Ben had decided not to tell Harry and Ron his theory that night, since it was already too late and they were exhausted and upset by the incident with the spiders. To his surprise, he managed to fall asleep instantly instead of overthinking what had happened.

So the next morning, when Neville, Seamus, and Dean came down to breakfast, he ran over to Harry and Ron to explain everything to them.

"I have a theory," he told them.

"About what?" frowned Ron as he put his socks on.

"The Chamber of Secrets," he replied. "Look, remember those spiders we saw right after finding the message on the wall? They were running away from the castle, in a very weird and unnatural way. And, why would they be doing something like that?"

"Is it a rhetorical question or do you want us to answer?" asked Ron.

"Because they're running away from something that scares them," said Harry, tying his shoelaces.

Ben smiled at him. "Exactly. Then, we know that spiders are scared of snakes, or variations of them, so perhaps there's snakes in the chamber. Maybe they're guarding it or something."

"Maybe it's like in Indiana Jones," commented Harry.

Ron and Ben looked at him, eyebrows furrowed. "Indiana Jones? What's that?"

"Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark?" he repeated, and glanced at Ben to see if he knew what he was talking about. "It's a muggle film. There's a scene in which... Nevermind that, forget it."

"So," Ron cleared his throat. "Now we think that perhaps there's snakes in the chamber. But why are they there, are they protecting something?"

"Maybe they're guarding the entrance," suggested Harry.

There was a long silence, until Ron broke it. "What if the snakes are the monster? Aragog said that what killed that girl fifty years ago was a creature that spiders fear above all, what if it was some sort of snake?"

———————————————

They couldn't talk about it anymore, because it was almost time to go to class, and they had to go down to the Great Hall to have a full-blown breakfast before going to class.

Later that afternoon, when they had finished their homework and studied for their future exams, they went to visit Hermione (and, in Ben's case, to visit Steve, too). They had brought her a new small bouquet of flowers, since the other one was already dry.

"Wish you were here, Hermione," admitted Hermione in a whisper, sitting on one of the chairs beside the bed she was lying on. "We need you, now more than ever."

He was right, they needed her. It was weird to be just the three of them, when it had always been Harry, Ron, Ben and Hermione. They needed her to find out if their theory was right. She probably would've figured it out by now.

Ben saw Harry taking Hermione's hand carefuly, and the green-eyed boy suddenly furrowed his eyebrows. He held up a small crumpled up piece of paper.

"What's that, Harry?"

"This is why Hermione was in the library the day she was attacked," he jumped out of the chair, and waited for Ben and Ron to do the same. "Come on!"

"Okay damn."

Harry sprinted out of the hospital wing, closely followed by Ron and Ben, who had absolutely no clue of what was going on. When they had been wandering randomly through the corridors of the castle for more than five minutes and Harry was muttering things to himself as if he had had a fit of madness, he finally deigned to explain to them what was happening.

"Out of the many fearsome beasts that roam our land, none is more deadly than the basilisk. Capable of living for hundreds of years, instant death awaits any who meet this giant serpent's eye. Spiders flee before it..." he read the paper, and looked up to the boys on his sides. "This is it. Ben was right about the snake thing, and Ron was right about it being the monster; it's the basilisk! That's why only I could hear it speak, it's a snake!"

Ben was glowing with happiness.

"But, if it kills by looking people in the eye," began Ron, thoughtfully. "Why is it that no one's dead?"

Ben was no longer glowing with happiness.

"Because no one did look it in the eye- not directly, at least," hypothesised Harrr. "Colin saw it through his camera, Justin... must've seen it through Nearly Headless Nick. Nick got the full blast of it, but he's a ghost- he couldn't die again! And Hermione... She had the mirror. I bet you anything she was using it to look around corners in case it came along."

"And Steve was in front of the sinks, so he probably just saw it in the mirror."

"But what about Mrs. Norris?" asked Ron. "I'm pretty sure she didn't have a camera or a mirror, Harry."

Harry stopped to think. "The water... There was a lot of water on the floor that night. She only saw the basilisk's reflection."

"You're brilliant, Harry, honestly," said Ben joyfully.

Harry smiled happily.

"But how's the basilisk been getting around?" frowned Ron. "Dirty great snake, someone would have seen it."

Harry showed him the piece of paper, and pointed at something Hermione had written. "Hermione's answered that too."

"Pipes?" read Ron, eyebrows raised. "It's using the plumbing?"

"Remember what Aragog said about that girl fifty years ago?" asked Harry. "She died in a bathroom... What if she never left?"

Ron and Ben let out two identical gasps of realisation, and the redhead whispered, "Moaning Myrtle!"

"Should we ask her?" suggested Ben, but Professor McGonagall's voice prevented them from answering.

"All students are to return to their house dormitories at once. All teachers to the second floor corridor immediately."

