This is Second Year's climax (definitely not the story's, though... I don't think I'm even a quarter done with that) and it's especially long at over 5000 words.
Thank you to all my reviewers! You're just swell. And here is my tribute to you: kaida171, Lathea, luv-blonde-bunny, Psyka, Xanoka, lunaz, Sailor Pandabear, VanriddleZ, and OtakuDrag0n. Thanks again for your encouragement... it means a lot.
Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me except for parts of the story line and my little twists. Things you recognize are probably from the books or TV show.
BOOK ONE
Chapter XII
"Luna?" Harry spun around wildly as the door clicked behind him. "Luna, what are you doing? What's happening?"
She had pulled him into some hidden passageway. It was cool and very quiet, with a musty, bookish smell, and dim light streamed through what looked like dusty windows but couldn't be – they were practically in the center of Hogwarts, and any windows would have looked out into the hall. The walls and floor, like the rest of the castle, were solid stone, and formed a passage similar and parallel to the one outside the door. Across from him was a line of widely dispersed, burnished oak doors, all closed. Their handles were covered in a layer of thick gray dust... all but one, which had a rough handprint pressed into the grime.
"You're safe here," Luna told him, dusting off her hands busily. "I don't know what exactly you've gotten yourself into this time, but you have to stay put now. You're all thumbs," she added severely, "and you can't keep making mistakes. You'll suffer for them and keep on suffering until you learn your lesson."
Harry stared at her for a moment in silence.
"I'm not clumsy," he said finally, wondering half-heartedly whether that had been the main point of the lecture.
Luna gave him a withering look, two dangling... things – were they supposed to be radishes? – bobbing disapprovingly from her ears.
"Clumsiness is the least of your worries," she informed him crisply. "Now what just happened? I had to leave class to come after you."
After a split-second of panic (what if she didn't believe him? But this was Luna, who thought she could see Nargles and read magazines upside-down... and apparently wore radish earrings, not to mention the fact that she had been the first to realize there was something wrong with Ginny), Harry stuffed his hands into his pockets resignedly and began his tale of woe.
"Ginny is a shapeshifter," he said bluntly, and waited for Luna to run outside shrieking for the professors. She gazed at him, unperturbed, for several long moments.
"And?" she prompted.
Why was he even surprised?
"She stole my silver knife and so I tried to get it back," he explained, clenching and unclenching his sweaty fists nervously. "Of course, she wasn't too happy about that and we started to scuffle, and I was going to stab her. Ron came in and," he shrugged, concluding mournfully, "everything sort of went downhill from there."
She didn't answer for a long while, examining his face thoughtfully, and it suddenly struck him how silent it was in this cavernous hiding place. All he could hear was the light sound of their breathing... and, wait, there was something else. He stiffened.
"Do you hear that?"
Luna tilted her silvery head and listened attentively.
"It's a voice. There's someone in here with us, behind one of these doors," she guessed, turning on her heel quickly and striding towards the door with the less-dusty handle, her thin hands gripping it with steely strength. She tugged it open. "Come on."
"Maybe we should scout it out before heading right in," Harry suggested warily.
"Don't be silly. If there was anything really dangerous, we wouldn't have heard and we'd be dead or captured by now. No, whatever it is, it's not a threat."
"If you say so."
It was only chivalry that prompted him to go before her into the even dimmer room. He could barely see anything, and waved his hands blindly in front of him so that he wouldn't crash into a wall or corner. His precautions didn't save him from the nasty shock of tripping over a warm, wriggling lump on the floor.
"Luna, stop!" he gasped, and landed heavily, biting back a yelp as the jostling sent a spike of pain up from his cut hand.
Of course, it was startling to hear a yelp anyway, and he was slow to realize that it came from the lump itself. He crawled backwards, feeling for it, and clutched a limb.
"Light, Luna?"
He heard her soft voice a moment later.
"Lumos."
A pale white prick of light blinked into existence at the tip of her wand, illuminating her pointed face and calm eyes.
