Ultimate security as Harry is the only one capable of opening it.
Myrtle proudly spending her time acting as a guard/lookout.
Later, Harry diligently teaching Ron, Hermione, and a few choice others, like Neville, how to mimic parseltongue so that they can open it too.
Muggleborns experiencing vicious satisfaction that they’re using this chamber as a place of education and defense, reclaiming the very space Slytherin built to rid the school of their presence.
Hermione methodically dismantling the basilisk’s corpse, covertly selling the priceless ingredients to potion masters, using the funds to continue their work – buying books and battle robes and new wands for those who can’t afford it.
(Hermione saving a portion of those ingredients for her own research, straightening in triumph when she learns what basilisk venom does to horcruxes, knowing she has vials of it hidden up in her room).
Harry reverently adding the Chamber of Secrets to the Marauder’s Map, proudly continuing his family’s work and reveling in the difference they’re making.
These students – these kids – choosing to train in a dark, horrifying place that was never meant for them. Learning spells amongst shadows, growing stronger in inches of murky water, the smell of a decomposing corpse in their noses, memories of all that had happened here haunting them. They know this is what war is really like and it helps to push them forward.
Updating this because people have brought up some REALLY GREAT plot-holes and I like trying to flesh out my AUs soooooooo…
Ginny is the one who suggests using the Chamber. Of course she is. Harry isn’t the type to think of that, but for Ginny… for Ginny the Chamber still haunts her dreams, too often, and she’s furious that a part of the castle is restricted to her – a part of her home that she wants to avoid. She suggests the Chamber, partly for the DA’s benefit, mostly for her own.
Visibility is a concern – what if someone sees them going into the girl’s restroom? They think it’s a serious issue until Ron starts laughing. No one comes near that bathroom anymore, he says. Not ever. It was barely an issue while brewing a month long polyjuice potion, Ron and Harry popping in and out to add ingredients or to stir. Now though? Now that Myrtle has stepped up her game (shrieking, flooding the room if someone unwanted comes near), now that Hogwarts is infused with rumors that Harry fought a basilisk rightin there, now that the nearby corridor still has a bloody, horrifying message that even the professors haven’t been able to erase*… well, students avoid the area like the plague.
Even if they didn’t, the House Elves help them out. Dobby did, after all, suggest the Room of Requirement before Ginny brought up the Chamber. Who better than the workers who see but are not seen to help the DA keep watch?
The castle helps too. By now it knows Harry and desperately wants to protect its students. More than once Umbridge follows a DA member, only to find the staircase moving unexpectedly, taking her in another direction entirely. Sometimes there’s even a door directly beside the lavatory – appearing out of nowhere – that students can slip inside if they feel the need…
Getting out is the other concern. At first they think to bring brooms or levitate one another out… but that’s just not practical. Then, one of the Hufflepuffs asks the obvious and yet oddly illusive question: how did Salazar get out? They start a search and by the end of the day they’ve found at least four hidden exits.
One exit leads out into the Forbidden Forest, a space that’s not nearly as terrifying as it once was. Harry speaks quietly to Firenze and secures the help of the centaurs for when they need safe passage late at night. One day they encounter a group of acromantulas… and Harry learns of Hagrid’s strict new rule – friends of Hagrid are never food, no matter how easy the prey. The students don’t realize it, but they’re slowly gaining allies. Those in the forest begin to take notice of the children who walk both bravely and respectfully through their trees.
(And one day when they’re too tired to walk back, a familiar blue car pulls up and throws open its doors. Ron cheers like a maniac. Ginny laughs and threatens to tell their dad).
Though the exists are great, it’s Hermione who realizes the Chamber’s true benefit – it lies outside of Hogwart’s apparition zone. How can it not? Godric, Helga, and Rowena didn’t know of its existence when they first made the wards. So now the DA can go with ease, they just can’t pop in from anywhere else in the castle. Which is, admittedly, perfect. Apparition lessons begin in earnest.
(And during the Battle of Hogwarts, DA members take Slytherin students by the hand – those who wouldn’t, couldn’t, fight their own families. They take them down to the Chamber and tell them to apparate out. Leave while you still can. Keep safe).
Harry realizing that parseltongue is easily imitated and coming up with an actual password that has to be spoken, one linked to a spell too. It helps that the snakes around the entrance are semi-sentient and are loyal to their new master. They know who’s meant to go down there and who’s not.
Neville joking one day that they should be learning how to use swords, considering that’s how the original battle down here was won. Harry takes it seriously. Not the swords bit, but using physical/muggle fighting techniques on wizards who are too reliant on their magic. They begin reading up on hand-to-hand combat and knives.
