Chapter 17 – Slytherin’s Library

“I just wanted to ask you about the Chamber of Secrets. Have you already found time to save the ingredients you can get from the basilisk?” the professor asked them.

“No, Professor, we didn’t have the time to go to the chamber yet. But we should work on it, you are right. Maybe we could get down there on Saturday or Sunday, what do you think Harry?”

“I have Quidditch practise in the morning, but after that we can go, on both days if you wish. Are you interested in joining us Professor?”

“If you don’t mind, I would like to come with you. Mr. Pane, what do you intend to do with the ingredients?”

“Why do you ask me? They are not mine.”

“Ah but they are yours. It was you, who discovered the chamber and opened it to vanquish the basilisk. Nobody else could access it.”

“I don’t intend doing anything with them. If it is up to me, I would say half of the ingredients are for the Hogwarts Potions classroom, where you, Professor, and if necessary the students have access to them, and the other half is for Severus and his personal experiments.”

“All right Mr. Pane, thank you very much. Then let’s go on Saturday after lunch. I will notify Professor Dumbledore, maybe he wants to come along.”

-----

After nearly four hours of Quidditch practise in the rain and a short lunch on Saturday, Harry, Severus and the two professors entered the Chamber of Secrets. While Severus and the Potions professor carefully began their work on getting ingredients out of the basilisk, Harry and Professor Dumbledore moved around in the Chamber only to discover that it was much bigger than they had originally thought. After passing through one small wooden door they had discovered, which also opened on “open” in Parseltongue, they found a comfortable room like the Gryffindor common room, only in Slytherin colours. Even a fireplace was there, and behind another door they found a library – a room full of books up to the ceiling, books from the time of the founders. This chamber was a treasure trove for research.

“I’m already so busy, when should I read all these books – where’s Hermione when you need her? Maybe I should stay here until the end of my 7th year, Granddad,” Harry said jokingly.

“Why not Harry, you are very welcome. It doesn’t matter when you return, as long as you return before you are born. You have changed the future so much, it doesn’t matter anymore,” was the encouraging answer he got.

While he was sitting on the sofa in Slytherin’s chamber looking at a book, this conversation played in his head repeatedly.

Suddenly Dumbledore brought him back to reality. “Harry, dinner will start in ten minutes; we have to return, but we can come back here tomorrow.”

They went to call the others, and Harry flashed them up to the Potions classroom, where the two Potions specialists stored all the ingredients that they had collected, before Harry flashed them over to the Great Hall just in time for dinner.

-----

“Hi Harry, where have you been?” Sirius said and sneezed.

Remus threw James a dirty look. “That’s what you get for letting your people fly in the rain for hours; they get sick and you have to play alone.”

“Tell him Remus. He is crazy. I had to go to the Chamber of Secrets with Slughorn, Dumbledore and Severus, because they want parts of the Basilisk as Potion ingredients, and as the Basilisk is so huge, it is going to take them a long time to collect everything. I explored a little together with my Grandfather and we discovered a hidden room just like our own common room and a huge library with lots of books from the age of the founders.”

“Really Harry? That sounds very interesting. May I come with you sometime?” Lily asked.

“I want to go as well.”

“Me too.”

Harry sighed. “I can take you all, but wait until after the Quidditch match, all right? I have to go again tomorrow, but with Slughorn, Dumbledore and Severus. I could take one of you with us but not all of you. Lily, do you want to come tomorrow?”

“Yes Harry, thank you,” Lily beamed.

After dinner, Lily and Harry met Severus down in the Potions classroom.

“Alright, what shall we do today?” Severus asked.

“I would like to make some Healing Potions,” Harry said; “maybe Pepper-up Potion or Fever reducing Potion?”

“Why, are you ill?” Lily asked worriedly.

“No, at least not yet, but if James continues with this Quidditch practise and I have to fly in the rain for another three or four hours a day it’s only a question of time. Sirius already has a cold.”

“Alright, we can do that, but you have to promise to be careful with them, if you take them too often or too high a dosage, Healing Potions can be dangerous. And if you drink any of them, you will have to tell someone,” Severus said sternly.

“Ok, I’ll remember,” Harry replied. They brewed the two types of Healing Potions Harry had suggested, and just like before Severus took half of the batch to give to Pomfrey, the other half he gave to Harry.