"Why didn't you do that sooner?" Harry asked irritably, pressing his oozing palm to his shirt.
"I didn't think of it," said Luna serenely. She peered downwards. "Oh, look, it's Ginny."
The off-handedness with which she said this caught him off guard.
"Who?"
"There."
He stared at the person whose leg he was holding, his grip slackening.
"Holy crap. Ginny!"
"It got me in Diagon Alley," Ginny whispered, hoarse from days of silence. She swallowed convulsively and rubbed her throat, although Harry had already long since pulled the thick, dirty rag from her mouth. "Then it tied me up and kept me in a dark room over some very loud place. I think it was a tavern, but I was blindfolded so I'm not sure."
She shuddered and curled her knees to her chest, burying her face in her arms.
"It's okay," said Harry, patting her back awkwardly and hoping he was being comforting. "You're free now. It's okay."
Ginny nodded as if trying to convince herself of that, and scooted a little closer to him.
"It moved me here after several days," she continued, her voice a little wobbly but steadier than it had been. She motioned to her head. "Probably because of this telepathic connection it has to keep up. I could feel it in my mind sometimes, digging around for information it needed to imitate me properly. I tried to block it, but it was too powerful. I don't understand how you found me. From what I could gather, this is a very well-hidden room. I didn't think anyone would ever find me."
Her voice cracked and she squeezed her eyes shut, trembling.
"Ah," said Harry, uncomfortably. "About that. I... um... well, I figured out that it was a shapeshifter – don't ask how, it's a long story – and I tried to attack it, but Ron saw me and thought it was you. I had to hide, and Luna found this place, and we heard you yelling through your gag."
"It's called the Room of Requirement," Luna put in helpfully from where she sat, cross-legged, on the hard floor. "I needed it, so it popped up."
"How?"
"I've heard stories about it," said Ginny, more calmly, and frowned. "But I didn't think it really existed. And how would you end up in the same place as me if you didn't already know I was trapped here?"
Harry looked between them. There seemed to be some element to the conversation that he wasn't aware of, and it felt vaguely ominous.
"What are you talking about?"
Luna shifted her unblinking gaze to meet his.
"She means," she said quietly, "that the Room of Requirement appears as whatever the searcher requires, and only if two different people are looking for exactly the same thing will it look the same to both of them."
It took him a couple moments to digest the rather complicated explanation.
"The shapeshifter was looking for somewhere to hide Ginny... but that's not what you were looking for. You were looking for somewhere to hide me. How did it show up as the same place?"
"Exactly. That's the question."
Harry eyed her, and although her face was perfectly impassive, he felt she wasn't telling him something. He got that impression from her a lot. It was unsettling.
"Whatever happened," Ginny broke in, "I'm most awfully glad it did. It was horrible in here, alone in the dark. It only fed me about... well, what felt like every two days, but I was really hungry, so maybe it wasn't quite that far between."
Harry patted down his pockets. They were empty except for the silver knife, which had caused all the trouble and confusion in the first place, and a single blunt quill (why he had decided to stick it in his pocket, he had no idea).
"I have nothing," he said regretfully. "I'm sorry. I didn't expect this to happen."
"I've got a couple meat pasties if you want them."
Ginny's eyes lit up, and it was with visible effort that she restrained herself from snatching them from Luna's willing hands. While she ate, Luna took Harry's sleeve and led him to the side.
"I can't stay here," she said gravely, in a low voice. "They'll notice I'm gone, and then we'll both be stuck. I've got to go, and you have to keep Ginny here because the shapeshifter is still out there. It knows you're trying to kill it..."
"I'm trying to kill it?" Harry echoed. The thought hadn't struck him in all its entirety until now, and his earlier misgivings hit him like a slap on the face.
"You haven't got another choice. It's clearly not going to go away if you ask it to, and it will certainly try to kill you if it has the chance. Keep your knife on you at all times. You don't know when it'll figure out where you are and come looking for you."
