Loose Lips Sink Ships

Harry close his eyes and prayed for the best when he saw that Colin Creevey running to him looking like he'd seen a ghost, well, technically, an extra one because apparently, a new student had just checked into the Moaning Myrtle Afterlife Club.

"Harry! You have to come quick!" Colin gasped. "There's a-a dead student! With Moaning Myrtle!"

Harry blinked. "Well, that's... unfortunate." He was already bracing himself, because he could see exactly where this was going. "You should tell someone" the 'else' went unspoken.

"But you're you!" Colin insisted. "If anyone can figure out what happened, it's you!"

Oh, Harry could think of at least ten better options off the top of his head. A teacher. A prefect. Dumbledore. Hagrid. The Sorting Hat. A mildly responsible first-year. Any ghost who might actually have some insight on the whole 'being dead' thing. Snape on a good day. Even Filch, honestly, he'd probably love the chance to yell at a ghost about making a mess. Anybody who wasn't a 13-year-old with chronic bad luck.

"Colin, I really think this is more of a 'tell a professor' situation," Harry said as politely as possible. "Or, I don't know, a ghost situation. Have you considered just letting the ghosts handle it?"

Colin shook his head so fast it was a miracle it didn't fall off. "No, Harry, you have to see it! What if it's dark magic? Or a secret Chamber of Secrets thing? Or-"

Harry was sure that the Basilisk wouldn't attack any other students but looking back it might have been a bit careless to leave the Basilisk alive in the chambers but he quickly shook the thought away. No, it couldn't be the Basilisk, the creature had stayed dormant for fifty years before Tom Riddle opened the Chamber again last year. It wasn't as if the Basilisk had roamed the castle freely, attacking students at random. It had only attacked on Riddle's command.

That was the part that reassured him. Without a Parselmouth to control it, the Basilisk had been nothing more than a sleeping monster in the pipes. It couldn't have been killing before, and it certainly wasn't killing now. 

Unless there was another diary that started possessing people. 

Harry sighed, Of course. Because why would anyone ever handle things themselves when they could just dump it on him? He could already see how this would go, Colin wouldn't stop until he agreed, and honestly, if there was a dead student, someone probably should check it out.

"Fine," Harry said, rubbing his temples. "Let's go see what's happened now."

Colin beamed like Harry had just agreed to pose for an exclusive photoshoot. And with that, he resigned himself to yet another incident that was absolutely not his problem but, somehow, totally his problem. 

Harry took only a few steps before realising that Colin was following him. Harry hesitated, glancing at Colin's eager face. "Er...actually, Colin, maybe you should stay here."

Colin blinked, his grin faltering. "What? No! Why?"

Harry gave him a reassuring nod. "Look, if this is something bad, it might be better if I go alone. You could, um, keep watch from here. You know, in case something happens."

Colin frowned, clearly disappointed. "But I want something to happen! I mean, not in a bad way, just-" He straightened his shoulders. "I could be useful! I don't mind a little danger, Harry."

Harry forced a small smile. "I know. But trust me, it's probably nothing. I'll check it out, and if it is something exciting, I'll tell you all about it."

Colin still looked reluctant, but after a moment, he nodded. "Alright. But if you need backup, just yell!"

"Will do." Harry exhaled quietly. He wasn't about to bring Colin along if there was even the slightest chance this had to do with the Chamber.

Behind him, Colin called, "And take notes! If there's a monster, I definitely need details!"

Harry rolled his eyes but didn't look back.

***

As he approached the second floor, where the bathrooms were, his ears picked up on some kind of unholy wailing. It echoed and bounced off the walls and the closer he got to the bathroom, the louder it became. 

This was it. There was some kind of ghost or demon in there. A new ghost was definitely in there who would haunt the school for thousands of years to come as Hogwarts wasn't getting destroyed anytime soon. The school was ancient and was definitely built on ancient ground. Although wasn't all ground ancient technically?

He cautiously peered into the toilets and was almost disappointed for a second that it turned out to be a regular, real-life....

Teenage girl having a shit fit. (Potentially misleading on account of how it's a bathroom.)

It was tantrum. All the crying and wailing was less interesting before he realized who it was. 

Hermione Granger.

Harry watched for a moment, curious like those muggle documentaries Vernon used to watch, getting to see rare footage of a creature undisturbed in its natural habitat. 

Here we see the Perfectionist maximus engaged in the ritual dance of her species. See how she flails her limbs? Soon she will progress to pulling chunks of hair from the head.

She must have noticed him mid-thrashing because she suddenly froze and then slowly turned her head and looked him dead in the eyes. Her brown eyes were red rimmed and puffy. Harry thought about how must look to her now, in her moment of weakness, and he was very generous, picturing his hair for once tamed waves and my green eyes as sparkling and amused.

She let out a strangled groan. "You."

"Yep." He grinned broadly, and rocked back and forth on his heels.

Calling Hermione his enemy was kind of harsh really. He doesn't hate her, not all. Saying that they were enemies sounds like Harry had epic showdowns with her and that they're involved in elaborate plots to take each other down, when really it's a lot more basic than that, she may be an annoying relentless know it all but she was the one who hated him not the other way round, who could blame him for disliking someone who hated him. 

"This must be pretty embarrassing for you," Harry said now. "I thought you stopped having these tantrums years ago but obviously you just stopped having them in public."

"This is a the school's girl's bathroom, not only should you not be here but technically this is a public place," she said, heaving herself into a cross-legged position on the floor.

"You'd rather correct me on a technicality than deny you still have massive hissy fits at thirteen."

"I can hardly deny that now."

"True. But you're taking the fun out of this for me. I want to bask in your humiliation."

