The Severed Tether
29th May 1993
Chamber of Secrets, Hogwarts.
Ginny groaned as she began to stir, face against a cold stone floor she began to pick out the sound of birdsong nearby in the background unable to fully take it in.
“Mrs Weasley! Mrs Weasley! You must wake up Mrs Weasley!”
Suddenly taking in the noise she remembered coming into the chamber and sat bolt upright. “Tom?” She called out apprehensively into the darkness before her eyes adjusted to the faint green glow.
“Not quite. Hurry, we have to depart quickly, come.”
Ginny's bemused eyes finally took in the room as they travelled from the huge form of the dead Basilisk, its damaged eyes rolled back into its head and onto Harry face down beside the creature's head, his robes and the floor soaked in blood. The headmaster's phoenix stood beside him head to the floor looking at his face with concern and giving a trill. She gave an anguished squeal and dashed towards him.
“Harry – oh, Harry – I tried to tell you at b-breakfast, but I c-couldn’t say it in front of Percy.” She put all her weight into flipping him over noticing a slick tar like substance across the top half of his head.
“The situation is dire Mrs Weasley” A noise came from beside her.
Ginny noticed the black diary in Harry's left hand and finally saw the sorting hat a few strides behind him flattened under the hilt of a goblin wrought sword.
“I s-swear I d-didn’t mean to – R-Riddle made me, he t-took me over – and – how did you kill that – that thing? W-where’s Riddle? The last thing I r-remember is him coming out of the diary.” She stuttered at the hat.
“It’s all right Mrs Weasley, Riddle has been seen off with extreme prejudice. Quickly, take me and grip Mr Potter as best you can.”
“I’m going to be expelled!” Ginny wept, as she picked up the hat the sword clattering to the ground again while her hand gripped at harry's torso “I’ve looked forward to coming to Hogwarts ever since B-Bill came and n-now I’ll have to leave and – w-what’ll Mum and Dad say?”
The bird landed on her shoulder unexpectedly starling her and as she began to call out in shock she disappeared in a ball of flame.
29th May 1993
Hospital Wing, Hogwarts.
Poppy Pomfrey walked the ward of the hospital wing gazing over the half a dozen petrified students and took in her obviously frightened student assistant whipping the brow of one of the long term patients as she thought about the shock of the events of the last school year.
She had been a student the last time the chamber had been opened, she had never believed the ministry's version of events but once the attacks stopped she’d only thought of it occasionally in passing. This year had brought those events back to the forefront of her mind, she’d gone over every detail she could remember, she’d discussed it to death with Minerva and Pomona, she’d seen the Acromantula webs in the forest with them when Hagrid had mentioned what he was expelled for. She had no idea what could be responsible.
The sound of a roaring fire and bright flash suddenly filled the room at knee level near the doors, the glare forcing her to look to the side instead of directly at it. The glare dissipated quickly as the girl thought missing jumped in fear shouting “Bloody Hell!”
She was brought out of her temporary stupor as she saw what the girl was holding onto in her hand. signs of uncontrolled magic arcing, giving off small almost unperceivable flashes of blue and green with a slight smell of ozone over a stronger smell of necrotic flesh. She was on the move.
“Marigold help me with this!” she said into the room and the assistant shook themself into action.
“What on earth happened to you?.” She said as she grabbed the girl looking into her eyes and noting she wasn’t in immediate trouble. She turned to the boy and began levitating him, leading them both in the direction of the beds.
She set Harry on a bed before sitting Ginny on the one beside it before turning to him, the assistant having caught up immediately took over looking after Ginny.
Ginny's mouth flapped and eventually she stammered out “I, I don’t really know, I, I was unconscious… So was he when I woke up.”
“Basilisk Poppy!” came from the end of the bed, the sorting hat gripped in the talons of Fawx who’d taken up roost on the wooden panel at the foot of the bed and continued to sing softly.
“What!?” she turned her head from the diagnostic spells she was casting. In her wildest imagination she’d never thought a basilisk was a possibility. She could see the assistant in the corner of her eye staring at the sorting hat mouth agape.
“The boy was bitten by a basilisk, saving the girl. Although I’ll defer to your expertise, I don't think it’s what's causing his current predicament.”
“You think being bitten by a Basilisk isn’t his biggest problem… Are you delusional!?”
“No. But I am a hat, albeit a rather talented one, not a Medi Witch.”
The bedside table suddenly had a chunk blown out of it as a bolt of magic arched out of Harry and struck it, sending a splinter into the wall. Poppy began doing more diagnostics, summoning two crystals of quartz and placing a stick charm on them before attaching them to Harry, one on his forehead another in the hand of his wand arm; she hoped it would absorb at least some of the uncontrolled magic rolling of him. The sorting hat continued telling her what it knew as she worked Ginny and the student having ducked behind the far side of her bed watching on.
She could tell it was omitting details by odd gaps in the narrative but she knew from years treating battle wounds for Albus it was often better not to pry.
As the sorting hat finally came to how Harry collapsed just as Ginny woke up the first quartz crystal Madam Pomfrey had placed exploded, relatively gently as far as explosions go more of a pop than a bang and Fawx flashed out of the room dropping him on the floor.