"How do you even know about this?"
She stared at him in silence for a long moment, and then gave him a small smile. Somehow, it lit up the room even more brightly than her spell had.
"I just do."
"Harry," Ginny asked timidly, after they had sat side by side in silence for what felt like days but was probably closer to a couple hours. "Harry, how do you know all this stuff? About shapeshifters and how to... to kill them? I only know because one was in my head."
It was oddly identical to the question he had only just posed to Luna. He folded his hands over his wand (he'd managed to conjure a tiny bit of light with the Lumos spell... for heaven's sake, Luna was a first year and she was already doing better than he) and tried to figure out where to begin.
"As I said, it's a long story," he began, and she interrupted with a wry chuckle.
"I doubt we'll be leaving this place anytime soon."
"True," he conceded, and pulled himself to his feet. "Come on, let's go. It's too dark in here; the fake windows will be better. I'll tell you out there."
Ginny was all too eager to leave her prison of so many months. The passageway was as dusty and dim as it had been when he'd first entered it, but it was better than the cold darkness of the room. It was also closer to the danger of both the shapeshifter and the professors' search, but Harry was willing to take the risk.
They started to walk, the corridor stretching before them endlessly, yards upon yards of stone looming around them, with countless, solid, wooden doors on one side and dusty, frosted glass windows on the other. It was eerily quiet.
"I think you heard about... Neville," said Harry hesitantly. It was difficult to get the name out. From the way she stiffened, he assumed she had. "He was possessed."
"Possessed?"
She seemed perplexed, and he reminded himself that most wizards were fairly clueless about Muggle religions and beliefs.
"By a demon."
"Demons aren't real. They're just nightmarish stories. Myths."
"They are in stories," he agreed, fingering his knife. It was surprisingly hard to break the admittedly creepy habit. "But they're also real. And very ugly and dangerous."
She shivered and pulled her robes more closely around herself.
Still the doors, more and more and more doors. The endless corridor.
"All right. Suppose I believe they're real. Why would one possess Neville?"
"I don't know."
The lie came easily to his lips. He wanted so much to hide the fact that it was because of him that Neville had been possessed... had been murdered in cold blood, his throat slashed open in a dreadful, grimacing smile of death.
"Was he possessed when he died?"
Ginny's voice shook, just a little. Harry shook his head.
"No, I exorcised the demon," he told her, with grim satisfaction. "It's back in hell, or wherever nasty creatures like it end up. I hope it stays there, forever."
She didn't answer, and the only sound for several long minutes was the measured clump of their shoes hitting the floor. Each thud was echoed in both directions down the passage, creating a even more decidedly eerie atmosphere.
"Why did he die? Did a demon murder him?"
He was surprised, and a little disconcerted, at how quickly she made the connection.
"I would think so. He was starting to remember why they'd come..."
Something in the corner of his eye caught his attention and he halted in shock, grabbing Ginny's arm as she continued to walk forward.
"Wait, Ginny. Look."
She turned.
The knob of the door to their right had only the slightest sprinkling of dust, and there was the clear imprint of a hand on it. They stared at it quietly, and the silence seemed all of a sudden ever so slightly more oppressive.
"We're back where we started," Ginny stated, very quietly.
An unpleasant thrill ran down Harry's spine.
"That's impossible. The passage is straight. We can't be."
They simultaneously glanced back at the indeed very straight corridor and then looked each other in the eye, coming to a silent, unanimous decision.
"We should go back in," said Ginny, in a hushed tone. "I don't like this... I don't like it at all. It's worse than it was in the dark. Hurry."
But neither had time to move an inch before a thunderous explosion shook the Room of Requirement, sending both of them flying in opposite directions, and a dark, flickering, shimmering something roared into being between them.
Luna flicked her blonde hair lightly over her shoulder as she walked towards Hermione, who was sitting next to Ron amid a pile of forgotten books. They were speaking in hushed voices as she neared them.
"I can't believe it," Hermione was saying. "He was really attacking her?"
