alt_draco | Urgent:

I think we might need some help here.

We weren't trying to rescue anyone, I swear, only we overheard the teachers say that Professor Lockhart should go out and try to kill the monster in the chamber since he's done so many heroic deeds and such, and then we tried to track him down because we'd learned from Granger that the monster was probably a basilisk and it was living in the pipes somewhere. We thought the information might help him kill the monster, you see. And Weasley was along because he thought it was his sister who was in danger, so he came along with us to Professor Lockhart's office. Only Professor Lockhart wasn't getting ready to fight a monster, he was packing all of his purple frocks into a trunk and getting ready to leave! And then he told us--well, it will take too long to write, but he's a complete fraud, that one, and he tried to ERASE Harry's memories but Harry was really quick and got his wand away from him!

So we had to find the chamber of secrets and make Professor Lockhart kill the monster, but he really didn't want to and he kept trying to escape, so Harry got his wand out and ordered him to get a move on! He was really angry. We found the chamber in the whinging ghost's bathroom, and it took Harry a long time to get it right but he finally said the right parseltongue words and the sink opened up and it was a deep passageway to a part of the castle I didn't even know existed. We were just trying to get Professor Lockhart to go down there and do what all the other teachers said he should do, but when we got to the bottom he snatched Weasley's wand and tried to erase our memories again! But Weasley's wand is rubbish and so the spell didn't work, and some rocks came crashing down and now me, Weasley, and Professor Lockhart are on one side of the rocks, and Harry is on the other. Harry shouted that he was all right and that he was going to have a look around on his own--I tried to tell him not too. But he hasn't said anything for a while now and we're trying to clear away the rocks but there's an awful lot of them, and Professor Lockhart has gone mental and thinks he's a student again and that we're all members of a spelunking club.

Current Location: no bloody idea

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

alt_narcissa

Are you hurt, my son?

From:

alt_draco

I'm fine, I just don't know what's happening to Harry right now.

From:

alt_lucius

Have you found Hydra?

Is there no way to get Harry out?

From:

alt_draco

I haven't seen Hydra. We knew there was a girl, but I never saw if it was her or someone else.

From:

alt_sally_anne

Hydra still isn't back in Slytherin House. I think everyone else in Slytherin is accounted for (well, other than you and Harry, of course).

From:

alt_draco

It must be her, then.

From:

alt_narcissa

Not Hydra, too.

From:

alt_draco

You know she would have come out by now. She's too scared of of getting into trouble not to.

From:

alt_narcissa

I know.

Your Aunt is livid; whoever did this is going to wish he'd never been born.

From:

alt_lucius

Are you all right?

Try leviostellum to move the rubble.

Where is the entrance?

From:

alt_sally_anne

Sir, by the whinging ghost's bathroom he means the girl's bathroom on the second floor, where Moaning Myrtle lives.

She writes in the diaries sometimes and might be able to tell you or the Headmistress how to get to them.

From:

alt_draco

There's a girl's lavatory on the second floor that's sort of broken, and it's in there. I don't know if the sink stayed open, though--there's a little snake etched into one of the taps.

Father, Granger had a piece of paper in her hand, and it was about basilisks. We saw a giant snakeskin down here before the rocks came down. I don't think the space we're in has near enough room for a basilisk if it's as big as the skin we saw, but Harry--he's out where the skin was. At least he was last I heard from him.

I'm trying to move the rubble, but I'm the only one with a wand that works, and it's hard to see.

From:

alt_lucius

She had what?

Nevermind - we can discuss that later. A basilisk. But the victims ought to have died, in that case.

Harry, if you are reading, you must not look in the creature's eyes. Its gaze can kill.

Draco, we are all on our way to this bathroom. We shall see if we may force the entrance to open.

From:

alt_draco

But one of them did. Die, I mean.

I hope you can. If it's shut you'll have to ask it to open in parseltongue, and it took Harry a while to get it right.

From:

alt_lucius

Sadly, the only other Parselmouth in the realm is hardly close to hand.

Your Uncle Rodolphus is running through a number of curse-breaking spells to force it to open.

Have you heard any more from Harry?

