Entering the Chamber (though not alone)
May 29th 1993
Madam Pomfrey let them in, but reluctantly. They hadn’t meant to come here, but after being cornered by Professor McGonagall while they were trying to sneak to Myrtle’s bathroom and Harry lying to get out of their History lesson, they had no choice but to do as told. After what they’d realised, this was an unwanted but forced delay to their plans.
“There’s just no point talking to a Petrified person,” The Mediwitch said, and they had to admit she had a point when they’d taken their seats next to Hermione. It was plain that Hermione didn’t have the faintest idea that she had visitors, and that they might just as well tell her bedside cabinet not to worry for all the good it would do.
“Wonder if she did see the attacker, though?” Ron muttered, looking sadly at Hermione’s rigid face. “Because if he sneaked up on them all, no one’ll ever know….”
But Harry wasn’t looking at Hermione’s face. He was more interested in her right hand. It lay clenched on top of her blankets, and bending closer, he saw that a piece of paper was scrunched inside her fist.
Making sure that Madam Pomfrey was nowhere near, he pointed this out to Ron.
“Try and get it out,” Ron whispered, shifting his chair so that he blocked Harry from Madam Pomfrey’s view. Unfortunately, the two didn’t notice another figure walking into the Hospital Wing and watching what they were doing.
It was no easy task; Hermione’s hand was clamped so tightly around the paper that Harry was sure he was going to tear it. While Ron kept watch – even though he wasn’t focused on anyone except Madame Pomfrey – he tugged and twisted, and at last, after several tense minutes, the paper came free.
It was a page torn from a very old library book. Harry smoothed it out eagerly and Ron leaned close to read it, too.
‘Of the many fearsome beasts and monsters that roam our land, there is none more curious or more deadly than the Basilisk, known also as the King of Serpents. This snake, which may reach gigantic size and live many hundreds of years, is born from a chicken’s egg, hatched beneath a toad. Its methods of killing are most wondrous, for aside from its deadly and venomous fangs, the Basilisk has a murderous stare, and all who are fixed with the beam of its eye shall suffer instant death. Spiders flee before the Basilisk, for it is their mortal enemy, and the Basilisk flees only from the crowing of the rooster, which is fatal to it.’
And beneath this, a single word had been written, in a handwriting Harry immediately recognized as Hermione’s. Pipes.
It was as though somebody had just flicked a light on in his brain.
“Ron,” he breathed. “This is it. This is the answer. The monster in the Chamber’s a basilisk — a giant serpent! That’s why I’ve been hearing that voice all over the place, and nobody else has heard it. It’s because I understand Parseltongue….”
Harry looked up at the beds around him.
“The basilisk kills people by looking at them. But no one’s died — because no one looked it straight in the eye. Colin saw it through his camera. The basilisk burned up all the film inside it, but Colin just got Petrified. Justin… Justin must’ve seen the basilisk through Nearly Headless Nick! Nick got the full blast of it, but he couldn’t die again… and Hermione, Wilhelmina and that Ravenclaw prefect were found with a mirror next to them. Hermione had just realized the monster was a basilisk. I bet you anything she warned the people she’d met to look around corners with a mirror first! And one of them pulled out her mirror — and —”
Ron’s jaw had dropped.
“And Mrs. Norris?” he whispered eagerly.
Harry thought hard, picturing the scene on the night of Halloween.
“The water….” He said slowly. “The flood from Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. I bet you Mrs. Norris only saw the reflection….”
He scanned the page in his hand eagerly. The more he looked at it, the more it made sense.
“…The crowing of the rooster…is fatal to it!” He read aloud. “Hagrid’s roosters were killed! The Heir of Slytherin didn’t want one anywhere near the castle once the Chamber was opened! Spiders flee before it! It all fits!”
“But how’s the basilisk been getting around the place?” Ron asked, now contemplating everything. “A giant snake…. Someone would’ve seen….”
Harry, however, pointed at the word Hermione had scribbled at the foot of the page.
“Pipes,” he said. “Pipes…. Ron, it’s been using the plumbing! I’ve been hearing that voice inside the walls….”
Ron suddenly grabbed Harry’s arm.
“The entrance to the Chamber of Secrets!” he said hoarsely. “What if it’s a bathroom? What if it’s in…?”
