The Forbidden Corridor

Dumbledore strode down the seventh floor corridor, Flitwick, McGonagall, and several other teachers trailing behind him.

"Are you sure it's here? Dumbledore?"

He turned to his deputy. "No, Minerva, not at all." He sighed.

A faint pop sounded next to them. A female house elf appeared wearing a Hogwarts tea towel.

"Icygrass and friends is being fighting troll!"

Gasps surrounded him.

Dumbledore swore. "Fawkes!"

Nothing

He whirled back on the house elf. "Where?"

"Third floor bathroom."

He strode quickly back the way he'd came, followed by his staff. "Fawkes!"

Again, nothing.

Merlin, Damn it!

...

"Here comes the-boy-who-lived!"

Hermione goggled.

John Potter leapt over where she half lay on the floor and bounded towards the wounded troll.

The troll roared.

She stared in horrified fascination as the boy jumped on its head, ignoring the tree-trunk thick flailing arms, and stuck his wand up its nose. "Bombarda!"

The troll's head exploded. Her lord's twin was thrown towards them and hit his head on the floor, instantly knocking him out, just as the remains of the troll's brains splashed all over her and the other girls.

The corridor was suddenly far too quiet.

The troll slowly fell forward.

The five brain-covered witches stared at the headless troll corpse, to the unconscious boy now laying at their feet, and back again.

Hermione sighed. "That was…"

"The dumbest thing I've ever seen," finished Lisa.

Daphne wiped gunk off her face. "Why do these things always end with me covered in monster guts?"

A sob started. She turned to see Padma gathering her crying fellow muggleborn into a hug.

Hermione absentmindedly jabbed her wand at John, confirming all his vitals were fine, and that he wasn't dying. Although she did see a nasty cut on one exposed shoulder.

"T-T-T-Thank y-y-you." Sophie sobbed into Padma's robes.

Padma rubbed her back. "Hey, we're all here for you. Okay? We said we would be, didn't we?"

Sophie nodded, shakily.

A groan caught all their attentions.

Hermione watched as a groggy John Potter raised himself on his elbows. "What happened?"

Daphne snorted. "What happened is that you jumped onto a slow moving target, which we were happily outrunning, and cast a blasting curse at pointblank range."

Potter shook his dazed head.

"You're lucky you weren't killed," Daphne finished.

Her lord's twin stilled, as though he'd just remembered something, leapt to his feet and turned away, towards the forbidden corridor.

Hermione shot out her arm and grabbed his wrist. "And where do you think you're going?"

John Potter looked into her eyes. "I've got something to take care of."

"What? There's only the out of bounds corridor off that direction."

Potter shook off her arm and marched off.

She called after him. "You're injured!"

Potter ignored her.

Damn. She and Daphne shared a look.

Daphne rose to her feet and made to follow. Hermione turned back towards the group. "You'll be okay, right?"

The two pureblood Ravenclaw witches nodded. Sophie turned her head away from Padma's chest. "I'll be okay, Hermione." she sniffed again, "Thank you, and you too… er…"

Daphne turned. "Daphne. Daphne Greengrass, Heiress of the Ancient and Noble House of Greengrass."

Sophie sniffed again. "Thank you, Daphne."

Daphne nodded and the two of them set off after the Gryffindor time traveller.

They arrived at the corner to the out of bounds corridor a few minutes later to find John Potter standing and staring, wand hanging limply at his side, face pale.

"What?"

Hermione caught up to him and her gaze fell down the corridor. She stared.

Daphne joined them and gasped.

The corridor was completely destroyed. Suits of armour lay in heaps of scrap. Great chunks of wall were gouged out. Rubble lay everywhere. The splinted remains of a door lay half way down the space. Tapestries were torn and half hanging off the walls.

John took a step forward. "What? What did this?"

Hermione shared a fearful glance with Daphne. What had happened here? Where was Harry? Was he safe… Or?

Hermione felt a stab of pain shoot through her leg. She winced. The snake Harry always told to keep in her pocket had started writhing and biting at her leg. She saw Daphne's eyes widen. Panic flying through them.

John took another step forward.

Her own heart started beating faster again. Adrenaline started pumping. Basilisk. Harry could be in danger. He could be badly injured. She had to find him. But…

She glanced towards Daphne and nodded at John's back. Daphne nodded.

Hermione raised her wand.

John took another step.

The tip of her wand glowed red. "Stupefy."

The boy collapsed in a heap on the floor.

She and Daphne reached into their robes and whipped on twin pairs of muggle sunglasses.

Daphne turned. "Right, let's get out of here."

Hermione blanched. "But we have to find Harry!"

"Are you crazy, Granger? It's a Basilisk! A Merlin damned Basilisk! We're just dead weight!"

Hermione ignored her and marched forward.

"For magic's sake!"

She reached the door and stepped through it. She stared. The corpse of a huge animal lay on the floor. It had the body of a goat, the heads of an eagle and a tiger and the tails of a cat a fox and a snake. The snake tail writhed around in the air. The rest of the creature was very definitely dead. The chimaera was dead.

Daphne arrived beside her and gasped.

Hermione's gaze raised from the massive corpse to take in a scene of destruction even more total than the corridor outside. Huge circular holes were smashed in the walls of several rooms beyond, taking whole doors with them, creating a long passageway of huge, ancient, jagged stones, which stretched on far further than the castle's outer walls could realistically contain.

What was this place?

She felt Daphne tremble beside her. "Why would anyone put a chimaera in a school? And why would anyone ever willingly fight one? Even with a Basilisk? What's this all for?"

Hermione shook her head. Something was very wrong here, but she couldn't put her finger on what. Every time she tried it seemed to slip through her mind like water through a sieve.

Daphne pointed. "There! Look."

...

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