Chapter 124

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Chapter 99- The Suicide Squad!

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"Professor?" I hear, after entering the second-floor girl's bathroom, my wand out and ready for anything that could possibly show up. I'd entered expecting perhaps an attack or maybe even a Basilisk waiting for me, so I made sure to wear some glasses and was looking down, prepared to look for the legs of any opponents. However, the voice that greeted me did not come from the front. Without wasting a moment, I spun around and looked directly up, my wand pointing straight at the wall above the door.

"Stop! It's me! It's me! It's Harry!" I watch as the boy shimmers into existence, stuck to the wall above the door, his own wand in his hand and pointing at me. "Disillusionment and a sticking charm? Simple but effective; well done, Harry." I say, lowering my wand and waiting for the boy to come down. I have to raise an eyebrow when I take note that he is still pointing his wand at me. He smiles nervously but undoes his sticking charm and falls to the ground, stumbling on the landing but quickly getting to his feet again.

"Harry, can you not point your wand at me? It's quite rude." I say when the boy still refuses to lower his wand, continuing to stare at me with nervousness and hesitation, looking quite confused. He doesn't lower his wand and ignores my words, and instead starts his own line of questioning. "W-Why are you here, Professor? Are you here because you need to get to the Chamber of Secrets?" He says, and I find myself amused. This boy doesn't know the first thing about interrogations. He asked a question and then provided a suitable answer for me... he would actually do well in the police force, handholding people to confessions.

"Alright, let's cut the Hippogrif Shit, okay. I've been given an ultimatum of sorts and told to come here and go into the Chamber of Secrets, and it is my only chance of saving everybody in this school. Given your presence and how you aren't being drained like everybody else in the castle, I assume you have been given instructions as well. Probably to help me get into the chamber itself since I assume Parseltongue is required, correct?" I say, just cutting through all the bullshit and getting to the meat of the matter. I haven't got time to hem and haw, but with each second, Riddle is draining more and more magic and getting stronger.

"Ah, yeah. Riddle... Why does he want you?" Harry tentatively asks, and I cannot be bothered to answer him right now, so I snap at him instead. "Harry, we do not have time for this. Every second we waste is another second the professors, your friends and everybody else in this school inch closer to death. Now, let's find the entrance and get going, shall we." I end that quite bitchily, but I really don't want to answer that I have the pages and everything, plus everything I said is the truth, and we are wasting time.

"R-Right, the entrance... which is where?" Harry says, panicking and then frantically looking around as if he will just be able to spot the chamber's entrance if he just looks for it. Well, he can, but it would have to be very closely as the snake image on the tap is quite small. I don't actually want to reveal that I know that, as he seems suspicious enough of me already. "Why don't you just try shouting out some Parseltongue and seeing if anything happens?" I suggest knowing that this solution should work.

"What should I say?" He asks, and I stifle the sigh that rises up inside of me, and instead, I just answer the question. "Just say open or something. Hopefully, the entrance will actually reveal itself." He nods and then starts to hiss very loudly into the bathroom, and then the sink in the middle of the room starts to clank and move, the tiles and sinks shifting outwards and down into the floor and revealing the big dark hole that was hidden underneath it. Harry starts to cough very loudly, and I look at him with concern. "Doing the hissing loudly like that actually hurts." He answers, and I just nod.

"Who the hell is hissing here? I am trying to do some planning!" A loud voice screeches and we both jump at the sound as the toilet doors start to clatter and the toilets begin to erupt with water in a fury, and then with a whoosh, Moaning Myrtle is in front of us, looking angry, but the fury melts off of her face when she sees us. "Oh, Gilderoy, it's you. Did you come for some fun? I don't actually have anybody I can take over, well, with consent because I know you care about that, but that doesn't mean I can't do some unique things with my ghostly self." She grins lecherously at me, completely ignoring Harry's presence and the previous mood.

"M-Moaning Myrtle?" Harry stutters, confusion and disbelief marring his face. I can understand why because the last time he saw Myrtle, she was a depressed and downcast girl with a spotty face, big glasses, and robes that went down past her shoes. Now though, she was a completely different ghost-woman, with a slutty Hogwarts schoolgirl outfit, her shirt tied under her knockers but somehow still no revealing much, no bra in sight, a short skirt, thigh-high socks, those schoolgirl shoes, no more spots, but she still wore glasses, but they were thinner and sexier, and she still kept the pigtails. Damn it, don't get sidetracked, Gilderoy.

