Poisoned Youth | ✓

67- Differences Aside

I sensed eyes following us as we ran out of the Great Hall again, into the entrance hall still crowded with evacuating students. I allowed us to be swept up the marble staircase with them, but at the top, we hurried off along a deserted corridor. Fear and panic were clouding my thought processes. I tried to calm myself, to concentrate on finding the Horcrux, but my thoughts buzzed as frantically and fruitlessly as wasps trapped beneath a glass.

"Where're Ron and Hermione?" I whispered, panic flowering through my body.

"I– I don't know," he said.

Slowing down, we came to a halt halfway along an empty passage, where Harry sat down upon the plinth of a departed statue and pulled the Marauder's Map out of the pouch around his neck. Looking over, I could not see Ron's or Hermione's names anywhere on it, though the density of the crowd of dots now making its way to the Room of Requirement might be concealing them.

Harry and I ran through the entire castle on a wild goose chase looking for the Ravenclaw Diadem. We'd met up with multiple Hogwarts' Ghosts and even found Hagrid. After a little argument, Harry had with Aberforth Dumbledore, we sped down the corridor only to run into Hermione and Ron, both with their arms full of large, curved, dirty yellow objects, Ron with a broomstick under his arm.

"Where the hell have you been?" I shouted.

"Chamber of Secrets," said Ron.

"Chamber— what?" said Harry.

"It was Ron, all Ron's idea!" said Hermione breathlessly. "Wasn't it absolutely brilliant? There we were, after you left, and I said to Ron, even if we find the other one, how are we going to get rid of it? We still hadn't got rid of the cup! And then he thought of it! The basilisk!"

"What the — ?"

"Something to get rid of Horcruxes," said Ron simply.

Looking down at the objects clutched in Ron and Hermione's arms, I realized it was a large fang from the dead basilisk.

"But how did you get in there?" Harry asked, staring from the fangs to Ron. "You need to speak Parseltongue!"

"He did!" whispered Hermione. "Show him, Ron!"

Ron made a horrible strangled hissing noise that Harry usually made.

"It's what you did to open the locket," he told us apologetically. "I had to have a few goes to get it right, but," he shrugged modestly, "we got there in the end."

"He was amazing," said Hermione. "Amazing!"

"So we're another Horcrux down," said Ron, and from under his jacket, he pulled the mangled remains of Hufflepuff's cup. "Hermione stabbed it. Thought she should. She hasn't had the pleasure yet."

"Genius!" yelled Harry.

"It was nothing," said Ron, though he looked delighted with himself. "So what's new with you two?"

"I know what the diadem looks like, and I know where it is," said Harry, talking fast. "He hid it exactly where I hid my old Potions book, where everyone's been hiding stuff for centuries. He thought he was the only one to find it. Come on."

As the walls trembled again, he led us back through the concealed entrance and down the staircase into the Room of Requirement. It was empty except for three women: Ginny, Tonks, and an elderly witch wearing a moth-eaten hat, Neville's grandmother.

"Ah, Harry Potter," she said crisply as if she had been waiting for us. "You can tell us what's going on."

"Is everyone okay?" said Ginny and Tonks together.