Chapter 17: "Oh no I've said too much, I haven't said enough."

Gilderoy was power-walking to his office, outwardly trying to appear calm, but his mind ticking through his plan of escape.

If I pack my things up quick smart, I can be out of here before anyone comes looking for me.

He knew that he had to be speedy. He'd rather talked himself into a corner, and now the staff expected him to find the Chamber and rescue the Weasley girl. Once again, his gift of the gab could only take him so far. Now he was expected to follow through on his boasts and promises, his compulsive lying getting him into trouble once again.

Perhaps it was time to disappear again. Lay low for a while. Hide from the web of lies he had spun for himself at Hogwarts.

Everywhere you go, you do this Gilderoy….

Lie yourself into a hole and then you have to cover yourself with more lies.

Everything he wanted to be: brave, reliable, resourceful, admirable, he'd taken from the exploits of other wizards. It all stemmed from a deep place of inadequacy and low self-esteem. He himself believed that he wasn't interesting enough for people to like alone, so he had to lie to compensate for it. And when he'd started writing, putting his fanciful tales to paper, it had become all the more difficult to stop. He'd made money from it, after all. It paid to keep up the pretence.

You have to stop this… one day. How many people have you hurt with your lies, Gilderoy? How many more does there need to be?

He was almost at his classroom. Having already decided what to take and what to leave behind in his desperate flight. Every moment he had counted. It was only a matter of time before someone, expecting something heroic and dashing, came looking for him. He pushed open his classroom door with a thud and came grinding to a halt as the door jutted and skipped over rubble and stones on his floor. He looked to the ground, confused at the mess of pebbles and grit there.

What in the blaises…. Gilderoy thought as he tiptoed over the mess.

His eyes then fell on the outstretched hand of Circe, just visible through what he had always assumed to have been an air grate, close to the floor.

His eyes grew wide as he crouched down to inspect it further, seeing that she was buried under a considerable amount of stone and rubble. He extended a wary finger and poked at her, almost jumping out of his skin when Circe's fingers responded to his touch. He stood up straight and placed his hands on his hips. Lockhart looked to his study above the classroom, and then back to Circe's now motionless hand. He could leave her, carry on regardless with his plan and flee headlong into the night. Every second he spent lingering was a moment closer to somebody coming to find him.

But is that the person you want to be, Gilderoy? Come on. Do something right for the first time in your life. Something you yourself did… not cribbed from someone else…

"Oh, fuck it…"

He fell to his knees again, pulling away armfuls of stones from her at a time. He snapped the bars away, flinging them hastily to the side, and carried on scooping away at the rubble until he had freed Circe's whole arm. He frantically hurled the stones away from her until her battered and bruised face emerged from the mess. A sizable cut ran down the left side of her face from the edge of her brow to the top of her cheekbone.

"Circe… Circe!" He sputtered, grabbing her cheeks and shaking her awake.

When she moaned and opened a bleary eye to him he sighed in relief.

He leaned in close to her. "Here, put your arms around my neck and don't let go. I'll try and drag you free."

She could just about hang on to his words, her head thumping with pain and dizziness. The last thing she remembered was something hard striking her on the temple after the Basilisk had slammed its body into her tunnel. Next, her world had gone black. Beaten, bloody, and semi-conscious as she was, she did as Gilderoy commanded and locked her hands around his neck, hanging on with the little remaining strength she had. Gilderoy heaved, pushing back and dragging her body free from the collapsed tunnel.

As Gilderoy scooped her up into his arms, she slipped back into unconsciousness again.

"Oh, Circe… don't go limp on me now!" He shouted, trying to shake her awake.

She mumbled and groaned under his jolts.

I don't have time for this… Gilderoy thought.

He carried her up the stairs to his office, groaning under her weight. As he kicked open the door, he lay her out onto the desk. Gilderoy set about moving from place to place in the office, grabbing his books, pictures, clothes… anything he could lay his hands on. He opened his travel trunk and began frantically throwing the contents inside it out of it.

Oh goodness… much less space than I thought. I need to think about this. I need the desk to put what I want to take on it… Think about what things will make the final cut...