Ron rubbed his reddish, swollen eyes distractedly.
"Yeah... I don't understand. Ginny didn't do anything, Hermione, and even if she had, Harry was trying to stab her! What is he? Why would he do that? This is just... I... I don't..."
Hermione seemed at a loss for words as well, her gaze straying upwards and meeting Luna's with an expression close to despair.
"Luna!" she exclaimed, half rising in her seat. "It's Harry..."
Luna slid into the chair beside her.
"I heard."
"The professors are trying to find him now."
"They won't."
Hermione's brow furrowed.
"What... how do you know?"
Luna shrugged.
"I just don't think they will. And I think Harry had his reasons for acting the way he did."
"What?"
Ron's shout echoed through the library, and for once Madam Pince didn't quiet him. He clenched his fists, his knuckles whitening.
"He tried to kill my sister," he seethed, surging to his feet. "Excuse me, but I don't think any reason can fix or excuse that."
"What did he say to you before he... hit you on the head?" Luna asked patiently, having forgotten that Ron had not one, but two bones to pick with his – now possibly former – friend. That complicated matters.
"I don't really remember, because he hit me on the head!"
"Just try," Hermione urged. Her curiosity seemed to have been peaked. "Did he say anything at all in particular?"
Ron brushed her aside.
"Besides his nasty, meaningless little apology? No."
"He must have," Luna insisted. It would be better for them to come to the conclusion themselves.
Looking confused, Ron sat down again and rubbed his temple.
"Come to think of it," he admitted slowly, "he did say something... I didn't think much of it because I was too angry... he said... Ginny wasn't Ginny? He said so twice. But that's nonsense."
"Not necessarily." Hermione's eyes gleamed with interest. "Maybe he meant she's someone who looks uncommonly like your sister."
"A twin?" suggested Ron, half-heartedly and very gloomily.
"Don't be ridiculous. A doppelgänger. An evil one."
"Now you're being ridiculous."
"No," said Hermione, her voice rising in excitement. "No, I read about a certain witches and wizards who can change forms, or appearances, or something. They're called meta... metamorph... oh, where was it?"
She rifled through the closest stack of books and aha-ed triumphantly as she dragged out an old, worn, leather-bound text and turned to one of the middle pages.
"They're called metamorphmagi. Metamorphmagi are rare witches and wizards born with the ability caused by genes or mutation to change their appearances at will. That's one explanation for what he said, and it's perfectly plausible."
"That's complete rot."
"I think he was trying to tell you that's what she was," Luna added, feeling it was time to push their so far correct investigation onward. "His words make more sense that way."
"Or, you know, he could be a completely loony, psychopathic murderer."
Ron evidently was in neither a forgiving nor an understanding mood. Luna narrowed her eyes at him.
"You need to..."
But before she could finish, a deep rumble shook the very foundations of Hogwarts (but how? Magic was woven into its very walls... it was supposed to be practically unshakeable), rising to a tumultuous crescendo before halting abruptly.
That could mean nothing good.
"Harry! Harry, are you all right? I can't see you!"
Coughing up the dust that clogged his throat, Harry wiped his watering eyes and sat up, brushing himself off. His sides ached, his head hurt, and his hand was throbbing.
"Yeah," he called, as soon as he could, after gagging on a particularly large clump of dirt. "Yeah, I'm all right. What about you? And what is this thing?"
He could hear equal parts relief and agitation in her voice as she answered from the other side of the dense, shifting mass between them.
"I don't know... I don't know... but I'm okay, thank goodness. Really dusty, but okay."
"Same here. Do you think we can walk through?"
He stood and edged nearer, but was careful to stay several feet away from it. The cloud-like formation was blocking the whole passageway, and it was completely black except for a pinprick of grayish light at the center.
"I don't really want to try."
He didn't really want to either, but there was no point in staying on opposite sides of the thing indefinitely. Harry took a deep breath and plunged a hand into it. It felt almost like an icy bath... no, more like icy mist. To his relief, it didn't hurt, and judging from Ginny's yelp of surprise, it went right through.