Poppy healed the small scratches it had made on Harry's hand and pondered a course of action. She tried to ‘Sterilito‘ some of the black tar on his head only for it to have no effect and the diagnostics gave her no reading that she could make sense of from the substance.
“I never! Been calling him a chicken all day sarcastically only for him to chicken out at the first sign of an explosion.” The hat huffed from the ground.
Poppy had come to a decision, with the headmaster still out of the castle this was outside her experience she needed to collaborate with other healers or this could spiral even further out of control.
She turned to the Hufflepuff crouched beside Ginny, “Mrs Brightwater, I leave the patients in your hands, when I go through the floo call Professor McGonagall once I’ve left and tell her what you can, the address is Transfiguration Office.” She levitated Harry to the floo as quickly as she could watching for any discharge before turning back to the two students when she was infront of the fireplace “Once she's here, run and gather the other two assistants and bring them here until I return”, throwing an arm full of green powder at the fire she bellowed “Emergency, St Mungos!” .
29th May 1993
Chamber of Secrets, Hogwarts.
Ron heard the sound of crashes suddenly stop as he began crawling through the gap he’d made for himself in the rockfall leaving the professor behind. Never thinking about his own safety, he rushed up the corridor towards the dim light, stumbling twice as some bones gave way under foot in the darkness, getting his robes sodden in a puddle he quickly made it to the main chamber only to be greeted by rubble and silence.
Beginning to look about the room and wandering about crouched down being as silent as he could but kicking up stone rubble echoing as it bounced along the floor he finally came upon the basilisk but unable to see any sign of Harry. He closed his eyes and ducked behind a fallen column pressed against the floor behind it listening intently.
After almost two minutes in this position and hearing nothing but the drip of water or his own heartbeat a lack of patience common to all pre teens gripped him. He decided to chance a look and poked his head above the rubble. The snake was entirely still, eerily so.
Something wasn’t right, even more not right than a bloody basilisk being hidden under the school and the imminent death of his sister… probably him and Harry too.
He took another peek and continued to look for half a minute. The snake still didn’t move an inch, he had absolutely no clue what was happening. He decided to lob a cobble of masonry at it, throwing it underarm so it would arch up and give him time to duck back down before hitting its target. ‘Thump’ the cobble hit the snake before ‘Thunk, clatter, clatter’ as it bounced off and hit the floor skidding across it and he still didn’t hear anything from the snake.
He peeked up again daring to creep closer inching forward until he was an arm's length from the monster and stuck out his arm giving it a stiff prod and darting back a few steps. Again he heard no sign of movement and turned mid jog to look back.This was definitely not what he was expecting to happen when he finally got through the rubble.
He walked over to it and gave the snake a swift boot, as much power put into it as he could and it lay motionless. Confused about the entire situation he walked towards its head seeing a floor slick with blood, a toppled statue and sword he finally rounded the head and saw the snake was definitely dead, blood still dripping out of its mouth onto the floor.
“Thank Merlin for that” he whispered to nobody, the thing was massive, if it wasn’t already dead he’d have had no chance. “Harry!” he shouted, no reply. “Harry!”. “Harry, where are you!” a foreboding feeling coming over him.
“Bloody Hell” he saw Harry's wand on the floor and picked it up before walking over to the sword and trying to collect it too only to find it was practically glued to the floor, he tried again with no success and gave it up as a bad job before lifting and pocketing a black diary he recognised somewhat but couldn’t place. It had obviously been involved somehow and having it to look at later might help him get to the bottom of whatever had happened here… he decided he’d press in deeper to see if he could find the other two.
“Ginny! Ginny!” only the echoes of his own voice as a reply. He searched for ten minutes finding nothing, no secret entrances, no more tunnels, no hidden rooms and no clues either of the two people he knew had come down here. He wondered if Harry had missed him in the dark getting out of here like ships passing in the night.
He decided to make his way out of the chamber, Ginny wasn’t here so there was no point staying. Then he realised he didn't know how to get out, he couldn’t scale an almost vertical pipe. “I’m not going to be able to get out of here without help” he thought aloud to himself kicking a stone in frustration as he said it.
A flash brightened the room from behind him seconds later, throwing his shadow against the wall “Bloody Hell!” he jumped ducking behind a broken column not daring to look back at his last thought about how he was definitely done for.
A soft trill filled the air and he looked up at a phoenix perched on top of the column he was hidden behind staring down at him. “Eh hello…” He whispered “Scared the life out of me mate.” He continued to chat to the phoenix for reassurance looking up from his position on the ground. “You haven’t seen anyone else down here have you? Or know how to get out since you got in?” The phoenix just tilted its head, staring at him inquisitively before it hopped down and grabbed his robe at his chest and flamed out of the chamber.
29th May 1993
Transfiguration office, Hogwarts.
Dumbledore had only arrived at the castle minutes before and brought himself to the deputy's office to discuss the happenings in the castle, his hand rubbing his face in nervous tension as Minerva tried in vain to console Mrs Weasley's parents.