“Thank you Severus. By the way, what do you think, should we include the Chamber of Secrets on the Marauders’ Map?”

“Why not? But on the other hand nobody can access it, or is there another way rather than the normal entrance?”

“I don’t know. In the room I went with my Grandfather there was a large fireplace, so I think maybe we could connect it to the Floo Network. I can ask Grandfather tomorrow.”

“Alright you two, curfew starts in twenty minutes, we should head back Harry.”

“Yes, Lily. We’ll see you after lunch tomorrow; Lily will come with us as well tomorrow, and the other Marauders are already on the waiting list.” Harry smirked.

-----

On Sunday, it still rained, but James insisted that the weather on the following Saturday would probably not be much better and they should train in such weather as well, and Harry in particular should practise finding the Snitch between the low-lying clouds.

After lunch, they went down to the Chamber immediately. Slughorn and Severus went happily to work on the Basilisk, while Dumbledore and Harry took Lily into the library.

“Professor, do you think this fireplace could be connected to the Floo Network?” Harry asked when they crossed the room to the fireplace.

“I don’t know Harry, but we can try.” He lit a fire in the fireplace, conjured some Floo powder, threw it in and the fireplace turned green. Then he put his head into the fireplace and called ‘Minerva McGonagall’s Office’ to try to talk to her. The two professors talked for a few minutes about how to find out what the fireplace they were just using would likely be called, but they couldn’t find out anything.

“Is there a portrait of Salazar Slytherin within the castle? We could ask him; as he built this part of the castle he should know.”

“That’s a very good idea Harry; I believe there must be a portrait in the dungeons. I will look for it.”

“Or maybe we can find something about it in the library,” Harry said and sneezed.

“Let’s have a thorough look around the library,” Dumbledore agreed. Each of the three started at a different end of the extensive library.

“Professor, should we perhaps catalogue all the book titles onto some parchment?”

“I think that would be a very good idea. Let me call Minerva again and ask her for some parchment and quills.” He came back with parchment and quills and the three set to work. The bookshelves were so dusty that Harry had to sneeze repeatedly.

“Harry, are you alright?” Lily asked him. “Is it the dust or do you have a cold?”

“I don’t know, but it is really very dusty here.”

Dumbledore laughed and with a flick of his wand, he vanished all the dust.

“Thank you Professor,” Harry said gratefully. By dinnertime, they had only finished a very small part of the library.

“Maybe we should try to come in the evenings after dinner; otherwise we will never finish this,” Harry proposed.

“We can come back later today, directly after dinner,” Lily said.

“I’m afraid I won’t be able to come with you, but I would like to ask you to bring Floo powder in order to call me in my office in case you need any help, and I would also ask you to keep the entrance open to allow anyone of us to come to help if necessary. I know that Fawkes could flash me here, but I think this is better.”

“Yes Professor, we’ll do that. Maybe we can bring the other Mar… Ah … I mean James, Sirius and Remus as well, they could help us.” Lily said looking questioningly at Harry who nodded and sneezed again.

“Alright, let’s go,” he said and transformed into Icicle. With a flash, they were gone into the other room where Severus and Professor Slughorn were still busy.

“We are going for dinner, are you joining us, or will you be skipping dinner? Harry and his friends will come back later.” Dumbledore told them.

Slughorn and Severus exchanged a brief glance and said, “No, we will continue our work here for a while.”

-----

After dinner, Harry brought his four friends with him into the chamber and they continued to copy the book titles.

“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, before he sneezed again. “This is Salazar Slytherin’s diary!”

“Wow. But as you are the only one able to read it, maybe you should read it and translate it for everyone to read.” Sirius suggested as he sneezed.

“You’re right Sirius; I will take it with me and try to translate it.”

“Are you having a sneezing contest, Sirius and Harry?” Remus asked reproachfully. “Maybe you should go and see the dragon.”

“No!” Harry countered. “Sirius, I’ve a phial of Pepper-up Potion. Let’s share it.”

Sirius came over and each of them drank half of the phial while being laughed at by the others because of the steam coming out their ears.

Lily placed a hand on Harry’s forehead. “You need the other Potion as well.”

“Here, Sirius, we need this too. Drink half of it.” Sirius did so, before Harry finished the phial.

“Thanks Harry, it was disgusting. What was it by the way?” Sirius asked and everyone groaned.

“Fever reducer, but now let’s continue our work,” Lily answered.