"I can see a... a hand now!"
He snorted at the ridiculousness of the situation and her comment, and wiggled his fingers.
"Good. That would be mine. You'll have to come to me, though, because the way out is on this side."
She grasped his wrist, but still hesitated. His hand was starting to feel numb.
"Couldn't you go through instead and we could walk around? I mean, the passage forms a loop anyway, right?"
"This is easier," said Harry hastily, glad for the excuse.
"Oh, dear. All right, here goes."
He could hear her take a very deep breath, and then she lunged through and was crashing into his chest. He had to catch his balance quickly so that they wouldn't both tumble to the ground. Ginny panted, still clutching his wrist.
"Okay, good," Harry gasped, taking a gulp of air. "Good. Neither of us is dead and we're both on the same side of whatever the bloody hell this thing is. Everything's going to work out fine."
Ginny coughed up a cloud of dust and grimaced.
"Ugh."
Her formerly bright orange-red hair was streaked grayish-brown, as were her face, her clothes, and her hands. Judging from the way she was staring at him, he was just as dirty. She coughed again, absently waving her hand through the ensuing second cloud of dust, and brushed off her shirt.
"Why would someone specifically want, or require, a dusty old passage?" she asked drearily. "It's about the worst place imaginable."
"Exactly. So no one else would think of the same thing and find their stuff."
And then they both remembered what – who, really – exactly the "stuff" had been this time, and fell silent. Ginny let out a nervous giggle.
"Do we have to stare at this until..."
"Luna," Harry interjected helpfully. Ginny hadn't met her the first time around, and there had not been time for introductions when they'd found her.
"Until Luna gets back?" Ginny finished, throwing him a thankful glance. "It's rather... menacing, I think."
"Do you really want to go down the passage or into one of the rooms?"
"No," Ginny admitted, and shivered. "I just need something more cheerful. This is horrid."
They turned at the noise that followed – it sounded a bit like a page being turned – and found themselves inside garishly colored carnival tent. Ginny jumped as jolly music began to play (it sounded like it came from an accordion, or a mouth organ).
"What on earth?!"
It clicked together in Harry's mind.
"You said you needed something more cheerful."
Ginny shot him a puzzled look.
"Yes, and?"
He waved a hand in a wide arc at the brightly painted decorations that surrounded them.
"I think the room thinks this fits your requirements."
"Oh, dear," she said again, after digesting that for a short while. "It's terribly loud. And it's so empty."
It was. It completely lacked the noise of the crowd that created the authentic carnival feel, and the result was almost sinister.
"At least..." Harry turned and saw the mass behind them, still shifting constantly. "Oh, no. It followed us. Or it stayed in the same place even though the room changed."
"I guess this is a little better," Ginny allowed.
They both cringed as the music cracked on its highest note.
At this moment, Luna chose to burst in. She looked rather startled at the change in scenery, until her eyes were drawn to the thing. They first widened, then narrowed to slits, and then she marched towards Harry and Ginny with a grim air.
"We've got to get out," she said briskly.
"I thought we had to hide."
"No, we have to go."
They had barely made it ten paces outside the Room of Requirement (the room was a curious phenomenon; Harry looked back right after stepping out and it had already disappeared) before they heard an angry yell behind them.
It was Ginny's shapeshifting counterpart. Ginny had frozen in shock at the sight of herself standing only yards away, so Harry grabbed her arm and pushed her forward.
"Go on," he hissed. Luna spared him an alarmed glance, but he nodded for her to take over. She inclined her head in understanding. "Hurry up, I'll hold it off."
"B... but... that's... that's me," Ginny stammered, tripping over her own feet as Luna dragged her on determinedly. "That's me."
"No, it's not. Just go. Go!"
