Can A Phoenix Love A Lion? (Hermione Granger x Male Reader)

20. Facing the Heir

They marched Lockhart out of his office and down the nearest stairs, along the dark corridor where the messages shone on the wall, to the door of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Y/N shoved the tip of his wand between Lockhart's shoulder blades, and he bounced inside.

"Who's there?" Myrtle said, sitting on the tank of the toilet end. She saw Harry. "Oh, it's you. What do you want this time?"

"To ask you how you died," Harry said.

Myrtle's whole aspect changed at once. She looked like she had never asked such a flattering question. "Ooooh, it was dreadful," she said with relish. "It happened right in here. I died in this very stall. I remember it so well. I'd hidden because Olive Hornby was teasing me about my glasses. The door was locked, and I was crying, and then I heard somebody come in. They said something funny. A different language, I think it must have been. Anyway, what really got me was that it was a boy speaking. So I unlocked the door, to tell him to go and use his own toilet, and then—" Myrtle swelled importantly, her face shining. "I died."

"Just like that?" Y/N said, frowning as he tried to understand. "How?"

"No idea," Myrtle said in hushed tones. "I just remember seeing a pair of great, big, yellow eyes. Over there." She pointed vaguely toward the sink in front of her toilet.

Y/N leaned over the sink. He tried to turn the tap, but no water came out. He examined the pipes below, nothing. That's only when he looked at the tap again he saw it: a tiny snake scratched on its side.

"Here it is," he said, standing straight. "This is the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. Harry, say something. Something in Parseltongue."

Harry breathed in heavily, and began to speak. Once again, there was this strange sensation of two voices overlaying each other, one in English saying "Open up", one in an incomprehensible hiss. Next second, the sink began to move; the sink, in fact, sank right out of sight, leaving a large pipe exposed, a pipe wide enough for a man to slide into.

Lockhart gasped. Sweat made his face shine. "Excellent, Harry," he said in an unsteady voice. "Good work. Well, you hardly seem to need me. I'll just—"

He spun around, ready to flee, but he found Y/N's in front of his face once again.

"Quite the opposite," Y/N said. "Unless you want to see your sweet little face smashed, you go first." He amazed himself, being able to talk like that, but managed to remain stern.

White-faced and wandless, Lockhart approached the opening. "Boys," he said, his voice feeble. "Boys, what good will it do?"

"Better you than us," Ron said.

"But—" Lockhart mumbled. "Obviously, yes." He slid his legs into the pipe but didn't slide inside. "You sure you don't want to go first?"

Ron gave him a push, and he slid out of sight, his cry echoing loudly for a few seconds. Then, a dull sound warned them he had reached the bottom. "Really quite filthy down here," his voice said.

"Alright," Harry gulped. "Let's go."

"Oh, Harry," Myrtle called. "If you die down there, you're welcome to share my toilet." She sneered.

"Er—Thanks, Myrtle," Harry said. Then he jumped in the piped.

Ron followed quickly. Y/N waited for a little longer, hearing their shouts as they slid down. Finally, he lowered himself into the pipe, and let go.

It was like rushing down an endless, slimy, dark slide. He could see more pipes branching off in all directions, but none as large as the one he was in, which twisted and turned, slopping steeply downward, and he knew that he was falling deeper below the school than even the dungeons.