Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale.
And then Harry heard it.
". . . rip . . . tear . . . kill . . ."
It was the same voice, that same cold, vicious voice he had heard in Lockhart's office.
He stumbled to a halt, clutching at the stone wall, listening as hard as he could, looking around, squinting up and down the dimly lit passageway.
"Harry, what're you?..."
"It's that voice again, shut up a minute."
". . . soo hungry . . . for so long . . ."
"Listen!" said Harry urgently, and Hermione and the others froze, watching him. ". . . kill . . . time to kill . . ."
The voice was growing fainter. Harry was sure it was moving away, moving upward. A mixture of fear and excitement gripped him as he stared at the dark ceiling; how could it be moving upward? Was it a phantom, to whom stone ceilings didn't matter?
"This way," he shouted, and he ran, up the stairs and into the entrance hall. It was no good hoping to hear anything there, the noise from the Halloween feast was pouring out of the Great Hall, so Harry tore up the marble staircase to the first floor, the others clattering behind him.
"Harry, what're we…"
"SHH!"
Harry strained his ears. Distantly, from the floor above, and growing fainter still, he heard the voice. ". . . I smell blood. . . . I smell blood!"
His stomach lurched. "It's going to kill someone!" he shouted, and ignoring their bewildered looks, he tore up the next flight of steps again, trying to listen over the noise they were making.
Harry ran right around the second floor, the others panting along behind him, not stopping until they turned a corner into the last, deserted passage.
"Harry, what was that all about?" asked Neville, wiping sweat off his face. "I couldn't hear anything. . . ."
But Hermione gave a sudden gasp, pointing down the corridor. "Look!"
Something was shining on the wall ahead. They approached slowly, squinting through the darkness. Foot-high words had been daubed on the wall between two windows, shimmering in the light cast by the flaming torches. 'THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR BEWARE.'
"What's that thing…. underneath?" said Susan, a slight quiver in her voice.
As they edged nearer, Harry almost slipped - there was a large puddle of water on the floor; Remus and Hermione grabbed him, and they inched closer to the message, eyes fixed on a dark shadow beneath it. All three of them realised what it was at once, and leapt backward with a splash.. Mrs Norris, the caretaker's cat, was hanging from the torch bracket. She was stiff as a board, her eyes wide and staring.
For a few seconds, they didn't move. Then Remus said, "Let's get out of here."
"Shouldn't we tell..." Harry began to ask.
"Trust me Harry." Remus said. "You don't want to be found here."
They nodded and slipped into the entrance for Potter Tower.
Remus went back out to see what all the noise was soon after (they'd heard Malfoy gleefully shouting "Enemies of the heir beware? You'll be next Mudbloods!" though the door) and insisted on being told what they'd discovered to allow him to safeguard Lord Potter and the heirs of the Longbottom and Bones houses, not to mention Miss Patel and Granger and the Weasley boys. He didn't get much information other than that the cat was petrified, Dumbledore didn't know how to handle it and Snape was trying to blame them, even though they vocally opposed Slytherin's ideas.
When he got back, they sent Dommy for some food, and then they settled down to talk as they ate.
Harry opened with. "Do you think I should have told them about that voice I heard?"
"No." Hermione said without hesitation. "Hearing voices that no one else can hear isn't a good sign Harry, even in the wizarding world."
Harry looked at her. "You do believe me, don't you?"
"'Course I do," she said quickly. "But you must admit it's weird ...…
"I know it's weird," said Harry. "The whole thing's weird. What was that writing on the wall about? The Chamber Has Been Opened… What's that supposed to mean?"
"You know, that rings a sort of bell," said Remus slowly. "I think someone told me a story about a secret chamber at Hogwarts once . . . ."
That reminded Harry that he hadn't had a chance to ask Remus about this yet. "Did you hear the voice this time?"
Remus shook his head. "No, just that faint hissing and scraping sound again. I didn't smell anything this time but I think my nose was still recovering from the food at the deathday party."
Angela looked at Remus, amused. "You really can't remember who told the story about the Chamber Remus? You three obviously spent way too much time drinking, playing pranks and chasing girls! It was Binns in class! One of the snakes asked him... Let me see ... the Chamber of Secrets ... OK, this is what he told us."
"You all know, of course, that Hogwarts was founded over a thousand years ago - the precise date is uncertain - by the four greatest witches and wizards of the age. The four school Houses are named after them: Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin. They built this castle together, far from prying Muggle eyes, for it was an age when magic was feared by common people, and witches and wizards suffered much persecution."
"For a few years, the founders worked in harmony together, seeking out youngsters who showed signs of magic and bringing them to the castle to be educated. But then disagreements sprang up between them. A rift began to grow between Slytherin and the others. Slytherin wanted to be more selective about the students admitted to Hogwarts. He believed that magical learning should be restricted to all-magic families. He didn't approve of taking students of Muggle parentage, believing them to be untrustworthy. After a while, there was a serious argument on the subject between Slytherin and Gryffindor, and Slytherin left the school."
"Reliable historical sources tell us this much, but these honest facts have been obscured by the fanciful legend of the Chamber of Secrets. The story goes that Slytherin had built a hidden chamber in the castle, of which the other founders knew nothing."
