Harry heard a voice, hissing in Parseltongue. “Who are you? Are you a sspeaking human? If you are, you have to tell me to change my eyesss to white, otherwise my eyesss are yellow, and everyone who lookss at my eyesss will die.”

“Hello,” Harry hissed back. “Please change your eyesss to white, because I would love to ssee you. Are you a ssnake? Um… Yes, I am a human, and I sspeak ssnakes’ language. Is it ssafe for me to look at you now?”

“Yesss, it is all right now. I have changed my eyesss to white. You have to know, I only do this for speakerss. However, the last speaker I met wass very evil. He forced me out into the castle without changing my eyesss, which I can only do when I’m told to do it. And at least one student died I believe. I hope you are not evil. I have met many speakersss over the yearsss, and most of them were very kind people. I’m a Basilissk, by the way.”

Harry was stunned. He walked a few steps, and then – suddenly – he took in the huge snake. It was beautiful. “You are beautiful – but huge!” he hissed. “By the way, what iss thiss place? Where are we?”

“Thisss iss the Chamber of Secrets. My first owner and good friend Salazzzar Slythssserin built this Chamber for himself – and for me. It’s huge. I can show you around the place if you wish.”

“That iss very kind of you, thssank you very much. However, I’m afraid my friends are waiting for me and will be worried now, sso I have to leave. But I will return tomorrow, if you don’t mind. Doesss this chamber have an entrance?”

The Basilisk told Harry to follow him and showed Harry the entrance, telling him what he had to do in order to get access from the other side of the entrance.

“All right. Thssank you very much. I will ssee you tomorrow,” Harry promised and left the chamber, then transformed and flashed home, where everyone was worrying about him. He had been in the Chamber for so long that Remus and James had, in the meantime, returned to the others to see what was wrong.

Hearing the beginning of Harry’s story, Salazar’s face turned very stern. “Wait, Harry. Before you go on, let me call Professor Dumbledore. He should hear this as well.” He went to the fireplace, and a minute later, Professor Dumbledore stepped into the room, followed shortly by Professor McGonagall.

“There was an incident, about thirty years ago,” Albus told the students. “Someone opened the Chamber of Secrets and let out a so-called monster, which would apparently be your Basilisk, and it really killed a student. At that time, Hagrid was accused of opening the Chamber, wrongly as I have always presumed.”

Harry shook his head vehemently. “No, Professor. Hagrid couldn’t have opened the Chamber, even if he wanted, because it can only be opened in Parseltongue. And the Basilisk told me this was the only entrance. He also told me that there had been an evil man speaking Parseltongue.” He recounted what the Basilisk had told him about the incident with the girl that died because of looking into his eyes.

“Is that so Harry? Can you prove it? Would you be willing to do so in order to prove Hagrid’s innocence? I don’t know if he would want to continue his studies, but at least he would be allowed to have a wand. The only speaker I can imagine the Basilisk can be referring to must be Voldemort. At that time, however, he still used his real name, Tom Marvolo Riddle.”

Harry sighed. “I hate people knowing that I’m a Parselmouth, but of course, I would help Hagrid if I could.”

“Thank you, Harry. I will speak with the Aurors about it, and it might be that you will be called either to the Ministry or to court one day to tell someone what you know about the Chamber of Secrets and how to open it.”

-----

As the next day was a Saturday, Harry had time enough to visit the Basilisk. In case something happened, he told Severus that he would go into the Chamber and leave the entrance open, so that he could go and look for Harry if he wasn’t back before lunch. Severus would have liked to accompany Harry; however, he told his future father that he would prefer to ask the Basilisk first if guests who didn’t speak Parseltongue were welcome at all. Harry was very excited. What was the Basilisk going to show him? The room had not looked as if there was anything interesting at all, merely a huge chamber with stone walls all around.

After breakfast, he flashed over into the bathroom, where the entrance to the chamber was sited. He opened the entrance and entered the Chamber. While he addressed the Basilisk, Harry told the creature that he had come to visit him and ordered him to change his eyes to white.

The Basilisk seemed to be glad to see him and invited Harry on a tour around the chamber, which did in fact consist of several rooms that were hidden by hardly noticeable doors, opening on passwords in Parseltongue. There were rooms of all sizes. Harry was guided to a very large room, which somehow resembled the sitting room in the teachers’ quarters. A really huge fireplace seemed to be the centre of the room.

