morning. He swears it wasn't there yesterday," McGonagall said.
Lily wished she could just scream at the words and force them to tell her where her son was, but she knew it would be useless. That had been one of the major differences between her and James. James was impulsive, always ready to act without thinking in order to save someone. Lily was always more rational, methodical, prepared, thinking things through before doing something. However, when it came to Harry, she could be more impulsive than James ever was. She had to calm herself. She had to think rationally, to find the small clues that would lead her to the Chamber of Secrets and Harry. So she focused on the writing in front of her.
After so many months, she couldn't hope to find much physical evidence on this scene of crime. And when you couldn't rely on physical proof, and eye witnesses were not available, you had to dig into the criminal's mind and understand his behaviour, which could lead you to him. So Lily looked at the writing from another angle, trying to see it through the mind of the culprit behind all those attacks.
"Well, judging by how he wrote this, I think it is pretty obvious that whoever Petrified Mrs Norris wanted everyone to know why he did this. And he wanted people to know that Slytherin's heir was back, or he wanted people to believe that the heir was back," she summarized.
"For sure, he wanted the whole school to know," Minerva said. "He hung up the cat to this torch, and positioned her in a corridor, in a place where everyone could see it."
"So we're looking at someone who wants people to know he is behind the attacks, without revealing his real identity."
It didn't tell them much about who the attacker was. Furthermore, only three students were missing: Harry, Ron and Ginny. If the culprit was a student, he should be missing as well. So unless it was Ronald or Ginny who opened the Chamber of Secrets… No, it was impossible. It couldn't be any of them. The only option left was that it was someone else, someone who wasn't a student, like a professor. Thinking about who, among the teachers, could do such a thing, only one name came to Lily's mind. Severus Snape.
Could it be him? Could Snape be Slytherin's heir? She thought about it. He despised Muggle-borns, that was a fact. I don't need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her! The words were as clear as if she heard them yesterday. He was also an expert at hiding who he really was. Despite the fact Snape helped Harry in some occasions last year, she still didn't trust him, no matter Dumbledore's assurances. But whether Snape managed to fool Dumbledore or Voldemort, this made him an expert in dissimulation. She couldn't remove him from the list of suspects. But she heavily doubted that McGonagall would listen to her if she voiced her doubts about Snape.
The problem was, Lily could hardly see anyone else who fitted the limited profile of the criminal. She didn't have enough information about him, or about the whole staff and all students of Hogwarts. Harry suspected Draco Malfoy, but it turned out it wasn't him. Though if Snape provided some of the intel on Malfoy, Dumbledore's conclusions could be wrong.
"Do you have a map, or representation of the places where the attacks happened?" she asked McGonagall. Perhaps they could get some sort of scheme that the culprit followed.
McGonagall produced a miniaturized representation of Hogwarts. Four red dots appeared, along with two others that were blue. "The red points are where we found Petrified people. The blue ones are the last places where Harry, Ron and Ginny were seen," she explained.
Looking at the places where the attacks happened, Lily could not find any tendency or plan these attacks would follow. It really was as if the culprit attacked randomly. But everyone attacked someone for a reason. During the war, Voldemort and his followers committed numerous assassinations, many of which seemed to have no links at first sight, but they were all in fact committed to achieve the same final goal.
But two attacks were quite different from the others. Those of today were not Petrifications, but kidnappings. Ginny Weasley after she was left in the hospital wing, and Harry and Ronald after they left Gryffindor's common room for unknown reasons. Why did they leave it?
The answer was not hard to find. Lily knew her son. He had certainly gone to try and save Ginny, like he tried to stop Voldemort from stealing the Philosopher's Stone last year. Harry had the habit of getting into trouble when trying to help people. It was the case for Hagrid's dragon, for the Philosopher's Stone, even for defending Hermione when Draco Malfoy called her a Mudblood. She could easily imagine her son leaving Gryffindor's Tower and heading into the empty corridors of Hogwarts to find the Chamber of Secrets.
Wait! What if…?
"Minerva, is it possible that Harry and Ronald weren't kidnapped, but instead found the Chamber of Secrets?"
