Chapter 151: Slytherin’s Skibidi Toilet

This chapter title is dedicated to a p/- atreon that complained about my chapter titles, sarcastically asking if the next one was going to be named Slytherin's Skibidi Toilet or something. I Think, great idea.

Thank you to my new P/- atrons: Hunter, Theiju, Andrew Raymond, Ausar the vile, N .A Salim, Irakkneh, Mr. Metric, Fabian Clarke, Christian

-/-

“The chamber of secrets? You think it’s that?”

“The girl was a Muggleborn.”

“Last time the chamber was opened, a girl died.”

“The chammmbeerrrr offf secreetttsss…”

Harry palmed his face in frustration before promptly ducking out of the group of Hufflepuffs he was forced to move with from and to classes, from and to meals, from and to bathrooms.

He extended his senses to the maximum, feeling the joyful stability of the castle, tinged as it was with frustration.

Harry was now at the level where he could feel people from quite far away, as long as they were magical, that was.

He’d notice a 15-meter magical snake with eyeballs powerful enough to kill.

A few minutes of walking, and he slipped into the room of requirement. The room was a safe space, providing a slide into different areas of the castle.

Just not into the Chamber of Secrets.

He’d checked.

“You look miserable,” the sorting hat commented from its perch. “No progress then?”

“Chamber this, chamber that. It’s been all anyone can talk about for a week now,” Harry complained before willing into existence a red lounge chair and throwing himself into it.

A clap of his hands caused classical music to start reverberating throughout the space.

“Understandable, it must be quite frightening for a bunch of children,” the hat agreed.

“Frightening for a bunch of children?” Harry asked sarcastically. “It’s frightening for me!”

“You are a child,” the hat remarked.

“Not like them, I'm not.”

“nOT LiKe tHeM, i’M NOt,” the hat mocked.

“Ah, shut it. You have eyes too, you see that thing you’re turning to stone,” Harry muttered.

“I have no eyes, 

I cannot see, 

a statue I will never be, 

a threat in walls, 

a creeping slither, 

banish fast, 

for I must dither,” Chanithachuah promptly recited.

“Replace slither with slith and dither with shit, you’re getting somewhere,” Harry muttered sullenly. “Why does something happen every year at this stupid school? First Twix, then Greyback, Voldemort, now this. Who even released the bloody snake?”

“A mystery for the ages, unfortunately,” the hat said. “Although, in my memory, there hasn’t ever been a school year without anything happening. In fact, after Dumbledore became headmaster, the yearly incidence rate even went down from three to five to just one. Quite impressive.”

“For real?” Harry agreed.

“For real, for real,” the hat replied.

“I just feel helpless,” Harry complained quietly.

He’d always thought that even if anything happened in regards to the Chamber of Secrets. He knew what the monster was, he knew where the entrance was, and he knew how to open it.

Now everything was different.

Butterflied.

Quirrell hadn’t been an incompetent buffoon, the diary was destroyed, and the entrance to the chamber had moved.

There were two possibilities in Harry’s eyes.

Quite possibly, Quirrell had activated the basilisk last year but simply let it lay in wait.

In a way, it would be a genius move had he succeeded in stealing the stone. While he was off with the stone, creating a new body, Dumbledore would be busy protecting his students from the threat while slowly losing credibility in Britain.

The alternative was that just like in the originals, one of the man’s Horcruxes had made its way into Hogwarts.

Harry quickly counted. He’d destroyed the dairy. Dumbledore must have taken and destroyed the diadem. Someone had broken into Gringotts just a few months after Dumbledore had been informed, likely the cup.

Considering how easy to access the ring was, it was probably gone. That left the lost locket. Nagini hadn’t been made yet, and Neville was a person.

Harry would have to keep an eye out for any suspicious people wearing lockets. Although the possibility that Quirrell had opened the chamber last year remained first in his mind. It would be a good strategy to pass up on now that he thought about it.

In essence, however, he just wanted the situation to end.

The castle reeked of fear, hundreds of students with high anxiety, alongside some silently happy Slytherins.

Everything was harder now.

Meeting up with friends, meeting up for practice, studying, and using the time-turner.

Unfortunately, it was out of his hands. Dumbledore and the staff were out roaming the corridors, tapping walls, inspecting pipes.

Harry wasn’t privy to the results of their investigations.

The door to the room of requirement suddenly creaked open, and the hat popped away.

“Harry?” Flitwick asked as he entered the room.

The man had been using it for a few weeks now. Enough time had passed for a check-up of his magical sense.

Additionally, considering that they now both knew about the space, they now used it to hold their duelling practice as well.

“Filius,” Harry replied, righting himself in his lounge.

Both he and his mentor/student had dark rings under their eyes.

Harry didn’t bother speaking. There was nothing to talk about. Any conversation would simply devolve into talking about how shitty this year was turning out now with the petrification incident. He raised a finger towards the professor, who slowly adjusted his glasses and pierced the digit with his gaze.

An invisible five was promptly projected into the air.

“Five.” Correct

“Eight.” Correct.

