A/N: My thanks to anyone and everyone who reviews this story. Sorry for the no-update day, my muse decided she did not like this chapter, and so it took longer than usual to write.

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Chapter 25: The Calm Afterwards

The evening of January First found Harry absently rubbing his slightly aching right forearm. It wasn't anywhere near as stiff as it had been in the days following Christmas, but he was flubbing every one out of ten wand movements.

He'd been lucky that the worst he'd dealt with so far was a minor concussive backlash. Given that when he had first started doing spell work he had been getting one out of ten correct instead wrong, but it had forced him to practice the twelve basic wand movements. There was a chapter about them in their first year charms book, but Flitwick never handed out any work on them... Being the head of Ravenclaw, he probably assumed everyone at least read all the material once.

So instead of working ahead, he was working on getting back to form. It was annoying. He started the work on his metamorph abilities that had been interrupted when he had gone all out against the danger the Chamber posed. He also started reading the Animagus journal. He'd heard the stories of his father, Padfoot, and the traitor making the transformation.

Of course, though they had never told him, he had figured out Remus was a werewolf. He was ill around the full moon, he avoided silver as though it was deadly, but for some reason he was terrified of rabbits. He assumed there was a connection with Remus's (then) three best friends taking non-human forms. He'd have to talk to Moony some point soon.

He should probably do some reading on werewolves first. Maybe he'd dedicate a linking book to it.

He'd just gotten back into the common room from 'writing' wand movements into the air in an unused classroom. He found a spell for each separate movement that when done correctly glowed green and when flubbed glowed red. And the reds were finally starting to thin out further.

Slinging himself down onto a couch, he pulled out yet another plain leather bound journal. Anyone who paid attention to what Harry read (and by and large even Hermione had stopped doing that part way through first year; Harry could probably give their entire year in Ravenclaw a run for their money in the number of books read department) saw that he was either reading plain gray books with the Potter House coat of arms on the front cover, all of which were identical save for the word that ran along binding, or he was reading a large variety of leather bound journals.

Turning the page of this one he was reading, he made an inarticulate sound of rage. He read the new page a second time and had to restrain himself from throwing the book in the fire. He stuffed the offending journal in his bag, he pulled out his linking book that revolved around 'Wizarding Law (currently in effect)'. Boredom always helped him fight rage.

Besides, having solicitors and barristers on retainer is all well and good, but given how self-serving Purebloods tended to be, a knowledge of what loopholes they had built into the system could be helpful.

He also idly thought of how the rest of the aftermath of his trip into the Chamber had gone. He'd written to Neville and Hermione to say that it was all over and that the school was safe. He'd talked to Padfoot on the mirror, and the old dog had been torn between pride at his godson slaying monster like that and worry that his godson was suicidally insane.

But he had really enjoyed the newspaper article...

Boy-Who-Lived Slays Basilisk

Makes Halls of Hogwarts Safe

He would have preferred it if the journalist had referred to him as 'Fate's Chew Toy' at one point, but hey, the story had been translated into over a dozen languages and syndicated world wide. But hey, the front page picture was of him posing with the corpse.

Thinking of the corpse, the goblins had simply portkeyed it out of the Chamber. And in exchange for a tithe of the bones, blood, viscera, flesh, and venom, they were going to render the beast down into parts, and act as his agents, for a discounted rate, for whatever portions he would want to sell. Three percent of each sale would go to the goblins instead of the usual fifteen.

The basilisk parts were going to be in storage. He hadn't decided on whether or not to sell the pieces yet.

Apparently the British Wizarding World had loved him because they were terrified of what Voldemort was doing to them and the rest of the Wizarding World loved him because if Voldemort could do what he did to his own countrymen, what would he do to the the rest of them?

So that being said, most of the Wizarding World on the planet was always a little starved for Potter news. Harry found it more than a little disturbing that he was a global celebrity.