“Can you do me a favour pleassse?” The Basilisk suddenly asked.

Harry threw him a confused glance. He still felt a bit unsure being with the huge snake. “Of course,” he replied curiously, “What can I do for you?”

“Pleassse light thiss fireplace; I’m cold. Salazar really cared about me. He ordered the castle to always leave enough rats for me to live and to have the fireplace lit all the time. However, when the bad sspeaker wass here a few yearsss ago, he extinguished the fire, and from then on, I’ve alwaysss been cold,” the Basilisk told him.

With a flick of his wand, Harry lit the fireplace, and the long snake lay down in front of the huge fireside, making noises that sounded very satisfied.

“Thank you,” it hissed contently.

Harry laughed and hissed back, “You’re welcome.”

“You can use this fireplacsse to move around in the cassstle,” the Basilisk told him. “At leasst Ssalazzzar was able to do so. Over there isss some powder, which he alwaysss used.”

Harry looked over to where the Basilisk had looked and gasped. There was a small stone pot containing Floo powder. He suddenly remembered something. He would like to show this place to his father and his friends. He looked to the Basilisk in order to be able to speak Parseltongue and asked, “By the way, do you have a name?”

The Basilisk nodded. “Yesss. Salazssar called me ‘Amaterasu’.”

“Oh, that’s a nice name. My name is Harry, by the way, Harry Snape. Um… do you think it would be possible to bring my father and few friends in here? My father is a snake Animagus, and I am sure he and my friends would be very interested to get to know you.”

“Yesss, you can bring your friends. As you are my master now and you have ordered me to change my eyes to white, nobody will be in danger looking at me. But I would like you to introduce them to me as I want to know who is in my Chamber.”

“Of course, I will do that,” Harry promised and proceeded to look around. There were several comfortable looking chairs and two sofas, everything in dark green. A book shelf next to one of the chairs contained a handful of old, brittle books. Harry took one of them in his hands, seeing that it was a very old Potions book for beginners. The other books seemed to be school books as well.

“Do you think I could take one of the booksss with me to read in the evening?” he addressed the Basilisk.

With a nod of his huge head, the Basilisk replied, “Yesss, Master Harry, you may do that, and if you are interested in booksss, I can show you to the Chamber’s library.”

“Library?” Harry asked curiously, and his eyes began to twinkle in anticipation. He just loved libraries, and to think there was a personal library of Salazar Slytherin…

The Basilisk’s hissing pulled him out of his thoughts. “You see the book shelf over there, right? If you say the password when you touch it, you will be able to slide it to the right side. The password is ‘snakes’ books’.”

Harry did as he was told, and the sliding bookshelf revealed the entrance to a huge chamber, filled with book shelves from the bottom up to the ceiling. Harry stood there, stunned. A room full of books from the time of the founders. He couldn’t believe it – this Chamber was a treasure trove for research.

“If you push against the third shelf from the left and say the incantation ‘snakes’ potions’, the shelf will reveal my master’s Potions lab,” the voice of the Basilisk again pulled him out of his thoughts.

While Harry was still torn between the urge to look at the books and the wish to explore more of these interesting rooms, he threw a glance at his watch and noticed that it was already lunchtime. If he missed lunch, he wouldn’t only be in trouble with Madam Pomfrey and his father, but Severus would worry about him and would eventually go looking for him. He hurriedly exited the room and put the book shelf back into its position, before he explained to the Basilisk that he had to go for lunch, but that he would try to convince his friends to come back in the afternoon.

“Do you know what the name of this fireplace is?” he quickly asked the Basilisk.

“It’s ‘Chamber of Secrets’. And it only works in Parseltongue,” the snake replied patiently.

-----

“Sorry for being so late,” Harry whispered to Severus, when he slipped in the seat next to him at the Slytherin table.

Severus gave him a very relieved glance. “Good that you are back, Harry. I was already very worried, and I was going to speak with your father directly after lunch. What happened?”

Harry gave his friend a huge smile, his eyes twinkling merrily, when he explained what he had been doing all morning.

“And you’re sure this is here within the castle?” James asked him unbelievingly, when Harry told him and his other friends about the Chamber of Secrets after lunch.