"That's right, I am Moaning Myrtle, the moaniest Mytrle that ever moaned. Except it's a different kind of moaning now, hehe." Harry still looks confused and doesn't really understand what she is saying, which I'm thankful for, but her showing up now is great timing since she could actually prove to be useful. "No time for that. Everybody is in danger, and we could use your help, Myrtle. We were hoping you could go into the chamber, invisible and silent, and scout it out for us. Can you do that?" I ask her because, at the end of the day, she died here, and she might not be able to do it.

"I'm always happy to be of service to you, Gilderoy. You can make use of me anytime. So... down the big black hole is it?" She says, finally taking notice of the big tunnel that had revealed itself in the middle of the room. I nod my head, and then she shoots off, zooming down it; I watch her go down from the edge and see the blue glow disappear, so I assume she's gone invisible. With that fortuitous turn in the works, I turn around to look at Harry. "Alright, Harry, prepare yourself to enter. I don't know if there will be any more barricades which only Parseltongue can get through, so you'll have to come through. Thankfully, Myrtle will be scouting ahead for us, so we don't have to go in without any information and can do some preparations." To that, Harry nods with a determined look. Huh, tough kid; well, I shouldn't have expected anything less.

It is a few minutes later when Myrtle just appears in front of me, startling me slightly. One second, she wasn't there, and then she was; ghost invisibility sure is useful. "So, what's the verdict?" I ask, ready to start making a plan. "Well, the hole is okay to jump down since it really is just like one big slide, so you are fine there. Though once you reach the bottom there is a bit of a drop, but it's fine as there are a bunch of rat bones to cover your fall." Myrtle starts to rattle off, and I nod my head as she does to show that I am listening and taking it all in.

"Moving on, there are a couple of doors with snakes on them that don't have handles. I have no clue how you open them, and there is also a lot of giant snake skin down there. But there's nothing dangerous in that section, but once you get past all that is when things get difficult." Myrtle says, and I hear Harry gulp nervously next to me. "There is this long walkway with water around it and a bunch of snakey old guy statues all over the place, that's really the best way I can describe it. There's also a lot of passageways, too many for me to look through." Myrtle puts a finger to her chin in thought, but I already know the aesthetics. What I need to know about is enemy action.

"Myrtle! Focus!" I click my fingers in front of her face, bringing her focus back to me. "I need to know about people and animals. Who is in there? How many people! Are there any creatures? Tell me about who is waiting for us." I demand, Harry at my side nodding his head vigorously. Obviously, he still doesn't know about the Basilisk. "Okay, so in that last room, there is a ghost guy, but he's not really a ghost guy; he's somewhere in between, and he's like an evil version of a ghost if there even can be an evil version of a ghost. Anyway, that guy's in the middle before this big statue at the end, and he's becoming less ghost by the second." Myrtle rambles, but I don't mind as she might actually say something useful, and interrupting would just make this take longer.

"Right next to that guy is a ginger girl, but she's lying on the ground, and she isn't awake. She's like the opposite of the gut, becoming more of a ghost every second. She isn't dying, but it's like she's fading or something, I don't know how to explain it." Harry goes to interrupt, most likely worried about Ginny, but I clamp a hand over his mouth and nod for Myrtle to continue. "Apart from the two, there is a girl standing in front of the guy, like she's guarding him. She's actually one of the ones you were bonking, Gilderoy... wait, you know I feel like I've seen that guy before as well, but I can't quite remember; oh well." I snap my fingers again, and she gets back on track.

"Oh, right. Apart from those three, there are about five students hiding behind some of the statues, like they are waiting to attack someone, which I guess is you guys. And then... no, yeah, I think that is pretty much it." Myrtle finishes, swaying in the air with her hands behind her back and languidly twisting her body upside down. "That's it? There isn't anybody else? There are no creatures? What about whatever that skin belonged to?" I question when I realise she hasn't actually mentioned the Basilisk at all, which is concerning. What if Riddle has sent it into the school to get some snacks while I go into the chamber, or what if he has released it from Hogwarts, and that Basilisk is now free and roaming about Britain?

"Creature? The snake skin? Ah, no? I didn't see anything apart from the people down there. There were no creatures, but then again, I didn't explore all of the passages down there, so there might have been some Boggarts hiding around down there. Do you want me to go check all of the passageways?" Myrtle offers, and I shake my head in the negative. There's no point in her going and checking; you would be pretty hard-pressed to miss such a behemoth of a snake. No, most likely, the Snake is resting in the giant stone statue, and of course, Myrtle wouldn't fly into the statue to check.

Okay, no more delaying. It's time to move forward and head into the Chamber of Secrets. "Okay, Myrtle, you are coming with us as well. But, you are going to stay invisible and be our support, aiding unseen from the sidelines, using our telekinesis to help us where you can and whatever else you can do. Harry, you'll be coming along to use your Parseltongue to open the snake doors, and then you can hide out on the sidelines like Myrtle using the disillusionment charm. Assist if you want, but just try to stay alive. I'll handle Riddle and the other students, and if anything unexpected happens, I expect you and Myrtle to handle it." I look seriously at Myrtle and Harry, and I am happy to see they are listening.

