Still progressing with the next Heritage chapter, but it isn't going as quickly as this.

Due to the changes here (Sirius never in prison and the like), the major events of the first three years at Hogwarts are being compressed into one year here, sorry if that confuses or upsets anyone ;^)

Guess I should describe the power structure of this version of Magical Britain as well. Firstly, it's rule by the aristocracy, so with very few exceptions, the Noble Houses have the power in this world. For the Heirarchy, Most Noble Houses are Dukes, the highest rank in Magical Britain. Noble Houses are Barons or Earls. Minor Houses are the Gentry, Baronets, Lairds and hereditary Bannerets, Knights or Esquires (yes, in this world, they have been made hereditary to maintain status). Families are commoners. Foreign Houses have no place in the power structure of Magical Britain, but they can marry into British Houses.

A House's power in this Magical Britain is further determined by how long it has been established. Most Ancient Houses are those Houses that have been established since before the Norman Conquest, and Ancient Houses are those Houses which were established in the period between the Norman Conquest and when the Charter for Magical Britain was signed in the fourteenth century. Anything established after that was just a Noble or Minor House. With the exception of a handful of the original druid families who helped shape Magical Britain, Most Ancient or Ancient only applies to the Noble Houses. The old druid houses are the equivalent of Most Ancient Noble Houses in terms of deference they are due in the Wizengamot. I'm planning on having at least one, maybe two, Most Ancient Houses that aren't Noble. I think you'll work it out when it comes up ;^)

The Wizengamot is made up of fifty seats, which represent the fifty Noble Houses of Magical Britain at the time the Wizengamot was created. Seats on the Wizengamot are claimed by right of rank, so if a dormant Most Ancient or Ancient House gets reactivated by the rightful heir successfully claiming it, whatever House holds the lowest ranking seat is pushed off. Similarly, if a Wizengamot seat is vacated (eg: by the dissolution of a House), the highest ranking claimant could take it.

Wizengamot votes are calculated on the basis of the holdings associated with the titles held by the House, the votes accepted in the Wizengamot are capped at four hundred, as this represented the total holdings when the Wizangamot was created. For voting purposes, the votes of an Ancient House are automatically multiplied by a weighting factor of 1.25, and a Most Ancient House by a factor of 1.5.

Existing titles and holdings can be rightfully claimed for a variety of reasons, or bestowed upon other Houses. This is one way the balance of power changes in the Wizengamot, the other is the creation or dissolution of alliances between the Houses. The dissolution of a House or Family is a separate matter, as it erases them from existence in Magical Britain.

Other explanations will be added when they are relevant to the story line.

Usual Disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale.

Minerva and Filius had fun betting on whether they could make Dumbledore pop a blood vessel when they took the advices to him that five more students, Gryffindor Third years this time, had transferred to the Noble Houses' private tutors group. They also brought the formal notification that the group was also withdrawing from the regular classes for Transfiguration, Charms, Arithmancy and Runes and going to private tutors for these subjects.

Dumbledore knew that at least one of those third years, Katherine Bell, was one of the top students of her year and was definitely the top student in her house, so he couldn't understand why McGonagall and Flitwick weren't upset about this. He was suspicious when their response was that these students were being held back by the ordinary students and they would be able to develop much better if allowed to progress at their own pace. Dumbledore was sure that he wasn't getting the full story here, and resolved to question Professor Vector and Babbling about their views on losing up to five good students from their classes.

He dismissed McGonagall and Flitwick, and then sat there looking at the information on the students in this group. With the possible exception of the Weasley twins, this group represented the majority of their best First and Third year students, but the only classes that any of them were doing as part of Hogwarts now were Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures.

And yes, Flying, that didn't mean anything, but the way that stupid Hooch witch had been singing Duke Bloody Potter's praises to all and sundry just because he'd donated enough new brooms to replace their old school brooms because the new brooms were supposedly making it much easier for her students to learn to fly was definitely getting on his nerves.

It was hard to believe how in little more than two months, Potter and his group had turned everything upside down and made a mockery of his school!

It had seemed so simple ten years ago when he got those motions passed to legally require magical children in Britain to attend Hogwarts once they'd turned eleven and make sure they had to start in First year so that he'd have time to mould the Potter brat into the tool he needed him to be. Who could have known that the Founders had written inalienable rights for the students into the damned Hogwarts Charter? When his conscience popped up to remind him that it had been his duty to read and understand the Charter when he became Hogwarts' Headmaster, he sent it packing.

Part of his problem now was that he'd gotten the votes he needed to get those motions passed with the assurance that Hogwarts was and always would be the world's premier school of magic. When the figures started coming out to show how this group was doing better than the rest of the school but they were using independent tutors because the education that Hogwarts could offer wasn't good enough, he was going to be asked some very difficult questions about why they'd been tricked into forcing the children of their houses to go to a school that was found to be lacking.

