Chapter 28
Ghost of a writer
Chamber of Secrets
As they departed the Hospital Wing, the trio kept upgrading and adapting the Basilisk theory further and further. It just fit perfectly, how scary the implications of that were, hadn't even crossed their minds.
"It's why I could hear it. I thought I heard a voice talking, but it was just Parsletongue."
"You could hear a voice the whole time?", Draco hoped to be caught up to speed, attempts that bore no fruit.
"What about Mrs. Norris? I doubt she had a camera or mirror on hand.", Ron questioned, acting as the helpful voice of dissent.
"Paw.", the Slytherin in the back pointlessly corrected.
"There was a puddle of water there that night. In fact...", Harry pondered in silence, "...there were puddles of water next to every victim."
"Might be a clue on how it's been able to move around the castle freely then.", became Draco's final comment, one that got his companions to thankfully halt, all corridors now lit in ominous, orange torch fire.
"What are you saying, Malfoy?", Ron pushed the lad.
"Well, Granger wrote it right down for you.", he proceeded to point at a small note jotted at the bottom of the page spelling Pipes, "It's been using the plumbing. It's how Potter heard it, why no one saw it, and why there was water present each time."
"Remember what Aragog said?", Harry piled on top, the pieces now fitting together nicely and at a shocking pace, "That girl that died fifty years ago in a bathroom. Maybe she never left."
"Moaning Myrtle...", the Weasley mumbled, getting a Bingo.
"Who's Moaning Myrtle?", Malfoy just had to ask, ruining the mood.
A screech flew through the hallway as the trio covered their ears first, then listened closely as they heard Professor McGonagall's voice from the intercom.
"All students are to return to their house dormitories at once. All teachers to the second-floor corridor immediately."
Certainly, this could not have been a good thing, in addition to the fact that...
"Do you got the cloak on you, Potter?"
"Yes."
...well, seeing as they were now invisible and close by, Harry, Ron, and Draco saw no other option but to eavesdrop.
"As you can see, the Heir of Slytherin has left another message...", Minerva showcased with a slight tremble in her voice, the entire staff, even Snape, reacting with very apparent unease.
"Our worst fears have been realized – a student has been taken by the monster – into the Chamber itself!", the otherwise stern elder explained, now openly shaking as she spoke.
"The students must be sent back home. I'm afraid this is the end of Hogwarts..."
"So sorry, dozed off.", a golden spectacle gleefully interrupted with a happy stroll, "What have I missed?"
At this point McGonagall's serious demeanour returned as no member of the school staff bothered hiding their disdain for Gilderoy Lockhart anymore. This included the three children under an invisibility cloak, who frowned and made gagging noises as they spotted him.
"A girl has been snatched by the monster, Lockhart.", Snape informed him with open spite, "Your moment to shine has come at last."
"M... my moment?", the buffoon struggled to answer.
"Yes. Didn't you say last night that you knew where the entrance to the Chamber was all along?"
This comment, followed by a set of raised eyebrows, and Harry somewhat understood why Marley enjoyed Snape so much. He was, on occasion, nasty to the right people.
Too bewildered to answer, McGonagall decided to pile on top, not acting that much more sarcastic compared to the Potions Master, but that sarcasm definitely was more pronounced due to her usual manner of speaking.
"That's settled. We'll leave you to deal with the monster. After all, your skills, Gilderoy, are legend."
Realizing what he had gotten himself into, Lockhart nodded violently before finally giving a response with a fake grin.
"Very well. I'll just uh... I'll just be in my office. To... get ready."
The man bowed unnecessarily before walking off at a brisk pace. Once this kerfuffle was over expressions shifted back to appropriate upset again.
"Who is it that monster has taken, Minerva?", Madame Pomfrey inquired respectfully as the lady wearing green robes sighed.
"Ginny Weasley."
Both Harry and Draco looked over to their friend in between, the older brother shivering with distraught.
