A Little Help from a Snake // Tomarry

Part 57

Reposted: December 24, 2021

Happy holidays! And f you don't celebrate anything, good day/night to you!

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I am a fool; I forgot about the Chamber

Summary: Harry visits the Chamber; he is worried about Ginny's behavior

Harry took advantage of Umbridge's absence to go to the Chamber. Last year, he hadn't been down as much as he would have liked, so he wasn't surprised when Athanasia greeted him by nudging him enthusastically with her great head.

'Tomling's not with you?' she said, disappointed.

'Sorry, no,' Harry said as he righted himself up. 'But I brought Azure.'

The much smaller snake lifted her head from Harry's shoulder. 'Hi. You will not believe what's going on!'

'Fawkes already told me a little. But go on.'

As Azure filled her in on the past weeks, Harry continued on to Slytherin's library.

To his surprise, Severus was already there.

"Hey, Sev, when did you get down here?" Harry asked.

Severus looked at his watch. "About fifteen minutes ago."

"This place is awesome!" Remus' voice made Harry jump. He stuck his head out from behind a shelf, his eyes bright. "How come you hadn't brought us down here before?"

"Us?" Harry said.

He jumped again as Sirius appeared from behind another shelf farther down. "Hey, pup!"

"Merlin, you startled me!" Harry exclaimed, trying to calm his racing heart.

"I'm not Merlin, but I can see where the confusion would be," Remus chirped.

"How did you get here without anyone noticing?" Harry asked as Remus disappeared behind the shelf again.

"Have you explored the whole chamber?" Sirius asked in return.

"I thought I had. Why, what did I miss?"

"Well, turns out Salazar made a fireplace that's connected to the Slytherin Head of House's quarters. I guess he used it as a shortcut," Sirius told him.

"Ingenious. Why didn't Tom come?"

Sirius suddenly found the floor to be very interesting. "Busy."

"Doing what?" Harry persisted.

"You'll see. It's nothing bad, I promise."

"Okay..." Harry glanced at Remus, who seemed preoccupied with a book that he most certainly was not reading unless he spontaneously learned Parselscript. And could read upside down.

"Has Miss Weasley left you alone?" Severus asked, saving both men from further awkwardness. Honestly, as intelligent as they were, they were terrible at subtlety.

"Pretty much," Harry answered, allowing the obvious (to him) distraction. "Or at least, she's trying."

"Trying?" How hard was it to stay away from people? This, of course, was coming from a man who disliked socializing.

"Yeah, it's weird. I'll see her in the hall and she'll start walking toward me. But then she veers off without looking back."

Severus paused halfway through turning a page. "That's odd." Maybe he should be paying more attention to Ginny.