"Slytherin, according to the legend, sealed the Chamber of Secrets so that none would be able to open it until his own true heir arrived at the school. The heir alone would be able to unseal the Chamber of Secrets, unleash the horror within, and use it to purge the school of all who were unworthy to study magic."
"The whole thing is arrant nonsense, of course, naturally, the school has been searched for evidence of such a chamber, many times, by the most learned witches and wizards. It simply does not exist. It was just a tale told to frighten the gullible."
"He was asked about what the 'horror within the chamber' meant and his response was. That is believed to be some sort of monster, which the Heir of Slytherin alone can control."
"After that he insisted that the monster didn't exist and was getting worked up when he screamed. "There is no Chamber and no monster." Of course someone came back with."
"If the Chamber can only be opened by Slytherin's true heir, no one else would be able to find it, would they?"
"And that was the last we got out of him because he just started ranting."
Harry was looking at Remus with a worried expression, but it was Angela that he spoke to. "Angela, all jokes aside, how often have you known Remus to forget anything?"
Angela froze then. Turning to Harry she almost whispered. "Never!"
He nodded grimly. "Remus, are you willing to let Angela probe you?"
Remus hesitated, which worried and confused them until he spoke softly to her. "Angela, there are images that you may find in there that have you in them, I apologise if you find anything that might offend you but I won't say that I regret thinking them."
She looked him in the eye, kissed him and asked. "Ready?"
When he nodded she dove in, but when she came out Harry and the other students expanded their vocabulary. Once she'd calmed down she explained.
"There is considerable memory tampering in there, but nothing since before Lily and James were killed. What's more, I'd be willing to swear an oath to the fact that Remus, Arthur, Professor McGonagall and Hagrid have all had their memories tampered with by the same wizard."
When the others looked at her questioningly at that, she went on. "The magic of a given witch or wizard has a signature. The first time you see a witch or wizard's magic, there is no way to identify it. The second, things start to become familiar, and from the third time the signs become ever clearer if you know what you're looking for, which I do. I'll bet whatever I have in my vault at Gringotts that the memory tampering that's been done to all four has been done by the same wizard."
Remus looked at her. "Wizard?"
"Remus, you know as well as I do that there is only one person who is connected to the four of you and has that level of skill, are you still questioning that he'd do this?"
He shook his head sadly. "No, I accept the fact but wish that it wasn't so."
He squared his shoulders and asked Harry and the other students to stay in Potter Tower while he and Angela went to examine the area where they found the writing and Mrs Norris. When Harry asked why only he and Angela were going, he pointed out that the students didn't need any more trouble from Dumbledore and Snape, but those two couldn't do anything to him or Angela. Harry nodded at that and Remus and Angela headed out with a couple of the goblin guards.
Just after they left, Tally popped in and went to George, frantic. "Mister George, Miss Ginny's friend Miss Luna is hiding in one of the side corridors, she is crying."
George looked at Fred and stood up. "Can you take me to her please Tally?"
She said "Yes Mister George." as she reached for his hand and then they were gone.
Five minutes later, they were back, with a tearful Luna Lovegood in hand. When Luna had told her story and the girls had taken her off for a bath and some clean clothes (she had had no socks or underwear and only left shoes for a week and a half, and had become afraid to leave her clothes out of the shower when she was washing herself because she'd had to try and find something to cover herself so that she didn't have to run naked back to her dorm room more than once), Fred, George and Padma were about to go on a rampage. Fred and George because she was like a little sister to them and Padma because she was sure that she knew who the bitches who'd done this to Luna were.
Remus and Angela came back to their raging and had a hard time calming them down enough to get the story out of them. When they did, Angela made them all sit down and shut up while she questioned Padma about the girls who she believed had done this. She wasn't surprised to hear that they were all from powerful pureblood families. When she pointed out that going after those girls would just make things harder for Luna, Harry interrupted and asked Dommy to go and fetch Luna's father. He told him to tell her father that she was OK but something had happened.
The others looked at him, waiting for him to explain and he shrugged. "If she goes back to Ravenclaw Tower this will either continue as it has or get worse. I'm going to ask her father to sign the agreement for Luna to change to the Potter Tutors and move her in here with the rest of us. I expect that Hogwarts will create a room for her when he signs, if not we'll make one available for her."
Most of them had tears in their eyes at that and Hermione rushed over to hug him. Angela kissed him on the cheek with a smile, as it was never more obvious that he was her best friend's son than when he did things like this, Lily would have been so proud of him. She thought back to the day that she was approached to leave her career as a rising star in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and take on the role of helping teach and protect Lily's child, it had taken her less than a minute to accept.
She stopped to think then, and realised that he could do more to protect Luna if she and her father were willing, and as she looked around the room, thought that that could apply to most of the others here as well. When Hermione went to see how Luna was doing, Angela knelt beside Harry and whispered in his ear for five minutes, she was not at all surprised that he immediately agreed to what she proposed.
When Xenophilius Lovegood arrived, the girls went to get Luna dressed while Angela filled her father in on what had been happening to his daughter and Harry made his offer to get Luna out of the situation she was in. The fact that Harry wouldn't allow Xenophilius to sign the agreement until Luna agreed as well brought another tear to Angela's eye.
