Chapter 8:
"You're distracted." Snape scowled darkly across the preparation bench at the other. "Gossip getting to you? Worried about Creevey or Finch-Fletchley?"
"No." Hades spoke after a moment, then abruptly smothered a yawn with his sleeve. "Granger wants me to become her private potions brewer."
"Your charge-out is Journeyman rates...and why does she ask you for help?"
"House unity or similar...I think she thinks it would help integrate me with the rest of the house...certainly that was the line of approach McGonagal used when she initiated the talks for Granger."
"That's optimistic." Snape gave a snort. "Why do they need potions brewed?"
"Reason cited to McGonagal was studies. Fai's friend says they think it will help find them the heir...I'm pretty certain that if I give her a definite no she'll be stupid enough to brew it herself."
"Serious?"
"Watch your private ingredients because I've got enough already to know that it's not going to be found in the student cupboard...she'll have already verified that she can't order the stuff herself before she even considered approaching me."
"As potions master I am ordering you to say no...you can give that to Minerva. Give Granger your charge-out rates and the news that as an apprentice you don't brew without my supervision...even if it's a cleanser."
"I can promise you it's not a cleanser...she's had her nose in Moste Potente Potiones for the last couple of days and she wanted me to get boomslang skin out of you."
"Merlin save us all, I'll alert Poppy and you be prepared to drop all classes in favour of antidote brews...which reminds me you need to take next week off and prepare for sporadic attendance for the rest of the term. Headmaster won't let me cancel a week worth of classes and a couple of these can't be left to an elf so I'm turning the lot over to you."
"Oh, goody...any for him I can mess up?"
"No." Snape's look was speaking and Hades gave a quick grin before he resumed hacking his way through the coarse chop 'Curse'.
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"I rather think Lockheart might cry...he's been so relieved you weren't in class." Draco's tone was almost meditative as he took station on a comfortable bit of wall next to Hades.
"Let Snape know that Granger is being very pushy and the potion looks to be polyjuice...but that's only a guess based on where in the book she's been taking notes." Hades' nose didn't twitch out of his book.
"I really don't want to know, Black...and if you can make Lockheart sing in class today I will be happy."
"Sorry, no singing." Hades pushed off the wall as the door opened and the class was let in.
"Will you oblige?" Draco held back and queried the small ghost who was nothing more than a nose and two eyes just above where Hades had been standing.
"No." Harry drifted slowly out of the wall and down to the ground, his head tilting so he could meet gaze with a boy who had once been of height with him. "The Gryffindors still being idiots over your quidditch?"
"The fact that I've yet to be defeated takes the edge off their insults." Draco's smile was thin. "You coming in?"
"No." Harry began drifting back into the wall. "This monster must be found."
"Thank you and good luck." Draco waited until the small ghost had been fully absorbed by the wall before he entered the classroom. The stress of the monster was beginning to tell on everyone and Draco was uneasy because he knew that ghosts were as at risk as the students.
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"Professor Snape...is it possible that I borrow Spike for a while?"
"Why?" Snape eyed Malfoy sceptically, he didn't think that Malfoy would be asking this question for less than a good reason.
"Pluto's apparently on the third floor and chatting to a window in...well Chang says it's archaic japanese and she's the closest we've got to an asian tongues specialist. People are starting to get worried, particularly since he's got wards up that not even Dumbledore managed to bring down."
"Go." Snape waved a hand and turned back to his cauldrons. Hades had grabbed Draco by the arm as he moved past at a speed which was definitely uncomfortably above the speed of walking.
"Get your father here...Spike just told me we've got basilisk paths and that's what the monster is." Hades released his grip as they came upon the Slytherin Comonroom.
"Why's Spike talking to a window?"
"He's not...it's the spiders crawling out the window...and it's more of a meditation on why spiders respond to basilisks in that manner. Now, I've got to get...get your father here!"
"Why are you..." Draco flinched.
"You're right, that was a dumb start to a question...I've got to find out who's got such a hard grip and why he's not letting go. They may be useful, but we've no intention of letting any of them live a second life...particularly any of the ones who spoke any language we refer to as an archaic as their primary tongue. Most of them are notable only for the fact that they make Voldemort look like a spineless kitten." Hades was already halfway down the corridor by the time Draco heard the last words, but he knew what needed doing and he made certain to call in Sirius Black as well...though he needed to remember to tell Hades to lay claim to the notification if it came up.
