SCARLETT: THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS

Chapter 13: Lockhart's a Fraud

I sat next to Harry, Ron, Fred, and George in the Gryffindor common room that night. Eliza and Eden had joined us for a while as I informed them of the situation, but then McGonagall came in and made them leave. I had ducked behind Hermione when she came in, disguised in my red hoodie.

No one had spoken in at least an hour. All the Weasley siblings were too busy fearing the life of their only sister.

"Do you think that there is any chance that she'll be... okay?" Fred asked Harry. He was unsure of what to say, so I took over.

"Yeah..." I said slowly. "She's a pure-blood, so maybe..."

I couldn't bring myself to say anymore. I knew that there was a strong chance that the monster had already killed her down in the Chamber, but I couldn't tell them that. That would be heartbreaking for anyone to hear. Ginny was only twelve.

After a while of being silent, Fred and George went up to their room for the night. I doubt that they would get any sleep.

"We should go tell Lockhart what we know." Ron said, "If he plans to go into the chamber, he'll need all the information he can get him hands-on."

I was going to say that Lockhart was so fucking stupid that any information wasn't going to be taken in unless it was about hair products, but that wouldn't help. Instead, I fiddled with my hoodie sleeve and nodded. Finally, I was learning to keep my mouth shut. Eliza would be proud.

"Yeah, let's go," Harry said.

We walked through the hallways towards Lockhart's office. When we got there, I opened up the door to see Lockhart throwing a bunch of things into trunks.

"What the hell are you doing?" I asked him.

"Well, you see the thing is..." he stammered when he saw us. "I have to go, it's extremely important."

"More important than the life of Ginny Weasley?" Harry said.

"What about all the things that you wrote about?" Ron said. "Aren't you supposed to be some kind of expert on this sort of thing?"

I looked at Lockhart and read his panicked expression.

"He doesn't know anything," I realised. "It's all a lie. He's a fake."

The colour in Lockhart's face drained.

"Well, all of the people who did those things wouldn't have looked good on the front cover, so I was doing them a favour. The only thing I'm good at is memory charms...and I'm afraid I have to use a few right now."

He whipped out his wand and pointed it at all of us, but Harry was faster.

"Expelliarmus!" He yelled.

His wand went flying in the air and Ron caught it in his hand and threw it out of the window. Lockhart panicked and threw himself against the wall and held up his hands as Harry pointed his wand directly at the teacher's face.

"It doesn't even matter!" he cried. "I don't know where the Chamber is anyway!"

"Well we do," Harry said. "Let's go."

We walked out of the room, Harry continued to point his wand at Lockart who was now shaking in fear. He was so pathetic.

When we made it to the bathroom, we found Myrtle floating around.

"Why hello," she said smiling at Harry.

"We came here to ask you how you died," Harry asked. Wasn't that a cheerful question?

"Oh, it was awful!" she said. "I was killed right here in this stall. I remember I was crying in here because I was being made fun of for my glasses. Someone came into the bathroom and started talking in a very funny language - I couldn't understand it. When I opened the door to tell them to leave me alone, I died."

"How?" I asked her.

"I don't know," she whispered. "All I know was that two yellow eyes were staring at me right over there."

We looked over to the sink. Harry continued to talk to her as I checked out the sink. Ron took over for Lockhart by pointing his broken wand at him.

"There's a snake on it..." I muttered. "Right here, on the tap."

"Say something in Parseltongue," Ron suggested. "Maybe it'll open."

"Um...open up?" Harry said to it.

"That was English," Ron said.

Harry focused completely on the sink, then all of a sudden a loud hissing noise came out of his mouth.

The sink moved over to the side and a large hole was in its place. I pointed my wand at Lockhart and said, "You go first."

"W-why?" he said. "It seems like you have it sorted, so I'll just be leaving-"

Ron stepped forward and pushed Lockhart down the hole. He screamed the entire way down. Once we heard him hit the bottom, we all jumped down the hole too.

It seemed to take forever to hit the bottom and it was completely dark down through the tunnel.

"What is up with all of these secret, underground rooms in this school?" Ron muttered when we hit the bottom.

"Lumos!" I said and my wand lit up.

Harry and Ron lit up their wands too - it surprised me that Ron's could even do that spell without messing it up somehow since it has been screwing up everything all year long.

"If you all see anything," Harry said. "Close your eyes immediately."

We all walked forward slowly. Lockhart stopped for a moment in front of me but continued when I poked him in the back with my wand.

"Keep moving, you piece of shit," I said.

Lockhart whimpered but kept going forward. Then we saw something ahead of us. It was a large, transparent thing in the tunnel. When we moved closer to it, we saw that it was just the skin from the snake. It was really big, so we knew that the basilisk was going to be about the same size if not bigger than this.

Then, without any kind of warning, Lockhart fell to his knees and cried.

"Get up," Ron said.

Lockhart jumped to his feet and tackled Ron until he was able to take Ron's wand from him. When he had hold of it, he pointed at us and smiled evilly.

"We're finished here," Lockhart snarled. "I'm going to take some of the skin back up to the school and tell them that I was too late to save the girl. You three went insane when you saw her dead down here - get ready to lose your memory children! Obliviate!"

The wand exploded on Lockhart, sending him flying backwards. Harry and I flew in the other direction towards the snakeskin as the tunnel collapsed in front of us. When it stopped, there was a large mountain of rocks that separated Harry and me from Ron and Lockhart along with the exit of the school. We were trapped inside.

"RON!" I yelled. "Are you good?"

"I'm fine!" Ron said. "I don't know about Lockhart though, I think he's been knocked out!"

There was a pause and then Ron shouted at us again.

"What are we going to do now?"

"We need to keep going," I said.

"I'll try to move rocks while you're gone!" Ron shouted.

I looked at Harry. He nodded at me, and we continued through the Chamber.