Chapter 19-The Chamber of Secrets
Y/N's POV:
"This means," said Harry, "I can't be the only Parselmouth in the school. The Heir of Slytherin's one, too. That's how he's been controlling the basilisk."
They finally figured it out, well, Hermione did actually if she didn't got petrified they would have known about it sooner. I didn't told them at first because I know that they would get worried about me for staying a few days at a home of a Death Eater, and I made it a little difficult for them because I believe in them that they can solve this. And they did, but one of them got in danger.
"What're we going to do?" said Ron, whose eyes were flashing. "Should we go straight to McGonagall?"
"Let's go to the staff room," said Harry, jumping up. "She'll be there in ten minutes. It's nearly break."
We walk through the corridors as quietly as we can, as we don't want anyone seeing us walking along the corridors, especially when we should be in class. We walk straight of to the staff room, it was a very large room inside it was wooden chairs. As we got there the bell rang and Professor McGonagall's voice magically magnified.
"All students to return to their House dormitories at once. All teachers return to the staff room. Immediately, please."
The three of us looked at each other, our eyes wide open in shock.
"Not a another attack? Not now," I said, as I started to panic a little bit. Who got attacked this time?
"What'll we do?" asked Ron, not knowing what to do at this situation.
"Go back to the dormitory?"
"No," said Harry, glancing around the surroundings. I saw Harry's sight go to a wardrobe that is full of teachers' cloaks. "In here. Let's hear what it's all about. Then we can tell them what we've found out."
"Do you we'll fit in there?" I asked, quite worried that we will get caught right away from squishing ourselves inside a wardrobe full of our teachers' cloaks.
To my surprise, we actually got in the wardrobe with no trouble, we leave a small crack through the wardrobe for us to see and hear clearly what the teachers might say. From the crack of the wardrobe door we saw teachers filling up the staff room. Some of them looked puzzled whiles some looked terrified. I saw Severus walking inside the room as well and stood next to the other teachers. And then Professor McGonagall arrived.
"It has happened," she said to the silent small crowd of teachers. "A student has been taken by the monster. Right into the Chamber itself."
My eyes widened as I let out a silent gasp, I felt my hands started to shake whiles a another hand held mine, I looked up and saw Harry, giving a assuring smile as it calmed me down. I saw Severus tighten his grip at the back of a chair. Professor Flitwick let out a squeal, whiles Professor Sprout clapped both of her hands to her mouth.
"How can you be sure?" He asked, I know that he's as terrified as I am right now.
"The Heir of Slytherin," said Professor McGonagall, her pale skin was paler than ever it almost looks like snow, "left another message. Right underneath the first one. Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever."
Professor Flitwick burst into tears.
"Who is it?" said Madam Hooch, who was sunk down at her chair. "Which student?"
Professor McGonagall let out a sigh and said, "Ginny Weasley."
I gasp quietly once again, as me and Harry looked Ron. He slide silently down onto the wardrobe floor, as we continue to listen.
""We shall have to send all the students home tomorrow," said Professor McGonagall. "This is the end of Hogwarts. Dumbledore always said..."
I couldn't believe what she had just said, the end of Hogwarts? No! It can't be. The staff room door banged open. At first, I thought it was Dumbledore, making my mood worse it was actually Lockhart, beaming at the teachers that was looking all tense at the situation.
"So sorry - dozed off - what have I missed?"
He beamed at the teachers once again, all of them was looking at him and some teachers were looking at him with full hatred written across their faces. Then, I saw Severus stepped forward.
"Just the man," he said. "The very man. A girl has been snatched by the monster, Lockhart. Taken into the Chamber of Secrets itself. Your moment has come at last."
Lockhart's beaming face, whighten.
"That's right, Gilderoy," said Professor Sprout. "Weren't you saying just last night that you've known all along where the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets is?"
Did he actually? Or is he lying? Does he thinks that everything that's happening right now is just some kind of a joke?!