From:

alt_draco

No, I haven't heard anything. We've been calling out his name, too. And now Hydra's, as well.

From:

alt_narcissa

There is a spell to blast rock away, but you daren't use it, dearest. It might make the cave-in worse.

Put that idiot Lockhart to work. Even if he's no memory left, he can be made to move the stones - and with the Weasley boy and him, and you levitating much of the weight, it ought to go more quickly.

Your Uncle is having no luck at all with spells on the entrance. The poor thing is getting quite frustrated - as are we all.

I've asked your father to contact Windsor.

From:

alt_lucius

I shall do no such thing, Draco. The Lord Protector is hardly to be interrupted on an errand such as this - and He would not be likely to be pleased at having to enact such a rescue.

However, since the entrance is to be gained through the pipes, Dawlish may have a map to the parts of the castle thought inaccessible in any way. It is another avenue to providing you an exit.

From:

alt_sally_anne

Oh, HOW could Professor Lockhart put you and Harry in so much danger? He's one of our teachers!

Please be careful Draco! And Harry if you're reading this you be careful too!

From:

alt_sally_anne

RON, if you can read this -- blame EVERYTHING YOU CAN on Lockhart. ~~If Harry gets hurt, or Hydra~~

Write something when you can so I know you're alright BUT NOT UNDER THE LOCK unless you're positive Draco won't see.

From:

alt_neville

Blimey, it's a relief to hear from you, Ron. Your brother Percy's gone spare over you being missing, especially since your sister's up on the Hospital Wing. But the twins came back, and they said Madam Pomfrey thinks she's going to be okay, although she's not awake yet.

That's good advice. About blaming Lockhart, I mean.

From:

alt_gredforge

Yeah, we thought she might've torn strips off us for leaving the Common Room to find Ginny. But I guess she was so relieved we found her that her heart wasn't exactly in it.

From:

alt_neville

Didn't you say that Professor Slughorn was there, too?

From:

alt_gredforge

Right, he was there when we brought Ginny in. He scuttled around behind a curtain so we couldn't see, but we could tell he was brewing something in a cauldron there. He was talking with Madam Pomfrey, too. That was probably another reason she let us go so easily.

From:

alt_draco

He didn't even do those heroic deeds he said he did! He confessed and it was all things other people did, but then he erased their memories and took the credit!

And now he's telling me we have the same hairstyle. Ugh, we DO NOT EITHER.

From:

alt_sally_anne

You most certainly do not!

EVERYTHING was a lie? Everything he told us? How absolutely appalling. But I suppose I shouldn't be surprised after he sent three students after a basilisk instead of going himself.

Oh, I hope the teachers (the REAL teachers) reach you soon.

From:

alt_ron

Yeah. Lockhart's a complete berk. He attacked Harry. Well, all of us, but he went for Harry first.

And now. He's sitting here on a big rock, playing with his hair.

From:

alt_lucius

Does he still have his wand, boy?

From:

alt_ron

No, Harry's got that. He disarmed him right away.

He doesn't have my wand, either, now. And it doesn't look like he could use it if he did.

From:

alt_sally_anne

Oh, how DARE he?

I wish you could make him move the rocks with a shovel like a muggle.

From:

alt_narcissa

His hands will do. Serve him right if he ruined that manicure.

From:

alt_molly

Ronald! Oh, thank GOODNESS you're all right! I was away from the Burrow for most of the afternoon, and when I got home, the hand for you on the clock was spinning between 'school' and oh my goodness, 'mortal peril.' Now it's wandering around the clock face as if it can't decide where it belongs!

They found Ginny, dear. The twins did. She's all right. Well, we assume so...the twins said she wasn't petrified, although she was taken up to the hospital wing. We're waiting to hear more from the Headmistress.

From:

alt_ron

Yeah. I'm okay, Mum.

No worries.

We're trying to shift enough of these stones that we can get through to the side Harry's on. Malfoy's making Lockhart move them, and

yeah, I've got to get back to that.

From:

alt_arthur

Good to hear you're all right, my boy. If you don't have a working wand, and you have to shift the stones by hand, do be careful. Lift by straightening your knees, like I showed you, not by twisting your back.