Chapter 161

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Dear Spencer

Please excuse the shaky writing I've been bitten by a Basilisk and my arm still feels like it's on fire as I try to write, but I needed to let you know that the danger is over, that I am okay and to talk this all over with you, so I didn't want to wait until my arm was better.

Things all came to a head yesterday after we visited Hermione and I sent you that letter, when Ron's little sister Ginny went missing. There were new words painted on the wall near the first floor bathroom where the original words were painted. This time they said "Her skeleton will lie in the chamber forever". Ginny's a pureblood so they were going to close the school now that she's been attacked, I'd like to believe it was because she'd been taken, and according to the writing on the wall was going to be killed and not just petrified but I don't know that I can. Anyway, they sent us to our common rooms and dorms to be confined there until the train was due to leave in the morning but they still weren't even going to look for her, and Ron was beside himself with grief and insisted that we try to find her ourselves.

I finally put all the clues together, and I realised something, every time we'd found someone petrified there had been a reflective surface, the viewfinder of an old fashioned camera or a transparent ghost present, so it's possible that everyone had seen the reflection or a filtered version of its gaze and that's why they were petrified instead of killed. And then we finally managed to get away from the professor supervising us and find Myrtle who has been suspiciously absent lately. Anyway we found her and asked her about when and how she died. We were right she died fifty years ago in the bathroom where Hermione brewed the Polyjuice potion.

Myrtle said she was killed by looking directly into the Basilisk's eyes. Well she didn't know it was a basilisk, but she said big yellow eyes higher than her head, and each more than a meter wide, she couldn't describe the rest of the creature at all. She could show me where the eyes were and told me that the bathroom wall opens onto a chute that goes down under the castle. She didn't know exactly how the wall opens but she said that a boy fifty years ago used to hiss at it and it opened, and that a small red headed girl had been doing it recently. So the entrance to the chamber of secrets is in that toilet, though I don't suppose it was originally a girls' toilet 1,000 years ago when the entrance was built.

If that's where the basilisk was getting out of the chamber and into the castle Hermione, Ron and I were incredibly lucky that we weren't killed while brewing that potion. But you remember what I said that someone had to be fixing the Polyjuice potion so they knew we were using that bathroom. If the professors knew Hermione was brewing in there and they (or at least Snape and/or Dumbledore) knew that that's where Myrtle was killed last time the chamber was opened, why didn't they try to stop us or at least warn Hermione to find a safer place to brew? Was someone hoping that the basilisk would kill the three of us? Snape probably was, we speculated that he'd only fixed the potion because he'd been ordered to.

I guess I can't blame Ron for wanting to save his sister but I didn't want to go down there, I didn't see why it should be my job to go after Ginny even if her brother is supposedly one of my friends. Even if he'd genuinely been my best mate it didn't make sense to go myself instead of sending down an expert. I was willing to try to use parseltongue to open the secret door or whatever it was for someone else since I seem to be the only person willing to admit that I could do it, but I knew it wasn't a job for a second year student, I'm not even sure it was a job for a teacher, I would have thought they should call in a snake or dangerous creature expert, and I tried to get a professor to go instead Spencer, honestly I did! The Care of Magical Creatures professor would have been my choice, but Ron insisted that we ask Gilderoy Lockhart because his office was closest and Ron still believed he'd done the things in his books even though he's been a useless teacher. He's been brainwashed, his mum is a real fan. It was a disaster, the coward was packing to run away and Ron forced him to come with us at wand point instead of looking for another teacher to help even after he admitted he didn't do any of the things he wrote about. I wanted to get a couple of roosters and send them in on their own but Ron said that it was no good, Hagrid had been complaining all year that every time he got a new rooster it was killed and transfiguring something into a live animal even a female chicken into a male is way beyond second year work and something that I've never tried, and Professor Idiot hasn't cast a successful spell in our presence all year so I dread to think how he could mess that one up. I probably could do it but I know I shouldn't be able to so doing it would give me away to one of Dumbledore's biggest spies. I'd have considered doing it anyway but sometimes magical reactions (things that aren't normal biology) can react differently with magically produced triggers too, so my transfigured roosters may not have worked anyway and I would have given away my secret aptitude for magic for nothing.

I tried to tell Ron that I didn't know how to open the tunnel but he insisted that it was parseltongue and I was a parselmouth and I owed it to him and his sister to try. Honestly he was so upset that I thought he would hex me if I didn't try and I assumed there would be an actual password so hissing nonsense at the wall full of sinks wouldn't matter. The problem was that the password was 'Open' and I said it without thinking much about what I was saying and the tunnel opened up in front of us. I was horrified that the password was so simple, it's more like a command than a password, as if it was put in to open and close the passageway for the snake itself rather than a person. But that doesn't explain why there haven't been attacks every year if the snake could enter the school at will. Maybe the password to let it out into the school is more complicated and Slytherin just wanted a way for his snake to escape back to its den without being caught.