He was beginning to think that taking on Potter's so-called family might have been a mistake on his part. The boy's father had been much more malleable even after Hogwarts, as had Black back then. Lupin had potentially been a problem, but a few compulsions here and there had been enough to make Potter and Black turn on him and drive him away.

Perhaps he should have paid more attention to Lily Evans, he had discounted her as nothing more than a moderately clever Mudblood, but it appeared to have been her influence that had forged these rejects of society into such a formidable force, her and Angela Fawley.

How had he never noticed the Fawley girl? He was sure that she had been nothing but a quiet little bookworm who never spoke to anyone but Evans, so how in Merlin's name had she turned into a witch who was capable of making the Wizengamot bend to her will? Yes, she was the daughter of one of the Ancient Pureblood families, but she'd never shown any inclination towards politics until she was made the boy's guardian and started using the Potter votes to crush her opposition with the skill of a veteran of the Wizengamot, and that was before she drew the Houses of Longbottom, Bones and Black into their alliance.

Merlin, four of the most powerful Houses in the Wizengamot together and the others she had in her pocket as well. He'd never realised how much clout the House of Prince had, even the werewolf's House had enough holdings to make itself heard when it spoke…... And that traitorous bitch McGonagall, how did he not know that she was a Baroness with substantial holdings and the influence to get her clan to align with her friends? Not to forget those damned Black sisters, they were consummate players of the game in the Wizengamot and swayed many to their cause.

No, it was never meant to go this way, and Potter was definitely not supposed to be educated in how to wield his power as a Duke and Head of a Most Noble and Most Ancient House! He shuddered as he recalled how compelling the boy could be when he commanded with the full authority of his House and magic, no child should be able to do that!

Dumbledore sighed as he piled up the parchments and put them away, he would find no answers there. He was already calling in whatever favours he could to try and get people who understood these things to go through the Hogwarts Charter and rules, hoping that they could find a way around the bind that Potter's people had put him in, but for now he needed to attend to his duties before they found something else to use against him.

They had to laugh at Fred and George, because neither twin could handle not sharing a room with the other. When they made their wishes known to the family and were moved in together, Hogwarts removed the fifth new bedroom and made the fourth larger to fit the two beds in more comfortably. Hogwarts also added a balcony that was quite large enough to allow a number of people to come and go by broomstick. Their wards ensured that only members of their group could access it, or even see it, but it made life a lot easier with over half of the Gryffindor quidditch team living in their tower.

It wasn't just them who used the balcony for broomstick access though, as the original group loved to fly, and while it was taking a bit of encouragement to help Hermione and Padma past their issues, so do Luna and Daphne.

Harry just wished he could help Hermione get past the nightmares she was having about the troll. The first time she woke up screaming from a nightmare, Tally popped her straight into Harry's room and he held her while she went back to sleep, with Tally returning her to her own bed before dawn. After that night, Tally would move her or she'd go to Harry's room herself (Hogwarts had sensed her need and created a door to directly link their rooms) when it happened, but it was nearly every night. Harry didn't mind at all, because they both slept better when they were comforting each other, he just wished that she wasn't having the nightmares. The adults knew what was happening from Tally, but none of them said anything because they knew that Hermione only got the rest she needed when she was there with her protectors to keep her safe (Nuni was invariably curled up on the bed as well).

It wasn't only Hermione who had demons to slay though, Luna had been having nightmares ever since she saw her mother die a year and a half ago, and she'd had to deal with them herself up until she started at Hogwarts and could go to Hermione for comfort. She had another one the night of her birthday and turned up at the door from Hermione's room in tears. When she saw that Hermione was being comforted by Harry, she turned to leave but Hermione raced after her and brought her back. Luna felt much better after spending the night between them, and at their insistence she came to Hermione or Harry, or more often the both of them, from then on whenever she had a nightmare, or needed comforting for any reason.

Growing up in the country with the Weasleys as their only magical neighbours, Luna had never had many friends, so her eleventh birthday party was the biggest one she'd ever had. The group had now grown to thirteen, and all their other friends from the regular houses came as well, so the common room in the tower was fairly crowded.

On top of that, while the Lovegoods were better off than the Weasleys, they weren't exactly rich, so she'd never received a present like the Nimbus 2000 she got from Harry before. She understood that the money was nothing to him, but as always it was the thought that counts and him getting her a broom like that because she loved to fly had her in tears (and got him the biggest kiss he'd ever had).

About two weeks after Luna's birthday, Angela and Sirius were called to bring Harry to Gringotts. Finding Amelia and Sir Nigel Forsyth, Steward of the House of Flamel in the Head Goblin's office was a surprise, but not as much as being told that Nicolas Flamel was dead. Seeing the confusion on their faces, Gringott waved to Amelia to explain.

"After the battle at his Manor, I had a discussion with Baron Flamel about the fact that, as someone had put out word that he had the Philosopher's Stone there, more people were bound to be coming after it. The Baron decided that the risk of a monster like Voldemort getting their hands on it and using it to keep themselves alive was unconscionable, so he destroyed it."

