Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. It belongs to J.K. Rowling. I make no money from this endeavor.
A/N: I think I'll be playing Fallout: New Vegas, though it will not likely eat as much constant time as AC: Revelations and XCOM because I've played and beaten it before... I just have a craving to use the 50 cal from it. I love that gun.
Also, the start of something of a buffer. This is Thursday's chapter, done before Monday's posting! And there are, as of the time of this posting, two chapters in the buffer.
Chapter 7: The Terror of the Chamber
Harry spent the next couple of days either with his new favorite objects in the universe (he could often be found giggling like a mad man with his new books) or attempting to bring his metamorph abilities to the surface. Of course the peace wasn't meant to last all too long. Someone spiked dinner one night with enough hot sauce to ignite a forest. And everyone appeared to think someone else was to blame.
Harry suspected one of the elves had a sense of humor.
For what little remained of June, and the first two and a half weeks of July, the Manor remained in a state of constant war. Every scrap of clothing was eventually charmed in some embarrassing manner, no one would eat anything served in the house, and doors were opened with extreme caution. Harry still managed to get into paint duels with at least two separate residents a week and Sirius took everyone to a Quidditch match once a week. But the constant pranking was beginning to wear on Harry's last nerve. He may not have started it, but he was damn well going to finish it.
Three people came back to consciousness to the sound of an air horn. They very quickly became aware of the fact that they were apparently stuck to the ceiling. Sirius, Remus, and Tonks were all very confused about just how they had gotten there. Who had put them there was more than obvious. Harry was standing underneath them, and he had a rather irritated look on his face. He was absently petting the basilisk that was draped around his shoulders. Even though he had assured all of them that she wouldn't hurt a fly (mice on the other hand were in constant danger around her), it was still pretty damned creepy. And Harry knew that.
"Good, everyone is awake. This has carried on far too long. It was fun to start with, but I had to go out yesterday in the last of the clothes I had that would let me go into the muggle world without breaking the statute of secrecy, in order to get more clothes. Let me just repeat that for emphasis, I had to willingly go shopping for clothing. I cannot read for more than fifteen minutes without something exploding somewhere in the building. And the training bludgers are still singing off color limericks. It has been a bloody fortnight since that one was pulled off! Enough is enough. I have proven that I can get all three of you. At once. With ease. The prank war ends here and now, or the kid gloves come off. I have made arrangements to spend the week with Neville and I leave today. In fact, I am supposed to be Flooing over now. I bid you all good day, and wish you a good week. The superglue is charmed to dissolve in about fifteen minutes; the floor has a cushioning charm."
The week Harry had spent with Neville was one of the more relaxing of the summer so far. Sure, for the first two days they had mostly focused on finishing up and polishing Neville's homework, mostly to get them ready for Hermione's more... obsessive eye. She always asked to look over their homework, and neither really minded. Harry because he tended to fast and loose with his use of the Queen's English and Neville because he admitted that Hermione was much smarter than him.
Between that they spent some time catching up one what they had done so far in the summer, and also spent quite a bit of time in the Longbottom greenhouses. The time spent with someone who so obviously enjoyed caring for growing things, and outside of a classroom setting, helped Harry finally started to get over the memories of the backbreaking labor that Petunia put him through for her photo perfect garden.
The day after they had wrapped up Neville's homework, Harry introduced his friend to the paint-hex.
After the first paint duel ended, they were both laying in the grass laughing and catching their breath. It was a few minutes before Neville said, "So the entire point is to learn to get out of the way of incoming spellfire?"
Harry made an affirmative sound.
Neville was quiet for a moment before he said, "Not every spell can be shielded... and the damn prophecy aside, it's something useful to know."
Harry just grunted.
"We should continue to do this during the school year."
"Hmm."
There were a few times that Harry and Neville talked about pureblood culture, and those conversations, combined with what all the adults in his life had been teaching him about the world he had been born into, finally helped Harry get a handle on just what he had missed out on learning when he had grown up with his relatives.
The conversation about what Neville knew about advancement in the Ministry of Magic was particularly... enlightening.
"From what Gran has taught me, it really depends on who is heading the department. In some, its a cesspit of bribing, of who you know, and cronyism. And they run accordingly. I hear the Department of Magical Transportation and the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures are both absolute messes.
"The best departments are meritocracies that run as well oiled machines. The DMLE under Madam Bones is probably the best example of that. Nobody really knows how the Department of Mysteries is run."
Another landmark of the week was the day when the formidable Dowager Lady Augusta Longbottom invited Harry to afternoon tea.
"From Neville's letters, I know I have you to thank for at least part of his new confidence."
She took a long sip of tea before continuing, "I wasn't able to always keep an eye on the more... bullheaded members on our family, and their attempts to... scare some accidental magic out of him did not really help.
"And I am not too proud to admit, my attempts to see my lost child in my grandson did not help.
"Now with that... admission... out of way, I'm sure you would like to hear a few stories about your father. He and my Frank were quite close before Hogwarts, though because Frank was two years older, their relationship changed to be closer to that of older and younger brothers after my son left for Hogwarts..."
When the end of the week finally came, and Harry made his exit from the Longbottom ancestral home at about noon, hoping that he wouldn't find a crater where the Marauders' Manor was.
Hauling himself off the floor after being thrown out of the Floo, Harry poked his head into the dining room, figuring it was around about lunchtime. Everyone was seated around the table, just about to start lunch, and he said, "Hello residents of Marauders' Manor. Are we all still at war?"
Everyone looked at him, and they all had varying degrees of consternation on their faces. Tonks was the one who broke the silence, "Why'd you glue me to the ceiling alongside these miscreants? They were the source of most of the chaos..."
"Because, Tonks, I wanted to get the point across to everyone all at once, and besides which, or maybe I should say worst of which, you were the one that did the last batch of charms on my clothing. I was irritated."
She looked slightly shame-faced at this, and her hair turned a shade of red that was noticeably different than the one it turned than when she was angry.
Remus and Sirius shared a look, and then Remus said, "There hasn't been a prank played since you left a week ago, and everything has been put back to normal. You hungry cub?"