When Luna came out, she spent ten minutes crying in her father's arms, but she agreed without hesitating when she was asked whether she wanted to join the Potter group and move into the tower. As Harry thought, as soon as Xenophilius signed the agreement, Hogwarts magically created a room for Luna.
With that done, Angela spoke up. "Xenophilius Lovegood, Luna Lovegood, are you prepared to swear homage to Lord Potter and give him your oath of fealty?"
Xenophilius just looked confused but it was obvious that Luna worked out what was going on, clever little witch that she was. "Say Yes father, this will make us a vassal of one of the most powerful of the Noble and Most Ancient Houses, it will give us the protection of House Potter. Otherwise we're at the mercy of any house that chooses to attack us, and most of those girls were part of houses that are far more powerful than the Lovegood family. Please say yes."
His expression cleared at that and he kissed her on the forehead, nodding his thanks to Harry as he went down on his knee to swear homage and the formal oath of Fealty. When Harry made the formal response, they both felt it when Xenophilius and the Lovegood family was magically bonded to House Potter as vassals. The protection over the Lovegood family of course included Luna, but Angela had also pointed out the specific protections that Luna would accrue from an individually swearing homage and fealty to Harry, and he wanted her to have them, so Luna then did so and he gave the requisite response. Once again, they both felt it when the magical bond was made.
With that, Angela spoke up again, talking to the others in the room. "Swearing homage and the oath of fealty can be rescinded with agreement from both parties and most of you would do well to consider becoming vassals to House Potter as well." That got their attention and she went on. "Neville, as the heir of the Noble and Ancient House of Longbottom, it would not be appropriate for you to swear homage and fealty to House Potter, nor would it be for you as the heir of the Noble and Ancient House of Bones, Susan. Padma, your family may be powerful, but not in Britain, so becoming a vassal to House Potter will protect you much more here. Hermione, as a muggleborn, you have very few rights in magical Britain, I would strongly advise you to consider doing so to gain House Potter's protection, I believe that you should also talk to your parents about doing the same."
"Fred, George, Weasley is an old but not powerful family, I would advise you to strongly consider swearing homage and fealty to House Potter, I plan on suggesting the same to your father and Bill. Remus, your family is not powerful and your status as a werewolf puts you in danger with the current Ministry, I strongly advise that you pledge to Harry. In case you are wondering about me, my house is not as powerful as House Potter so I fully intend to pledge to Harry."
She looked at Rackclaw and the other goblin guards. "I am unsure of the whether swearing homage and fealty to House Potter would clash with your goblin oaths, but if not, it could well be a benefit to you in Magical Britain to have the protection of House Potter as well due to the goblins' status with the current Ministry." Rackclaw nodded to indicate that he would discuss the matter with his superiors.
Silence descended on the room until Harry spoke. "While the others are thinking Angela, perhaps we could proceed with your oath. Before that though, Tally, please go to Luna's dorm room and bring her things back to her room here."
Before Tally could pop out, Angela blurted out "Wait! Tally, can you also find the rest of Miss Luna's things and bring them back please, but we will want a list of exactly where you found each item."
Tally nodded. "Yes Master Harry. Yes Miss Angela." and popped out.
When Harry looked at her with a raised eyebrow she explained. "We will be presenting that list to Professor Flitwick as evidence of why Luna has moved out of the Ravenclaw Tower when we give him the signed agreement for her to move to Potter Tower." She paused before she added musingly. "With his mixed race, Professor Flitwick could well benefit from being under the protection of House Potter as well because this will get ugly and he can't rely on Dumbledore."
Harry snorted. "House Potter seems to be getting a lot bigger all of a sudden."
Angela smiled and went down on her knee to swear homage and fealty. The others quickly followed suit, until only Padma was left (aside from Neville and Susan, of course). Padma hesitated and then said that she had to tell Harry something before she proceeded. "My father has submitted a betrothal contract for either or both of Pavati and myself to House Potter, and he has been pressuring me to do whatever it takes to ensure that I get Harry to accept that betrothal contract. That was why he agreed for me to go to the Continent for your birthday, in hope that I would get closer to you. I do not believe that you view me that way Harry, and to tell you the truth while I care for you a great deal as a friend, I don't look at you like that either. If you are OK with that, I will gladly swear homage and fealty to you."
Harry looked at her. "When you say whatever it takes, what do you mean?"
"Whatever it takes, my mother and other women in the family gave me lessons in how to make you want to, but…."
She broke down at that and they felt the magic radiating off Harry as he raged at what her family had done to her.
Angela spoke sharply to get through his rage. "Take her oath! As your vassal, that will stop her being contracted to anyone else without your approval and as the greater house, once House Potter formally accepts the betrothal contract for consideration, it cannot be withdrawn and no other contracts can be entered into until we reject it, which we won't!"
Harry took a few breaths to calm down and then reached out to gently pull Padma forward, to get her to kneel for the oath. When they felt the magical bond as it was completed, they both breathed a sigh of relief and Harry pulled her up to hug her.
While he was holding Padma, he looked at Angela. "How do we go about accepting the betrothal contract for consideration?"
