(replaces most of chapter 16 of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets)

Madam Pomfrey let them in, but reluctantly.

"There's just no point talking to petrified people," she said, and they had to admit she had a point when they'd taken their seats next to Hermione and Ben. It was plain that neither of them had the faintest inkling that they had visitors, and that they might just as well tell their bedside cabinet not to worry for all the good it would do.

"Wonder if she did see the attacker, though?" said Ron, looking sadly at Hermione's rigid face. "Because if he sneaked up on them all, no one'll ever know… "

But Harry wasn't looking at Hermione's face. He was more interested in Ben's right hand. It lay cupped to his side, and bending closer, Harry saw that a piece of paper was scrunched inside his cupped hand.

Making sure that Madam Pomfrey was nowhere near, he pointed this out to Ron.

"Go on and get it out," Ron whispered, shifting his chair so that he blocked Harry from Madam Pomfrey's view.

It wasn't an easy task. Although easier than if his hand was clenched, Ben had still had one finger firmly holding it. While Ron kept watch he tugged and twisted, and at last, after several tense minutes, the paper came free.

It was a page copied using the Page Copying Charm that Ben knew. Harry smoothed it out eagerly and Ron leaned close to read it, too.

"Of the many fearsome beasts and monsters that roam our land, there is none more curious or more deadly than the Basilisk, known also as the King of Serpents. This snake, which may reach gigantic size and live many hundreds of years, is born from a chicken's egg, hatched beneath a toad. Its methods of killing are most wondrous, for aside from its deadly and venomous fangs, the Basilisk has a murderous stare, and all who are fixed with the beam of its eye shall suffer instant death. Spiders flee before the Basilisk, for it is their mortal enemy, and the Basilisk flees only from the crowing of the rooster, which is fatal to it."

And beneath this, multiple notes were written. In a hand Harry recognized as Hermione's was a single word: Pipes. In Ben's, however, were two: Myrtle Warren's bathroom = entrance? and T. M. Riddle diary - possession?

"Ron," he breathed. "This is it. This is the answer. The monster in the Chamber's a basilisk - a giant serpent! That's why I've been hearing that voice all over the place, and nobody else has heard it. It's because I understand Parseltongue… "

Harry looked up at the beds around him.

"The basilisk kills people by looking at them. But no one's died - because no one looked it straight in the eye. Colin saw it through his camera. The basilisk burned up all the film inside it, but Colin just got Petrified. Justin… Justin must've seen the basilisk through Nearly Headless Nick! Nick got the full blast of it, but he couldn't die again… and Hermione, Ben, and that Ravenclaw prefect were found with a mirror next to them. Hermione and Ben had just realized the monster was a basilisk. I bet you anything they warned the first person they met to look around corners with a mirror first! And that girl pulled out her mirror - and -"

Ron's jaw had dropped.

"And Mrs. Norris?" he whispered eagerly.

Harry thought hard, picturing the scene on the night of Halloween.

"The water… " he said slowly. "The flood from Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. I bet you Mrs. Norris only saw the reflection… "

He scanned the page in his hand eagerly. The more he looked at it, the more it made sense. "… The crowing of the rooster… is fatal to it!" he read aloud. "Hagrid's roosters were killed! The Heir of Slytherin didn't want one anywhere near the castle once the Chamber was opened! Spiders flee before it! It all fits!"

"But how's the basilisk been getting around the place?" said Ron. "A giant snake… Someone would've seen… "

Harry, however, pointed at the word Hermione had scribbled at the foot of the page.

"Pipes," he said. "Pipes… Ron, it's been using the plumbing. I've been hearing that voice inside the walls… "

"And according to Ben's message, the entrance is in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom," Ron pointed out. "But what's his final message."

They sat there, thinking for a moment. Harry examined the words until it clicked.

"Ron," he said in a low voice. "What if the person opening the Chamber isn't aware that they're doing it. What if Ben was right about Tom Riddle opening the Chamber and the diary was possessing someone."

Ron looked horrified. "What're we going to do?" asked Ron, voice hoarse. "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."