We slid down the chute into the tunnel and the git Lockhart managed to get Ron's wand off him and tried to wipe our memories so he could make up a story casting himself as the hero. It seems that was what he'd done with the people who actually did all the things in his book, he isn't just a liar he didn't even make the stories up himself just stole them off other people and obliviated them. The only thing he did make up were the spells he said he used because the true stories wouldn't have sold books. He wasn't even going to try to save Ginny (Though I guess I can't blame him for that, I wouldn't have either if I had a real choice). Luckily the I got a shield up in time which turned the spell back on him. The spell wasn't actually that strong, maybe because he was using Ron's wand which he'd never used before and it was second hand and a little bit broken at the tip or maybe because he's just that incompetent. I think he was only trying to remove the memories of the last hour or so and didn't expect us to have any resistance to the spell but maybe he was trying to break our minds. I feel that I could have fought it off so I used my shield to increase the strength, maybe too much since I was rushing and feeling anxious. It obliviated all his memories and caved the roof of the tunnel in above him. Ron knocked him back diving out of the way of the cave in so he wasn't crushed by the rocks and I don't think he hit his head. He didn't even seem to remember his name. He didn't remember that he was famous or that he likes trying to get the better of me either which made him a lot easier to tolerate.

Of course, Lockhart and Ron ended up on the side of the cave in that led back to the bathroom and I was stuck on the other side by myself. Ron started trying to clear a path to get me out and I continued on to see if I could find Ginny since I was stuck there already and Ron might have killed me if I just sat and waited for him to rescue me. I couldn't exactly complain that Lockhart wasn't going to try to save Ginny if I didn't try either. I found her lying on the ground unconscious and there was a ghost becoming a boy beside her. He was more substantial than a ghost and becoming more solid every minute. He spoke parseltongue and set the Basilisk free, ordering it to kill me. I tried speaking to it but it wouldn't listen to me, it was totally under the control of the boy, I don't know what he said to it or how he did it. Fawkes the headmaster's phoenix came and pecked the Basilisk's eyes out so at least I wouldn't die just by looking at it, and he brought me the sorting hat that had a sword inside it. I know, that doesn't make a lot of sense, or any sense at all really, but that's what happened. I don't know why Fawkes couldn't have brought some professors or people who specialise in dangerous magical animals to help me. Rather than a big heavy sword I had no idea how to use. I managed to climb up the statue and stab the basilisk up through the roof of its mouth killing it, but it bit me as I did it. It burned like you wouldn't believe and I could feel my heart thumping and my vision started going black. The boy laughed and told me I was dying but Fawkes cried into the wound and saved my life which is why I'm basically okay except my arm still hurts and shakes a bit. The boy said he came from the diary that Ginny had been writing in, that he was using it to steal her life force and she was nearly dead. He boasted that there was nothing I could do to save her or myself. He looked about 17 and he was the boy from the memory of Hagrid and the spider, but he told me that he was Voldemort. I tried to attack him but he wasn't solid enough and the spell went right through him. I figured if he was using the diary then I should destroy it even if it didn't help Ginny it would stop him, and if that didn't work, I'll admit to you if not to anybody else ever, I was prepared to stab Ginny with the fang and kill her to stop him since she was clearly dying anyway and I could have blamed Voldemort or the Basilisk. So I stabbed the diary with the basilisk fang and the boy calling himself Voldemort fell apart and Ginny woke up. I must admit I wasn't too pleased about that at the time. I was in agony from the basilisk bite and she didn't even care that I was hurt she was so thrilled that I'd come to save her and then freaking out thinking that she was going to be expelled for setting the basilisk loose to petrify the students. Don't get me wrong I was glad that I didn't have to kill her but I would have preferred to have to levitate her unconscious body out of there, or to have her help me.

By the time we were both well enough to head back down the tunnel to the cave in, Ron had dug a hole for us to climb through and Fawkes took us up to the Headmaster's office. Ginny's parents were already there and they made a huge fuss of her and she was taken to the imfirmary while I was made to stay to answer questions about what happened. Dumbledore was somehow back in the castle as well and then I found out that the guy who slipped Ginny the diary tried to kill me was the head of the Hogwarts board of governors, Draco Malfoy's father, it's said that he was one of Voldemort's gang and Dumbledore said that that is why I need to spend summers at the Dursleys because the wards there protect me from his gang. Voldemort marked his followers with his magical signature and the wards at Privet Drive won't let them cross.