"Starved."
From then until Neville's birthday, things remained fairly quiet. Harry had set up linking books for all of his classes and was working through 'books equivalent to, or in supplement of, second year'. He also took an hour or so a day to fly in the basement, sometimes using the obstacle course, but mostly he spent the time dodging increasing amounts of bludgers while doing aerial acrobatics. He was up to four after him constantly by the 30th. He had continued to use Hedwig to securely deliver his mail, though continued to feel bad about it until she explained to him that she needed an excuse to fly around, and he was giving it to her. Especially since she had found a few tasty patches of thyme.
He'd also noticed something, and was finally disturbed enough when he started writing down data about it to bring the issue to Alistair.
"Al, I started keeping track of how long I was sleeping each night about two weeks ago. I had paged through my memories, and my normal amount of sleep used to be about seven hours down to a little under six when I started keeping track.
"I'm now only sleeping a little over five hours a night, and it had leveled off."
"I was wondering both if and when it would start to manifest and when you would start to notice. One of the key reasons that any organic being needs sleep is because it must rest. Different beings need different amounts of rest, and for different purposes. A wizard or witch needs rest for body, mind, and magic. Occlumency, in its use of calmly sorting through memories and peacefully examining the defenses achieves that rest for the mind, while also restoring it with magic. That leaves you only needing rest for your body and magic. A number of master Occlumens have been known to only need an hour or two of sleep a night."
"And you didn't tell me this why?"
"Didn't know whether or not you would get to the point you would need to know."
"Ahh... Now that it has leveled off..."
"It could still decrease. You haven't finished learning Occlumency and you are still a growing young man."
"Damn."
Waiting in the sitting room to use the Floo for the eleven o'clock start time of Neville's party, which was a good hour away still, so Harry was once more working on willing his fingernails to grow. And they shot forward a noticeable amount. Slipping into his mindscape and recalling the memory, he replayed it over and over again, trying to figure out just how he had managed it. He then noticed a peculiar tingling in what could only be described as his magic when he managed it.
Going back out into the world, Harry focused on calling up that tingling into his fingers and when he finally managed it, willed his fingernails to be an inch longer than normal. And he succeeded! There was pandemonium in the sitting room as he howled his head off in joy. Which of course brought everyone running, wondering what the yelling was for. And he showed them, he had finally managed it.
Everyone except for Tonks congratulated him, who asked, "It's well it good to be able to make them longer, but can you put them back?"
He still took five minutes to get to the point where he could control it, but he did manage to fix his nails without clipping them.
Tonks grinned, and then said, "Good, now for lesson the second. Be able to do that within a matter of seconds, if not completely and totally spontaneously."
Harry decided to kill the rest of the time until Neville's party by reading, deciding he'd practice speeding up the process later.
Neville's party was a small quiet affair. The twins and Hermione were there, and they generally got him gifts regarding plants and Herbology, due to the solid young man's prodigious green thumb. Harry made a mental note that he should probably get a hobby in addition to flying around like a maniac. It probably wasn't the healthiest thing he could be doing.
They spent a good portion of the party talking about their summers so far, with Harry's being one of the more eventful. In part because he regaled them with tales of the Marauders' Manor prank war. Fred and George (who were surprisingly on their best behavior) were quite amused. Fred and George were suitably vague about their experiments this summer, Hermione waxed rhapsodic about her family's yearly trip to France, and Neville was quite content to talk about his new and interesting plantings.
He kept the results of the library portion of his visit to his ancestral home to himself for now, if only for the fact he didn't have the books with them, and the magic surrounding the books made it impossible for non-Potters to use them. He had been a little upset at that point, and the book explaining the magics didn't mention any way to make exceptions. He just knew that Hermione was not going to be pleased that unfettered access to a library on par with Hogwarts's could be within arm's length but untouchable.
The last portion of the party consisted of Neville giving them a tour of Longbottom Manor and its grounds, with a particular focus on the greenhouses and gardens that Neville was so proud of. As everyone was leaving, the twins took a few moments to talk to Harry alone and say that their mother had agreed to him coming to their home for a week starting the day after his birthday.
Harry spent most of the first half of his birthday alone, practicing his metamorph abilities. He still hadn't really come to the view that his birthday was anything special, and had spent it as he spent any other day. Sadly there was only a barely noticeable increase in speed in his ability to control his talent. Dragging himself out of his room for lunch, he opened the door to the dining room and heard, "Surprise!"
He had his wand out and flicked out a stunner in the direction of the party a moment after the word was finished. Everyone hit the ground, a few people yelping in a surprise of their own.
Sirius was the first to get up and said, "Okay, new rule, no one surprises Harry in any way, shape, or form. At least he didn't use a concussion spell this time."
After the rather unexpected reaction to the party, things took a little while to get back to normal. They had cake, opened presents, and then went into one of the larger games room and played billiards, darts, exploding snap, and one game of poker that resulted in the Twins being banned from playing in the same game, having gotten catching up out of the way the day before.
Again before everyone left, they were given an extensive tour of the magically expanded building. The Twins were drooling at the indoor Quidditch Pitch, Hermione drooled at the Black Library, and Neville was in awe of the sheer amount of space, as compared to the footprint outside.
All in all the first birthday party that Harry could remember was fairly awesome.
And the next day,Harry was at the Weasley home, better known as the Burrow. The house looked like it had been built piecemeal over the years, and from the point of view of physics, it really shouldn't have been standing. He was going to be staying in the twins' room on a cot. Alistair had decided to tag along to visit two of his more favorite pranksters.
"Okay, Fred, George, I know what you told everyone you have been up to when Hermione has been present, but what have you really been doing this summer to keep busy?"
"It is really..."
"... quite simple, Harrykins. We've..."
"... been inventing. With..."
"... potions."
And at the mention of that, and noticing the more than prevalent burn and concussive force damage to the room, Alistair quickly morphed into an M1 helmet. They then spent the next week making some rather startling discoveries in the field of prank potions and blowing themselves up. The three found it all to be jolly good fun. Especially after Harry introduced them to the concept of ear protection.