Harry stared at her. "But he needed the Stone to create the elixir of life, he can't live without it!"

Amelia shook her head. "No, he can't, that was why Baron Flamel died yesterday."

Harry was aghast, and waited for her to say that it wasn't what he thought she meant, but she didn't.

Seeing the guilt on Harry's face, Sir Nigel reached over to squeeze his shoulder. "It wasn't your fault lad, it was that old bastard who set up Baron Flamel as a target. The Baron was getting tired of this life anyway, he's been missing his wife Perenelle for over two centuries now so it was an easy decision for him to make to destroy the stone and prevent it being used by the wrong sort. Especially after he had found a worthy successor who he could trust to leave what he had to."

Harry looked from him to Gringott suspiciously and the goblin nodded. "Yes Harry, Baron Flamel made a new will that night and left everything to you, including his name. You were made the heir to his titles and holdings both here and on the Continent, so you will be Baron Flamel in Britain and Comte De Flamel in France, and Head of the Noble and Ancient House of Flamel on both sides of the channel….. The Potter fortune is one of the biggest in Britain, but the Flamel fortune will at least treble it, and I expect it could well prove to be even more than that."

"So I've inherited titles and houses on both sides of the channel and a huge fortune, what am I?…." Harry stopped and turned to the Steward. "Would you be prepared to stay on as Steward of the House of Flamel Sir Nigel? I won't hold you there if you want to go, but you know the Flamel estates like no-one else could, so if you didn't wish to move on, I would appreciate it if you stayed on in your role and managed the holdings of the House of Flamel for me as you did for Baron Flamel. The only possible change that I can think of is that the Potter Regent or Steward will hold any voting proxies and will be casting the Flamel votes."

He was relieved when Sir Nigel responded that he would be honoured to assume the role and responsibilities of the Steward of the Noble and Ancient House of Flamel under Duke Potter. As soon as Harry's claim to the Flamel titles and Houses had been accepted, they exchanged the requisite oaths and felt the acceptance of the magical contract between them. Harry also made Angela Regent for the Houses of Flamel then and there. When the Flamel Steward told him that Albus Dumbledore actually held the voting proxies for the Houses of Flamel, Harry promptly cancelled them and transferred them to Angela and Andromeda.

When they were going through the status of the holdings and treasures of the House of Flamel, Harry was getting more and more angry, because Dumbledore had many priceless heirlooms of the House of Flamel in his possession and was making use of the Flamel properties to live a life of luxury, He demanded that Dumbledore be immediately blocked from all Flamel properties and that everything belonging to the House of Flamel be retrieved as a matter of priority.

How to recover the Flamel treasures without a confrontation was an issue, until Angela grinned and suggested that they use the same trick to pull the wool over Dumbledore's eyes and get him out of the way as they had last time, calling a special meeting of the Hogwarts Board to investigate budget irregularities.

This time, however, they'd be there in force, as the Houses of Potter, Black, Longbottom, Bones and McGonagall all had the right to claim seats on the Board, and this time they would be claiming them as they weren't needed elsewhere to ensure that a more important trial went as it should. There were a dozen seats on the Board that were allocated by right of rank, so their two Most Ancient and three Ancient Houses were enough to push five Noble Houses off the Board. It was satisfying to see that four of Dumbledore's supporters and Lucius Malfoy were the ones who were pushed off.

With them knocking out most of Dumbledore's support and controlling almost half of the votes on the Board (it used the same weighting factors as the Wizengamot, so their five seats controlled six and three quarter votes), Dumbledore couldn't run roughshod over the meeting like he had last time, and he was on the ropes, as the Muggles say, soon after the meeting started.

Dumbledore was dejected when he left the Board meeting, because none of his usual tricks had worked. While he had always been able to sway the Board and convince them that their concerns were baseless before, now he was being called to account for everything spent from the schools coffers in the past decade… Augusta Longbottom had been calling for the past fifty years since he became Headmaster but Lord Macmillan had convinced the rest of the Board that they couldn't expect the proper records to be kept past ten years thank Merlin… That was enough to deal with, he knew that there was no way to justify much of what he had taken and spent, so he would have to find some way to repay much of it. If that wasn't enough, the Board had assigned Duchess Black and McGonagall to oversee his activities as Headmaster! That was an obvious statement of their lack of trust in him!

When he reached his office, he froze, stunned, because it had been stripped of most of its treasures and more than a few of the portraits. He rushed through to his chambers to find the same thing had happened there. How could anyone access his office and chambers to steal these things?

When he returned to his office, Dumbledore spied a parchment sitting on the desk. He picked it up to read it, but collapsed into his chair as he did so. The document was a notification from Gringotts that the beneficiary of the estate of Nicolas Flamel had required them to recover all items belonging to the House of Flamel. The document itemised all items recovered, including his pensieve, which had been one of two that existed in Britain, and was considerably better than the one that the Ministry of Magic had.