“Nine.” False.

“d.” Correct

“Four.” Correct.

“l.” False.

“Six.” Correct.

“You have the numbers mostly down,” Harry concluded after a few tries. “Alphabet’s harder because it has more options, obviously. Fast improvement,” he praised the professor.

Filius blushed and waved him off, looking up at the ceiling of the cathedral-like space. “It’s the room, I’d say. To think it was hiding here, on the seventh floor, all this time. Ravenclaw’s treasures are not all lost.”

“I wish more of the founder’s legacies remained lost this year,” Harry remarked bitterly, at which Flitwick could only give a sad smile.

“Indeed, unfortunately, it seems that the past always seems to find a way to catch up with us,” he replied, before pausing. “There have been talks,” he started slowly. “Amongst the staff and some students. Perhaps re-instating the duelling club would calm some frayed nerves.”

Harry rejected the idea. “An illusion of competence. You cannot outduel the issue we are currently facing.” He paused. “Well, some of the staff might, but none of the students have the ability or will gain the ability.”

“There is pressure from the board, from the ministry,” Flitwick explained softly. “An attempt could at least alleviate some pressure from the students.”

So Harry had been right. Intended or not, any issue at Hogwarts could be quickly leveraged by Dumbledore’s political opponents into discrediting him.

“An illusion of safety is perhaps more useful than a feeling of dread,” Harry eventually said.

Flitwick sighed. “If only all students were as talented as you. Could learn to sense their surroundings to the extent you do. There is a reason you cannot ambush the true geniuses of magic, thus necessitating a frontal take-down.” His perspective also explained why Harry got more leeway in his solo activities. The staff was aware that he was the student least likely to be petrified. Well, it also helped that if this was indeed the Chamber of Secrets, rather than the less likely possibility of a dark wizard running amok with the petrification curse, Harry wasn’t a full Muggle-born.

“If wishes were horses, beggars would ride,” Harry muttered. 

“For the duelling club, would you be willing to join me on the podium for a demonstration, if it is to occur?” Flitwick asked.

Harry raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t Snape be of more assistance?” he asked.

“Severus is also joining,” Flitwick replied. “But the students might gain more motivation from seeing one of their own.” He coughed into his hand. “It would also be an opportunity to, well, rehabilitate your image amongst some of the student population if you went around helping people with the minor details after. You don’t want to end up like the Weasley twins, who’ve been getting ostracised for their more mean-spirited jokes after their brother’s death.”

“I thought the Habsburg story was forgotten at this point,” Harry muttered sullenly.

His image was great, thank you very much.

“Well,” Flitwick started diplomatically. “Considering your propensity to get into rather unflattering situations, perhaps we should start thinking for the future rather than simply remedying the past.”

Harry raised his hands in defence. “Alright, alright, I’ll help. I was going to say yes regardless, no need to appeal to my inner Slytherin.”

Flitwick cringed. “Perhaps a bad time to talk about one’s inner Slytherin,” he chastised softly.

Harry blushed. “I meant the cunning, not the prejudice!”

-/-

It was after another on the duelling sessions with the golden trio that the group stayed behind and stared at Harry in perfect unison.

“You three are seriously creepy, you know that?” the redhead muttered. “Children of the Corn type shit.”

The trio tilted their heads in unison and spoke at once. “What do you mean?”

Harry took a step back, shook his head, then sighed. “Good session, good progress on the explosions. What’s up?”

They exchanged looks. “The Chamber of Secrets,” Neville eventually started. “I think we know who’s behind it.”

Harry raised an eyebrow before remembering something. “The map?” he asked.

Neville shook his head. “No, I mean, we looked up some old papers, and they said that Hagrid did it the last time. Forty years ago.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Well, obviously it’s not Hagrid,” he muttered. “The creature Hagrid smuggled into Hogwarts back then was an acromantula. Definitely worthy of expulsion if you ask me, but an acromuntula wouldn’t have killed that girl the way it did. An acromantula’s poison slowly liquifies someone’s insides. Myrtle just dropped dead.” He sighed, remembering the petrified ghost.

What a clusterfuck.

“Yes!” Hermione suddenly exclaimed. “It obviously wasn’t Hagrid, but you won’t believe who caught him!”

Harry raised an eyebrow. He knew, of course.

Neville nevertheless leaned forward, swept his eyes over the room. “Tom Riddle received an award from the school for solving the case,” he whispered.

Harry slowly nodded, remembering how Neville last year had found out Voldemort’s true name through the Marauder's map.

“So Voldemort used Hagrid as a cover-up, to hide his own murder,” he said, before shaking his head.

The trio didn’t have all the information. Their investigation was useless.

“Unfortunately, Voldemort infiltrated the school last year. He could have opened the Chamber of Secrets then and simply left it like that while telling the monster to come out next year to distract Dumbledore from his escape with the stone, which he at the time thought he was going to get.”

“The monster?” Harley suddenly piped up with a raised eyebrow.

Harry nodded, not seeing the problem of telling the trio this information. Hermione would find it out anyway.

