Dan and Phil and The Chamber of Secrets

Chapter 16

     The rest of the semester went by without a hitch. Naturally, the whole school found out that Harry, Ron, Hermione, and himself had uncovered the mystery of the Basilisk. Dan had been asked more times than he could count to tell the story of his adventure. Which was great at first. Dan took pleasure in captivating his audience with a dramatic retelling of his bravery and courage. But by the seventh recount, Dan's enthusiasm was gone and all that was left was exasperation. He started telling the story as fast as he could. Nevertheless, it still had the same appeal to the students.

As a treat to the students, Dumbedore announced final exams had been canceled. Dan was absolutely thrilled, for he hadn't had any time to study. Phil was in the same boat, for different reasons.

"Yeah, I was kinda busy being dead," Phil said sarcastically. He idly picked some green grass upon which he was laying and threw it into the warm breeze.

"You were not dead," Dan said, leaning back against a tree which they had taken shelter under as a shield from the sun.

"I was! I was cold and had no heart beat. That's classified as dead."

"Yeah yeah whatever, spin your brave tale of lies," Dan replied.

"Speaking of tale, you haven't told me about your adventure!" Phil said eagerly, turning onto his side to face Dan.

Dan sighed and settled himself more comfortably against the trunk. "It's a long story, you know."

"I like long stories."

"There's blood."

"We all have blood!"

"And spiders."

"Spiders are my friends."

Dan grinned down at Phil. "You're a goose." He took a deep breath and began his story for what felt like the hundredth time. By now Dan had told it so many times it had lost its absurdity to him, but Phil didn't hesitate to gasp or cover his mouth during it. Dan always liked telling Phil stories. Phil was never afraid to show his emotions and he was naturally over dramatic about it.

When he finished, Phil stared skeptically at him. "Are you sure you're Dan Howell?"

Dan punches Phil's arm. "You think I'm not capable of escaping giant spiders or wandering around snake caves or-"

"Aren't you terrified of spiders?"

Dan's smiles forcefully, the grimace not reaching his eyes. "At that point I was more concerned about making it out alive than the size of the spiders."

"Stop with that smile," Phil says, looking up at Dan with humorously scared eyes.

"What smile? I'm just smiling normally," Dan says with clenched teeth. He hopes his eyes had the insane look he was trying to achieve.

"No you are not, knock it off," Phil says with a laugh, sitting up and shoving Dan.

"Hey careful, I'm severely wounded," Dan says.

"You're alright," Phil says, sticking out his tongue. "Madam Pomfrey made sure of it. Though I'm amazed how you managed to go through all that with only minor cuts and bruises."

"Uh, obviously you haven't seen the extent of the damage," Dan says, beginning to take off his shoes. "I have a purple toe from Ron dropping a boulder on it, this one is from falling down the giant tube in the bathroom, I don't even know where this collection of cuts are from, this is where the spider bit me-"

"Wait, you got bit by a spider?" Phil asks, leaning forwards and rolling back Dan's robe sleeve to better see his bandaged upper arm.

"Oh yeah. Well, it's more like it's fangs scratched my arm. I never include the part where that happens because- well it's a long story but apparently this one girl really really hated spiders and threw up just because I mentioned the size of them-"