Dumbledore's blood ran cold when he read the advice that the memories collected with the pensieve would be reviewed, and any which appeared to belong to him would be returned, as many of those memories could potentially send him to Azkaban.

After the list of items recovered for the House of Flamel, there was a further advice that they had also recovered items belonging to the Houses of Potter, Black, Longbottom, Bones, McGonagall, Fawley, Prince and Lupin as well as Filius Flitwick, Nymphadora Tonks and the Goblin Nation. These items were itemised underneath their names, and Dumbledore broke into a sweat as he read them as he knew that many of these items had effectively been stolen from their rightful owners and he had either removed the memory of their existence or compelled their owners to accept his lies about what happened to them.

The item that worried him the most though was the Sword of Gryffindor. It had been discovered in a Noble House vault nearly two centuries ago and the House gifted it to Hogwarts as a Founder's treasure. The goblins had been demanding the return of the sword, which as the magical brother of Excalibur was a goblin treasure that was supposed to have been returned to them upon Gryffindor's death, for over nine centuries. In his tenure as Headmaster at Hogwarts, Dumbledore had replied to hundreds of these demands with the assurance that he had no idea what had happened to it. Now the goblins had proof that he had been telling them that he had no idea where it was when the sword had been right there in his office. Earning the ire of the Goblin Nation when he had a large squad of goblin warriors currently residing inside of Hogwarts could not bode well for him at all!

His fear of the goblins was not quite enough to overshadow his outrage that not only had the irreplaceable treasures that had been taken from him been in his possession for long enough for him to come to consider them his, but he was hereby barred from any of the Flamel properties around the world that he'd been using for nearly a century and someone had stolen the Flamel titles, power and fortune that were rightfully his!

At dinner in the Great Hall that night, he glared at McGonagall, vowing to make her pay for her part in this, but the infuriating woman just smirked at him as if challenging him to. 'Do your worst!'

Glaring at Potter or Black gave him no better satisfaction, but he went pale when he met the eye of the head of the goblin guard, because his gaze was a palpable threat of retribution for the sword.

They were laughing about Dumbledore's reaction as they headed back up to their tower, but Harry suddenly stopped, as he was hearing a cold, inhuman voice. "….. rip….. tear….. kill….."

When he looked at Remus and asked if he could hear it, Remus concentrated but shook his head, he could hear something, but nothing like a voice.

Harry heard it again "... soo hungry... for soo long….." He looked at Remus but he shook his head again.

"….. kill….. time to kill….." The voice was fading and it sounded as though it was moving downwards somehow, so Harry snapped. "Come on!" and ran for the stairs.

Back on the ground floor, Harry heard another snatch of speech. "….. blood…... I smell blood!" coming from below them and took off again.

In the upper level of the Dungeons, he was turning around, trying to hear that voice again when Hermione asked. "What's that?"

When he turned to look where she was pointing, he could see something shiny on the wall down the corridor. They headed that way cautiously, nervously watching for anything lurking in the darkness. Foot-high words had been painted on the wall between two torches in what looked like blood, glimmering in the light of the torches. 'THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR BEWARE.'

Susan pointed to the side, asking. "What is that…. underneath that torch?" in an unsteady voice.

As they were moving closer to get a better look, Harry jumped when he stepped in the large puddle of water on the floor. Remus grabbed his arm to steady him and they went closer to the message, their eyes fixed on a dark shadow beneath it. They realised what it was at the same time, it was Mrs Norris, the caretaker's cat, hanging from the torch bracket. She was stiff as a board, and her eyes were wide and staring.

They stood there, staring at her for a moment, then Remus said. "We need to get out of here before anyone else turns up!"

It took them a moment to get his point then they nodded, popping back to the tower.

When the others were safely inside, Remus and Severus went back down to get what information they could.

They didn't really find out anything they didn't already know, as Dumbledore was just fuddling about and Filtch was ranting and demanding retribution for his cat. They confirmed that the cat had been petrified, and that Dumbledore had no idea of what to do about it. The only thing of note was that Remus's werewolf eyes spied a long line of spiders leaving the castle through a crack in the wall near the painted warning.

They congregated in the common room to try and work this out. Harry started with the obvious question. "What was that writing on the wall about? The Chamber Has Been Opened… What was that supposed to mean?"

"You know, that rings a bell…." Remus answered. "I think someone told me a story about a secret chamber at Hogwarts once….."

Angela shook her head at Remus, exasperated. "You really can't remember where you heard the story about the Chamber Remi? I'm beginning to think that you must have hit your head a few too many times on those pranks that Sirius was so damned fond of! Binns told us in class! Someone from Slytherin asked him... Let's see if I can remember it what he said... OK yes, this is what he told us….." She started recounting Binn's words.

"You all know, of course, that Hogwarts was founded over a thousand years ago, though we are the uncertain of the precise date, by four of the greatest witches and wizards of the age. They were Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin, and the four school Houses of Hogwarts have been named after them. They built this castle here, as far as possible from prying Muggle eyes, because it was an age when magic was feared by most people and witches and wizards suffered terribly from their persecution."

