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Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
I own nothing but the original characters I make.
"Dialogue"
'Thoughts'
-Author notes-
Chapter 33: Into The Chamber
"Are you going to be okay with that arrangement?" V asked.
Harry appeared to be distracted while walking through the halls of the castle.
"What arrangement?"
"The one that the old man suggested… you've been awfully quiet since we left the Headmaster's office," the magical hat pointed out.
"It's not really up to me. He'll have to ask them," Harry responded.
"For what you've told me about the Weasley family, and their matriarch, I doubt they would refuse to have you stay with them for the summer," V commented. "Personally, I believe a more proper wizarding family would have been a better choice, but I understand why the old man thought of suggesting that one, given your existing relationship with them."
"Mmmm…" Harry mumbled something under his breath.
"What has got you so worried? Is it your lack of social skills? Because this seems like a good opportunity to polish those."
"Mmmm… maybe."
"Or perhaps you are concerned about saying something foolish to the Weasley girl."
"Get out of my head," Harry huffed.
"Oh, I can assure you that I have no intention of going there again. Your mind is a monstrous labyrinth, and one could easily be lost in there forever. I merely used simple logic to determine your dilemma," V explained.
Harry ignored it and glanced toward the door leading to a girls' bathroom. "Here we are."
"Always changing the subject when you don't like it…" The 'eyes' on the hat moved to look at the bathroom. "You do realize there is another entrance in the dungeons, right?" he added.
"The Slytherin students would see me. A Gryffindor stands out too much down there," Harry said simply before walking inside.
It only took a moment before the ghost of Myrtle came flying out. "Hey! What are you— oh, Harry, it's you!" Her demeanor quickly shifted from anger to joy. "Did you come to visit me?"
"This ghost…" V muttered when he realized who she was. "She is still here?"
"A talking hat?" Myrtle glanced at V. "How curious… I haven't seen one since my sorting. When was that? It feels like an eternity ago."
"That's because it was…" V said.
"Sorry, but—" Harry pointed at the faucets at the end. "I came here to access the chamber."
"You're going down there again? Aren't you afraid of the monster?"
"The monster? Oh, you mean the basilisk. It's already dead, so you don't have to worry about it." He moved in front of the faucet with the snake symbol engraved on it.
"Open it," Harry said.
After removing the Horcrux from his scar, Harry could no longer speak with snakes.
But it was unnecessary, since the soul fragment of Voldemort was currently on his head.
A hissing sound came from the hat's mouth: $Open$.
The sink shifted aside and revealed the entrance.
Harry jumped in without hesitation and flew to avoid touching the sides of the disgusting pipes.
"Oh… right." Once inside the chamber, he realized there was a small issue.
During their altercation with a professor whose name had long been forgotten, this part of the chamber had collapsed.
In front of him were thousands of pounds of rocks blocking the proper entrance to the Chamber of Secrets.
"What did you do here?" V sounded upset. "Do Gryffindors have no respect for the legacy of my house?"
"I didn't think you still cared about school matters." Harry took his wand out.
"I may no longer have a human body, but I still consider myself a Slytherin," V said, a hint of pride in his voice.
"Well, if you must know… this was not my fault. But I can fix it now." He focused a large amount of magic, pointed his wand at the mess, and made a circular motion. "Reparo Fundamentum!"
The large boulders and smaller rocks began to levitate and return to their original positions before they all came crashing down.
In just a few seconds, the passage to the chamber returned to a pristine state. Even the dust had been cleared.
"Happy?" Harry asked before continuing onward.
"I am less unhappy," V said.
After opening the second door, Harry found himself once more in the main chamber, where he had once fought the basilisk.
"Urgg… it smells in here." He hurried to cast an air-cleansing charm.
"What did you expect? You left the corpse of that precious beast to rot in here," V said. "I can't believe not even that old man thought of coming here to make some use of it. We are talking about a basilisk that has been alive since the era of the Founders!" V sounded outraged again.
Harry didn't say it, but he agreed with that point. At the time, he had been just a kid and didn't know much about the value of such ingredients.
Now he could have made good use of them.
"Unfortunately, I don't think there is much left that's usable." He only hoped some of the venom remained effective.
He walked to the end of the chamber, where he had once encountered the memory of Tom Riddle.
His eyes scanned the platform and found the old stains of his own blood, from when the basilisk fang had pierced his arm.
And he also found the fang itself. Harry knelt down and picked it up.
"Where is the rest?" V asked.
Harry pointed at the pond of water that ran throughout the chamber. "It fell back into the water after I stabbed it with the sword. I don't know how much of the beast is still left in there."
"You may want to take a look after this. Magical beasts such as this one can take a long time to spoil. Perhaps not everything is lost," V suggested.
Harry nodded. "Okay, but first… we have something else to do."
He took two boxes from his bag.
These were the ones containing the two other pieces of Voldemort's soul he had obtained so far.
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