Chapter Text
Rumours have always seemed to circulate astonishingly quickly at Hogwarts. The boy who lived had only been missing for a day and a half, but whispers of ‘the heir of Slytherin’ and ‘big fights and bigger monsters’ had already reached the ears of the teachers. (Though, the Hogwarts student body didn’t seem to pay much mind to the other two students who’d gone the way of Harry Potter.)
These rumours were of course no news to Minerva, who’d noticed her three rowdy lion’s absence at breakfast that morning, when she’d performed her routine headcount. She had immediately sent some of the school’s house elves back to the tower to make sure they weren’t simply skipping the meal. The elves reported back far too quickly, eyes watering with guilt and heads shaking in shame in failing a simple task.
The teacher’s grip on her fork tightened ever so slightly.
When she’d brought it up to the headmaster, that oh-so familiar twinkle glittered in his eye, and he simply assured her the children would return when the time was right.
Minerva returned to her quarters tense with anxiety.
The next morning, Misters Longbottom, Finnigan and Thomas had all lingered after class to inquire over Mr Weasley and Potter’s absence. Minerva’s lips pressed together into a thin line, and found herself struck with an understanding of Dumbledore’s attitude last night as she calmly explained to the children that there was simply a personal matter being dealt with, and there was nothing to worry about,
Once the students left, Minerva couldn’t help but ponder the headmaster’s need to know policy and how far it stretched, and why she, as the vice principal, was being given the same treatment she kept for the young students.
Later that evening, MacGonagall received word that Severus Snape had completed the mandrake restorative potion and was now aiding Madam Pomfrey in administering it to the petrified students (and nearly headless Nick). She’d wasted no time in joining them and was just as surprised as the other two when Miss Granger sprang up from her bed, mumbling about in a fit fuelled by what seemed to be pure adrenaline, given every other victim had woken feeling utterly drained. It took both Severus and Minerva raising their voices to reassure her that the basilisk she was going on about was no longer any danger and hadn’t attacked since she’d been petrified for the girl to finally calm herself.
However, MacGonagall caught on quickly, and rounded on Granger as soon as she could get a word in.
“You speak of a basilisk, so you’ve identified what has been attacking the students?”
- “yes! I went through the entire Hogwarts library magical creature’s section before I found the possibility, and practically confirmed it once I’d read about the stories of Salazar slytherin’s pet in the undergrowth of the castle, it matched perfectly!” Hermione rattled on, eager to please her head of house.
This earned a heavy pause from the adults in the room. Both professors shot each other weighted glances from the corner of their eyes, though for very different reasons. One was terrified of the students seeming to have disappeared where no one could find them, and the other concerned over what the discovery of the chamber of secrets could mean for the future of Hogwarts. Neither was very pleased..
Severus began to mutter increasingly aggressive curses under his breath as they made their way to the headmaster’s office. Minerva barely needed to strain to hear the whispers of “arrogant, reckless Potter boy”, “troublesome, meddlesome children” and the other vague grievances that put the man’s job as a teacher of all things into question. She simply rolled her eyes and stalked forward, the bat would calm himself down by the time they reached the gargoyles.
—
As the two treaded down the marbled staircase, it was instead the transfiguration teacher who was barely containing her temper, storming past the gargoyles at rapid pace.
“Really! How can that man possibly expect us to just wait!? My lions have been missing for two days now, and we haven’t a single clue of their whereabouts besides some tales and rumours of a place that hasn’t been found for *centuries*, and all he has to say is that he’s sent the help he can? Please, what help? My word, I do trust in Dumbledore’s wisdom but there must be some limit—”
- “Minerva, do calm yourself,” Severus drawled “yelling at an imaginary headmaster will do you no good.”
- “Well! I say, Severus, these are strong words from a man holding a grudge with a child,” She fumed, turning her wrath on him in an instant. “Are you suggesting I follow your juvenile example on how to handle the situation? I hope not.”
Severus startled for a moment, before letting his expression contort into a particularly vicious sneer.
- “I will not be talked down to by you. Do let me know once you’ve gotten over your tantrum and are ready to actually do something about the situation at hand.”
With that, he stalked down the hallway, letting his cloak billow dramatically behind him. Minerva scoffed at the display and shook her head, taking a few deep breaths.
As loathe as she was to admit it, Snape was right. She needed to focus her energy on action, not emotion. If the headmaster would do nothing, then she will take the matter into her own hands.
With a decided huff, the vice principal turned on her heel and started towards Fillius Flitwick’s office.
“I say we start our search in the dungeons, that’s where we’re definitely most likely to find some kind of a secret chamber, no?” Pomona pushed her sleeves up as she addressed the heads of houses, earning a raised eyebrow from Severus
- “you speak as if I do not know my own dungeons, and what they contain,” he sneered
- “Well, you never really know, do you? The castle’s always changing something or other in how it’s built..” Pomona shrugged, blinking at how offended the potions master seemed at her suggestion.