The Transfiguration teacher looked bewildered by her question. "Lily, come on. People have been looking for the Chamber for centuries. It is very unlikely that Harry and Ron found it."
"As unlikely as it would be for them to discover that Dumbledore was hiding a Philosopher's Stone in Hogwarts? Or to get past every obstacle protecting this Stone?"
Doubt crept on the face of McGonagall for a moment. "Okay, but they knew there was a forbidden corridor last year. And if you searched well, it was possible to deduce that the Stone was at Hogwarts. But we're not talking about something that was hidden at the beginning of the year this time. We're talking about a place that remained hidden for centuries, and countless students, professors and historians could never find it."
Lily could hardly argue against the logic. There was a huge difference with last year. Last year, anyone could expect a corridor that was officially forbidden from access to hide something. This time, there was absolutely no clue as to where the Chamber of Secrets might be. Really, Lily could not see any clue or pattern that would lead them to the Chamber of Secrets.
"Maybe we should go to the hospital wing. That's where Ginny was last seen, and I may have a better idea if I take a look at the people who were Petrified," Lily first said, but then she got another idea. "But first, show me the places where the attacks took place before, in the order when they happened."
So Minerva showed Lily the places where Colin Creevey, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Nearly Headless Nick, Hermione and Randolph Burrow were found, telling her in the process how they were found. Lily somehow hoped that by following the route the culprit took, she might have a better idea why he chose these people or these places to attack. But it was almost doomed to fail. The attacks happened with so much time between each other that it was unlikely that walking from one crime scene to another would give any result. Their last stop was the infirmary.
"Professor Flitwick left her right in front of the door this morning," Minerva said. "This is the last time she was seen."
"But she never entered the infirmary?" Lily asked.
"Never. Madam Pomfrey is certain about this, and she's been in the infirmary for the whole morning."
So, there were two possibilities that Lily could see. Either Ginny was kidnapped right there, at the moment she would have knocked on the door, and mere seconds after Flitwick left her there, or she went somewhere else after Flitwick dropped her there and she was caught at this other place. This didn't help them much though, since they had no way in the case of the second hypothesis to determine where she was kidnapped. Lily knocked on the door. Madam Pomfrey appeared on the other side.
"Oh, Lily. I heard about your son. I'm sorry," she said.
"Madam Pomfrey, I'd like to see the students who were Petrified. The Professor Dumbledore seems to believe that maybe I could come up with an idea as to where my son and the other missing children are."
Madam Pomfrey opened the door a little bit more to see Minerva, who nodded. She let them in.
"I must warn you, you will not get anything from them," Madam Pomfrey said as she opened the curtains that were hiding the Petrified children. "There's just no point talking to a Petrified person. I told your son the same thing this morning."
Lily nodded while she looked at a student with green eyes and light brown hair, with the Ravenclaw badge on his robes. It had to be Randolph Burrow, the student who was Petrified at the same time as Hermione. From the position he was frozen in, he seemed to be leaning, as if he tried to look at something down more closely. The one with a Hufflepuff badge had his arms along his hips. Colin Creevey had both his hands frozen in front of his face.
"Didn't you say he had a camera when he was found?" Lily asked.
"Yes. We were hoping he might have taken a picture of the person who attacked him, but when we opened the camera, the film was melted," Minerva said.
Lily then went to Nick, who had turned to a dark grey color instead of his usual white. Then she finally arrived in front of Hermione's bed. She had her hand raised in front of her. It reminded Lily of the way Colin Creevey had his two hands raised in front of his face. Lily already found it hard to see so many young children Petrified, for the only crime of being born from Muggle parents, but seeing Hermione in this state was harder than for the others. She remembered how the little girl seemed to have fun last summer, when she spent a week at their home. Lily also saw her after the Quidditch matches of her son. Lily had not realized that, on the last occasion she saw Hermione, the girl was only a few hours from being Petrified.
"Like I said, there's nothing to get from them," Madam Pomfrey stated.