Dumbledore was pacing his office. The situation with Harry had spiraled far out of control. Not only was the boy no long safe under the blood wards of his own devising, he didn't even heed that the Headmaster even existed. How was the young man to fulfill the prophecy if the greatest wizard alive was not there to direct him? They were doomed if he could not control Harry as he had planned. Voldemort was going to kill them all.

He was a bit proud of how Harry had resolved the situation, but it wasn't because of how he had maneuvered the boy. He couldn't have Harry be this independent, nor this willing to fight lethally. The world needed a hero of light, not gray.

Fawkes watched on as his long time friend slipped further and further from the moral high ground. The road to hell was indeed paved with good intentions.

Monday, January Fourth saw classes begin again. Harry had eventually settled on the wand movement equivalent of enunciating. Carefully and deliberately was how he performed his spells. He really hated the fact that he would have to build his speed and fluidity back up. He also started working with his left hand, just in case his right never got back up to form.

He cornered Remus yesterday, and told him point blank that he'd figured out the man's... 'furry little problem'. Which sent the Marauder into hysterics, for the sheer reason that that was exactly what James had called it. Then he congratulated Harry on figuring it out so quickly and easily, and then swore him to secrecy. Harry gave Moony a look of utmost contempt. He knew perfectly well that the secret needed to remain a secret.

He preferred to use his right hand, but with the number of broken bones his Uncle, and later Dudley, had given him, often focusing on his favored side and at torso level, he had often had to resort to working in school with his left. He remembered a few of his primary school teachers calling him ambidextrous. He thought it was he just got too much damned practice.

Both Neville and Hermione noted the change in his wand work over the next week, and he told them he would be fine, and that it had been worse.

Two weeks later, Harry was sitting in the common room, staring intently at a mirror that was floating in front of him. He'd been like that, near unmoving for an hour, save for an increasingly severe scowl. No one in the House, save Neville and Hermione, had understood where the apparent vanity had come from.

Then his hair turned as white as snow. His screams of celebration were a little unnerving. And they lasted for all of a minute before he was back in the chair, staring at the mirror, a grin on his face.

An hour later his hair was changing color every other minute.

The next day, his hair was back to his normal color for the most part, but had streaks of red the same color as what he saw in pictures of his mother.

Snape was so very, very torn. He had wanted to fail a Potter at potions, but the boy's work had never been anything less than exemplary. In fact it was more often than not, perfect. And his written assignments reminded him more of his mother than his ponce of a father, who was a dunderhead at anything that didn't have to do with transfiguration or combat.

But he looked so very, very much like James that he just couldn't help but hate him, not matter how much of Lily he had in him, with regards to personality and intellect.

And then he came into Potions class, and his hair had red in it. A lot of red. Her red. If the Potter brat started to look any less like his father, Severus Snape may very well have to change his his mind, and make an opinion about the boy based on his own merits.

That thought gave the Potions Master a small chill. He hated having to change his mind.

Neville cornered Harry in the common room near the end of January.

"Harry, just how was it that the House of Black pauperized the Malfoys?"

Blinking several times at this particular non sequitur, Harry explained, "It was rather easy actually. Even with all of the money they did have, they either spent it on two things, themselves or making more money. But the biggest problem with this is they tended not to be the best planners, or employ the best of planners. So when Sirius bought up all their debts, it would have equaled a good seventy to eighty percent of their net worth. Add to that fact that he annulled the marriage between Lucius and Narcissa, due to the fact that Lucy bears the loyalty brand of the one responsible for the death of a male Black, and that Paddy demanded the return of the dowry, with interest. That put them in a hole that they barely managed to get out of and maintain solvency. Draco's just lucky his trust vault is in his name."

Neville blinked at that rather twisted way of doing business, but he could vaguely understand it. "Sounds like a rather interesting and bloodless way to get rid of a Death Eater."

"It wouldn't have been bloodless if he hadn't have gotten his hands on the money. Goblins consider debtors to be thieves, and theft is a capital crime in the Goblin Nation. So it is a really, really good rule of thumb to never borrow money from the goblins. Ever."

