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Chapter 19 - Stuck In The Middle Again

Tuesday, January 7, 1997

The crowd of students in the Room of Requirement milled around, murmuring to each other as they waited for the evening's session with Harry to begin. A month earlier, the murmuring would have had a definite connotation of consternation. Now, however... a week after school had resumed after the holidays, the mood was downright jubilant.

The students weren't even complaining about homework, even though there had been no let-up. The entire wizarding world was abuzz with news of all the dark side's bad luck. They were finally beginning to believe that things were going to get better.

Silence quickly took over as the sound of Harry's staff banging on the floor was heard. Harry stood among them. Not at a stage or podium, but right in the middle of the milling press of student bodies, as it were.

"Hello, everyone," he said. "Did everyone have a good holiday?" The uproar was immediate, positive, and heart-warming. "Good. I have something I want to show you this evening. You might say we're going to do a little field trip."

He looked around, noting the look of consternation on Dierdre's countenance. "No, don't worry," he continued. "We shan't be leaving the school grounds. I am going to show you all something that absolutely cannot exist." He paused, letting them stew for a bit. "I promise you will not be in trouble. If you would all follow me?"

Stepping to the door, he walked with his staff into the hall in a very stately manner. He did not look back to see who would follow, because he knew momentum was on his side. After hanging back a few moments, the few stragglers in the back followed the gang.

And what a gang it was. A strange procession from the seventh floor Room of Requirement down hallways, across afew catwalks, down some stairs, along some more halls... Harry kept a steady but gentle pace, his stick clumping down on the stone floor with each alternate step. The group had no trouble keeping up. They also had no trouble ignoring the students who were not in the procession; the Slytherins, the other teachers, and some who were very young.

Out in front was... there was no other word for it. Regal in bearing and confident of mien, Harry was every inch the leader. Any onlookers could only be confused as Harry strode forth, flanked by Hermione, Luna, Neville, Ginny, and Professor Lipharvest -- his phalanx, his cadre.

There were many along the route who scowled at them, but none dared to oppose athrong of two hundred eighty-seven well-drilled, determined and united witches and wizards.

Harry led them unerringly to the second floor girls' rest room before stopping at the door. Nudging it open with his staff, he called, "Myrtle?"

There was a big splash on the other side of the door, and then the ghost of young Moaning Myrtle appeared through the door. "Harry! Oooo, you came back, you didn't forget!" She started zooming around in a tight circle.

"Of course not, Myrtle," said Harry, mischievous grin firmly in place. "I'm going to show a few friends the passage that I found four years ago. Just thought I'd say hi before passing through."

Myrtle's frightened look was classic, considering she had nothing further to fear from aBasilisk -- especially a dead one. "Oh, Harry! Are you sure you really to go down there? It's ever so... ever so nasty."

Where some would have laughed and teased her, Harry didn't. She had meant her advice to be quite solemn, so he answered just as solemnly, "Don't worry, Myrtle. It's dead, remember? And besides, I have all my friends along. We'll keep each other out of trouble. Right gang?"

"Right!" "You know it." "Always." "If you say so." The answers differed in specifics or vehemence, but all were generally positive.

He looked at them for a moment. "The reason Myrtle is concerned for us is that there used to be a basilisk down there." There was another collective gasp. "Don't worry, it's been dead for years. I want you all to know the truth; not what the government approved for you to know."

Turning to the sink that had the snake engraving on the faucet, he uttered in Parseltongue, "Open up!".

Nothing happened.

Harry had allowed for this possibility. After all the things that Dumbledore had done to him, and all the lies spread by the ministry, it didn't surprise him at all that someone had tried to seal the last secret lair of Salazar Slytherin. He wasn't concerned; he gathered his magic around him until he was glowing with arose-yellow aurora and the floor began to tremble. Then, with this terrible Aspect upon him, and his cloak and hair moving as if wind-blown, he spoke. In English. "Hogwarts Castle, Iapologize for the ugly position earlier fools have put us in. I would have preferred the polite way. But examine my aura, mighty fortress, and divine my resolve. Your choice."

The group held their collective breath. Hermione struggled as if with an inner demon -- clearly desperate to speak, but knowing it to be the wrong time. Luna stood aside, looking dreamily at the wall with a beatific expression on her pretty face. The section of wall she stared at was... well, /glowing/. All at once, a puff of pure magic left the glowing section of wall and washed over Luna, as if the wall had thrown ahandful of glitter all over her. Turning to meet Harry's gaze, she smiled widely and spoke with a new voice, warm and earthy and clear as a bell. "Hogwarts welcomes the true heir of Godric Gryffindor, and greets you, Harry Potter. Hail."

As some hundreds of students murmured struggled to get a better view, he bowed to Luna. "Hail unto you as well, Hogwarts Castle. You were my first true home, and I am proud to call you friend."