James looked astonished from one of his friends to the other. “Do you have any more secrets?” He asked Lily, who shook her head smiling.

It was a few minutes before curfew, when Professor Slughorn and Severus joined them. “I think we should finish for today,” the professor suggested.

“I’m going to take this diary with me and hope to find time to read it. Does anyone else want to borrow a book?” Harry asked before changing into Icicle again. Lily and Remus each borrowed a book, and they left the chamber for the night.

During the following week, they spent all evenings they didn’t have Quidditch practise in the chamber. The library was so huge that even on Friday evening they had not yet finished with cataloguing the book titles. Harry had started to read Slytherin’s diary, but as they were so busy with classes, homework, Quidditch, cataloguing book titles and exploring for the Marauders’ Map, he could only read during the night. As interesting as the book was, unfortunately the whole book was written in Parselscript, which Harry couldn’t read as quickly as normal English.

He wasn’t in a good shape anyway. In contrast to Sirius, whose cold had gone away after the first Potion of Pepper-up and Fever reducer, Harry had to take the two Potions every night. However, on Friday evening, after spending the rainy night of the full moon in the forest with his friends, he noticed that it hadn’t gotten better at all but had in fact gotten worse.

-----

When they were having breakfast on Saturday morning, a little more than an hour before the final Quidditch game and Harry was only pushing his food around, Lily placed a hand on his forehead and said, “You can’t play Quidditch like this Harry, James you have to get someone else to play, he is burning up.”

“No, I’m able to play, no problem,” Harry countered, and Sirius hissed angrily,

“Was that display necessary here at the table? Now McGonagall and Pomfrey are watching Harry and will try to take him out of the game, and we really need Harry to play today.”

James leaned over to Harry and whispered, “Quickly go to the dormitory and take another fever reducer, which might fool them until after the game.”

Harry nodded and quickly left the Great Hall, changed into Icicle and flashed directly onto his bed. He downed the last two phials of his Potions immediately, took his broom and went down to the common room where his friends had arrived in the meantime.

James whispered again “Are you all right? Are you sure you want to play?”

Harry whispered back, “No, I’m not alright, but I’m sure I want to play.”

Remus looked out of the window and sighed. “I can’t understand. Today we will have the most important Quidditch game of the school year – the game that will lead Gryffindor to the first Quidditch cup in years; but it looks like the weather Gods are not interested in Quidditch.”

Sirius laughed. “Maybe they can see through the clouds?!”

“Anyway we should go and change. Let’s fight for the cup, afterwards we’ll have a big party here and forget about the weather!” James tried to encourage his team.

“Wait!” shouted Harry as he remembered something. “Have you all put a water repelling spell on your glasses?”

“A what?”

“A water repelling spell.” He took his glasses of, pointed his wand at them and said “Impervius”.

James looked surprised. “Does that really work?”

Harry smiled. “Of course, just try it out.” He pointed his wand at James’ glasses “Impervius”.

When they exited the locker rooms where they had changed into their Quidditch robes, McGonagall came over to Harry.

“Harry, you look ill, are you all right?”

“I just have a little cold or something, but I’m fine.”

She felt his forehead and said, “You’re a little warm, but it doesn’t seem too bad, nevertheless after the game I want Poppy to check on you.”

The game was hard, because the Ravenclaws played well, although much fairer than the Slytherins had played, but it was really annoying to play in the ever-lasting rain. Harry could hardly see the Snitch between the dark grey clouds, and his sneezes had turned into a bad cough. James, who had noticed asked Madam Hooch for a break, and Harry was more than grateful when he heard Madam Hooch’s whistle. In the end, it took him nearly three hours to catch the snitch, only one arms length ahead of the Ravenclaw Seeker. The final score was 320:280 for Gryffindor.

The Gryffindor team landed in a circle around Harry and cheered. They couldn’t take the Quidditch cup yet, because the final game Slytherin against Hufflepuff was still to be played, but the cup was relatively safe, as in order to win the cup Slytherin had to score 460 points more than Hufflepuff, which was more than unlikely. The team went to take a shower and change while the other Gryffindors were going to get the common room ready for the victory party. Harry wanted nothing more than to sleep, he didn’t care if he missed the party; as soon as he was dressed, he told James he would go to bed, changed into Icicle and flashed directly onto his bed, lay down and went to sleep.