Episode 6. Part 4

Episode 6. Part 4

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- Harry, I want to be sure: Are you sure it wasn't you who discovered the Chamber of Secrets? - Granger was the first to question it, because Potter was too much of a villain in his new role, sometimes really overreacting and brutal. There were already four men attacked by John Doe: Mrs. Noriss, Colin Creevey, Justin Finch-Flechley, and the ghost of Nicholas Cheese. The latest double attack has thwarted Potter's plans, for he has lost a supporter. One would expect the public to stop begrudgingly thinking that he had nothing to do with the attacks since his friend was petrified, but no, instead the students became even more vocal about his brutality. Of course, the former hope of the magical world, and now the new dark lord, was simply punishing a loyal follower for something.

Yeah, Dudley was right about public opinion being fickle. And Harold wondered if he had foreseen this development, or if he was simply stating a long-known truth.

- Why should I, Herm? - Harry sighed wearily, taking a seat at one of the library tables, where he bumped into his classmate.

- I found something out," Hermione whispered quickly, in a conspiratorial whisper. - Have you noticed that the spiders are fleeing the school? I overheard you and heard you were in the hallway on the second floor when the sign appeared there and heard voices. After the dueling club class, I thought about the fact that you might have heard snake hissing. And the victims who turned to stone...

- In short," Harry asked, massaging his temples. The thought process had been giving him frequent headaches over the past few days.

- I think the Slytherin monster is the Basilisk! - Solemnly and smugly proclaimed the best sophomore at Hogwarts.

- Why don't you inform the professors about it? - Tilting his head to his shoulder, Dudley asked, squinting anxiously at his cousin. He was almost praying that Potter would stay out of it. But he was, having conducted some kind of investigation, the results of which he did not share with his brother. Of course, Dursle hoped he was imagining things, or that Harry was thinking of something else, but...

- Um..." Granger hesitated, embarrassed. - But then the suspicion would fall on Harry. Everyone's heard you're a serpentine. - Harold chuckled: Despite some of Hermione's Ravenclaw qualities, she was a true Gryffindor, where everyone is like Dumas' "knights without fear or reproach," "one for all and all for one.

- Don't you think I'm the one who started the Muggleborn massacre? - He asked provocatively, finally deciding whether or not to accept Granger into his, not at all purely male, company.

- Of course I don't believe in that nonsense, Harry! - indignantly pounded her fists on the table. The cousins looked at each other and began to explain to the curious Muggleborn why she shouldn't have poked around in the case.

Neither of them noticed the jealous and curious look in the redheaded girl's eyes...

***

- What's wrong, boys? You look gloomy..." Dudley asked quietly, plopping down on the couch next to the Weasley twins.

- She's not herself," George shrugged. - She's been having some kind of weird memory lapse. Mood swings and...

- It has nothing to do with the fact that she's a girl? - In a strange tone, hiding behind a book on Herbology, Neville inquired from a nearby chair. - My grandmother once said that at that age, a girl's...

- Why shouldn't she go to Pomfrey? - Harold hastened to interrupt Harold.

- She won't, and she made us promise not to tell anyone," Fred answered.

- Then why are you telling us?

- Dud, maybe you..." the twins moved their eyebrows hintingly, but it still took Dudley a moment to realize that they were referring to his gift of foresight, which they knew. The realization made him throw a questioning glance at his cousin, with a mute plea to save him from the uncomfortable question that threatened to reveal his ability to all the students present in the Gryffindor common room. The Boy-Who-Won-The-Dark-Lord-and-Threatened-To-Follow sighed, but didn't dare refuse, looking earnestly at the twins:

- Dread, Forge, tell me the ten signs of the Possessed.

- This is sixth year material! - They resented each other in one voice.

- But we studied it together. Of course, we had another interest, but... Just remember," Potter repeated insistently. The twins went pale in sync, turning blue over their black hair and brightly flaring freckles on their noses. They gasped for air frantically for a few minutes before their facial expressions became frightened and they jumped up, with an obvious desire to do something stupid. Harold realized it just in time: SIT DOWN! - He made a noise that made everyone in the living room who wasn't already sitting sit down, even if it wasn't him, including the mages in the portraits, the students who had just entered, and the twins themselves. Those who didn't have enough room sat on the floor, and then stared at Harry in bewilderment and then anger. The former hero could barely restrain himself from craning his neck into his shoulders, but still nonchalantly finished his thought, "Do you really think none of the professors noticed?

- But then why did they...

- It's a trap for Harry," Dudley replied flatly. - The question is whose, and there's no point in hiding it...

