Harry shrugged a little bit as he looked around. It was relatively dark, but he could see surprisingly well in the area.
Draco fell into step behind him looking around, and then looking askance at the huge basilisk skin that had been shed. "So Iris Potter really killed the beast in Slytherin's Chamber?"
Harry shrugged a little bit, "I did on our world, events seem to have happened similarly enough here, so the basilisk is… probably dead."
"Probably dead?" Draco echoed, his voice cracking a bit.
Harry didn't respond to Draco's question and barely spared the skin a glance, and instead looked around and muttered to himself, "Huh, no cave in."
Draco frowned and looked at the ceiling. "Cave in? What cave in?" Harry frowned looking back absently as he continued. "When Ron Weasley and I came down here on our world. We brought Lockhart down with us."
"That ponce actually went somewhere dangerous?" Draco scoffed.
"Well… Ron and I sorta forced him down here at wandpoint. We figured if we were going to die, we would at least push him in front to buy us time to escape," Harry replied. "Then the git managed to get ahold of Ron's broken wand that was held together with spello-tape… and tried to obliviate us. Only it backfired and wiped his mind. Cave in happened at the same time due to the backlash."
Draco snickered softly at that, "I don't know what happened to him here. He was just gone at the end of the year and I don't think anyone has heard anything since." Harry nodded but didn't reply they came to a black circular door. Harry hissed out "Open" in parseltongue and watched impassively as the door animated, a snake slithering around the outside as the locks pulled back and the door swung open, to reveal pitch darkness.
Harry stepped inside followed by Draco, the instant he passed the threshold of the room, torches flared to life along the walls behind large snakes with wide open mouths.
Harry saw the familiar face of Slytherin, as well as the huge form of the snake lying dead near the end of the walkway. The snake itself seemed very well preserved.
Draco managed to keep from gasping as he saw the snake, but couldn't keep from swallowing loudly. "Merlin's balls. It's huge." Harry frowned as he glanced up at the snake absently, it seemed about the size of the one he killed in his world, so he didn't bother to reply. Instead he focused on slowly examining the room, ignoring the snake as he closely looked at large face of Salazar Slytherin.
"How the hell did she kill him? Basilisks are nearly immune to spells, especially as they age. This one has to be centuries old, and she was only thirteen!" Draco exclaimed as he got close to the basilisk, eyes running over the beast slowly in amazement.
Harry moved over and ran his eyes over the Basilisk, crouching slightly to see in the mouth before pointing at the roof of the mouth. "Looks like she probably did it the same way I did. Stabbing the Sword of Gryffindor's through the roof of the mouth…" Harry's voice trailed off as he turned thoughtful and then his expression turned startled as he realized the possible implications. Harry realized that Iris had almost certainly been bitten, and if she was still alive what that meant. He made a mental note to send a letter to the Flamel's to explain.
"Do you know how much potions ingredients you could harvest from this thing?" Draco asked curiously, though before Harry could answer the question Draco switched tracks. "If the Basilisk was free and roaming around for years, how come it didn't kill students?"
Harry glanced up from his distracted thoughts to look at Draco, "I assume because it usually couldn't get out of the statue." Harry said pointing at the giant face that sat no more than 10 yards from them. "Out of the statue?" Draco asked blankly as he looked up from his inspection of the dead basilisk to the statue in front of them with a perplexed expression.
"Yes, Voldemort summoned the snake from Slytherin's mouth." Harry replied, to cut Draco off from asking, he turned to the giant face and hissed out "Open".
Nothing happened.
Harry sighed and then, after he had searched his memory for what the ghostly version of a young Tom Marvolo Riddle had said and tried again, "Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four!"
"Arrogant sod." Harry muttered as the sound of grating stone filled the chamber while Slytherin's mouth slowly began to open. Harry had turned to say something to Draco, before suddenly spinning back around to face the statue. He clearly heard the sound of hissing from the mouth of the statue.
"Malfoy! Get behind me and close your eyes!" Harry snapped out, wand already in his hand, and his gaze directed toward the ground, ready to clench his eyes shut at the first sign of movement.
Draco was already looking at Harry, already scampering behind him as he slipped his wand into his hand, though he couldn't do anything more than point it in the general direction of the statue.
Harry noted that Draco was trembling slightly, but that he had followed direction well.
Harry hadn't had a chance to reply, though he kept his eyes on the ground, as he hissed out, "We're not here to hurt you." His mind was already considering whether or not just to flame out of the Chamber. But he didn't want to just leave a new threat free to roam the castle. His thoughts were brought to a halt by the reply.
His thoughts were brought to a screeching halt by the snake's clearly ecstatic greeting.
"Mommy!" came the hissed voice.
It had taken Harry several hours to converse with the snake which he quickly determined was a basilisk, before he felt comfortable leaving. The snake was young, though once Harry determined it's gaze would only kill intentionally, protected by a second eyelid, Harry had risked looking at the snake. He discovered it was a small snake in comparison to the dead one laying in the Chamber, measuring at a little over 10 feet.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Do you enjoy reading? Visit my site on Tiendup! There you will find the advanced chapter in PDF format, ready for your convenience.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
https://fictiontopia.tiendup.com/