The people in the office were all looking at the screen, thinking about what it meant for them that the chamber was opened again. While Dumbledore had already some experience with this situation, the others looked at him questioningly. Dumbledore then explained that roughly 50 years ago, something similar did happen, but they could not find out what did attack the students, but when a girl was killed, they were discussing to close the school. As that did not happen, Harry asked the headmaster if they caught the culprit that controlled this creature, but Dumbledore just shook his head.
"I never believed that the boy who had been accused to have done it, even if he had the tendency to bring dangerous animals into the castle. He had always made sure that no other students were near it, as he knew that the reputation had to have a reason to exist. He just wanted to prove that if you would take your time and patience, even the most dangerous beast could be tamed. In retrospect, he did prove it with the Thestrals which pull the carriages. And in case you are now asking yourself Harry, I mean Hagrid. He was in his third year when a prefect with the name of Tom Riddle did bring him in front of the headmaster at the time, Armando Dipped. Tom even had evidence that Hagrid did raise an Acromantula in an unused broom closed inside the school. For Armando, this was enough evidence to expel Hagrid, and only because I insisted, he hired Hagrid as a gamekeeper, the reason I brought forward being was that if one could tame an Acromantula, this person could also control all the animals in the woods. But I could not help him more, much to my dissatisfaction. But seeing now that it happening again, we must act quickly. Now Chief, please continue the recording." John pressed play again, with the sound coming out from the speakers on the screen.
They heard a hissing coming from the small girl, while she held a small book in her hand. Only Harry seemed to understand what was going on. *How should i know that this mudblood had a camera? But it matters not as you served your purpose for tonight. As there will be little to no other opportunities tonight, we will retreat for now. Next time we will attack during the day, as this would be more efficient.* The girl then walked in front of the reptilian creature, now showing to the people in the office that it was a giant snake.
"Ah, now it makes sense why we heard this hissing. First, I wanted to ask if something was faulty with the equipment, but now I see that it was Parseltongue. Harry, I take it that you understood what the young woman was saying?" Dumbledore turned towards Harry, who nodded and told them what he understood. McGonagall was looking at the video once again, now recognizing the girl which controlled that snake. But that could not be, as not even one in her family was a Parselmouth, not to mention not even remotely related to Salazar Slytherin as far she would know. Now her question was how to approach her without causing too much of a stir in the common room of her house.
"Dear Merlin, it was Ginny Weasley who opened the Chamber. But the question still stands on how she did that. Until we find out, I suggest that we treat her with caution, so she would not flip and attack us with whatever that is. But when we are sure that nothing else would happen, we should ask her why and how she did that." McGonagall pointed to the screen, receiving nods from the other adults and one boy.
Harry was sure that he had read about this snake once, but he could not point a finger on the specific book needed. He decided that he would go to the library the next day as it was a Sunday and search for the book that contains information about dangerous beasts. He would also send Hedwig to Geralt and ask him, just in case he would know exactly what it was. He was still thinking about this when McGonagall told Harry that she would bring him up to his common room before she would retire to her office. He just nodded, now getting a message from Luke and Sissi, the AI from Hermione and Daphne, both telling him almost at the same time that they had to speak with each other the next day. He then thought that maybe they could also talk about Dobby, as they maybe had an idea why he was so adamant to tell him who his master was.
To his surprise, his house mates were still awake and celebrating their victory over Slytherin, but thanks to McGonagall just coming in behind him, they soon left for their beds as curfew was overdue. Much to Percy's dismay, McGonagall berated him for not being able to control the Gryffindor students even if he was a prefect, but she did this to the others present so that this would not happen again. Harry wondered why she would not tell them what happened to Colin, but to his surprise Ginny asked her if the professor knew where he was. And according to the body language from McGonagall, she was also surprised that Ginny of all people would ask her that. But she kept it for herself and told them that he was in the hospital wing and would have to miss some classes until he would be cured. With a look to Harry, the head of house tried to communicate that he should watch out, if Ginny was only playing like she would not know about the attack, the possibility was there that she would do it again soon.