"For the first few years, the Founders worked in harmony together, seeking out youngsters who were showing signs of magic and bringing them to the castle to be educated. But then something happened and disagreements started between them. A rift grew between Slytherin and the others because Slytherin wanted to be more selective about the students who were admitted to Hogwarts. He believed that magical learning should be restricted to magical families only. He wanted to ban taking in students of Muggle parentage, believing them to be untrustworthy. After a while this developed into a serious argument on the subject between Slytherin and Gryffindor, and Slytherin left the school as a result of it."

"Reliable historical sources have reported the facts on this, but they have been subverted by the fanciful legend of the Chamber of Secrets. That story says that Slytherin had a hidden chamber built somewhere near or under the castle, of which the other founders knew nothing."

"According to this legend, Slytherin sealed this Chamber of Secrets to ensure that no-one would be able to open it until his own true heir returned to the school. As the story went, his heir alone would be able to unseal the Chamber of Secrets, and hence unleash the horror within to use it to purge the school of all who were in his opinion unworthy to study magic."

"The whole story was nothing but arrant nonsense of course, because the school has been searched for evidence of such a chamber many times over the centuries by many powerful and talented witches and wizards. None of them have ever found a shred of evidence that such a thing existed. It was nothing but a tale told to frighten gullible children."

"Binns was asked about what the 'horror within the chamber' meant and his response was. 'The horror was said to be some sort of monster, which only the Heir of Slytherin would be able to control.' After that he went back to insisting that the monster didn't exist and he got worked up to the point where he screamed. 'There is no Chamber and no monster!' Of course someone had to come back with. 'Well if the Chamber can only be opened by the true heir of Slytherin, no one else would be able to find it, would they?' And that was the last we got out of him because he just went back to ranting and raving."

As they were mulling that over, Harry had something else on his mind. After looking speculatively at Remus for a while, he turned to Angela, Sirius and Severus. "All jokes aside, when have you known Uncle Remus to forget a whole story like that?" They looked at each other in shock, and it didn't take them long to come back with "Never!"

Remus had no qualms about agreeing to be checked for memory tampering.

Angela and Severus both checked Remus and Sirius, then checked each other. And by the time they were finished they were all furious. Remus, Sirius and Severus all showed evidence of numerous compulsions and serious memory tampering that apparently started from around the time they first went to Hogwarts, and only stopped around the time that James and Lily were killed. Angela had apparently been spared the tampering, most probably because she had been considered beneath the notice of the wizard doing this.

Angela was certain that the magical signature on the tampering on all three of them was the same, and Severus confirmed that the signature on the other two at least was the same. No-one argued about who that must have been, because only one person could have had access to all three of them for that whole period, Albus Bloody Dumbledore!

Considering the fact that three out of the four of them had been tampered with, they called Minerva, Filius, Pomona and Poppy in to check them. Sure enough, they all had compulsions and memory tampering going back to when they first went to Hogwarts, and while the tampering had reduced in number and severity since they had withdrawn from Dumbledore's sphere of influence, they had instances going up to quite recently.

The intent behind the tampering was obvious, to push them all to behave as Dumbledore wanted them to. It was most obvious in Sirius, Remus and Severus, as they had all been interfered with to push Severus away from Lily after James' interest in Lily became apparent, and later Sirius had been compelled to distrust Remus and Remus was compelled to resent Sirius and James and leave rather than attempt to resolve their issues. It was only their love for James, Lily and Harry that had allowed them to finally overcome these compulsions.

With all of them showing this, they got worried for the children and tested the children. Harry, Neville, Susan, Draco, Hermione and Luna were clear as Dumbledore had never been allowed anywhere near them, but Daphne and Padma were showing some tampering, and the five Third years rather more. Dora showed evidence of tampering over the time she was at Hogwarts, but it didn't seem to be anything more specific than loyalty to Dumbledore.

Angela and Severus had the skills needed to release most of the compulsions and memory charms that they discovered, but some were so deep seated and layered that they weren't comfortable trying to interfere with them, so they decided that they should be left for a qualified mind healer.

Finding so much evidence of interference made them worry about who else had been interfered with, so they brought in the Arithmancy, Runes, Astronomy and Muggle Studies professors and Madam Hooch, all of whom were found to have been tampered with to some degree, but Angela and Severus managed to clear the charms from them. They did what they could to protect them from further interference, but the best protection would be to try and avoid being alone with Dumbledore.

They all agreed with Minerva that, in view of what had been done to everyone else, there was little chance that Hagrid hadn't been interfered with, but they were also fairly sure that he'd be needing a qualified mind healer to deal with what had been done to him, so they put him off until they were confident that they had a plan that would work. They didn't know whether Slughorn, Kettleburn and Filch were interfered with, and had to admit that they weren't overly bothered about them, as they weren't the most endearing characters.