"Ginny...", he whispered with dread carried in both his voice and his heart. It didn't help with the situation at all that there was yet another blood message scribbled onto the wall, which is why all Hogwarts teachers were meeting here in the first place.
Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever.
"Lockhart is useless.", Harry began as they sped through the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, which possessed an eerie, purple shimmer this late in the evening.
"But, if he is going to be the one to try and get into the Chamber, then we should tell him what we know."
Malfoy found this thought process to be somewhat bizarre, as he had long been suspecting "Professor" Lockhart to be a complete hack. However, he did enjoy this little arranged with the Gryffindors, as it was so far the most enjoyable social event he had participated in all year, and so he kept quiet for now.
"Professor!", Harry shouted as he slammed open the office door by the end of the staircase, "We have some important information-"
As the famous Gilderoy spotted the three children entering, he quickly slammed a trunk filled with unfolded robes, having hastily been thrown in there moments earlier.
"Are you going somewhere?", Ron scolded the man with sass, clear anger and fear regarding his sister rising to the surface.
"Um... yes!", Lockhart rambled, clearly nervous, "Urgent call. Unavoidable. Got to go."
"What about my sister?!"
"Um, well, as to that, quite unfortunate. No one regrets the whole thing more than I do, my boy."
"You're the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher.", Draco chipped in, hand already on his wand.
"Well, I must say, when I took the job there was nothing in the job description regarding monsters-"
"You're running away!", Harry correctly put together, "After all that stuff you did in your books?"
"Books can be misleading.", Gilderoy mumbled as he kept shuffling around more of those obnoxiously designed clothing items Harry was forced to sort by colour at the beginning of the school year.
"You wrote them!", the Boy who lived pushed back. At this final counter was uttered, the otherwise well-composed blonde icon slammed a travel bag onto his desk.
"Mr. Potter, do you make use of your common sense? If I hadn't claimed that I did all of those things, my books wouldn't have sold as well as they did, would they?"
With the secret finally ripped open it settled in the air for a few seconds, Malfoy scoffing with zero shock, Ron's frown only growing larger, and Harry bravely glaring at the adult in front of him.
"You're a fraud.", he spoke coldly, "In all of your books... you always meet other wizards and witches that end up getting injured... they were the ones who actually did all of that, weren't they? You've just been taking credit."
This actually somewhat upset Harry, who had been quite enjoying Lockhart's novels over the past few months.
"Is there anything you can do?", Ron kept piling on with the insults.
"Yes. Now that you mention it, I'm rather gifted with memory charms.", Lockhart began as he walked on over behind is desk, the boys exchanging quiet looks and nods, "You see, otherwise, all those wizards would've gone on babbling, and I'd never have sold another book. In fact, uh...", he mumbled on while opening his suitcase, feeling quite superior against these mere children, "...I'm... going to have to-"
"Expelliarmus!", Malfoy shot at the charlatan, the man's magic tool ripped from his hand as it dropped onto the floor and rolled under a giant wardrobe. Harry and Ron had since also drawn their own wands, Lockhart finding himself hopelessly outgunned, and outmatched.
"Don't even think about doing anything stupid.", the Boy who lived threatened him, quite effectively, causing Gilderoy to nervously chuckle at the situation at hand.
"Look there boys, I don't know what you want from me. I don't know where the Chamber is and I certainly don't know how to save that girl, same way I couldn't protect those kids that got petrified."
Getting no reaction, only more hardy stares and one raised eyebrow, courtesy of Draco, he tried to talk himself out of it.
"I know Miss Granger and Miss Fern were your friends, but I-"
"HER NAME IS VERPE. MARLEY VERPE!", Harry suddenly shouted as he corrected the man, both his companions quite startled as well from the sudden outburst.
With that, their hostage no longer protested his situation. Malfoy did make sure to pick up the man's wand on their way out, though seeing as Lockhart possessed no knowledge of any spell that could get it back, he simply went along with their excursion, which, bizarrely to him, led to an abandoned lavatory very close to his classroom.