Harry was not as sure that Ginny was playing this part, he rather thought that she really did not remember what she did. He would have to be very delicate when he would approach her to not cause her to panic. When he got a hint of a foreign scent in the air, he concentrated on his sense and noticed that Ginny did smell like a mixture of chicken blood and old water, maybe this was a clue for the future.
Just as they arrived in the dorms Ron asked Harry why he attacked Lockhart after he tried to help him on the pitch. Harry knew that Ron did not like the teacher because of his looks and the popularity that came with it by the female students. Harry thought that if Ron would have better manners, he would also be more popular with the others, as of right now only the boys in this room really talked with him. Well, his family was a given, but Harry tried to hint a bit that Ron should maybe talk about other stuff as just Quidditch and chess. But in the end, Harry explained to him that he just does not like another person touching him. Also, as he does not know if Lockhart was really trained as a healer, he could have butchered the spell up and made it worse. Ron seemed to be satisfied with this answer.
As the sun rose on the next morning Harry soon woke up from the sun hitting him straight in the face. He was beginning to wonder if it really was a sniper. He grabbed his glasses and placed them on, as he asked Callie if she could ask Luke and Sissi if their partners were up already. She told him that they were still asleep, but that she would notify him as soon they were awake and ready to talk with him. Harry thanked her and then put on his clothes, as he wanted to make his morning run with John while the others were still asleep. He was glad when he left the dorm, as the snoring of Ron was getting on his nerves when he was awake. When he walked through the common room, he noticed that it was cleaned and that the burned wood in the fireplace was replaced with fresh wood. He thanked whoever did that, as the party yesterday left a mess.
After he finished his morning training with John, who praised him for his growth in strength and speed as it was now almost at the same level the Spartan had before they were augmented. Harry was happy for this praise, but he knew that he still had to train more to become strong enough to fight when Voldemort would return. But for now, he wanted to take a shower before he would go into the Great Hall for breakfast.
While he climbed the stairs, Callie told him that Hermione and Daphne were now awake and would wait in an empty classroom after breakfast to discuss yesterday's events. Harry thanked her for the update and entered the Gryffindor common room. Now there were some students sitting in there, still smiling about the victory from the previous day. Harry walked past them and up the stairs to take a shower in the dorm's bathroom.
A short while later, he sat down in the Great Hall for breakfast, as the only other boy from his dorm accompanying him was Neville, as the others were still asleep on this nice day. Soon, Hermione joined them and filled her plate with a light breakfast. Hermione looked at Harry with the silent question if he would invite Neville to their little talk later, but she got her answer almost immediately as Professor Sprout walked up to them and asked Neville if he could help her with the mandrakes, as those were gotten bigger and she could need a hand so they were ready sooner for the potion they would need to heal Mrs. Norris. Harry wondered if she would not know about Colin, but then he thought that it may be kept a secret for now, so the school would not fall into a panic.
Harry looked around and saw Daphne already finishing her breakfast with Tracey, who smiled at her and was just doing smalltalk. He then got a message from Callie, asking him if Daphne could bring Tracey with them to their discussion, the only difference would be that they could not show her the AI's, but this would be only a small problem. Harry nodded, telling Hermione that she should go to the empty classroom first, he would wait for Daphne and Tracey and would then meet her there.
A short time later, all four students met in the empty class room for the history classes. Daphne was happy that Harry agreed that Tracey could be present at this meeting with them. They wasted no time and opened the discussion about the bludger and who could have bewitched it. When Harry told them that it was the house elf Dobby, but Harry explained that was on his own accord. He then asked Daphne about those elves, as she was a pureblood and was possibly knowledgeable about them.