They did worry about the rest of the family though, and Andie, Ted, Cissa, Augusta, Frank and Alice and Amelia all showed tampering to varying degrees when they were tested, though only Amelia, Frank and Alice needed mind healers to remove the compulsions and memory charms from them. They also brought in Arthur and Percy Weasley, and Percy was horrified that while Angela was able to deal with his tampering easily enough, his father had been interfered with to the extent that he would need a qualified mind healer to deal with the tampering. Percy was changing more and more as his eyes were being opened to what was going on around him.

Arthur didn't argue against the stance of the family that they were not prepared to risk exposing what they were doing by including Ronald, especially after Angela reminded him that she hadn't discovered any significant evidence of tampering when he got her to cover up the fact that Ron had admitted what he was doing on his mother and Dumbledore's orders to Arthur and Percy, and Percy pointed out that his behaviour was most likely natural, as he had been like this since he was a baby.

Plans were made for all of them to go to Potter Manor for the Christmas break to get the more serious charms dealt with by the mind healers, and they were putting together the plan to get Hagrid there as well to deal with what had been done to him. The plan was fairly simple, though it unfortunately involved using more compulsions and memory charms on him. The idea was to plant a compulsion and memories to show that Hagrid had suddenly been called to go and help his great aunt on his father's side by looking after her creatures for her while she was laid up with dragon pox. They were fairly confident that once he got there, with all the exotic creatures at Potter Manor he'd be delighted to stay, and hopefully they could get whatever had been done to him corrected.

While this was all going on, there was another incident at Hogwarts, and it was a student this time, Colin Creevy, a Muggleborn Gryffindor First year. Colin was an avid fanboy of the boy-who-lived, and was always trying to take pictures of Harry, two things that irritated Harry, but he'd never wanted anything like this to happen to him. He'd been found petrified like Mrs Norris, and he had apparently been trying to take a picture, because he was holding his camera up to his eye.

Minerva's expression as she was telling the story said that she had come close to hexing Dumbledore because when he'd wrenched the camera out of his hands, he hadn't cared at all that he'd almost broken the boy's fingers off. She said a small cloud of gas and the smell of burnt plastic had been released when he opened the back of the camera, and then he'd just thrown the camera on the floor and wandered off, muttering about the Chamber of Secrets being opened again. He'd apparently been most confused about how the Chamber had been opened, so something special must have been required to open it. That, and the fact that that it had been opened again were obviously the key elements of that news.

Another thing that Minerva and Poppy were angry about was that Dumbledore obviously had no intention of making any effort to get the potion that the healers at St Mungo's had told them was needed to reverse the effects of this petrification produced until the mandrakes in Hogwarts' greenhouses matured next spring, or summer, depending on how they grew. Apparently he had shrugged and said that they did not have access to the resources needed to do anything before that for a Muggleborn.

Harry popped straight off to Gringotts to see about getting the mandrakes they needed sourced from somewhere overseas where they were currently growing. While he was talking to him, he asked Gringott whether they'd found any reference in the goblins' records about creating a secret chamber for Slytherin somewhere around Hogwarts yet, and also filled him in on the latest information they had about the fact that the chamber had obviously been opened before, and the clues they had so far for what the monster might be. They were trying to work it out at Hogwarts, but Gringott had far more resources available to him via the Goblin Nation than they did.

When they were discussing the new clues about Slytherin's monster that night in the tower, Luna left everyone speechless with an apparently totally off the wall sad comment. "We might have to put this one back and get ourselves one who's a bit brighter Hermione." Hermione's face quickly cycled through confusion, to blushing with embarrassment, to flushing with anger before clearing a look of realisation and her laughing response of. "No, I'd rather keep him Luna, he's not that bad." confused the others almost as much as Luna's statement. When Luna responded with "I'd like to keep him too, but…. How could he miss this?" The others started realising that these two brilliant young witches knew something that they didn't, and the girls at least started smiling as they'd caught on to part of what they were talking about.

They were acutely aware that Hermione totally deserved the title of 'The smartest witch of her generation' that was already spreading rapidly, and that Luna surpassed her sometimes with her flashes of brilliance. That was why they didn't mind that they were in the dark as to whatever realisation that the girls had obviously made, but they were kicking themselves that they hadn't caught onto the other part of what they were talking about, as it was now so obvious. George got an approving look and a kiss on the cheek from Katie when he showed himself to be the first of the weaker sex who'd caught onto that when he snorted with laughter.

Most of the boys were still ignorant of the more apparent part when Hermione's comment of. "Really, Harry! What rare talent do you have that hasn't been seen before outside of the line of Syltherin?" Pointed them towards the realisation that Luna had made.

The subject of their comments face-palmed himself where he was sitting between the two girls as he saw how obvious it was, now that they'd pointed it out. The fact that only he could hear the voice, the legend that said that only the true heir of Slytherin could open the Chamber and release the monster, the way it was moving around the castle without being seen, it had to be a serpent of some kind!