Harry also found out that Fred's first answer to every potion's problem was to add sulfur, while George's seemed to be to add saltpeter. He quickly came to understand just why there was so much damage to their room.
At his first breakfast at the Burrow, he was 'introduced' to the youngest member of the Weasley family, Ginevra. Well it was more like a fleeting glance as once the nearly eleven year-old girl saw him, she blushed and ran from the room. When she finally came into the kitchen where the family ate, she was still blushing and didn't say anything.
Of course the twins would just have to make it worse.
"Do you want to know something Harry?" The Potter was fairly certain this was George.
"Not really," was his answer between bites of egg.
"Well tough." Other twin this time, likely Fred.
"You would be surprised to learn that our dear sister here has every copy of the 'Harry Potter Adventure Tales'!"
"And when our parents read stories to her before bed Gin-gin would settle for nothing less than one of those books!"
"Of course having met the real you, we have found out the stories are complete and utter hogswash."
Ginevra's blush reached epic levels and she stuck her elbow in the butter dish.
What really concerned Harry was that a family of predominate Gryffindors had produced a rather rabid fan. He made a note to avoid her until she (hopefully) got over it, while hoping against hope that she would be sorted into another house.
And Harry gave a shudder, he really could not abide the thought of having a stalker.
He also made a mental note to have Griphook investigate this the next time he corresponded with his all-purpose banker. If someone was making obscene amounts of money off of his name and image, he wanted to put a stop to it. He hated his fame with a passion. Besides which, he wanted his cut, and he was quite sure his banker would approve of that motivation.
The Weasleys' received their Hogwarts letters while he was there, and planned on going to the Alley the next Wednesday. Harry said he, Sirius, and maybe his guardians would be likely be going on that Monday in order to avoid the rush and the crowds. Harry, having had a bang up (or is that blow up) week, returned to the Marauders' Manor in high spirits.
That Monday, Harry and Sirius went school shopping, having written to Nicolas and Perenelle, who decided to not to venture out into magical London, with the proviso that Padfoot make sure that Harry gets new mundane clothes. However before they went shopping for school, the Marauder invited his heir into a meeting with the Black Account Manager, Ripclaw. The meeting centered around a plan that Sirius had devised that would impoverish both the Malfoys and the Lestranges.
After they sat down, Ripclaw began, "Good Morning Lord Black, Mr. Potter.
"Lord Black everything is proceeding according to the plan that was laid down. The last of the outstanding debts owed by both the Malfoy and Lestrange families has been bought up. The legal department has finished drawing up the papers dissolve both the marriages between Lucius to Narcissa and Rodolphus to Bellatrix. Both contracts are nearly identical, and so both contain a clause require each pair to produce a daughter for the House of Black within a decade. The debts will be called due as the paperwork hits the Ministry on Thursday morning.
"With the returns of the dowries, Bellatrix's and Narcissa's allowances from the Family, with interest, both families will likely be unable to make the payments. We have already arranged to make the purchases of the items you previous mentioned an interest in. The Wizengamot seats, Hogwarts Governorship, etcetera.
"Though I will ask again, are you sure you do not wish to cast Narcissa and Bellatrix from the House of Black?"
Sirius shook his head, a sad look on his face, "No, Narcissa has always been a bit of a princess, but I am a Black and she's still family. And Bella... she was never the same after her marriage to Rodolphus. And my own near disownment... No, I will be the better man."
The rest of the day shopping in the Alley was quiet and uneventful. They missed a book signing that would occur later in the week, but then again that was the point. Shopping was much easier when you don't have a crowd of witches drooling over some dandy. The disturbing thing was that whoever had written out and approved the booklist had a good many of this dandy's books on it!
Harry knew that this could not end well.
The rest of the summer passed quietly, and with a minimum of pranking. Harry had gone though a very good portion of what the linking books were saying was second year level information, and now any text he brought up was just repeating what he had read before. He decided he would keep it up for the first month or so of school, and then he would move on to third year level stuff.
He'd also finally finished learning how to control his nails in a matter of seconds. Tonks had told him, "Start working on your hair, I'm sure you'll figure it out."
He decided he'd see what books he had access to concerning metamorphmagi, because Tonks was a terrible teacher.
Soon enough he found himself to be one of the first on the platform as he had bugged Sirius to take him there early, and so he had the compartment of his choice, the last one in the last car, he settled in to wait for his friends.
Harry was calmly staring into space, idly practicing his ability to recall facts and memories without going down into his mindscape. He'd already put his school uniform on, in fact he did it at the Manor, since Sirius had planned to apparate them directly onto the platform. Alistair had asked Remus to take him to the school, so Harry was completely without companionship at the moment.
But then again, he still tended to prefer solitude. He closed his eyes and started going through what he had read in the past month from a linking book that was attuned to 'Learning Languages'. It seemed any halfway decent text in the magical world that taught a language included audio.
He enjoyed just being with his thoughts. And he really loved magic.
He continued with those mental exercises for a good fifteen minutes, before he was dragged out of his thoughts by someone entering the compartment and sitting down. Opening his eyes, he saw that a girl he didn't know, a blonde girl with a faraway look in her large gray eyes, had joined him.
She looked a little odd with radish earrings and her wand tucked behind her left ear, but he got a similar vibe he had gotten off of Neville and Hermione. He could tell that she was a bit of an outcast like them, and like him. That thought running through his head, he decided to try and be nice to her.
So, he gently asked, "First year?"
She nodded. So he held out his hand and said, "I'm Harry."
She looked at the hand and shook it. "Luna Lovegood."
He wondered briefly why she had picked this compartment, but shrugged it off, and helped her get her trunk up into the luggage rack. "Any idea about what house you might end up in?"
She shook her head.
"I'll tell you a secret. The hat will offer you a choice if you have the traits of more than one house, so you may very well get to choose."
She nodded at that.
"I may only be a second year, but if you have any questions, ask me. I'll answer if I can..."
She smiled weakly, "Thank you."
"Now, if you don't have anything you want to talk about, I'm going to do some thinking..."
"Occlumency is a very useful thing. I was taught it when I was younger, but I never progressed very far beyond the basics, though it has been rather useful."