"You or your regent need to go to Gringotts and look through the betrothal contracts, I can guarantee that there will be more than one there. When you find the Patil contract, there is a required process to accept it for consideration without agreeing to the betrothal."
Harry growled. "I don't have enough time to learn everything I need to know in this world, I wish I had a regent to do all of this for me….."
He stopped and looked at Angela. "Angela Fawley, will you accept the role and all responsibilities of Regent for the House of Potter?"
She snorted. "That's not the proper format Harry, good thing too, otherwise that would have been a binding offer. This isn't something you should play around with Harry, don't you know how powerful the House of Potter is?"
She might have thought he was joking but Hermione could see from the look on his face that he was deadly serious. "I'm learning, but it will be a long time before I know anywhere near as much as you. What is the proper format to formally offer you the role of Regent of House Potter then Angela?"
Angela took in his expression this time and asked "Are you sure?"
Harry nodded. "You and Remus have watched over me ever since I came into this world, I trust you in everything. It was you who pointed out why Remus's problem would cause issues for him, and you are our expert in all noble house and Wizengamot matters. I think Remus would agree that you're better suited for this?"
He looked at Remus and Remus nodded. "Definitely!"
Angela thought for a moment and then squared her shoulders, giving him the proper format to offer her the regency. Neville stopped them at that point and noted that there would be less grounds to question this if it were witnessed by the distinguished regents of two other Noble and Ancient Houses. When they agreed, Tally and Dommy were sent off to get Neville's Gran and Madam Bones and the offer was formally made and accepted in their presence. All parties signed in blood and with that Angela became the Regent of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter.
While they were there Neville and Susan discussed Angela's advice to them, they thanked her for giving their wards such appropriate advice and not taking advantage of their ignorance. Then Amelia pulled Augusta aside for a quiet discussion, when Augusta nodded, Amelia turned to Harry, Neville and Susan. "While the Potter Regent was correct in saying that it would not have been appropriate for the heirs of the houses of Longbottom and Bones to make these pledges to House Potter, the Longbottom Regent and I believe that it would be beneficial to all three houses if the houses of Potter, Longbottom and Bones were formally aligned. How say you all?"
When Harry looked at Angela, she could see that the heirs all agreed so she said. "The form required is that you bow and say 'House Potter pledges to align itself to House Longbottom and House Bones' and then Neville and Susan do the same for their houses."
When all three of them had made the pledge, they and their regents felt the magical acceptance of the alignment, and with that they became a powerful alliance in the Wizengamot. By then, Tally had returned with all of Luna's things and the list of where she found them and Angela sent her to ask Professor Flitwick if he'd come with her as there were serious matters to be discussed in regard to members of Ravenclaw.
When Professor Flitwick arrived, Xenophilius handed him the signed agreement for Luna to change to the Potter tutor sessions and also move into Potter Tower. Then he explained what had been happening to Luna and handed over the list of in who's possession all of her things had been found. Filius was horrified that this had been going on in his house and pledged to do something about it, but they could see that he was worried about going up against some of the families on that list, especially as he knew that he would not be able to rely on any support from Dumbledore when the girls' fathers struck out.
Angela gave him a minute to consider that and then informed him of the pledges that had been taken by House Potter that day, and of the formal alignment between the houses of Potter, Longbottom and Bones. Filius understood how much power was held by an alliance of three houses like this, but couldn't see why she was bringing this up until she asked him whether he would have an interest in becoming a vassal of House Potter. Then it all fell into place for him, and the only concern he had was whether this would be in conflict with his obligations to Hogwarts. He thought over it for five to ten minutes but in the end decided that it wasn't.
He knew Hogwarts' Headmaster would make no attempt to protect him from the irate fathers of the perpetrators of the harassment of Luna Lovegood, but House Potter would, and he also knew Harry Potter was not interested in using this to his advantage, in fact he'd offered to bring in examiners from the Wizarding Examinations Authority for any tests if required to ensure that there was no conflict of interest. With that he knelt and became another vassal of House Potter. As soon as he returned to his office he sent letters to parents of each of the girls and then the dragon dung really started flying.
When presented with the demands from the girls' fathers, Dumbledore ordered Professor Flitwick to drop the charges and make a public apology to every one of the girls. Of course, when Filius refused he told him he was fired and was shocked when Filius stood firm on his right to demand to take the matter to the Hogwarts board.
Dumbledore only began to realise what he was up against when he saw Angela taking her seat on the board as the Potter Regent and formally advising the board that as soon as this matter was dealt with she would be raising the matter of the unauthorised and illegal usage of the House Potter voting rights by the Headmaster. The fact that the Longbottom and Bones Regents also took their seats and advised that they would be voting with House Potter made Dumbledore sweat, because he knew that the voting rights of these three houses could just about carry the vote by themselves and he could already see the others rushing to get on their good side.
The fathers of the girls named in Luna's harassment not only failed to get Professor Flitwick fired, the vote was pushed through the board that they each had to pay the Lovegood family three thousand galleons in compensation for Luna's humiliation and the insult to her family's honour, so the Luna gained over fifty thousand galleons from that ruling, which her father was holding for her in trust. Their arguments that they didn't have the money available were quickly dropped when a further proposal to expel their daughters and use their remaining school fees to pay the fines was pushed through.
