Aunt Mor's Arrival
"Which one of you wants to explain to me what happened here?"
A deathly silence filled the entire Chamber.
Harry and Percy looked at each other for a moment and started making gestures, having an entire mental conversation as they tried to come up with an answer that would keep their Aunt Mor from killing them right now or, worse, turning them into some kind of rodent.
The two looked back at Mor while trying to think of an excuse, but when they saw their beautiful aunt and godmother, elegant, dazzling, and terrifyingly sinister, with that smile that didn't reach her eyes, both of them froze, as if they knew any excuse would be suicide.
"Well?" Mor asked again, slowly losing what little patience she had left.
The two looked at each other again for a moment with the unspoken understanding only brothers who had fought against death together could understand: sometimes you don't need to be stronger or faster than your enemy, you just need to be faster than your companion.
The moment they both understood that at the same time, they immediately turned around and, with all the strength in their legs, shot off in different directions.
"RUN!" they both shouted as if their lives depended on it.
They hadn't even run this fast earlier when they'd faced the basilisk or Tom Riddle. Now they truly felt like they were in real danger, and there was no way they could win.
Mor watched them run, and her smile disappeared as if it had never been there. A cold air immediately surrounded her without her even moving from her spot as she watched her two nephews desperately run toward the exit.
She simply raised one finger.
The shadows covering much of the dimly lit Chamber seemed to move like a wave and spread so quickly that they immediately passed beneath Harry and Percy, who noticed it at once.
"What?!" they both shouted at the exact same time as several long black arms made of pure darkness emerged from the floor.
Two grabbed Harry around the waist, others caught Percy by the legs, and instantly both of them were dragged downward, completely ignoring the solid floor, as if the shadows themselves were swallowing them like quicksand.
"Wait!"
"No, no, no!"
They both shouted in panic.
Harry tried to reach for his wand, but another shadow caught his wrist and ripped the wand away, while the Sword of Gryffindor was tossed aside like garbage by the dark hands.
Percy tried to touch his necklace to pull out his sword, but his hands were caught by the shadows as well.
Then, in only a few seconds, both of them were half-buried in the floor, leaving only the upper halves of their bodies outside as they moved their hands around trying to free themselves from the shadows. Their bodies, as if they were being moved through black water, were dragged right in front of Mor, who stared at them with her arms crossed and an obviously annoyed expression.
"That's cheating," Percy complained as he tried to pull himself out of the shadows, but his efforts were useless.
Harry, intelligently, decided it was better to keep his mouth shut, knowing it was obvious they had no way to escape. At least he wanted to suffer less.
Mor moved her finger slightly, and two small dark balls flew toward Harry and Percy's foreheads.
THUMP.
"AH!" they both let out in pain as a mark appeared in the middle of their foreheads.
"Aunt Mor, can't you be a little nicer? After all, we're your only adorable godsons," Percy said as he tried to rub his forehead, but the shadows holding his wrists wouldn't let him.
"You'd better shut up. You always make everything worse when you talk," Harry immediately told his brother.
"I'm the one who makes everything worse? Last time we got turned into guinea pigs because you were practicing your new spell and blew up the kitchen," Percy complained, annoyed.
"The kitchen was my fault, but the punishment was because you called Aunt Mor an old witch," Harry immediately added.
"Ah, and now you're saying it too," Percy said right away before looking at his aunt. "You heard him, Auntie. Harry's insulting you. You'd better punish him properly. I can wait for my scolding until later," he added as if he were being patient.
"Are you an idiot?" Harry said, annoyed, giving his own brother a disdainful look.
"You're an idiot."
"You know that fake argument of yours to change the subject doesn't work on me, right? Are you two finished?" Mor said, staring directly at them.
Harry and Percy shut their mouths as if they'd been sealed and couldn't help looking away when they saw how easily their aunt had figured them out.
"Yes, Aunt Mor."
"Yes, Aunt Mor."
They both finally said, lowering their heads.
Lia, who had remained silent the entire time beside Mor, watched the two from the side and couldn't help covering her mouth slightly, hiding her amused smile at seeing her young masters acting like they always did, although she was also worried about what kind of punishment Mor would give them.