"I - well - I -"stuttered Lockhart.
"Yes, didn't you tell me you were sure you knew what was inside it?" said Professor Flitwick.
"D-did I? I don't recall-"
"I certainly remember you saying you were sorry you hadn't had a crack at the monster before Hagrid was arrested," said Severus. "Didn't you say that the whole affair had been bungled, and that you should have been given a free rein from the first?"
Is this for real? Or did he just said all of this things for more fame?
Lockhart was stood there like a stone statue and somehow the smile on his face disappeared. He's totally lying.
"I - I really never - you may have misunderstood--"
"We'll leave it to you, then, Gilderoy," said Professor McGonagall. "Tonight will be an excellent time to do it. We'll make sure everyone's out of your way. You'll be able to tackle the monster all by youself. A free rein at last."
Their actually trusting Lockhart to fix this?! Lockhart gazed desperately around him, it looks like he was looking for someone to rescue him, but no one did. His lips were trembling, he wasn't the Lockhart I saw earlier when he go to the staff room.
"V-very well," he said. "I'll - I'll be in my office, getting - getting ready."
And he left the room his long cape trailing behind.
"Right," said Professor McGonagall, turning back to the teachers, "that's got him out from under our feet. The Heads of Houses should go and inform their students what has happened. Tell them the Hogwarts Express will take them home first thing tomorrow. Will the rest of you please make sure no students have been left outside their dormitories."
Then, the teachers walked out of the door, one by one. Severus walked past the wardrobe that we were hiding and we were sure that we heard him say, "Be safe, Y/N."
There was no way that he could actually know that we're here, listening at every word they say. I saw Harry glance at me at the corner of my eyes, as I know that he also heard that.
It was probably one of my worst day in my whole life, everyone was sat down at the common room. The full room was silence, the loud fun common room of Slytherin, had turn into a silent heart breaking room. The only thing you can hear was the whispers of students.
Me, Millicent, Draco, Crabbe and Goyle was sat at the corner of the room, the four of them was sat down at a couch whiles I paced up and down as I feel my hands shaking like crazy and I can clearly hear my heart thumping like a drum. I was panicking a lot, but I tried not to let it show.
"I can't believe that they're actually shutting the school down," I said, a hundredth time. "I mean, they can solve this, right? The muggle-born will be cured by Madam Pomfrey, I think Lockhart can handle this, but I'm having doubts about that."
I started ranting about the school shutting down and the teachers handling the situation, whiles I paced up and down. My hands were shaking like it was dipped into a very cold water in a few hours.
My hands stopped shaking, as well as my pacing as I felt warm hands hold my cold, a little sweaty, hand. I looked up and saw Draco holding both of my hands.
"Calm down, okay?" He said, with a calm voice. "Breath. Inhale, exhale."
I did what he said, as I calmed down a bit. I looked up at him and smiled, signing to him that I'm alright. He returned the smile, as he escorted me to sit next to him while our hands were still clutched with each other. At the corner of my eyes, I saw Pug face Parkinson glaring at us. As we sat down Draco didn't let go of my hand, and I didn't as well. Slowly, I rested my head on Draco's shoulder as he rested his head on top of mine making me blush a bit, as I can hear my heart thumping like crazy again, but this wasn't the thumping of panic, this was something different, I don't know what you call this feelings?
Draco suddenly intertwined our hands, as I tried not to smile as I can also feel my cheeks heat up. Thank Merlin, Draco was here or I'll be pacing up and down whiles I get dizzy and pass out.
As I calmed down, my thoughts were still about the Chamber. Ginny Weasley, she was the one the monster had taken. It can't be, she's a pure-blood, unless, she knows too much about the Chamber that's why she was the one who got taken by the Heir.
I looked around the common room and was hoping to see one student gone, because if the Heir of Slytherin is here at Hogwarts it would obviously be that he's in Slytherin. I had seem to memorized the faces of students in Slytherin and saw that no one was missing, since there was no person inside the dorms. As the time flies, everyone was going to their dormitories to pack their bags since tomorrow everyone was going home.
