The instant Harry entered the hall at quarter past 8 on Saturday morning, he was mobbed by small children. The first one that arrived barrelled into him so strongly that he had to grab hold of the door to keep himself upright.

“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! I love quiddich. That was the best idea ever!”

When he was sure that he wasn’t going to be knocked to the floor by any of the others crowding around him, Harry managed to focus on the ginger bomb that had attacked him.

“Riley, is that you?”

“It is Riley.” Someone else said, while the afro stayed firmly attached to his midsection and kept voicing its thanks. Harry looked down and saw Goodwin, the clumsy Gryffindor girl, looking grumpy with her hands deep in her robe pockets. “McGonagall came into the House last night and told us about your quiddich idea, thanks a lot.”

Harry laughed, “It can’t be that bad, surely?”

“It is for her.” Barnabas Granville had turned up. “She drops everything normally. You don’t want to see her on a broom.”

“Maybe you could try commentating,” Harry suggested, he could only imagine how cross Hermione would have been if she was forced into compulsory flying with the rest of the year. It was hard enough trying to convince her to fly at the Burrow.

“Do we have to have cats on our brooms when we play? I only have a toad, see.” That was the vampire girl, Harry couldn’t quite remember her name – Jackson or something.

“Um, no.” Harry said, “That would be a bad idea.”

“So should I borrow a cat?” she asked

“Hermione Granger has one, Jacks, and she’s going to be in detention. You could take hers!”

“Dawson, no! Miss Jacks, you do not need an animal on your broom when you play quiddich and do not try to pick up Crookshanks under any circumstance!”

“But the Worst Witch had to fly with a cat!”

“Nobody in their right mind would try to fly their broom with an animal that wasn’t in a cage, and you shouldn’t be mean about girls in your year.”

She looked at him blankly for a moment, “Mildred Hubble isn’t in our year.”

“That doesn’t mean you can call her names.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“Does anybody know how to detach Riley? I want my breakfast.”

“Potter, could you move your fan club out of the doorway? Some of us want to eat.”

The second years disbanded instantly, Professor Snape had that effect on people. They all murmured their thanks before heading over to their tables, instantly chattering again once they had reached a safe distance. Harry didn’t know how they could be so awake this early in the day. Surely he had never been that much of a morning person?

“Thank you, Professor.” Harry said, following Snape towards the staff table, “They’re a bit overexcited this morning.”

 They walked around the back of the table now, Harry was surprised to see the Filch was sitting in Harry’s usual chair. Now that he was looking properly, lots of the teachers had moved to a different spot.

“Do try to keep your followers under control. You might put somebody off their breakfast. Minerva, you are in my seat.”

 “Severus, calm down. It’s the weekend, you can sit wherever you want. Why don’t you talk to Mr Malfoy? He looks quite lonely over there by himself.”

Harry glanced across, Malfoy did look quite morose. Hagrid wasn’t in the hall and neither were the next two teachers who should have been there so he was sitting far away from the rest of them. Snape scowled and marched over to one of the empty seats, causing the ex-Slytherin to drop his spoonful of Cheery Owls in surprise. They exchanged a few words and then got back to eating.

“Potter, if you are staying, would you sit down? We were just going over the final details for this morning. I take it that the mob by the door was your doing?”

Harry sat down between McGonagall and Sprout, picking out a piece of toast.

“Sorry Professor, it was just some of the second years. They said you’d decided to go ahead with it?”

She smiled, “Yes we have, it took a while to organise everything, so it’s your fault I didn’t get any marking done last night. I managed to recruit enough senior students to supervise the match and support Madame Hooch. For some reason, they seemed to prefer the idea to cleaning out the Weasley twins’ old workroom on the fourth floor.”

“That’s great.” Harry poured himself some pumpkin juice. “Is the room that bad?”

“I don’t really know,” She said, “There was an explosion before I could get the door open.”

Harry nodded, he wouldn’t have gone any further either.

A hand appeared between Harry and Professor Sprout, it pulled a small pile of hot toast from the rack and onto his plate. Harry looked up to see a scowling Snape.

“No fainting, Potter, I warned you. You might find it entertaining to trap people downstairs, but I assure you, I do not.”

McGonagall smiled innocently. “’Downstairs’, Severus?”

“Minerva, you know quite well what is happening, especially since you are accompanying us.”

Snape swept away and Harry tucked into his toast, hungrier now.

“Pomona, you are certain you will not join us?” The transfiguration teacher asked.

