Melancholy || Harry Potter's twin brother

2: chapter seventeen

The hunt for ghosts had begun, and was already proving to be more difficult than they had first anticipated. Finding the fat friar was by some degree a quest. The four walked the length of the castle, until the finally found the ghost.

"Well hello you lot!" The friar greeted them merrily, as was his way.

"Do you know anything about the chamber of secrets?" Hannah asked at once, getting straight to the point, as usual.

"Well, now let me think." The ghost paused, Hannah sighed impatiently, she was not really in the mood to be waiting around. "Ah, well it is rumoured that before leaving the castle, Slytherin himself often went to the chamber. And when he left, he left behind an egg. What that egg is, no one knows. It was opened again, presumably by the heir of Slytherin a good fifty years ago, and the monster escaped. Somehow it was returned to the chamber and the chamber was sealed."

"So how do you get into the chamber?" Sirius asked.

"Through a secret entrance, known only by the heir." The ghost said.

"And how would the heir open it?" Ernie asked.

"Well, in parsletongue I would imagine."

"What?" Sirius asked.

"Parsletongue is the language of snakes my boy. Slytherin was a well known Parsletingue, and not many people are, so one would imagine he would use his ability to hide it." The ghost said. "Does that satisfy your curiosity children?"

"Yes thank you." Justin smiled as Hannah dragged them away.

It was as they were thinking about what the ghost had said, that they almost walked into Jane.

"Come on! It's the Halloween feast!" She told them, knocking them out of their thoughts at once.

"Yes!" Ernie celebrated, Halloween was his favourite occasion and he was the only one in the group who had remembered that it was in fact Halloween.

The group hurried down to the feast, all thoughts of the chamber of secrets leaving their minds as they thought about food.

^^^
It wasn't until after the feast, when they came across everyone stood around three people and a scratty fur coat hanging from the ceiling that the chamber of secrets crossed their thoughts again. And that was only because of the writing on the wall.

"The chamber of secrets has been opened, enemies of the heir beware." Draco read, he laughed. "You'll be next mudbloods."

"Hey that rhymes." Sirius mumbled absentmindedly.

"Great." Justin patted him on the back.

"The heir is here? We have to find out who it is, we follow them and get into the chamber that way." Hannah whispered excitedly.

"What about the monster?" Justin pointed out.

"We need to find out what it is." She replied.

"A snake." Sirius said.

"What?" Ernie's eyes widened.

"The Slytherin crest is a snake, he was a Parslemouth, it has to be a snake." Sirius said, it was probably the smartest thing he had said all day, which was why they were pleasantly surprised.

"But why would a snake be described as a monster, even a big one?"

"Maybe it's not just a snake, maybe it's a serpent, like a monstrous serpent." Hannah grinned. "Sirius I forget you're actually quite smart."

"Thanks."

The group were interrupted by Mr Filch's scream. "My cat!"

It turned out that the fur coat was not a coat, but Mrs Norris' petrified body. And of course who was stood in the middle of the circle, but Harry, Ron and Hermione. "You killed my cat!" Filch turned on the three like a whirlwind.

"Let's get out of here." Ernie whispered, Hannah nodded.

"As much as I want to see Harry outed as a murderer, we have other things to be doing." She agreed.

"Like what?"

"A trip to the library."

"Oh not again!"

^^^
"I'm so bored!" Sirius complained, as he rested his head on the open pages of the book he was reading.

"guessing you haven't found anything?" Justin asked him, Sirius shook his head.

"I'm tired, can we leave this until tomorrow?" he asked, Hannah paused and sighed at him.

"We need to know what is in there, so we're prepared when we find the chamber." She replied.

"We're not going to find the chamber tomorrow, are we?"

"he has a point Han, let's call it a night." Ernie agreed, "We'll come back tomorrow evening."

"Fine! But if the heir kills someone over night, it is your fault." Hannah packed up her books and followed the others out of the library.

It was as they were walking back to their common room that Sirius collected another important piece of information.

"The monster, it killed someone last time." he announced, clutching his head.

"But who?" Ernie asked aloud.

"That's what we find out next, whoever it is will know what the monster is." Hannah celebrated.

"But not until tomorrow." Sirius said hoping that he could finally get some sleep.

"Yeah, yeah not until tomorrow."

^^^

The next quidditch game began in full swing, but the group instead opted to stay in the library, researching serpents that could be the monster. It was more difficult than they had anticipated.

"What about this, a basil- basilis... basilk?" Sirius asked.

"Basilisk." Justin read over his shoulder. "Sirius is your eyesight okay?"

"Bit blurry, nothing I can't handle." He shrugged, before shrugging. "Honestly, I'm fine, some times the words mix up that's all."

"Doesn't like roosters and spiders run from it." Justin read. "So all we have to do is look for spiders. And if they're running away, we have the answer."

"Somehow, I don't think it's a basilisk. They're too big. I think it's something smaller." Hannah said. Sirius shrugged.

"One look from it's eyes will kill you." He added. "But how would it petrify someone?"

"Maybe the heir is doing it?" Ernie suggested.

"Maybe, but who would be that powerful?" Justin asked.

"A seventh year?" Sirius suggested. Hannah nodded.

"Time for a spot of people watching."

The group joined the game towards the end, noticing only how there was a bludger intent on murdering Harry. And did not let up, even breaking his arm as he reached for the snitch. It failed because he obviously caught the snitch anyway.

It wasn't until that evening that something a lot sinister happened. A first year student was found petrified, his camera clutched close to his face in fear. Colin Creevey had been petrified, and the heir of Slytherin was as powerful as many had feared.
^^^
dawn appeared fast over the castle, bringing with it the hysteria of the previous night. The rumours began circulating about who the heir of Slytherin was and what they wanted and why they were terrifying muggle borns. In fact it was this that inspired larger than life defence against the dark arts teacher Gilderoy Lockhart to start up a duelling club, which made many students, and teachers, laugh at the thought.

But what the buffoon would actually teach them intrigued many of the students invited to it. And so he got quite a good turnout, much to his delight.

Sirius, Hannah, Ernie and Justin were surprisingly close to the stage, of which Lockhart had created so he stood out from the crowd. They didn't expect him to be any good, especially since he had chosen Snape to be his assistant, a fools Choice, but they hoped at least that they would see Lockhart be obliterated by Snape, which would have been quite funny.

They did not get to see that, but when Lockhart and Snape called Harry and Draco up to practice what they had just shown them, it was clear to them all that it was about to get a lot more interesting.