Learn From the History

Chapter 11: Into the Hole

Alex landed heavily on the ground. He was sure he would have broken several bones if he didn't use the floating spell the slow himself down.

"Lumos." Alex looked around. Ahead of him was a long tunnel. Well, at least he guessed it was long, since he couldn't really see what was ahead of him with the dim light of his wand.

'Tom is in there some where...' he thought.

He took a last look upward at the entrance and turned back to face the dark road ahead of him. Forcing himself not to think about the Chimaera that was waiting to kill its prey, he went forward cautiously.

Alex didn't know how long did he walk in the dark tunnel. He kept going, hoping at the same time that he wasn't too late to save his friend.

Save? Alex winced at that. What should he do even if he found Tom? Though he kept denying it, deep inside his heart he knew...

There was no way out.

A gasp brought Alex out of his grim thought immediately. He narrowed his eyes, trying to see whatever made the noise. He knew he was an easy target, the glowing wand told everyone in the tunnel he was right there for them to attack, so he decided to wait. But after what seemed like hours of silence, when it was obvious that neither side wanted to make the first move, Alex clenched his wand tighter and took a few steps forward.

"Stupefy!" A voice shouted as soon as Alex moved.

But Alex was prepared for this and dodged the spell easily. He also recognized the voice immediately.

"Tom!" Alex shouted into the darkness.

"Alex?" said shaking voice.

"Yes, it's me." Alex sighed in relief, at least Tom was still alive. He moved forward slowly, raising his arms to show he wouldn't attack.

Then he saw Tom.

The boy was sitting beside a wall of the tunnel. He was pale and gritting his teeth, obviously in pain. His forehead was injured but the bleeding had already stopped. He pointed his wand directly at Alex with one hand and clenched his left leg with another. He slowly lowered his wand but stared at Alex in shock when the fifth year Slytherin kneeled down beside him.

"Your leg is broken," Alex observed. "Do you have any other injuries except your leg and your forehead?" he asked, worried.

Tom didn't reply. He only stared at Alex with wide eyes.

"Why are you here?" he asked weakly. "You could have died..."

Before he finished his sentence Alex exploded, yelling loudly despite the circumstance. "WHY AM I HERE? BECAUSE YOU COULD HAVE DIED! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING, TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE?"

Tom avoided Alex's eyes. "You should not be involved in this. It's my own problem."

"I thought we are friends," Alex responded quietly, a hurt expression appeared on his face.

"We are!" Tom's head snapped up, but as soon as he met Alex's eyes he looked down again. "That's why I don't want you to come," he said just barely loud enough for Alex to hear. Then hesitantly he added, "I don't want pull my... only friend into danger."

Alex moved closer to Tom. "But that's what friends are for," he said softly, "to pull each other into trouble and to help each other out of it."

Tom looked up at Alex. In the other boy's eyes, he saw care and determination, a determination to help and protect his friend under any circumstance, a determination without any doubt.

Finally Tom sighed. He smiled at Alex faintly and said, "Fine. You win."

"As always." Alex grinned. "It seems finally I am able to knock some senses into your thick skull, you stupid snake."

Tom shot him a glare. "I'm not stupid, you stubborn git!"

Alex laughed, soon followed by Tom. As soon as the laughter died down, Alex became serious again. He looked at Tom's left leg and frowned.

"What happened?" he asked.

Tom pointed to the road ahead. "There's a locked door not far away from here. I tried many ways but I still couldn't open it. Then I heard a horrible roar. I felt the ground shaking and the rocks started to drop down. I knew something was wrong and I tried to get out of here. But that Chimaera guarded the entrance...It nearly got me, I guess. When I climbed up that entrance, it advanced on me. But before it reached me, I lost my hold and dropped down. That's why I broke my leg and have a few bruises... they're just minor injuries, don't worry." he hastily added when Alex's frown deepened. "I'm not sure when the Chimera would decide to jump in the hole, so I crawled back into the tunnel as deep as I could manage." he paused and looked at Alex. "There's no way out, you know?" he said quietly.

Alex sighed and nodded slowly. "I know. I think Slytherin commanded that Chimera to kill anyone who enter this tunnel. Anyone but pureblood I guess. That is, we'll certainly be killed unless we find a way out down here." he concluded grimly.

"You know?" said Tom, his eyes widened. "Why are you coming down here then? That's suicide!"

Alex shrugged. "I don't know why. I just... well, the only thing on my mind when I was standing before the entrance was that I wanted to save you. And if I wanted to drag you out of here at least I needed to jump down myself."

"You're mental!" Tom said in disbelief.

"Not the only one," Alex muttered.

If Tom heard him, he didn't react. Instead he smirked. "Now who is acting like a Gryffindor this time?" he raised his eyebrows at Alex.

Alex rolled his eyes. He pushed himself up from his kneeling position.