After a quiet moment, she said one last thing, "I like your familiars."
Harry blinked for a moment, Hedwig was hiding up in the luggage and Isis was in a basket at his feet. A small voice in the back of his head said, 'How odd...'. He nodded and said, "Thank you," before slipping back into thinking about languages.
The next person to join them was Neville, and he was a little unsettled at the strange blonde who was reading an upside down magazine.
He stared for a moment, shrugged, and sat down next to Harry. "Hello, I am Neville of the House of Longbottom, whom to I have the pleasure of meeting?"
Smiling Luna replied, "Luna Lovegood."
Sitting down next to Harry, Neville hit him on the shoulder and passed him a deck of cards, which Harry started shuffling. Looking at Luna again he tilted his head at the upside down periodical asked, "What are you reading?"
"The Quibbler."
"Ahh," for a few moments he waited, and then asked her, "Would you like to play a game or two of exploding snap?"
Hermione found the three of them there twenty minutes before the train was scheduled to leave, in the middle of a game.
She flashed the blonde a smile and introduced herself, "Hermione Granger, would you mine dealing me in for the next game?"
Harry grinned and laid down his winning hand. Luna pouted and said, "But of course."
The twins popped in as the train started moving, and didn't only said in a rotating manner, "Harry."
"Nev."
"Hermione," there was a bit of surprise as they chorused, "Luna."
They went back to their twin speak, "Don't get into any trouble we wouldn't."
"We'll check in on you lot again later."
Harry wondered when the Ferret would make his appearance. He would end up waiting until half an hour before they arrived at the station.
"Hey, Scarhead!"
Harry just looked up from his (winning) hand and said, "Yes, O bastard Scion of Malfoy?"
The blond ponce blinked for several seconds before scowling angrily and pushing onward.
"I heard you spent the summer with a convict and a teacher, couldn't have been much fun."
Harry tilted his head to one side and just stared at Malfoy for a minute, and then said, "The Heir of Black wonders just how much money the Malfoy Family has left after my Lord pauperized them..."
Malfoy turned as white as a sheet, spun on his heel, and fled back up the train. Harry then proceeded to win the game.
Neville, a bit wide eyed, said, "Did your godfather really do that to the Malfoys?"
All he got from Harry for a few minutes was an evil grin. "Technically, yes. They went from having a net worth of several tens of millions down to a few hundred thousand. And all of it is liquid. They lost the manor, they lost their heirlooms, they lost everything. Sirius really wanted all of their seats on the Wizengamot, and the Black family has never taken enough of an interest in Hogwarts before to get a seat on the Board of Governors. The only reason they still have any money is that Sirius told his banker to get those no matter what.
"Given how the Malfoys tend to run through money, they stand even odds of bankrupting themselves."
Neville shook his head, "Only one of the Marauders' would play an expensive prank on the Malfoys using the banking system."
Following the crowd of students to a set of carriages, Harry wondered just what the sinister animals pulling the carriages were. He'd ask Hagrid the next time he had tea with the large man.
He climbed in with his two friends and were joined by the Twins and Lee Jordan. The ride up the the castle was quiet and peaceful, and Harry was worried because the twins were behaving themselves. They made their way up to, and then into, the Castle, and took their seats in the Great Hall at the Gryffindor Table.
And then Harry saw the ponce that was on the back of every one of their so-called defense texts. He had hoped it would just be one of the man's more rabid fans. Harry made a mental note that DADA may become the new naptime. Neville and Hermione were sitting across the table from him, but for some reason no one was taking the seats on either side of him. It could have had something to do with the snake that absolutely refused to be anywhere other than around his neck.
He watched as McGonagall (he really had to come up with some shorted form of her name to refer to her in his head at least, it was such a mouthful), led the new first years into the hall and as she set Alistair onto the stool. He only paid cursory attention as the Hat sang his little tune.
(Sing a little song in your head
have it describe all the traits of the houses
god knows I am crap at song writing myself
let alone trying to rhyme
if I need a new song, I think I shall
farm it out to a fan that cares
now, let the sorting begin.)
With that being done, he watched the sorting, putting names to faces, and only really concerned about two of those who were to be sorted. A fellow outcast who he would try and help no matter what house she ended up in, and a potential stalker that Harry hoped would end up in any other house but his own. Maybe some distance would help get her over her hero worship.
"Lovegood, Luna."
"GRYFFINDOR!"
The blonde came to the table and took the seat to Harry's left, a far away look again in her eyes.
"Weasley, Ginerva."
"RAVENCLAW!"
Harry made a note to thank Alistair.
Dumbledore started the feast with a few (insane) words, "Sabrage, dehisce, gowpen, brontide!"
'And my friends call me crazy.'
Afterward the feast had ended, the Headmaster stood up and said, "Before I must send you all to your beds, there are a few announcements. First the Forbidden Forest is just that. Mister Filch has added a number of items to his list of banned items, those who wish to know may peruse that list at their leisure in his office. And magic is not allowed in the halls. Now, to bed!"
Harry decided to accompany the first years on whatever path the fifth year prefects decided would be most (amusingly) helpful to the first years in getting to the Tower. Harry made a note to write out Luna a list of short cuts and routes. And maybe give her a few extras to maybe give her yearmates.
Getting his schedule the next day he saw that Mondays and Thursdays were loaded with classes, Tuesdays and Fridays were light days, and Wednesdays were in between. And today was a Wednesday. A free period and then...
"Bloody hell. The Great Blond Dandy is my first class."
There was little doubt to whom Harry was referring to, and so he got a mild death glare from all females within earshot. Save Luna. That raised his already high opinion of the young girl.
That didn't help as Harry endured a double period where the man first gave a test all about himself (which Hermione got perfect and Harry used as a chance to insult the ponce) and then the dandy set loose a swarm of Cornish Pixies. Everyone except Harry dove for cover. Harry raised his wand and set loose a stream of fire to crisp half a dozen pixies to get their attention, and then he blasted open a window.
"Out! Get out you little blighters, or you will end up roasted like your friends!"