Attempts to push the blame onto Professor Flitwick for not monitoring what had happened also failed spectacularly when Angela, Amelia and Augusta pointed out that they were suggesting that a mature wizard go poking about in their daughters' bed chambers and bathrooms at any time, and asked the other fathers whether they were prepared to accept this? Those fathers turned on the ones arguing that this was what Flitwick should have been doing and made it quite clear what would happen if anything like this was ever suggested again. The heads of the noble houses who had ruled the roost here and in the Wizengamot for over ten years were starting to sweat now, because it was obvious that these three witches didn't take prisoners.
Dumbledore was the one who was really panicking though, as he'd walked in there confident of firing a professor who'd had the nerve to defy him, only to crawl out with Flitwick having the full confidence of the board and the Potter Regent now overseeing everything he did as the board's representative who was resident at Hogwarts. Hogwarts had even given her access to the Headmaster's office. He was also being required to produce supporting evidence to justify every action he'd taken and every knut spent since October 31st, 1981 as he'd been using the Potter votes to push things through ever since then. There was no way that he could produce anything to justify most of what he'd done or spent, so he was in serious trouble.
If that wasn't bad enough, when he returned to his office from the board meeting, the pensieve (one of only two in Britain and rather better than the Ministry's one) and all of the other marvellous treasures that he'd had on loan from Nicholas Flamel until they were bequeathed to him with Nicholas's estate were gone. In their place was an official notification from Gringotts to say that the beneficiary of Nicholas Flamel's estate had required that the items bequeathed to him be recovered. This hit Dumbledore on three fronts, first and most important, he was supposed to be the beneficiary of Nicholas's fabulous fortune! Second, the items that he'd had in his possession for decades were worth a king's ransom, especially that pensieve, and he regarded them as his. Third, all of the stored memories had been taken with the pensieve and the document stated that any that were not Mr Flamel's would be returned once the pensieve's rightful owner had had time to review them all. This terrified Dumbledore, as many of those memories were incredibly incriminating. Compared to the first three, his concerns about the fact that he'd been depending on the Flamel fortune to repay what he'd spent and how in Merlin's name the goblins had gotten into his office to reclaim these items were minor issues, the portraits could have answered that last but weren't inclined to tell him who took them unless asked because they didn't approve of what he was doing to Hogwarts.
Dumbledore ignored his Hogwarts duties (yet again) and immediately rushed off to Gringotts to demand the return of his treasures and to see this new will. They showed him the will, with a charm to ensure that the name of the beneficiary could not be read, and told him that it had been tested and accepted by all the relevant human and goblin authorities as valid and incontestable. The official assigned to deal with him laughed at him when he tried to use his positions as the Chief Wizard of Britain's Winzengamot and Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards to demand to know who the new beneficiary was, and when he tried to snatch the will and take it when he left, Dumbledore found himself pinned to the desk with a very wicked looking blade to his throat. He was then carried out, screaming threats the whole way and as the final indignity, he was literally thrown out the front door. This act was captured by The Quibbler's photographer, who had been waiting for that very moment.
While Dumbledore was doing this, Potter Tower was entertaining Professor McGonagall and Professor Sprout, as they were having a discussion about the possibility of becoming vassals of House Potter and thereby coming under the same protection as Professor Flitwick. Both of them had been becoming increasingly concerned about what was happening at Hogwarts ever since Dumbledore had brought Severus Snape onto the staff in 1981 and they'd watched him run run rampant through the school ever since. They had previously been afraid to oppose Dumbledore when he'd supported Snape against the rest of the staff and student body, no matter how inappropriate his actions against students or staff, because he was very powerful and they had no-one to protect them.
The Deputy Headmistress and two heads of house were now hoping that they might also be accepted as vassals of House Potter so that they could rely on a similar level of protection as Minerva had just observed Filius receiving in the board meeting when they were acting in the students' best interests. They were hoping that with the Deputy Headmistress and three heads of school houses having the backing of Houses of Potter, Longbottom and Bones and the Potter Regent having oversight of the Headmaster, they may be able to save Hogwarts.
Harry had no trouble agreeing with this, though he did advise them that the majority of his goblin guards were also vassals of House Potter before they swore homage and fealty so that they were forewarned in case they had an issue with this. Neither of them turned a hair at that and took a knee to swear homage and fealty.
They had to laugh, because in less than a week, House Potter had gone from one, Lord Potter, to nearly a hundred, and the majority of the potter vassals were goblins. Arthur Weasley had agreed with Angela and swore homage and fealty to House Potter for himself and the Weasley Family as soon as possible, and Bill and probably Charlie as well would be doing so the next time they were in Britain. They had also brought Dan and Jean to Hogwarts to swear homage and fealty, so they were now officially squibs who were under the protection of a powerful house.
There was another matter that Angela had to discuss with Arthur, because when she went through the betrothal contracts to accept Padma's for consideration, she'd found one for Ginny from the head of House Weasley. Arthur was furious about that, because he knew that Molly must have gone to his great uncle who was still head of the Weasley family back then behind his back to arrange this, but she hadn't said a word to him. Angela gave him the same explanation as she had for Padma's contract and Arthur all but begged her to do the same for Ginny's contract.
