Chapter 2
Contrary to what one would expect, Harry hadn't cried much tonight. He knew that Sirius' death should be a very traumatic event for him, losing the last family that loved him, but Harry barely knew the man. The most they got to talk was a couple of hour-long conversations about Harry's parents or how Harry was doing at Hogwarts and a few letters throughout the year complaining about Umbridge, nothing more.
To be honest, Harry had never been very close to anyone, and although he was very good at faking it, the Dursleys had taught him never to expect anything from anyone, no matter how safe they seemed. So, when his friends abandoned him last year, Harry had to pretend to be a lot sadder than he really was.
He wasn't heartless, or at least Harry didn't think so, just a little detached from other people, which was very beneficial being the Harry Potter and not knowing when he would be hailed as a hero or public enemy number one.
At eight o'clock in the morning, Harry woke up in his bed and heard some sounds behind his curtains that must have been his roommates getting ready for breakfast. Today was the last day of term and tomorrow they would all have to catch the Hogwarts Express home. Harry had no desire to do so, but he had even less desire to face his roommates, who would give him false praise while claiming that they had always believed in him and had always been on his side.
Unwilling to listen to all this, Harry conjured up some water, which he poured over his eyes and rubbed until they were red and swollen, pretending to have been crying all night. It might not do much to keep the gossip mongers away, but if people saw him sad about his godfather's death, they were less likely to pester him with questions.
Once Harry stopped hearing noise in the room, he drew the curtains and proceeded to get dressed as quickly as he could. He wasn't hungry right now so he would just run away from everyone until lunchtime, after all there were no classes today as it was the last day. He grabbed his invisibility cloak and the marauder's map to make sure he didn't run into any of his friends and got out of the Grifindoor tower as fast as he could.
Harry wanted to be alone for at least a few hours, so he thought of a few places, but after thinking of several like the room of requirements or the shrieking house, he ruled them out because his friends knew where they were. In the end, he had no choice but to go to the Chamber of Secrets, since, although his friends knew where it was, they would never be able to get in as they couldn't speak Parseltongue.
Once he reached Myrtle's bathroom, he stood in front of the sink and hissed ``Open''.
The basin began to open and once it was finished, Harry looked down into the dark tunnel, the bottom of which was nowhere to be seen. Harry sighed, thinking what an idiot he had been to slip down this hole at the age of twelve, so, as an afterthought, he decided to try knocking on some stairs. The moment he hissed in Parseltongue 'stairs', spiral staircases appeared along the entire length of the tunnel, so Harry climbed down them, not forgetting to close the entrance when he was far enough down.
Thanks to a lumus conjured with his wand, Harry arrived safely at the bottom, and although he was stepping on the skeletons of dead mice, there was no bad smell because it had been years since the last of them died. Harry took the same route as three years ago to get to the main chamber and made sure to move the stones that had collapsed years ago out of the way.
Once in front of the second door, Harry realizes that he never got to close it, so, without stopping, Harry walked through it and into the chamber. The first thing he saw were the snake statues decorating the corridor, just as creepy as he remembered them, and the second was the corpse of the basilisk, although more than a corpse he should call it a skeleton, as there is nothing left but the bones of the animal.
Harry moves forward until he is in front of the huge snake, and then gently runs his fingers over its skull, stroking it. It is at moments like this that Harry regrets following Dumbledore and his friends, for it was his fault that he had to kill this magnificent specimen, and Tom.
To be fair, if it wasn't for him being the child of light, Harry wouldn't have minded keeping Tom, he was very kind and, above all, an invaluable source of knowledge. Regretfully, Harry broke away from the basilisk and set about exploring the chamber. The last time he had been here he hadn't had time to see any of this room and now he had at least a few hours until he had to go to lunch. His friends probably thought Harry was crying in bed anyway.
Harry walked around the room, inspecting the floor and the statues, until behind one he found a lever. When he operated it, a fragment of the floor rose up and bridged the gap between the statue's mouth and the dry floor. Intrigued by this, Harry decides to investigate, so he enters the statue's mouth.