The Art of Secrets

Chapter Nine: The Monster in the Chamber

This is it, she thought as she tightened her grip on her wand, and then she pushed off, feeling her stomach drop as she slid down, picking up speed as she continued to slide down the pipe. Her robes would definitely be ruined after this, she thought, and she would definitely need a shower.

The pipe had evidently not been used in years, and as she continued to pick up speed she began to worry about what would happen when she reached the bottom. It soon levelled out, though her heart was still pounding rapidly in her chest when she shot out of the end and bumped down on the hard stone floor, skidding across it slightly and feeling her dress tear underneath her until eventually she came to a stop.

Standing up, she couldn't hold back a wince when she saw the state of herself in the dim light that seemed to emanate from the very walls themselves. The light blue of her dress was covered in grime and the thin cotton of the back had ripped, a large hole in the back of her thigh forming. She didn't know the right spell to fix it, though she knew Pansy would, so instead she pressed on, desperately trying to ignore the discomfort of being in dirty clothes.

As she squinted around at the dark, slimy walls she figured they had to be somewhere under the lake by now, and she fished her wand out of her boot, casting a quiet "Lumos" as she crept slowly down the tunnel, the chill of the air around her creeping deep into her bones.

It was the quiet that got to her the most, an eerie silence broken by nothing but the soft squelching of her footfalls and her own laboured breathing. She couldn't even feel the magic down here as she could back up in the Castle. Cut off from all life and vitality she had never felt more alone.

Perhaps that was why she screamed when her foot came down on something hard and she heard a loud crunch. Casting her wand down, she saw that it was what looked to be a rat's skull, split in two now and yellowed with age, and as she looked around further she found that similar animal bones were littered around the place, carpeting the floor.

She carried on, her heart beating rapidly in her chest as she tried to take in everything, not wanting to be startled again, having already made enough noise as it was. There was something down here, there had to be, and she wasn't confident on her ability to control the snake she had heard in the walls, so she was more than a little jumpy.

"Oh, Merlin," she whispered when she saw the outline of something huge and curved lying straight across the tunnel, unmoving.

Carefully, she crept closer, making sure to make no more noise than necessary until she was peering straight over it, half-sure that if her heat was beating any harder she would go into cardiac arrest.

With her wand held high, she slid the light over the thing, relieved when she saw it was just a gigantic snake skin, a vivid, poisonous green in colour, lying curled and empty across the tunnel floor. The creature that had shed it must have been at least twenty feet long, and her breath caught in her throat.

She found herself wishing that Pan was with her as she stepped over it and moved onwards, the tunnel twisting and turning now, so much so that she began to panic, not knowing if she would ever find her way out again.

Every nerve she had was tingling unpleasantly and just as she was wishing for the tunnel to end it did just one bend later, a solid wall appearing as if out of nowhere on which two entwined serpents were carved, their eyes set with great, glinting emeralds.

As she approached, her mouth dry and her chest hurting and her vision slightly blurry, she watched the snakes on the door, the curious way their emerald eyes seemed to burn in the light, seeming more than a little bit real.

Everything seemed to get a little bit clearer in that moment, and she took a deep breath, slow and shaky, shook her head and levelled her gaze on the wall. Using the same words that had opened up the sink, she squared her jaw and whispered, "Open," in a faint, low hiss.