Levitating oneself with Daphne in one's arms is a simple matter. Below, past the bends of the truly enormous round tunnels, the light of other students' Lumos charms could be seen. There was no unpleasant smell here, contrary to expectations, but it was cold and damp, as befitted stone dungeons. The whispers of the other lads echoed quietly, repeated many times over.
The descent was fairly long. Daphne, it seemed, was savouring every moment — both the embrace and the fact of flying, as well as the fact that she was descending into the Chamber of Secrets itself.
Ahead came a quiet, multiple crunching, and immediately following it came a couple of tender words from one of the lads, Ernie, by the sound of it.
"...shit," was the only word that came through clearly.
"Actually," I heard Goldstein say right after another crunch, "these are little skeletons."
A few moments later, Daphne and I flew out of the round tunnel into a fairly large stone chamber, lit by the other lads' Lumos charms. Hovering for a moment above the floor, which was strewn with the skeletons of some small creatures, I landed and let go of Daphne.
The others were looking around this small chamber; nobody paid much attention to the fact that there were little skeletons underfoot — potion-brewing and ingredient work does a decent job of blunting one's squeamishness.
"Harry," Hermione turned to Potter, "you could have mentioned it's a graveyard down here."
"Didn't think it mattered," the lad shrugged, leaning his broom against the wall. "What's the point of mentioning everything? You wanted to see it. Well, here you go, enjoy."
"Which way now?" Zacharias had already swept his eyes over the pair of other large round tunnels leading into this chamber.
Potter turned towards one of the tunnels.
"That way. Though, mind you, there's absolutely nothing interesting in this sewer, all the way to the entrance."
We followed Potter, who strode boldly through the enormous tunnels.
"Except, this isn't a sewer," I spoke up, walking alongside Daphne at the back of our improvised column.
"Then what is it?"
Our voices carried in a resonant echo through the endless tunnels and passages, utterly unlike any sewer. Hermione sent a couple of Lumos charms drifting around us, sending them off down the neighbouring passages.
"I think so too, now," she agreed, while the rest simply walked quietly and carefully, looking about, all but holding their breath. "In second year, I thought the basilisk moved through sewer pipes. I never actually came down here myself, never saw it. Now it's obvious this isn't a sewer, isn't a water system, doesn't belong to anything of the sort."
"Agreed," Goldstein nodded, catching Padma by the arm as she stumbled. "There's nothing here characteristic of sewers or drainage systems. The shape, the structure, the multiple levels, all these chambers. Drainage systems were invented long before Hogwarts and the Founders, a very long time before. Granted, in Europe people have rather forgotten about that, but wizards had their own equivalents. Quite different ones. No, all this was built with a perfectly specific purpose in mind."
The dwarf shard of memory within me experienced conflicting sensations. On the one hand, dungeons, stone, all as it should be — but on the other, none of it was quite "right." There was nothing here dear to a dwarf's heart, no soaring arched vaults, no majestic halls, and even the floor was uneven, concave, almost everywhere. And, of course, there were none of the intricate magical runic inscriptions that would reinforce everything, fill it with magical meaning, make the stone stronger than steel, or fill it all with light. And yet, in the whole of this structure, in all these nuances I saw around me, one message came through quite clearly — none of this was the arbitrary fancy of an architect or designer; it had been created for one simple purpose.
"All of this is for the basilisk's benefit," I said quietly. "Its existence was planned from the very laying of the castle's foundations."
"Come off it?" the others expressed their surprise, each in their own way.
"It's unlikely the other Founders would have permitted the existence of so dangerous a creature beneath the castle," Hermione nodded gravely, hanging another couple of Lumos points beneath the arches of the passages, creating a sort of makeshift lighting.
"That's a debatable claim," said Daphne. "Some family friend, I can't recall who now, once said the giant squid in the lake is a guardian of the castle, raised by Helga Hufflepuff."
"Then what were the rest of them doing?" Pansy wasn't overly delighted with this place, decor-wise, and it was cold besides — though thankfully it seemed everyone had my amulets by now.