"Y/N, let's go and pack our bags," said Millicent standing up, as well as Crabbe and Goyle.
"Come on," said Draco, as he stood up whiles our hands released from each others warmth.
"You go, I'll just stay here," I told them, Millicent, Crabbe and Goyle nodded and walked away, Draco looked down at me, unsure if he's gonna go or not.
"You sure you're gonna be okay?" he asked, as I nodded with a smile. He slowly turn around and walked along with the three. I need to go to Harry and Ron, we need to go to Lockhart. Now.
Everyone was standing up and going to their own dormitories, until it was only me inside the common room. Excellent. I stood up and sprinted out of the portrait hole, silently, as I ran towards where I think is the Gryffindor tower. I was looking around as I ran through the corridors, until I collided with someone.
"Oh! Sorry," I heard it say, I looked up and saw Harry and Ron.
"Perfect! Come on!" I told them and snatched their hands as I drag them towards Lockhart's office. "We need to go to Lockhart, he might be useless, but I think he might be useful right now."
"Why are you here?" asked Ron, as we ran through the corridors.
"I might ask you the same question. Obviously, I'm here to save your sister!" I told him, as I slowed down and looked at them.
"You don't have to do this, Y/N," said Harry to me, but this wasn't stopping me.
"My business or not our friend, Harry, is in danger right now, and what ever you say is not stopping me," I told him, looking at him in the eyes and looked at Ron as well.
"Let's go," said Ron, as he ran to Lockhart's office as me and Harry followed behind. We walked to Lockhart's office, there seemed to be a lot of things happening inside it. There were thumping, scrapping and hurried footsteps.
Harry knocked at the door, the thumps, scrapping and hurried footsteps fell into silence, the door opened into the smallest crack and Lockhart's eyes was peering through it.
"Oh - Mr. Potter - Ms. Snape - Mr. Weasley - " he said, opening the door a little bit wider. "I'm rather busy at the moment - if you would be quick - "
"Professor, we've got some information for you," said Harry.
"We think it'll help you," I added.
"Er - well - it's not terribly -" the other side of Lockhart's face that was visible to us looked very uncomfortable. "I mean - well - all right-"
He opened the door and we entered.
His office was almost completely stripped. There were two large trunks stood at the side of the room. Robes at different kind of colors that we usually saw him wear was folded into one of the trunk, books were jumbled untidily into the other. The pictures of himself that was covering the stoned walls was now in boxes on top of his desLockhart.
"Are you going somewhere?" said Harry.
"Er, well, yes," said Lockhart, as he took the life-size poster of himself, carefully, and rolling it up. "Urgent call - unavoidable - got to go--"
"What about my sister?" said Ron.
"Well, as to that - most unfortunate -" said Lockhart, avoiding eye contact from any of us as he opened one drawer and putting everything inside it into a bag. "No one regrets more than I--"
"You're the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher!" said Harry. "You can't go now! Not with all the Dark stuff going on here!"
"Well - I must say - when I took the job -" Lockhart muttered, now piling socks on top of his robes. "nothing in the job description - didn't expect-"
"You mean you're running away?" said Harry unbelievable. "After all that stuff you did in your books-"
"Obviously, everything he had written in the books is all a lie! I've red a lot of books that had the same events from yours, and that was from a very brave wizard based on a real experience! You've been using other wizards for your own success," I told him.
"Well, books can be misleading," he said.
"You wrote them!" shout Harry.
"My dear boy," said Lockhart. "Do use your common sense. My books wouldn't have sold half as well if people didn't think I'd done all those things. No one wants to read about some ugly old Armenian warlock, even if he did save a village from werewolves. He'd look dreadful on the front cover. No dress sense at all. And the witch who banished the Bandon Banshee had a harelip. I mean, come on-"
"See, he is taking credit from what the other wizards had done! What a load of rubbish! I knew being a fan of yours is such a waste of time," I shout, as I feel my blood to boil like water on a kettle.