"Oh? Who's there?", the floating spectre of a poor girl chirped as it spotted the four-headed entourage, all present glowing beautifully in the moonlight entering from the large window at the top.
"Oh, hello Harry...", Myrtle continued as she spotted the aforementioned boy, sounding slightly flirty, which the living student did not very much like, "What do you want?"
"I want to ask you how you died."
"Oh...", the ghost girl started, sounding oddly pleased by the question, though her jolly quickly faded, replaced by what sounded like disinterest, "It was dreadful. It happened right here in this very cubicle.", her translucent hand proceeded to point at which one, oddly enough, Harry having used it to change uniforms during their Polyjuice heist, "I was hiding in here because Olive Hornby kept teasing me about my glasses. I was crying and then... I heard somebody come in."
"Who was it, Myrtle?"
"I don't know.", the dead girl began chocking up a bit, "I was dis-TRAUGHT!", she yelled, floating to meet Harry at eye level as her voice calmed down again, "But they said something funny. It sounded like a made-up language, and I realized that it was a boy, so I unlocked the door and told him to go away. That's when I died."
"Just like that? How?"
"I just remember seeing a great big pair of yellow eyes. Right over there by that sink.", she then pointed at the one the boys were looking at straight on, whereas the other five were all on different sides, like a hexagon. Once her story was told Myrtle made another strange howl, floating into her cubicle and not bothering the living any more for now.
Harry slowly walked up to the correct tap – it had been the one Marley pointed out as being defect while utilizing the bathroom for their Polyjuice hideout. Examining it further, running his fingers across it, the boy's eyes finally widened as he spotted a tiny snake carved into the side, turning back towards his companions and the hostage.
"This is it... I think this is the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets."
Big words at which Ron gave a stern nod, Malfoy and Lockhart both reacting subtly surprised at the revelation.
"Is there a switch?", Draco asked, wand still aimed at the fraud to his left.
"No. Harry has to speak Parsletongue, I bet.", Ron suggested, once again proving that his intellect should never be underestimated. The Boy who understood proceeded to walk a few steps closer, after which he hissed two strange-sounding words that roughly translated to "Open up".
"Hesha... hassah..."
The process of this simple, yet elegant, lavatory structure deconstructing itself was as spectacular as it was quick, parts of it hovering to join the ceiling as the five functioning sinks moved outwards, making enough space to reveal a comically large hole in the centre. Lastly, the aforementioned sink with the wee snake on it sunk into the ground, covered conveniently with a metal grade to walk on.
"Good work there, Harry, uh... excellent.", Lockhart began once again in that very submissive voice, "Well, I... suppose there's no need for me to stay, so..."
Attempting to just... run away, Lockhart was thankfully repelled by three 12-year-olds shoving him forward, the man holding onto the other sinks as he dangled above the giant pit leading, as it looked like, into the abyss.
"Oh, yes there is!", Mr. Potter rebuked his claim.
"Now boys, what good will it do?", Lockhart pleaded, sounding genuinely scared.
"Better you than us!", Ron... well, "explained." Still frightened, their DADA teacher looked back one last time, gulping before he tried talking his way out of it again.
"Obviously. Sure you don't want to test it first?"
Just as the question was finished a healthy kick from Ronald pushed the man over the edge, the others hearing him screaming quite comically, the voice decreasing in volume the further he went down.
"That was brutal.", Draco mocked with a snide, smirking at the Weasley.
"Just has to be done sometimes.", Ron quietly surmised, happy to have gotten a compliment for once. Their interaction came to a standstill after a dull thud echoed through the round path leading down.
"It's really quite filthy here.", they heard the distant voice of Gilderoy Lockhart, telling them that, traversing this way, is most likely safe, if a little scary.
"All right.", Harry exhaled in unnerve, gaining nods from his companions, "Let's go."
"Oh, Harry...", Myrtle made herself known one last time before the boys descended, "If you die down there, you're welcome to share my toilet."
The undead girl proceeded to grin as a cold shiver ran down Harry's spine.
"Th... thanks, Myrtle."