Hermione laughed fondly at him. "See Luna, he was capable of working it out, with a little help."

Daphne arched an eyebrow at them and asked with a smile. "Would you three care to share with the rest of the class?"

Harry shook his head as he laughed at himself. "What these two brilliant witches are pointing out is that the answer has been right in front of us all the time. I heard the voice because I have the same talent as the line of Slytherin, I'm a parselmouth!" The others groaned as he hugged the girls and they both kissed him on the cheek, because he was right, now that they'd pointed it out, it was so obvious!

With that, they jumped into trying to work out what type of serpent could match the clues that they had about it so far, but the girls kept looking at the three on the couch with bright eyed smiles, they were so cute!

It was when Susie contacted her Aunt to tell her that they were getting closer to work out what was doing the attacks at Hogwarts that the shit hit the fan. They'd mentioned the initial incident, how Harry hearing a voice had led them to the warning painted on the wall and Mrs Norris, but they'd presumed that Dumbledore had learned his lesson and had been keeping the DMLE in the loop on the matter in accordance with his duties as the Headmaster, as it would have been utterly stupid not to, they presumed wrong.

Dumbledore murmured the command to stop the irate Director of the DMLE from coming through when she told him that he better have all the information about these attacks ready when she got there. However, as Hogwarts had control of all the wards, including the floo, he was dismayed to see Amelia come storming through anyway.

Minerva and Angela came in after nearly fifteen minutes of Dumbledore trying to evade the Amelia's questions and Amelia fighting not to hex the old fool. Dumbledore was outraged when Minerva handed Amelia a bundle of parchment that included everything that the family had put together on the attacks and the previous time the Chamber of Secrets had been opened (including the fact that a girl had been killed in one of the school's toilets and one Rubeus Hadgrid had been expelled for opening the Chamber of Secrets), shouting that she had no right to release school records to outside parties.

That finally pushed Amelia over the edge. "Shut up Dumbledore! What Deputy Headmistress McGonagall understands, but you for some reason apparently do not, is that the second anyone has been attacked the way the student who's currently petrified in the infirmary was, it becomes the responsibility of the DMLE to step in to investigate the matter and do what they can to resolve the matter without anyone else being attacked. Professor McGonagall looked into the matter you mentioned about the Chamber of Secrets being opened previously, to find that a student had actually been killed that time, and another student had been expelled for being responsible. Imagine my surprise to see that the student expelled was in fact Rubeus Hagrid, and he was employed here as an apprentice gameskeeper after Headmaster Dippert was dismissed for mishandling the matter to the extent that a student died, and you somehow managed to immediately take over as Headmaster."

She fixed Dumbledore with a look for almost a minute before snapping. "Get Hagrid up here immediately! We need more information about this!"

"Now Amelia, I don't think…."

She cut him off. "That's right Headmaster, you don't think, and you better remember to address me as Madam Bones or Director Bones from now on or else! Now I just gave you a directive, get Hagrid up here now!"

When he just stood there, staring at her in shock, she gave up in disgust and turned to Minerva. "Professor McGonagall?" Minerva nodded and went to the fireplace to call for Hagrid.

When Hagrid arrived, he was looking nervously from Dumbledore to Amelia until Amelia said. "Ignore the Headmaster Mister Hagrid, you're just here to answer a few questions for me. Have a seat."

Minerva conjured a chair that was big and strong enough to hold him behind Hagrid and he sat down with a nod and a muttered. "Thank ye." before Amelia started talking.

"Now Mister Hagrid, you were expelled in your third year at Hogwarts in nineteen forty because you were accused of opening Salazar Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets and releasing the monster within, thereby resulting in a fellow student's death, one Myrtle Mumpton, did you?"

Dumbledore started to speak, but didn't get more than. "Now Amel….." out before Angela cast a 'Silencio!' over him. Amelia glanced at him with a frown before nodding to Angela. "Thank you, Duchess Black."

"Mister Hagrid, I apologise for the interruption, but we must know, did you, or did you not, open the Chamber of Secrets in nineteen forty, resulting in Myrtle Mumpton's death?"

"Wha'? NO! I'd ne'r do that! Don't know nuthin' 'bout no Chamber of Secrets!"

"I see, and are you a parselmouth Mister Hagrid?"

"Parselmouth? You mean snake speaker? No, wouldn' mind though, could talk to all sorts o' interestin' beasts if I could!"

"Can you explain to me why you were accused of being the one who opened the Chamber and expelled then Mister Hagrid?"

"Don' rightly know Ma'am, I got in trouble because a Aragog, an' they said he'd killed someone and expelled me for it, but Aragog swore that he hadn' hurt no one."

"Who, or what was Aragog Mister Hagrid?"

"Well, um, ya see Aragog's an acromantula an' I was raising him here."

Amelia looked a little shocked at that. "Well acromantulas are hardly suitable as pets, especially in a school, but can you tell me how an acromantula kills?"