“No Minerva, I am quite alright. I have a lot of students to watch today and they are going to be more hyperactive than usual with everyone else away doing such exciting things. You are taking the older Creevey Boy with you aren’t you?”

“If he promises to not only take photographs of Mr Potter.”

“Well the boy has always had a bit of a crush. The photographs will be enough for me this time, thank you.”

“Colin Creevey has a crush on me?” Harry blurted.

“Potter, you really are oblivious.” McGonagall said, shaking out her copy of the Daily Prophet.

Harry was leaning against the wall outside the staffroom waiting for Snape to arrive. The gargoyles still didn’t trust him and refused to let him through since there wasn’t anyone else in there.

“Potter, you managed to be on time. Come on in.”

Snape held the door open for Harry to go through and indicated he should sit at the large table that was now occupying the middle of the room. Snape started to pull sheets of parchment out of his robes and put them out in piles on the table.

“Sir,” Harry said suddenly, unsure of what exactly was prompting him to ask, “Can you tell me which potion Umbridge asked you to use on me last year?”

Snape didn’t look up from what he was doing.

“Potter, I don’t have time for stupid games.”

“Could you just humour me, this once?”

“Potter, stop.”

Harry pulled his wand out of his pocket, “Please sir, I really need you to tell me.”

“Expelliarmus!”

Harry’s wand was torn out of his hand and rattled across the floor, the spell was so forceful that the boy would have been thrown backwards out of his seat, had Snape not already grabbed a handful of his jumper.

“Potter, I warned you not to attempt to attack me again!”

The door opened but Harry couldn’t see who it was with his back facing the door.

“Sir, please answer the question.”

Harry was eye-to-nose with Snape now and he could smell coffee on the man’s breath.

“Severus, he’s scared. For heaven’s sake, answer whatever he asked or let him go.” McGonagall’s tired voice came from just behind him. Harry relaxed a little when he heard it but Snape’s grip only tightened.

“He was pointing his wand at me Minerva!”

“Severus, let go!”

He didn’t.

“It was Veritaserum you were referring to, Potter, obviously, as I think you remember.” Snape hissed, “I informed her I had none left in my store but that I was happy to poison you if she wanted.”

Harry relaxed, it was Snape.

“Now sit down. I demand an explanation.” Snape let him go and Harry’s weak knees gave out, dropping him into his chair.

Harry put his head in his hands while McGonagall took the chair next to him and put a comforting hand on his arm.

“Potter, explain.”

Harry was embarrassed now he had been proved wrong.

“I-IthoughtyouwereunderPolyjuicepotionandIwantedtocheck…”

“What?” Both teachers spoke together, sharing a confused look.

“Um, I thought you were under Polyjuice potion and I wanted to check it out.”

“And you thought the best time to ask me was when we were alone and not when we were in the great hall where there would have been witnesses and teachers to back you up.”

“Er…”

McGonagall sat up with sudden understanding, “Of course! Severus, you remember being there when we found Crouch was Moody. It was in your office. No wonder he’s suspicious. Especially with your changed attitude and all this new information from the ministry about Polyjuice and glamours.”

“I don’t have a new attitude!”

“Yes you do,” Harry said. “Yesterday you made Anthony Goldstein stand in a corner for forty minutes!”

Snape rolled his eyes, “The staff reached an agreement to not let house points drop below 50 if it was at all possible, Ravenclaw only had that many points.”

“Yesterday, in here, you laughed.”

“It has been known to happen,” at McGonagall’s raised eyebrow he amended the statement, “I had just won three hundred Galleons, I was probably in shock.”

“This morning you made me eat breakfast.” Harry pointed out.

“Oh Merlin, is it so difficult to understand that I do not want to be stuck in Slytherin’s Chamber for the rest of my life?”

There was a moment where the two wizards just stared at each other, before they were surprised by the door opening again.

“I take it you sorted everything out then, Depute Headmistress?” Slughorn said as he made his way towards one of the seats on the other side of the table.

“Yes, Horace. I did. Just a little misunderstanding.”

“Good, good- onto business then,” said Flitwick. He jumped up onto a stool and pulled a pile of parchment towards himself.

Snape moved away and Harry retrieved his wand from the floor, sticking it back into his pocket.

“We’re still waiting for Poppy to arrive,” Snape said to McGonagall, taking his seat.