“You weren’t there for it,” he said with a sigh. “But after we found that petrified student, me Dumbledore and concluded the likely cause. It wasn’t a curse, but rather an interaction between a basilisk’s gaze and a reflective surface.”

Hermione suddenly gasped, hands going to her mouth. Her two Hufflepuff friends remained confused.

“A basilisk is a class five creature!” she shrieked.

“Don’t tell the whole castle,” Harry grumbled.

Hermione blushed and nodded her head in apology before gaining a faraway look in her eyes. “A basilisk kills with its gaze… If it met someone’s eyes indirectly, it could petrify due to the weakening of the connection…” she muttered before looking at Harry with wide eyes. “That’s genius!” she exclaimed.

Well, it was you who figured it out originally, Harry thought to himself before shrugging. “Anyway, we know what the creature is. We even know how it’s moving around. It’s going through the pipes of the castle. The only issue is that it must have its own way of closing and opening certain connections because the headmaster had no luck exploring the network. The issue with Slytherin’s leftover work is that magic solidifies in a well-populated castle like this. Perhaps even the enchantment left behind by an average wizard a thousand years ago would be hard to break, let alone an enchantment system left behind by one of the founders.”

“We tried finding Moaning Myrtle,” Neville complained. “But she wasn’t in her bathroom. I don’t get it, she never left it last year.”

Harry remained silent for a moment before sighing. It was important to keep the cred with Neville so the boy would keep coming to him in the future, before making stupid decisions. “Me and the headmaster suspected that one of the entrances to the chamber might be in the bathroom in which Myrtle was killed. We investigated it on the night of the incident. Unfortunatelly…” He closed his eyes and rubbed at his temples. “It seems that if a ghost meets a basilisk’s gaze, they’re petrified all the same.”

The trio collectively gasped, exchanging wide glances.

To be fair, Harry also hadn’t been aware of much magic that could affect ghosts, so he likely would have been similarly surprised had he just found out.

“Another issue is,” Harry continued, laying his information bare. “Me and Dumbledore both remember seeing a snake engraving on the sink in that bathroom. Now it's not there anymore.” He spread out his arms. “There you have it. We know the who, we know the how, we just don’t know where the entrance is, or how to break into Slytherin’s locked system now that it's been soaking in magic and secret intentions for a thousand years.”

“So you don’t think that anyone in the school could be, well, possessed?” Neville asked hedgingly.

The trio didn’t know about the Horcruxes. But Dumbledore did so; he must have been investigating on his own now.

In the books, Dumbledore had only started suspecting Horcruxes after the diary incident; now he was forewarned.

“Nobody’s walking around with a turban, and I’m pretty sure that after last year, Dumbledore is extra suspicious,” Harry said.

“So you’re still investigating?” Harley asked curiously.

Harry shook his head. “I helped as the headmaster’s sounding board on the day of the incident, but in the end, I’m a student just like you. Dumbledore told me he’ll take care of it. He just has to find an entrance into those fucking pipes, and it's done.”

“Maybe,” Neville suddenly said, receiving sharp glances from his friends. He held up a hand to calm them down before locking eyes with Harry. “Maybe I can help.”

Harry raised an eyebrow.

Neville took a deep breath. “I’m a parselmouth,” he admitted and took a step back, as if expecting some sort of rejection.

Harry simply nodded. “Have you told the headmaster?” he asked.

The trio nodded. 

“We went to him first with what we found. He told us not to worry about it,” Harley said, raising her fingers. “He said, “We’re too young.””

“But we want to help find the chamber,” Neville insisted. “I’m a parselmouth, I’m the only one who can!”

“So you understand the issue, namely that Dumbledore is looking for a way in, but can’t find it. You want to help with that. Then, when we have that information, we give it to Dumbledore?” Harry prompted.

The trio nodded.

“One question, why come to me?” he asked curiously. “You’re the parselmouth, you don’t need me.” He paused. “Also, well, if we stumble on the basilisk, we can just all die together.”

“You know the castle better than us,” Harley explained. “We see you on the map. You’re always disappearing and reappearing on different floors. There aren’t even any secret passages where you do it.”

“Maybe we’d have a better chance of, well, not dying if you come with us,” Neville muttered awkwardly.

“Also, you’re smart, you figured out all that with the basilisk on day one!” Hermione exclaimed.

Harry wondered about the invitation for a brief second. Was he willing to make this trio a quartet?

Then he realised one thing.

If he didn’t join, they’d just do it on their own and possibly die.

“Alright,” he said with a sigh, already wondering if he should simply stop sleeping to do all the tasks he now had. “Let’s do this. I want one normal year at Hogwarts. And if we have to find a secret chamber that nobody has managed to locate in a thousand years, that’s just what we’ll do.”

-/-

AN: I am not rehashing the og plot of book 2 btw. I just thought since Voldemort knew Dumbledore suspected the second floor girl’s bathroom, that he would perhaps change the entrance. I’m sure slytherin created more than one, a fox needing more than one way into the burrow and all that

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