15 | The Basilisk

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Heading through the school at a full sprint, I found myself moving faster and faster as I desperately tried to keep up with the boys who had longer legs than I did. "Lockhart may be useless, but he's going to try and get into the Chamber," Harry said as we ran into the Dart Arts classroom and up the steps. "At least we can tell him what we know."

Bursting into Lockhart's office, I spotting him wearing some god-awful pink suit and the words just came pouring out of my mouth. "Professor, we have some information for you."

It was then that we realized Lockhart was packing up his things. He had trunks stuffed full of items and piles of different books, mostly his. "Are you going somewhere?" Harry asked.

"Well, yes. Urgent call. Unavoidable." he looked up at us like a deer in headlights. "Got to go."

"What about my sister?" Ron yelled.

Locking the trunk he had just finished packing, Lockhart exhaled. "Well...as to that, most unfortunate. No one regrets more than I."

Ron stepped closer to the teacher, his blood starting to boil as he clenched his fists. "You're the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. You can't go now."

"I must say, when I took the job, there was nothing in the job description-"

Noticing that he was headed for the door, Harry stepped out in front of him. "You're running away? After all that stuff you did in your books?"

"Books can be misleading," he told us.

"You wrote them."

"My dear boy, use your common sense." Lockhart huffed. "My books wouldn't have sold half as well if people didn't think I'd done all those things."

Harry gritted his teeth at that. "You're a fraud. You've been taking credit for what other wizards have done."

"Is there anything you can do?" I folded my arms across my chest.

"Yes, now you mention it. I'm rather gifted with Memory Charms," he admitted. "Otherwise, all those wizards would have gone blabbing. I'd never have sold another book. In fact, I'm going to have to do the same to you."

As Lockhart turned on us with his wand, all three of us had ours pointed directly at him, outnumbering him three to one. "Don't even think about it," Harry warned as he motioned for Lockhart to drop his wand.

Finally, after some persuading, we convinced Lockhart to join us as we visited Moaning Myrtle for some information. Time was of the utmost importance now since Ron's sister was actually trapped in the chamber, wherever it was.

As we entered the bathroom, the usual cries of Myrtle stopped when she noticed us coming in. "Who's there?" she spun around, a smile spreading onto her face when she spotted Harry. "Hello, Harry. What do you want?"

"To ask you how you died," Harry told her.

"It was dreadful." she started the story without a second thought. "It happened right here in this very cubicle. I'd hidden because Olive Hornby was teasing me about my glasses. I was crying, and then I heard somebody come in."

I tilted my head slightly, like a dog trying to understand English. "Who was it, Myrtle?"

"I don't know. I was distraught!" she moped. "But they said something funny, a kind of made-up language. And I realized it was a boy, so I unlocked the door to tell him to go away and...I died."

"Just like that?" Harry inquired further,."How?"

"I just remember seeing a pair of great, big, yellow eyes...over there by that sink." Myrtle pointed to one of the sinks before floating off.

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