Daphne shook her head in bewilderment after she heard Harry's explanation about Dobby. "This is rather peculiar behavior for a house elf. Yes, house elves are normally loyal to their family, but it is not unheard of that some house elves disobeyed orders, but when they did, they had to punish themselves. But what strikes me as strange is Dobby is acting to protect someone who is not of his house. House elves do not normally go out of their way to protect people outside their own home."
At this point, Hermione was almost screaming how barbaric that was and that they had to free those elves. But Daphne told her that when they would do that, they would die.
"House elves need a bond with a wizard or magically rich house to absorb magic to survive. For this magic, they follow our orders and wishes. But a good family would not allow their house elves to punish themselves, as mistakes can be made. So when we find out to which family Dobby is bound to, we need to free him and then ask him to find a new family to serve. But there are two problems with this: firstly, not any family would want an elf that was freed from his previous employment, as this would suggest that the elf is untrustworthy. And the second problem is, as far i know, that only his master could free him by giving him his own clothes. Now, do not misunderstand, giving him clothes to clean doesn't count. If any orders with the clothing are given, the house elf can not be freed, so we need to trick the masters of Dobby somehow." Tracey explained to Hermione the situation in this matter, so she had no other possibility as to agree with this reasoning. But she would research house elves regardless, maybe she would find another solution for Dobby to be free to choose his own master. After they agreed to a course of action, they went to the library to study.
In the library, Hermione asked Madam Pince if she could direct her towards a book on house elves, while Harry was looking for a book about dangerous monsters. Almost immediately he found a book covered in dust, the title was written in golden letters and told him that he would find the most evil and dangerous monsters described inside. He was reading through the pages of this book when he found the picture of a giant snake-like creature, called a basilisk.
* The basilisk, also called as the king of snakes, is a dangerous monster and can kill with its venomous fangs and more extraordinary, its gaze is also deadly when it meets the eyes of its victim. Born from a chicken egg and bread from a frog, it can grow up to 20 meters long and live almost a thousand years. Only those who can speak parseltongue can control a basilisk and will not be killed when they look into its eyes, and so it is rumored that those who have this gift to understand snakes are all evil. The basilisk only fears the call of a rooster in the morning, and all spiders, even Acromantula, flee when one is nearby as the Basilisk is their mortal enemy.* Harry closed this book and thought about how he could handle this now, as he was the only person in the castle except seemingly Ginny who could stand their ground in front of the basilisk without being killed immediately. The next step for him was to find a way to the chamber and confront the basilisk, maybe he could tell it to stand down there. He placed the book back into its spot, before Hermione turned around the corner to drag him to their place to study. Harry decided to keep this information a secret to his friends, but told Callie to pass it on to Cortana, so John would know what to look out for.
The next day, Harry walked down the stairs to the Great Hall with the rest of the second year Gryffindors, Hermione right by his side together with Ron on the other, but Harry was more interested that the rumors about Colin seemed to be more accurate than they should be. How they guessed that he was attacked just like Mrs. Norris was, is a mystery to him. Maybe some older students were strolling outside the common room and walked by the hospital wing when Dumbledore and McGonagall did carry him there from where they found him. He would have to ask John if the cameras did catch other things beside the snake and Ginny Saturday, as this information could be beneficial in the future too.
They arrived shortly afterwards in the Great Hall for breakfast, when as soon Harry sat down, Hedwig landed in front of him before he could even grab something to eat and snapped her beak, demanding her bacon first. Hermione and Neville suppressed their laughter at this scene, while Ron laughed out loud, luckily with no food in his mouth. Harry gave his owl what she wanted and removed the letter, which came from Yennefer, asking him if he would like to come home during Christmas as they wanted to make a small journey to another country at that time. Harry wrote back and asked where they planned to go and who would be coming with them. If only Yen and Geralt would be going, he would not be wanting to intrude. He also wrote that he needed to talk with Geralt about something, so if he could come to Hogwarts, that would be good.