They fled out the window.
That event, combined with the fact that his new familiar was a deadly snake, had everyone giving Harry a wide berth through the halls of the school. Harry didn't care, the Gryffindors' by and large didn't care about their star seeker's peculiarities, and the few Hufflepuffs he had managed to make friends with were calmed by the fact that Isis seemed so docile. He couldn't find it in himself care about what the rest of the school thought.
The rest of the first week passed, Harry only answering questions in class when Hermione couldn't, and the both of them giving Neville (and a few others) a chance to earn some points. They had decided on this path the first day, Harry out of laziness, Hermione wanting to see how good Neville was, and both out of a sense of fair play.
Potions was like always, Snape doing the absolute minimum necessary to remain on the teaching staff, and apart from DADA, the other classes were all fairly good, if the theory was a repeat of what Harry already knew. He had kept his practical work that he was ahead on to only enough attempts to get the spells right, leaving perfecting them for class.
Then the weekend rolled around.
Harry was, as always, among the first of the students to breakfast, especially on weekends. Sitting down at the Gryffindor table, Lucky landed in front of him. Griphook had informed Harry that there had never been any royalties from the use of his name and image, and that he had begun an investigation into this theft (one of the worst things you could call a goblin was a thief). And so Harry knew how seriously Goblins took theft of any scale, but at the amounts of money involved, heads would roll. Literally. And Harry (by way of his guardians) had written a letter saying that the goblins could deal with this however they saw fit.
Which meant that when whoever it was got arrested by the DMLE, they would immediately (or soon after) be turned over to the un-tender mercies of the Goblin Justice System.
It was quite important to capitalize that because it was a proper noun in Gobbledegook.
Opening the letter and reading it, Harry got an evil grin. An extremely evil grin. If anyone of the House of the Brave had seen that grin directed at them, they would run screaming, looking for the nearest, most secure hiding place.
The letter also included references to evidence that showed that the person behind the books about him was guilty of a hell of a lot more.
Griphook also forwarded the fact that the warrant for arrest would be executed on Monday, at one in the afternoon. The Prophet would be given all the relevant information and press releases in time for an evening special edition.
Wood, in all of his insanity, started the first Quidditch practice at an ungodly hour of the morning on the next day, having decided since the team was already complete, there would be no tryouts. If it hadn't been for the fact that Harry had already been awake for half an hour, he would have felt honor bound to hex his captain. As it was he wanted to try out his new Nimbus 2001 on the field in an actual practice. He had gotten plenty of use from it over the summer, but wanted to actually show off a little.
But Wood took several hours to explain tactics to a team that was by and large still asleep. Harry idly thought about stunning him and getting Madam Pomfrey to check Oliver for possessing spirits... or maybe insane gods of competition and Quidditch.
Harry was leaning back, just having finished eating Lunch. He remembered the chat he had yesterday with Hagrid about the thestral herd ("Ain't they beauts! Me pride and you don't you know, Harry."), and how only people who had seen death could see those magical creatures. He was a little miffed that Hogwarts had decided to make use of creatures that most couldn't see to provide the bulk of transportation for their students to and from the station.
Then he thought about the showmanship of it, and decided to let it slide. Though he still thought that carriages that move without apparent pulling animals is just a little bit of overkill in the that department.
He cast the occasional glance at his watch, and waited. It seemed that however much Fate hated him (and his first eleven years of life and the events of last April were good evidence), she was capable of tossing him the occasional bone.
And speaking of Bones, the Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement was walking into the Great Hall at the stroke of one, on the button. Flanked by two Aurors and with a third on her heels, she advanced on the Head Table. Harry wished he had popcorn... and then blinked as a bucket materialized in front of him. Damn the house elves of Hogwarts did good work.
Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Harry started munching as Bones unrolled a scroll, and stated in a voice that carried through out the Hall, "Gilderoy Lockhart, you are hereby under arrest for countless charges of gross fraud, gross theft, and gross abuse of memory charms. You will be tried for all of the crimes you have broken under wizarding law, and then turned over to the Goblin Nation for a number of charges involving theft from a most valued client."
Lockhart reached for his wand and was stunned immediately. The Aurors slapped some shackles on him and levitated him out of the castle, still stunned. Harry just watched on in amusement, eating his popcorn. You couldn't pay for entertainment like this.
The evening edition of the Prophet had told how the trial of Lockhart, given with the accused sat in a chair that shocked him whenever he told an untruth, had ended with a very quickly delivered sentence of guilty, and that he was just as quickly turned over to the Goblins. Harry got a letter next morning that Lockhart's head was adorning a pike in a chamber that the Goblin Nation kept as a warning to thieves.
School continued with a reasonable amount of peace. A week after Lockhart's arrest, disgrace, and disappearance into the Goblin Justice System, McGonagall managed to get the DMLE to loan Hogwarts another Auror for this school year. A fellow by the name of Dawlish. A really rather unimpressive and dull fellow, even if he knew things as well as any other Auror. The classes, though informative, were lackluster. Harry took to going over everything he had already learned from DADA books during these times.
However to the thanks of all students, a mass refund of the Lockhart books was organized by the school, and with cost of those 'books' was returned to the students, minus the cost of real course books.
The rest of the classes were as enjoyable as ever, with Herbology finally becoming enjoyable for Harry, thanks to his time with Neville over the summer. Moony's classes continued to be some of the most fun anyone had, especially when he started having reenactments. Harry avoided participating in those. He could do meek, unimpressive, and unnoticeable, but when it came to actual acting, he wasn't all that good.
Snape was still a git, McGonagall was stern, and Flitwick bubbly. Life went on.
The first match of the year was Slytherin vs. Hufflepuff, and much to Harry's surprise and pleasure, the badgers steamrolled right over the snakes. The random fifth year seeker for the snakes was nothing compared to the Puffs seeker, Cedric Diggory. Then followed the lead up to Halloween. Most of the residents learned that Harry was not in a good mood in the lead up to that holiday.
Shortly after the match, Harry was approached by Nicolas (he enjoyed speaking with the spirit who told wonderful stories about medieval days) the Gryffindor House ghost with an invitation to his deathday party on Halloween. The look Harry shot the spirit sent him fleeing in terror.