With the political matters being dealt with for now, they went back to the issue of the Chamber of Secrets. Remus and Angela said that the only thing of note that they'd found when they went back to look the site over again was the spiders, they'd seen hundreds of spiders trying to get out of the castle. They didn't know what it meant, but it was too bizarre not to be significant. They sat down to discuss what they knew, starting with what had been written on the wall THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR BEWARE.
"Who can it be, though?" Hermione asked musingly. "Who'd want to frighten all the Muggleborns out of Hogwarts?"
"Let me think." asked Harry sarcastically. "Who do we know who thinks Muggleborns are scum?"
He looked at Hermione. She looked back, unconvinced. "Malfoy?"
"You heard him when he was shouting….. 'You'll be next, Mudbloods!' He thought all his Christmases had come at once."
"But Malfoy, the Heir of Slytherin?" said Hermione sceptically.
"Look at his family," said Harry, closing his books, too. "The whole lot of them have been in Slytherin; he's always boasting about that. They could easily be Slytherin's descendants. His father's definitely evil enough."
"They could've had the key to the Chamber of Secrets for centuries." Neville added. "Handing it down, father to son ..."
"Well," said Hermione cautiously, "I suppose it's possible ..."
"But how do we prove it?" Harry asked.
"There might be a way, of course, it would be difficult. And dangerous, very dangerous. We'd be breaking about fifty school rules, I expect….."
Harry's face when he said. "Yes?" was frustrated.
"Alright, what we'd need to do is to get inside the Slytherin common room and ask Malfoy a few questions without him realising it's us."
"But that's impossible, the cloak of invisibility could get us in there but if we used that we couldn't ask questions."
"No, it's not impossible." said Hermione. "All we'd need would be some Polyjuice Potion."
"What's that?" Harry and Neville asked together.
"I read about it a few weeks ago…. It transforms you into somebody else. Think about it! We could change into some of the Slytherins. No one would know it was us. Malfoy would probably tell us anything. He's probably boasting about it in the Slytherin common room right now, if only we could hear him."
Neville looked worried. "What do we know about this Polyjuice potion? Does it need another potion to change back or what?"
"It wears off after a while," said Hermione, waving the objection away. "But getting hold of the recipe will be difficult. It's in a book called Moste Potente Potions and that's probably in the Restricted Section of the library."
Remus laughed then. "While it's a delight to see you proposing something wild and crazy for once Hermione, there's a much better way to do this."
Angela looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
When Remus said. "Sirius's second cousin!" Angela's grin matched his.
When Hermione and everyone else showed that they weren't amused, being out of the loop, Remus explained. "Sirius's cousin Andromeda Black was banished from House Black because she married a muggleborn wizard. Her daughter, Nymphadora, is a metamorphmagus, she can change into anyone, so it will be much safer to have her impersonating the Slytherins than try polyjuice potions…."
He stopped and turned to Hermione. "I admire your thinking Hermione but it is quite easy for polyjuice potions to go wrong, I remember one time someone took some hairs from the robes of the person they wanted to impersonate, but the hairs they got were actually her cat's hairs, not her's. Needless to say the young lady who took the polyjuice potion had an unpleasant experience without achieving anything, she ended up covered in hair and it took weeks for her to recover."
He went back to talking to everyone. "Tonks is currently an Auror in training….." He saw the confused looks and explained. "She positively hates her first name and she's known to get quite aggressive when anyone uses it… Anyway, I was thinking that Susan and I could go and have a talk to her dear old Auntie Ami…." Everyone burst out laughing, but Susan's laugh had an edge to it. "What were you saying about names? I can't wait until my Aunt hears 'Dear Old Auntie Ami' I'm sure she'll find it hilarious."
Angela laughed again. "Point to Susan! I think it might be better if I talked to Madam Bones about this…. Tally, could you locate Madam Bones for me and ask if she can spare me ten minutes please."
Tally nodded and with a. "Yes Miss Angela." she was gone. They had to laugh, because thirty seconds later Tally reappeared with the Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.
Angela apologised but Amelia laughed, saying that she was just glad that she was dressed when Tally popped in, otherwise she might have put on a show. She was surprised when Susan threw her arms around her neck and kissed her on the cheek with an exuberant "Dear Old Auntie Ami!" but when she saw how quickly Remus disappeared she knew that this was something to do with him.
Amelia loved the idea of having Tonks using her talent to impersonate students and gather information, and it occurred to her that she could kill two birds with one stone, because with a charm to guard her against whatever compulsion charm Lockhart was using, she might be able to get more information out of him than the rest of the investigation was yielding. She arranged for a time for Tally to pop into her office and collect Tonks, they had a spare room in their tower so she could stay there out of sight. With that organised, Amelia wanted to know about this Chamber of Secrets and Heir of Slytherin business. Angela kicked herself because she should have realised that Dumbledore wouldn't have reported it.
The two of them stormed off to Dumbledore's office and tore into him. When she discovered that as well as failing to report something as serious as this to the authorities, he hadn't done a thing to look into it, he was so shaken that he let slip that the Chamber of Secrets had actually been opened fifty years before. He was stupid enough to believe that he could trick Madam Bones into getting him the pensieve and the stored memories back and clumsily tried to use that to get her to help him. She just kept her Madam Bones face on and left him with dire threats if a single student was harmed because of his failings.