“…. Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom,” Harry said in realisation.
They sat there, excitement coursing through them, hardly able to believe it.
“This means,” Harry continued, “I can’t be the only Parselmouth in the school. The Heir of Slytherin’s one, too. That’s how he’s been controlling the basilisk.”
“What’re we going to do?” Ron exclaimed, whose eyes were flashing. “Should we go straight to McGonagall?”
“Let’s go to the staffroom,” Harry decided, jumping up. “She’ll be there in ten minutes. It’s nearly break.”
They left, not noticing a figure standing by the curtains listening with wide eyes. The figure turned and left soon after the two boys, heading in the opposite direction.
They ran downstairs, not wanting to be discovered hanging around in another corridor, they went straight into the deserted staffroom. It was a large, panelled room full of dark, wooden chairs.
Harry and Ron paced around it, too excited to sit down.
But the bell to signal break never came. Instead, echoing through the corridors came Professor McGonagall’s voice, magically magnified.
“All students to return to their House dormitories at once. All teachers return to the staffroom. Immediately, please.”
Harry wheeled around to stare at Ron.
“Not another attack? Not now?”
“What’ll we do?” Ron asked, aghast. “Go back to the dormitory?”
“No,” Harry said, glancing around. There was an ugly sort of wardrobe to his left, full of the teachers’ cloaks. An idea came to him instantly. “In here. Let’s hear what it’s all about. Then we can tell them what we’ve found out.”
They hid themselves inside it, listening to the rumbling of hundreds of people moving overhead, and the staffroom door banging open. From between the musty folds of the cloaks, they watched the teachers filtering into the room. Some of them were looking puzzled, others downright scared. Then Professor McGonagall arrived.
“It has happened,” She told the silent staffroom. “A student has been taken by the monster. Right into the Chamber itself.”
Professor Flitwick let out a squeal. Professor Sprout clapped her hands over her mouth. Snape gripped the back of a chair very hard and said, “How can you be sure?”
“The Heir of Slytherin,” Professor McGonagall, who was very white, replied tiredly, “left another message. Right underneath the first one. ‘Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever.’ ”
Professor Flitwick burst into tears.
“Who is it?” Madam Hooch asked as she sunk, weak-kneed, into a chair. “Which student?”
“Ginny Weasley.” Professor McGonagall whispered grimly.
Harry felt Ron slide silently down onto the wardrobe floor beside him, almost copying Madame Hooch’s actions.
“We shall have to send all the students home tomorrow,” Professor McGonagall explained. “This is the end of Hogwarts. Dumbledore always said….”
The staffroom door banged open again. For one wild moment, Harry was sure it would be Dumbledore. But it was Lockhart, and he was beaming.
“So sorry — dozed off — what have I missed?”
He didn’t seem to notice that the other teachers were looking at him with something remarkably like hatred. Snape stepped forward, staring at the other man with a burning challenge in his dark eyes.
“Just the man,” he started with a dark smirk. It was the first time Harry found himself agreeing with Snape’s actions, and it was a strange feeling. “The very man. A girl has been snatched by the monster, Lockhart. Taken into the Chamber of Secrets itself. Your moment has come at last.”
Lockhart blanched.
“That’s right, Gilderoy,” Professor Sprout chimed in, and the other professors were nodding in agreement. “Weren’t you saying just last night that you’ve known all along where the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets is?”
“I — well, I —” Lockhart sputtered with wide eyes.
“Yes, didn’t you tell me you were sure you knew what was inside it?” Professor Flitwick continued, feeling encouraged by everyone else’s words. Harry was sure they were taunting the man, but their tone was genuine.
“D-did I? I don’t recall —”
“I certainly remember you saying you were sorry you hadn’t had a crack at the monster before Hagrid was arrested.” Snape continued, faking an innocent expression that no one believed, but they let him continue anyway knowing that it was deserved. “Didn’t you say that the whole affair had been bungled, and that you should have been given a free rein from the first petrification?”
Lockhart stared around at his stony-faced colleagues.
