Lucy Potter: Harry's little sister

Chapter 23: The basilisk's lair

"Is there anything that you can do?" I asked him, giving him the hardest death stare I could manage.

"Now you bring it up," Lockart said turning around, getting his wand. "I had to get those stories out of people, but I couldn't have them remember, could I? So I happen to have quite mastered the memory charm."

But before he could erase our memories, Ron and I pointed our own wands at him.

"Expelliarmus!" His wand flew straight into my hand. "You shouldn't have let Snape teach us that one."

"Now now boys!" Lockart held up his hands defensively.

"What do we do with him?" Ron asked me, acting as if Lockart wasn't even there. "Do we take him with us or do we hand him in?"

"No time," I decide and I look back to Lockart. "You're coming with us. Into the Chamber."

"Really boys," Lockart tried again. "I don't think that's-"

"Go on!" Ron poked his wand in Lockart's back. "Move!"

And so, we walked back to Myrtle's bathro- om, back to the sink. I looked at all the little details of the sink again, and then I saw it.

The snake engraving.

"Ron, this must be it!" Ron came to look, while I watched Lockart. "Say something in Parseltongue Harry..."

Now, I'd never intentionally spoken Parsel- tongue, so the first two times, I spoke English and nothing happened.

The third time however, the sink disappear- ed and a deep tunnel appeared where the sink once had been.

"This is it!" Ron exclaimed. We stood there for a few seconds, both silently wondering what to do exactly.

"Well kids," Lockart said, out of the blue. "Good work that was, very impressive! You won't need me anymore, will you? I thought so-"

"You're going in first." I pointed my wand at him again and he swallowed. "N-no boys, I-"

Before he could have finished, Ron pushed him over the edge (the literal way) and with a scream he fell down.

We waited in silence for a response from below, to see if he was still alive. "D'you think I killed him?" Ron asked after half a minute.

"If you did, I think Hermione will probably kill you." Ron shivered at the thought of that, 'cause there's no way if he killed a professor, especially Lockart, that he would survive Hermione.

"It's dark down here!" Lockart's voice finally came from very far down. It must've been under the castle. "Could you maybe get me out of here?!"

Ron and I locked eyes and then we jumped at the same time.

The tunnel felt like a massive slide, formed like a tube. It seemed to take an extremely long time to get to the end, despite the fall going extremely fast.

But we landed at the bottom at last, where Lockart also was. The place was cold as ice, most likely because it was so far down. And it was really really dark.

"Lumos," I said and my wand lit up and Ron followed my example. It wasn't until now that I realised we were standing on hard objects: bones.

"Bloody hell," Ron whispered as he looked at them. "How many people do you think have died here already?"

"Excellent question," Lockart said, suddenly jumping on Ron and grabbing his wand. "Whatever the answer is, I will not be next."

He had his wand on me, I wasn't gonna be first if I tried to disarm him again. We were doomed. "I will obliviate you two. I'll tell them you went crazy when you saw that little girl's dead body."