It didn't stop Lucius Malfoy from nearly killing me at Hogwarts, first with the diary and then by attacking me in the hallway, it wasn't some special charm from my mum that stopped him then, it was Dobby, who I freed from him by putting my sock in the diary and shoving it at Malfoy who then passed it off to his elf, Dobby. It was also Dobby who dobbed in Malfoy as the one to give Ginny the diary, not that that matters. Apparently house elves can't testify in wizarding trials. I don't know if Dobby could actually say Malfoy did it either, he could only point to the diary and then his master before trying to hurt himself.

I'm not going to let Dumbledore's story about the supposed benefits of the wards at the Dursleys stop me from visiting you or going to Scoil Draiochtor to Dean and Seamus' this summer if I get invited and then leaving the country. We already know that the wards there weaken my magic, how does that help keep me safe if I'm attacked while out avoiding the Dursleys or scavenging in the commercial bins for food? I really don't want to have to go back to that.

Dumbledore doesn't seem to know that I wasn't at the Dursleys for the three quarters of last summer. Or if he does know he's trying to guilt me into staying there this summer instead of trying to force me, or admitting he knows I wasn't there. Does he really think that I'm that naïve and gullible, or is he prepared to back his manipulation up with magic and is setting me up so the decision seems to make sense to me when I decide to stay with the Dursleys and the Weasleys. If that happens please try to get a letter to me to try to bring me to my senses.

The good news is that the school will be staying open for the rest of the school year, though exams have now been cancelled for some absurd reason. Hopefully that means they won't post the class rankings at the end of the year because I think I might have accidentally done better than Hermione in some of my classes since she's missed so much, and she will be annoyed with me. I really hate seeing the class rankings, even though I know it's in my best interests to be a mediocre student and that I could do much better if I let myself, it's infuriating to see my name towards the bottom of the list when I know I could do so much better.

The potion will finally be ready to cure the petrified students tonight. It should have been ready last night I'm not sure why it wasn't. The whole school seems to have heard some sort of story of what happened so I'm the hero who saved the school again, though nobody seems to know the true version of events. Everyone seems keen to tell me that they knew I wasn't evil. Their support might have meant something last week or last month when I needed it. Do they all think I'm that stupid, or just that desperate to be liked that I'll forget the way they turned on me. I noticed that none of them apologised for hexing me in the back. Still, it suits me to at least pretend to forgive Ron and most of the Gryffindors to avoid further scrutiny. I've forgiven Seamus but I'm uncomfortably aware that if I hadn't wanted to stay with him and Dean for the summer I might not have been so quick to forgive him. Seamus was by no means the worst of the Gryffindors but he was the one I was most upset about. I thought that he knew me well enough to know that I wouldn't attack students like that and I wondered how much worse their treatment of me would've been without their oaths. Were the oaths the only things holding Seamus and Dean back from attacking me too? I feel a little guilty for using Seamus and Ron because I don't know if I would've forgiven them so quickly if I didn't need them as a back up plan if I can't get out of Britain. Though with the way Ginny was behaving in the Chamber after I rescued her, I really don't want to stay at the Weasleys with her. As for the rest I'll wait and see if they do it again next time someone says something about me that they don't like. Hopefully I'll be out of here before that happens but if I get to Scoil Draiocht then I'm going to look up some way to rebound spells at their castors and some nasty hexes to retaliate with if it happens again. I won't put up with being bullied like that again, here or anywhere else.

I wonder who sent Fawkes to me with the sorting hat, he's Dumbledore's phoenix so I expect it was him but why didn't he send some real help? Was he trying to help me without me or someone else finding out or was it some sort of test, or a way of claiming that he had tried to help if I failed and Ginny and I died? Fawkes had no difficulty bringing the three of us out of the chamber so he could easily have brought Dumbledore and some of the Professors in. Why did he leave me there to fight the basilisk and the memory thing of Voldemort on my own? Did he want me to die? I'm afraid that he might. Even now that the obvious danger is dealt with I don't feel safe here.

I think you might be right that the paper in Hermione's hand was planted. Being banned from the library is probably her biggest fear most days, I don't think she would have done it unless it was to save someone in imminent danger the school from being closed immediately and even then she'd be more likely to try to steal the book than damage it, and she'd have gone to Madam Pince the librarian first. But knowing what the creature was wasn't what sent us down into the chamber. I would have been perfectly happy handing the paper over to one of the professors and letting them deal with it. (or choose not to deal with it, if last year is anything to go by). Even if I'd known that they weren't going to do anything about it I wouldn't have gone down there to save the school. Did whoever planted the paper know about the plot and just want to give me a fighting chance of surviving if I did go down there? If so it worked, knowing that the creature was a Basilisk who could kill me if I looked into its eyes saved my life. But if someone wanted to help me surely they could have done a lot more than warn me about half the threat. Especially since the bloody snake was so huge it could have eaten me whole without even noticing.