“I — I really never — you may have misunderstood —”
“We’ll leave it to you, then, Gilderoy,” Professor McGonagall said in finality, giving the man a soft – very fake – smile. “Tonight will be an excellent time to do it. We’ll make sure everyone’s out of your way. You’ll be able to tackle the monster all by yourself. A free rein at last.”
Lockhart gazed desperately around him, but nobody came to the rescue. He didn’t look remotely handsome anymore. His bottom lip was trembling, and in the absence of his usually toothy grin, he looked weak-chinned and weak. It was funny in a very dark sort of way, especially after the man had essentially been strutting all around the castle and haughtily interacting with everyone throughout the year.
“V-very well….” He stuttered weakly. “I’ll — I’ll be in my office, getting — getting ready.”
With those feeble words, he left the room.
“Right,” Professor McGonagall said as her nostrils flared in determination. “That’s got him out from under our feet and away from this mess. The Heads of Houses should go and inform their students what has happened. Tell them the Hogwarts Express will take them home first thing tomorrow. Will the rest of you please make sure no students have been left outside their dormitories?”
The teachers rose as one and left, one by one, all of them with grim faces and sorrow-filled eyes.
This was probably the worst day of Harry’s entire life.
He, Ron, Fred, and George sat together in a corner of the Gryffindor common room, unable to say anything to each other. Percy wasn’t there. He had gone to send an owl to Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, then shut himself up in his dormitory.
No afternoon ever lasted as long as that one, nor had Gryffindor Tower ever been so crowded, yet so quiet. Near sunset, Fred and George went up to bed, unable to sit there any longer. Ron and Harry started talking, not noticing another person sitting near listening to their conversation.
“She knew something, Harry,” Ron whispered, speaking for the first time since they had entered the wardrobe in the staffroom and heard the horrifying news. “That’s why she was taken. It wasn’t some stupid thing about Percy at all. She’d found out something about the Chamber of Secrets. That must be why she was —” Ron rubbed his eyes frantically. “I mean, she was – is a pureblood. There can’t be any other reason.”
Harry could see the sun sinking, blood-red, below the skyline. This was the worst he had ever felt. If only there was something they could do. Anything.
“Harry,” Ron continued in a whisper. “Do you think there’s any chance at all she’s not — you know —”
Harry didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t see how Ginny could still be alive. It was a grim truth, one he couldn’t voice to his friend.
“Do you know what? I think we should go and see Lockhart. Tell him what we know. He’s going to try and get into the Chamber. We can tell him where we think it is, and tell him it’s a basilisk in there.” Ron suggested, voice tinged with desperation.
Because Harry couldn’t think of anything else to do, even though he knew it was a hopeless venture, and because he wanted to be doing something, he agreed, even though he was convinced Lockheart was completely useless. The Gryffindors around them were so miserable, and felt so sorry for the Weasleys, that nobody tried to stop them as they got up, crossed the room, and left through the portrait hole.
Darkness was falling as they walked down to Lockhart’s office. There seemed to be a lot of activity going on inside it. They could hear scraping, thumps, and hurried footsteps. Harry knocked and there was a sudden silence from inside. Then the door opened the tiniest crack and they saw one of Lockhart’s eyes peering through it.
“Oh…. Mister Potter…. Mister Weasley.” He said, opening the door a bit wider. “I’m rather busy at the moment — if you would be quick —”
“Professor, we’ve got some information for you,” Harry started. “We think it’ll help you.”
“Err…. Well… it’s not terribly….” The side of Lockhart’s face that they could see looked very uncomfortable. “I mean… well… all right….”
He opened the door and they entered.
His office had been almost completely stripped. Two large trunks stood open on the floor. Robes in jade-green, lilac, midnight blue and more had been hastily folded into one of them; books were jumbled untidily into the other. The photographs that had covered the walls were now crammed into boxes on the desk.
“Are you going somewhere?” Harry asked suspiciously.
“Err, well, yes….” Lockhart stuttered, ripping a life-size poster of himself from the back of the door as he spoke and starting to roll it up. “Urgent call… unavoidable… got to go….”
“What about my sister?” Ron asked furiously.
“Well, as to that… most unfortunate….” Lockhart said, avoiding their eyes as he wrenched open a drawer and started emptying the contents into a bag. “No one regrets more than I….”