"I know for a fact," Goldstein spoke up again, "that all the suits of armour, all the knight statues and so on, are complex golems, or something along those lines. And I know just as certainly that every professor knows the activation spell for them. Their task is simple — repel attacks."
"And the squid's task?" Padma nearly stumbled again, but caught her balance. "Pelting the enemy with water devils?"
"Well, doesn't it fish out failing students? Plays at tossing things about with students, if they're bold enough to try?" Goldstein shrugged.
"Let's suppose so," Hermione summed up, as we approached another turn, beyond which lay a stone cave-in. "Perhaps the army of stone soldiers is Godric Gryffindor's handiwork."
Sticking out from under the pile of rocks was a piece of old shed skin, a translucent slough — and judging by its width, even accounting for the shrinkage, the basilisk really had been enormous.
"The castle has a complex system of protective charms and spells," I added, walking up to the shed skin and bending over it. "And it covers the whole territory, too. I've run into at least a couple of these systems myself, one of which prevents Apparition within certain bounds. I'd wager the magical defence system, and various other charms besides — still active, and clearly ancient — could have been devised by Rowena Ravenclaw. After all, she was plainly a Master."
The slough was just a slough, adjusted for scale. No more magic in it than in anything else around here — a very old specimen, and whatever use it might once have had, it was now a rather useless, if intimidating by its mere existence, object.
"Oh, come on," Potter disagreed with that interpretation. "You're saying the basilisk might have been Slytherin's contribution to the castle's defences? Fine guardian that was — nearly killed off a whole crowd of students by sheer accident."
He walked up and stood beside me, looking at the cave-in. There was no more sense in examining the slough, so I straightened up too and found with my eyes a small gap at the very top of the rockfall. Potter was looking at the same spot.
"How tiny must I have been, to fit through there."
The others realised a short break was in the offing, quietly cleared themselves a bit of space with magic, and all but set up camp. In my rucksack, which I take everywhere without exception, there would surely be something useful for such a camp, but—
"Are you serious?" I asked, watching the fuss. "Don't tell me one of you has a tent as well."
"In my room," Goldstein nodded. "Why not? Useful thing to have."
"Right, well... About the basilisk," I glanced at Potter. "I saw a bit of historical background in one of the books once. Basilisks were originally bred, back in the day, to wipe out all the dragons that were making life difficult. They very nearly succeeded — there's hardly any dragons left on the islands nowadays. The Welsh Green survived only because of its docile temperament; wizards who didn't want to give up their dragon ingredients simply "allowed" it to go on living. And the Hybrid survived because the MacFusty family — not yet even a clan back then — stood up for it, promising to drown the country in fire if "those filthy snake-keepers" didn't back off. And once the whole snake campaign was over, once the last Red Welsh had been hunted down, holed up as far away as Ireland, they had to get rid of the snakes too, so various "Saint Patricks" made quick work of driving the serpents out. Along with the snake-keepers."
"A very interesting bit of history," Daphne said, coming up to us. "But what's your point?"
"Good question," Potter nodded, looking at me.
"Well, it's obvious, isn't it. A basilisk's ability to kill is phenomenal, and it's not about the gaze or the venom. It can simply lunge its body forward like an ordinary snake — like any venomous snake would. It's nearly impossible to react in time to that strike. I don't think it's even possible to get away from a basilisk without Apparating."
"Well, I got away," Potter shrugged. "Hid, went still, held my breath. Fawkes, Dumbledore's phoenix, blinded it, so it wasn't that hard."
"You won't believe this," I smiled, "but snakes are deaf as a rule. They hunt by sensing an animal's body heat."
Potter was quite surprised by that, and not entirely convinced either. His own experience apparently told him otherwise.
"Then how do I talk to snakes, then?" — that question was clearly of the "smug counter-argument" variety.
"How should I know? Perhaps it's more of a mental technique, something like transmitting thought-images, since the snakes can talk back to you too. Tell me this — when you hear the hissing, do you perceive meaning directly, or do you hear words instead?"
