Harry Potter: Who cares about belated motherly love?

——It felt like I slid for about five minutes, but I have no idea how long it actually lasted.

I was sliding down the huge slide upside down with my back against it. Suddenly, I felt myself floating in the air again for a moment, and then I fell heavily to the ground on my back.

"Well……!!"

"Well?!"

I was thrown heavily onto the wet stone slabs, and my breathing was suppressed for a moment, but I didn't have time to care about it. I quickly stood up and quickly distanced myself from Lockhart who was thrown aside.

"It hurts...what happened?"

Before Lockhart could even stand, I pointed my wand at him.

"Stunning spell, faint!"

Strike first!

At this point, it doesn’t matter whether the other person is a professor or not.

I can't win by force, I have to incapacitate him first, otherwise I'll be in danger, and not just physically.

"Well?!"

Just as Lockhart was about to stand up, he fell heavily to the ground again. After I confirmed that he had fallen, I couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

Really, who knows when the basilisk will appear? At this critical moment of life and death, don’t let it appear so unexpectedly again.

"Flying spell, magic wand!"

I used the Summoning Charm to retrieve Lockhart's wand and put it in the wand holder on the inside of my robes. Who knows what will happen next, so it's better to keep my wand in my hand.

"Binding spell, rope binding!"

As I tied the unconscious Lockhart tightly, a "boom boom" sound came from the pipe we were sliding down.

I looked over warily, and heard a plop, and it was Harry who slipped down.

"It hurts... Ronnie, are you okay?"

Harry fell hard on his butt and groaned in pain, but he immediately raised his head and shouted loudly.

"Harry?! Did you fall too?!"

I couldn't help but shout, but when I calmed down and thought about it, it was obviously impossible.

As expected, Harry denied it.

"Of course not! I came here to chase you!...Where's Lockhart? Is he okay?"

Seeing Lockhart lying on the ground, Harry's face relaxed a little, but he still asked cautiously.

"Ah, sorry to have worried you... I'm fine. When I fell, I knocked Lockhart out before he could get up. His wand was already put away, and there's no way one person could untie the rope."

The problem is that I might be punished for assaulting a teacher, but after all, my chastity was almost lost, so the professors should be more or less understanding and give me a break.

I muttered and Harry sighed deeply.

"That's good. Lockhart was in an abnormal state at the time. I was worried that he had fallen into the Chamber of Secrets."

"I'm so sorry for making you worry. Thank you for coming to save me."

"It's okay, we are friends."

Harry smiled brightly, which touched my heart deeply.

What a good boy...

"Now, Hermione, go to the headmaster's office to see Dumbledore. Until then, let's wait here...?!"

Harry paused suddenly and looked around nervously.

"Harry? Could it be...?"

"The basilisk is coming this way...!!!"

Hearing this, the atmosphere suddenly became tense.

"From which direction?"

“That… it’s still far away, but it’s slowly getting closer…!”

Harry pointed to another pipe to the right of the one we slid down.

"It's impossible to go back. We can't climb up here...!"

"Run this way!"

Harry took my hand and ran to the left side of the pipe leading to the women's restroom.

"What about Lockhart?!"

"He fainted, so we can't take him with us, but he should be fine..."

Harry seemed to be trying to calm himself down, but to be honest, we didn't have enough energy to take Lockhart with us. It would be nice to use the "Mobility Charm", but Charlie taught me mostly offensive and defensive spells first, so I didn't have much confidence in using it. And I had a suitcase with an "Undetectable Extension Charm", so I didn't learn the spell to move large items.

No matter how bad Lockhart was, I didn't want to leave him in a place where he might die, but our own safety was the first priority. Although we were reluctant, we decided to leave Lockhart where he was and turned to run to the pipe on the left.

***

Harry and I held hands and ran through the pipes that occasionally accumulated water. In the darkness, only the faint light spell "Lumos" illuminated the way ahead. We ran in the huge pipe that was like a tunnel, and there were "crunching" and "crackling" sounds under our feet, like stepping on eggshells, accompanied by a strange sound.

“What is this… There are so many things here…!”

"It's bones!"

I groaned as I felt an uncomfortable sensation under my feet. Harry, with his dynamic vision, recognized what we were stepping on and shouted softly as he ran. I felt sick to my stomach when I learned that the ground was covered with bones, but I didn't have time to care about it now.

"Although it's farther away than before, I can still hear the basilisk. It seems to be looking for us, and it keeps saying 'Where are you?'"

"Does it just treat us as food? Or is it carrying out the orders of the successor?"

"I don't know, but we need to get away from it as soon as possible!"

We chatted in low voices as we rounded a bend and came to a slightly open area.

"Harry, there's something over there...!"

For a moment, I thought it was a basilisk, but it was just a shed snake skin. The shed skin was coiled, and although it had become flat, it was clear that its body was at least one meter thick, perhaps even close to two meters, and about twenty meters long.

“…I really don’t want to see this. Are we really being chased by such a scary monster?”

I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach, but Harry squeezed my hand and I pulled myself together.

"Now we have to escape from this monster!"

We mustered up our courage and continued running, not knowing how many times we turned in the pipe. The long pipe seemed to have no end, and only the faint light on the wand guided us forward. This kind of running not only consumed our physical strength, but also our mental strength.

Harry was clearly as exhausted as I was, because he kept squeezing my hand so hard it hurt, but the tension reached a peak as we turned the final corner.

We turned a corner and a wall appeared in front of us. At first I thought it was a dead end, but there were two snakes carved into the wall, with large emeralds inlaid in their eyes.

Harry obviously noticed this, too. He glanced at me, nodded firmly, and then opened his mouth. With a hissing sound, like the threatening sound of a snake, the two entangled snakes gradually untangled themselves, and the wall slowly slid away, disappearing on both sides.

……

In front of me was a long and narrow room, with a faint light illuminating the path leading deeper into the room. Several stone pillars carved with winding snakes were arranged in the room, and the green torches emitted a dim light, illuminating this mysterious room.

Harry and I held each other's hands tightly, nodded to each other, and then stepped carefully into this mysterious space. We walked carefully between the pairs of stone pillars, and our footsteps echoed on the dark walls.

As I looked around, my eyes moved forward and my heart skipped a beat. In the depths of the vast room, along the wall stood a huge stone statue. The statue seemed to be Salazar Slytherin in his later years, with a long beard and robes.

And at the feet of the statue, stood a boy.

I know that boy.

At the same time, I remembered the two cards I had received before, with the initials of the senders.

"Theodore Nott...???"

In the dim green light, Theodore Nott smiled faintly, as if responding to my call.