"Y/N, Y/N," said Lockhart, shaking his head impatiently. "it's not nearly as simple as that. There was work involved. I had to track these people down. Ask them exactly how they managed to do what they did. Then I had to put a Memory Charm on them so they wouldn't remember doing it. If there's one thing I pride myself on, it's my Memory Charms. No, it's been a lot of work, Harry. It's not all book signings and publicity photos, you know. You want fame, you have to be prepared for a long hard slog."
"So, you're just a want-to-be-famous kind of guy, huh? Easy enough to see depending on your looks," I said, glaring at him.
He banged the lid of his trunk and turn to us.
"Let's see," he said. "I think that's everything. Yes. Only one thing left."
He pulled out his wand, as I reach for mine as well.
"Awfully sorry, boys, but I'll have to put a Memory Charm on you now. Can't have you blabbing my secrets all over the place. I'd never sell another book-"
"Expelliarmus!" I bellowed.
Lockhart blasted backward, as his wand flew high into the air. Ron caught it and throw it out at the open window.
"Shouldn't have let my brother teach us that spell," I said, with a small grin on my face.
Harry kicked one of Lockhart's trunk away, as he drew his wand at Lockhart as well. Forcing Lockhart to his feet at wandpoint.
"What d'you want me to do?" said Lockhart weakly. "I don't know where the Chamber of Secrets is. There's nothing I can do."
"You're in luck," said Harry. "We think we know where it is. And what's inside it. Let's go."
We took the nearest staircase to where Moaning Myrtle's bathroom is. When we got there we let Lockhart to go first, as I feel quite pleased to see him shaking.
We saw Moaning Myrtle sat down at the tank of the toilet.
"Oh, it's you," she said, as she saw Harry. "What do you want this time?"
"To ask you how you died," said Harry.
She looked at us, as though she had never been asked such a flattering question before.
"Ooooooh, it was dreadful," she said. "It happened right in here. I died in this very stall. I remember it so well. I'd hidden because Olive Hornby was teasing me about my glasses. The door was locked, and I was crying, and then I heard somebody come in. They said something funny. A different language, I think it must have been. Anyway, what really got me was that it was a boy speaking. So I unlocked the door, to tell him to go and use his own toilet, and then -" Myrtle stopped and continued again, "I died ."
"How?" said Harry.
"No idea," said Myrtle, in a hushed tones. "I just remember seeing a pair of great, big, yellow eyes. My whole body sort of seized up, and then I was floating away..." She looked dreamily at Harry. "And then I came back again. I was determined to haunt Olive Hornby, you see. Oh, she was sorry she'd ever laughed at my glasses."
"Where exactly did you see the eyes?" I asked.
"Somewhere there," said Myrtle, she pointed at the sink in front of her toilet.
Me, Ron and Harry looked at each other and hurried over it. Lockhart was standing behind us with utter fear in his face.
The sink looked like any normal sink in the bathroom. We examined every inch of it, from the top and down the copper taps. Then, Harry saw it, tiny serpant scratched at the side of the copper taps.
"That tap's never worked," said Myrtle, as he tried to turn it.
"Harry," said Ron. "Say something. Something in Parseltongue."
"But -" Harry thought hard. He looked at the tiny serpant scratched at one of the copper taps. "Open up."
He looked at me and Ron as we shook our heads, as Ron said, "English."
Harry looked back at the serpant carefully, for awhile of him looking at it I started to yawn. Then, as a yawn escaped my lips Harry opened his mouth as a weird hissing sound escaped his mouth. At once the top glowed into a bright white light and it began to spin. Next second, the sink began to sank into the ground right out of sight. The sink had left a large pipe exposed, it looks like it can fit a man to slide it.
"I'm going down there," Harry said.
"Me too," me and Ron said at the same time.
