i had a conversation with a 15 year old the other day and i realized that the new generation only knows Dwayne The Rock Johnson from disney movies and not from his professional wrestling career as Dwayne The Rock Johnson. They can’t smell what The Rock is cookin. They never have.
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.
imagine if tony goes “i’m too hot” and expects steve to go “hot damn” but instead steve just gets up and turns on the air conditioner
and the next day tony walks into the room when bucky goes “i’m too hot” and steve looks tony directly in the eyes and whispers “hot damn” and tony looks at him with a look of utmost betrayal