"Let's take another look at the door you said. That seems to be our only way out of here... no, don't you try to move, Tom." he stopped Tom immediately as the boy tried to get up. Alex closed his eyes and started searching his memories again. He remembered a spell was used in a similar circumstance. What that circumstance was he didn't know, but he remembered the spell.

"Ferula." He pointed his wand at Tom's leg., creating some bandages around Tom's wound. Then he helped Tom back to his feet.

Tom slowly moved his weight to his injured leg. "That's much better. Thanks," he said.

Alex smiled. "Let's go."

Tom nodded and the two of them set off again. Despite the odds, they were more hopeful then before now. After all, they knew they were no longer alone.

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"Alohomora." The two Slytherins cast the spell together, but received no respond from the door in front of them.

Tom shook his head. "It's hopeless."

Alex sighed. He had to agree with Tom. They had tried to open the door by every possible ways they could think of, but none of them worked.

Alex looked at the door warily. The large metal door blocked the entrance to the deeper part of the tunnel. It was covered by a think layer of mud, obviously hadn't been opened for over a century. Some parts of the mud layer cast off when they attempted to push the door open just now, revealing... Alex narrowed his eyes. There seemed some sort of pattern on the door, behind the layer of mud.

Alex slowly went forward. He pointed his wand at the door.

"Scourgify," he muttered the cleaning spell and gasped at what he saw on the cleaned door.

A drawing of a Basilisk.

Then he heard a voice coming from the other side of the door.

/Open the door./

He recognized this hissing sound. It was parseltongue.

Tom gasped behind him. "Who spoke?"

Alex turned abruptly to face Tom. "You understand what it said?" he asked.

Tom looked confused. "Of course. It said open the door... but why it emphasized the word open? Would it be..." he frowned. "But we've tried it before."

Then his slowly went forward, facing the painting of the Basilisk.

/Open!/

Both Tom's and Alex's eyes widened in shock as they heard the hissing sound came out from Tom's mouth.

'Tom was a parselmouth too? What does that suppose to mean?' thought Alex. He looked at his friend, who was still staring at the door in shock as it slowly opened to reveal another dark passage.

"Tom." Alex called his friend softly.

Tom raised his head slowly, uncertainty clearly shown in his face.

"What did I..." he choked out.

"You are a parselmouth." Alex said with a shaking voice.

"But... it can't be." said Tom.

"Why? Is being a parselmouth a problem?" asked Alex. He remembered Nicolas' reaction about his being a parselmouth; the older wizard was almost... scared.

"Why?" Tom stared at him in disbelief. Then he sighed. "Do you know why the symbol of Slytherin house is a serpent?"

"Er... because Salazar Slytherin is parselmouth?" said Alex. He remembered this from his search of the Chamber. And that was when he knew "parselmouth" meant someone who could talk to snakes.

Tom nodded. "And that's what Slytherin was famous for. He and his descendant were the only ones who could talk to snakes." he rubbed his forehead. "But I couldn't be a descendant of Slytherin."

A descendant of Slytherin? So that meant Alex himself was somehow related to Slytherin too? Alex shook his head. It was not the time to think about this. Maybe in the future being a parselmouth would not be considered special? Or maybe everyone could talk to snakes or all other creatures in the future?

But was Tom really a descendant of Slytherin? The heir of Slytherin? That was not impossible. Alex remembered the book they found in the library. If Tom was indeed the heir of Slytherin, then it would explain why only Tom was able to see the book. And Tom was here finding the Chamber of Secrets because someone was calling for him.

"It's possible that you are the heir of Slytherin, you know?" Alex said quietly. Then he went on to tell him what he saw in the library.

Tom looked doubtful after hearing Alex's explanation. "But..."

"There's only one way the prove it." said Alex, staring at the dark passage ahead of them.

Tom sighed. "Let's go."

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After another long walk, they finally reached the end of the tunnel. Before them was a large room. There were some ancient runes on the stone wall ahead of them. And on their left was a door.

"Great. Another locked door." groaned Alex.

"Those runes seem to be the key to open the door." He turned to Alex. "You didn't take Ancient Runes, right? I remember you said Divination seemed to be more... useful then Ancient Runes."

"In normal situation, Ancient Runes really didn't seem to be quite useful." Alex protested. "And Divination is not that bad either."

Tom went forward to examine to runes. "I'll try to translate them then. I've read some books about..."

Tom stopped abruptly. The two boys jumped as they heard footsteps coming from the dark tunnel. They exchanged a look before moving to a corner of the room and removed the light from their wands together, so that the enemy couldn't see them and they could make the first move.

The footsteps became louder and louder. Alex held his breath and blinked several times to adjust his eyes to the darkness. He felt Tom moved closer to him and heard the boy swallow as a dark figure entered the room.