By the time the next Quidditch match rolled around, Harry had continued to improve his casting with both hands, but he had also figured out how to play with the length of his hair. He'd gotten a handle of it a few days before, and was slowly lengthening it. The longer it got, the less of a disaster it was, but he was a bit iffy on how long he actually wanted it.

Cheering on Hufflepuff as they ruthlessly beat the Ravenclaws, Harry knew that the last match of the year against the badgers was going to be fun. Of course, he had absolutely no interest in going to the next Quidditch match. Gryffindor had already beaten both the teams that were playing. Seeing the snitch and Cedric going after it, Harry idly wondered when he would finish up reading the third year material.

After a few months of careful planning, Harry and the Twins pulled off their a rather... interesting prank. They gave each professor a theme song. They had to contract out the sound recording to Padfoot, but that was a rather minor thing.

For one week, each member of the faculty was followed around by an orb. Each time the person and the orb entered a room with more than seven other people present the song would play.

As a few examples, Severus Snape had the 'The Imperial March" composed by John Williams, Minerva McGonagall had Ted Nugent's "Cat Scratch Fever", Filius Flitwick was given "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor, and Dumbledore got "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!" by Jerry Samuels.

They were really glad that they had made Snape's nigh indestructible. Besides which, every time the greasy-haired git tried to get rid of it, it started playing again.

During the first week of March, Hermione sat down next to Harry and asked, "What are those gray books I've seen you reading?"

He had been wondering when she would finally ask after his reading seemingly identical books without end. True it had taken a few months for her to actually notice, but that was probably because the sheer amount of his reading had put the other members of the House off on asking him what he was reading. So, after setting up a few privacy spells, he explained about the Potter Family Library. A look of awe crossed her face, but the hunger that entered her eyes was a little unnerving.

"I'm sorry, Hermione, but the magics are set up so they only work for Potters. And as I am the last living Potter, they only work for me."

The crestfallen look on her face as he said this was expected, but she said, "I understand Harry, I just hope that you eventually let me take a look around the library itself."

"Eventually."

Harry was having a really difficult time getting the consistency of his hair to change in a manner that he liked. Whenever he changed it to get his hair under control, he just couldn't stand either how it looked or how it acted, and ended up changing it back.

He eventually settled on his normal, everyday uncontrollable hair, with the red streaks, but lengthened to his mid-back. He kept the majority of it tied back with a simple strip of leather, but he kept his fringe. He really didn't like his scar.

Looking in the mirror and nodding he sat down to start working on his eyes. Most of the school were out watching the 'Claws and the Snakes play Quidditch, but as the game had absolutely no bearing on who won the Cup, and combined with the fact that Harry disliked one of the houses and hated the other, he had decided he had better things to do with his time.

Harry had just finished trapping the hell out of his current defenses. The joke traps had given way to more serious defenses, but there were still a few of the more... surreal... traps he had come up with stuck in there.

Putting Alistair on his head, he brought the hat into the inner sanctum of his mind.

"Okay Al. Confusion, chaos, and distraction. What's next?"

"Simple, pain and wounding. You've given your mind teeth and claws, now sharpen them. Do you need any tips, tricks, or pointers?"

"No, it's obvious enough... But I think I am going to need some more room..."

He shrugged and knew he was going to eventually have to redo everything. First he'd need to finish learning from Alistair, and then he'd need to actually take time to map and plan how everything would fit together. This was going to take a while... And his mind's defenses were going to be nothing short of a chaotic warzone before he untangled it.

Harry had finally finished his work on the third year as the spring holidays rolled around. He had also finally finished working on his metamorph abilities, at least for this level of control. He kept his eyes green, for the main part because he had always liked his eyes.

He had also finally stopped flubbing wand movements during the course of normal classwork. Sure he wasn't yet back to his previous level with either hand, but he could use both hands interchangeably, which he took as some consolation.

He'd read the Animagus journal over four or five times, and had decided it would be better to hold off on it until he had at least finished working through the equivalent of fifth year. He'd then read the book again, and see if it made more sense.