“You’re the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher!” Harry exclaimed angrily. “You can’t go now! Not with all the Dark stuff going on here!”
“Well…. I must say…. when I took the job….” Lockhart muttered, now piling socks on top of his robes. “Nothing in the job description… didn’t expect….”
“You mean you’re running away?” Harry asked disbelievingly. “After all that stuff you did in your books….”
“Books can be misleading.” Lockhart said delicately.
“You wrote them!” Harry shouted angrily.
“My dear boy….” Lockhart started in a condescending tone, straightening up and frowning at Harry. “Do use your common sense. My books wouldn’t have sold half as well if people didn’t think I’d done all those things. No one wants to read about some ugly old Armenian warlock, even if he did save a village from werewolves. He’d look dreadful on the front cover. No dress sense at all. And the witch who banished the Bandon Banshee had a hairy chin. I mean, come on….”
“So you’ve just been taking credit for what a load of other people have done?” Harry asked incredulously.
“Harry, Harry,” Lockhart patronized, shaking his head impatiently, “it’s not nearly as simple as that. There was work involved. I had to track these people down. Ask them exactly how they managed to do what they did. Then I had to put a Memory Charm on them, so they wouldn’t remember doing it. If there’s one thing I pride myself on, it’s my Memory Charms. No, it’s been a lot of work, Harry. It’s not all book signings and publicity photos, you know. You want fame, you have to be prepared for a long hard drag.”
He banged the lids of his trunks shut and locked them.
“Let’s see,” The man mumbled to himself. “I think that’s everything. Yes. Only one thing left.”
He pulled out his wand and turned to the Gryffindor duo.
“Awfully sorry, boys, but I’ll have to put a Memory Charm on you now. Can’t have you blabbing my secrets all over the place. I’d never sell another book —”
Harry reached his wand just in time. Lockhart had barely raised his, when Harry bellowed, “Expelliarmus!”
Lockhart was blasted backward, falling over his trunk; his wand flew high into the air; Ron caught it, and flung it out of the open window.
“Shouldn’t have let Professor Snape teach us that one!” Harry exclaimed furiously, kicking Lockhart’s trunk aside. Lockhart was looking up at him, feeble once more. Harry was still pointing his wand at him.
“What do you want me to do?” Lockhart asked pathetically. “I don’t know where the Chamber of Secrets is. There’s nothing I can do.”
“Well…. You’re in luck.” Harry stated with a slightly-mad grin (an expression he’d unconsciously copied from Hadrian), forcing Lockhart to his feet at wand-point. “We think we know exactly where it is. And what’s inside it. Let’s go.”
They marched Lockhart out of his office and down the nearest stairs, along the dark corridor where the messages shone on the wall, to the door of Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. They were lucky the halls were deserted due to the emergency, or else they wouldn’t have been able to do half what they were doing at that moment. They sent Lockhart in first. Harry was very pleased to see that he was shaking; the arrogant man deserved it.
Moaning Myrtle was sitting on the tank of the end toilet.
“Oh, it’s you,” She moaned out as soon as she saw Harry. “What do you want this time?”
“To ask you how you died.” Harry said simply, and was surprised by the reaction he got to that question.
Myrtle’s whole attitude changed at once. She looked as though she had never been asked such a flattering question.
“Ooooh, it was dreadful!” She said with pure delight. “It happened right in here. I died in this very stall. I remember it so well. I’d hidden because Olive Hornby was teasing me about my glasses. The door was locked, and I was crying, and then I heard somebody come in. They said something funny. A different language, I think it must have been. Anyway, what really got me was that it was a boy speaking. So I unlocked the door, to tell him to go and use his own toilet, and then —” Myrtle swelled importantly, her face shining. “I died.”
“How?” Harry asked hurriedly.
“No idea,” Myrtle whispered reverently. “I just remember seeing a pair of great, big, yellow eyes. My whole body sort of seized up, and then I was floating away….” She looked dreamily at Harry. “And then I came back again. I was determined to haunt Olive Hornby, you see. Oh, she was sorry she’d ever laughed at my glasses.”
“Where exactly did you see the eyes?” Harry asked again, trying to hide his frustration at the ghost’s relaxed manner as much as possible.
“Somewhere there.” Myrtle said, pointing vaguely toward the sink in front of her toilet.
