Had things been arranged the way Rhiannon liked them, she would have taken the matter straight to Professor – no, Headmaster – McGonagall, immediately. But she had four more nights of the full moon to get through, and after that all of a sudden it was the twenty-first of May and their exams were two weeks away. McGonagall herself was incredibly busy, though from what little Rhiannon heard she was managing well enough, having been as good as running the school for Dumbledore for the last fifteen years or more as it was. But it did make contacting her even less possible than it had been before, and anxious as she was, Rhiannon still didn’t want to fail her exams. As it was, her friends could find no way to get the information out of Gryffindor tower either and they stayed stuck there, knowing what hunted them but not how to fix it.
The first change in this stressful routine came around late in the afternoon of Friday the 30th of May. With just one week left until the start of the end-of-year exams, Rhiannon was beginning to fray at the seams with all of her unsolved worries. She did her best to be patient in coaching Ron through the possible questions for their exams, but her brain was all wrapped up in the Chamber of Secrets. There had been no further attacks, but she still heard whispers in the walls, and her very nerves itched with the need to get her pack back, and stop anything from hurting them ever again.
Someone less anxious might have let the matter go, thinking themselves safe with the lull. But the Basilisk and whoever mastered it still roamed the school, and Rhiannon felt frustrated with the knowing that if she could just think, she could put together who that master was too. Who might they choose next? Because Rhiannon was under no illusion, they were only biding their time. Lavender, a half-blood with a werewolf father? Dean Thomas-Adusei, another boy born to nonmagical parents? Eric Ngui, whose family hadn’t had magic for generations? And that was just the Gryffindors. It could just as easily be Hayley Callister, who had the whispers of blood traitor follow her in the halls for the crime of openmindedness, or Sorcha Cho who had one Squib parent and one entirely non-magical. It could be anyone, and that chafed at Rhiannon without cease.
Ron too wouldn’t let the Chamber be. He couldn’t shake the knowing that somehow, some way, his sister was tangled up in this. The diary was missing, they knew what stalked the school – they had to take this to their new Headmaster. They had to. And the time to do so came late that afternoon, when their half-hearted studies were interrupted by someone banging on the portrait outside, insisting they be let in.
As ever, Rhiannon could recognise a familiar voice over such a short distance. Luna. She so rarely raised his voice, and hearing it now had Rhiannon leaping to her feet and half tripping over herself as she hurried to the door. When she threw it open, Luna almost tumbled inside, so eager were they to get in. “Wh- wha- what’s going on?” Rhi asked, steadying zem by their shoulders.
“Ginny’s missing,” Luna wheezed, leaning on the common room. Xe tried to keep faer voice low, as a handful of older Gryffindors stared at them. Ron had drifted over, and he gripped Luna’s wrist with a trembling hand.
“You’re in different common rooms – you’re sure she’s not just gone back?” Ron whispered.
Luna shook their head. “We had a mock exam in last period. She missed it, and we didn’t see her at lunch either. Hayley and Alain checked the common room, nobody’s seen her. Something’s really wrong this time.”
Something venomous twisted in Rhiannon’s gut. “Sh-s-s-s-ssss- She’s got the diary.” she whispered. When Ron and Luna both stared at her, she shook her head miserably. “She’s had it since the day Dudley was attacked. I... I guess I lost it, in everything. We have to go to McGonagall, now. I-I... I am so sorry, this is all my fault.”
What really hurt was that neither of them really contested that admission. Luna worked his hand into Rhiannon’s, but Ron was stony-faced and shaking. He barely spoke as they rushed from the common room, ignoring Percy Weasley’s shouts to come back as they slammed the portrait of Tina Gryffindor closed. “The – the staff-room, on the first floor, let’s try there-” Rhiannon gasped, her knees shrieking as they dashed down flights upon flights of stairs. They were almost to the fourth floor now, movement was easy enough in the deserted school although they knew how many rules they broke to do it.
Finally, they reached the first floor, and would have carried right on to the staff-room had they not been stopped by the crowd of teachers. Something smelled wrong – animal blood, Rhiannon thought, her stomach twisting. She couldn’t see past the taller figures, but she realised now where they were – right outside the Great Hall, where the first message had been left.