“Poppy said she might be late, but that all she needs is a list of who is going down and what she might expect in the way of injuries, from the chamber itself or from the ingredients.”

“All right then. Filius, can you make a list of which wards might be down there? Also we don’t know if the school protections are still working that deep so remind me to check them while we are down there; we don’t want to be leaving ourselves open to an attack in the future. Remember the Dark Lord has been down there before.”

Snape seemed to be in charge of the expedition. The others were nodding appropriately and McGonagall was writing on a sheet of parchment. While she was writing on one, everything appeared simultaneously on a whole stack of other pages. Harry wondered if he could convince Hermione to take her class notes with a similar quill.

“Horace, you have been researching basilisks for us, have you got everything we need to take with us?”

The man nodded and put two bags on the table. “Two basilisk proof first aid kits at your service! We can keep one above ground and one below. I even managed to get four vials of phoenix tears from Fawkes this morning, which is only to be used if venom pierces the skin. I would suggest that only members of staff handle the beast’s fangs.”

“Agreed,” Snape growled, looking purposefully at Harry.

“And there must always be one Professor who is not handling ingredients, who will be in control of the first aid kit. Poppy upstairs, of course and maybe Filius in the Chamber?”

“Not a problem,” the wizard squeaked.

“Excellent. You say the basilisk was blinded before it expired?”

Harry nodded. If anything, Slughorn looked a little disappointed.

“Yes, well, it couldn’t be helped I suppose. At any rate, there are restorative potions in the bags in case anybody is petrified, they are still effective. There are also potions for the expected small cuts and burns.”

“Burns, Horace?” McGonagall asked, weakly.

“Yes, basilisk rib bones have a nasty habit of catching fire when they lose contact with the blood, it’s very odd. Nobody seems to know quite why that should be, Herpo the Foul did have a theory that…”

“Is there anything else like that we need to know?” Snape was losing patience again.

“No, my boy, I think that’s it. There is an emergency portkey in the end of the bag though, it has a password; ‘bezoar’. We don’t know if it will work though, mystery wards and all that. So do try to not need it.”

Snape pinched his nose, “Right, that’s health and safety. We go straight there, we take the fiery bones and we come straight back. No detours.”

“He’s talking to you, Potter.” McGonagall nudged him jokingly.

Harry flushed, “I know. All of the rest of the chamber looked pretty flooded anyway.”

There was a loud pop and suddenly Dobby was standing at the top of the table.

“Hello Mr Professors and Miss Professor. Hello Harry Potter! It has been a long time since Harry Potter came to see Dobby. Dobby is being here for the important meeting at half past nine today.”

Harry heard a loud thud and was pretty sure it was the sound of Snape hitting his head off the table.

“Of course Potter knows the Malfoy’s old elf.” He was muttering, “Why would that be an odd thing? Potter probably knows everybody’s bloody elf.”

Harry looked around sheepishly. Everyone was looking at him again.

“This is the elf that cleans the staff room and the Gryffindor common room, Severus, it is not impossible that they met at Hogwarts” McGonagall said.

“Dobby is a free elf, Mr Professor, Sir. Dobby is being paid.”

Snape looked enraged, “Potter, that had better not be the house elf that stole my Gillyweed.”

“Um…”

 “Shut up.”

“Severus.”

“I thought this was the elf which was alleged to have cast that Hover charm at Mr Potter’s home a few years ago,” Flitwick said.

“Why do we need a house elf, Sir?” Harry blurted, trying to take control of the conversation before it turned to the subject of flying cars and bludgers and Dobby got into real trouble.

Snape gave him a look which showed him he wasn’t forgetting this conversation, before getting back to the task at hand.

“Dobby,” he said almost kindly for him, “We were wondering if it would be possible for elves to apparate into and out of the Chamber of Secrets.”

Dobby’s eyes got even rounder, “Dobby does not think so, sir, but Dobby has never tried.” He seemed to concentrate for a moment, clenching his fists and bending his knees a little. Flitwick looked fascinated. Dobby looked constipated.

There was silence for a long moment before the elf straightened up again, his ears drooping.

“Dobby is sorry, sir, he cannot do it.”

An idea struck Harry.

“Could it be because elves can’t speak parseltongue,” he asked suddenly.

The teachers looked at him.

“Why would that-?” Slughorn started.

“Potter is a Parselmouth,” Snape said. “It is one of his many talents.”

Slughorn looked startled and shot Harry a nervous look. Harry was a little offended, although he supposed he should have gotten over this reaction back in second year when the whole school had found out.