Lily, though, couldn't take her eyes away from Hermione's unmoving body. Harry had been among the first to see it. Lily already felt deeply troubled and sad at looking to those children, months after they were Petrified. She didn't dare to imagine how her son must have felt when he saw his best friend Petrified. She wondered how it must have felt for him to visit and see her in that state.
Lily frowned.
"Madam Pomfrey, you said that you told Harry this morning that it was useless to talk to a Petrified person. He came here?" she asked.
"Yes," Madam Pomfrey confirmed. "He and Mr Weasley came to visit their friend. They had Professor McGonagall's authorization."
Minerva confirmed. "I found them wandering in the corridors. They told me they didn't get to see Miss Granger for quite some time. So I made an exception. We had not allowed visits ever since the last attack."
Lily kept looking at Hermione. "What else did they do today?" she asked. Their schedule might give her a clue as to where they might have an hour ago.
"Aside from attending their courses in the morning, nothing else. They were in Gryffindor's common room for the rest of the day, until they left it this evening."
Lily could hardly place herself in the mind of the person who attacked all those students. But she could put herself in her son's mind. Harry was here this very morning. He had not seen Hermione for months. What would he do? He would certainly be sitting next to her. Despite the fact she was Petrified and couldn't talk or hear, he would probably have said something to her. He may have held her hand. Not the one raised in front of her, it wouldn't be convenient. Probably her left hand, which was lying against her hip. It was clenched into a fist.
Lily then saw something. Right next to Hermione's fist, there was something very small, with a yellowish color that contrasted with the clean white sheets under her body. Lily pointed her wand at it and had it levitate in front of her eyes.
"What is it?" Minerva asked
"A small piece of paper, I would say," Lily muttered, more for herself than anyone else. It had a length of maybe three or four centimeters, with a maximum width of one centimeter that got thinner. "Did Harry and Ron have paper with them when they visited Hermione?"
"I don't think so," Madam Pomfrey said. "They had their bags, of course, but I don't see why they would use parchment here."
"It's not parchment," Minerva said. She had approached Lily and looked more closely at the piece of paper. "Parchment would be blanker. This looks more like old paper. And it looks as if it was torn up."
Lily immediately looked again at Hermione's fist. She positioned her left hand in the same position than Hermione's, and she tried to imagine that she was holding a piece of paper within it.
"Had Hermione anything in her hands when you found her?" Lily asked.
"She had this mirror with her." McGonagall pointed a small circular mirror on the small table next to the bed. "We believe she was holding it with her right hand."
It made sense, considering how Hermione had her hand in front of her. It looked exactly as if she was looking into this mirror. "I never pictured Hermione as someone who would carry a mirror," Lily said.
"You'd be surprised, Lily. Almost every girl has one."
Lily had to give it to Minerva. Even she carried one with her all the time when she was at Hogwarts, and she was far from being the girl who cared the most about her appearance. Though she wondered why Hermione was staring at her reflection when she was Petrified. She didn't wear makeup, and she never saw the girl even brush her hair. That was one of the things she and Harry got in common. Their hair was all messy. Then why look at herself in a mirror then, in a corridor near the library above that?
"Okay," Lily said, trying to refocus on what she had on her mind. "But what about the other hand? The left one? Was there anything in it?" The two other witches replied by the negative. "Well, if this torn piece of paper is here, it's that it must be old." Lily had an idea. "Hermione was at the library when she was Petrified. Could it come from a book?"
Minerva looked at the piece of paper. "Maybe."
Lily approached Hermione's fist and leaned, then placed her hand over the child's. "Harry is there to see Hermione. He holds her hand. He feels that she has something into her fist." She passed a finger through those of Hermione. There was some space. "He gets the paper out of her hand, but he tears it by the same occasion."
"That makes sense," Minerva says. "Did we look into her hand?" she asked Madam Pomfrey, who seemed lost. "Even if she had something in her hand, it doesn't really help us."
"I'm going to the library," Lily stated.
She left without giving any attention to the two other witches. On her way, she collected the piece of paper still levitating in the air, and made a small bag appear so that she could place it inside, then put the bag inside her pocket.
