Harry Potter The Surprise

As Professor Flitwick asked his three fourth year students if they wanted to go - they were Ravenclaws and never going to refuse a chance to learn something new - Hermione took on the task of organising their impromptu expedition.

"Ron and Neville, we need brooms to get back out of there. I'll see if Colin is at breakfast, he can bring his camera with him. Luna, do you want to come too?"

Harry's arm was now around Luna's shoulder. "I promise you it's safe, Luna, though can't do much about the smell."

Seeing how far these people were prepared to go to protect her, Luna thought it was time she helped them. "Harry, my father publishes a newspaper - The Quibbler. If you take pictures, we can send them with an article I could write."

"That would be great, Luna, but only if you want to."

This struck a worrying chord with Flitwick. As the three Gryffindors left to carry out their assigned tasks, and they were walking toward a meeting place the other Gryffindors clearly knew, he made a suggestion to Harry. "Perhaps we should inform the Headmaster about what we're doing?"

Harry was walking alongside Luna and shook his head. "The Headmaster would come up with some excuse to stop us going - and the truth getting out. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Dumbledore's really big on forgiveness, so we shouldn't be in any trouble at all."

This actually had Luna giggling and, since the other four Ravenclaws kept walking along with them, Harry just assumed they accepted his reasoning. They had barely made the bathroom before Hermione arrived. "Colin's fetching extra film for his camera, he'll be along in a moment."

A hyper excited Colin then arrived along with Ron and Neville, who were carrying four brooms each. Harry using parseltongue to open the sink in the bathroom halted all other talking, allowing Harry to explain how he and Ron had figured out where the entrance was.

"Dumbledore taught at Hogwarts the last time the chamber was opened, by a student named Tom Marvolo Riddle. For the Ravenclaws here, that's an anagram of 'I am Lord Voldemort'. Again, if we could figure this out, why couldn't our 'wise' headmaster?"

Before anyone could answer that, Harry jumped into the massive opening in the floor. Hermione meanwhile was raising the hood of Luna's robes, and tucking her blond hair in as much as possible.

"It's dark and messy, but Harry will be waiting on you at the bottom - and I'll be right behind you."

As Luna followed Harry down the hole, Hermione was raising her own hood and fighting with her hair. Ron had a question though.

"Hermione, how do you know that? You were lying petrified in the infirmary when Harry and me went down here."

"Oh, Harry took me down. We wanted to see if the basilisk was worth selling, help raise money for tutors. It's decayed too much to be worth anything now. We fixed the cave-in where that idiot Lockhart tried to obviate the both of you - and leave you down there. Just another reason why we have no faith in the staff of Hogwarts." With that, Hermione jumped too.

Following Hermione's advice, given before he raced off to fetch extra film, Colin had his camera equipment wrapped in an old robe. He held onto it tightly as he too jumped into the dark abyss.

Turning to Neville, Ron shrugged his shoulders. "I haven't seen it - the cave-in broke my leg - and I owe that snake a kick for all the trouble it caused."

Cradling the brooms he was carrying close to him, Ron jumped right in without any hesitation. Copying Ron's actions with the brooms he was tasked with carrying too, Neville couldn't resist taunting the three Ravenclaw witches who were standing there with their chins hitting the floor. "Still think Harry's full of shit? Follow us down and find out."

As Neville followed his friends down, Filius turned to his students and wondered how he had been manipulated into this situation. Cho was the first to shake herself into action. "Just think how jealous the Slytherins will be if we get to set foot in the Chamber of Secrets. I'll settle for that, whether there's a dead basilisk down there or not."

Raising her own hood, Cho jumped right in. She gave a little squeal as the darkness almost instantly swallowed her. Neither of her friends wanted to be left behind so jumped in too. Filius was still wondering what to do when his mind was made up for him. The sinks started to close and the Head of Ravenclaw quickly jumped into the diminishing gap. With eight students down there, four of them Ravenclaws, he really had no other choice.

He arrived in a wide tunnel where all of the students had their wands lit. Considering the ground underneath their feet was littered with animal bones, Filius thought that was a perfectly understandable reaction. As they made their way along the tunnel, it was easy to see where the repairs had been made. Always the teacher, Filius awarded both students twenty points each for their outstanding work.

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