Minerva sighed,
- “We shall be most efficient if we split up, so Severus, you will check the dungeons, along with Filius, and I and Pomona shall start up from the towers. We do not know how Sliythering built his Chambers, so we mustn’t do a botch job.”
—
The heads of houses searched low and high, they cleared gryffindor and ravenclaw towers, the dungeons, the kitchens, the first floor, the second.. it was an agonizingly slow proceeding in which none deigned to use search spells for fear of possibly missing what they hadn’t seen with their own eyes. By the time dawn was peaking over the horizon, the entire castle had been turned upside down in the frantic search... except for the third floor, where Pomona, Filius, Minerva and Severus now congregated. The four teachers let out a collective sigh, hoping dearly this would be it, and that they would not be forced to continue the search outside the castle.
Minerva started down the halls first, checking through a surprising amount of abandoned classrooms. She’d investigated what might’ve been her 14th classroom when a red spark ignited through the doorway. The vice principal followed the trail back to where the other teachers were joining Pomona in the girl’s bathroom, and promptly froze at the sight in front of her.
There, in the middle of the third-floor girl’s bathroom stood a gaping hole into what she could only assume was eternal darkness instead of a sink. MacGonagall found herself partially reassured when Filius and Severus’ reactions mirrored her own.
“Well, suppose we’ve found our entrance…”
Clumsily climbing through the tunnel, the heads of houses were greeted by a concerning sight. Rubble and and bloodstained rocks piled about, a teacher laying on the ground, clearly starved, delirious and exhausted, all the swagger and arrogance he was known for all but drained out of him, a small hole dug out of a wall made entirely of caved in stone that seemed to be the only exit other exit from the cave. Minerva swallowed, already dreading what they could find further inside.
Sprout was the first to react, kneeling at Lockhart’s side and performing multiple quick diagnosis spells.
“He isn’t dying… but he’s close. Starved, dehydrated... Oh, Merlin…”
She glanced back at the vice principal, who gave her a curt nod, and swiftly rushed Lockhart back up the tunnel and towards the hospital wing.
—
MacGonagall led the charge. Her steps quickened with every second as her thoughts clouded with worry. While Lockhart was no Merlin, he should have been capable of protecting a group full of children, or he would not have been hired as the defence professor. If he’s in such a bad shape, what happened to the students? What horrors have they gone through? Flitwick and Snape followed close behind on either side of her, growing uneasy as they pass increasing numbers of broken structures and snake sheddings. The stench wasn’t much reassurance either.
After winding down a couple dozen arching halls, the three teachers reached a fork in the path. Minerva wasted no time, padding over to the darker hall as she transfigured herself into a cat, trusting the other two would know to continue on. Flitwick glanced up at Severus and both nodded to each other, stepping towards the right path.
Her steps were light, muscles tense and ears up in alert, catching every small shift in the environment. She couldn’t help but be torn between dread and hope in finding the children, having no clue in what state they would be in by now. She chastised herself thoroughly for having even thought to wait so long before starting a search. Truly, what does that say about her as a vice principal? Leaving her own lions to die!
… no, she mustn’t think like that. There is no guarantee they are dead and it wouldn’t do her any good to wallow in the worst-case scenario.
Right as she turned into a particularly dirty hallway, Minerva’s ears twitched and she froze. that noise…
Suddenly she was bolting towards the faint, muffled sound of crying guiding her way towards a large, strangely intact column. Her fur stood on end as she slowly peeked around it, but her muscles practically sagged with relief when her eyes landed on her students.
The twin gasps of the youngest Weasley siblings greeted the animagus. Both were rather worse for wear pale, thin and trembling as they clung onto each other for support, but by Merlin’s beard, there were alive.
All three stared at each other for a long moment, before Professor Macgonagall’s gentle and reassuring gaze had replaced the cat’s piercing stare, and the children were all too glad to receive a comforting embrace from their head of house.
—
It did not take long for Flitwick and Snape to come across another pair of crossroads. It felt right out of a riddle, with one being well lit in green fire, while the other seemed to lead straight into a black hole, all light seemingly snuffed out of the very air. The two glanced at each other, considering their choices.
“It would be most efficient to cover more ground. Separately,” Snape affirmed after a moment’s silence.
Flitwick nodded nervously,
“Yes! Yes! How about I take the one to the right?” He pointed with a shaky hand.
Severus did not dignify the cowardice with a response, simply sneered and glided smoothly into the darkness of the left hall.
The darkness seemed to stretch on endlessly, though Severus was nonplussed as he listened to the rhythmic echo of his steps. Darkness was nothing to fear if you had the means to protect yourself.