“Potter – Weasley, Lovegood – you shouldn’t be out of your rooms,” McGonagall snapped, as she pushed her way through the crowd towards them. Her lips were white around the edges, and her hands trembled. “What on earth is the matter?”
Rhiannon stared, opening and closing her mouth in search of words. She shook herself. “G-Gin-Ginny’s missing, Professor,” she stammered helplessly.
The Headmaster shook her head and wiped her face with one shaking hand. “We know. There’s a message left right where the first one was – Her body shall lie in the Chamber forever. How you knew about it...” she trailed off, narrowing her eyes at the three of them.
Rhiannon shook her head fervently, tears springing to her eyes. “No- no- no! You don’t unerstand, she’s got something to do with it – she’s got the diary, there’s a basilisk – Professor please, it’s in the walls, there’s Voldemort-”
McGonagall cut her off with a sharp wave of her hand. Her already pale skin had lost what colour it had, and Rhiannon could smell the sharpness of her fear. “I need you to slow down, lass, and explain it to me in full. Come on, into the staff room properly. Ingólfur, I need search parties – not just the rooms, check the architecture itself. Lockhart, with me.” she said, beckoning the inept teacher and the three of them forward through the crowded faculty into the staff-room itself. She pushed out chairs for them and sat down, her head in her hands.
“Now, Miss Potter – you’re too smart for your own good, but I’ve learned from last year, you’re usually not far off. So I need you to tell me what you know and do it fast. Anything could help.” McGonagall said, looking over the three of them. Her grey-green eyes shimmered with tears, a sight that frightened Rhiannon.
Rhiannon shook her head, her hands trembling in her lap. She kept trying to put the story into order in her head but every time she tried, it all tangled up. “It – it’s a Basilisk, Professors. Hermione figured it out. I only found it – a week ago, I think. I’m sorry – I- I’m sorry, it’s been hard to get to see you- I wanted to tell you, I’m sorry-” Rhiannon cut herself off, shaking her head as the train of thought twisted and fell apart into the sea of her guilt. She looked to Ron for help, he knew most of it almost as closely as she did.
“There’s a diary, Professor. It’s dark magic for sure, it says it used to belong to Tom Riddle – you know, who, I suppose.” Ron mumbled, his ears turning red. “Ginny’s had it all year. I think it’s been hurting her. She wrecked the second-year girls’ room in Gryffindor Tower to get it back. Professor – why would it take her, instead of just leaving her? Something else is going on. It’s getting about in the pipes – that’s what Hermione figured out. Which means wherever it took her, it’s linked to them.” he explained, growing more confident.
Lockhart smacked his fist into his palm, startling all of them. “Damnit! I knew so – haven’t I said so, Minerva? I knew we should have searched the architecture!”
Headmaster McGonagall’s tense expression grew into a cold, brittle smile that Rhiannon thought she would never like to be on the receiving end. “So you did, Gilderoy – just the man for the job. You are going to help us. You three – I will confess to needing what you know to find the Chamber, but as soon as we find it, you’re going right back to your respective towers. If it’s in the plumbing... then the person we need to speak with is Myrtle.” she said briskly.
The three students looked at eachother, bewildered. “Um – Myrtle, Professor?” Luna asked curiously. “Not that she’s not very helpful, and she’s very nice, but... what does she have to do with it?”
McGonagall shook her head grimly and clasped her hands together. “I expect, with your noses in it all as you have, you know that last time this Chamber was opened, fifty years ago, a girl died. That girl was Myrtle Warren, better known as the ghost who haunts a girls’ bathroom on the second floor. And that bathroom is where she died. We have made inquiries of her, of course... but as you likely know too she does tend to be emotional, and before now we’ve not known the right things to ask.” she replied.
All of them stared at McGonagall, though Lockhart tried to hide it. “Myrtle- She’s the one who died? And we could have asked her this whole time?” Ron asked, his voice tight with rage. “Before my sister got hurt?”