As soon as they were back in Potter Tower, Amelia turned to Harry to ask where the pensieve and memories were, because they had a lead on the previous time the Chamber was opened. Harry told her that it was in a room off the Potter family library and arranged a time for Dommy to take her to Potter Manor. Amelia's final words before Dommy took her back home was that Tonks would be bringing Angela's Senior Auror's badge with her, because she was being reinstated while this was going on at least as a special Auror reporting to the Director of the DMLE.
That night, they heard a lot of running in the halls and whispers of a student in Healer's rooms. Harry and Angela got Dommy to take them to Professor McGonagall's office and got the story. Colin Creevy had been petrified, apparently while he was trying to take a picture. They'd checked the camera, but the film was totally burnt. Dumbledore was apparently shaken and said that this confirmed that the Chamber had been opened again. Dommy checked that the corridor where Colin was petrified was empty and then took them there. There was no sign of anything there, but Harry transformed into his wolf animagus and picked up the trace of a smell like Remus had mentioned. When he changed back, Angela pointed out something near the window, once again there was a mass exodus of spiders, as Remus had said, this was too strange not to be significant somehow.
When an elf popped up beside them without warning, he was almost blasted into oblivion before Harry stopped Angela's wand.
"What are you doing here Dobby?"
"Dobby is trying to get Harry Potter to leave Hogwarts before something terrible happens, this was what Dobby tried to warn Harry Potter of before but he would not listen. Will Harry Potter listen to Dobby now and leave Hogwarts?"
"I told you Dobby, I can't leave, I have too much to do. Anyway I should be safe, they're supposedly only after muggleborns and I'm not muggleborn."
"Oh, if Harry Potter only knew!" Dobby sobbed, tears falling onto his ragged pillowcase. "If he knew what he means to us, to the lowly, the enslaved, we dregs of the magical world! Dobby remembers how it was when He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was at the height of his powers, sir! House elves were treated like vermin! Of course, Dobby is still treated like vermin, sir." he admitted, wiping his face on the pillowcase.
"But for most of us, life is better for my kind since you triumphed over He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Harry Potter survived, and the Dark Lord's power was broken, and it was a new dawn, sir, and Harry Potter gave hope for those of us who thought the Dark days would never end ... And now, at Hogwarts, terrible things are about to happen, they are happening already, and Dobby cannot let Harry Potter stay here now that history will repeat itself, now that the Chamber of Secrets is open once more."
Dobby froze in horror, then conjured the beater's bat again and cracked it over his own head, toppling. A second later, he crawled to his feet, dazed and muttering, "Bad Dobby, very bad Dobby. . ."
"So there is a Chamber of Secrets?" Harry whispered. "And did you say it's been opened before? Tell me, Dobby!"
He grabbed the elf's wrist as Dobby's hand went for the beater's bat. "But I'm not muggleborn, so why would I be in danger from the Chamber?"
"Oh, sir, don't ask, don't ask any more of poor Dobby," stammered the elf, his eyes huge in the dark. "Dark deeds are planned in this place, but Harry Potter must not be here when they happen. Go home, Harry Potter, please go home. Harry Potter must not meddle in this, sir, 'tis too dangerous…"
"Who opened it Dobby?" Harry said, holding onto Dobby's wrist to stop him from hitting himself with the bat again. "Who's opened it? Who opened it last time?"
"Dobby can't, sir, Dobby can't, Dobby mustn't tell!" squealed the elf.
"Go home, Harry Potter, go home!"
"I'm not going anywhere!" said Harry fiercely. "My best friend is Muggleborn. She'll be first in line if the Chamber really has been opened."
"Harry Potter risks his own life for his friends!" moaned Dobby in a kind of miserable awe. "So noble! So brave! But he must save himself, he must, Harry Potter must not…."
Dobby suddenly froze, his ears quivering. Harry heard it, too.
There were footsteps coming down the passageway.
"Dobby must go!" breathed the elf, terrified. There was a pop, and Harry's fist was suddenly clenched on thin air.
They quickly told Dommy to get them out of there and he popped them back to their tower.
Back in the tower, they talked over the second strange discussion with Dobby the house elf. Things were no clearer but at least he'd confirmed that the Chamber of Secrets was open again, which meant that it had been opened before.
The next morning, at breakfast in the Great Hall, Dumbledore said that two of the professors were putting on extra classes in duelling skills so that the students could protect themselves. Harry saw him look their way when he said that this course was compulsory. He should have picked up on Professor Flitwick's angry expression, but he didn't consider that when they had an ex European Duelling Champion on the staff that he wouldn't be the one running this.
Of course the story was out that Colin had been attacked and killed the night before and everyone was panicking. For some reason Ginny was crying. They couldn't work that out, because from what they'd heard, she didn't really like him much but she was crying as if she'd lost her boyfriend.