A terrible sensation appeared on Ben's stomach as he wondered what could've happened now. It only took him, Ron, and Harry to exchange a quick glance for them to know that, of course, instead of going to the common room, they were going to spy on the teachers to find out what had happened.

They arrived on time, luckily, and peered around the corridor wall.

"As you can see, the heir of Slytherin has left another message," McGonagall was telling. "Our worst has been realised. A student has been taken by the monster into the Chamber itself. The students must be sent home. I'm afraid this is the end of Hogwarts."

Ben's heart fell to his feet. This couldn't be happening, they couldn't close Hogwarts, especially now that they had already figured all out. A tremendous pain in his gut clouded Ben's thinking for a second as he thought about what would happen if all the students had to go home.

Ben would have to go back to Katherine and Sébastian Walker.

And he would never see his friends again, because he knew that his parents would not allow him to see Harry, Ron, Cedric and much less Hermione, who was muggleborn. Although, now that he remembered, the girl was still petrified.

They would surely give them the potion to unpetrify them before closing the school, right?

"So sorry!" Lockhart strutted to the other teachers, as if his absence had scarred them for life. "Dozed off. What have I missed?"

"Two of our students have been snatched by the monster, Lockhart. Your moment has come at last," informed Snape in his usual bored and emotionless tone

"M-My... moment?" stuttered Lockhart.

"Weren't you saying just last night that you've known all along where the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets is?" asked Snape innocently.

Ben would've laughed if it wasn't for the fact they were hiding.

"That's settled. We'll leave you to deal with the monster, Gilderoy," said McGonagall. "Your skills, after all, are legend."

"Very well," smiled Lockhart, though he truly seemed slightly terrified. "Uh- I'll just be in my office getting- getting ready..."

He rushed away, and Madam Pomfrey turned to McGonagall nervously. "Who is it that the monster's taken, Minerva?"

McGonagall sighed, looking worried. "Ginny Weasley."

Colour abandoned Ron's freckled face at once. His light blue eyes were wide open, staring at the message on the wall with a terrified expression. "Her skeleton will lie in the chamber forever..." He was breathing heavily, and his heart was pounding so hard Ben could feel it. "Ginny..."

"Ron," called Ben, worriedly turning to look at him. He didn't answer nor react, so he shook his shoulder carefully. "Ron!"

"Hey, Ron," Harry snapped his fingers in front of his face, and he suddenly came back.

"She's- she's gone..." he muttered, tears welling up in his eyes. "Whoever's behind all of this- They're going to kill her."

"Not if we can help it," whispered Ben.

"She'll be alright, okay?" assured Harry.

"Okay..." Ron mused, his lip quivering. Ben knew he wouldn't be able to stand seeing Ron cry, because he had never ever seen him do it.

"If Professor Cockfart is going to get in there," began Ben, and was relieved to hear a small laugh from Ron. "We should tell him what we know so he has a better chance of not dying in the Chamber, and taking Ginny out of there."

Harry and Ron shared looks.

"Good idea."

Just a couple of minutes later, they were standing in front of the door of Lockhart's office. There had been a lot of movement inside, or at least it seemed, judging by all the scraping, thumps, and hurried footsteps they could hear from outside.

However, it all suspiciously stopped at once after Harry had knocked. Then the door opened the tiniest crack and they saw one of Lockhart's eyes peering through it.

"Oh! Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, Mr. Walker..." he opened the door about a millimetre wider. "I'm rather busy at the moment- If you would be quick..."

"Professor, we've got some information for you," Harry breathed out. "We think it'll help you!"

"Er- well- it's not terribly..." The side of Lockhart's face that they could see looked very uncomfortable. "I mean, well- alright..."

He finally opened the door and let them into his office, which had been almost completely stripped. Two large trunks stood open on the floor. Robes, jade-green, lilac, midnight blue, had been hastily folded into one of them; books were jumbled untidily into the other. The photographs that had covered the walls were now crammed into boxes on the desk.

"Are you going somewhere?" asked Harry.

"Er, well, yes," stuttered Lockhart, ripping a life-size poster of himself from the back of the door as he spoke and starting to roll it up. "Urgent call- unavoidable... got to go-"

"What about my sister?" exclaimed Ron.

"Well- um... As to that, most unfortunate," he replied, avoiding their eyes. "No one regrets it more than I!"

"You're the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. You can't leave now!" shouted Ron.

"You're such a coward!" yelled Ben. "I can't believe Dumbledore hired you!"

Lockhart looked very offended. "Well, I must say, when I tool the job, there was nothing in the description about-"

"You're running away?" Harry interrupted him, stopping the man from leaving. "After all that stuff you did in your books?"

"Books can be misleading."

"You wrote them!"