After classes and dinner on Friday the thirtieth, Harry went down to the kitchens to arrange a basket of food that would stay fresh and last him through the day tomorrow. He told his friends he would be fine, and to just enjoy themselves. He just wanted to be alone tomorrow, and since it was a Saturday, he could do just that. Wood had even booked the pitch for practice on Sunday instead of Saturday.
And so it was Harry was enjoying the solitude to get a great big jump on third year reading focusing on all the electives, though he would not be taking Muggle Studies, when Mrs. Norris was attacked.
Harry, in a fit of premeditated laziness, refused to even open his eyes until after ten in the morning. He just didn't feel like facing the day yet. It was a Sunday, and it was the day after the anniversary of his parents' murder, and he was entitled to it once or twice a year. Of course, he would have stayed in bed longer, but Alistair could really be an annoying git.
"Harry, we need to talk. It is urgent."
The boy in mention responded from beneath a pillow, "Define urgent."
"Someone has opened Salazar Slytherin's personal section of Hogwarts and let loose a thousand year old basilisk that is probably of questionable sanity having been locked in a dank subbasement for most of its existence."
Bolting upright, he said, "Bugger."
"Indeed."
"And you need to tell me this because?"
"We, that is Hogwarts and I, are of limited power in this instance. The basilisk is part of Salazar's own personal safeguards when it comes to the protection of the school and its students, and so it is beyond any function of magic available to us to bring it to heel. He wanted his own fail-safe. But most importantly was the person Hogwarts and I most suspected of opening it fifty years ago. One Tom Marvolo Riddle."
"Or better known as Lord Voldemort. Double bugger."
"Very much so. Tom was a descendant of Salazar, but he never sought recognition by the Castle nor the Goblins, and so he was extremely limited in what he was capable of in that capacity."
"So what makes the two of you so sure that it has anything to do with him this time?"
Harry then had the honor of Hogwarts herself answering the question, "Because, I can sense an artifact of some of the most vile magics I have ever encountered roaming with my walls. It is so bound with concealment and misdirection magics that I cannot locate it exactly, or the person who is in possession of it. Its energies, however, are known to me."
Harry shook his head at this and said, "Those energies being of Voldemort. Shite. And I have the feeling that the 'possession' of the object is a two way street. That monster seems overly fond of magics that let him joyride in other peoples' bodies. This is not going to end well. Who's dead?"
Alistair responded now, "No one has died yet, but Mrs. Norris was petrified last night."
Harry thought for a moment, working through his store of knowledge on that particular beast, and having his own spurring his research, he said, "Reduction of power due to non-direct eye contact. Okay. Do we start telling people left, right, and center and probably cause a panic, or do we take things easy for now?"
"We don't need to take drastic action yet, but if things proceed like last time, there will be at least one death before the end of May."
"Damn. Who died last time?"
"Myrtle Martlebee. In fact she still resides in the castle. As a ghost."
"Could be useful later. And where is Salazar's personal area of the castle."
"We don't know. He was a secretive man, and he removed it, and all the functions pertaining to it, from the central wards of Hogwarts and never gave the information to me."
"Damn."
"It gets worse. There was a message left in some red substance with the cat's petrified body. 'The Chamber of Secrets Has Been Opened. Enemies of the Heir Beware.' And given your latest familiar, people are making unkind assumptions..."
"Hell. And because I am going to be working against the force behind this, I cannot make a magically binding oath thorough enough to kill the gossip. Damn. Any other bad news?"
"Yup, all of Hagrid's roosters were killed yesterday. So an easy kill of the incredibly old mythical beast is out."
"Any good news, Al?"
"Nope."
Harry started cursing, in several different languages. And then he, the hat, and the castle got down to planning.
Harry slumped down into the common room, with his bag over one arm. He kept his linking books in there, not that he would need them for most of the subject matter he would have to research. Looking around, and spotting his favorite yearmates, he went to sit with them. Before he had even settled, he had put up half a dozen privacy spells. He then quickly and thoroughly updated them on what he had just been told.
The first word and only one, before Alistair cut her off, out of Hermione's mouth was, "Dumbledore..."
"Has taken a watch and wait stance on this."
The look of horror at the thought that an authority figure could stand by and do nothing was unexpected. Harry had thought they had broken her of the bad habit of taking the view that authority was incapable of failure.
Harry said, "Hermione, I thought we told you that Dumbledore couldn't be trusted..."
She said softly, "Where it concerns the two of you and... Wait. Just because this concerns You-Know-Who he is willing to gamble the safety of the school?"
"Yup. And we can do nothing about it, because we need him right where he is when the war begins again."
Hermione shook her head in disbelief. Neville took the chance to speak, "So what do we do, Harry?"
"I don't know. I've did a lot of reading on basilisks over the summer..."
"For good reason."
"... and one this old is probably going to be a certifiable nightmare to slay. And it is going to have to be put down. I wouldn't be surprised if whatever Voldemort made that set this in motion has prepared fail-deadly measures for the basilisk to go on a rampage if what ever the plan he has going is sent off the rails. Hopefully I will think of something before I have to go against it."
Hermione started, "And we'll..."
Harry broke in, more than a little harshly, "Stay out of it. Neither of you are among the physically fittest of people, and while you are both above average in power, basilisk hide is inch for inch more resistant to magic than a dragon's. I've had to get Alistair to give me the theory behind weakening my spells in order to do my school work. The sad truth is, for the foreseeable future, the two of you are going to be liabilities in a fight, and Alistair and I have agreed that I need to keep my actions as below Dumbledore's radar as possible, so help from other sources is going to be non-existent. He may be oath limited to noninterference in my life, but he is old and manipulative. He may find ways around the oaths. Nothing in this castle will report a single word about me to him, but teachers and students have no such compunctions. Moreover, he is the current master of the warding magic, and so I can't bring in any back-up without him knowing."
Neville grunted angrily, but could not refute this. So he just said, "So all that leaves us with is..."
"Me."