Harry and Ron hurried over to it. Lockhart was standing well back, a look of utter terror on his face. It looked like an ordinary sink. They examined every inch of it, inside and out, including the pipes below. And then Harry saw it…. Scratched on the side of one of the copper taps was a tiny snake.
“Oh! That tap’s never worked!” Myrtle said brightly as he tried to turn it.
“Harry….” Ron said softly. “Say something. Anything in Parseltongue.”
“But —” Harry thought hard. The only times he’d ever managed to speak Parseltongue were when he’d been faced with a real snake. He stared hard at the tiny engraving, trying to imagine it was real.
“Open up,” he said simply. He looked to Ron for advice, and he shook his head.
“English,” he replied with a shrug.
Harry looked back at the snake, willing himself to believe it was alive. That it was right in front of him. If he moved his head, the candlelight made it look as though it were moving.
“$Open up$.” He whispered softly.
Except that the words weren’t what he heard; a strange hissing had escaped him, and at once the tap glowed with a brilliant white light and began to spin. In the next second, the sink began to move; the sink, in fact, sank, right out of sight, leaving a large pipe exposed, a pipe wide enough for a man to slide into. Harry heard Ron gasp and looked up again. He had made up his mind on what he was going to do that very moment.
“I’m going down there….” He said softly.
He couldn’t not go, not now they had found the entrance to the Chamber, not if there was even the faintest, slimmest, wildest chance that Ginny might be alive.
“Me too.” Ron whispered with wide eyes. There was a pause.
“Well, you hardly seem to need me!” Lockhart said with a shadow of his old smile. “I’ll just —” He put his hand on the door knob, but Ron and Harry both pointed their wands at him.
“You can go first,” Ron snarled angrily. White-faced and wandless, Lockhart approached the opening carefully.
“Boys….” He said, his voice feeble and weak. “Boys, what good will it do?”
Harry jabbed him in the back with his wand. Lockhart slid his legs into the pipe very slowly. “I really don’t think —” he started to say again, but Ron gave him a push, and he slid out of sight.
Harry followed quickly. He lowered himself slowly into the pipe, then let go. It was like rushing down an endless, slimy, dark slide. He could see more pipes branching off in all directions, but none as large as theirs, which twisted and turned, sloping steeply downward, and he knew that he was falling deeper below the school than even the dungeons. Behind him he could hear Ron, thudding slightly at the curves. And then, just as he had begun to worry about what would happen when he hit the ground, the pipe leveled out, and he shot out of the end with a wet thud, landing on the damp floor of a dark stone tunnel large enough to stand in.
Lockhart was getting to his feet a little ways away, covered in slime and white as a ghost. Harry stood aside as Ron came whizzing out of the pipe, too.
“We must be miles under the school,” Harry said in awe as his voice echoing in the black tunnel.
“Under the lake, probably.” Ron guessed, squinting around at the dark, slimy walls. All three of them turned to stare into the darkness ahead.
“Lumos!” Harry muttered to his wand and it lit again. “C’mon,” he said to Ron and Lockhart, and off they went, their footsteps slapping loudly on the wet floor.
The tunnel was so dark that they could only see a little distance ahead. Their shadows on the wet walls looked monstrous in the wand-light.
“Remember,” Harry whispered cautiously as they walked cautiously forward, “any sign of movement, close your eyes right away…..”
But the tunnel was quiet as a grave, and the first unexpected sound they heard was a loud crunch as Ron stepped on what turned out to be a rat’s skull. Harry lowered his wand to look at the floor and saw that it was littered with small animal bones. Trying very hard not to imagine what Ginny might look like if they found her, Harry led the way forward, around a dark bend in the tunnel.
“Harry — there’s something up there —”Ron said hoarsely, grabbing Harry’s shoulder. They froze, watching. Harry could just see the outline of something huge and curved, lying right across the tunnel. It wasn’t moving.
“Maybe it’s asleep….” he breathed, glancing back at the other two. Lockhart’s hands were pressed over his eyes. Harry turned back to look at the thing, his heart beating so fast it hurt.
“Don’t worry,” A familiar voice said behind them, “it’s just the skin.”