"I'll handle Riddle and the students. You two help where you can or handle anything that I can't deal with that pops up unexpectedly." Okay, with that, Harry and Myrtle will try to handle the Basilisk if it pops up, which it probably will. Myrtle will help keep Harry alive, and I'll be free to get a bit loose with what classifies as acceptable magic with them out of the way. They also won't hear anything that Riddle might say about me, though Riddle will probably want to talk before any action happens, so that is a moot point. "Alright, good. You first Harry!" I say, and with that, I give the boy the push he needs to take the leap of faith.

"Wha- Ahhh!" The boy plunges down the black hole after I give him a firm push on the back, and I can hear his screams echo as he goes deeper and deeper before he reaches the point where the sound doesn't even travel back up to us. Myrtle giggles at me and then does a neat little sashay through the air, and then, like an Olympic diver, she plunges into the hole as well. Seeing them both go, and having given Harry enough time that I won't crush him when I follow, I jump in as well. And then the slide begins, and I honestly don't see why Harry was screaming in fear when it should be out of joy.

"Hahaha!" I couldn't help but laugh as I went sliding down the tunnel, swishing this way and that, and I swear I was even upside down at one point. I couldn't stop laughing, and I honestly couldn't tell whether or not it was from the adrenaline or if it was out of insanity because of the fact that I was going to face overwhelming odds, and I was only bringing a ghost and a boy for backup. The chances of survival were not good, the chance of cruel torture was even higher, and I was going towards it head-on. All I can do is laugh.

"Why are you laughing?" Hearing Harry say that brings me back to reality, and I realise that I am sitting on the ground, my ass having crushed tiny bones, and I am now in the Chamber of Secrets. I was so consumed by the laughter that I didn't even realise when the tunnel stopped, and I dropped to the ground. I definitely have some issues and problems, but I wouldn't be me if I didn't have those specific things, so I'll just go on forward with them; they are a part of me. A fucked up part, but it's still me nonetheless.

"Professor?" Harry asks again, and I promptly get up off my ass and dust it off for good measure, flicking away the bones. "Alright, let's get going." And with that, I completely sidestep the whole issue and start to go off, Harry quickly trailing along behind me. Myrtle is nowhere to be seen, so I assume she is following orders and has already gone invisible and is being sneaky, which is good. Finally, Harry manages to catch up and walks alongside me. We walk in silence for a bit, but then he asks me a question.

"Do you think those students are being controlled as well?" Harry asks me after a moment, and I look at him in confusion. How does this kid know that the students have been being controlled? "As well?" I ask the leading question, and Harry quickly answers. "Riddle- that's what he said his name is- was controlling Ron. I didn't even realise... and I should have." Harry responds moresly, looking at the ground in shame, while I think about what he said and I think I understand.

"Why should you have realised, Harry?" I say, wondering if it is what I am thinking, and not him just not realising his friend was acting differently. "I- I have been feeling this- I suppose the best way to describe it would be- darkness, all around the school. Coming off of people, like you." Harry explains, and I do remember that from when I had a deep dive into Harry's memories. He was sensing the Horcrux pages, and they were hurting his scar, and since I was collecting them, he felt their stench on me.

"I realised it once Riddle revealed himself in Ron's body, just how much darkness and pure vileness was on him. And he was right next to me the whole time, and I never realised. I was too worried and scared because of everything, and I didn't even realise that my best friend wasn't my best friend anymore until it was too late." Harry says, and I can hear the bones in his hand creak as he clenches them into a fist out of frustration.

"Well, don't worry about it, kid. We are about to get Riddle and save everyone. Now, open the door." I gesture towards the round door with snakes all around it, and Harry steps forward to hiss at it.

I should probably come up with a better plan before this goes down.

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Okay, so my break is over, and I am going back to uni tomorrow. I am very ashamed to say I didn't get any extra writing done. I seriously don't know how the other people with twelve different fics getting updated weekly do it because I can't. I'm mostly focusing on uni, so that is that. Gaming wise, I finished Ragnarok and Valhall, which was great. I am now playing through Red Dead Redemption, so if you want to see what happens after Arthur's journey, follow the link.

Upcoming Chapters:

Hero: Chapter 100- Chamber of Fear...

Super: Chapter 102- Aftermath.

Legendary: Chapter 104- Back in Business!

Galactic: Chapter 108- Unhappy Wife, My Happy Life. [R-18]

Mythic: Chapter 109- An Unexpected Friendship.

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