They ran downstairs. Not wanting to be discovered hanging around in another corridor, they went straight into the deserted staff room. It was a large, paneled room full of dark, wooden chairs. Harry and Ron paced around it, too excited to sit down.

But the bell to signal break never came.

Instead, echoing through the corridors came 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."

Harry wheeled around to stare at Ron. "Not another attack? Not now?"

"What'll we do?" said Ron, aghast. "Go back to the dormitory?"

"No," said Harry, glancing around. There was an ugly sort of wardrobe to his left, full of the teachers' cloaks. "In here. Let's hear what it's all about. Then we can tell them what we've found out."

They hid themselves inside it, listening to the rumbling of hundreds of people moving overhead, and the staff room door banging open. From between the musty folds of the cloaks, they watched the teachers filtering into the room. Some of them were looking puzzled, others downright scared. Then Professor McGonagall arrived.

"It has happened," she told the silent staff room. "A student has been taken by the monster. Right into the Chamber itself."

Professor Flitwick let out a squeal. Professor Sprout clapped her hands over her mouth. Snape gripped the back of a chair very hard and said, "How can you be sure?"

"The Heir of Slytherin," said Professor McGonagall, who was very white, "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 had sunk, weak-kneed, into a chair. "Which student?"

"Ginny Weasley," said Professor McGonagall.

Harry felt Ron slide silently down onto the wardrobe floor beside him, groaning very lightly.

"We shall have to send all the students home tomorrow," said Professor McGonagall. "This is the end of Hogwarts. Dumbledore always said… "

The staffroom door banged open again. For one wild moment, Harry was sure it would be Dumbledore. But it was Lockhart, and he was beaming.

"So sorry - dozed off - what have I missed?"

He didn't seem to notice that the other teachers were looking at him with something remarkably like hatred. Snape 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 blanched.

"That's right, Gilderoy," chipped in Professor Sprout. "Weren't you saying just last night that you've known all along where the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets is?"

"I - well, I -" sputtered Lockhart.

"Yes, didn't you tell me you were sure you knew what was inside it?" piped up 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 Snape. "Didn't you say that the whole affair had been bungled, and that you should have been given a free rein from the first?"

Lockhart stared around at his stony-faced colleagues.

"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 yourself. A free rein at last."

Lockhart gazed desperately around him, but nobody came to the rescue. He didn't look remotely handsome anymore. His lip was trembling, and in the absence of his usually toothy grin, he looked weak-chinned and feeble.

"V-very well," he said. "I'll - I'll be in my office, getting - getting ready."

And he left the room.

"Right," said Professor McGonagall, whose nostrils were flared, "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."

The teachers rose and left, one by one. Once Professor McGonagall was the only one left, she turned towards the wardrobe. "Come on out, you two."

Harry opened the door to see Professor McGonagall standing there, face full of sympathy. "How'd you know we were here?"

"I am a cat animagus, Mr. Potter," she said. "When Mr. Weasley groaned, I heard it. Now, let's go back to the Gryffindor dormitories."

The teacher and students walked in silence for a few moments before Professor McGonagall spoke. "What were you doing in there, if I may ask?"

"We'd just figured out where the Chamber of Secrets was and what's in it. Or, really, Hermione and Ben had and we just found their notes." Harry responded, Ron still in a state of shock and despair.

Professor McGonagall's eyebrow rose. "And?"

"It's a basilisk," Harry said. "The entrance is probably in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom."

Professor McGonagall's eyes widened in shock and horror. "How did we miss that?"

"Only a Parseltoungue can open it," Harry said. "It was probably also a Slytherin family secret."

Professor McGonagall stood for a moment, mouth agape, before she shook herself and continued on. "Right, Mr. Potter, if you could go and tell Gilderoy that his services are no longer needed, I'll be along to take you to my office."

"But it's my sister! I need to help!" Ron protested.

"Mr. Weasley, I'm already risking one student's life, I'll not risk another," She looked at Ron with a compassionate look. "I'm sorry, but that's my final answer."

Harry left at that moment, walking to Professor Lockhart's office.

Harry knocked and there was a sudden silence from inside. Then the door opened the tiniest crack and they saw one of Lockhart's eyes peering through it.