Finally he leaned back and stared at the wall wondering how it came to this his calm facade finally starting to show cracks, how was Tom influencing the castle when Fawx flashed into the room dropping a ginger haired body near the door at knee height and he feared the worst as it hit the floor.
“Bloody hell!” the body moaned, which was definitely a good sign. It was unlikely to say that if it was dead.
For a moment, there was silence as Ron lay on the floor blocking the doorway, covered in muck, slime and a small amount of blood.
Then there was a scream. ‘Ronald!’ It was Mrs Weasley, who had been sitting crying in front of the fire. She leapt to her feet, closely followed by Mr Weasley, and both of them flung themselves on their son lifting him off the floor. Professor McGonagall was taking great, steadying gasps, clutching her chest as Fawkes went gilded across the room and settled on Dumbledore’s shoulder.
“Ronald, we thought you were dead. What happened?! Where are the others!?” Mrs Weasley continued on before holding him out at arms length after a few minutes then eventually letting him go.
For ten minutes he spoke into the rapt silence: he told them about Harry hearing the disembodied voice, how Hermione had finally realised that he was hearing a Basilisk in the pipes; how he and Harry had followed the spiders into the Forest, that Aragog had told them where the last victim of the Basilisk had died; how Harry had guessed that Moaning Myrtle had been the victim, and that the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets might be in her bathroom, Jumping into the unknown shoot, the backfiring memory charm.
“Oh, Professor Lockhart is still down there…” He trailed off, glancing up at Dumbledore looking for suggestions. Dumbledore looked at Fawx who flared out of the room for another trip into the chamber.
“Very well,” Professor McGonagall prompted him, “So you made it into the chamber – breaking a hundred school rules into pieces along the way, I might add – but what on earth happened down there.”
Ron pressed on, he had just finished everything that happened to him from the chamber up until Fawx's arrival when the whoosh of the floo went off to his left.
“Oh. Professor Dumbledore, we didn't realise you were back. Madam Pomfrey told me to call Professor McGonagall. Ginny Weasley and Harry Potter arrived here injured…”
Dumbledore cut across her “Step back Mrs Brightwater were coming through” as he scurried quickly to the fireplace and stepped through followed by the rest of the room's occupants in quick succession.
“I notice Mr Potter seems to have been misplaced again…” Albus began as he looked at an empty bed covered in blood that looked to be giving off steam and a low hissing noise only for his voice to be drowned out by Mrs Weasley.
“Ginny! You’re alive! You're both Alive!” She wailed holding the girl who looked abashed at her father who joined the embrace.
“Sir” Marigold Brightwater said, drawing Dumbledore's and McGonagall's attention away from the reunion. “Madam Pomfrey had to step out with Mr Potter to St mungos…” She trailed off under there combined gaze. “The… eh, sorting hat told us… well it claimed he’s been bitten by a basilisk.”
“I didn’t claim it. I told you that's what happened!” A noise came from the floor. “Nice of you all to finally join us.” It continued on.
Minerva bent down and picked the hat up and went to question it when Mrs Brightwater finished what she was saying “I have to go and collect the other assistant healers and bring them here if you could hold down the fort for a few minutes.”
“Quite right Mrs Marigold, 20 points to Hufflepuff for continuing on amongst the chaos.” he watched as she started towards the door.
“What do you mean by being bitten by a basilisk!” Minerva finally stuttered.
“Well, I mean a Basilisk got its teeth in him.” The hat gave back. “To think we talked for so long about maybe putting you in Ravenclaw.”
Fawx flamed back into the room putting a stop to any argument and dropped Professor Lockhart who stumbled “Where am I? That was almost like magic.”
Deciding that he didn’t need any more interruptions and that Lockhart would have been a hindrance even had his mind not been addled he decided to treat the patient, stunning him in front of a silenced crowd and moving him to an empty bed.
“Now Alric, if you could tell us what you know and ignore all interruptions that would be much appreciated.” Albus said looking over his glasses at the hat slightly more used to it’s eccentricities than the other occupants of the room simultaneously casting diagnostic charms at the stricken professor.
The Hat began to regale its story for the third time today. Giving slightly more flare and as much Thespian talent into the telling as it could as this was the audience that would disseminate the tale and it was one for the history books.
29th May 1993
Hufflepuff Common Room, Hogwarts.
Marigold Brightwater opened the common room door only for every occupant to immediately turn and face her. A wall of questions quickly followed but nothing could be discerned as they talked on top of eachother.
Waving her hands in a shushing motion she stepped into the room as it quieted down. A seventh year prefect spoke up, “What's going on out there?”
She looked around the room not quite sure if she believed what she’d heard and if telling anyone would just start a wild rumour that wouldn’t be able to be stopped. After a few moments of silence she decided it was better to just tell them what she’d been told than her wild guesses at what could actually have happened.
“Well… Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley came back into the Hospital Wing covered in blood with Dumbledore's Phoenix.” She paused, unsure if the next part was even possible, there hadn’t been a basilisk sighting in the British Isles in centuries. “The sorting hat says he killed a basilisk with a sword saving her but it bit him in the process. He’s been sent to St Mungos.”
The room erupted.