"My dear boy," Lockhart lost his composure. "Do use your common sense. My books wouldn't have sold half as well if people didn't think I'd done all those things. No one wants to read about some ugly old Armenian warlock, even if he did save a village from werewolves. He'd look dreadful on the front cover. No dress sense at all. And the witch who banished the Bandon Banshee had a harelip. I mean, come on-"

"So you've just been taking credit for what a load of other people have done?" Harry glared at him.

"Harry, Harry," said Lockhart, shaking his head impatiently, "it's not nearly as simple as that. There was work involved. I had to track these people down. Ask them exactly how they managed to do what they did. Then I had to put a Memory Charm on them so they wouldn't remember doing it. If there's one thing I pride myself on, it's my Memory Charms. No, it's been a lot of work, Harry. It's not all book signings and publicity photos, you know. You want fame, you have to be prepared for a long hard slog."

He banged the lids of his trunks shut and locked them. "Let's see," he muttered to himself. "I think that's everything. Yes. Only one thing left."

He pulled out his wand and turned to them. "Awfully sorry, boys, but I'll have to put a Memory Charm on you now. Can't have you blabbing my secrets all over the place. I'd never sell another book-"

But Harry was faster than him. He reached his wand, and bellowed "Expelliarmus!"

Lockhart was blasted backward, falling over his trunk; his wand flew high into the air; Ron caught it, and flung it out of the open window.

"You shouldn't announce your next move in a situation like this, Professor, it's really not a good idea," said Ben.

"Shouldn't have let Professor Snape teach us that one, either." Harry kicked Lockhart's trunk aside, furiously. Lockhart was looking up at him, feeble once more. Harry was still pointing his wand at him.

"What do you want me to do?" sighed Lockhart, giving up. "I don't know where the Chamber of Secrets is. There's nothing I can do."

"You're in luck," said Harry, forcing Lockhart to his feet at wandpoint. "We think we know where it is. And what's inside it. Let's go."

———————————————

Myrtle was floating around the bathroom and crying to herself when they arrived. She seemed startled when she heard footsteps. "Oh? Who's there?" she asked softly, and relaxed when she realised Harry was there. "Hello, Harry, what do you want?"

Harry was silent for a moment, trying to find the right words. "I wanted to ask how you died."

Ben almost laughed.

Myrtle didn't seem to be offended by it; quite the contrary, her smile widened.

"Oh, it was dreadful. It happened right in here. I died in this very stall. I remember it so well. I'd hidden because Olive Hornby was teasing me about my glasses. The door was locked, and I was crying, and then I heard somebody come in. They said something funny. a different language, I think it must have been. Anyways, what really got me was that it was a boy speaking. So I unlocked the door, to tell him to go and use his own toilet, and then..." Myrtle swelled importantly, her face shining. "I died."

"Just like that?" frowned Harry. "How?"

"No idea," said Myrtle in a hushed tone. "I just remember seeing a pair of great, big, yellow eyes. My whole body sort of seized up, and then I was floating away..." She looked dreamily at Harry. "And then I came back again. I was determined to haunt Olive Hornby, you see. Oh, she was sorry she'd ever laughed at my glasses."

"Where exactly did you see the eyes?"

"Somewhere there," Myrtle pointed vaguely at the sink in front of her toilet. They rushed to check it, as Lockhart stood well back, completely horrified. "That tap's never worked."

However, Harry's attention wasn't on the tap, but on something on the side of one of the copper taps. It was a snake.

"Say something," suggested Ron. "Harry, say something in Parseltongue."

"Open up," he said simply.

Harry looked up to Ben and Ron, who shook their heads. "Nope, that was English."

Harry cursed under his breath, and turned back to the sink. And suddenly a hiss escaped his lips. The tap glowed brightly and began to spin. The sink started to move, and it sank out of sight, leaving a large pipe exposed.

Lockhart gave a chortle in relief. "Excellent, Harry. Well then, I'll just be on my way, there's no need for me to stay."

He tried to leave, but Ron and Harry used their full strength to push him back as Ben peered into the pipe, wondering how deep it was. He heard Harry tell Lockhart to go in first.

"Now, boys, what good will it do?"

"Better you than us," sneered Ron.

"Well, but..." he tried to argue, but apparently didn't feel like fighting, knowing the three boys had their wands ready, while his was somewhere around the grass that surrounded the castle. "Obviously yes... sure you don't want to try it-"

Ron interrupted him by pushing him on the back, causing him to fall into the hole as he screamed bloody murder for a few seconds, before a loud crash was heard, and then Lockhart's voice came again. "It's really quite filthy down here!"

"Alright," Harry nodded at Ron and Ben. "Let's go."

"Oh, Harry," Myrtle called, looking at him with heart eyes. "If you die down there, you're welcome to share my toilet."

