The Family Name

The Family Name
By Slytherin Tattoo

Chapter 16

Artemis stood perfectly still in the Owlery, waiting while Potter babbled out the story. "The diary is gone! I'm afraid Seamus pulled it out at lunch, and the whole table, or close to it, saw it. They didn't know what it was, but the thief would have recognized it by sight, I suppose. We came back to the Tower right after supper, and our dorm was a mess. It had obviously been searched. The only thing missing was Riddle's diary."

"It had to have been a Gryffindor," Weasley blurted. "No one else would have known the password."

"Interesting," a voice drawled from the doorway. "How many purebloods are in Gryffindor?"

"Get lost, Malfoy, this doesn't concern you!" Potter snapped.

Artemis looked at the three of them speculatively. "How many female purebloods are in Gryffindor?"

Silence. Draco raised his eyebrows. Weasley tensed, flushing, and hissed, "What are you suggesting?"

"Where's Granger?" Draco cut in.

"She thought of something she needed to look up in the library," Potter replied neutrally.

Draco gave him an incredulous look. "Somebody took the diary--you wait a good three hours or so to give her time to work up some evil--and then you let your Mudblood run loose?"

Weasley had his wand up, but Harry grabbed his arm. "No, wait, he's right. . ."

Artemis called his owl down from the rafters. He attached a message to Aureus's leg and sent him off to get Butler. Then he pulled what looked like a credit card out of his pocket, but it was not. "I put a tracking charm on the diary," Artemis told the Gryffindor boys. "This is set like a compass, north, south, east, and west. It'll point to whatever direction the book is in. The middle is marked up or down, to see what floor it's on. Use it." He handed it to Potter, who took it and stared at it in some awe.

"Hermione checked the book for spells and didn't find anything," Ron frowned.

"I expected her to check and made it hard to detect."

Draco smiled at that. Then he frowned, and asked, "What about the. . . about Granger?"

"She should be here any minute," Potter said.

Artemis had a bad feeling about this. "Let's just see if she's in the library, shall we?"

They headed down the stairs. "You can go now, Malfoy. I doubt you're concerned about Hermione's welfare." Potter glared at him.

"You're kidding right? I want to see who stole the diary."

"You're not coming with us." Weasley was fingering his wand again.

Draco rolled his eyes. "Yes. I am. It's the only way justice is assured. If we find out the Heir of Slytherin is Gryffindor, you two weak, sentimental idiots might let her go."

"Wait just a minute. . ."

"He's got a point," Artemis interrupted their heated declarations. "At least, in others' minds. Think of the rumors going around, how other people see things. It might be best to mix the Houses."

Artemis gave him a strange sort of smile, but before he could say anymore, he saw Draco stop dead and go pale. "I--I was actually right. Why aren't I feeling glad?"

They followed his eyes to see what he was staring at. Just off a side passage from the library, they found a very distraught Prof. Spout bending over the still, Petrified form of Hermione Granger.

The Gryffindors covered the last few feet at a run. "No!"

Prof. Sprout looked up, teary-eyed, and motioned them back. The two Slytherins came up beside them. "What's in her hand?"

They all looked. "A mirror," Weasley sounded baffled. "Why. . .?"

Artemis reached over and took the tracking locater out of Potter's hand. He gave it to Draco. "Right, then," he began giving orders crisply and authoritatively. "Malfoy, you track the diary. Weasley and Potter won't be good for anything except going to the infirmary with Granger. I will be--searching for the monster."

"It's too dangerous," Potter protested.

"You will do no such thing!" Prof. Sprout insisted. "You may help me take Hermione to the hospital wing if you wish, but then you're all going straight back to your common rooms!"

"Malfoy's not searching for the diary alone!" They ignored poor Sprout completely.

"Then send the two purebloods together." Artemis looked at each of them in turn, a burning stare. "No offense, Potter, but it is dangerous. You go with Granger. And I'll--just go back to my dorm, like a good student."

Draco caught and held Artemis's gaze. He knew there wasn't the slightest possibility Artemis was returning tamely to the dungeons. Did he know where the Chamber was? Was he going there? He wanted to follow, but he figured the monster was likeliest to be there. What should he do?

"Malfoy," Artemis said, "listen to me just this once."

Draco's chin went up. "I'm a Malfoy, and I don't take orders from you, Fowl. You're a sly, Muggle-tainted, stuck-up, know-it-all, bossy, ugly, territory-stealing, bloody jerk and you'll get what's coming to you someday!"

"Are you through? Don't 'obey' me then. Just--think for yourself and decide what to do!"

Draco's breathing was a bit fast and his knuckles clenching the tracker were rather white, and his heart was thumping in time to a pain in his head. But he told himself, 'Focus,' and 'Don't let him think you blindly obey your father, either,' and making his mind up only took about five seconds. "I'll go after the diary."

Artemis actually smiled out of sheer surprise. "OK then."

Weasley hesitated a long moment, then nodded. "The thief is the Heir, right? The murderer. We have to track--him or her."

Prof. Sprout wrung her hands. "You are all to go back to your common rooms!"

"Of course, ma'am," they chorused, with innocent eyes.

"Except for me," Potter added. "I'm going with you and Hermione."

Prof. Sprout just nodded weakly and levitated Granger.

__________ ________

Butler was waiting for Artemis just outside the Great Hall. "Nice to see you again," Artemis greeted him. "Shall we?"

"I don't like this plan, Artemis," Butler told him one more time. "You'll be in far too much danger."

"Danger is, indeed, a possibility. But I have made certain preparations." He patted his bookbag. "Let's go."

Butler walked beside Artemis, up the staircase, down the deserted corridor, to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Artemis reached in his bag and pulled out two pairs of mirrored sunglasses. He put one set on, and Butler the other. "I've treated these against a basilisk's stare as much as I was able." Butler tried to look reassured. Then Artemis took out a device that resembled a portable audio cassette player--but not quite. Then they entered the bathroom.