“I might be able to apparate down into the chamber, mightn’t I?”

There was silence before an explosion came from McGonagall and Snape simultaneously.

“Potter, you have not even finished your course on apparition. How could you possibly attempt to make it through two highly warded barriers?”

“Are you that desperate to splinch yourself? Never mind that it is illegal to attempt it without a licence.”

“You might end up anywhere, you could get the direction slightly wrong and wind up inside the giant squid!”

“You are absolutely forbidden to try this. You would not have to be the one to explain to the headmaster why we had to scrape pieces of you off the walls.”

“And how were you planning to break through the school wards, exactly? Do, please enlighten us.”

Harry blinked up at the two of them who had come to stand in front of him. He was reminded wildly of Mrs Weasley telling off her children. They were employing an odd mix of logic and volume against him.

Usually Snape reminded him of Uncle Vernon, he thought. Vernon’s tactic was to get very close and then project insults and spittle into Harry’s face. By now the man would have exhausted himself, tripped over his tongue and sent Harry away to his room. Then the meals stopped and the door locked for as long as it took for the housework to build up.

This was a little different, Snape especially was acting weirdly.

“Okay,” he said loudly, holding his hands up in surrender. “I won’t try it, I promise. It was only hypothetical.”

“Hypothetically,” Flitwick said with a mischievous look, “It might well work.”

The two angry professors turned on him in a flurry of green and black robes, each taking a deep breath, ready to continue the argument with the small Charms Professor.

Luckily though, the door opened and Madame Pomfrey stuck her head in.

“Are we ready to go?”

The two house heads deflated slightly and everyone else stood up. McGonagall gave out a copy of the notes she had taken to each of them. Thankfully she had only written down the important points and there wasn’t any record of Dobby other than he wasn’t able to help them. Harry hoped that by the time they had finished and everybody was reading over the notes again, they would have forgotten about the elf.

There was a small crowd of students looking uncomfortable outside moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. The ghost herself was nowhere to be seen though and Harry was glad about that. The last time he had been here was the fight with Malfoy.

“Mr Potter,” McGonagall said quietly. “I expect Severus hasn’t warned you, but there are going to be quite a few Slytherin students on this expedition. He has assured me that they will behave down there. He seemed quite offended that I should ask actually.”

Harry nodded, thinking privately that McGonagall would be more than ‘slightly offended’ if Snape had asked her the same thing of her Gryffindors. “That’s fine, Professor.”

“Good,” she said. “Then you won’t mind Mr Malfoy coming along as well.” She strode into the bathroom after the other professors and Harry didn’t have much choice but to follow them in. This would be the first time he had been inside the bathroom since his fight with Malfoy, he wasn’t entirely sure he was ready.

The bathroom was tidier than Harry had ever seen it. The smashed mirrors and broken stalls had been replaced or fixed and there wasn’t even any water on the floor.

Looking around at the other students Snape had decided to bring along, there were a lot of Slytherins. Nott, Zabini and Malfoy were all standing in a group, talking to each other and leaning against the wall. They had two seventh years with them, Vaisey and a girl with red hair. Hermione was here as well, she was talking to Colin Creevey and Anthony Goldstein. Anthony looked very confused about being here, and more than a little apprehensive when Snape walked past him but Harry vaguely remembered that the Ravenclaw was near to the top of the class in Potions.

There were a few people Harry didn’t know, a few seventh year Hufflepuffs and a couple more Ravenclaws who looked extremely excited. When Harry walked past, they were talking about potions which could be made with these ingredients which hadn’t been created for centuries.

“All right, everyone pay attention!” Snape called. “Do all of you know what your role will be today?” There were a few nods but not from everyone.

“Slytherins and Gryffindors will be going down to harvest the carcass. Our Hufflepuffs will be bringing them back into this bathroom and Ravenclaws will assist Professor Slughorn with proper preparation and the safe long-term storage of the ingredients.”

Snape turned to Harry, “Mr Potter, if you would.”

Harry nodded, his mouth suddenly dry. He knelt down in front of the tap with the snake scratched into it.

“Open,” he said.

There was a disbelieving silence from behind him. Nothing moved.

“Damn, was that English?”

“Potter, you had better not be messing-“

Harry fixated on the snake again, imagining it moving, twisting around the tap. Focussed, he tried again, “Open.”

This time it worked. The taps split open the same way they had four years ago and the sink sank down, revealing the wide pipe behind it.