He realised his mistake about the duelling classes when the ever flamboyant Lockhart strutted onto the stage, followed by a sombre black clad Snape. Lockhart waved an arm for silence and called out. "Gather round, gather round! Can everyone see me? Can you all hear me? Excellent! Now, Professor Dumbledore has granted me permission to start this little duelling class, to train you all in case you ever need to defend yourselves as I myself have done on countless occasions - for full details, see my published works. Let me introduce my assistant, Professor Snape," said Lockhart, flashing a wide smile.
"He tells me he knows a tiny little bit about duelling himself and has sportingly agreed to help me with a short demonstration before we begin. Now, I don't want any of you youngsters to worry, you'll still have your Potions master when I'm through with him, never fear!"
Lockhart and Snape turned to face each other and bowed, well Lockhart did, swirling his cape, whereas Snape just jerked his head at Lockhart irritably. Then they raised their wands like fencing swords in front of them.
"As you see, we are holding our wands in the accepted combative position," Lockhart told the silent crowd. "On the count of three, we will cast our first spells. Neither of us will be aiming to kill, of course."
Both of them swung their wands above their heads and pointed them at their opponent. Snape cried. "Expelliarmus!" and Lockhart was blasted off his feet in a flash of scarlet light. He was thrown off the stage and smashed into the wall, ending up sprawled on the floor.
He climbed painfully to his feet but still tried to bluff it out, saying that he could have stopped that easily but he'd just played along.
As he was quite tender by then, he readily agreed to Snape's suggestion that they start pairing the students off. Harry grabbed Neville and Hermione grabbed Susan and they ran through the drills they could do in their sleep. Harry could see Snape watching them with rather more interest than he was happy with, and his concern was proved valid when Snape had a few words in Lockhart's ear and then Lockhart called for a demonstration. Snape immediately jumped in and said that the two best were Potter and Malfoy so it should be them.
After a few minutes of utterly wrong and useless instruction from Lockhart while he watched Snape whispering in Malfoy's ear, they were up on the platform and squaring off against each other. Harry wasn't surprised when Malfoy didn't wait for the count to finish, but he was surprised by the "Serpensortia!" spell he called out, as he didn't know what it was until a large black snake flew down the platform and landed heavily in front of him, obviously worked up as it raised itself up to strike.
Harry wondered how much was safe to show in front of the others, so he held off as long as the snake stayed far enough away. You could hear the sneer in Snape's voice as he drawled. "Don't worry Potter, I'll get rid of it….." It was obvious that he was in no hurry to do anything, he was probably hoping that Harry would wet himself in front of the other students.
Suddenly Lockhart cried out "I'll get it!" and flamboyantly threw a spell at the snake, but instead of destroying the snake he just blew it off the stage so that it landed in front of Justin Finch-Fletchley, angry and ready to strike. Just before it did, Harry shouted "Get away from him!" and for some reason the snake stopped and turned to look at him, giving Snape a chance to destroy it.
Whatever reaction Harry was expecting, it wasn't a furious Justin shouting "What the hell are you playing at?" at him before running out of the room. When he looked around the room, everyone was staring at him, terrified, and Snape's contemplative look creeped him out. Harry just walked out at that and the others followed him back to the tower.
In the tower, they were all quiet and eventually he shouted "What? Why are you all staring at me like that? Why did that ungrateful git shout at me after I shouted at the snake to get away from him?"
Hermione obviously didn't know what to say. "Oh, that's what you said?"
"Of course it was! You were right there, you heard me!"
"What what I and everyone else heard Harry was you talking in Parselmouth…." At his confused look she clarified. "Snake language, you hissed at the snake Harry."
"How could I have been speaking in snake without knowing I was doing it? Never mind, I expect lots of people can do that!"
"No Harry, it's an extremely rare talent, and that was why people were looking at you, that and the fact that the most famous Parselmouth was Salazar Slytherin."
Neville piped up then. "It did sort of look and sound like you were siccing the snake on Justin Harry, I expect that's why he reacted the way he did."
Harry slumped back in the seat. "Oh Merlin! They're all be going on about me being the Heir of Slytherin now!"
"I'm afraid so." Hermione went to hug him but Harry jumped up and hurried out of the tower. He knew that at the very least he'd have Tally or Dommy following him to keep an eye on him and he probably had Remus and the goblin guards being hopped along so that he wasn't alone, but he didn't want to talk to anyone at the moment.
He was actually so distracted that he turned a corner and ran straight into Hagrid. The fact that the hand in front of his face when Hagrid grabbed him to stop him falling had a dead rooster in it begged a question. "Hagrid, why are you carrying a dead rooster around?"
"Gotta talk to Professor Dumbledore about it, it's the second one that's bin killed since this year started and I've gotta get permission to put charms around the chicken coop."
He peered more closely at Harry. "Are ya sure you're all roit Harry? Ya look right bothered, ya do..."
Harry wasn't up to discussing what had happened so he shook it off. "Yeah, I'm OK….. Well good luck Hagrid, I better get going to grab my books and get to class."
He only got a few more turns before he ran into someone else, but this time they were on the floor, petrified, and he tripped over them. The strangest thing was that Sir Nicholas was floating about with no control with a shocked look on his face as well. Harry knew that he couldn't be found here alone with the boy everyone thought he'd sicced the snake on, so he called for Dommy and told him to get him to the tower now.