He cast an eye back to Circe on the desk and scooped her up again, placing her inside the trunk. Gilderoy continued his frantic packing, moving about the room with frightening speed, placing what he wanted on the desk. He reached up to a bookshelf, trying to grab a favorite portrait of himself that he'd sat for his first interview with Witch Weekly. The picture sat on the wall behind Circe in the trunk and as he stumbled towards it, he nudged his thigh into the case, sending the lid slamming shut over Circe and she groaned in protest.

"Professor Lockhart…"

Gilderoy squealed in alarm as he halted sharply in his tracks and saw Potter and Weasley looking expectantly at him.

From the darkness within the trunk, Circe heard Harry and Ron in conversation with Lockhart. The pain in her head was excruciating and she was too weak to even attempt to move. Their voices were muffled and distant and she struggled to grasp what the line of their conversation was as she drifted in and out of consciousness.

"...Professor, are you going somewhere…"

.

.

"... what about my sister?!"

.

.

"...Books can be misleading, my boy…."

.

.

"... you're a fraud…"

.

.

".. well, I am rather gifted with memory charms."

.

.

"... Don't even think about it."

.

.

"... you're coming to the Chamber with us."

As the room went quiet, Circe passed into a restless sleep again, still bundled unceremoniously inside Gilderoy's trunk. Unable to stand up. Unable to even push open the lid again. She could feel the blood running down her head and past her neck and she knew she needed help. And soon.

-----

Severus was trying to hold himself together. He was sweating profusely from within the pipes of Hogwarts's plumbing network, concentrating wholeheartedly on not lapsing into a full-blown panic attack. In his head, he was calling Circe all the vicious names under the sun for putting him in this position. Yet his chest still ached with worry as he scoured every dark and dismal corner for her. From his position on the surface, he hadn't garnered such an in-depth knowledge of the tunnel's layout as Circe had. So he had resorted to marking the walls with a small "X" of chalk from his classroom as he went, indicating where he had been so he didn't walk in circles.

Where are you?

He could see his hand shaking before him as he held his wand out into the gloom. His anger at himself peaked and he cursed his father's name for causing him another deep, invisible scar. Every cell of his being was telling him to shrink, become as small as possible and cower in fear in a damp corner. He hadn't felt so meek and weak for years, and he loathed himself for it. He had faced dangers more deadly and destructive than these tunnels, but none that pulled at such an old and primal fear…

Fear of a small, hot cupboard in the kitchen of Spinner's End.

His father's slamming fists on the door.

His mother's fruitless cries.

Get a grip, old man. He thought, trying to shock himself out of his spiralling thoughts. You aren't nine. You aren't at Spinner's End. You aren't helpless.

Severus came to a junction that he half recognised. A look to the left and he saw one of his chalk "X"s, indicating he had already walked that route. He turned to the right. Severus turned a corner and emerged into a long pipe that trailed on for many many meters before him. He paused, listening for a noise beyond the drip of distant water and his short, sharp breaths. Peering into the gloom, his eyes fell upon something strange. He spied a small pile of stones lying in the pipe some thirty meters away from where he stood and walked briskly over to it. He cast his wand from the ground up to the ceiling, investigating the scene.

A tunnel cave in!

An instinct within Severus told him that Circe had been here when the tunnel had come down, and his heart sank. He dropped to the floor, shoving rocks and stones to the side as his chest grew tight. His panting became more desperate and ragged as his desperation grew. He drew his wand out and cast a grand levitation spell. In moments, a number of stones lifted up into the air and he cast them aside with a crash. A wave of relief settled over him as the stones did not reveal Circe beneath them, instead showing him the exit to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom on the other side. The "stop", normally only a few feet wide, had crumbled away until it was wide enough for an adult to fit through. Without hesitation, Severus scrabbled over the stones and pulled himself through the hole into Gilderoy's classroom.

He huffed and heaved, but eventually found himself standing back on the surface in the open air. He lay on his back and gasped as his eyes filled with tears of relief. Yet he knew he could not know full peace until he had found her.

"Circe…?! Circe?! Are you here?!" He shouted out into the empty classroom, pulling himself to his feet.