"Lily, wait a minute," Minerva said. "Why go to the library?"
"Harry found something on Hermione this very morning," she explained. "Judging by the color of the paper and how old it looks, it might be coming from a book of the library. I want to know which book it comes from."
When they arrived in the library, Lily asked Madam Pince for the books Hermione Granger borrowed on the day she was Petrified. Hogwarts' librarian was luckily keeping extensive records of everything the students were borrowing. She easily gave them the titles of the three books Hermione Granger had borrowed on that day.
"I was very sad for what happened to Miss Granger," Madam Pince said as she handed them the specific volumes Hermione had borrowed on this day. "Always quiet here, a very good student. Very considerate of the treasures our library is keeping. She always puts back into place the books she borrows. Except for that day. She let them at her table. Worse, there was a page that was torn up in one of them."
"Excuse me?" Lily asked, all her attention going to Madam Pince all of a sudden, right when she started to go through a volume of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, by Newt Scamander, while Minerva was browsing an exemplary of Bestiarium Magicum.
"Oh, yes. She didn't even try to hide it. She left it right open where she tore off the page. Such negligence!" The librarian looked scandalized.
"Which book was it?" Lily asked.
Madam Pince seemed insulted, but she nonetheless went back to her records. "Dangerous Magical Creatures and How To Fight Them. Page 57-58 was torn off."
Lily seized the other book they had not begun to go through. She compared it to the piece of paper they found on Hermione's bed. The pages were of the same color.
"You really think there is something there?" Minerva asked.
"Maybe. Anyway, I have no other track to follow to find out where Harry is. And considering the books that Hermione consulted, and her habit to help Harry elucidate mysteries..."
Lily found the torn off page. She heard Madam Pince cringe behind her, but she went to the page index, and found what the pages that were torn off were about.
"Have you ever heard about a creature called a Basilisk?"
She looked to both Minerva and Madam Pince, but both seemed clueless. Lily had no idea what it was. Well, she thought she might have heard the name of this creature before, but she couldn't remember when. According to the section where this page belonged, it seemed to be a serpent.
A few minutes later, she was heading back with Minerva to where the writing on the walls was located on the second floor. Dumbledore was there and welcomed them calmly, though it was also obvious that he was highly concerned. Arthur and Molly were with him. Molly was weeping while looking at the writing, her husband holding her in his arms.
Dumbledore walked to them and whispered when they were close enough. "Molly and Arthur insisted to look at the inscriptions on the wall. The other students of Gryffindor could not tell anything that might lead us to the Chamber of Secrets or wherever else Harry, Ron and Ginny might be."
Molly kept weeping behind him. Lily tried to not think too much about what could have happened to Harry. She instead tried to remind her about how he managed to survive against all odds last year. She just had to focus on finding him.
"So we are back to square one?" Lily asked him.
"Yes." He turned to the red writing. "It seems that everything brings us back here. Fifty years ago, it was in toilets near this place that a student was murdered. When we found Mrs Norris, I wondered if Slytherin's heir was taunting us."
"Dumbledore," Lily began. "We found out that just before she was Petrified, Hermione Granger was doing some research in the library. It seems that she was particularly interested in a snake called a Basilisk. You know anything about it?"
Lily didn't expect much from it, but it was a track, the only one she could follow, and it was better than nothing. However, she didn't expect Dumbledore to freeze, then to turn very slowly towards her, a look of much graver concern on his face.
"Are you sure about it?" he asked. "Miss Granger was Petrified after she looked into Basilisks?"
"Yes. Do you have any idea what it is?" Lily insisted.
The Headmaster looked down, made a few steps in one direction, then went back on his steps.
"Miss Granger is quite clever, as usual," he whispered.
"Albus?" Minerva asked, looking intrigued and worried at the same time.
"Basilisks are probably among the deadliest and most dangerous magical creatures of our world. They are so dangerous that their creation and breeding has been banned for almost a thousand years. Luckily enough, they are very rare. They are born when a chicken egg is hatched beneath a toad."
"But what is a Basilisk?" Lily asked.