McGonagall shook her head. “No. She doesn’t know much, my dears – most ghosts have little clear memory of the moments surrounding their death. They’ll hear stories and figure it out over time as Sir Nicholas did, but as Myrtle was the lone witness, there is little testimony she can offer. But you know more than I do right now, and that may be the key to this.” she said, looking at the three of them. “I am sorry to bring you into this any more, but if there is a chance to save Miss Weasley then I must do all I can to take it. Now come with me. You too, Gilderoy.” she finished, and stood from her chair. She swept from the room, and they trailed in her wake, helpless to resist. Gilderoy Lockhart looked remarkably green about the gills as he did so, and he shoved his hands in his pockets to hide their trembling from the three students who cast him sideways glances as they hurried through the castle and up a flight of stairs to the second floor.
The door crashed back against the wall as McGonagall threw it open and they all flooded into the bathroom, startling Myrtle out of one of the cubicles. “Professors? And – puppy! What’s all this?” Myrtle asked them, cocking her head to one side.
McGonagall’s expression remained grim, but she gestured for Rhiannon, Ron and Luna to take the lead. “You know more than I do,” she reminded them as they protested. “You ask the questions.”
Myrtle deflated a little. “Oh. Not a social call. Pity.” she grumbled.
Rhiannon shook her head. “Ssss-s-s-sos-sorry, Myrtle,” she stammered, spreading her hands in a sort of apologetic shrug. “But you’re welcome to come and h-h-h-a-g-hang, out in the library or the common room with us some time if you like. Once this is all over – if, it’s over. Someone’s missing, and we think it’s because of the same thing that – I’m sorry- killed, you. So if there’s anything – anything, I’m sorry, I know it probably hurts – that you can tell us... maybe we could get her back.” she asked, wincing at the insensitivity of the question.
Myrtle’s translucent chin trembled, and intangible tears gleamed in her eyes. “I’m sorry too. I don’t remember it much, and no one else saw... I was sitting here, in this very stall.” here she gestured to the one she had emerged from. “Olive Hornby was teasing me about my glasses, so I was crying. I remember being all confused because someone came in, and they said something funny – I didn’t understand it, but it was a boy’s voice, and I came out to tell him to go away but then there was pain and darkness... there were these big yellow eyes, right over there,” she trailed off, pointing to the bathroom sinks attached to a column in the centre of the room.
Rhiannon frowned, drifting over to the sinks as Headmaster McGonagall and the others continued to question Myrtle. There was something she should remember about this. Myrtle hadn’t understood the speaker... they must have been speaking Parseltongue. There was something very strange about this bathroom. Myrtle had died here, and... yes, it was hazy, but Ginny had something to do with it too. She’d seen her here once before, blank-faced and stinking of hungry death and dark magic. It was where Ginny had tried to rid herself of the diary, before it had taken hold of her again. Rhiannon ran her hands over the taps as she thought, pacing around the column of sinks until her fingers met with something scratchy carved into the metal. She flinched as she remembered the feeling of it under her teeth, and peered at it more closely. Carved into the metal of the tap fitting was a tiny snake in rudimentary detail.
“That tap’s never worked,” Myrtle offered. “It just drips because it’s always wet in here.”
Rhiannon shook her head, and looked up at the professors and her friends. “I think it’s here,” she said, pitching her voice to carry to their notice. “The entrance. And it’s a basilisk – I th-t-t-t-th- I think it needs Parseltongue to open it. It’s why you couldn’t find it before.”
Professor McGonagall turned away from her heated conversation with Lockhart and towed him with her over to Rhiannon, Ron and Luna followed looking bemused.
“I- remember, the episode? You found me in here, when I knocked Ginny over. And- she tried to get rid of the diary in here too – Professor please don’t look at me like that, I’m sorry, I’ll tell you later I promise but I think she’s in there- we need to get her.” Rhiannon stammered, pointing out the carving to McGonagall.
The Headmaster narrowed her eyes, squinting at the carving. “And it just so happens that you are a Parselmouth, am I correct?” she asked Rhiannon in a resigned tone.