"Er, words. Though if I really listen and concentrate, the hissing itself starts to come through... as words, yes."
"So it's mental, then. You don't seriously think snakes are fluent in English and are whispering it to you with a snake accent?"
That suggestion drew smiles from the listening lads and lasses, who had by now finished preparing the campsite and had already transfigured themselves chairs, or even a proper armchair — whatever each fancied. Hermione had even conjured a jar of witch-fire, which gave off a far livelier, more pleasant light than the deathly bluish glow of Lumos.
"So you're saying the way I hid from the basilisk made no difference?"
"Who's to say now," I shrugged. "Can't very well ask it. Maybe it's some sort of cripple. From a plain, heartless statistical standpoint, this basilisk is a spectacular failure — never once managed to kill so much as a single human. Either that, or whoever was controlling it didn't want anyone dead."
"And would you have wanted it to kill someone?" Potter seemed to be trying to needle me, of all things.
"Of course not. It's simply statistics."
"And it did kill someone, by the way," Potter added. "Moaning Myrtle. The basilisk killed her."
"Did it? Are you certain? Not the wizard controlling the basilisk? Because if Myrtle was killed by the basilisk itself, that raises a number of unpleasant questions."
"Such as?"
"Why the basilisk didn't kill anyone in second year," Goldstein said suddenly.
"Precisely," I nodded. "Because if the basilisk really is capable of killing, then whoever was controlling it must not have wanted to kill anyone."
"Out of the question," Potter disagreed. "Both back in the forties and in our second year, it was Voldemort controlling it."
"And is there any difference between the case in the forties and the recent one?"
"Boys," Hermione came up to us. "Enough talk of such unpleasant subjects. That's not what we came here for."
"She understood," Daphne nodded towards my little sister. "But she's right. Conversations like that can lead to some rather unpleasant thoughts. We've got a different problem right now."
Daphne and I looked over at the rockfall.
"I don't see a problem," I said, and with a flick of my wand, I fused the rocks of the cave-in into a single mass with the ceiling above, shaping it in passing into a solid archway over the passage. "Easy as that."
"Well now," Ernie shook his head, rising from his slightly crooked chair along with Zacharias and Anthony. "And here I thought transfiguring a sofa was quite the achievement. And then there's this. Oh dear..."
He suddenly let out a pained groan, immediately drawing Hannah's concern.
"What's wrong?"
"Transfiguration tomorrow... And it's non-verbal casting on the syllabus."
That remark, along with the lad's theatrically pained expression, eased the atmosphere somewhat, and we started through the archway, sending Lumos points floating ahead of us. Almost at once we came up against a fairly tall wall of enormous stone blocks, and in the middle of that wall was an equally massive round door, like something out of a bank vault, at least a couple of metres in diameter. Thick iron snakes ran across it from the hinges of that round door, leaving little doubt about the creator of this place's fondness for such creatures.
"Did you close it, when you left?" Hermione was in fine form today, noticing and remarking on everything. Though that was rather her nature anyway.
"It closes itself," Potter shook his head and walked up to the door.
A second of concentrated silence, and—
"Open."
This time I tried to concentrate, and indeed I heard hissing behind the word. Actually heard it, with my ear, not simply understood it in my mind as the word itself. It seemed I could do this too. Though, on the other hand, was that really so surprising? An elf could communicate with almost any animal, given the will to do so. Not quite the same way, but a similar one. But that couldn't have carried over — it's a feature of the body, the brain, heredity if you like. Yes, a trained and consciously developed feature, but a feature nonetheless. And I couldn't possibly have that predisposition here.
"You've tensed up again," Daphne touched my elbow. "Don't you like hearing that hissing? Are you perhaps afraid of snakes?"
That last suggestion was made rather playfully, almost as a challenge.
"So we surround him and wring his little secrets out of him," Pansy materialised beside us at once.
"That won't be easy," I smirked.
Meanwhile the door was gradually opening, the iron snakes upon it shifting. A few moments later the door stood fully open, and the others sent a few Lumos charms floating inside, though that turned out to be an unnecessary precaution — there, in the enormous, gigantic underground hall, there was already ample light.