When we found the paper we had no reason to go down and confront the Basilisk, so if it was planted to make us go looking for it then it definitely failed in its purpose. We went down there because of Ginny. Does that mean she was taken and planted down there in danger too? Or that Dumbledore knew what that Diary was doing to her and let it continue in the hope that he could force me into feeling like I had to do something stupid to save her? Or was it Ron's job to convince me to go down and explore the chamber? I really hope he didn't have anything to do with his sister being held captive down there and nearly killed, even if it was mostly her own fault. She was nearly killed no matter what anyone else thinks about it, I would have killed her to stop Voldemort if Fawkes hadn't brought me the diary, I hadn't thought about where I'd left it or even considered that destroying it would help. Does that make me evil? I knew Ginny probably didn't deserve to die but if Voldemort had succeeded in coming back she would have died anyway and the war would have started again, putting everyone at risk. He and his followers killed and harmed a lot of people last war, my parents, Ron's uncle's, Neville's parents are still in St Mungo's, Dean's birth father disappeared. That's 4 out of 5 of us in our dorm and the fifth lived in Ireland. Is it okay to kill someone who is probably mostly innocent and misled to prevent that from happening again?

The word pipes was as you pointed out completely stupid. The snake came up a secret passage that opened into a room that is now a girls' toilet but who knows what the room was intended to be 1,000 years ago but that passage had never been a water, waste water or sewage pipe. It was filthy but not wet or that kind of filthy. Myrtle had grossly exaggerated the size of it but it certainly didn't fit into the plumbing but this is a 1,000 year old castle with walls built 6 foot thick and more secret passages that have been lost to time than anyone can know. If it was moving inside the walls and not just coming and going through the entrance in the bathroom it would've been using the passages. I know it's petty and ungrateful but I wish I knew or at least believed Hermione had ripped that page out of the library book so I could gloat about how wrong she was about the pipes even though telling me about the Basilisk probably saved my life.

I'm incredibly grateful for your honest friendship, but as much as I wish you were here with me I've been glad that you weren't in danger this year. Whatever is doing this seemed to strike without warning and those with muggle parents seem to be most at risk but otherwise it was impossible to tell who would be chosen next. It makes more sense now we know that it wasn't a person, but how would a snake or a ghost from a diary know who was muggleborn? I doubt the basilisk could smell the difference in their magic. Ginny must have been telling them, which kind of explains why the first two were people who were annoying me at the time, but I didn't know Penny at all which makes Hermione the actual target and I didn't think that Ginny would know how annoying I often found her. Could it really be that obvious to other people? If Dumbledore has noticed, would he have tried to get someone else to spy on me that I don't know about? Who would it be? It can't be Seamus and Dean because of their oaths and amulets, I'd like to think Neville wouldn't agree to do that but then again with magic he wouldn't have to agree.

I would still like to come and stay with you for the summer but I think that I should go with Dean and Seamus. If I don't then they'll think that I haven't forgiven them and won't invite me in future if I don't manage to escape being brought back here next year and even if I do escape at the end of the summer a month at Scoil Draiocht under the time compression will help me catch up better than going to a normal summer school elsewhere, both academically and growth wise. I am disappointed about not spending the summer with you. Mrs Thomas said that she couldn't buy me a plane ticket without having a chaperone on the flight. She said it didn't matter where I flew to or from it would be the same until I turn fourteen, I didn't tell her that my passport allows me to change my age a year but that still means I couldn't come until after my birthday, and hopefully I will already be at Scoil Draiocht by then. I wouldn't mind paying for someone to accompany me but I don't know how to find someone who would do that without anyone associated with Hogwarts knowing where I've gone, or the person coming forward if I'm caught by CPS and they look into how I got to America. I'm small for my age but hopefully by the end of the summer after a month in time compression, I will be able to pass for fourteen. The Polyjuice wouldn't last long enough for me to fly to America I hope you're not too upset that I haven't chosen to come to stay with you this summer. As soon as I get away from Hogwarts, I'm going to write to the school in Mexico and ask to sit the Spanish exam again. I think that I've learnt enough to pass it this time. It's a good thing I'm small for my age if I'm going to end up in a class with kids two years younger than me even if it's a nuisance trying to buy a plane ticket without telling anyone where I'm going.

Superman is a rich man who doesn't work for a living, I want to know how Batman manages to keep his job when he's always flying off somewhere to save someone. Not only that he works with reporters, some of the nosiest people on earth, surely one of them would notice that his absences coincide with Batman's heroic deeds and the physical similarities between them.

Your friend always

Harry

A/N: Thank you to all those who reviewed followed or favourited this story for your support.

Please stay safe everyone.