Harry glared at him. “Do you think I’m hallucinating or what?” he then asked, a little hurt. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have told anyone except for my father,’ he thought, slightly upset.

“I suggest that we go and have a look at the chamber,” Salazar finally suggested. “However, I think, we should at least inform Professor Dumbledore of it, in case someone is looking for us. From what Harry told us I am sure this expedition will take the whole afternoon.”

They went up to the Headmaster’s Office, where Harry had to tell his story again to the surprised Headmaster and his Deputy.

“All right,” Professor Dumbledore said, his eyes twinkling with the same excitement that could be read in Harry’s eyes. “I will try to go through the Floo, if you could say the incantation for me please, Harry.”

“No!” Harry contradicted immediately. “Let me go first and tell the Basilisk about what to expect; otherwise she might attack you. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Minerva handed him the Floo powder and said, “Please be careful, Harry.”

Harry gave her a short nod and Floo-ed over to the Chamber, where Amaterasu greeted him happily.

“Are you back already? That’s nice; I’ve been ssso lonely here alone all the time.”

During the next minutes, Harry prepared her for the visitors that were going to Floo over and then returned to the Headmaster’s Office. One after another the Professors and Harry’s friends went on their expedition. Harry was the last to Floo over, and when he arrived, he saw that Amaterasu had left her place in front of the fireplace, so that everyone could step out of the fire comfortably.

He thanked the Basilisk, told her about his and his father’s time travel and introduced everyone to his new friend.

“All right. Just look around and have fun. If you don’t mind, I will stretch out in front of the fire again – it’s ssso nice and warm. Just wake me up if you need me or if you want to use the fireplace.”

Harry thanked her again and moved the book shelf, so that they could access the library. This was a paradise – thousands and thousands of books, most of them written in old English. Harry was very surprised when he noticed that the language adjusted itself to modern English, as soon as he took a book in his hands.

‘Wow,’ he thought enthusiastically, ‘this room is so interesting that I could live here for a few weeks.’ Many of the books seemed to be Potions books, and Harry noticed that both his fathers, who normally didn’t show their emotions very much, had very excited looks on their faces. ‘What will they say when they see the potions lab?’ Harry thought and said the incantation to open the entrance to the lab.

“Professor, should we perhaps catalogue all the book titles onto some parchment?” he then addressed the Headmaster, who gave him an encouraging look.

“Yes, Harry, that might be a very good idea,” Dumbledore said pensively.

“What’s this?” James shouted suddenly and held up a book.

Harry looked at it and didn’t know what James’ problem was, until after a second glance he recognized it as Parselscript. “Wow, do you know what this is?” he shouted in excitement. “This is a Potions book, written by Salazar Slytherin. Are there any more such books?”

James led him to the shelf where he had found the book, and Harry saw about a dozen books looking similar to the one he was holding in his hand.

“Wow, that’s great. Maybe we’ll find Potions, which are unknown in our time,” Harry said excitedly, looking for his fathers, who had apparently disappeared into the Potions lab a while ago and not come back yet. “I could try to translate the book. However, when will we have the time to catalogue and translate books?” he said warily.

“I thought we were about finished with the machine. We just have to plan the actual event for the demise of Voldemort, and then we could use the evenings doing research here,” Lily suggested.

“That’s right, Lily,” Remus agreed immediately, and finally everyone except for Severus and Salazar, who were still absent, decided to do as Lily had suggested.

When Harry entered the Potions lab to look for his fathers, both of them were engrossed in a shelf full with ingredients. “Hello?” he carefully addressed them.

“Oh, Harry, this is a paradise here,” Salazar said when he noticed his son watching them. “There are many rare ingredients here, shelves full of them.”

“Just have a look, Harry!” Severus added.

The Potions lab was about the size of the Potions classroom. It held at least a dozen working areas as well as one wall full of shelves with empty phials and one wall of shelves with Potions ingredients. Harry threw a glance at his fathers and laughed. “I had never thought I’d see you so excited.” He giggled at them.

Salazar, Harry, Severus, Lily, James and Remus spent the whole weekend in the Chamber’s library, feverishly working on cataloguing the books. When Harry started to sneeze continuously because of the dust sticking to the books, Salazar threw a strong Anti Dust Charm on the shelves, hoping it would help his son; otherwise he would have to quit working in the library.