On the third day of the holidays, Harry dragged himself into Remus's office. For some bloody reason both he and Sirius wanted him here. The fact that he would rather be taking a nap notwithstanding.

They were both sitting around the room, grinning like fools.

"Alright Heckle and Jeckle, just why did I have to drag my backside here so soon after lunch? Its my preferred nap time on off days..."

The two looked at each other, stared at Harry, and looked back at each other again.

Padfoot began, "Well we were planning on offering you a chance to go traveling over the summer."

Harry made a motion with his hand for them to continue.

Remus rolled his eyes and said, "Sirius here is planning on making a world tour of beaches, six continents, twenty beaches, in ten weeks."

Padfoot had a rather lecherous grin on his face when he picked up the thread of the conversation, "And Moony here is visiting a number of retreats and a few monasteries to try and get some help with his furry problem." He gave a sour look at the thought of a vacation spent this way.

Remus smacked the last of the Blacks in the shoulder and said, "I know how you are with the Mind Arts Harry, and the places I am visiting are considered the premier centers of that particular set of disciplines."

Harry nodded, and said, "I haven't really figured out anything yet, so I'll take your offers under advisement, I'd still need to talk to Nicolas and Perenelle anyways..."

The final match of the Quidditch season, Hufflepuff vs. Gryffindor, had finally rolled around. Harry had a grin plastered on his face as he walked out to the pitch, his broom slung over one shoulder, and there was only one thought going through his head.

'This is going to be fun.'

He gave a bow to Cedric as Madam Hooch had the Captains shake hands. Cedric grinned himself and returned the bow as Hooch continued with her statement of wanting a clean match, and told them all to kick off.

The match that followed was as vicious as a game could be without any intentional fouls. Harry did his level best to disrupt the play of the Hufflepuff Chasers, distract the Keeper, and force the Beaters to take shots at him.

A brutal two hours later, Harry barely beat Cedric in the chase for the snitch. Gryffindor won the Inter-House Quidditch Cup for the second year running.

For the rest of April and most of May things carried on as usual in the castle. Then of course came the madness that everyone (save Harry) called end of year exams. Harry called it exactly what he thought it was, useless insanity. The fact that he walked all over the rest of his class and took the top spot didn't matter. He just didn't like the exams, and had to resist the urge to hex the fifth and seventh years who were having panic attacks.

There was a reason for the irritability though. Something... strange... was happening to some of Harry's senses. Sometimes he heard a buzzing like high-tension power wires, except he could almost hear tunes and melodies coming from it. Other times it felt like something was pressing down on his entire body, and at times he swore it would vibrate. And then there were the times that objects seemed to either be surrounded by light, or glow out right.

He even willingly went to Madam Pomfrey and asked to be checked over to see if anything was wrong with him. She of course found nothing. He considered the possibility that he had become schizophrenic. His familiars wouldn't even talk about that course of reasoning.

When the choices for next year's elective courses came around, Harry choose Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, and Care of Magical Creatures. Neville ended up choosing Runes and Magical Creatures, and Hermione, no matter how much Harry tried to talk her out of it, choose all of the electives. She really still was a nutter.

Sirius at this point in time had finally received the invoices from his seizure of the Lestrange and Malfoy fortunes. Taking one look at the sheer amount of paper work there, he decided to leave it until after his vacation.

The Leaving Feast was eaten among Gryffindor colors for the second year running. Hufflepuff was in second place, with Slytherin a distant third followed in the end by the Ravenclaws. Harry picked at his food. Quite frankly he was bored with any gathering like this. Too many people.

He idly focused on the conversations around him. People were talking about their summer plans. He had already spoken with the only five people in this school who he wanted to know about.

Hermione was going to France with her parents. Now Harry didn't have anything against the France Wizarding World, they had fought tooth and nail against Grindelwaldand his followers to the very last. However the majority of the mundanes of that nation had rolled over. He'd only go to that country if he stayed in the wizarding world.

