Preface:
This is Ron's take on the climax of the Chamber of Secrets.
Author's Note:
I wrote this for the community's magazine and decided to publish it here. This is the original one without editing.
Whoosh!
Down went his body, down the drain, down what he imagined would be the earth's crust.
Screech!
He came to a sudden halt, the inertia reacting enough to make him fall face first into a floor of bones.
Bah!
It was eerily silent. The type of silence that you would experience when McGonagall would shout for order. A drop of water resonated in his ears, alerting his senses. He was here on a mission. Straining his eyes in the darkness for the sight of his sister, he felt the need to cry out.
He failed.
Everything around him was dark and not to mention, very damp that the whole atmosphere made him belch. The smell of rotting flesh, stagnant water, unhealthy indoors and most importantly, death, reached his nose in a flurry as soon as his feet hit the ground.
"Harry?"
"Yeah, Ron. I'm right here. Just. . . just be vigilant. We don't know what's lurking in the shadows." His best mate's voice came. Ron felt reassured that Harry tagged along with him. However, his ephemeral relief banished as soon as another voice echoed throughout the room.
"Yeah, you know better than I do, Potter. So, it's better for me to head -"
"Oh no, you don't!" There was a disturbance in the still wind. Ron felt his wand rise to point somewhere at random. Although he did not know for sure if Lockhart was right where he was aiming at, something was better than nothing. "You are coming with us. Come on, Harry."
"Lumos!" Harry's charm brightened the room to an extent. Ron followed his lead before covering up the rear of the trio. The two of them surely did not want to let Lockhart escape.
With carefully selected steps, the three men treaded towards a random gate. The rotting stench did not abate, whatsoever, and only helped to increase Ron's anxiety.
He loved Ginny more than any of his siblings. It was a fact that had been undisclosed for too long. Being the closest one in terms of age, the two of them had a bond that only kept blooming each year. The news of her abduction almost have him a panic attack.
It had been his fault. He had never thought of checking on his sister as soon as he had friends. He blamed himself for being so self-centered, as he followed Lockhart blindly, to have forgotten his first best friend.
"Wait!" Harry's voice forced Ron to snap out of his worries. "That looks like a creature of sorts. . ."
Ron squinted his eyes but all that he could see was darkness and something white. Harry approached the thing, his wand raised to illuminate whatever was on the ground. The visibility level increased thanks to Lumos and Ron gasped in horror.
It was a ruddy snakeskin.
And it was nearly the size of a Hogwarts corridor!
Not to mention, it looked really old. Older than Dumbledore.
"That-" Ron croaked out. "That looks like the skin of the Basilisk Hermione wrote about! Ruddy hell!"
"If it's skin is the size of something this large, we have to be more careful," Harry warned. Ron nodded in response and felt something shuffle beside him. He raised his wand in the direction of where Lockhart was supposed to be and found the man in question collapsed on the ground in pale fright.
"Heart of a Gryffindor, eh?" he asked to no one in particular, jabbing his shoe at the coward's stomach. Almost immediately, something dragooned him to the floor and snatched his wand from his grip.
"I may not be a Gryffindor but you will forget that you are!" Lockhart hissed, getting up in a quick motion that it would be impossible to believe that he had been unconscious, a couple of seconds ago.
"What do you -" Ron started but he was rudely interrupted.
"Do you both think I did all of those mighty deeds?"
"Lockhart, give Ron his wand," Harry warned but in vain. Ron's broken wand was pointed at its master, its wasted glory shining irritatingly through the illuminating charm.
"Well, do you, Potter?"
"We are not deaf people. You know that we heard what you said," Ron stated, calmer than he felt. Something hard near his right hand felt reassuring.
"And still, you two boys compelled me to save that brat of a girl?"
Anger surged through Ron. He raised his hand to knock the man out but his senses shot up when his wand took a sharp turn to point at Harry.
"Let the world hear the story of how I was too late to save the girl, how her brother and friend went insane at the sight of her mangled body. It'll make for a fine income, wouldn't it, Potter?" Harry took a step forward, words on his lips but time was evil. It passed by without a blink of the eye. "Obliviate!"
The spell shot out of his wand.
But it did not fly towards Harry or him.
It rebounded back at its caster.
"Blimey!" Ron exclaimed as he watched Lockhart getting banished by his broken wand.
"No, no!" Harry shouted when the professor hit the barely stable walls, sending a landslide at them.
"Get out of the way, Harry!" Ron was forced to jump out of the way of the falling rocks. He managed to grab the helm of Lockhart's robes and drag him along with him.
Dust flew as shingles and rocks struggled to settle into ruins. Coughing and sneezing, Ron gripped the rock in his hand tighter. Harry's faint voice from the other side danced its way to his ears. "Ron! Ron! RON! Are you okay?!"
Struggling to take a breath, what with Lockhart gripping his midriff like a scared baby, Ron shouted back. "Yeah! Are you fine, mate?!"
Harry's response was affirmative. "Yes. Pave way for us to return. I'll go and find Ginny by then!"
Ron nodded, then felt silly. They were separated by a wall of rocks. Harry would obviously not be able to see him nod. "Got it. You have to find her. . ."
He was not sure if Harry heard his sentence but one thing he knew for sure was that Harry was a driven boy and Ron's trust in him would never deter.
"Hello." A confused tone interrupted Ron's musings.
Ron craned his neck to look at Lockhart. The professor was now in his wasted glory after using Ron's wasted wand. "Hello? Hello!" Ron shouted in exasperation.
"It is a pleasure to meet you, young man, but I was wondering if you could tell me who I am."
Confusion and suspicion creeped into Ron's mind. What was Lockhart plotting now? Nevertheless, he replied, "The Chamber of Secrets."
"Oh. Is that my name? 'The Chamber of Secrets'? That's quite a long and weird name to have."
Ron realised, in a moment of silliness, that he had answered wrongly. He found no sane excuse to state that so he continued with his act. "Yeah. Ask your parents why they had you."
"Good question," Lockhart agreed with a nod of his head. "Do you know who my parents are?"
The man was starting to get on Ron's nerves. But then again, there was no point in not laughing at Lockhart's cost. "Yeah. The Basilisk here and I don't know, You-Know-Who."
"Who do I know?"
"You have it in the wrong order, man. It's You-Know-Who. Not 'Who-Do-I-Know." The situation was getting funny but a flash of Ginny's face in his mind made him sober up.
"Okay."
Silence reigned for a while before Lockhart spoke up. "Do you live here? This is not a very nice place to live in."
There was no use in exploiting the man who just suffered a memory loss. "I don't live here but I'm sure you will." With that, Ron banged the rock he had been holding at Lockhart's head.
Who knew that Lockhart would only wake to find himself being ogled at in a zoo with people dressed in white?
Thank you for reading!
Miyoko x