The three turned to see three figures walking towards them slowly. Their wands blinded Harry for a moment before his eyes adjusted and he gasped when he saw who it was.
“Hadrian?” The boy smirked slightly at Harry’s confusion, which just confirmed his guess.
Hadrian Black, Valerian Malfoy and Justinian Griffin were standing in front of them, looking grim but determined.
“What are you three doing here?” Ron asked, shocked by the new additions to their group.
“Overheard your plans, thought we’d come to help.” Hadrian explained, and Harry and Ron shared an embarrassed look. Had they really been that loud?
“I was at the Hospital Wing visiting Willa when you two came in and found Hermione’s note.” Valerian said softly, looking sheepish.
“And I heard your conversation in the common room.” Justin said with a shrug.
“So putting two and two together,” Hadrian finished for the three, “we came here to help.”
During their conversation, no one noticed when Lockhart slipped Ron’s wand out of his hand, but they did notice when he pointed it at them.
“Professor….” Hadrian said in a dark tone, his eyes darkening.
“I’m afraid the adventure ends here, boys!” he said gleefully. “I shall take a bit of this skin back up to the school, tell them I was too late to save the girl, and that you two tragically lost your minds at the sight of her mangled body — say good-bye to your memories!”
He raised Ron’s Spello-taped wand high over his head and yelled, “Obliviate!”
The wand exploded with the force of a small bomb. Harry flung his arms over his head and felt someone push him forward; the two slipping over the coils of snake skin, out of the way of great chunks of tunnel ceiling that were thundering to the floor. The next moment, he was standing with Hadrian, gazing at a solid wall of broken rock.
“Ron!” He shouted in a panic. “Are you okay? Ron?!”
“I’m here!” Ron’s muffled voice could be heard from behind the rock fall. “Valerian and Justin are with me. We’re okay — this git’s not, though — he got blasted by the wand —”
“Valerian!” Hadrian called out. “Do it. Get this wall down!”
“With pleasure cousin.” Valerian said in a dark tone. Harry was confused by the conversation, but he didn’t have the chance to ponder it before the whole tunnel started shaking vigorously and the rocks started moving one by one.
Slowly, the three boys’ faces appeared as each stone moved and fell a few feet behind them until the cluster of rocks fell softly, allowing them to pass through.
Gaping in shock, Harry and Ron watched as Valerian cleared a way for them through; on his own, without a wand, and with simple hand motions – his irises were an eerie silvery colour that almost blended with the white of his eyes.
Slowly, his eyes cleared up and their glowing stopped as they returned to their natural pewter grey colour.
“W-what? H-how did you…?” Harry stuttered out as he pointed to the now cleared way, shocked by what had just happened.
“The Black Family Magicks.” Ron whispered in awe. “I thought it was just a myth my grandmother told us to scare us of her anger.”
“Oh no….” Valerian said with a dark smirk. “It’s very real.”
“So…. My dad has an ability too?”
“How do you think he’s so good at inventing?” Valerian replied simply, and Ron’s widened in realisation.
“We’re getting distracted here, lads. What are we going to do with the useless sack of oranges here so we can move on?” Justin asked, gesturing to Lockhart who was staring off into space.
“Stupefy.” Hadrian whispered as he pointed his wand at the professor, who crumpled to the ground as soon as the red spell touched him. “Leave him. He’s useless anyway, with or without his memories.”
“Let’s go then.” Ron said with a determined look in his eyes, his jaw tightening slightly.
And with that, the group of five boys set off past the giant snake skin.
As they walked, the tunnel turned and turned again. Every nerve in Harry’s body was tingling unpleasantly. He wanted the tunnel to end, yet dreaded what he’d find when it did.
And then, at last, as they crept around yet another bend, he saw a solid wall ahead on which two entwined serpents were carved, their eyes set with great, glinting emeralds.
Harry approached, his throat very dry. There was no need to pretend these stone snakes were real; their eyes looked strangely alive. He could guess what he had to do before anyone could tell him. He cleared his throat, and the emerald eyes seemed to flicker.
“$Open$” Harry said in a low, faint hiss. The serpents parted as the wall cracked open, the halves slid smoothly out of sight, and Harry, shaking from head to foot, walked inside with his friends right behind him.