“Alright! That is so awesome!”

Everyone turned around to look at Nott, who had spoken. He just shrugged at the attention.

“It is cool. Come on, all the Gryffindors get is a stupid sword.”

McGonagall looked offended and was possibly about to say something when she heard a noise behind her. Spinning around, she was just in time to see Harry climbing into the mouth of the pipe. Snape had seen too.

“Potter, don’t you dare!” He dived to pull the boy back, but just missed.

“Professors?” Hermione said, they all looked at her. “Harry and Ron did that last time too. They said it was pretty gross at the bottom, but I don’t think there’s a huge drop or anything.”

“He could have warned us,” Snape fumed, starting to climb into the pipe. “Everyone come down one at a time, I will whistle when it is clear. Minerva come last and see if that blasted house elf is any use.” He disappeared too.

McGonagall looked at the waiting pupils, “Who is going first?”

Theodore Nott jumped up and down on the spot with his hand in the air as his housemates watched, appalled. “Me, me! Please pick me!”

Down in the chamber, Harry had lit his wand and was looking around to see what had changed down there. It wasn’t very different to how he remembered, there was still a fairly intact shed skin, and the piles of bones looked a little dustier but that was it. The collapsed roof still had a small gap at the top, but Harry thought that even Professor Flitwick would struggle to get through it now.

He heard noises behind him and wondered who was coming down first. Someone had shouted his name when he set off but he hadn’t been able to stop to see what the rest of them were waiting for.

His question was answered when Snape suddenly flew out of the pipe and made a very ungraceful landing in a pile of long dead rat bones. Harry rushed over to help him up and found himself with an index finger in front of his nose. He stayed very still while Snape caught his breath.

“Potter,” he said, breathing heavily. “You had better be thankful that I don’t have any cauldrons left for you to scrub! Do you try to give us heart attacks on purpose? Why did you not wait for us to decide on the best way to get down here? We were going to see if that elf of yours could make it down here when you had opened the door, you foolish child.”

Harry shrugged, “It’s the same thing we did last time, Professor. I didn’t think there’d be any problem.”

“You jumped headfirst down here even when you knew you were going to find a deadly snake, a possible dead body and the Dark Lord?”

“Well, we pushed Lockhart down first and he was okay. And we didn’t know it was going to be Voldemort,” Harry said.

“The idiot probably managed to land on his head,” Snape muttered. He had drawn his wand and cast a couple of spells. Harry recognised one of them from their last Defence lesson. It was used to look for dark curses which were attached to objects. Glancing around, Harry couldn’t see anything giving off the pink glow which should indicate affected objects.

When the man was satisfied, he pulled a whistle out of his pocket and played a couple of notes. After a couple of seconds there was an answering call and Snape conjured a large mattress and placed it roughly where he had landed.

“Sir, I think I flew further than that.”

Snape grunted and extended the mattress, “It wouldn’t be a good idea to break our charms professor so close to the exams, but I don’t think anyone else is as scrawny as you are.”

There was a loud high pitched noise and a blur shot out of the mouth of the tunnel between the two of them. Something large hit the mattress before bouncing to its feet, fists punching the air.

“Oh yeah! That was so awesome, I have to try that again. It’s even better than the Gringotts ride!”

“Mr Nott, are you quite done?”

Nott seemed to suddenly notice he was standing with the Head of his house and Harry Potter. He brushed some dust off his robes and stopped bouncing around. Almost instantly he turned into the serious, smart boy Harry was used to seeing in classes.

“Sorry Professor, it won’t happen again.”

Harry smirked as the boy caught sight of the basilisk skin and obviously had to work hard to prevent himself from jumping straight over to it, and to instead walk over to it at a leisurely pace.

Snape rolled his eyes and blew the whistle again, as a signal to send the next person down.

Soon enough all the Slytherins were down in the first chamber with Harry, who by then felt quite outnumbered. They all looked really interested, poking around in corners and examining the basilisk skin.

The next person to arrive was Professor Flitwick who, as soon as he found himself airborne, drew his wand and controlled his landing. Flitwick got them organised properly, so that they started to clear away the block in the tunnel and made himself busy constructing supports to prevent any further collapse.

Colin Creevey, when he arrived, was completely useless as a helper because he seemed to be trying to take detailed photographs of the entire place. Harry thought the Slytherins would be mad at him for not pulling his weight but he overheard the Slytherin girl quietly asking if they could have a full set of the photographs to put up in the Slytherin common room.