He spent the rest of the day calling up everything he could think of about basilisks, and reading about the changes other highly magical and highly dangerous creatures would go through when reaching extreme age. His thoughts were not pretty, nor were they hopeful.
At breakfast the next day, words were written on the walls of the Great Hall in foot tall green letters. The left wall had:
"The House of Salazar Slytherin has fallen far.
Ambition and cunning without moderation have destroyed a once noble group.
For both must be tempered with wisdom for actions to be effective;
With loyalty to ensure that friends and allies benefit as much as you;
With honor to ensure that the path taken is a just one."
The right bore another message:
"The pure that reside with the House of Snakes,
Are not meant to be those solely of so-called pure blood.
It is meant to be those of pure mind and spirit,
Those willing to fight for what is right for the right reasons."
Upon the wall behind the Head Table were written three lines, the first and the last in English, the middle in some language no one recognized, but it was generally believed the third line was a translation of it:
"The Other Heir
(foreign text)
Oblivion Take The Impure."
Breakfast was taken, for the first time in living memory, in complete silence. Apparently there were now two Heirs of Slytherin loose in the school, and only one was a Pureblood fanatic. No matter who tried, the messages could not be removed until they disappeared of their own accord, a week later.
Harry worked as he normally did, though he cut back on his working ahead, outside of what might be useful taking down an ancient monster, while he worked on the problem that faced him. He had recourse to seek some form of aid through the Charter, however nebulous and ethereal the offer was, should he be able to locate the Chamber. But that was his chief problem. He had no clue how to find it.
And so two weeks passed, with no attacks on anyone else within the castle.
Harry helped Luna with her work when she asked for it. She did not need it too often, but asked a two or three times a week anyway, which led to her yearmates also asking him for help occasionally. They spoke a number of times, and though she put on a bit of an act around most people, Harry found he liked her company, and started to view her as something on the order of a little sister. Or at least what he thought he would treat his little sister like if he had had one.
When the Gryffindor vs. Ravenclaw Quidditch match came around, Harry played in a daze, only half of his focus upon the match in question. He still caught the snitch after an hour and fifteen minute long match, and while the Ravenclaws were soundly thrashed, he just didn't pull off any of the fancy moves he had planned.
The next day, a first year muggleborn, that little blighter from Gryffindor who was always trying to get a picture of Harry, was found petrified in a hallway. His camera had been completely destroyed by the encounter.
Harry couldn't help but feel he was overlooking some vital piece of information that would help him. Something small but important. Sometimes he felt like he was hitting his head against a wall. And he felt that he should sometimes commit the actual act.
Maybe it would help.
The next day, a new message was sprawled across the Great Hall:
"Salazar did not believe that first generation magicals
Were unworthy of ever going to Hogwarts.
Rather he believed that there was just too much
To teach them in their first years.
So he believed that there should be schools dedicated to
Teaching them just what they needed to know
Before they should enter these hallowed halls.
Oblivion Take The Impure."
Everyone in the castle was on edge. No one had descended into panic yet, but there was a sense of unease that rippled through the population of the school. Though no one had called him it to his face, or asked it even, the gossip network of the castle placed heavy odds on Harry being one of the Heirs. Which one, no one was willing to say.
The Weasley Twins, Gryffindor Tower's resident bookies, refused for the first time on record to take bets on something. They categorically refused citing friendship and loyalty, saying, "Honor before profit." Harry scheduled some heavy prank-work to be done alongside the twins after the crisis was over. He owed it to them.
Nobody wanted to draw attention to anyone through pranks. It just wasn't right.
Harry continued to curse the perceived hole in his knowledge of the situation. Things continued in a holding pattern through to December. As the Lions geared up for their second match, Harry was deriding himself. He should be able to do better than this. It was only due to sheer luck that no one had been killed in the two attacks so far.
He had to do something before someone died.
When the Saturday game came around, Harry was not looking well. He had been driving himself into illness in his mad working of his mind. He was circling round and round, like a Padfoot chasing his tail.
Due to this, the game carried on for four hours as Harry simply circled the field, not even paying attention to play. Slytherin was completely humiliated by the time Harry caught the snitch. Rather than attend the customary victory party, Harry trudged up into his dorm and crawled into bed. He didn't come out until Monday morning.
And so he didn't realize the panic he would be descending into. Cho Chang of Ravenclaw and the ghost of that house, The Gray Lady, had been attacked and petrified.
There was no reply from The Other Heir to this attack. People wondered if perhaps he or she only fought with words, or if words had been exchanged for action and the person was now doing something, anything, to stop the attacks.
Groups of students moved from class to class in fearful clumps. No matter what the class, the students were subdued. Practical work was done as silently as possible, and few questions were asked when notes were being taken. Harry could practically taste the fear in the air.
He had to do something, and soon.
All hell broke loose on the last day of classes before the holidays. There was one more attack. This one was on a pureblood. Daphne Greengrass was found petrified in a sixth floor girls' loo shortly before dinner. The mass exodus the next day left only a handful of students in the castle.
All of Slytherin had fled with an attack on one of their own purebloods. If one of their own could be attacked, none of them were safe. Only Draco and Ronald stayed behind, the former because it was cheaper to board for the winter and the latter because his family was visiting one of his brothers in Romania.
The other house that had left in its entirety were the Hufflepuffs. Those that could not go to their own homes for the Holidays were invited to a friend's home. No one in the House of the Loyal lacked for a place to go.
Half a dozen were left behind in the house of the wise, and all of those would only leave the known safety of their common room to get food. There was much wisdom and intelligence in discretion. And one of the six was Ginny, who was in the same position as the rest of the Weasleys.
And the House of Godric the Brave had the most who remained behind. Thirteen to be exact. Neville and Hermione were told point-blank by Harry to 'Get out of Dodge', and though they put up a fight, they left for their homes. Luna's father, and only living parent, was out of the country.
So he sat down on a couch near her and asked, "Are you absolutely sure there is no way for you to join him or is there anywhere else you can go?"
Luna looked at him in that absolutely serene way she had and said, "Everybody in the castle will be absolutely fine come the new year, Harry."
