[From Samhain to the Solstice]: Chapter Seven of 'Adagio'- Approach to the Chamber

[lomonaaeren]

“Someone has to do something!”

“I’ve brought you to someone who might be able to do something—”

“No! He probably supports the Heir! We have to go to Lockhart!”

“Who would have done exactly nothing, given what he a fraud he is,” Severus said dryly, opening his office door to see the youngest Weasley boy and Potter standing outside it. “Now, what is it?”

“There’s a message from the Heir in blood on the wall, sir,” Potter said, his eyes hooded and dimmed the way they were when he was around someone other than Severus. “Saying that Ron’s little sister has been taken into the Chamber.”

Severus could feel his mouth stretching in a grim line. He nodded. “I will do what I can to take care of it. Mr. Weasley, Mr. Potter, return to your dormitories.”

“No!” Weasley put his hands on his hips and glared at Severus so hard that Severus felt the first flicker of respect for him that he ever had. “You could be supporting the Heir—you’re a Slytherin—I want to come—”

“It was a Slytherin who brought you here,” Potter hissed at Weasley, the sound of a sibilance under his tongue. Severus caught his eye in a glare. Potter nodded and bit back his anger with a frightening efficiency.

“Yeah, but—”

Severus interrupted by Stunning Weasley. As he sagged to the ground, Potter raced to catch him, and blinked for a moment at Severus. “Why did you do that, sir?”

“He would have been a nuisance and probably tried to tag along,” Severus said crisply. His mind was racing as he considered the possibilities. There was Dark magic that he could use to find the entrance of the Chamber, but Albus had forbidden him to use it before. Should he do it now? Would Albus still be too upset to justify the use, or would he find it different because it was a Gryffindor first-year who had gone missing?

“Do you expect me to come with you?”

Severus blinked and looked at Potter, whose eyes were blazing bright again. “No. Why would I? You are a student.”

Potter paused, then nodded. Then he looked down at Weasley. “Sir? Do you think you could conjure a stretcher so I can take him to the hospital wing? He should probably be there anyway when you come back with his sister or—”

Or the body.

Severus nodded, conjured a stretcher, and watched them out of sight before he raised his wand to cast his Patronus. In the end, he had to care more about Albus’s probable reaction to the Dark Arts than to anything else.

*

Severus stepped slowly off the last of the stairs that he had raised in the middle of the air. He hadn’t been able to open the sink that had a small snake carved on it, since he was not a Parselmouth, but he had cast a Blasting Curse that had broken open the sink and the wall behind it, and that had worked nicely. It had certainly been less time-consuming than the Dark Arts Albus had finally, reluctantly, authorized him to use to find the sink.

It had been easy, when he thought about it, to realize that the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets must be near, or in, the bathroom that the Petrified Cat had been found outside, and that contained the only ghost of student age Severus had ever seen in Hogwarts.

He wished he could have discovered it earlier. But no one else had, either.

Not even Albus.

Severus walked slowly, layered in spells to disguise his scent and his footfalls and the Strongest Disillusionment Charm he could cast. Bones crunched beneath his feet. Then he stepped around the corner and went still as he stared at the skin that lay there—the skin only. He was fortunate.

Basilisk.

Severus grimaced. He ought to have guessed that, as well. Parseltongue, Slytherin’s Heir, Petrified victims who had seen their own reflections in water and film and the like—what else could the beast be but a giant snake?

He lifted his wand high and stepped slowly past the skin, walking on. The tunnel bent through a few more curves, and then ended in front of a pair of immense stone doors carved with writhing serpents that had emeralds for eyes.

Severus took a long breath, and deliberately relaxed his body and mind. Then he began layering more spells over himself, this time the strongest shields he could muster. He would have to open the doors of the Chamber the same way he had opened the passage, but he was sure that there would be protections here much stronger than the ones in the bathroom.

When he was sure he was ready, he conjured a huge piece of diamond in front of himself, so large that he had to aim his wand around the side to use the Blasting Curse. It didn’t matter. His breathing was calm, his heartbeat steady.

The wall of diamond, unlike a wall of stone, was less likely to break, and would ensure that he did not have to dodge splinters from his own protection.

“Confringo!”

The Blasting Curse hit the stone doors of the Chamber and reflected with enormous violence. Severus ducked back behind the diamond wall as it rocked. It shimmered, and he grimaced and added more spells to make it stable, despite how much magical energy that consumed. Conjured gems rarely lasted long, never long enough for someone to become rich from them.

A Blasting Curse would not work.

Very well.

Severus adjusted his position once more to make sure that he was fully shielded by the diamond and could still move fast if needed. Then he lashed out with a spell so deeply engrained in himself that he needed no verbal casting to increase its force.

Sectumsempra!

The invisible whip of his magic hit the doors of the Chamber and cut out the emeralds from the eyes of the snakes, individual pieces of stone from the bodies, the center part of the portal. There was an intense groan, and the doors rocked, but did not fall.

It did not matter. The hole in the center of them was low enough to the floor and large enough for Severus to climb through. He Transfigured the last of the diamond wall to a rooster that he immediately cast a Silencing Charm upon, and climbed through the hole with the struggling bird under his arm.

He did not know what he would find in the room beyond. But he knew that he was going to defeat it—or them.