"Oh - Mr. Potter -" he said, opening the door a bit wider. "I'm rather busy at the moment - if you would be quick -"

"Professor, I've got some information for you," said Harry. "I think you'll appreciate it."

"Er - well - it's not terribly -" The side of Lockhart's face that they could see looked very uncomfortable. "I mean - well - all right -"

He opened the door and they entered.

His office had started to be stripped. Two large trunks stood open on the floor. Robes, jade-green, lilac, midnight blue, had been hastily folded into one of them; some books were jumbled untidily into the other. Nothing had yet to be taken from the walls, not even the mirror Harry was standing in front of.

"Are you going somewhere?" said Harry.

"Er, well, yes," said Lockhart, ripping a life-size poster of himself from the back of the door as he spoke and starting to roll it up. "Urgent call - unavoidable - got to go -"

"What about Ginny?" said Harry testily.

"Well, as to that - most unfortunate -" said Lockhart, avoiding their eyes as he wrenched open a drawer and started emptying the contents 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 disbelievingly. "After all that stuff you did in your books -"

"Books can be misleading," said Lockhart delicately.

"You wrote them!" Harry shouted.

"My dear boy," said Lockhart, straightening up and frowning at Harry. "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 hairy chin. I mean, come on -"

"So you've just been taking credit for what a load of other people have done?" said Harry incredulously.

"Harry, Harry," 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."

He banged the lids of his trunks shut and locked them.

"Let's see," he said. "I think that's everything. Yes. Only one thing left."

He pulled out his wand and turned to them.

"Awfully sorry, Harry, 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 - say good-bye to your memories!" Lockhart raised his wand in the air "Obliviate!"

As the spell sped towards him, Harry used his Quidditch-trained reflexes to dodge out of the way, the spell sailed past him before rebounding off the mirror straight back at Lockhart. The spell hit Lockhart, knocking him backwards and caused him to hit his head on one of his trunks. The door burst open, revealing Professor McGonagall.

"What happened?" Professor McGonagall asked, wand held aloft.

"Lockhart tried to wipe my memories. It turns out he's been doing that to other witches and wizards to write his stories."

Professor McGonagall's nostrils flared and lisps thinned.

"Well, Mr. Potter, I'm pleased that you haven't had your memories wiped and that Gilderoy is taken care of. If you'll follow me."

Harry followed her as she led him back to her office. On arrival, she directed him to sit before she took some Floo powder out of a pot on the fireplace and, throwing it into the fire, briskly stated, "Magical Law Enforcement office." After the fire turned green she stuck only her head inside, much to Harry's surprise.

Harry sat waiting impatiently for a few minutes before Professor McGonagall stood and backed up. Before Harry could ask any questions, the fire rose as a wizard stepped out of it. This wizard had a long, grizzled man of dark grey hair and a face unlike any Harry had ever seen. It looked like it had been carved out of weathered wood by someone who had only the vaguest idea of what human faces are supposed to look like, and was none too skilled with a chisel. Every inch of skin seemed to be scarred. The mouth looked like a diagonal gash, and a large chunk of his nose was missing. His eyes, though, were the most unsettling thing about him.

One of them was small, dark, and beady. The other was large, round as a coin, and a vivid, electric blue. The blue eye was moving ceaselessly, without blinking, and was rolling up, down, and from side to side, quite independently of the other eye - and then it rolled right over, pointing into the back of the man's head, so all Harry could see was whiteness.

The man moved out of the way, with a clunk every other step, for another man to come through. The tall black man that just came through was more normal looking than his predecessor. He was bald with a single gold hoop in his ear. He moved out of the way just in time for a young woman to trip out of the fireplace, nearly sprawling out on the floor.

Professor McGonagall sighed as the violent haired young woman recovered. Professor McGonagall turned to Harry. "These are Senior Auror Alastor Moody - " she indicated the heavily scarred man " - Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt - " the bald man nodded " - and Auror Trainee Nymphadora Tonks." the young woman glowered at the professor "You're to take them into the Chamber and let them handle the Basilisk."