Harry tied the letter once again on Hedwig's leg and wished her a safe flight. She nibbled on his ear affectionately and then spread her wings out and took flight. When she left the hall through the window up the wall near the ceiling, an eagle owl was flying past her with a package tied to his leg. She was a bit worried that this family would overstress the bird, so she decided to wait for a short while and ask how it was doing. She did not know this owl personally, but she had seen it in the owlery, exhausted to the point it could not even fly up to a spot where it could rest in peace. Hedwig soon saw the eagle owl leaving the Great Hall and flew up to the owlery with a letter tied to its leg. She then flew after the other owl, wanting to tell her to take her time and eat and drink something before returning to their owner. So, she landed just beside it and clicked her beak to catch its attention. She succeeded with it and then flapped her wings to show that she should relax for a while, the letter could not be that important that she had to sacrifice her health. But the eagle owl just shook her head, telling Hedwig in their language that she had to go now, or her owner would treat her like they did their house elf. Hedwig was not happy with this answer, but she could do nothing to change it. Or could she?
Back in the Great Hall, Harry was finishing his breakfast and was now preparing for the first class of the day, which was History before Defense Against the Dark Arts. And after lunch, they had a double class of Potions. Hermione told him this morning that she had some questions about house elves and wanted his opinion as well as Daphne's. Harry knew that she did find a book which explained the finer details about elves and their bounds.
When they arrived in the classroom, Professor Binns came like always through the black board and began the class like always droning about his subject. While the Professor was talking about the goblin uprising once again, Harry noticed that Hermione had her hand up in the air. Wondering what she did have to question Professor Binns, he saw now that he was not the only one who noticed Hermione trying to get the attention from the teacher.
Professor Binns was getting confused when he saw the students for what seemed the first time since their first year. He was now looking to his left and right, before he addressed Hermione with a wrong name and asked her if she had any questions. "Well Professor, I was wondering if you could tell us something about this Chamber of Secrets, I could not find anything about it in our books. But I was sure that I had read about it somewhere." Hermione's question did cause the rest of the students to suddenly being very interested to which Binns had to tell them. He told the class that he dealt in facts, not in myths, to which Hermione asked again if the any myth had to have a fact as a base.
"Well, I can not deny that. Well then, the Chamber of Secrets, what is there to know. A thousand years ago, four magical people came together to form a school for the children to learn magic. Those people were Godric Gryffindor, Rowena Ravenclaw, Helga Hufflepuff and Salazar Slytherin. In the beginning, they worked in harmony and taught the students they had chosen everything that was known by then what magic could do. But soon, Salazar Slytherin wanted to teach only those children that came from other Wizards and Witches as parents and leave the ones with muggle parents on their own. In his view, those children could not be trusted in keeping their secrets. But this mindset caused some fights with the other founders, who wanted to teach everyone who wanted to learn and had the ability to use magic. As Slytherin decided to leave the school, it is said that before he left, he built a secret chamber and left a monster in there, which should finish his vision of a pure magical school without any half-bloods or first-generation magical children. And only his true heir would have been able to find this chamber and control whatever is in there. But, as I said, this is just a myth. Many headmasters over the centuries searched for this chamber, and all of them came back empty handed. So, there is no evidence whatsoever that this chamber really exists." Binns was now preparing himself to continue his class, but Binns underestimated the now raised attention. He still had to answer some questions from other students, like what if you had to know very dark magic to open the chamber or only the heir could see the entrance. The teacher lost his patience and told the students that they now would once again go to history that was proven by facts. When he droned on again, the students soon were again fighting to not fall asleep. But Harry and Hermione were thinking about the information they had gathered just now. Both were sure that when they would go to the library, they would have to search all the books on dangerous beasts and the founders of Hogwarts.
When the history class ended, it was almost normal for the students that managed to stay awake, telling the others who didn't that they had to leave now, and as their next class is rather close by, Harry took his time to talk with Callie, asking her if she could dig something up in the data she had at her disposal. She then told him about the spiders that left the castle in great numbers, as this could be a hint to what this snake was. Also, that Hagrid had lost multiple roosters since the beginning of the year could be an indication that whatever Ginny was controlling at that time would be afraid of them for some reason. She asked almost jokingly if the giant snake was afraid that the small rooster would pick something from his skin. That caused Harry to chuckle a bit, but he would remember that when he was looking through the books if Geralt had no answer for him.