Harry needing to test their progress and getting a really stupid idea… but honestly, those often work out in his favor. So one sunny, Saturday morning – when everyone else is lounging outside – Harry sneaks the DA into the third floor corridor. Fluffy is gone, as is the mirror, but the rest remains, no doubt left in case Dumbledore ever had to guard something else precious. Hermione, Ron, and Harry spend the day supervising, teaching their peers how to react under pressure, think through situations, and rely on one another’s skills.
And then one day things get weird (because they always do with Harry) when he realizes that the miniature chamber the basilisk was kept in is the only part of their hideout they’d yet to explore. See, given their rarity, it’s unsurprising that wizardkind knows so little about basilisks – not that they reproduce asexually or that only a parseltongue can hatch the egg. So when Harry crawls into the chamber, and finds a strange egg-like object nestled there, that begins pulsing a soft green color in his presence, and when he basically says, “What the hell…?” out loud, and when it comes out in parseltongue because he is surrounded by snake things…well, let’s just say a few minutes later Harry crawls back out, very sheepish, a baby basilisk cooing around his neck. He laughs pretty shakily and mutters something about finding their mascot.
(And they name the beast – because of course they do – and Hermione invents a soft device to cover its eyes and feeding it is an absolute horror… but they do grow to love their ‘mascot.’ And during the Battle – when Harry is off in the forest and Hogwarts is losing badly – no one is more surprised than the Death Eaters when Ron and Hermione come tearing out of the school riding a goddamn fully grown basilisk. Hermione rips off the cover on its eyes and sets to work).
today, I will introduce you to the largest bony fish currently living on this planet. they are active, deep-diving predators and excellent distance swimmers. adults can reach lengths of ten feet and weights of over 5,000 pounds. when they collide with boats, the boats often come off worse.
what are you picturing now? maybe a tuna? a swordfish?
those are all valid guesses, but you’re all WRONG AHAHAHAHAHA
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. LOOK AT IT. LOOK.
meet the Mola mola, or Ocean Sunfish. (we prefer Mola mola, honestly, it’s so much more fun to say. Mola mola. Mola molamolamola.)
Mola mola are the largest bony fish in the world (as opposed to the boneless fish, which can usually be found frozen in stick form in your nearest supermarket). adults are HUUUUUUGE and roughly disc-shaped. they can easily grow to 10′x12′, which are usually dimensions you only use if you’re talking about flooring.
yes lovely but does it come in a tile pattern?
the Mola mola is also notable for its ‘unique body plan’, which is Science for “jesus that’s a weird fucking fish”. most of its body consists of its giant fucking head, and it lacks a tail of any sort. instead, the Mola molamolamola gets around by flapping its dorsal and ventral fins (top and bottom. Science just likes to feel special.) like the wings of a butterfly.
A BEAUTIFUL BUTTERFLY
this might seem like a really dumb way to get around, but the Mola molamolamola (sorry, I’ll stop) makes it work. they can cross thousands of miles of open water at its slower cruising speed of 2 entire mph, but they are also capable of wiggling those fins fast enough to hurl themselves completely out of the water like a giant, horrifying Frisbee.
(in fact, Mola mola breaches can be a problem in some areas, as they aren’t very good at watching where they land and sometimes end up capsizing small boats. whoopsie!)
COWABUNGAAAAAAAA
the Mola mola eats mostly jellyfish and any other soft-bodied animal or plant it can fit into its ravenous horror beakmouth. they descend deep into the icy depths to hunt these soft boneless lunches, sometimes going deeper than 2,600 feet! can YOU do that?! no. you cannot.
after they have slaked their endless thirst for what are basically just organic plastic bags, the Mola molas return to the surface. there, they bask in the sunlight to raise their body temperatures. this is where the term ‘sunfish’ came from. (also at this point, they are sometimes struck by boats as fish are not capable of understanding nautical right of way.)
NO, YOU YIELD!
this basking habit is also unfortunate because it makes the Mola mola a giant, fish-shaped target floating around in open water. they are regularly eaten by sharks, sea lions, killer whales, and, uh…
humans.
oh yes, my regular predators include two marine apex predators and a bipedal ape. thanks, evolution.
Mola mola are regularly caught in huge numbers, and are now in decline worldwide. THIS IS NOT ALLOWED.
the recent creation of marine preserves does give some hope for the future of the Mola molamolamolamola, though there is still a lot of work needed to restrain overfishing.
hopefully these big big weirdos will continue to populate our oceans long into the future.
