章 172: Chapter 172: "Scouting the Chamber of Secrets"
Harry didn't know what transpired between the Potter mother and son duo and Dumbledore after he left the room abruptly. He was curious, but he had no way of knowing. However, the next day, Dumbledore stood up during breakfast to vouch for Charles's innocence, so the meeting must have ended on a positive note.
Unfortunately for Charles, this did not result in much change; the students were still suspicious and stayed away from him.
Meanwhile, Harry continued his training with the centaurs, which was becoming increasingly enjoyable. The centaurs were always very serious in their fights, giving Harry thrilling challenges that he relished.
However, while Harry was preparing for his upcoming big battle, things had gotten out of control in Hogwarts. It seemed as if Harry's disruption of the plot had caused the universe to go haywire and speed up subsequent events.
Things transpired like this: One day, Lockhart accidentally leaked the fact that the monster of Slytherin might be a 1000-year-old pet basilisk of Salazar Slytherin. He made this mistake while bragging in class about his various feats of valor against magical creatures.
"And of course, I've faced basilisks before," Lockhart boasted. "Nasty creatures, those. Why, the one in Slytherin's Chamber must be absolutely ancient by now! However, no need to worry, I will handle it once it surfaces in the open."
This caused an uproar inside the school. Knowing the Slytherin monster might be a basilisk terrified everyone. A magical creature that could kill just with a gaze was a cause for worry and nightmares.
"A basilisk?" A boy whispered, his face pale. "We're all going to die!"
The professors couldn't calm down the scared students. They tried to say that Lockhart had lied and that the monster was not a basilisk, but no one believed them. Things went more out of control when this news reached the outside world, and the parents of Hogwarts students learned about the life-threatening danger lurking inside the school. They wanted to take their children out of the dangerous school immediately, but when that was blocked, they went to the Ministry to complain.
Now the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, was in danger of losing his position. Knowing he had to act, he told his cronies to do something. They looked into the Chamber of Secrets incident and, finding that Hagrid was suspected the last time it opened and was still inside the school, they decided to arrest him. Fudge wanted to show the people that he had listened and had arrested the culprit quickly.
Dumbledore wanted to protect Hagrid, but Fudge was more afraid of losing his position than he was of Dumbledore, so he disregarded Dumbledore's advice and sent Hagrid to Azkaban. The arrest was published which, although it did not allay the fears of the students who knew the kind half-giant was just a scapegoat, mollified the parents and left Fudge alone. If another attack happened, they would be back.
Harry watched all this happen and was shocked at how things had gotten out of control. Harry's aim in releasing the basilisk idea was just to have Hogwarts suspended, but instead, everything else was happening. Events that occurred in the books only near the end of the year were happening so quickly. This made him afraid, and he knew he had to act soon before anything else happened.
However, before blindly going to fight the heir and the basilisk, Harry decided to scout out the chamber. He wanted to get to know the place and maybe lay some traps before deciding on the final battle date and time. He knew this battle was going to be life-threatening and any mistake might lead to his death. He had to take advantage of every little thing to put things more in his favor.
Thankfully, with his special glasses, he was immune to the basilisk's deadly gaze, and from the magical ritual he had done a few months back, he was immune to poison. So all he had to worry about was the huge size and bite of the basilisk.
Reaching the chamber entrance in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, Harry looked around for the ghost. He couldn't open the entrance in front of her. Thankfully, she wasn't there, but he did find something interesting in one of the empty stalls: a cauldron with a potion boiling inside it.
Inspecting the potion, Harry found it to be the Polyjuice Potion. He knew it must be the work of the Golden Trio and, like in the books, they wanted to use the potion to gain some intelligence on the Heir of Slytherin from Malfoy. With a mischievous glint in his eyes, Harry took out some rare magical ingredients from his pouch and tampered with the potion.
He didn't do anything bad; he just improved their potion and ensured that it would last for a longer time. Harry wanted to see what would happen when Charles and Ron stayed as Crabbe and Goyle for more than a day. It would be interesting and very fun to watch.
After the mischief was done, Harry got serious. He hissed "open" in Parseltongue near one of the pipes with the snake logo, revealing the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets.
At once, the tap glowed with a brilliant white light and began to spin. The next second, the sink began to move, sinking right out of sight, leaving a large pipe exposed, wide enough for a man to slide into.
Harry saw from the size of the pipe that there was no other way than to slide down. This confused him about how people got back up from the chamber. There were no stairs to go up. Harry didn't have to worry about this since he could float up, but he was puzzled about how Evelyn or Tom Riddle went up and down.
With those thoughts, Harry sat in the pipe slide and hissed "close" to seal the entrance behind him. Then he jumped inside the slide.
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 his, which twisted and turned, sloping steeply downwards. He knew that he was falling deeper below the school than even the dungeons. It could have been a fun ride if not for the slime and dirtiness.
The slide ride soon ended, and Harry was ejected out. He was prepared though and landed smoothly on his feet on the damp floor of a dark stone tunnel, large enough to stand in.
Harry lit his wand with a whispered "Lumos" and began to carefully explore the dark, damp tunnel. The air was thick with the musty smell of age and decay. As he moved forward, his footsteps echoed ominously off the stone walls.
Suddenly, he came across something that made him pause. In front of Harry was a large, shed snakeskin. Its vivid green color had barely faded, and it was at least twenty feet long. The sheer size of it drove home just how massive and deadly the Basilisk truly was.
Finally, after many more minutes of walking in the darkness, the tunnel ended. At the end, Harry saw a solid wall ahead on which two entwined serpents were carved, their eyes set with great, glinting emeralds.
'Open,' said Harry, in a low, faint hiss while standing in front of the wall.
The serpents parted as the wall cracked open, the halves slid smoothly out of sight, and Harry walked inside.
He was standing at the end of a very long, dimly lit chamber. Towering stone pillars entwined with more carved serpents rose to support a ceiling lost in darkness, casting long black shadows through the odd, greenish gloom that filled the place.
At the far end of the chamber stood an enormous statue of a wizard whom Harry assumed was Salazar Slytherin, its ancient face staring down at him. The resting place of the basilisk should be in the chamber behind the statue, with the entrance inside Slytherin's mouth.
Harry carefully made his way around the chamber, noting every detail. He wanted to identify every location he could use to his advantage during the battle with the basilisk. He also looked for any secret chambers but found none. Maybe they were inside the basilisk's resting place.
Satisfied with his visit and confident he had memorized the layout, Harry decided it was time to leave and made his way back through the tunnel to the entrance pipe. He checked to ensure he wasn't seen, then made his way back to his dormitory, his mind full of plans to tackle the basilisk. He just had to get a few things before the fight.
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