Year Two - Chapter Sixteen

"I'm no hero, and I'm not made of stone," I mumbled as I walked through the dirty, stinky halls. Sometimes my feet would attempt to give me the slip, and most often than not I'd have to touch horrendous, mucky walls to stabilize myself. The phoenix made light, and so too could I with but the twitch of my fingers. I didn't want to risk it, though, and so I dutifully left Fawkes as the sole source of illumination.

My arrival in the main hall of the Slytherin was halted by stone snakes. Giant, immobile stone snakes that kept both Fawkes and I out of there. I looked at the stone creatures, and then I looked down at my wand. It couldn't be that easy, could it? I had forgotten about the lock, but I had a wand, and I had magic. Seriously, it should work, shouldn't it?

"Lapifors!" I chanted, slamming the tip of my wand forward. There was a pop. A noisy cry, and the stone snakes shattered into a plethora of fluffy, white rabbit-snakes that hopped away with tiny fluffy tails, leaving us to pass through the rabbit-shaped hole. I chuckled, tension draining from my skin as I stepped through into a dimly lit, giant hall. I stepped through, Fawkes floating in lazy circles overhead, when I wondered why there wouldn't be any protections against transfiguration.

Perhaps there had been, and they had faded. Or perhaps Salazar had reckoned that anyone foolish enough to step inside the chambers of a Basilisk would die, regardless of putting extra protection in the chamber or not.

Or maybe the Basilisk itself was the anti-theft device par excellence. After all, what better guard dog than a mythological, magic-resistant monster?

As it turned out, it was precisely that. The moment I stepped through, and began to walk down the hall, the giant statue of Salazar popped its mouth open. I closed my eyes, and heard Fawkes' thrilling high-pitched chant rise.

"Counting on you, Fawkes!" I yelled. "For Hogwarts and Dumbledore!" I added, propping my left hand behind my back, flexing my legs, and lifting my right hand, my wand held tightly in front of me.

I remained there even as I heard the hisses of a giant snake come down. I did not move. I did not dare move. My own legs were paralyzed with the fear of what the basilisk would do to the likes of me. I had a bezoar in my pocket, stolen from Snape's supplies in the first year and kept religiously close to my heart for good luck. I might survive the venom, I might survive a lot of things, but I needed the eyes gone.

There was a cry. There was a pained hiss. I tried to keep my eyes even more tightly shut. Had Fawkes taken them both out? Had he missed one? Would a single eye be as deadly as two?

"Fawkes! Thrill once if you got both eyes!" I yelled in the air, and received no reply. I swallowed, and kept my eyes closed. The hissing noise became a snarl. Uh-uh. Fawkes, do you copy?

In for a penny, in for a pound, in for a market crash.

"Fulgur! Percutiens!" I shrilly bellowed, swishing the wand behind me and then forward, the hair on my head sticking right up as I heard the thunderclap and felt the bolt depart. There was a cry of pain. A large, bellowing hiss of pain told me I had hit. I swished the wand back and forth, never once letting the lightning go. The snarling of the basilisk was soon drowned out by another snarling, mine.

There was a cry, a distinctive Phoenix-like cry, and then a final hiss from the Basilisk.

"Both eyes gone, Fawkes!?" I yelled, receiving a weak thrill in reply, close by too.

I opened my eyes and stared. I opened my eyes and witnessed. The might of the basilisk easily dwarfed that of the statue. The large scales were dirty from the much, yet pristine in their shine or charred where lightning had seemingly hit them. The monster's eyes were both gone, my lightning having hurt it enough to distract it, allowing Fawkes to rip the second eye out.

The phoenix itself was on the ground by my side, painting and crooning its last swan song as flames burned through it. It looked at me, its giant eyes dimming as it finally burst completely into fire.

I extended my wand in front of me, this time I could see, thus, this time I could aim.

"Fulgur!" I snarled, lightning streaking through the very air from the tip of my wand, "Percutiens!" it soared, straight for the open mouth of the snarling monster. It passed through it, the snake shrieking as its entire body convulsed. I howled as I grasped with my left hand the handle of my wand, the lightning sparkling even more. The heat produced by the spell hit my face, made my eyes water, made haze form, but I did not stop. I watched, with narrowed eyes and feral-like, bared teeth as the Basilisk crumpled on the ground, twitching from the electrocution it had suffered.

I didn't near it.

I didn't dare to near it.

I summoned forth an Incendio over my head, twirling my wand lazily and letting the flames gather in a spiraling, sphere-like pattern. Then, I let it wash right into the Basilisk's open mouth, much to the creature's muffled last cries. Oxygen left its lung, burned to a crisp. It could withstand magic, it could hold its own against a lot of magic, of curses, of anything really, but it was still a living creature, and it needed oxygen to burn to let its lungs breathe.

Thus, I took that away.

Thus, I watched it die, I ensured it died, I made sure it would never rise ever again and once I was done I electrocuted him a bit more, just to be on the safe side.

"Nobody tries to drag me in a dark corner and petrifies me," I hissed at its corpse, "Nobody tries to do that and lives, you hear that, you overgrown garden snake!?" I thumped my chest with my left hand. "And after you, I'm gonna hit your master so hard he's gonna feel across all of his Horcruxes! And then I'm going to snap his Death Eaters in half! To hell with family love and whatnot, Malfoy Senior's getting wrecked with twenty cursed bludgers!"

I then looked down at the mound of ashes that had once been Fawkes, and my lips split into a tiny smile as a bundle of crimson feathers emerged from it. Apparently, I had hastened poor Fawkes' departure by asking him this, and he was now a crying little chick, if quite valiantly proud judging by how its eyes looked up at me. "Thank you," I said, kneeling and extending a hand. "Let's get out of here, all right?" I whispered.

Fawkes scuttled on the open palm of my hand, and crooned softly.

"Yeah," I said with a grin. "We got that basilisk good."

I giggled and extended my wand in the direction of the Basilisk's carcass. A tooth ripped itself clean, and floated all the way to my side. "Now, let's get out of here and stab a diary really good in really awkward places," I continued.

My eyes moved to the walls of the sewers. Then they moved right, and left.

"Uhm..." I muttered, looking down at the chick-Fawkes.

The Chick-Fawkes looked up at me.

"Oddment? Tweak? Anyone?" I asked the thin air, tapping walls right and left.

Apparently, the Chamber of Secrets wasn't connected to the Hogwarts' House Elves service. Thus, until I found a wall that actually was part of the Hogwarts' network, I'd be stuck walking in the sewers. Technically, all sewers led to the sea. Worst case scenario, I'd need Squiddie to bring me back up to the surface.

That was how I ended up spending my night in the Hogwarts' sewer system.

My way out came from the kitchens' garbage chute...

...and I wasn't even allowed a wash-up before having to face the trial by Dumbledore.