Only when he spotted a small speck of light in the distance did he falter in his steps. Rounding the corner, he was suddenly assaulted by wave of an irony stench, and Severus recoiled as he failed to repress a gag. His dread at whatever lay ahead grew with each step, the smell grew more and more pungent, mixing with other disgusting scents.
was something rotting?.
The potions master was led towards a large chamber, where both the ominous green light and the repugnant stench seemed strongest. He hurried to inspect it if only to have an excuse to leave the premises as quickly as he could. However, as the teacher layed eyes on the rubble, ruins and *giant snake carcass*, he knew there was no possibility of hurrying through this.
Severus’ eyes scanned over the scene, looking for perhaps a way past the body that was effectively blocking off the rest of the chamber. Eventually, he managed to climb over some smaller pieces of a broken statue and towards the basilisk’s head- a head split through the muzzle with a glittering sword, and a still growing pool of red.. and *black?* blood underneath it, along with…
Wait a minute.
Is that-!?
Snape practically tripped over his own feet (though he’d never admit it) rushing towards the graphic sight, and pulling out his wand. Up close, the scene seemed even more gruesome, and Severus could just make out the thick black fabric of the Hogwarts uniform sticking out through the blood. With a swish and a flick, the Basilisk head was carefully removed from on top of what the teacher now recognized as the Potter boy’s— and phoenix..?— body. He winced as he spotted the fang lodged firmly in the child’s shoulder, its black venom mixing with both his blood and the bird’s.
Severus slowly kneeled before him, and couldn’t seem to stop his face scrunching up, though he refused to decipher the emotion behind the reaction.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, his exhale coming out as a muttered prayer. As… arrogant and foolish Potter was, and as convinced Severus was that this entire ordeal was a result of his own recklessness… this was a fate he could never wish on the boy. Not on Lily’s boy.
He reached forward, but did not touch the child, simply letting his hand hover in the air, trembling.
He’d failed again. He’d failed to honour the memory of the woman he loved by protecting what was left of her. Instead, Severus had hated her son from the moment he’d laid eyes on him. He’d glared at the child’s messy hair, crooked glasses and insufferable expressions and saw nothing but James. He had made sure to insult Potter at every opportunity. He did not care when he heard the boy was in danger—
But this..
It brought the reality of his sins crashing down on him.
What had he done?
What hadn’t he done?
…
Severus’ epiphany was suddenly and rudely interrupted by a burst of flame, as the bleeding Phoenix seemed to finally decide to restart it’s life cycle back in its nest, leaving nothing but a few stray feathers, it’s blood and—
a coughing, gasping, very much alive boy.
The potion’s master startled violently as Potter’s deathly pale face seemed to suddenly fill up with colour again, somehow warming up the very chamber around him in his struggle to regain his breath. There was only a moment of hesitance, where Snape’s mind struggled to catch up to this sudden turn of events, before the teacher snapped into action, grabbing carefully at the fang so as to not poison himself, and tugging it out of Potter’s shoulder. While a great relief to Severus, it only seemed to serve in adding a pained cry to the chorus of coughing and retching coming from the child.
Severus clumsily maneuvered Potter onto his side so as to aid him in clearing his throat out and grabbed his wand to send a distress signal out to the other teachers. The moment the choking was replaced by clear gasps of breath, the slytherin got to work in – as carefully as possible — pulling Harry away from the snake and rubble and closer to the exit. He did his best to ignore the trail of blood behind they were leaving behind them. By the time Flitwick and MacGonagall arrived- tailed by Ron and Ginny Weasley, who gasped in horror at the sight- the two were kneeling on the dirty floor as Potter clung to snape’s coat for dear life, wheezing and whimpering in pain.
The teachers conjured and applied bandages on the wounds at lightning speeds, doing their best to carefully maneuver Harry into MacGonagall’s arms without hurting him further and navigate the maze of the underground chamber.
Internally, Minerva resolved to have this place fully sealed away, never to be stumbled upon by an innocent child again. They could not afford to have an incident like this be repeated. Truly, what was Salazar thinking, building such a nightmare inside in a school?
The soft morning sun greeted them as they stepped out into the third floor bathroom, but no one payed it any mind. MacGonagall rushed through the halls, calling out orders to the portraits to send word to both Madam Pomfrey and Headmaster Dumbledore, that the children, especially harry, need immediate care, perhaps even to cancel classes for the day.
Thankfully, the hospital wing was already prepared with a comfortable cot hidden with a curtain for Potter. Lockhart lay unconscious on one of the beds in the far corner, but he seemed all but forgotten as Madam Pomfrey and the heads of houses hurried to settle Potter down and treat his wounds.
Ron and Ginny didn’t mind becoming an afterthought in the commotion, both too busy staring wide eyed at the curtain that hid their friend’s mangled body. The older sibling reached out to pull his sister close, doing his best to console her while he trembled from head to toe.