Ch 1.1
It's been a long day without you, my friend,
I will tell you all about it when I see you again.
It was the last night of Harry Potter's 2nd year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Tomorrow, they would be boarding the Hogwarts Express for the journey back home. For everyone else, it was the most joyous event, as the amazement and wonder of magic tend to fade after a full school year of stuffing both needed and unwanted information into their heads. At this moment, they all wished to return to their homes for a summer of relaxation and quality time with their loving families.
However, Harry had nothing of this sort waiting for him. He lived with his maternal aunt and her family: a husband resembling a pink hippo, and a son resembling a beach ball, and what those people had in common, other than their pettiness, was their hatred for both magic and Harry.
It was not strange that Harry could not relate to all the excitement his housemates were showing. In fact, it wouldn't be a stretch to say Harry was feeling quite claustrophobic in this environment of cheer. So, he decided to don his cloak of invisibility, a family heirloom with the capability of turning the wearer invisible, and leave for a midnight stroll.
Harry was standing in the girls' washroom, more precisely in Moaning Myrtle's washroom, staring at the entrance of the Chamber of Secrets. This was not his intended destination. In fact, he had no intended destination. Why his steps traced this path, he would never know. Sitting beside the fountain, where he could hiss just once and enter a world completely unknown to anyone living, Harry began thinking about the events that led to his first and only encounter with this place.
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Ginevra's possession, Ginevra's kidnapping, fighting a basilisk—gods! This year was quite an adventure. Carefully, he stopped his mind from thinking about one more event: Ron's betrayal.
Ronald Weasley, his first friend in the wizarding world, with his hand-me-down robes, Ronald appeared to Harry something similar to himself. Harry, whose own glasses are held together by cello tape and who wears Dudley's oversized cast-offs on occasions when he cannot wear his school uniform, found camaraderie in someone who was suffering similarly.
However, Ron is not suffering, not as much as Harry is. He surely could moan and whine much more than Harry ever dreamed to do, though. But not suffering as much is not a betrayal. His betrayal comes from...
At the beginning of this year, or rather at the end of last year's summer, just a month before the summer break was over, on the night of his birthday no less, Ron and his brothers came and picked him up for the rest of the summer. His time at the Weasleys' started as awesome as any, but as time passed...
Later, they went to shop for the upcoming school year, and that was where the troubles started to take shape. He had to withdraw money to get supplies for the year. Now, Mrs. Weasley and the rest of the Weasleys jumped on the cart to the vaults too. This had been a source of discomfort for Harry, but there was no way in hell he was asking the kind woman who allowed him to stay at her house to leave.
Resultantly, every Weasley saw the pile of gold he had in his vaults. After that, the trouble began, but it started small.
Parchment Shop [somewhere mid of July]
Harry had taken everything necessary from this shop—parchment, quills, and inks—when he heard the voice from behind. "Why do we have to take such cheap quality parchment, mother?" His best friend whined in a nosey tone. He couldn't help but sigh. He could not help but compare his sound to that of his cousin Dudley.
"These are the standard parchments, Ronald; even Harry bought the same," Mrs. Weasley said sharply, pointing at Harry. Harry found it weird because he took whatever Mrs. Weasley was picking in the first place, but did not pay much heed to this. "Harry, can't you buy something better?" The annoying voice now targeted him. "Nah... I am quite good with what I got."
This was but the beginning. After that, it was either a subtle or not-so-subtle hint at his money, or Ronald trying to make him buy an unnecessarily expensive version of the supplies he was purchasing. "I did not know you were such a cheapskate, Harry."
He could feel a rift appearing between him and the Weasleys, so he explained as much as he could. "Ron, I don't know how much money I have in my vault or how much money I would need to tide over the remaining years of my education. Also, I will need to use this money until I get a job or for any higher education." This was enough of an explanation for everyone but Ronald.
"Nice thinking, Harry," Mr. Weasley commented. Mrs. Weasley nodded in approval. "You don't know how much money you have in your vault," criticized Percy Weasley. The twins looked at him with joint gazes of understanding, and Charlie with pity. Ginny again was too shy to look up at him, but it was Ron whose reaction shocked him.
"Really, Potter, that's all hogwash. It's just you being cheap and refusing to buy us good stuff, that too after we took you in, fed you, and treated you as one of us."
This did come as a shock to Harry. Now, he may not have lots of friends, but Dudley did. All of them came to his house to stay for an extended period, but he never saw anyone asking or paying for money. Harry would have noticed the silence at the table if not for being busy with his own thoughts.
He offered money to Mrs. Weasley later, but she refused it. He did so again and again during the course of his stay, but they never accepted. Ronald, though, was a constant pain in the ass ever since. It did decrease during the course of the summer but was never completely gone. Later, when it was revealed he was a Parselmouth, Ron was up there opposing and blaming him for being the monster. He also added how Harry mooched off them this summer and paid not a single dime in return. However, when the tide died down and other students threw him off the pedestal he reached by belittling Harry, Ron joined the group back again without so much as a sorry. Harry let it go, though… Ron was his first friend and so far the best one.
Though there are things even he can't forget…
It was the time when Ginny was kidnapped and taken to the Chamber of Secrets. After entering the tunnel and incapacitating Lockhart, Ronald deliberately pointed his wand at the loose stones, creating a wall of sorts between them. "You go ahead, Harry; I'll wait for you here." The voice still rings in his head. In the dim lights of the tunnels, Ron did not realize Harry saw, but he did.
Sitting outside the fountain gates, the voice rang again, "You go ahead, Harry; I'll wait for you here." Harry started staring at the marvelously inscribed runes around the fountain and wondered why one of the founders' relics was lying in the girls' washroom like this. Was Salazar Slytherin a pervert? He questioned himself. Then he thought of what he read in his primary school history class and realized that this kind of plumbing was not there until much later. So, this washroom was constructed later and around Salazar Slytherin's fountain. The Chamber of Secrets.
That day he was in such a hurry he did not pay much heed to what was in this chamber. Now may be the time he can go down and have a look. Harry was no doubt a curious boy. In front of him was the entrance to a place few would ever see in their lifetime.
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