In the Defense class, Lockhart decided not to bring real creatures into the classroom, instead he would play out the situations in his books and explained what he did. For Harry, it was still not understandable how this man could even have done one thing in his books for real. At least he had gotten into the adults had to not ask him to play the attacker for him so he could just do like he would beat him with some spell. Instead, he chose Ron or Neville for this task, and both were not happy about it. Be it because they had to act so stupid as the professor told them, the rumors soon spread around that those two were really stupid. But luckily, Triss could intervene in some lessons so that the students did really learn something in this class.
After this class, they walked to the Great Hall for lunch and Harry was listening for the voice to appear again, but to their luck the monster seemed to sleep for now. When they walked by the notice board outside the Great Hall, that was mirrored by the boards in the common rooms, there was a new notice placed there since the morning. According to the students in front of the notice board, the news had to be interesting enough. Harry heard some students talking with each other about the dueling club that had, according to the notice, lowered the age for entrance lowered enough so even first year students could now attend it. But the next meeting was still a few weeks away, so Harry just shrugged when Ron asked him if he would go there. But this question was picked up by Malfoy, who then asked Harry if he was finally ready for a real duel between wizards.
Harry looked over his shoulder, looking at Malfoy standing as always between Crabbe and Goyle. Malfoy just smirked as Harry walked away and ignored the snide remark that Harry had to be afraid to be shown off. But the sound of someone hitting the ground was heard while Harry smiled while walking through the door to the Great Hall.
"Wow, that must be embarrassing Malfoy. How could you fall over your own feet while standing still?" Ron laughed at his question when he followed Harry into the Great Hall, wondering what was for lunch today. The other students who were in the entrance were laughing too, even some Slytherin who came up from their common room or classes to eat lunch. And Malfoy was really blushing from shame, asking Goyle if he saw who cast the tripping jinxl, but both told him that they did not notice anything. No wonder, when they were looking at Harry and not up the stairs where the Weasley twins walked down. Their faces told everyone who looked at them who caused Malfoy to land on his butt.
Meanwhile, Ginny was also walking down to the Great Hall to eat some lunch, but she was compelled to carry her diary with her as somehow, she felt safer this way. But it took all her will power to not write in it at all the time and ask Tom how she should carry on her tasks from the teachers. Every time she wrote in this diary, Tom Riddle had good advice for her questions and even helped her with her homework when Hermione or Harry were too occupied with their own work. But she noticed that she could not remember more and more things when she did write in this little book, so she tried to ask as teacher if they could look at this diary, but as soon she wanted to ask Professor McGonagall or Miss Merigold, she felt like she still had to keep it a secret. When she arrived at the entrance, she saw just in time that Malfoy landed on his butt and Harry walking into the Great Hall.
In the Great Hall, Harry looked to the teachers and noticed that Triss was now sitting next to the seat where John would sit when he was sure that everything was secure. Lockhart was still sitting on his spot, but that was on the other side of the headmaster, so he guessed that something could happen sooner than he guessed. But for now, he sat down by his house table and filled his plate with food. Ron sat down opposite to him and also filled his plate with as much food he could reach. Just as Hermione sat beside Harry with Lavender on his other side, more adults walked into the Great Hall. Harry wondered who that was and why one of them looked like Susan Bones, but soon he saw Yen walking in behind them with another wizard looking angry.
"LOCKHART, YOU DAMN BASTARD. HOW COULD YOU STEAL MY ACCOMPLISHMENT?"
A/N: and here is the next chapter from this story, thanks once again to HowInMadHowie for his work with betareading my work and correct my mistakes.
Hope you all are healthy and still having fun reading my story. Until next time.