"A serpent. Also called the King of Serpents, and for very good reasons. It can reach a length up to fifty feet and live for centuries if fed appropriately. But the most dangerous thing with this snake is that he kills by merely looking into someone's eyes. Whoever crosses its gaze dies instantly. The effects are similar to and very difficult to differentiate from a Killing Curse."
Lily now thought that she had heard something about a snake with such powers. She must have read something about it when she was at Hogwarts.
"That would make sense," Dumbledore was now mumbling. "When the girl was found dead fifty years ago, she had no injury of any sort, no mark. That's why I never believed Hagrid was guilty. The creature he was raising couldn't kill without leaving any trace. But a Basilisk... it could have."
"Albus, wait." It was McGonagall who spoke. "Are you saying that a gigantic serpent has been going through Hogwarts during the whole year, and no one saw him?"
The Headmaster looked back at her, obviously troubled. "It seems so. And this is not impossible. If the Basilisk kills everyone who chances upon his eyes... Though that doesn't explain the Petrifications. Basilisks are not known to Petrify. And fifty years ago, other students were Petrified as well. Though I have to admit that I wouldn't put it over Salazar Slytherin to raise a Basilisk inside Hogwarts. Being a Parseltongue, he could control the creature and let it in the Chamber for a long time before his heir woke it up."
Minerva shook her head. "That doesn't make any sense, Albus. Our students were not killed, they were Petrified. Or kidnapped. And if a fifty feet long serpent wandered through the school's corridors, I would think someone would have noticed it, and that we would have more victims than a few students, a ghost and a cat."
"Indeed," Dumbledore conceded. "How could a Basilisk move around the castle without being noticed? Though... The Slytherin's heir did nothing for many months after Nick and Mr Finch-Fletchley were Petrified. Then all of a sudden, Miss Granger is Petrified as well, right at the moment she's looking into Basilisks. This is quite a coincidence."
Lily agreed. Coincidences were possible, but if her life and her Auror training taught her something, it is that coincidences were rarely only coincidences. There was often a link between two events, as feeble as it could be.
Lily was looking at the writing on the wall when something came back to her mind. Something that Harry wrote to her some time ago. Since the beginning of the year, I've started to hear voices. I don't know where they're from or who is speaking, and I'm the only one who seems to hear them. The voice keeps speaking about killing someone. I heard it before I found Colin Creevey when he was Petrified, and I also heard it before Hermione was found. Lily was worried when her son told her that. Truth be told, she didn't pay much attention to his words. Somehow, she must have thought that Harry himself was very worried after Hermione's Petrification. But now... What was it that Harry could hear and that others could not? The answer was not hard to find.
"Professor Dumbledore, what is there inside the walls?" she asked.
"The walls?" Dumbledore asked in return, intrigued.
"Yes, the walls of Hogwarts. What is there inside of them?"
"Many things. You would be surprised, Lily." He almost looked amused. "Our forebears left many things behind. These walls are filled with spells and curses, secrets going from secrets rooms and magical creatures sleeping in them, to mere notes left by students who came here and wanted to leave a mark of their passage behind them. And then there is stone as well, marble, other construction material, some insulating material, especially in the inhabited sections, and the plumbing system, of course. With all these toilets we have here."
The plumbing system. "Are the pipes large enough to allow a snake to travel through them?"
Dumbledore looked more seriously at her now. "Some of them, maybe."
Lily put a hand before her mouth, thinking about what she was going to tell now. But it wasn't time for secrets now. It was time to try and find the Chamber of Secrets. "There's something I must tell you. After Hermione was Petrified, Harry revealed to me that he's been hearing voices since the beginning of the year. It was always the same voice, in fact, and he's the only one who seems to hear it."
"Harry has been hearing voices?" Luckily, Dumbledore seemed to be taking this very seriously, unlike McGonagall who seemed very doubting.
"Yes. A voice that's always talking about killing people. He often heard it before an attack happened. And he thought that it was coming from the walls. It may seem stupid, but Harry is a Parselmouth. What if he heard a serpent while it was travelling through the walls? It might explain why no one saw it."
