The voice woke him again.
Not with words, this time. Not in English. Not even in thought.
It hissed.
A low, slithering rasp that crawled along the walls of his mind like frost.
"…ssskalith… ssssileras… open…"
Harry sat up in bed, sweating. The dormitory was silent.
The lake above creaked. Somewhere in the pipes, something moved.
He didn't question the pull. Not anymore.
He grabbed his wand, the book, and the blank scrap of parchment he kept for notes. His feet were bare. His heartbeat was a drumbeat of ancient memory.
He didn't know where he was going.
But something in him did.
The Descent – Into the Bones of Hogwarts
It wasn't a path anyone had shown him. But the stones remembered. His steps echoed down corridors no one used. Past suits of armor long rusted. Past doors that had no knobs.
Past time itself.
The voice grew clearer.
"…closer… closer still…"
He reached a passage behind a statue of a crying angel — one even the Marauder's Map didn't name.
At its base, the air shimmered like heat over pavement. And Harry felt it — the invisible boundary.
He pressed his palm to it.
Nothing.
Then he whispered:
"Open."
In Parseltongue.
The word hissed through the air like silk through teeth.
And the wall—moved.
The Mouth of the Chamber
He stepped inside.
Stone stairs spiraled down in eerie silence, until they opened into a tunnel lined with carved serpents — fangs bared, eyes glinting, not with light, but with memory.
The tunnel pulsed with magic. Old, heavy magic.
His footsteps echoed over shallow water.
The air tasted of rust and forgotten power.
And then, he saw it.
The Gate.
Twin serpent statues arched into a circular door, stone jaws open wide. Between them, etched in blackened runes:
Only he who speaks the tongue may pass.
Harry raised his wand.
"Open," he said again — not in English. In the language he never learned, but always knew.
The serpents uncoiled.
The door groaned.
And the Chamber of Secrets opened for him.
Inside – Whispers, Bones, and the Mirror
The air inside was thick with age. Bones littered the floor — rat bones, bird bones… and one that looked disturbingly like a cat's.
The walls were lined with carvings. Spells in a script Harry didn't understand but could feel.
And at the far end stood a broken pillar, atop which rested…
A mirror.
Not the Mirror of Erised. This one was smaller. Framed in obsidian. Its surface rippled like water.
And when Harry stepped before it—
He didn't see himself.
He saw a boy with his face. But older. Sharper. And behind him—
A shadow in robes of black and emerald, smiling with a mouth too wide and eyes too bright.
"You are the heir. You were always the heir."
The voice was no longer behind his ear.
It was behind his eyes.
Harry fell back, gasping.
The mirror stilled.
The chamber went silent.
The Exit – But Not Alone
As he left, Harry felt something new.
Not presence.
Absence.
The book was gone from his bag.
He spun around — nothing. Just stone, water, whispers.
But as he climbed the stairs again, the whisper returned:
"We are watching now. We are learning, too."