There was a small period of silence.
"Well, you hardly seem to need me," said Lockhart, with a smile on his face. "I'll just-"
He reached out his hand for the door know, but me, Ron and Harry were quicker than him as we drew out wands towards him.
"You can go first," snarled Ron.
Lockhart, looking so pale that he might look like a piece of paper at the end of the day, approached the opening of the pipe.
"Boys," he said, as I glared at him whiles raising my eyebrow. "And Y/N, what good will it do?"
"Well, we don't entirely know what will happen to us if we go in there, so you go first so if you die we'll know how dangerous it is," I said, with a sly smile across my face. Harry then jabbed his wand at the back of Lockhart pushing him a little bit to the opening.
"I really don't think -" he started to say, but Ron gave him a push, and he slid out of sight. Harry then followed quickly. Ron looked at me as Harry slid down through the opening.
"Ladies first," said Ron, as I grown and slid down the opening whiles I hear Ron follow behind me. It was like going down into an endless darkness of a slimy slide in a park that is located in hell. A few pipes was also can be seen along the way, but they seem to be smaller.
And then, I can feel the slide ending. I landed into a damp floor in a stoned tunnel large enough for us to stand in. Lockhart was now in his feet as I saw Harry just getting his feet. I stood aside from the pipe hole as Ron came out of the pipe.
"We must be miles under the school," said Harry, his voice echoing in the black tunnel.
"Under the lake, probably," said Ron, as I started to look around and see around the dark tunnel a slimy wall.
We turned into the darkness ahead of us.
"Lumos!" Me and Harry said, as the tip of our wands lit up.
"C'mon," Harry said, as we went through the darkness our footsteps can be heard slapping loudly on the wet floor.
"Remember," Harry said, all of a sudden making me jump a bit, "any sign of movement, close your eyes right away..."
I nodded, not knowing that he won't probably see from this darkness. The tunnel was so quiet it felt like we were in a grave, and the unexpected sound we heard was a loud crunch as Ron stepped into, what look like a dead rat's skull. I looked down at the rat as I saw it's boned all shattered, it looks like it has been here for a very long time, as I tried not to imagine what would Ginny look like by now.
"Harry - there's something up there -" said Ron, pointing somewhere through the darkness.
We all froze in our tracts, it was a large and curved looking creature, lying across the tunnel. It wasn't moving.
"Maybe it's asleep," Harry said, as he looked at us. My attention went to Lockhart, as I saw his hands pressed to his eyes avoiding to see the creature. Harry looked back at the gigantic scary looking creature and edged forward.
Harry's wand gone to a huge snake skin across the tunnel, it has a poisonous green color to it, and was lying across the tunnel. The creature might have been at least be twenty feet long or somethings.
"Blimey," said Ron.
There was a sudden movement behind us. Lockhart's knees had given away.
"Get up," said Ron, quite sharply, pointing his wand at him.
Lockhart got to his feet, whiles he dived at Ron knocking him, including myself, down at the ground.
"The adventure ends here, boys!" he said. "I shall take a bit of this skin back up to the school, tell them I was too late to save the girl, and that you two tragically lost your minds at the sight of her mangled body - say good-bye to your memories!
He pointed Ron's wand that is covered in Spellotape, as I crack a small smile. This won't work, it will just back fired. Can this guy be any dumber?
"Obliviate!" He shouts, there was a small bomb. The rocks started to crack as it started falling over our heads.
Harry and Ron had covered their heads just in time, whiles I was too late. A rock above me had crack down straight to my head as I felt extreme pain on too of my head, as I fell into darkness.
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Sorry if you guys actually want to meet Tom Riddle in the Chamber, but I just didn't include it in here.
Anyway, quite a late update, but it's okay. It is currently 3:06am right now in my country, and I'm quite tired and I do want to finish this chapter and publish it so, that's what I did.
I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, and also did you guys like that little fluff with you and Draco, huh??
~Sophia
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