***

- So, what have we got? - Dudley summed up the investigation. - The Keymaster of Hogwarts was sent to Azkaban for a shady case from fifty years ago. But he's innocent, because crybaby Myrtle, after hearing his voice, said unequivocally that the boy whose voice she heard in the bathroom before she died, surely could not be Hagrid, because he already had a bass back then. Draco's father, being a follower of Voldemort and a hater of Dumbledore, worked hard to get the headmaster kicked out of his position. The next morning there was another double attack, one of the victims of which was Hermione. And a few more days later, the Slytherin monster dragged Ginny Weasley into the secret room.

What do we know about the secret room? - he asked the inattentive cousin, who was thinking about something of his own. But Potter heard the questio

- It's in the dungeons, because that's the only ones we haven't had time to explore. Well, or too well protected magically, so that even your gift can't see it. The entrance is on the second floor, in Myrtle's bathroom, judging by her readings, behind one of the sinks. It's hardly alone, but there's nothing else we can get a hold of. And guarding the secret room is none other than the thousand-year-old Basilisk," Harry sighed and squeezed his cousin's hand in his hands, looking guiltily into his eyes, "I wouldn't get into it, Dud. But..

- I know," Dursle sighed heavily, too. He too could not refuse the twins' request to get their sister out, and neither was he willing to share with Weasley all the secrets and advantages that they, though children, had before the terror of Slytherin and whoever was running it. - I'm with you," Harry let go of his brother's hand and stood up, and afterwards, as he had that first year when they were alone, and it was he who had to take care of his cousin who was unfit for independent life, he did not ask, but categorically ordered

- Dudley, you're staying," and turned away altogether, unable to look into the reproachful eyes. - I don't want to risk you! You know me: I can easily manage if I have someone to go back to, someone to survive for

- But... Basilisk..." Dudley almost pleaded with horror, for he still remembered the vision in which - he was sure - his brother was dying. The prospect of losing someone so important to him, the prospect of being left alone, terrified him greatly. In that moment, he reminded Harry of himself in those years, when he would roar over nothing, like a broken knee, and Aunt Petunia would cluck around him, trying to calm him down. In that moment, Harry realized what children they were, who thought they were adults just because they'd only lived alone for a few years. And he shouldn't have gotten into this, but he felt he had to, he had to. He, and no one else. That's why he'd talked the twins into staying out of the Chamber of Secrets. And to help, a distraction assignment for the professors and Dumbledore would be enough. All they had to do was play one of their pranks to do it... And him... He may be the new Dark Lord, Slytherin Heir, whose fault it was that Ginny Weasley was dragged away, but he was still a hero whose status had to be confirmed..

- I'll be back, I promise," Harold swore. He should have at least calmed his cousin down a little, since he had been the last obstacle to his exploits. - You're still afraid, and fear.

- You're afraid, too," Dudley said confidently, with a sort of challenge, and Harry swallowed the impromptu speech he'd made up, swallowing instead: yes, he was afraid, too. Perhaps even more so than his cousin. But still not as much as when they'd escaped the orphanage and realized what real hunger was, which they'd thought at the time was gnawing at their organs and bones from the inside. Dudley, on the other hand, saw what he wanted to see: Harold wasn't going because of self-confidence or pride. Yes, and he understood that his cousin was unstoppable. So he sighed: - All right. Go alone. But come back. And remember what you promised..

***

- Speak to me, Slytherin, the greatest of the Hogwarts foursome! - The memory of Tom Riddle drinking the life force from Ginevra Weasley with the help of his own self-made diary exclaimed triumphantly.

- Wait, wait," Harold slowed him down. And he had a plan: Lord Voldemort, Slytherin's heir, was the son not even of a Muggleborn, but of an ordinary Muggle?! The Lord of Destiny, before whom purebloods with centuries-old bloodlines grovel, turned out to be a half-breed, dirtier than me?! And what kind of pathos is this, where the greatest thousand-year-old Serpent King crawls out of the mouth of his own master's statue?! Do you have any idea what that looks like?! And who created the statue? Did Salazar Slytherin suffer from such a degree of narcissism that he created statues of himself?

- SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! Filthy Muggleman. Slytherin was the greatest..." raged, deliberately angry, Tom Riddle. He immediately ordered the Basilisk, who had crawled out, to "kill the boy. Harold had to use the pipes to escape. Flamel's experimental three-hearted wand, which recently had a small Philosopher's Stone crystal shining on the end of its handle, did not help, because any magic bounced off the serpent's skin. Neither could killing it as a troll. The Slytherin beastie was tough.

So Harold would have rushed through the dungeons of the founder of the snake faculty, under Riddle's snide comments, if he had not run out once more into the main hall, where Tom and Ginny were, when he dreamed that one of the walls, which seemed solid, disappeared, revealing to him treasures, numerous scrolls, books, stacks of parchment and other incomprehensible artifacts. He was so surprised by what he saw that he stood upright instead of running. And the next moment he felt a monstrous pain and found himself staring into huge, saucer-like yellow eyes...

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