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Severus Snape, who had been almost literally steaming over having been ordered up to the Headmaster's Office, was very deeply amused. Sirius Black and Lucius Malfoy were behaving with letter perfect manners, while somehow making it clear that there was nothing either of them desired more than the chance to wring the other's neck. Minerva seemed to be on the edge of tears and Dumbledore himself was looking conflicted. The matter as a whole had been quite quickly resolved after all there was no mystery if you came from families who historically used the defences of Salazar Slytherin to defend your people. A basilisk really wasn't a comforting thought, but there you had it, there was a basilisk in the school and both Black and Malfoy were clear that if a parseltongue had gotten a direct grip on the serpent than there was nothing to do but off the speaker and hope the paths were closed when you did so...if they weren't then the next step would obviously be to call in dangerous creatures and get the hell out of the school. Even Dumbledore wasn't upset about that point, it was what followed which caused the current trouble. Lucius Malfoy had wasted no time in getting orders out to the House Elves to institute a school-wide search which had eventually produced the volume which currently rested on the Headmaster's desk. Snape, personally, preferred Black's solution to the current stand-off, give the diary to Spike Black. Lucius Malfoy seemed agreeable to that idea as well, but McGonagal seemed distressed at the idea of one of her students becoming a murderer...Black's helpful observation that it wouldn't be Black, per se, who committed the murder did not seem to comfort the woman. Dumbledore was refusing to let the diary go on the grounds that it needed to be researched and information taken so that the chamber of Secrets could be nullified.
"Don't be ridiculous." Black seemed disinterested, but then again he had the innermost layer of magic over the diary and quite obviously had tied the magic so any attack on his ward merely fed more power into the ward, making it harder to break and not putting any strain or drag on his own magic...infact Black had put his wand away after casting his ward over the diary a hair before Dumbledore. "You don't nullify a major defence on the eve of war."
"It's not a defence with..."
"Rubbish." Black's snort was dismissive. "Slytherin's set-up was brilliant and the only fault lies in the fact that a parseltongue already ordering the basilisk can over ride primary orders. A parseltongue can't do diddly once the primary orders have come down...but you're in strife if his nastiness comes here before you get this little matter resolved...i.e. that nasty bit of specialised magic needs to be destroyed before it, and the poor sod it's partially possessed, decide to let his nastiness in. You can't nullify the Chamber, Dumbledore, it's the key to the schools defences and the basilisk's magic is one of the sources which feeds this buildings rather impressive wards...and after 1000 years, that basilisk is packing a tidy bit of magic. Thank your lucky stars that his nastiness has never bothered to talk to Syartha."
"Spike spoke to Syartha?" Snape wrinkled his brows thoughtfully.
"No, Spike had a chat with Slytherin and Fai can see the serpent magic winding throughout the castle and wards." Black gave a snort. "Either you trust the primary orders which defend this castle, or you better leave now because destroying the Chamber will destroy the castle...infact I rather think Hogwarts will fight any attempt to unintentionally damage the chamber, let alone specifically off it's denizen."
"Headmaster, you're not even listening are you." Lucius Malfoy spoke in an almost meditative tone.
"That diary needs to be studied and its secrets extracted." Dumbledore's expression was kindly.
"Very well." Lucius Malfoy lifted one hand which held dancing black flames and Fawkes began to scream. "Drop your wards because this will destroy even Black's." Lucius had barely begun to speak before Sirius Black dropped his ward and wound the magic back into his wand. Snape had barely waited for the ward specification before he dropped his own ward. Dumbledore's expression was stubborn, but that morphed into pain when Malfoy, with a slight shrug, accurately threw the black flames at the diary. The two remaining wardings fell immediately and after a half second the book on the desktop simply vanished.
"Wher..." Dumbledore was struggling with magical backlash as well as horror.
"Since the Headmaster has been unreasonable the volume has been banished...I would prefer that book in the hands of the possessed idiot than the Headmaster...be thankful Black tied this little matter up as a Black Family matter or I can promise you the Dark Lord would be hearing about this." Lucius Malfoy was on his feet and sweeping from the room by the time he snarled the last bit.
"Black." Snape's tone wasn't quite making the grade of civil. "What were those flames?"
"Malfoy Magic...fortunately doesn't work on anything but small-scale wardings." Black's smile was thin and Snape nodded in quiet agreement, though he knew that there was undoubtedly some other family which held the magic which would enable the use of that spell on large scale wards. Snape's money was on it being Black magic, otherwise it had to be Potter magic, a Black had no reason to know so much about unrelated Malfoy magic.
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