Harry nodded before turning to Tonks. "You wouldn't happen to be related to Sirius Black, would you?"

Tonks nodded. "Yes, he's my mother's cousin. Why?"

"Sirius mentioned her to Ben and I in one of his letters to the both of us."

"Sounds like Sirius."

"You can play catch-up later." Moody growled out. "Right, lad, show us the way."

Harry nodded before leading them out of the office and up the nearest stairs, along the dark corridor where the messages shone on the wall, to the door of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.

Moaning Myrtle was sitting on the tank of the end toilet.

"Oh, it's you," she said when she saw Harry. "What do you want this time?"

"To ask you how you died," said Harry.

Myrtle's whole aspect changed at once. She looked as though she had never been asked such a flattering question.

"Ooooh, it was dreadful," she said with relish. "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 swelled importantly, her face shining. "I died."

"How?" said Harry.

"No idea," said Myrtle in 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?" said Harry.

"Somewhere there," said Myrtle, pointing vaguely toward the sink in front of her toilet.

Harry and the Aurors turned to look at the sinks. "There's definitely a passage under it." Moody confirmed. "Good work, lad."

"My friends guessed where it was," Harry said, bashfully.

"But you're the one who confirmed it," Kingsley stated. "Do you know how to open it?"

Harry nodded before closing his eyes and trying what Ben said to him to try to help him in transfiguration. Visualize what you want, Harry, Ben's voice echoed in Harry's head. He visualized the snake from the dueling club before speaking.

"Open up," he said.

Except that the words weren't what he heard; a strange hissing had escaped him, and at once the tap glowed with a brilliant white light and began to spin. Next second, the sink began to move; the sink, in fact, sank, right out of sight, leaving a large pipe exposed, a pipe wide enough for a man to slide into.

Moody nodded to him. "I'll go down first, make sure you're not needed anymore before the rest of you come down."

Without waiting for a reply, he slipped into the pipe and he slid out of sight. The trio at the entrance wait for a few minutes before they heard him faintly call back. "Potter, you're needed!"

With that, Harry followed quickly. He lowered himself slowly into the pipe, then let go.

It was like rushing down an endless, slimy, dark slide. He could see more pipes branching off in all directions, but none as large as theirs, which twisted and turned, sloping steeply downward, and he knew that he was falling deeper below the school than even the dungeons. Behind him he could hear the other Aurors, thudding slightly at the curves.

And then, just as he had begun to worry about what would happen when he hit the ground, the pipe leveled out, and he shot out of the end with a wet thud, landing on the damp floor of a dark stone tunnel large enough to stand in. Moody was standing at the entrance to the next tunnel, blue eye rolled in the back of his head. Harry quickly moved out of the way as Kingsley whizzed out of the pipe. He stood aside as Tonks came flying out of the pipe, cursing loudly.

After they were all standing, they moved further into the tunnel cautiously, alert for any signs of movement. They walked for a bit before Moody whispered to them, "There's a skin up ahead."

The light slid over a gigantic snake skin shortly after he said that, of a vivid, poisonous green, lying curled and empty across the tunnel floor. The creature that had shed it must have been twenty feet long, at least.

Tonks whistled quietly. They moved past the snake skin without comment, Harry desperately trying not to picture what Ginny might look like if they found her.

The tunnel turned and turned again. Every nerve in Harry's body was tingling unpleasantly. He wanted the tunnel to end, yet dreaded what they'd find when it did. And then, at last, as they crept around yet another bend, he saw a solid wall ahead on which two entwined serpents were carved, their eyes set with great, glinting emeralds.

Harry approached first, his throat very dry. There was no need to pretend there were live snakes; the stone snakes' eyes looked strangely alive.

He could guess what he had to do. He cleared his throat, and the emerald eyes seemed to flicker.

"Open," said Harry, in a low, faint hiss.

The serpents parted as the wall cracked open, the halves slid smoothly out of sight, and Harry, shaking from head to foot, walked inside.

AN: Well, another day, another chapter. My computer is occasionally giving me issues with certain keys, but other than that, nothing to report. I hope you all are surviving quarantine and not going insane.

Uploaded July 24th, 2020