He marched up and down the rows of desks, his eyes still searching for her. Silence greeted him and he thought that his instincts may have been wrong and she wasn't here after all…

But the disturbance in the tunnel… the cave in… he thought, jogging up the spiral stairs to Lockhart's office.

"Circe!" He called out again.

The echo of his own voice reverberating through the empty office tauntingly back at him.

He would have been about to scream out in rage, had he not heard the dull thump on the other side of Gilderoy's trunk. He stepped swiftly over to it and flung back the lid, and there she was. She looked up at him through heavy eyelids, her face a mess of blood and dirt. She reached out weakly to him with a mumble and he lifted her up into his arms without hesitation. Severus gripped her tightly to him for a moment, finally feeling solace and calmness again as he held her.

"It's alright… it's alright…" he whispered to her as he lay her back on the desk.

She could not even sit up straight, laying flat on the surface. He touched a hand to the wound on her face and sucked in his breath sharply. It was a bad blow. And it was a small wonder she was even semi-conscious now. Severus delved into one of his many pockets and pulled out a small flask. He unstoppered it and poured the liquid over the cut on her temple.

"There we are… there we are…" he cooed softly, watching the wound close up before him.

Circe groaned and opened her eyes, as if finally waking up from a dream that had refused to let her rise.

"Sit up slowly.. that's it." He instructed gently, pushing her up, his hand at the small of her back.

"Fuck me sideways…" she muttered, reeling from side to side.

Severus kept her from toppling, but couldn't help but scoff at her first words of consciousness.

"What is your full name?"

"Uhhh…. Circe Sylvia Florence Smith" she answered.

"When's your birthday?"

"Thirty-first of October."

"What year?"

"Every year, Severus."

He laughed, satisfied that she was not brain-damaged or concussed. Circe's head ached and she touched a hand to her temple, feeling the slick blood under her fingers. Her glasses were cracked and shattered and she removed them from her face, tutting. Her eyes eventually travelled back to Severus, who still held her upright with his hand at her back.

"Oh, Severus…" she breathed, throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him tightly.

He stiffened awkwardly at her embrace, but finally relaxed, burying his face into her bronze curls and running his hand up her back.

"What did you do?" She asked quietly. "I could barely even stay awake before."

He pulled away from her sharply, holding up the empty flask he had administered to her head. "Essence of Dittany. I decided it would be good to have some handy after you fell into the septic tank..."

"God, I feel like I've just gone ten rounds with Rocky Balboa."

"Who?"

"Never mind."

Severus let go of her and Circe almost collapsed back down onto the desk without his hands holding her up. "What happened? In the tunnels?" He asked, his expression becoming grave.

"The monster…. the Basilisk. It… it caused a tunnel collapse and buried me alive."

"A Basilisk? Surely not…"

She nodded slowly back at him. The palpable fear in her eyes enough to convince him of the truth.

"And you… You lied to me. You told me that you were not going to be here tonight and you burned the map." His lips were a thin line. His jaw clenched tight as his anger at her bristled inside him.

"Severus-" she began, her eyes cast down to the floor in shame.

"The very reason why I forbade you to go back into those tunnels happened tonight! Your reckless, selfish behaviour almost got you killed. You are unbelievably lucky to be alive, Circe!"

"Severus, listen to me. You have every right to be angry with me-"

"Angry? I am incandescent!" He interrupted.

"I know where the Chamber is!" She shouted back at him, silencing him. "And… And I think Harry's gone in there after it... with Gilderoy."

-------

Severus was acutely aware that his hand was still snaked around Circe's waist as they walked together towards the entrance to Dumbledore's office. He did his best to listen, but it was noticeably harder when all his mind wanted to settle on was where his hand lay. Well… "Walked" was a stretch. Hobbled, perhaps. Circe's arm hung over his shoulder and she was still very unsure on her own feet. Nevertheless, she had insisted on leaving Gilderoy's office and moving to the Headmaster's rooms as quickly as possible. Severus had begrudgingly been forced to offer her an arm when she almost fell down the stairs. Still, Severus straightened his back and buried his anger at her, for the time being, to be her crutch. As they walked, she told him all about what she had found down by the girls' bathrooms, what she had overheard Potter and Weasley talking about outside to the hospital wing, and the ensuing chase with Ginny and the basilisk earlier that night.