“Harry, maybe you should just let the cataloguing be, at least for today. Sit in the room with the fireplace and try to translate one of Slytherin’s Potions books?” Salazar suggested to his son.

Harry obliged immediately, trying to hide how relieved he was with this solution. As much as he loved books, it was still too dusty for him in the library, and it was getting difficult to breathe. He took one of the books in Parselscript and settled down comfortably on the sofa in front of the fireplace. It took some time to get used to reading Parselscript, not to speak of translating it into English. However, Harry soon became engrossed in the Potions, all of which he had never heard of.

-----

A few days later, Professor McGonagall addressed Harry at lunchtime. “Mr. Snape, Professor Dumbledore would like to have a few words with you before your afternoon classes. Please go to his office as soon as you have eaten.”

‘Oh, no! What have I done now?’ Harry thought frantically. Yet he didn’t feel guilty at all. Losing his appetite, he pushed his plate away and glanced at the Head table. Professor Dumbledore was still sitting there. Harry flinched from the hand that suddenly touched his shoulder.

“Harry,” Lily tried to calm down her son. “It’s all right; I’m not going to hurt you. I just wanted to say that Professor Dumbledore probably wants to speak with you because of the matter with Hagrid or something. No reason to worry. Try to eat a bit more.”

Harry threw her a grateful smile, but got up and left the Great Hall, heading for the Headmaster’s office, where he waited in front of the Gargoyle until Professor Dumbledore arrived.

“Ah, Harry, thanks for coming immediately,” Albus greeted him and added, when they entered his office, “Lemon drop?”

Harry declined and looked expectantly at the Professor.

Dumbledore smiled at the boy and told Harry that Moody, one of the Aurors the Headmaster knew well, had talked to the Head of the Aurors about the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets and that Hagrid had been granted a trial which would take place on Monday next week. “Harry, they are requesting that you attend the trial and tell them everything you know about the Chamber of Secrets. Are you willing to do this for Hagrid?”

“Everything?” Harry repeated immediately. “I mean… also about the hidden library and the Potions lab? And will they do anything to the Basilisk? She is my friend, and I don’t want anything to happen to her.”

Dumbledore let out a small laugh. “No, Harry, you don’t have to tell about the hidden rooms. Moreover it would be unwise to tell them. And you don’t have to fear anything for your friend. They won’t do anything to her, and they can’t access the Chamber without your help, anyway.”

“All right, Professor. Then I’ll try to help Hagrid,” Harry agreed finally, and Professor Dumbledore promised to accompany him and stay with him all the time.

-----

On the day of the trial, Dumbledore, Hagrid, and Harry Floo-ed directly from the Headmaster’s Office to the ministry. The trial took place in a small courtroom under exclusion of the public. Moody had arranged for the trial to be held with as few people involved as possible.

As Harry was the most important witness, he was called up immediately. Fortunately, Moody had talked to the important people and had told them about Harry’s real identity and had arranged that he wouldn’t be questioned about his birthday or his parents. Harry was very relieved as he knew he wouldn’t be able to lie under Veritaserum. When he was asked about the circumstances of his discovering of the Chamber of Secrets, everyone gasped. As he feared people would not believe that he was able to speak Parseltongue, Harry proposed to be questioned under Veritaserum, so he was given just one drop of Veritaserum before he was further questioned.

He recounted his first meeting with Amaterasu and told the judge everything the Basilisk had taught him about the Chamber, except for the part with the hidden rooms.

Finally, Hagrid was judged to be innocent and was given permission to receive a new wand, as his had been snapped thirty years ago, and was granted 50 thousand gallons as compensation for the misjudgement which had taken place thirty years ago. Harry beamed at his friend – how good it was that he had travelled to the past!

“Headmaster, Harry, thank you!” Hagrid just managed to say before starting to cry.

“You are very welcome, Hagrid,” Harry said.

-----

The instant they left the Ministry, they heard cries on the street just in front of them. They looked around, alarmed, and Harry could see Death Eaters running over to them. Before he could react, Death Eaters had spread out all over the street. They started to attack them immediately, so that Harry was caught by surprise and didn’t have the chance to transform into Breeze.