Hagrid was obviously confused. He started to say that Aragog didn't do it again but she waved to tell him to get on with answering her question. "Well it'd generally be the venom from their fangs, but if they're big enough I dare say they could kill a body wi' their pincers?"

"So if someone was killed by one there'd be fang or pincer marks on the body?"

"Well yeah, have ta be!"

Amelia nodded. "Thank you Mister Hagrid. We have to deal with this and make sure no-one else gets hurt at Hogwarts first, but when that's done we'll see about getting that business properly cleared up for you."

Hagrid couldn't believe how this had gone, but he nodded his thanks, saying. "Yes ma'am, Thank ye Ma'am." He stopped to try and ask Dumbledore something about the roosters before lumbering out, but Amelia shook her head.

After he'd left, Amelia looked at Angela and she cancelled the silencing spell, only to have Dumbledore start shouting in outrage.

The look in Amelia's eye when she shouted, "Sit down and shut up!" at him was enough to make him do so.

"Alright Dumbledore, why was a boy accused of opening the Chamber of Secrets and causing Myrtle Mumpton's death and expelled when he obviously had nothing to do with it?"

"I had nothing to do with that, it was Headmaster Dippet!"

"Let's see about that, shall we?" She started looking for the Headmaster's portrait, nodding in thanks to Minerva when she pointed it out and getting Angela to silence Dumbledore again with a look.

"Headmaster Dippet!"

It took him a minute to react, but he did. "Yes? What?"

"I am Amelia Bones, the Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and I need to ask you about the incidents around the opening of Salazar Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets just before you were dismissed as Headmaster."

He scowled at that. "I do not with to discuss it! I lost everything over that business!"

"I'm afraid that I must insist headmaster. For a start, why was Rubeus Hagrid accused of opening the Chamber and causing the death of Myrtle Mumpton when he wasn't a parselmouth?"

"Parselmouth? What's got to do with anything?"

"Well it was Salazar Slytherin's Chamber and the legend said that it could only be opened by his true heir, so it seems fairly obvious that that would the talent required to open it. Not to mention that if the girl had been killed by Mister Hagrid's pet, she would have had fang marks on her body."

"Oh yes, that was what Dumbledore used to convince the Board to dismiss me."

"Did he raise any of this before Mister Hagrid was expelled? Did anyone?"

Dippet's portrait shook its head. "No, young Tom Riddle brought it to our attention that Hagrid had been caught with the monster, but it got away before he could finish killing it. Dumbledore and the rest of the staff just wanted to get rid of him and his dark creatures before there were any more deaths…."

"Did you see any proof that Mister Hagrid's pet was the monster?"

"Proof? What proof did we need? Tom Riddle caught him red handed with the beast. The half-breed tried to say that his pet didn't do it, but we weren't going to take the word of something like him over that of a prefect who was our top student!"

Amelia frowned. "I see. Thank you Headmaster." She looked at Angela to cancel the spell again.

"From that, Headmaster, it is apparent that you were aware that Hagrid was innocent, but you only used that information to depose your predecessor after Hagrid had been expelled."

"I took Hagrid on as the apprentice gameskeeper when I became Headmaster..."

She cut him off. "After you stood by and let them ruin his life when you had the information to present a case for him! And because of you, whoever actually opened the Chamber was left free to carry on with what they were doing!"

He started to respond but she cut him off again. "Shut up!…."

She looked at the parchments in front of her again, thinking. "Right! It's only a few days until Christmas Break. Everyone except for selected teachers and my Aurors will be leaving Hogwarts for the break! If a student's parents can't be contacted, we'll find someone to look after them over the break. Dumbledore, you will notify the parents of any students who were planning to stay that they're coming home and you damned well better get it done within the next day! You will also notify any teachers who aren't on the list to stay and help that they're leaving. We'll only have two weeks to try and find this thing and stop it so everyone will have to do their part!… wait… Dumbledore, what was Hagrid saying about roosters?"

He tried to wave the matter away. "Just a minor problem with the livestock, nothing to worry about…."

"I'll decide that! I asked you a question!"

He bristled at that, but he wasn't in the Wizengamot where he had the power so he had to give in.

"We've lost four roosters in the last month, the first two just disappeared and others were found with their necks broken."

Angela raised an eyebrow at that and made a note to tell the others. It was too bizarre to be a coincidence.

When it was agreed that the plan was in place and which teachers would be working with the Ministry to try and find this thing, Amelia went back to her office with the bundle of parchment from Minerva to organise the Aurors and unspeakables who were coming in to protect the students and try to stop Slytherin's monster.

Luckily, Hagrid had already told Dumbledore that he had to go and help his great Aunt, so he left the day after Amelia had him called to Dumbledore's office.

Once the Hogwarts Express had left, the castle was the emptiest that it had been in centuries. Dumbledore, Minerva, Filius and Professor Kettleburn were the only ones there aside from the team from the Ministry and a small number of the house elves.