Luna bowed and kept smiling. As if signaled, the entire crowd began applauding thunderously. "Wow!" "Hey now, did you see..." "I can't believe..." While all this was going on, the sink in question slid back smoothly to reveal the descending tube.

Harry embraced Luna tenderly. Hermione was not pleased at first, until she saw the tears of joy rolling down Luna's cheeks. Luna must have known just how she was feeling, as she reached out and pulled Hermione in to make it athree-way hug. She whispered fiercely,"I love you both." Hermione felt something like a mild static jolt through her skin.

Harry was the first to let go, having things to do. Stepping up to the hole, he shouted, "Evanesco!", and the slide-way was clean; a great improvement over the last time he'd been there. "C'mon, everybody! This is the fun part!" Taking Hermione in one hand and Luna in the other, he jumped into the dark tunnel; all three of them whooping with glee as they quickly slid out of sight.

***

They all stood silently in the Chamber of Secrets, looking around in awe, as if they were in a church of some kind. That wasn't far from the truth, as this was concrete proof of things that had passed beyond legend and into forgotten lore. Harry spoke to them in his quiet, sure voice.

"In many ways, this is where it all began. This is where the very fabric of our society was first woven. The four founders used to meet in these caves, before the school was even built, to discuss just how the future of the wizarding world would be formed.

"You see, Salazar wasn't stupid. Yes, he built this chamber, and put snake statues all over the place, and put abasilisk in it. But he did not do all this to eradicate those of impure blood. Contrary to what some Slytherins would have you believe, Salazar didn't want to kill everyone who wasn't a pureblood. He just didn't want them coming to the school.

"He thought that by not releasing the potential of young witches and wizards, that he could make sure that only pure-blooded people would learn magic here, and the rest would die out. Remember, this was about 900 years before anybody knew anything at all about genetics. Nowadays, we know that you can't prevent awizard or witch from doing magic just by keeping them ignorant. A thousand years after the school was founded, we still have accidental magic in the houses of the muggle-born."

Everybody was watching. Somehow, they had ended up with some more of the school's staff. McGonagall and Lipharvest were no longer the only ones who wanted to know.

Harry continued. "Not only was I not told about witches and wizards at all, but I spent a good deal of my younger childhood locked in a cupboard. Did that drive all the 'unnatural' magic out of me? No, of course not.

"Look around you. The basilisk that lived here was put here to protect the chamber, not to zoom about eating students. Tom Riddle opened the chamber and let the basilisk kill some students. He was a clever student here fifty years ago, but he was also a major pain in the arse."

Harry spent a few moments telling Riddle's history. Some of the folks listening were incredulous, but some just looked down shaking their heads. They knew the truth when they heard it; and it explained a goodly number of other things as well.

"Fifty years later, Riddle's disembodied spirit possessed a student here at Hogwarts, and used that student's body to re-open the chamber. Did you ever wonder why people were being petrified, but only chickens were being killed? It's because the giant snake didn't want to kill. The only reason it left its cavern in the first place is that Oldy-Git was goading it."

He paused for the giggles to stop. "That's right, I mock him. He's not a god, not a demon, but a spoiled little bully who wants to be king punk on the playground. If you don't want to call him Voldemort, that's great! It's not his name anyway. Call him Moldy-shorts, Dork Lord, Dark Lard, Snake-face, the Dark Tosser, or just plain Tom. Hell, call him an Ugly Slimy Back-Stabbing Cowardly Little Two-Faced Git. It won't matter. Word of this mockery will get back to him, and he'll know who started it. And he'll get really miffed. It'll drive him right 'round the twist. And he'll come after me. And I'll kick his scaly, skinny little arse."

In the stone hall, the approving roar of two-hundred-plus voices sounded like thousands. Luna and Hermione each had one of his hands, and seemed to be competing for who could smile the largest.

Harry let go of them long enough to hold up his hands, asking for a chance to speak again. When it was quiet enough, he spoke. "A year ago, there were those of you who thought Harry Potter was a liar, a cheat, and a glory-seeking spoiled brat. I wanted you all to see the chamber, see the basilisk, and hear my story. Now you can decide for yourself, instead of being told what to think.

"It's important that you see this... that you know that this isn't just a lark in the park. This is prep for a real war, with real death, and real monsters. A real chance you will die, and a real slobbering maniac who's really killing and maiming real people and real little babies."

He looked around at the sea of faces, raised his staff into the air, and bellowed,"Tollo sustuli sublatum!"

Most of the large group of students and teachers fell down in the snow -- because they weren't mentally prepared for appearing instantly on the Hogwarts front lawn in the middle of Winter. After all, who would have thought it? It was unthinkable. Harry Potter had just side-along-Apparated two hundred eighty-seven people. On Hogwarts grounds, where Apparation was impossible.

And he wasn't even breathing hard.