Ron and Ben snorted, as Harry tried not to cringe at her words. "T-Thanks, Myrtle."

"Do you think that'd be necrophilia, Harry?"

"I- What?"

Ben blushed. "I mean... Do you think that, if you fancied Myrtle, it'd be considered necrophilia?"

Harry gave him a very odd look. "I don't know?" he muttered. "But I wouldn't stress about it, 'cause it's not going to happen."

Myrtle heard him, and spun in the air to float away while letting out a high-pitched cry.

Harry looked away from Ben. "Well, let's go."

The three friends shared a quick last glance and jumped at the same time.

It was like rushing down an endless, slimy, dark slide. Ben could see more pipes branching off in all directions, but none as large as theirs, which twisted and turned, sloping steeply downward, and he knew that he was falling deeper below the school than even the dungeons.

And then the pipe levelled out, and he shot out of the end, crashing into Ron and they both fell on the damp floor of a dark and large stone tunnel.

Mumbling echoing apologies, Ben stood up, followed by Ron, and they both walked to Harry. "We must be miles under the school."

"Under the lake, probably," said Ron, looking at the slimy walls.

"Yeah, the humidity is similar to the one in the Slytherin common room, but much worse," commented Ben and, muttering to himself, added, "my hair's gonna end up looking terrible."

"Lumos," he heard Harry whisper, and his wand lit up. Ron and Ben mimicked his action, and so would have done Lockhart, if still he had his wand. "C'mon."

And off they went, their footsteps slapping loudly on the wet floor, until they found something very big and curved on the floor. They couldn't distinguish what it was with just the light from their wands, but the four of them froze in fear.

"D'you think that's the... basilisk?" whispered Ben.

"Maybe it's asleep."

Harry took a step forward, and leaned closer to the creature, his wand held high. He then turned to them, "No, it's just the skin."

Ben hurried to approach Harry, willing to examine the spider skin, which was of a vivid, poisonous green. It was lying curled an empty across the tunnel floor-

"This basilisk's huge, Merlin!"

And there was a loud thud. Lockhart had somehow knocked Ron to the floor, and was holding his wand towards his throat with a gleaming smile.

"The adventure ends here, boys!" he beamed. "I shall take a bit of this skin back up to the school, tell them I was too late to save the girl, and that you three tragically lost your minds at the sight of her mangled body... Say goodbye to your memories!"

Ben rushed to approach them to stop Lockhart from hurting Ron, but the professor was faster, and raised the boy's wand above his head to yell, "Obliviate!"

And the wand exploded like a small bomb. Really big chunks of tunnel ceiling thundered to the floor, and Ben barely managed to avoid getting crushed by it.

An incredible dustpan rose up, not allowing Ben to see anything, and then the first thing he saw was a solid wall of broken rock in front of him and Ron. The blond was relieved to know Ron hadn't been crushed by the pieces of ceiling, but Harry was nowhere to be seen.

"Harry!" he shouted, running to the wall.

"Ben!" he shouted back, from the other side, and Ben relaxed a bit. "Ron! Are you okay?"

"We're here!" said Ron, joining Ben next to the wall. "We're okay."

"What about you?" asked Ben.

"I'm fine, too-"

"Hello!" exclaimed a voice from behind them. It was Lockhart. "Who are you?"

"Which one of us are you talking to?" frowned Ron.

Lockhart pointed at Ron like a kid pointing at a toy they want their parents to buy.

"I'm Ron Weasley," the redhead said stiffly. "This is Ben Walker."

"Ah, yes," Lockhart hummed, then furrowed his eyebrows. "And who am I?"

Ron groaned.

"What's going on?" asked Harry from the other side of the wall.

"Look, professor," beamed the blond. "A talking wall!"

"Fascinating!"

Ben and Ron exchanged glances. "I think Lockhart's memory charm backfired, he hasn't got a clue who he is!"

"Odd place, isn't it?" asked Lockhart, eyes wide open as he looked at his surroundings. "Do you live here?"

"No!"

Ron and Ben exchanged glances again, and the redhead smacked a rock to Lockhart's head.

"What was that?"

"Ron hit Lockhart with a stone."

"Lovely."

Ron cleared his throat. "What do we do now? We can't just get through this with our hands- It'll take ages."

There was silence. "Wait here, you two can try to move some rocks meanwhile. I'll go on... If I'm not back in an hour-"

Ben's throat suddenly went dry. "You- You're going there on your own?"

"There's nothing else we can do."

"We'll try to shift some of this rock," muttered Ron nervously. "So you can... get back through."

"See you in a bit," said Harry, trying to sound sure, though it was blatantly obvious he was scared, and rightfully so.

They heard the sounds of Harry's steps. "Wait, Harry!" called Ben.

The noises stopped. "Yeah?"

"Please don't die, Harry."

"I won't."