Snape woke out of a sound sleep, his Dark Mark burning. He felt an inexplicable need to go investigate the Chamber of Secrets. He knew intellectually that it was sealed, but he sensed that the Dark Lord was calling him and the other Death Eaters down into the Chamber. He hastily rose from bed and hurried down the hall to the stairs. When he reached the second floor corridor that someone had just rounded the corner on the other end of the hall. He wondered if it was Potter and his friends. Normally, he would have investigated, but his Mark hurt him too badly.
When Snape stepped into the bathroom, he saw the entrance was open. He cautiously moved towards it, hearing strange voices. The voices did not sound human, nor did they sound like any other creature he had ever heard. As he drew nearer, inexplicably, he understood what they were saying.
“They are gone, sir. Shall we bring them back?”
“No. Our orders are clear. We are not to go above until all is ready.”
“What if they come back?”
“There is not much the apes can do to us.”
“What if there are more like the boy?”
“There are not. Seal the entrance.”
When the entrance started to close, Snape made haste to the nearest Floo.
“Headmaster!” the children panted.
“Yes, Ron, Hermione? Did something happen down in the Chamber?” Somehow, judging from the grave look in his face, he seemed to guess what.
“Harry and the Doctor were abducted by the Silurians!” cried Ron.
“They’re a race of-“
“Yes, the Doctor already told me of his suspicions,” Dumbledore said, walking to his fireplace and tossing in a handful of Floo powder.
He stuck in his head and talked to the person on the other side. After a few minutes, he withdrew.
“I have contacted our friends; they will contact the others. We shall be seeing them shortly," Dumbledore informed the trio.
Just then, Lucius Malfoy’s head appeared in the fireplace.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Malfoy?” asked Dumbledore.
“I request permission to visit the school immediately,” he said.
Ron and Hermione were shocked; Ron’s mouth hung open stupidly.
“Yes, of course,” said the Headmaster. Lucius stepped through.
Soon after, there was a knock at the office door.
“Come in,” called Dumbledore.
It was Snape.
“Come to warn your Headmaster about the threat to the school?” Lucius said mockingly.
The headmaster looked from Snape to Lucius, immediately understanding.
“The Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher and Harry Potter are currently prisoners of the beings in the Chamber. I have contacted the Aurors; they should arrive momentarily,” said Dumbledore. “It seems there have been several witches and wizards kidnapped and taken into the Chamber, especially this evening.”
Just then, Shacklebolt and then Tonks stepped through the fireplace. Soon, Aurors, government officials, parents, and friends of Dumbledore started asking permission and arriving through every available fireplace.
While Ron and Hermione were making their escape, the Doctor and Harry found themselves face to face with four brownish-green, reptilian creatures with red lights on top of their heads. They wrested from the pair their wands and their brooms as well as the Doctor’s rope. The Doctor knew better than to offer resistance, but Harry rebelled and soon found himself trying to counter their psychic attack. The attack felt a little like the Imperius Curse, which the boy knew how to resist. Soon all four concentrated their energy on Harry, causing him to crumple. They seemed surprised that one of these magical people could resist their attack at all.
Two of the Silurians carried the boy, and a third escorted the Doctor to a cell they called “the holding pen.” It was a stone room with a barred door. They threw in the boy, and the Doctor caught him.
After the other three guards left to their previous posts, the fourth said to the Doctor, “I’m very sorry about all this.” The Doctor, understanding the language, also understood the genuine regret in the creature’s voice.
The Doctor helped Potter to come back to consciousness.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“In a Silurian holding pen,” said the Doctor. “I’ve been in them twice before. Are you all right?”
“Yeah, said Harry, closing his eyes and shaking his head. “I’m just a bit dizzy.”
“You shouldn’t have resisted them, Harry, but if you’re up to it, how about we break out of here? We won’t be able to bend the bars, but maybe we can blast a hole through the rock, if you’re up to trying some wandless magic again,” the Doctor suggested.
“Yeah,” said Harry, standing up and squaring his shoulders determinedly. They listened for the guards, but they seemed to be gone, completely confident that their prisoners could not escape.
“Here, where the bars attach to the stone, try a Reducto.”
Harry did, but the spell bounced off. He tried again with the same results.