"Good. Lia explained some of what's apparently been happening around you, but..." Mor looked at them sternly, narrowing her eyes. "Can you explain to me why, when you're supposed to be studying as safely as possible, you found a way to get yourselves involved in the problems and dangers you were supposed to ignore, just like your mother and I told you?"
Harry opened his mouth to say something, but Mor gave him a hard look and Harry immediately closed it again.
"And without telling me. Without telling your mother. Or any adult who could've helped you."
Percy slightly raised a finger.
"Technically, at the school there were..."
Mor looked at him.
Percy lowered his finger.
"...Nothing."
Mor looked around the Chamber of Secrets.
"I've been too busy lately. There are too many things to deal with because of one bastard, and I haven't been paying as much attention to you as I should've."
Her expression became somewhat more serious.
"If Lia hadn't warned me, I probably wouldn't have even known you were here until it was too late."
Harry and Percy looked toward Lia, feeling betrayed.
The little elf lowered her ears slightly.
"Lia was worried about the young masters..." she said nervously, afraid that her young masters were angry with her.
Mor gave them a dangerous look, making both of them immediately put on their most innocent expressions possible.
"Don't worry, you did your job well," Mor told her calmly.
Hearing this, Lia seemed to relax.
Meanwhile, Mor became even more annoyed as she looked at the two.
"A pair of brainless idiots who throw themselves straight into an enemy's lair expecting to get devoured. I wonder where you got that from. At least I'm sure it wasn't from your mother," she said disdainfully, looking at both of them.
Harry made a small grimace.
"We weren't expecting to get devoured."
"Harry!" Percy immediately said, going pale at his brother's response.
Harry realized it too.
"Sorry," he quickly said.
Mor looked at both of them and let out a slight sigh, calming her anger a little. Then she looked toward the enormous basilisk lying not far away.
"You weren't bitten, right? Not even a scratch? Basilisk venom is the deadliest poison in the magical world. There's no spell or antidote that can cure it."
Harry and Percy swallowed when they heard this, trying to remember whether at any point during the entire fight they'd gotten too close to the monster's mouth.
The problem was, they had.
Many times.
"Well, if you'd been poisoned, you'd be lying dead in front of me by now, so I suppose you weren't poisoned," Mor said calmly.
Although those words didn't seem to make either of them feel any better.
Mor let out another long sigh until something beneath one of her heels caught her attention.
She looked down.
And there, lying on the floor, was Tom Riddle's diary. Its pages were destroyed, pierced through, and covered in that black blood.
Harry and Percy watched her closely.
Mor's expression immediately changed to one of deep disgust.
"This thing again," she murmured before kicking it away and out of her sight.
Harry raised his head.
"Aunt Mor, do you know what this is?" he couldn't help asking.
"That's not important right now. What I want is for you to explain why you ended up in this place and why you ended up fighting the basilisk," Mor said, turning her gaze back toward them.
Harry and Percy knew there was no escaping the scolding that would come after their explanation.
And they weren't wrong.
By the time Mor finally finished scolding them after hearing the explanation, Harry and Percy were still kneeling in front of her with their heads lowered.
Now that she'd finished making sure her nephews understood exactly how much she wanted to strangle them, she finally paid real attention to the place she was standing in.
Her eyes moved across the enormous columns.
Until they finally reached the back of the Chamber.
The enormous statue there caught her attention more than anything else.
Mor remained staring at it for several seconds.
A strange expression appeared on her face.
"It's been a long time..." she said sadly.
"Aunt Mor, do you know this place?" Percy asked. Mor had finally freed them from the shadows, although both of them were still kneeling as part of their punishment.
"Of course. After all, Salazar Slytherin was my teacher," she said with complete calm. "Not just my teacher, but that stupid old Merlin's too," she added wearily.
Silence.
Harry opened his mouth.
Percy did too.
"What?" they both said in surprise as they looked at their aunt, who was still staring at the statue of her teacher as if nostalgically remembering the past.