Instead of sniping back, she just sat there as a tear snuck out of her eye and rolled down her face. Harry couldn't help but feel kind of sorry for her. He was watching her sad little tear make its way down her face when—

"Did you—?" He pointed, aghast.

"What?" She looked confused."

"You . . . you licked your own tear. It reached your mouth and your tongue popped out and licked it."

Hermione shrugged. "It's salty."

He shook his head. "Uh, that doesn't make the kind of sense you think it does. It's salty does not explain ingesting liquid that came out your eyeballs. There's loads of things that are salty but you don't go round licking them all."

"Like what?"

He scrambled to think of something.

"Um . . . Road salt!," He finally said triumphantly. 

"Sand."

"A sweaty armpit," she said.

"A dick."

"Oh my God, Harry. Gross." She groaned and wrinkled her nose, her laughter was a light melody and for a moment he forget was meant to be reveling in her pain."

"Are you going to tell me what you're crying about anyway? Did you fail to get full marks in something?" He joked.

Hermione pursed her lips. "I'm going to fail."

"You're not going to fail anything, Hermione." Harry said exasperated. "You're the top of all your classes."

"You don't understand," she said and not in a mean way, like he wouldn't understand because he's an idiot but in a way like she really wished that he could.

"I don't understand a lot of things," He said, "but sure, why don't you tell me what it's like to be a smarty-pants anyway?"

Hermione must have been disoriented by her tantrum because she actually started telling him. Harry. The boy who she seems content disliking. How the mighty had fallen.

"I already said I'd do all these things and I can't fail. I can't." She looked genuinely distressed, and Harry, in fact, didn't understand.

"Look," Harry said matter-of-factly. "Failure isn't the end of the world, I promise you nothing actually happens. It won't kill you."

"That's what I'm worried about."

"You're worried it won't kill you?" There was no pleasing this girl. "Tell you what, if you do lose, I'll finish you off myself. How about that?"

She stood up, a scarily serious look on her face. The kind Harry assumed serial killers got right before they chopped their victim's head off and wore it as a hat. He took another few steps back, but she stalked toward him. This is what he gets for being a Good Samaritan. Dying in a girls' bathroom at the hands of a deranged overachiever.

"Do you know what will happen if I fail? What I'll learn from that?" She kept walking toward him until he'd backed into the wall, which was damp. Her menacing expression was enhanced by her frizzy hair stuck up in all directions, and bloodshot eyes. He would have laughed, but he was pretty sure if he did she'd unhinge her jaw and he'd be swallowed into the dark chasm of her stomach.

"I'll learn that failure is not the end of the world."

Harry opened his mouth to squeak out that this might not be a terrible lesson for her to learn sooner or later. It might cut down on the meltdowns. But she put her hand across his mouth.

"Then maybe I'll start to relax. I won't be so intense about my homework. I'll think, Hermione, you can calm down a little. I'll think, the worst has already happened and you survived it. You've wasted years of your life being a perfectionist."

Harry nodded yes, her hand still over his mouth. Hermione shook her head slowly, deliberately no.

"It'll start off small. I'll only spend two hours instead of three on my history of magic homework and Proffessor Binns won't really notice because it seems like I'm the only one in that class that does two rolls of parchment."

Her hand shifted slightly so it covered his nostrils, and he tried to speak to tell her she was obstructing his breathing and needed that to live, but her grip was clamped so tight that all he could do was lick her palm. She grimaced and snatched her hand away, wiping it on her skirt.

"Ew, don't lick my hand," she said, breaking the tension.

"What if there were tears on it?"

She didn't even smile. She continued her weird rant instead. "Complacency will lead me to more failure. I'll start to think it's okay to doss off. It's only third year, I'll tell myself. It doesn't count for anything. Then it becomes, It's only fourth year. The exams aren't till next year. Then when they started grading homework- It's only a E-Hell, why not give myself a break and drop a few subjects? I don't need to get 12 OWLs."

Harry didn't think anyone needed to get 12 OWLs. But Hermione was the kind of person who'd probably engrave her OWLs results on her tombstone, so he could see why she'd want them to be good. She took a few steps back from him then.

"Maybe after I've given up on a few subjects I'll think I have time to go to that party."

There was no party.

"Someone there offers me crack. And I think hey, sure, I have a five scrolls of Potions to write up but I can do it in the morning."

"I feel like you've missed a step. Who do we know who brings crack to parties?"

"I've read Go Ask Alice!" she declared, like that settled it. "Once you snort that meth, there's no going back."

Did people snort meth? Harry may have been clueless about drugs but he even he knew that meth and crack weren't the same thing.

"Years from now you'll wonder, what happened to that girl from school? She was going places once. Then one day you'll pass a person lying in the gutter, a needle sticking out of her arm and a glazed expression on her face. You'll think, that's so sad. I wonder what happened to her. She's so young. She's probably the same age as you are."

She trailed off, a faraway look in her eye.

"Is it you?" He asked.

Hermione sighed, exasperated. "Yeah, obviously it's me. It'd be a pointless ending if it's just some random and I'm off finding a magic source that can act as a renewable energy source to stop global warming or finding the cure to cancer." 

"There are few holes in this," He said. "One: I guarantee, I'm not going to be wondering what you're doing years from now."

"Two: you clearly don't even know how to take meth and if you did, believe me, you're probably middle-class enough to end up in some country club rehab, not the gutter. And three: you'll die of an stress-induced coronary before any of this happens so I really wouldn't worry about it."

For a second she did nothing, and Harry thought she was considering his very reasonable points. 

Then she burst into tears. Far too many tears for her to lick off her own face.

"FINE," He shouted over the wailing and rending of garments. "I'LL FIX IT!"

Hermione paused in her dramatics and eyed him up and down. "How?"

"Well," He said thoughtfully, "what do you need?"

And that was how it started