He pulled out his knife once he was certain they had obeyed, their footsteps fading quickly in the distance. Not-Ginny gazed at him with cold fury in her heavy-lidded eyes, and she bared her teeth at him. He winced at the beastly gesture and held his silver weapon in from of him with as much nerve as he could gather.
"What do you think that's going to do to me?" she jeered, but nonetheless kept her distance.
"Why don't you come closer and we'll find out?" he challenged.
That was officially one of the stupidest suggestions he had made in the history of ever. Fortunately it hadn't quite goaded the creature into action, although he could see her jaw working ferociously. It was hard to look at her and not see Ginny, and he could only pray that someone would come before things got too bad.
Of course, no one would. He rarely had much luck in that department.
"You don't know why I'm here, do you?"
He could deal with an evil monologue. Hopefully it would be a long one. He didn't answer.
"It's not as if I killed the Weasley girl," she continued, switching subjects abruptly (which was a pity, because he had been curious). "I even fed her."
"I'm surprised you actually consider that worth mentioning."
"Very funny," Not-Ginny replied shortly, not looking amused in the slightest. "But back to the original point. It's too late for you. It doesn't matter if you kill me, because I've already done my job."
She licked her lips predatorily and smiled.
"Your job?"
He tightened his grip on the knife and did his best to hide the nervous tremors running up and down his arm. Not-Ginny smiled even more widely.
"He doesn't know what it i-is, he doesn't know what it i-is!" she sang mockingly.
Exhaling slowly through his nose, he fought to control his temper. She wanted him to lose it and attack her, but he wouldn't… he wouldn't. A cold draft swept down the passage, and for neither the first nor the last time he wished someone would hurry up and come.
"Why don't you tell me, then?"
"That would ruin the point, idiot," she replied, with patient contempt. "What's the point of having a secret if I give it away before it happens?"
Before it happens... that meant it was an event, which meant... he had absolutely no idea.
She reached under her robes and he watched cautiously for any wink or reflection that might indicate a weapon. Instead, her hands came out holding a familiar black book. She waved it up and down a couple times, still grinning.
"That's Tom."
He could have bitten his tongue off.
"Ah," she said, satisfied. "I thought you'd been rummaging through my stuff. Tom told me there'd been a John writing to him. I'm rather impressed, actually; not many would have the presence of mind to give a fake name. Now, on to a little... black magic." She winked at him and opened the book. "Come on out and join the party, Tom!"
Ink rapidly started to pool inside the book, pouring out of the pages like a veritable waterfall, and overflowing onto the floor. The spilled ink released curls of black smoke, which gathered into a mass above it and gradually began to take form.
... Eyes flew open, black again... "Te Rogamus, Audi Nos!"... black smoke spewed out of its mouth in torrents... black cloud gathered...
"Demon!" he gasped, barely aware of what he was doing or where he was, knowing only that he had to stop it, and he darted forward and plunged the knife in the shapeshifter's chest.
Not-Ginny's eyes widened, staring at him in blank shock (don't... don't stare at me like that... please), and then she looked down, where her hands had convulsively grasped the bloody hilt protruding from her chest. Then she looked back up at him, and choked a little, blood bubbling through her lips and dribbling down her chin.
Harry stumbled backwards, the knife clattering to the ground from his slack fingers. Not-Ginny fell to her knees heavily, her hands pressed to the bloody gash at her heart, and she slumped in a crumpled mound on the floor. He merely gaped at her. His mind was completely blank and his heart was pounding, pounding in his ears, throbbing in his slashed hand.
The black smoke crept close to the floor and slowly snaked around the unmoving body of the shapeshifter. It slipped silently into her mouth, rapidly disappearing inside.
Not-Ginny's eyes flew open and Harry started violently, backing several more steps away. She pushed herself up, shaking her head dazedly, and rose unsteadily.
"This is," she rolled the words weirdly in her mouth as though unaccustomed to speaking, "very strange."
She jerked her head awkwardly in his direction and her eyes lit up.
"Hullo!" she exclaimed excitedly and in a high voice. "My name's Tom!"