"Indeed." Dumbledore seemed lost in his thoughts. "That would explain a lot of things."
"A serpent would be moving from one part of the castle to another through the plumbing?" Minerva said, unbelieving.
"Yes, that would explain a lot of things."
Dumbledore suddenly walked towards Molly and Arthur. The two of them had begun to listen to their conversation, turning their back to the writing on the walls. But Dumbledore walked past them, stopped in front of the writing, looked at them for a moment then turned his head on the left. He was looking at an ajar door, with a large sign saying Out of Order.
"It was in these toilets that the body of a student was found fifty years ago. I still remember her name. Myrtle Warren. And she's still there."
Dumbledore headed all of a sudden towards the girls' toilets and pushed the door wide open. Lily and the others followed him, just as Lily wondered where she heard the name of Myrtle Warren before.
"Hello, Myrtle. How are you today?" the Headmaster asked just as Lily walked in.
Lily got the answer to her question the moment she saw the ghost of a little girl, with lank black hair and thick glasses, wearing Hogwarts' uniform, floating in the air just ahead of them. Lily now remembered who it was. Moaning Myrtle was already haunting those toilets back when she was studying at Hogwarts. The ghost turned her head towards Dumbledore right when he walked in. First hostile, her expression softened the moment she saw the Headmaster.
"Professor Dumbledore! It's been a long time!" She almost looked excited.
"Hi, Myrtle," Dumbledore said in a kind voice. "I'm sorry to bother you..."
"Oh, it's no trouble. You were the only professor who was kind with me back when I was alive. Is there something I can help you with?"
Lily was surprised by the behavior of that ghost. Moaning Myrtle was always crying and screaming when Lily was at Hogwarts. She never saw the ghost of the girl offering her help to anybody.
"In fact, yes, Myrtle. I know we must already have asked you the question sooner this year, so I'm sorry to ask you again if this is the case, but would you have noticed any suspicious... well, let's say, unusual activity in your toilets recently?"
Moaning Myrtle scoffed. "There are always unusual activities there. People seem to think that it is the place to prepare forbidden potions. That girl, Hermione Granger, spent the whole year doing just that, all the while ignoring me."
"Hermione prepared potions here?" Lily asked.
The girl turned towards Lily, and her face grew immediately angry. "Yes," she shouted. "Why? You believe that I'm lying? Why does no one ever believe me when I speak? Why does no one ever listen to me?"
"No one believes that you're lying, Myrtle," Dumbledore said on a soothing tone. This seemed to appease the ghost. "And we are listening to you. But I would like to know if something unusual happened here today."
"Oh, well. There's Harry who came."
"Harry?" Everyone said his name at the same time.
"Yes. With his friend. The one with red hair. They wanted to know how I was dead. No one ever asked me about it. And then they left this way."
She pointed at one of the sinks on her right. Only, when Lily followed her finger, she found one sink was missing.
The group of two professors and three parents approached the empty space to find a very large pipe at the place of the missing sink. It was more than large enough for a man to fit in it.
"Well, it seems we just found the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets," Dumbledore declared.
So that was it, Lily thought. The Chamber of Secrets was there, right under their feet, at the end of this pipe. It was hidden there the whole time, in the girls' toilets. And Harry, Ron and Ginny were down there. Her heart was beating fast.
"Though it also seems that Mr Potter and Mr Weasley found it first," Minerva said. She turned to Moaning Myrtle. "Are you sure they are down there?"
"Of course, I am!" The ghost seemed insulted.
"Well, then, let's get them out of there now!" It was Molly who spoke and made a few steps towards the pipe, but her husband stopped.
"Wait, Molly! We don't know what's down there," Arthur said.
"Our son and our daughter are down there."
"And so is a Basilisk. You think you can face a serpent who kills by merely looking at you?"
"Arthur is right," Dumbledore said. "It's too dangerous for all of us to go down there. I will..."
A shriek resonated in the toilets at this moment. Everyone heard just like Lily where it came from. It came from the pipe.
We go back inside the Chamber of Secrets in the next chapter.
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Next chapter: to be found in the next update