He sighed wearily and then said, "Could you please just do one thing for me then?"
She smiled at him, and said, "Of course I won't leave the Tower alone, Harry."
This sigh was in relief as he rose and said, "Thank you, Luna."
She stood as well and hugged Harry, who froze for a moment, before he returned the gesture of affection, though it was a bit wooden.
The Twins came to him shortly afterwards, and said, "If you don't think it is safe to leave the Tower alone."
"Then whenever you leave, especially with Luna, we'll go with you."
"We've also made the same offer to Prefect Percy."
"He's in the same boat as us."
The other six Gryffindors were various sixth and seventh seventh years who didn't know the phrase 'Discretion is the better part of valor'.
It was very early Christmas morning and Harry's presents lay ignored. He was pacing back and forth, and then he asked, "Alistair, did I ever ask where the message was left when the Chamber was first opened?"
"No, and it was across from a girl's toilet on the second floor. Myrtle tends to be rather fond of that loo, too. In fact... it... was... where... she..."
"Died?"
"Yup."
"That is one too many coincidences for me," Harry said, as the pieces fell into place. He promised to mentally beat himself up later for not asking an obvious question. He had work to do.
He drew himself up to his full height, squared his shoulders, and looked at the hat that was hanging from his headboard.
First he asked, "Does it have to be formal?"
"No, lad, you just have to admit it."
Taking a deep breath, he said in a small voice that betrayed his posture, "I need help."
Alistair responded in a voice clear and crisp enough to have edges, "As it is written, 'Those of Hogwarts who need help, only need but ask, and they shall receive it', So Mote It Be."
A bright silver sword with a red gem encrusted handle dropped from within the Hat and onto Harry's bed.
Looking at the weapon, Harry then dressed for a fight. Clothes that, while he could move freely in them, were neither loose nor baggy. Alistair informed Harry that every person in the castle saner than The-Boy-Who-Lived were safely in their rooms, and most were also asleep. Harry picked up the weapon, stuffed Al on his head, called "Hedwig, you're with me in case I screw up royally, Isis, I don't think you have strength enough to help at this point, please hold the watch."
He grimly smiled and left the dorm.
Examining the sword in detail as he stepped from portrait hole that led from the common room, and the safety of the Tower, Harry saw that the weapon he had been given to help him had belonged originally to none other than Godric Gryffindor. Drawing his wand with his right hand from the sheath on his left wrist, Harry took the sword firmly in his left hand, and lengthened his strides. It was time to end this.
She was free. She'd finally managed to get rid of it. It had been so very, very hard. She had thrown it into a toilet, and fled. But she didn't get very far before she heard someone coming along the hallway. It was so early that no one should be up. Who could be here at this hour, and why here of all places?
She hid in an alcove, ducking behind a suit of armor. And she watched as he strode past her as though on a mission, with a grim purpose on his face. And he had a sword of all things... He must have figured it out. He must have found out enough to know where it was and he had come to kill it.
He stopped an tilted his head to one side as though listening to something, and she heard him mutter, "Now that's a new voice. Wonder where this one came from? Could mean that Myrtle is in a mood..." He shrugged and walked into the bathroom.
But this wasn't something he could face, could he? All of the stories she had read growing up were just that. Stories.
Scared out of her wits for the one person who everyone knows the name of, for the hero of the wizarding world, for a twelve year old who should not have to face it, she fled to the first place she could think of to get him help, the Deputy Headmistress, his head of house. And so, in a flash of red hair, she ran.
Harry entered the bathroom to the wails of its resident ghost. She was bawling and yelling about someone throwing something at her. So that's what he was hearing. Boy was she a loud one. But he couldn't help but shake the strangest feeling of deja vu.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained, Harry asked, "Myrtle, I need to speak with you please?"
"No, you don't, you just want to throw more books at me." She started crying again.
"I haven't thrown anything at you, Myrtle. I need to ask you how you died."
Her attitude turned around faster than the spiders could get their carapaces out of the castle, "It was horrible. I was in the end stall, crying because Olive Hornby had been making fun of my glasses. There were a pair of people talking in a strange language, one of them was most definitely a boy. And so I poked my head out to tell him to go find his own toilet, and then I just died."
"Do you mind if I ask... How?"
She giggled. That couldn't be good. A ghost was taking a fancy to him. He hated being Fate's whipping boy. "Oh, not at all. I don't know how. I just remember seeing a pair of great, big, poisonous yellow eyes and then I just seized up and... Here I am." She pointed toward one of the sinks. "The eyes were right over there. Now I am going to see if I can find the person who threw that book at me!" And thankfully the ghost flew off.
Harry couldn't help but appease his curiosity and look for whatever book had been ditched. Leaning the sword against a wall, and pulling the book out of the toilet bowl, he cast a quick drying charm on it. He opened it to the first page, after which he dropped the book as if it had scalded him.
Property of:
T.M. Riddle
A/N2: I might be putting out a first chapter bunny soon because looking through what I had already written and posted with the word 'sleep' had me wondering... What if Harry had gotten fed up enough at one point to get rid of a Dursleys in a house fire when he was growing up?
Legacy:
This is what used to be chapters 21 through 24 (first 1/8) of The Sorting Hat's Stand.
As of half past 2 PM, 25 October, 1012 these were the statistics of those chapters of the story. (Word and Character Counts are by
Open Office Writer and do not include chapter titles, book headings, or author's notes, each section break however is four
characters: [br].)
Chapter 21:
Word Count: 2,566 | Character Count: 14,025 | Hits: 46,236 | Reviews: 38
Chapter 22:
Word Count: 2,826 | Character Count: 15,453 | Hits: 44,526 | Reviews: 54
Chapter 23:
Word Count: 2,889 | Character Count: 15,592 | Hits: 42,717 | Reviews: 40
Chapter (portion) 24:
Word Count: 731 | Character Count: 3,707 | Hits: ~5814 | Reviews: ~6
Totals:
Word Count: 9,012 | Character Count: 48,777 | Hits: ~139293 | Reviews: 138
New Total Word Count: 10,689 | New Total Character Count: 57,941
its something useful to know