Sophie Pendragon, Year Two | Half-Vampire At Hogwarts

Chapter Twenty Seven: Heir of Slytherin

          Harry's POV: Ron and I ran to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom in hopes of catching Professor Lockhart. He may be useless but he's the only chance we have to rescue Sophie. She came to rescue me, now we can rescue her. We had to tell him what we knew.

          We barged in and saw him frantically packing his belongings, "Are you going somewhere?"

          "Urgent business. Can't be helped," he said nervously.

          "What about Sophie?!" Ron argued.

          "It fills me with regret to have to leave her but I must be going!" he said, his mask slipping.

          "You need to save her!" I yelled angrily.

          "My dear boy, use your common sense! Wizards wouldn't buy my books unless they believed I did those things!" he confessed.

          "You're a fake! A fraud! You need to go save her!" I almost screamed.

          "Is there anything you can do?" Ron growled.

          "As matter of fact, yes. I'm rather gifted at memory charms. Otherwise the other wizards would go blabbing," he said and turned his back on us to get his wand from his sleeve, "Something that ought to happen to you."

          Ron and I drew our wands and I pointed mine at his throat, "Don't even think about it. Drop it."

           He dropped his wand and we led him to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Since Sophie was asleep, she wailed throughout the castle. Luckily, she just arrived through the stone brick walls as we came in.

          "Who's there?" she asked tearfully and looked at us, "Oh. Hello, Harry. What do you want?"

          "To ask you how you died," I said softly while Ron kept his wand in Professor Lockhart's back.

          "Oh," she giggled bashfully, "It was awful. I was crying in my stall after nasty boys teased me. Then, another boy came in and spoke a funny language. When I came out to tell him to go away, I died."

          "Just like that?" I asked anxiously.

          "All I remember seeing were two yellows eyes over there," she pointed at the column of sinks, "Particularly by that sink."

          She continued wailing through the wall and into the corridor. I walked over to the sink and touched the spout. No water came out when I tried to use it. On the spout was an engraved snake; it was the symbol of Slytherin's snake.

          "This is it. This is the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets," I said breathily, worried about Sophie.

          "Go on, Harry. Say something in Parseltongue," Ron said despite Professor Lockhart's attempts to leave.

          "Open," I hissed.

          We took many steps back as the sinks separated from their column. The top part levitated to the ceiling and the snake sink sank through the floor when the metal grate retracted. We pushed Professor Lockhart down the entrance and he was fine. Ron and I jumped next and we both screamed down the winding slide. This must be how the basilisk travels up and down the entrance.

          "Ugh," Ron groaned when we reached the bottom.

          We looked down and we were standing on skeletons of animals. They cracked beneath our feet. Not wanting to waste time, we pressed on until we came into a tunnel. I went ahead to touch and follow the massive snake skin on the ground. When I reached the tail end, Professor Lockhart fainted near the hair of the skin.