🎵JUST KEEP SWIMMING, JUST KEEP SWIMMING🎵
Please enjoy my favorite fish! And in case you were wondering what it’s skeleton looks like:
“I was on a strict diet during Episode VIII, and she was like, ‘Kid, get into that fridge and take some chocolate bars. I have many there.’ And I did,” he recalls. “I failed my diet because Carrie Fisher told me to. And it [felt] great.”
-John Boyega on Carrie Fisher
This is the Carrie Fisher post of body positivity reblog for a chocolate bar from her fridge
a while ago i wrote this as a thank you to someone who was very kind, and helped me out when i was in a tough spot. they were nice enough to give me permission to share it with all of you, so –
a fish may love a bird, but where will they live?
~
when runhilda was just a hatchling, a little boy with big
eyes fed her bread and called her pretty even before she was. he always had
bruises on his face and arms, and his clothes hung off him, but he always had soft
words for her, always gave her his bread crusts even though he needed them more
than she did.
when runhilda is older, and goes by runa, she throws off her
coat of feathers and steps from the river onto the land. she towers over the
teenage boy, stretching past six feet with flowing white-blonde hair and her
arms and thighs like tree trunks. “you need this more than i do,” she tells him
generously.
he looks on in confusion as she takes her coat of feathers
and wraps it around his shoulders. he transforms into graceful, powerful swan.
he transforms into a something that can fly away from his miserable life.
“give it back to me one day,” she says, “when you don’t need
it anymore.”
she pats him on the head, and he gently nips her hand before
he opens his wings and takes to the sky.
runa watches him go wistfully. she’ll miss her wings, but
she’s never had legs before and she’s eager to take them for a spin.
~
she tracks down the boy’s mother who’d been so cruel to him,
and no one is ever ready for a giant naked woman to burst into their pub and
start yelling at them, but runa still thinks she screamed too much. she’d
threatened the woman with everything from a sound beating to dire legal action,
and she and her husband leave town with nothing more than the clothes on their
backs.
this has worked out for runa nicely. she thinks running a pub
could be fun. she goes upstairs, and none of the tiny woman’s ridiculous
clothes will fit her, obviously, so she goes through the husband’s closet. she
thinks she looks rather dashing in trousers and suspenders and a crisp white
button up. she puts a newsboy cap over her curly mass of hair for good measure,
and winks at herself in the mirror. this being human thing is off to an
excellent start.
then she goes downstairs and realizes she’s scared off the
staff and patrons. the patrons she’s not too worried about this. this is
dublin, and no one even died. as long as the alcohol keeps flowing, they’ll be
back.
as for the staff ….
she goes to the river and recruits as many curious sisters as
she can. she walks back to her pub with her arms laden with feather coats and a
dozen gorgeous naked women all as tall as she is trailing behind her.
excellent.
~
the seamstress adores them, since most of her sisters prefer
the pretty, full bodied dresses that many of the human women wear, and they all
have to be custom made to fit their large shoulders and thick waists. runa
sticks to her trousers and shirts, and acquires a collection of newsboy hats.
her pub quickly gains a reputation, as it should. it’s
staffed by beautiful women who have no problem with ending a bar fight
personally, and physically throwing the offenders on to the street. there’s a
strict look, but don’t touch policy that all of the patrons take advantage of,
running their eyes over the beautiful barmaids. of course, quite a few human
men and women catch her sisters’ eyes, and more than one dazed and pleased
human has left their pub half dressed in the mornings.
no one catches runa’s attentions, until a slim woman with
dark skin and dark eyes takes a corner table in the pub. she’s in an opulent
grey dress, and her hair is carefully pinned into an elegant style, with a
glittering necklace around her throat. no woman as wealthy as this one should
be in runa’s establishment, or if she is she shouldn’t look miserable about it.
“here,” her sister pushes two mugs full to the brim into her
hands. runa glares at her, but she’s already turned away. she resents the implication
that she’s that transparent.
she still walks over to the woman and sits across from her,
pressing the drink into her hands. she looks startled, but not upset, so runa
leans her elbow halfway across the table and asks, “What’s a pretty girl like
you doing in a place like this?”
she smiles back, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. runa’s filled
with a determination to have her smile like she means it.
my favorite thing about this is that each of them is walking in a different direction, it’s like these girls are off to conquer the entire goddamn world
Harry’s first wand – eleven inches, holly and phoenix feather – had fit Harry, then. It had been battle ready, protective, glowing warmly in his hand and feeling exactly right for a boy who needed the small buzz of defense from a wand built to protect and defend.
The wand he replaces it with, though, is made of fir (a wood Olivander told him quietly was often referred to as “the survivor’s wand”), with a tail hair from a threshal at it’s core. It is a wand that holds all the wisdom of death and suffering, and a wand that can get Harry through the restructuring of his life after death.
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