The group, now aboard the glider, moved onwards. Driven back by the beams of light, the darkness retreated, revealing more of the same damp, slime-coated walls. The mysterious gloom fled before the headlights. A deathly silence reigned in the tunnel.
Their first unexpected discovery was bones: the entire floor was littered with the skeletons of small animals.
"Rats," Hermione said, trying to conceal her disgust.
"Someone's committed an outright rat genocide down here," Richard said, almost whistling.
"I think I might even know who," Harry whispered.
Following his gaze, Richie brought the glider to a halt, while Hermione clutched the boy's shoulder.
The travellers froze, peering into the blackness illuminated by the headlights. Richard could make out the outlines of enormous coils lying across the tunnel. The coils weren't moving. He glanced back at his companions.
"Now that's some snake... If it left behind a shed skin that size, I'd rather not meet it. Maybe we should fly back? Filch would be easier to deal with."
"The skin is old," Hermione commented quietly, hiding her fear. "The snake probably starved to death a long time ago. Besides"—she glanced sideways at Potter—"we have a Parselmouth."
Harry gave a nervous shudder and objected:
"So what if I can talk to snakes?"
"From what I've read, Parselmouths can command snakes," Granger shared her arcane knowledge.
"Maybe they can, maybe they can't," Richard drawled. "I'm not particularly eager to find out."
"But Richie, we have to..." Harry waggled his eyebrows meaningfully. "Maybe the monster really did die ages ago?"
Harry looked at the mysterious object again, his heart pounding so hard that his chest hurt. Very slowly, almost squeezing his eyes shut, Harry stepped off the glider and walked forwards, holding his wand high as a sphere of Lumos light shone above it. The light swept across a gigantic, poisonous-green snakeskin. The creature that had shed it must have been around twenty metres long.
"Whoa!" Hermione barely moved her lips as she spoke. "It's even bigger than it looked in the half-light."
Richie tried to breathe deeply through his nose. He found himself thinking that perhaps flushing the corpse down the toilet would have been the better idea after all, even if they'd had to do it without Transfiguration.
Harry climbed back aboard the glider.
"Forward!" he said firmly. "Let's get this over with."
Richard ran a hand over his face and heaved a sigh.
"All right... all right. But if anything happens, remember—we've got railguns. In fact, I recommend activating them now."
Grosvenor reached into his bag and pulled out his constant companion that year—his cane. His left hand closed tightly around its pommel.
Harry and Hermione took their friend's advice and hurriedly activated the combat functions of their glasses.
Red targeting circles with crosshairs in their centres could be seen in Potter's lenses. To an outside observer, it might have looked as though Harry's pupils had suddenly turned red and acquired a bizarre pattern. The effect was truly otherworldly and distinctly unsettling.
The tint of Hermione's and Richard's glasses concealed their targeting reticles. If one looked closely, however, a faint reddish gleam could be seen reflected in their pupils.
Together, the trio looked like sinister, otherworldly children whose bodies had been possessed by dark wizards. Harry looked the most terrifying of all, as though the redness of his eyes were a mark of his power and dominance over the others.
Activating their weapons gave the young adventurers fresh courage and resolve.
The tunnel twisted and turned again and again, every nerve in Richard's body stretched taut. He wanted the tunnel to end as soon as possible, yet dreaded what might be waiting for them when it did. The idea of exploring the secret passage seemed increasingly foolish to him, bordering on outright madness.
At last, after rounding yet another bend, the three adventurers found themselves facing a smooth wall carved with two snakes coiled into rings, their heads raised. Huge emeralds gleamed in place of their eyes.
Harry was the first to jump off the glider and walk right up to it. His throat had gone dry, and so had those of the glider's passengers.
Harry cleared his throat, and the emerald eyes staring at him began to glow more brightly.
"Open!" he commanded in a low, quiet hiss that made Hermione flinch.
A crack appeared in the wall, splitting the snakes apart, and the two halves smoothly slid aside. Trembling from head to toe, Harry stepped inside. Richie and Hermione flew in after him.
They stood on the threshold of a vast, dimly lit chamber. Towering pillars entwined with stone serpents rose towards a ceiling lost in darkness, casting long black shadows through the strange greenish gloom.
"Wow!" Hermione exclaimed in delight. "It's Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets!"
"The loo?" Grosvenor's eyebrows shot upwards in surprise.
Harry stared at Granger in confusion.
"No! The Chamber of Secrets!"
"Er..." Richard drawled. "How do I explain this, Hermione? Where I come from, 'the chamber of secrets' is a euphemism for the loo. You know, when you're at some aristocratic reception, it's hardly proper to announce, 'I'm off for a piss.' So instead we say, 'Gentlemen, do carry on without me; I must visit the chamber of secrets'..."
Harry covered his mouth and struggled to keep from laughing. His cheeks puffed out, and air escaped his nose in short bursts.
"Richie..." Granger gave her friend a reproachful look. "I read about the Founder's Chamber of Secrets in Hogwarts: A History. But it said it was only a legend."
"Haven't read it," Richard admitted. "Maybe we shouldn't go any farther?"
"But Richie!" Potter exclaimed, giving his friend a meaningful look. "We need to finish what we came here to do... You know what I mean. I'm sure there must be a way outside from here, beyond the castle grounds."
Before Richard could come up with any sensible arguments, Harry Potter drew his wand with a determined expression and strode forwards between the pillars. Every footstep echoed off the shadow-streaked walls.
"Harry, wait!"
Potter ignored Richard's shout and continued deeper into the chamber.
Richard sighed wearily, ran a hand down his face, muttered an indistinct curse through clenched teeth, and sent the glider after Potter.
Hermione clutched Grosvenor's elbow tightly. Her heart was beating rapidly.
The stone serpents seemed to watch them through dark, empty eye sockets. More than once, they imagined they saw some faint movement ahead. Beyond the final pair of pillars, against the far wall, towered a colossal statue that reached all the way to the ceiling.
The two boys and the girl craned their necks. The gigantic face looming above them, with its ape-like features and long, sparse beard falling almost to the hem of its stone robes, belonged to an ancient old man. Two enormous grey feet protruded from beneath the robes, planted upon the smooth floor.
"Statue of Slytherin," Hermione whispered, her quiet voice sounding like the thunder of drums in the utter silence.
(End of Chapter)
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