"We need every last one of us to fight this thing, Severus." She had muttered, through her clenched teeth, her head still pounding. "And Dumbledore needs to be back here twenty minutes ago…"

They approached the statue that led to the Headmaster's office together. Circe bent double, and they had to stop again for her to be sick in a corner. Severus waited patiently. Perhaps she wasn't as unscathed after his dittany application than he had hoped… She needed to be checked for concussion, not running round the school after Potter.

Potter… Severus's thoughts lingered here a moment. Now probably in more danger than he ever has been before.

He had wanted to go straight to the girl's bathroom himself. But Circe's description of the long vertical tunnel leading down to the subterranean floors had halted him. Even if he did manage to traverse the drop and bury his claustrophobic fear for the second time that night, Circe had reminded him of the Headmaster's warning last year, after their little adventure with the Philosopher's Stone:

"Dumbledore made it quite clear that if we kept him out of the loop and went in headlong by ourselves again, without telling anybody else what was going on, then we'd both be facing a dismissal, Severus."

Snape, of course, didn't care whether he did or did not keep his job. Lily's son was in danger again, and he would fight with every last muscle and sinew in his body to preserve her memory. But even he admitted to not being confident enough to take on an ancient monstrous Basilisk completely by himself. And Circe, by the looks of things, wasn't going anywhere with him any time soon. The sooner Dumbledore received word to come back, the better.

Severus pulled Circe onto the spinning statue and they rose up into the Headmaster's office together. Circe groaned as the spinning sent her reeling.

"Are you alright?" Severus asked cautiously.

She had turned deathly pale. The smear of blood on her face looking like a black oil slick in the darkness around them.

"You're sure Minerva said she would be here?" She asked, choosing to ignore Severus's last question.

"Yes. She said she was going to use the records Dumbledore kept in his office to start the evacuation…"

Garnering Minerva's help wasn't the same as having Dumbledore, but it was a good place to start. They walked through into the office and looked desperately around. She had expected quiet, or the singular voice of her friend speaking on the telephone to a parent about the imminent school closure. Instead the office was filled with the frantic cawing and rattling of Fawkes.

"Minerva?" Circe called out, but was met with emptiness. "She's not here."

Severus lugged her over to the chair opposite Dumbledore's desk, and lowered her into it. Severus set about searching the Headmaster's desk for anything useful, or a sign of where to find him. Circe grimaced as Fawkes screamed at her and beat his great wings. She heard the clatter of metal and looked toward the bird's perch. Someone had locked him away in a great golden cage. Perhaps even Dumbledore himself when he knew he was to be leaving the school. Fawkes was obviously greatly distressed. He bit away at the bars and threw himself bodily against the walls of the cage, all the while screeching and cawing noisily.

Well, aren't you different from when the last time I was here young man… Circe thought dreamily.

It was clear the Phoenix had burnt itself and rejuvenated back to the strength of youth. She stood up slowly, and with great pains. But something within her drew her to the bird's side, and as she stared into his bright shining eyes, everything else seemed to fade away, even the pain in her head…

What is it Fawkes? She thought, almost becoming lost in the creature's penetrating stare.

His eyes seemed to speak back to her, imploring her to release him…

Severus pulled what he had been searching for from the draw in the Headmaster's desk: his forwarding address. His eyes fell upon Circe just as she decided to cast "alohomora" on the huge, swinging golden lock on the phoenix's cage and throw the door open. Fawkes burst from its bars with a triumphant cry, flying in a wide circle about the room as Severus and Circe watched him in awe. Before leaving, he grabbed the Sorting Hat in his great talons and smashed through the office's window with a shower of coloured glass. When he and Circe both lowered their protective arms from their face, Minerva was stood at the office's threshold, looking more shocked and confused than Circe had ever seen her.

"Severus, Circe...what, by Merlin's old hairy arse, is going on?!"