Ivory's POV

THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE.

"Well, that livens up this year," I said to myself, my voice dripping with sarcasm as I took one last look at the message written in blood on the wall, and marched off before any of the other students — or, more importantly, the teachers — had a chance to stop me. I was thinking hard.

Harry and I heard the voice, but Ron and Hermione didn't. And earlier, Harry said he heard the same voice while he was having his detention with Lockhart, but that Lockhart didn't hear anything then. Not that that means much, considering Lockhart's stupider than a mountain troll under a Confundus Charm, but still.

As I thought, people came pushing past me, with whispers rippling through the group like waves. I caught a few snippets of sentences, and rolled my eyes.
"—Potter and his friends—"
"—Chamber of Secrets—"
"—so exciting! Reckon they'll kill Filch next?"
Merlin, you'd think they'd be a bit more worried that there's a murderer loose in the school.

I continued on, looking to find a place to put my purse so I could get into my library and refresh my memory on what exactly the Chamber of Secrets was.
"Why can't I ever have some relaxing peace and quiet at this damn school?"

***

"Hey Harry, I need to talk to you for a minute," I said, pulling him into an empty classroom.
"Oh, what's wrong?"
"Can you understand this?" I asked in parseltongue, wanting to check a horrible idea that had come into my head the previous night, as I'd reread the legend of the Chamber of Secrets.
"Of course I can!" he said, also in parseltongue. I had a hunch that he didn't even know he was speaking it.

"Ok, you're a parselmouth, Harry," I explained quietly. "You can talk to snakes. I'm also a parselmouth; it's something I inherited from my father. Yours is probably some sort of gene mutation or something — I'll look it up for you, if you want."
"I know that — I accidentally set a boa constrictor of my cousin Dudley at the zoo once," he said, and I decided I wouldn't ask. "But why does it matter? I bet loads of people can do it!"
I shook my head.
"No, they can't. It's not common at all, and it's usually linked to Salazar Slytherin, since he was a parselmouth too."

I saw in Harry's face the exact moment he realised what that would mean. "I'm not the heir of Slytherin!" he said defensively.
"No, of course you're not, because I am."
"What?! Then what — why—"
"I didn't have anything to do with these attacks, before you ask," I said, sighing quietly. "At a guess, it's something to do with my father. But anyway, that's not important. Well it is, but not right now."

I waited to see if Harry would realise what I was saying, but he remained painfully oblivious.
"The Chamber, Harry! The monster in the Chamber must be a snake of some sort! Think about it — only we can hear it, and we're the only parselmouths in school!"
"Then where's the entrance?" he asked.
"I don't know," I said, before adding a determined, "yet."

***

"Open. Open. Open. Open. Open. Open. Open. Open. Open. Open. Open. Open."
I was striding through the corridors, with Professors McGonagall and Dumbledore following me, the former looking anxious, and the latter looking amused as I pointedly ignored the terrified people screaming and diving out of my way as I repeatedly gave the command to open in parseltongue.
"Open. Open. Open. Open. Open. Open. Open. Open. Open. Open. Open. Open. Damnit, why can't there be a massive sign saying 'this is actually the entrance to the secret murder chamber with a murder monster in it'? Open. Open. Open."

"Hey Ivory," Harry said, not looking at all perturbed by my sudden desire to speak in parseltongue — probably because he hadn't even realised I was. "What're you doing?"
"Trying to find the entrance," I said, knowing he'd understand my meaning. "Open. Open. Open. Open. Open. Open."
"Have you tried looking near where Mrs Norris was petrified?" he asked, in a surprisingly bright moment.
"No, I haven't actually; that's a great idea! Thanks, Harry!"

I turned and ran up to the last passageway on the second floor, where the blood writing was still on the wall.
"Open. Open. Open. Open. Open. Open."
"Miss Riddle, exactly how long do you think this is going to take?"
"No idea, Professor," I said, turning to McGonagall, who — along with Dumbledore — had just caught up with me again. "How long does the Cruciatus Curse last?"

She and Dumbledore shared a slightly worried look at my analogy, but just as she opened her mouth to say something, I went back to trying to find the entrance.
"Open. Open. Open. Open. Open. Open. Merlin, if this is something to do with my father, I'm going to be so angry; I'm missing lunch to do this, and I'm hungry as hell. Open. Open. Open."

We reached the end of the corridor, and I frowned slightly. Nothing had happened. Glancing to my left, I caught sight of a door and gave a quiet groan. The last thing I wanted right now was to have to deal with Moaning Myrtle.
"For Merlin's sake, the things I do to stop my friends being murdered..." I muttered to myself, striding over to the bathroom and opening the door.
"Who is it?" came Myrtle's voice.
"Me," I said, having another sudden thought. "Hey, Myrtle? Can I ask how you died?"

Myrtle floated upwards, looking as through she hadn't ever been asked such a flattering question.
"Ooooh, it was dreadful," she said. "It happened right in here. I died in this very cubicle. 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. Anyway, 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—" she swelled importantly, her face shining "—I saw a pair of great big yellow eyes, and I died."

A boy. A made-up language. A sudden death. It all added up. This must be where the entrance to the Chamber was. And now, thanks to Myrtle, I knew exactly what sort of snake was inside it.
"Basilisk," I said suddenly.
"What?" Myrtle asked.
"A Basilisk. That's what killed you."

I turned around, to see that McGonagall was holding the door open so that she and Dumbledore could listen to the conversation. "I'll need a rooster, Professor."
"I'm sorry, Miss Riddle?"
"Open."
One of the taps glowed with a brilliant white light, and started to spin. Then, the sink began to move in a direction that made it live up to its name — it sank into the floor, leaving a large pipe exposed that was big enough for a man to slide into.

"I'm going to go down, call the Basilisk, and kill it," I finally explained. "I'm the heir of Slytherin, so it should listen to me. Then if I—"
"Absolutely not! I won't allow it, Miss Riddle!" McGonagall said sharply. But then, Dumbledore spoke up.
"If Miss Riddle wishes to go into the Chamber and kill the Basilisk, I see no reason not to let her."
"But—"
"However," he continued, interrupting McGonagall's protests before they had really started, "I shall go with her, in case Voldemort is down there."
I flinched badly when he said my father's name, but smiled slightly nonetheless.
"I'm going to need a rooster."

***

"Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four," I said in parseltongue, making exaggerated vomiting motions as I did so. Dumbledore smiled slightly, then used a spell to shield his eyes from the Basilisk's deadly gaze. And speaking of the Basilisk...

The mouth of the giant statue of Salazar Slytherin at the end of the Chamber started to open, and a giant Basilisk slid out. Well, I assume it was a Basilisk. I was looking down at the floor by that point.
"Yesss, Massster?"
I removed the silencing spell on the rooster that I'd hidden behind my back, smiling with satisfaction as it crowed, and the Basilisk fell lifelessly to the ground.

"Cock-a-doodle-do, motherf—" I glanced at Dumbledore, and decided not to finish that sentence. His eyes twinkled with amusement.
"Well done, Miss Riddle."
I smiled, squashing down the fear of what my father was going to do to me when he found out what I'd done to his Basilisk — that could wait until later. For now, I needed to get to the Gryffindor common room. I had a 'The School Is Safe Again Because Ivory Just Killed A Massive Basilisk' party to attend.