Rhiannon nodded, trembling. “You-you-you, can’t get in, without me,” she whispered, eyes fixed on the snake. She’d spoken Parseltongue only twice before, and only when faced with a real snake but... perhaps that was why the snake was carved on the tap, not as a marker but as a focus. Rhiannon focused on the thing until the sounds of those around her faded and she lost track of the world, her gaze fixed on that tiny serpent carved in copper, light from the bathroom’s candles flickering over its engraved scales. She opened her mouth to speak but no words came out – only soft hissing, that somehow to her said open.
And open it did. The column of sinks fell away, spinning into the ground to reveal a great open tunnel that reeked of death, dark magic and worse things. Rhiannon couldn’t see the bottom, but she didn’t need to, to tell that she had been right. They stood before the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. That Ginny had been bound here that afternoon months ago... Rhiannon shook herself, and looked to Professor McGonagall who was already shaking her head. “Don’t you dare, Rhiannon Potter,” she warned the short girl.
Rhiannon set her chin mulishly. “This-- thi-thi-this, is the entry to the tunnels, look at it. You’ve no guarantee there’s not another door down there, that you can’t get past.” she replied, her voice quivering. Her blood was up and Nyx roaring in her ears to find Ginny. It didn’t matter that the girl had broken into her room, that was already forgiven – her safety mattered more. “You can’t get in without me.”
Luna stepped forward to squeeze Rhiannon’s hand, while Ron hugged her with one arm on the other side. Luna cocked their head to one side and looked inquiringly to Professor McGonagall. “We know what we’re facing is a Basilisk. The cry of a rooster is fatal to it, isn’t it? So why don’t we get one, to go in prepared? I thought Mr. Hagrid kept chickens.”
McGonagall snorted mirthlessly. “He’s not said a word of it, of course – to keep from worrying you. But something’s been killing them all year. The blood of the last one is currently splattered across the wall downstairs, spelling out the message of Miss Weasley’s impending demise. I highly doubt its cry will be of any use to us anymore, unless you feel like a two-hour hike to Hogsmeade, all the while Miss Weasley’s time ticks away from us.”
Luna squeezed Rhiannon’s hand tighter. It didn’t show on his face but Rhiannon knew he was shaken by the words. Professor McGonagall eyed the three of them. “Miss Potter, I will accept that I need your assistance. But that does not extend to you two, Mx. Lovegood, Master Weasley.” she warned them.
Ron shook his head. “That’s my sister. You’re not going into some Chamber to get her without me.” he replied sharply. He gulped as he looked down at the great tunnel before them, and Rhiannon looked to both her friends. She held their hands closely, so they could feel what she planned without giving McGonagall time to argue about it. And then she stepped into the great yawning pit that opened before them, pulling her friends with her.
Far above, Rhiannon could hear Headmaster McGonagall and Lockhart bickering. She’d already picked Lockhart for a coward, and she found the energy for a spark of amusement as McGonagall shoved him into the tunnel before her, but most of her conscious thought was taken up with sheer terror as she slid down the tunnel’s filthy side. She had just begun to worry about what might happen when she shot out of the tunnel and into thin air. She did not scream, only screwed her eyes shut, so she was shocked when her practical boots hit the ground and crunched horribly as they sank through layers of bone and God-only-knew-what. Her friends landed with her in a pile, and the three of them stood hurriedly and scrabbled out of the way as Headmaster McGonagall and Lockhart followed them.
“We must be miles under the school,” Luna mused, as they peered around in the low light.
Rhiannon shook her head, and fumbled to pull her wand out of her cane. “Lumos!” she whispered, and gazed around in wondering horror.
Now they could see their surroundings. A high stone tunnel, pierced at the top with the one they had come from. Covering them and layered under their feet was unnameable grime and sludge, and the floor was coated in the bones of small creatures. Lit by Rhiannon’s wand, other tunnels were visible branching off ahead in the ceiling ahead of them, but ahead and behind there was only a single tunnel that ran at ground level.
