❛Reminiscence❜ ─ Harry Potter Oneshots

♦ Heart Locked With Worry

Preface:
This is Ron's take on the climax of the Chamber of Secrets.

Author's Note:
I wrote this for the community's magazine and decided to publish it here. This is the original one without editing.

Whoosh!

Down went his body, down the drain, down what he imagined would be the earth's crust.

Screech!

He came to a sudden halt, the inertia reacting enough to make him fall face first into a floor of bones.

Bah!

It was eerily silent. The type of silence that you would experience when McGonagall would shout for order. A drop of water resonated in his ears, alerting his senses. He was here on a mission. Straining his eyes in the darkness for the sight of his sister, he felt the need to cry out.

He failed.

Everything around him was dark and not to mention, very damp that the whole atmosphere made him belch. The smell of rotting flesh, stagnant water, unhealthy indoors and most importantly, death, reached his nose in a flurry as soon as his feet hit the ground.

"Harry?"

"Yeah, Ron. I'm right here. Just. . . just be vigilant. We don't know what's lurking in the shadows." His best mate's voice came. Ron felt reassured that Harry tagged along with him. However, his ephemeral relief banished as soon as another voice echoed throughout the room.

"Yeah, you know better than I do, Potter. So, it's better for me to head -"

"Oh no, you don't!" There was a disturbance in the still wind. Ron felt his wand rise to point somewhere at random. Although he did not know for sure if Lockhart was right where he was aiming at, something was better than nothing. "You are coming with us. Come on, Harry."

"Lumos!" Harry's charm brightened the room to an extent. Ron followed his lead before covering up the rear of the trio. The two of them surely did not want to let Lockhart escape.

With carefully selected steps, the three men treaded towards a random gate. The rotting stench did not abate, whatsoever, and only helped to increase Ron's anxiety.

He loved Ginny more than any of his siblings. It was a fact that had been undisclosed for too long. Being the closest one in terms of age, the two of them had a bond that only kept blooming each year. The news of her abduction almost have him a panic attack.

It had been his fault. He had never thought of checking on his sister as soon as he had friends. He blamed himself for being so self-centered, as he followed Lockhart blindly, to have forgotten his first best friend.

"Wait!" Harry's voice forced Ron to snap out of his worries. "That looks like a creature of sorts. . ."

Ron squinted his eyes but all that he could see was darkness and something white. Harry approached the thing, his wand raised to illuminate whatever was on the ground. The visibility level increased thanks to Lumos and Ron gasped in horror.

It was a ruddy snakeskin.

And it was nearly the size of a Hogwarts corridor!

Not to mention, it looked really old. Older than Dumbledore.

"That-" Ron croaked out. "That looks like the skin of the Basilisk Hermione wrote about! Ruddy hell!"

"If it's skin is the size of something this large, we have to be more careful," Harry warned. Ron nodded in response and felt something shuffle beside him. He raised his wand in the direction of where Lockhart was supposed to be and found the man in question collapsed on the ground in pale fright.