Neville had managed to talk his Gran into a trip to three of the wizarding equivalent of a botanical garden on the Continent. Harry had wished Nev good luck in getting any new plants.

Mr. Weasley had won the The Daily Prophet Grand Prize Galleon Draw and the family was going to take a trip to Egypt to visit the eldest brother, Bill, who was a curse breaker for Gringotts. So the twins would be able to raise hell far away from where Harry was planning on being. He hoped they didn't cause any international incidents.

Luna was going on an expedition with her father to look for... he couldn't quite be sure what the hell they were looking for, but he hoped they found it. Harry did not believe that all things were known, or even knowable. Somethings had to be taken on belief.

He smiled. This time two years ago he would have most likely be locked up alone in a cupboard. Sure there was a hell of a lot more mortal peril than there used to be, but at least he had some company between threats to life and limb.

Halfway through the train ride back to London and the four in the last compartment of the last car were reading various books and magazines, Neville suddenly said, "The one thing that no one ever figured out was who the 'Other Heir' was. He fired off a few messages about Salazar Slytherin and then disappeared."

Hermione gave one of her patented huffs, and said, "There was no way of telling."

Luna smiled serenely and said, "No, there were a few clues, Hermione, just none of them direct. There was another known parselmouth in the school, who had a juvenile basilisk as a familiar, and who was reading a thousand year old green leather bound journal like a man possessed during the two months that the attacks were occurring."

Then Neville and Hermione stared at Harry as Luna went back to reading the latest issue of the Quibbler. He was shamelessly avoiding looking at anyone at all by burying his face further in the book he was reading.

Neville shook his head and said, "Harry, you are utterly incapable of lying to anyone who you consider a friend. Even if you say nothing at all."

Giving a wry smile as he showed his face, he reached down into his bag and pulled out a green journal. "The personal diary of my ancestor, Salazar Slytherin. There are you happy? The really frustrating thing is I read this for every spare moment I had during those two months, and I finally found the sections on the Chamber, on the first sodding day of the new year, a week after I went up against the basilisk"

He put the book away, though he noticed Hermione eying it with interest. "You couldn't read it Hermione, it's written in parseltongue."

Her look of disappointment was almost humorous, but the four settled back into amicable silence for the rest of the ride. When they got off the train, Harry was ready to spend two weeks with his guardians before leaving with Remus for the trip.

Here Ends Book II

Interlude

Divisions and Reflections

Harry saw himself on one side of a wall of rubble with Ronald and the Golden Dandy on the other. More useless people to bring to a confrontation he could not think of. He was aware of the old man, watching, waiting, proud that he had managed to create a seemingly selfless hero. Proud of his little chess piece.

The fight with Riddle, who had been allowed to get this far in the use of his soul anchor, to test the resolve of Harry, to test his loyalty to the manipulative old man. When the phoenix showed up, it was not because of the loyalty shown, but instead because, as a creature of light, it could stand by no longer.

Harry won, but not by his own merits or abilities (or insanity), but through sheer luck. Luck of the kind that can create a dependance upon it, and lead to death and disaster. And then he let the old coot take the sword. Who in their right mind gives up a magical object of that power when it was freely given?

Harry could tell the version of himself he was seeing was going to be used. Like a pawn. He was going to be disposable, just like a pawn. And more over, he was being forged into something. What he couldn't tell yet.

And then he started to feel himself rise, feel himself waking up, and he was again assaulted by voices...

"... the entire garrison from the fortress..."

"... oh, thank Merlin! I was afraid..."

"... I hereby invoke the the Final Section of the Article of Last Resort. To be specific, I..."

"... under attack! Need reinforcements, Death Eaters..."

"... somethings I have told only one person. Sorry, but..."

"... call to the four winds! Shatter the..."

"... go from here. My purpose is behind..."

He rolled over and punched his pillow. This was the second damn time! What was wrong in that head of his?

A/N2: And there we go. This section ends book two with a word count of roughly 24k.