90: Those who made a move

(Nathan POV)

I entered my room in the worst mood a person could have.

(I have to do it right now or else....)

I had made up my mind to unlock the seal once again. Last time I had failed miserably but this time I was going to succeed. No matter the cost I had to succeed. Why...…. Because I had discovered what was the monster. Suddenly it all made sense. The petrification, the chamber, the heir of Slytherin, and even the reason why sister and Beatris were always the first ones to get to the scene of the crime every single time. I mean that I could not believe that it had taken me so long to get to the bottom of this. And now that I had...…. I could not believe that I was a step too late. The worse had conspired. Anna was petrified and Aug had been taken into the chamber. The bastard had provoked the entire school and yet no one was moving. The writing on the wall that he left was enough to make anyone angry.

"His skeleton will lie in the chamber forever," I whispered the writing to myself. "I can't believe that no one is doing anything. Those damn so-called adults. I want to fucking kill them so bad that..." I wanted to swear some more at them but then the pot in my hand fell and broke.

"UGGHHHHH" I kicked the pot or whatever was left of it and it hit the wall in front of me. And then I made a punch and it started to glow. A fireball appeared in front of my fist and I threw it toward the already broken pot. The ball exploded and if I had not made a sound barrier around the room earlier half the dorm would have been at my door by now.

"SHIT..... FUCK" In my frustration I had done what I had done but..... now it hurt. I had accidentally accessed more of my magic than what the seals allowed me to. And now my chest was hurting like hell.

"TO BLAZES WITH IT ALL...…" I shouted. And got up. The pain was killing me but I had to move. There was no time. Every moment spent here would be a moment closer to Aug's death. I had to move. It was not for me but for those little kids. It had been a long time but I was not going to do anything for myself or for the sake of the household but simply for the sake of two children and their family.

"Please look after them." She had said at the time of departure. "They are both naïve and young. They won't survive. In the real world like that." I remembered it as if it had happened yesterday. I did not know why but she believed in us. And this was what we had done. This was it. One was in the hospital and the other was dragged into a secret chamber that no one had ever found since the beginning of the school by a monster that no one but the heir of Slytherin could control. A job well done. Clap for us.

I pulled out my wand and started to draw the runes and the magical scripts on the floor. I had to draw a magical circle to unlock the seal. There was no other way to undo the seals except ritual magic. And this could not be done in public. I could not ask for help because..... well..... this stuff was not exactly legal. Ritual magic was considered a branch of dark magic. It required sacrifices. Usually in the form of organs. Like a dragon's heart, a unicorn horn, or a living magical beast depending on what you wanted to do. Luckily my ritual did not require any such thing. I only needed to draw runes and scripts in specific patterns to make three overlapping circles of different sizes. Each and every rune should be in a specific place and it could not be misplaced even by a millimeter.

"one goes here…. And another goes here." I started to whisper to myself. After placing the runes…. I started with the scripts. In magic... if runes were specific letters that represented either a law, an element, or an aspect of power in the language then scripts were like sentences that had complete meaning. And only by using both….. could a magician write a magical formula. This was how wards and long-lasting barriers were usually formed. It took me about an hour to write the whole formula.

"I really do hope it's not flawed like the last time." I threw my wand away and undressed. It wasn't strictly necessary, but I preferred it this way. I mean if it exploded in my face at least my clothes would not get burned. Then I went and sat in the middle.

"Inu….. Isu…. Shi…. Lis…. Kitls….Ishik…. Mimuit…. Extir…. Hexeros…. Alfoir….." I started to name all the runes so I could activate them. A ritual like this in which the magic was focused on a person usually required at least two people. One was the target, and the other way activated the circle from the outside. But I did not have a partner. So, the only way to activate the circle was to name every rune and then activate it.

"Rukh…. Daya...…" I said the last of the name. The script did not require any activation like this but just a spark of magic. "daya.... Ngaktifake….." And with that word the circle around me lit up. I was sitting in the middle of the largest circle and there were two crystals acting as catalysts for the ritual in the center of the other two magical circles.

"Let's hope it...…." I felt magical energy invading my body.

(Yes...… its working….. its working...…..)

But I should not have thought that because the moment that thought appeared in my head the magical energy started to rampage and cause havoc inside my body.

"Ugh." I stopped a scream... but

The circle lit up brighter and brighter.

"OHHH SHITTT." And then it exploded.

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(Myrtle POV)

I was always alone. But then I met Anastasia Morningstar. She was a good and bright girl. She did not care if I was a ghost or if I was annoying. She talked to me every day. So, I was always waiting for her. I had gotten used to her always flawless face and her cheerful smile. That was the reason I got scared when she entered the bathroom today. There was no smile on her face. She looked kinda scary. But I still tried to strike up a conversation.

"Hey Ana, how...…." But I was not allowed.

"Not in the mood today Myrtle...…." A single glare from her was enough to scare the hell out of me. I swear if I had a body I would have gotten goosebumps. She knew that I was scared of her but it was like she was a completely different person. She did not seem like herself at all.

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(Anastasia POV)

I was pissed and wanted to do something. And no matter who got in my way I would have cleared my path one way or another.

"Not in the mood today Myrtle...…." And I had made it clear with this one statement.

"I just want to ask you that...… how did you die?" I had never asked her that because it was somewhat of a touchy topic for ghosts. But this was urgent.

"I don't know." She replied with a squeaky voice. "All saw was a pair of eyes near the sink and then I was dead." She pointed towards the sink.

"Thanks, Myrtle." I turned and looked towards it. There was nothing suspicious about it. But then again if it were that easy then anyone would have found it.