The moment we all stepped inside, few of us managed to hold back a gasp of admiration or astonishment. No, the place wasn't dazzling in beauty or splendour. From the entrance to the far wall, where a gigantic statue of a bearded old man stood, stretched a broad, smooth expanse of stone floor. Along both sides stood a great many columns carved with snakes, and running water murmured somewhere — though, it seemed to me, it ought to have been either freezing cold or frozen solid outright, given that breath came out as vapour in the dungeon's cold.
But besides the vast hall itself, what caught our attention was... not the basilisk, no. In place of the basilisk's corpse there was only a skeleton. Yes, an enormous one, picked entirely clean of any trace of flesh.
The surrounding snake statues held little interest for me, and I made straight for the basilisk's skeleton across the hall. Daphne kept pace with me step for step, as did Potter himself.
"What do you reckon, Harry," I said as we drew nearer to the skeleton, "who could have picked this skeleton so thoroughly clean? After all, that's no less than thirty metres of meat, organs, and hide to deal with."
"No idea," Potter answered, walking up to the enormous skull. "Blimey... What a monstrous creature it must have been."
The basilisk's skeleton wasn't particularly different from that of an ordinary snake — a head, a spine, and "ribs" running its entire remaining length. But it was, quite literally, a material concentration of magic. Some particular, specific magic of its own. Potter crouched down in front of the jaws, which, incidentally, were missing one fang. He crouched there and simply stared, clearly turning something over in his head. The others had reached the skeleton by now too, gazing at it with a mixture of fear and something like reverence.
"Well now," Pansy came up beside Daphne and me, though she was looking not at the skeleton but at the gigantic statue of the old man in robes. "Do you think that's Salazar Slytherin?"
"If it is," Daphne looked at the statue as well, "then he had a positively fantastic ego."
"Tell me, Harry," I walked up to the thoughtful lad, "do you want this skeleton?"
"Eh? No," he shook his head. "It'd make a hell of a trophy, sure, but I've nowhere to put it. And no ideas for using it either. Can't very well hang a great skull up in the House common room, can I? The twins, mind you, wouldn't have passed up a chance like that — a Slytherin symbol felled by a Gryffindor. But as far as I'm concerned, that's a bit much."
Potter stood up and turned to face me.
"Why, do you want it? Got some idea for it?"
"Haven't quite worked it out yet," I looked over the skeleton. "But either way, it's an entire mountain of thoroughly magical bone, and I do enjoy making all sorts of magical crafts and little artefacts."
"...just look how enormous it was..." Parvati whispered into Hermione's ear, casting the odd admiring glance at Potter as she did.
"Well then, ladies and gentlemen," I turned to face everyone. "Here we are, in Salazar Slytherin's own Chamber of Secrets. Anyone have any suggestions?"
Everyone began proposing their own ideas for how best to spend time here, what to do, or whether to do anything at all. Someone suggested making sketches, for posterity's sake, so to speak; someone — Goldstein, specifically — suggested going round with detection charms and the like to search for anything of interest; and someone wanted to set up some sort of secret headquarters here for unspecified purposes. Just so as not to be limited to the Room of Requirement alone. Though mention of the latter set off a burst of enthusiasm from Parkinson, along the lines of: "Wait, you've actually found it?"
Seeing the others' hesitation over whether it was even wise to be discussing the Room, Pansy declared that she'd find it herself, since it clearly wasn't just a legend. That, apparently, was precisely why she hadn't bothered searching for it before now.
While the others discussed plans for the future, and some — Goldstein again — went about testing every column with magic, I stood looking at the skeleton, deep in thought. There really was something one might try to do with this great heap of magical bones. Something interesting. Fortunately, I had the means for it.
"Care to share your plans?" Daphne came to stand beside me, looking over the great skeleton as well.
"Well, for a start, I'm curious who butchered the carcass, if only Potter could get in here. Though, given that Fawkes flew down here too, and knowing what phoenixes are capable of, one might suppose Dumbledore arranged the harvesting of useful ingredients even back then. Through Snape, say. As for plans... I've a few thoughts, but nothing fully formed yet."
