Harry did his best to hurry past Moaning Myrtle's bathroom on his way out to the Quiddich pitch. For the past three years he hadn't been able to go near the place without memories of the basilisk incident at the end of his second year overtaking him. He was almost down the hall and well away when he heard someone that definitely wasn't a girl yell "Human undergarments!". Curious, Harry returned to the bathroom and poked his head inside. Ron was standing in front of the sink that marked the opening of the Chamber of Secrets.

"Crossfanged rodent sniffer!" Ron yelled at the tap with the etching of a serpent on it.

"Ron, what in the name of all that is holy are you doing?" Harry asked his seemingly deranged friend.

"Trying to open the Chamber of Secrets." Ron said, his ears red at having been caught.

"Okaaay." Harry said, not even wanting to know. It was probably something Hermione had put him up to, confronting his demons or somesuch. Taking pity on his friend, he decided to see if Parceltongue was teachable.

"How about I see if I can teach you how to say open, and we can come back later." Harry said sympathetically, as he grabbed his friend's arm and led him away.

Once in their dorms, Harry began Ron's first lesson.

"Open." Harry hissed.

"Prey f--ker!" Ron hissed back.

"Open." Harry hissed again, trying his hardest not to laugh.

"Automobile suppository." Ron hissed back wondering why his best friend was shaking and turning red.

After several repeats of "Open" and a bunch of completely random responses (the first dozen of which had been completely hilarious), Harry was about to give up. Deciding to give it one more try before giving up and opening the chamber himself, Harry hissed "Open."

"Open." Ron hissed back, much to Harry's amazement.

"You actually got it right this time. Try it once again to make sure that it wasn't random." Harry said.

"Open." Ron hissed again.

"Yep, that's it. You actually got it." Harry said with some pride. He'd taught Ron something that Hermione said would be absolutely impossible to teach when she had found out what they were doing. He would be able to rub this in Hermione's face for weeks.

"So what exactly did you want to do in the Chamber?" Harry asked.

"I thought I'd wreck that statue of the bloody wanker that spawned You-Know-Who's family. Figured I wouldn't get detention for it since it's not like the teachers know it's there." Ron said, his ears once more turning red.

"Sounds like fun, let's go." Harry said. If this would help his friend get over his "demons", and get Hermione off his back, then he would be there to support him.

Epilogue:

"I don't even want to know." Hermione muttered as she turned back to the corpse of the basilisk, doing her best to ignore the much graffittied statue of a transvestite who was wearing a pair of boxer shorts on his head that was towering over her.