(Hmmmm if it is the chamber of secrets and only the heir can open it then I wonder if.)

"Open...." I spoke in the parseltongue and lo and behold it worked. The sink separated and started to reveal a pathway going down.

"Cleaver...…. Now…. Close." I said in the parseltongue again and jumped in before it could close off completely.

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(Beatris POV)

I was sitting beside Hermione in the hospital wing. Madam Pomfrey did not allow my entry at first. "What good will talking to a petrified person does." She had said and she did have a point but what else was I supposed to do? Ron had abandoned me. And when Nathan had tried to approach me, I had pushed him away. So, the only friend I had left was Hermione who was on the bed.

"I need your help, Hermione." I sobbed beside her. "I Can't do anything without you. I need your help."

I grabbed her right hand.

"WHAT DO I DO...…." There was something in her hand.

(What?)

I pulled it out of her petrified hand. It was a piece of paper. I unfolded it and read what was written on it.

It was a page torn from a very old library book. I smoothed it out eagerly and leaned close to read it.

"Of the many fearsome beasts and monsters that roam our land, there is none more

curious or more deadly than the Basilisk, known also as the King of Serpents. This snake,

which may reach gigantic size and live many hundreds of years, is born from a chicken's

egg, hatched beneath a toad. Its methods of killing are most wondrous, for aside from its

deadly and venomous fangs, the Basilisk has a murderous stare, and all who are fixed with

the beam of its eye shall suffer instant death. Spiders flee before the Basilisk, for it is their

mortal enemy, and the Basilisk flees only from the crowing of the rooster, which is fatal to

it."

And beneath this there was a single word that had been written, in handwriting, I recognized as Hermione's.

Pipes.

I got up and ran outside the hospital wing.

(GOD IT ALL MAKES SENSE. The petrification, the voices that only I could hear. The basilisk kills people by looking at them. But no one's died — because no one looked it straight in the eye. Colin saw it through his camera. The basilisk burned up all the film inside it, but Colin just got Petrified. Justin… Justin must've seen the basilisk

through Nearly Headless Nick! Nick got the full blast of it, but he couldn't die again…

and Hermione and that Ravenclaw prefect were found with a mirror next to them. Hermione had just realized the monster was a basilisk. I bet anything she warned the first person she met to look around corners with a mirror first! And that girl pulled out her mirror and...…. GOD IT WAS ALL SO STRAIGHT...…)

It all made sense and now I knew where I was supposed to go. I had to ask professor Gilderoy. If he had done even a single one of the things that were mentioned in his books then he could take care of the Basilisk.

"Professor PROFESSOR." I barged into his office. "I NEED YOUR HELP.... Where are you going." And he was packing his stuff.

"Er, well, yes," said Lockhart, ripping a life-size poster of himself from the back of the

door as he spoke and started to roll it up. "Urgent call…. unavoidable….. got to go"

"What about Augustine?" I asked in disbelief.

"Well, as to that... most unfortunate…." said Lockhart, avoiding my eyes as he

wrenched open a drawer and started emptying the contents into a bag. "No one regrets

more than I...…"

"You mean you're running away?" I asked disbelievingly. "After all that stuff you did

in your books....."

"Books can be misleading," said Lockhart delicately.

"You wrote them!" I shouted. "Wait....." it had never been more clear in my life. "You did not do any of those things. You stole them. YOU ARE A FRAUD." I shouted at him.

"Yes well that is the truth so, now I will have to go. But before that….. I think that I will have to remove that memory of yours." He pulled out his wand and pointed at me. "Can't have you blabber all of what you have seen. So, I apologize but this was inevitable. It's nothing personal..." but before he could chant I pulled out my own wand and yelled

"Expelliarmus" Lockheart was sent flying back and hit his head on the bookshelf. Then he fell with no movement in his body. His wand flew high in the air, and I caught it.

"Are you dead," I asked shaking. It was not a very good experience. But there was no response. I knew that he could not die from that spell so that means he must have fainted due to the shock to his head.

(Let's just leave him and go.)

I left him there and locked his office door from the outside. I started to walk briskly. I marched down the nearest stairs, along the dark corridor where the messages shone on the wall, to the door of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.

She was sitting on a toilet looking all gloomy and down.

"Myrtle" I called her out.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT?" She shouted. I mean she was always like that, but this was new.

"Can I ask you how you died?" I asked her.

And immediately I saw a look of horror on her face.

"You as well... What is wrong with everyone today." She placed her hands on her head and sat down. But I was not in the mood to cheer her up.

"EVERYONE? DID SOMEONE COME ASKING THE SAME QUESTION BEFORE?" I shouted.

"YES YES.... ANA WAS HERE?" She shouted back.

(Wait...… Ana.)

"Myrtle..." I wanted to grab her but she was a ghost so I could not. "Where is she...… Where is Anastasia Morningstar." I asked firmly.

"I don't know." She replied. "She asked me how I died and then she spoke some weird language.... Like she was hissing and the sink over there opened up. And then she jumped down and the sink closed.

(The sink.)

I ignored the ghost and moved toward the sink. It looked plainly ordinary. I searched it up and down and then found it...…. A tiny snake etched on the side of a tap.

(Yes this is it.... This is the entrance to the chamber of secrets. And Ana hissed to open it.... That means she said something in Parseltongue.)

I stood a few steps back and then spoke.

"Open." I did not know what I sounded like... but it must have been a hiss because the sink started to move and then in seconds there was a pathway leading down. I did not think anything else and jumped inside.

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