He had perhaps not missed Marley as much as in that moment.
"Remember, any sign of movement – close your eyes straight away."
That was the advice/command Harry had given them, the rest of the party tagging along as they tried not to be too grossed out by all the dirt and rot and thousands of bones scattered all across the floor. Suppose there must've been some way a creature could survive inside Hogwarts for hundreds of years, all the animal remains living proof of that. Although, deceased proof probably seems more appropriate.
"What's this?"
It didn't take the boys and their prisoner long to reach a rocky cave with a relatively low ceiling, low compared to the rest of Hogwarts castle at least. In between all the boulders and rubble, they came across a massive, rubbery string of what looked like a peel, possessing as scaly quality as they all pondered in their heads what was strikingly obvious already.
"It looks like a snake.", Lockhart wondered out loud, coming off as the youngest of the group.
"It's shed skin.", Harry made himself the wise guy.
"If I had to guess, then it's from a very particular snake...", Draco mumbled, some of that fright he expressed in the Forbidden Forest now having returned.
"Bloody hell.", Ron exclaimed, "If this is its old skin, then the thing must be at least 60 feet long. If not more."
"Eugh!", the blonde hostage very suddenly exclaimed like an old, conservative women spotting a teenager with tattoos, subsequently fainting and falling to the ground, supposedly at the sight of such a... skin.
"Heart of a lion, this one.", the Weasley boy mocked the man, Draco with his raised wand still aiming at the guy as he shared a shy smile with the other two.
"I can call him pathetic, right?", he pointed to the body and the Gryffindors smiled back.
Unfortunately, while they were all distracted, Lockhart shoved the Slytherin quite roughly as he ripped his wand away, neither Harry nor Ron openly carrying theirs, which might've been a huge mistake.
"The adventure ends here, boys.", the man declared with cruelty and shrewdness, a dirty face and robe making him look somewhat mad, "Do not fret, tough – the world will know our story. How I was too late to save the girl. How the three of you tragically lost your minds at the sight of her mangled corpse..."
Lockhart had been moving his wand all around the place, apparently deciding on whom he should attack the soonest, eventually settling on Harry, who was standing the furthest away.
"You first, Mr. Potter. Say goodbye to your..."
His sinister speech faded as a sudden chirping noise made him flinch, though the man cackled shortly after, spotting that it was merely Leaghon who had begun swarming the author, causing no real harm.
"A mere pixie is no challenge for me, now that I know the right charm – Immobilus!"
And indeed, it was the correct charm for once being fired at the shining creature. Unfortunately for Lockhart, Leaghon simply ducked under it as it smashed into the ceiling instead.
"Anyway, where were we?", Lockhart jokingly asked, before a small rumble became stronger and stronger, dozens of pebbles falling from the ceiling turning into countless huge rocks that came crashing down, with everyone being forced to duck or risk being buried by earth.
It was done after a few seconds and while the dust still settled, distant shouting could be heard behind the artificial wall now created.
"I was never here!"
"Come back, you coward!"
Some flashes and whip sounds indicated combat as well, though it grew more quiet as Harry dusted himself off and got back up, now unfortunately the only member of the party able to continue down their path towards the Chamber proper.
"Harry? Harry!", a voice very apparently belonging to his friend Ron Weasley called out with worry.
"Ron! Ron are you okay?", the Boy who lived (AGAIN) answered, both of them coughing up some dust before they could proceed.
"I'm fine!", his friend responded, the pesky pixie returning to its locked as he cracked a smile, "Lockart dropped his wand and ran away. Malfoy's chasing him down."
"Second time Leaghon's saved one of us.", Harry figured with a smirk of his own, though celebrations very quickly subsided as their current situation dawned on them.
"What do we do know?", the Weasley asked.
"You go and help Malfoy with Lockhart. Then come back and try moving some of the rocks. I'll go and find Ginny."
Ron didn't protest much as Harry heard footsteps hurrying further and further away. The boy took a long breath before taking out his wand, readying himself for what was to come next.