She frowned.
"No, no, the body's all wrong." She grinned again brightly at Harry and her teeth were mottled with blood, the gums receding horrifically to reveal their roots. "Never mind, I'm a shapeshifter now. I can fix that quickly. Just give me a moment."
Flipping the robe quickly over her head, she began to writhe and grab and rip at her skin, pulling it off in slimy strands and letting it fall with wet slaps to the ground. Harry's stomach lurched and he looked away, tasting bile.
"Sorry," he heard... Tom say after several minutes of screaming at his self-inflicted pain. "That part's a bit nasty, and I'm new to this. Useful ability, though. I like looking like myself again."
Harry turned. Tom smiled at him, somewhat more neat and trim, and once again wearing Ginny's now too-short robe. He wiped away a trickle of residual blood from his forehead. Instead of looking like a young redhead, he was rather tall, his eyes and hair dark. His face, while handsome, had a certain ruthlessness in its expression that turned Harry off.
"Sorry," Tom repeated genially, and came forward, holding out a hand. "Hullo, Harry. Your name's Harry, right? I got that much from the creature's head before she kicked the bucket, and a mercy that she did, too. I'm Tom Riddle. We've been introduced, but not very... corporeally, per se. Glad to meet you. I think we're practically kindred spirits."
"I hope not," Harry returned, with as much iciness as he could muster.
Tom chuckled.
"Oh, all right. Whatever you say." He frowned, but looked almost as if he was simply relishing the ability to form facial expressions. "It was rotten to be stuck in a book for so many decades," he continued, frankly. "I'm glad to be out."
"What exactly do you plan to do?" Harry asked carefully. Somehow he didn't hold much hope that the answer would be less than destructive.
"Oh, this and that," said Tom, very cheerfully, placing a hand companionably on Harry's shoulder. Harry tried to shrug it off, but his hold was firm. "You can help if you like. You seem quite capable."
"Tell me what I'm supposed to help with first."
Tom drew him closer.
"I'll tell you a secret. The Chamber of Secrets isn't going to be opened. You've all been duped, and spectacularly. It was opened fifty years ago by me... I've simply come back to retrieve my inheritance."
"You're the heir of Slytherin?"
Harry felt a brief flash of relief that it wasn't him, and then remembered that this was probably worse.
"Quite. But I'm willing to go halves... no... maybe eighty to twenty."
Pulling away, Harry scowled at him.
"No."
Not a flicker of surprise passed over the smooth, bland face.
"Oh? That's unfortunate. We would have made an unforgettable pair. As it is, all I can tell you now," his teeth flashed, "is that it would probably be good to look behind you."
Harry jerked his head around, and his eyes met a great, glowing, unblinking gaze.
Oh, crap.
And he knew no more.
"Harry... Harry!"
He sat up.
"Snake!" he croaked, and his eyes flew open.
Luna looked startled.
"What?"
Harry whipped his head around.
"There was a... snake?" he ended doubtfully as he saw Ron and Hermione sitting on a bed beside him.
He was in the infirmary (again). But how...
"Ron!" he exclaimed, paling. "Ron, I need to explain. That wasn't Ginny, honestly. It was a shapeshifter. You know I would never, never..."
"Whoa... whoa, mate, hold it."
Harry frowned. Ron didn't sound angry. He didn't even sound annoyed. Just curious... and amused?
"What are you talking about? Did you have a rummy nightmare?"
"Nightma..." Words failed him, and he turned to Luna. "Luna, you remember. You took Ginny... I had to hold off the shapeshifter..."
Luna seemed genuinely puzzled.
"What are you talking about? Ginny's in class right now."
"In class?"
"Ye-es," Ron put in, slowly. "But what exactly does Ginny have to do with this? You just smashed your head against the stairs... second time this year, too. You've got to watch your step, Harry. What's a shapeshifter?"
Aha. Stumped you there, have I?
Reviews – especially constructive criticism – are always very much appreciated! Thank you!