They were still working at that when Professor McGonagall emerged from the pipe very slowly, she must have been using a spell to slow her down. Harry thought privately that it was probably a good thing, considering her age. He wondered why Snape hadn’t done something similar.

There was a clattering noise as a basket appeared on a rope. The basket stayed level, and it didn’t look like it could be tipped over either. It hovered in place, the rope slightly slack.

After Flitwick had approved the safety of the gap they had made, they made their way one by one, through the larger opening in the wall.

Further down the corridor they found the second passworded door; the round door. He saw Colin admiring the machinery of it. While he was distracted, Professor Snape lifted the camera off the boy’s shoulder and used it to take a group picture of the Slytherin students in front of the door.

After everyone had had a good look at the door and it’s ornate carvings, Harry managed to get it to open first time. There was a combined, stunned gasp from the others as they watched it open. There was a scramble from the students closest to get through the door.

It was Hermione who made it to the doorway first but she stopped there, completely still. Zabini walked straight into her and fell backwards but she still didn’t budge.

“Granger, what’re you doing?” He groaned.

“I can’t go through,” she said.

“Don’t be so dramatic, Miss Granger, it’s only a doorway.”

Harry could feel the coldness emanating from Hermione, he wasn’t disappointed by her reply either.

“I would be delighted to get out of your way, Professor Snape. Unfortunately it is physically impossible for me to lift my feet.”

Professor Flitwick cast a couple of detection charms.

“It’s the floor,” he said. “There is a sticking charm on the floor, which has been triggered by something.

One of the Hufflepuffs tried to edge his way around Hermione and surprisingly, made it. This just made the girl more irate. She drew her wand and started to cast all of the spells that could possibly release her- Professor Flitwick and McGonagall looked quite impressed but started to look a little concerned when nothing made any difference.

“Why am I stuck?” Hermione asked, distraught. “I didn’t do anything! Harry, did anything happen to you last time you did this?”

“Nope,” Harry said. He wasn’t feeling particularly sympathetic, Hermione and Ron had hardly spoken to him over the past few days. He wasn’t particularly concerned yet. If it came to the worst possible scenario, they’d have to abandon Hermione’s shoes.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Malfoy’s drawl came from the back of the crowd.

“Evidently it is not to the rest of us. Do you intend to help or merely make useless comments?”

Harry loved Professor McGonagall.

“It’s because she’s a mud-“ he was cut short by a glare from Snape, “Because she’s a muggleborn. This is Salazar Slytherin’s chamber, he wouldn’t just let anyone in.”

Hermione looked hugely disappointed and Colin and a Hufflepuff drooped as well.

“Can I try something?” Harry asked.

“I’d rather you didn’t.” Snape muttered, but made no actual move to stop him.

“I’m just going to see if I can undo the charm, Sir.”

Harry tried to see a snake, but the ones on the doors had melted into the walls.

“Um, could somebody conjure me a snake?”

Everyone looked at him as if he was insane.

“Please, I only need a tiny one.”

Surprisingly, it was Draco Malfoy who stepped forwards and conjured a tiny little corn snake, just a little longer than his hand.

“Thanks, Malfoy!”

Now, with the snake to keep his attention, Harry pointed his wand at the ground near his friend’s feet.

“Finite Incantatem.” He tried.

Hermione lifted her feet cautiously and stepped through to the other side of the door.

Everyone was still staring at him. Draco was still standing fairly close so Harry gave him the corn snake back, but the boy didn’t stop gaping.

“I am keeping Potter for a month.” Flitwick announced.

McGonagall laughed, “Maybe not a whole month, Filius. This newfound talent might help to bring his marks up in practical charms though, that is certainly a unique skill.”

This time they made it through the doorway with no hassle, apart from Colin Creevey apparently attempting to make the long jump record to avoid getting stuck. Harry didn’t bother pointing out that it would have been easy to free him.

The chamber they were in now was the big one. Harry could see that the chamber had flooded a little more, by considering how much of the statue was now hidden by the water.

They all went down the walkway until they reached the huge body of the basilisk. Harry was amazed by how bad the smell was and copied Hermione’s idea of using the bubblehead charm, along with most of the others. The professors all picked a different spell which seemed to leave their heads free.

“Harry?” He heard a shaky voice ask, turning he saw Hermione looking down at the ground close by. “That isn’t all your blood, is it?”