"Such as?"
"Well, you remember that creature on the shore?"
"Not an evening I'll be forgetting anytime soon, even if I wanted to."
"There you go. I made it out of a simple offcut, from under that tree. A bit of this, a bit of that, and — there's the result."
"And it's not even been ten years," Daphne smiled, turning to me. "The secrets are starting to come out. Perhaps you'll tell me next what that apparition was? What ship?"
"I haven't quite worked that out for myself yet, either," I admitted honestly, for the event truly had been a strange one. "And I thought secrets were Pansy's department."
"That doesn't rule out plain curiosity."
Soon enough it came time to leave the Chamber of Secrets, but we all promised each other we'd come back — one simply couldn't leave a place like this and never return. Potter, mind you, pictured himself having to come here every single time, hissing something, seeing someone off... In short, the lad grew rather glum, though he had no real objection.
As for myself, I could get back here whenever I liked, and it wasn't just down to the fact that I was apparently capable of speaking Parseltongue. I had simply been here now, and with a bit of effort, the castle's anti-Apparition barrier wouldn't be an obstacle for me — tested and confirmed.
"Will you need any help?"
Daphne's question had, it seemed to me, an obvious enough reason behind it. It's rather difficult to stand beside someone when that someone needs absolutely no help at all. It doesn't let you see or recognise your own contribution to the relationship, whatever kind it might be — alliance, partnership, family, or otherwise. And once you stop feeling your own contribution, you stop valuing the relationship itself. Not that there isn't a frankly parasitic form of coexistence, but this clearly wasn't that.
"I don't even know myself yet, exactly what I want. But your help would be very useful to me. And I'm even prepared to sweeten the deal with some absolutely delicious pastries."
"Are you trying to fatten me up to enormous proportions?"
"Certainly not."
"Lots of sweets, lots of energy."
"We'll put it to good use..."
"Ahem," Pansy crept up unnoticed — or so she thought. "Why don't we all head back to our common rooms already. Curfew's long past."
Pansy spoke rather loudly, loud enough for Potter to hear.
"Right, everyone!" he called out fairly loudly, drawing everyone's attention. "Time to head out. We'll get another chance to come back."
On the way back, the others were no longer quite so wary or overly impressionable, so we made good time back to that chamber with the little skeletons. The abandoned brooms still stood against the wall, and having quickly grabbed them, our group made swift progress back up the same passage. Though Potter, flying at the front, had to command the passage to open for him.
The girls' bathroom greeted us with a tomb-like silence, broken only occasionally by a single drop of water. Moonlight fell through the windows, but there was no other light besides. Nor were there any prefects on duty about, or Filch with his ever-present Mrs Norris. Having agreed to arrange the next expedition in advance, we split into several groups, each heading off to their common rooms by their own routes. I, for one, walked Daphne back to the Slytherin common room, while Pansy... well, she was on duty for her House tonight, so the two of us still had a couple of hours ahead of us, wandering Hogwarts to prevent any mischief, should the need arise — the little spiders were reporting that "all's quiet in Baghdad," and on the very first day of term, nobody goes looking for trouble. At least, not yet.
At the entrance to the Slytherin common room, Daphne embraced me and kissed me goodbye.
"Until tomorrow," she whispered softly, and slipped through the opening passage, waiting first for my: "Sweet dreams."
"Well, onward, to the hunt," Pansy proclaimed. "Or to hell with the hunt?"
"I know everything's quiet right now."
"Well, then we'll just wander round Hogwarts. Might find something after all. You can't possibly know everything."
"No, I can't."
She had a point there. Despite the fact that I scatter my little spiders about in all sorts of places at the first opportunity, redeploying them from spots that are no longer of use to others, there still aren't quite enough of them yet to cover the whole of Hogwarts, with all its secret passages, turns, alcoves, and hidden chambers, with a proper surveillance network. Who knows — perhaps we really would find something.
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