“Hmmm, there seems to be some kind of psychic energy dampening field here,” the Doctor mused. “No wonder they’re so confident. But they weren’t expecting to capture an alien,” he said, bug-eyes twinkling. He took out his sonic screwdriver. As soon as he directed the beam at the wall, the field appeared as yellow, pulsing bands. The bands pulled apart like strings thinning and breaking, and buckled, still pulsing.
“Now try. Point at that bare place and concentrate.”
The boy did, causing a small hole to appear. They heard footsteps. The Doctor backed up into the corner to hide the evidence.
The cage opened, and another prisoner was tossed inside. Harry gasped when he saw his face. It was Voldemort.
The Dark Lord’s red eyes fluttered open and immediately locked on Harry. At the same moment, they each raised their hands and muttered the Killing Curse. Each curse fizzled into a puff of green smoke as it hit the other. Voldemort, undeterred, sprang to his feet and lunged at Harry, who lunged back. The Doctor, fast as lightning, stepped between the two and separated them.
“Stop! If one of you manages to kill the other, you won’t have any hope of escaping! The whole of human kind is in danger. Even if you live, you’ll become a slave to these creatures until they don’t need you anymore, and then you will die!” he said.
One pair of green eyes and one pair of red ones regarded him, the former shocked, the latter disbelieving.
The Doctor explained the Silurians and their plan to Voldemort. “And I bet the recent kidnappings that you have been claiming lately haven’t been done by Death Eaters at all, have they, Mr. Riddle?”
“Doctor?” Voldemort inquired.
“What, you don’t recognize me?” the Doctor quipped. “I haven’t seen you since, what, your third year? What a waste of talent,” he said sadly.
Narrowing his eyes angrily, he said, “I need proof.”
“Proof? Look around you. Have you actually gotten that dim?” asked the Doctor sternly. “But if you do need proof, help us blast through this wall, and I’ll show you.”
Blasting through the wall would be in Voldemort’s interest, so he agreed. Keeping one hand on the Dark Lord, the Doctor used the other to operate his Sonic Screwdriver. With this device and the combined Reducto curses of Potter and Voldemort, they reduced the wall to rubble.
Voldemort was going to break for it, but the Doctor was faster, binding him with a much stronger Magic Reducing spell than used in the pen. They moved down the corridor to a crescent-shaped underground amphitheater of sorts, where, fortunately, all the beings faced away from them. About thirty Silurians were sitting and listening to an authoritative-sounding one, obviously their leader. A projection of Hogsmeade appeared above the floor in the center of the room.
“Once we hook the rest of the magical apes into our Psychic Energy Concentrator, we will storm the castle above and the town,” he said. A model of Hogwarts appeared. “We will bring them to the castle, and use the machine to cast a Magical Dampening Field around them, one many times stronger than the one we are currently using in the pens. Then we will seal the cave on the Hogsmeade end and take the Machine and the apes up to the Castle as well. We shall have sufficient energy to wake the rest of the colony.”
“But what will happen to-uh-them after we have enhanced the climate?” asked the guard who had apologized to the Doctor.
”We will no longer need them. They will be left to die.”
“What if some survive? Will we let them live?” the concerned Silurian asked.
“Of course not. Two sentient species cannot co-exist side by side. The earth was ours first, and the apes are inferior. Any survivors will be exterminated.”
The Dark Lord looked outraged.
Just then, the leader looked up and saw them. “The apes are attempting to escape!” he cried. “I want them back here ALIVE!”
Harry panted and whined, “Why does everyone want to kill me personally?”
“Because you’re just that kind of boy,” Voldemort snapped.
The Doctor took the dampening field off Voldemort, and they all ran. The Silurians were hot on their heels and shooting at them. They zigzagged back and forth to avoid the attack, but Harry and Voldemort were grazed. The Doctor had to hold onto the dazed wizards and help them along as they staggered away from the enemy. The Doctor was amazed that these two were strong enough not to be knocked unconscious by even a grazing shot. Finally, with the Silurians hot on their heels, they reached the mouth of the Basilisk’s nest and looked down. About one hundred witches and wizards, Dumbledore in the forefront, were standing in a crescent formation with wands upraised.