They looked around. No monsters, no crazed attackers, no trace of a chamber. No one except the ghost of a young girl, peering at them curiously. "What are you doing here?" she demanded. "This is a girls' bathroom!"

"I'm a friend of Granger's," Artemis replied. "Her words did not fully convey how lovely you are, though, Myrtle." He managed to say this with a straight face.

Myrtle giggled and turned her face away as if embarrassed, but she floated closer.

"Myrtle, I need to ask you a question. Granger told me that, unfortunately, you died in this bathroom." She nodded. "You saw a pair of eyes, she said. Where were they exactly?"

"By that sink right there," she pointed.

Artemis and Butler moved over to the sink. Artemis examined it closely. Etched on one of the taps was a tiny snake. Artemis held the device in his hand out in front of it.

"What's that?" Myrtle inquired.

"It's a speaking dictionary. First ever in Parseltongue." He pressed a switch. A strange hissing sound emanated from the device. Immediately, the sink's tap glowed with a brilliant white light and began to spin.

Then the sink sank out of sight, leaving a large pipe exposed, a pipe wide enough for a man to slide into. "The Chamber of Secrets," Artemis murmured.

"I go first," Butler insisted.

"Take this," Artemis said. He handed Butler a similar, smaller device. "If one of us is in serious trouble, press the button."

Butler nodded, then slid down the pipe and out of sight.

Artemis took a deep breath and followed.

____________ ___________

"We are not the only purebloods in Gryffindor," Weasley snapped irritably. "Let's see, um, Hilary McPhee, she's a Fifth Year, and Ecgberht Pringle, he's Seventh. And Neville Longbottom, of course."

"Yeah, and five Weasleys," Draco retorted. "Odds are it's one of you."

"Who said it had to be a pureblood?"

But Draco was staring thoughtfully ahead. "Hmm, wouldn't it be bizarre if it really was Longbottom?"

"Just keep us going the right direction!"

Draco and Ron were on the third floor now, heading east, following the tracker. They walked quickly, ignoring the stares of two shocked Ravenclaws, and a Hufflepuff who actually walked into a wall at seeing them together. Draco did allow himself a smirk, however.

"We're going in the right direction," he drawled lazily, "naturally. With me as the leader. . ."

"You're not the leader of anything, least of all me," Weasley sneered.

Draco gripped his wand and the locator a bit more tightly. "I am the one with the compass."

"So? Looks like you're working and I'm delegating. I'm the leader."

Draco rolled his eyes. "Just can't stand not being in control, can you, Weasel? You'd think you'd be used to it by now, what with your family and all."

Ron gave him a very nasty glare. "Don't start in on my family again."

"You're as bad as Fowl." Draco smirked wider.

"Fowl's not a bad guy--for a Slytherin."

"Oh, like praise from you is going to make me think better of him?--Hold on. Looks like she just changed direction. North."

"How do we get north from here?"

Draco considered this. "If she starts going down in about two minutes, she just took the back stairs by the old lecture hall."

They walked in silence, keeping an eye on the tracker. Draco's pulse was fluttering at a much faster rate than he was used to, and a strange anticipation had settled into his stomach like a knot. He couldn't decide if he was excited or afraid. He found his mind kept going back and forth between himself and Fowl. What was his fellow Slytherin up to? Was he going to the Chamber? If so, why? Fowl didn't strike him as a "save-the-world" type. He was up to something.

The arrow on the compass moved. "Back stairs," he confirmed.

"Maybe we can catch up with her!"

They put on a burst of speed, nearly knocking over Alicia Spinnett, who stared after them in wonder.

___________ ___________

The pipe went down a long way, twisting and turning. It finally leveled out from its steep downward slope, and Artemis shot out of the end with a wet thud, landing on the damp floor of a dark tunnel. It was built of stone, and large enough to stand in. Butler was already on his feet just beside him, covered in slime. Artemis was just as bad; he looked down at himself in disgust.

"We're under the lake, I think," Artemis said quietly. "Very far under the school

The walls were wet and slimy. The tunnel was so dark they could see only a little distance ahead. It was deathly quiet. The floor was littered with small animal bones. "And particularly nasty," he added. He drew out his wand. "Lumos."

The tip of his wand lit up. "Too bad I couldn't have adjusted those glasses to infra-red vision. Oh well. We go forward." Butler only nodded.

Just around a bend in the tunnel, they came across a giant snake skin. Artemis cleared his throat. "Yes, well. About 23 feet long, I'd say."

"Artemis. . ."

"Don't worry, ev, as if waving Butler's concerns away, albeit a bit weakly.

They kept going. The tunnel turned often, making Artemis constantly wary about what could be around the next bend. Eventually they came to a wall, where two entwined serpents were carved. Their eyes were set with large, glittering emeralds that looked strangely alive.

Artemis held out the recorder and pressed a button. Another word in a strange hissing tongue issued from it. The serpents parted, the walls cracked open and slid out of sight.

They entered a long, dimly lit chamber. Towering stone pillars carved with more entwined serpents rose to support a ceiling lost in darkness, casting long, black shadows through the odd, greenish gloom. At the end of the Chamber was a statue high as the ceiling itself, set against the back wall. The face of the enormous statue was ancient, with a long, thin beard that fell almost to the bottom of the wizard's sweeping stone robes, where two grey feet stood on the smooth floor. Artemis frowned. "Is that Salazar Slytherin?"

"I'm afraid I couldn't say."

"At any rate, that's not the important thing. Look for the words."

"Perhaps keeping an eye out for the basilisk as well would be a good idea."

Artemis half-smiled. "Yes. That, too."