“Excuse me,” a thin voice said, startling them. Rhiannon turned, shocked, to see Lockhart facing them with a wand in each hand and neither of them his own. “I will not stand for any more of this – extortion. Absolutely not. No, I’m afraid, you’ve gone too far, and you must be made to forget.”
“Gilderoy-” McGonagall said, her voice dangerous, but Lockhart cut her off with a jab of the wand he held in his right hand.
“No. The adventure ends here. I shall stagger back into the school like this, covered in slime and bones, to tell them I was too late to save the girl. You all tragically lost your minds at the sight of her mangled body – a true loss, Headmaster, at the beginning of your reign, I tip my hat to you. Now say good-bye to your memories.” Lockhart growled, brandishing both wands at them.
“Are you telling me that this is what you turn to when faced with danger?” McGonagall cut across him, still in that dangerously calm voice. “This does, of course, cast aspersions on your past – heroics.”
Lockhart laughed, a rattling sort of sound in the hollow caves. “Of course it does! But who would have believed the truth – a witch with a hairy chin banished the Bandon Banshee, the Wagga-Wagga Werewolf was really a ten-year-old boy who had lost his parents! The Yeti was really just hungry and confused! Sometimes the truth, need a little – embellishment – to be believed.” he replied.
Ron’s face, pale in the cold wandlight, grew furious. “And you claimed to be a hero,” he growled. Had Rhiannon not held his arm tightly, he might have lunged at Lockhart himself. “You took their stories, didn’t you? You took them and you made – you made yourself into some kind of legend out of them, you bastard!”
Lockhart laughed again, that same high-pitched jeering sound. “Of course I did! Those who owned the stories – they had no flair for showmanship, no idea the treasure they held in their memories. And it’s the same of you – you had potential, Potter, and guts – but no head for it, none of you.”
Ron broke free of Rhiannon’s hold on him with a roar, just as Lockhart brandished the wand at him and cried “OBLIVIATE!”, and the cavern shook around them. Rhiannon staggered backwards, clutching at Luna’s arm with her free hand as she held her cane in the other. A red-yellow flash blasted out of the wand’s tip with the force of a small bomb, and Rhiannon scuttled backwards staring in horror as the tunnel crashed in on them.
“Ron! Professor!” Rhiannon cried, rushing to the rockfall as soon as it had stopped moving. “A-a-a-a-a-aaaaaaaa goddamnit- A-aare you alright?”
Headmaster McGonagall exploded in a storm of swearing, and there was the distinct sound of a shoe against stone as presumably she kicked the rockslide. “No, goddamnit Potter – don’t you move, I’ll figure something out!” she snapped.
Ron coughed. “Lockhart blasted himself with the wand – I don’t know he’s got, mine an’ someone else’s, check your pockets – we must’ve dropped ‘em in the fall. We’re trapped here. What’s it look like on your side?” he asked.
Rhiannon’s fear crystallised into cold certainty in her veins. She knew what she had to do now, regardless of what the Headmaster instructed. Maybe, as the books written on her in the years since Voldemort had failed to kill her had postulated, she was meant to face him time and time again. Because now she was trapped here, alone save for Luna and her wand, facing the tunnel that no doubt led to the Chamber.
“I- I’m sorry Professor. You can expel me later.” Rhiannon said, her voice hoarse with dust and fear. “But you can’t clear that wall without bringing the cave in on us.”
McGonagall swore again, and Rhiannon could imagine her face as easily as if she saw it, bloodlessly white and lined with fear. “Rhiannon Potter, don’t you dare,” she hissed, but she was cut off by a bout of coughing as doubtless some dust from the fall had made its way into her lungs.
Rhiannon shook her head and turned away, to look up at Luna who stood illuminated by their own wandlight. “I’m – I won’t ask you to come,” she whispered, but they both knew that she wished she could. Luna didn’t need to be asked, he only held tightly to Rhiannon’s hand.
“I know you won’t. But if you won’t watch your own back, that leaves it to me. Now let’s go.” Luna replied. They both resolutely ignored Professor McGonagall’s torrent of swearing as they turned their backs and, hand in hand, set off down the tunnel towards the Chamber of Secrets.
