A/N: So, literally everyone guessed who Lucy would be. No. Really. All of you. Okay, almost all of you. I had a very small amount of people guess wrong, but for logical reasons

Also, the group is not from the regular timeline. Rather, they're from Future Lucy's timeline.

Also, to the person that is subscribed to this story soley so you can leave flames in guest reviews… You are just adorable! I am honored. Thank you. It literally made my day. Okay, not really, I lie, I lie, but I did get a good laugh out of it

The Prophet headline comes from BlueSeraphos, who gave me permission to use it. Thanks! :)

So, I was two thousands words in when I realized I hadn't even started the second year yet. Yikes. On that note, this is also the longest chapter I've written for this story

Incidentally, the rest turned out… Darker than I intended.

Published: 4/21/2018

Warnings: Major Character Death

Chapter 25

Gray Fullbuster II

Gray had absolutely refused to go back to the Dursleys, despite Dumbledore's protest. If that was his family in this world, then he would literally rather be an orphan again. Incidentally, the Dursley's seemed to agree with his sentiment, and had promptly chased Dumbledore right out while ranting about the evils of magic and what not.

In their defense, Gray had caused thousands of pounds of property damage to their house to the point where they'd been forced to move.

Erza, of course, had offered him a place with her. Gray resolutely refused as kindly as he could. He loved Erza, he really did, but he was not sharing a house with her. Camping with the girl could get messy, much less being stuck in the same home during her random mood swings that seemed to be dictated by the alignment of the stars and how many starfish had just washed up on a beach in Normandy.

In other words, there was no logic and Gray was not putting up with that 24/7. How Jellal could was beyond him, but Gray assumed they were just both the right amount of insane for one another.

Dumbledore had merely chuckled at him, though.

So it was that Gray was… Sent of to live with the Weasleys.

"What? Them? Why? I don't even know any of them!" Gray had protested. He'd much rather spend his summer just wandering the countryside like normal, thank you very much. He'd done it as a kid, and doing it now shouldn't be too hard.

"My dear boy, this is for the best. You will see." Dumbledore smiled at him.

Gray twitched. Right. Best for him. Of course it was. Whatever. Gray would just go with it, for now. Besides, if the Weasley's were anywhere near as bad or annoying as the Dursley's, Gray could just freeze the damn place and run away again.

Dumbledore sighed as young Harry finally agreed to staying with the Weasley's over the summer. It had been disturbing, more than he cared to admit, when the young savior of the Wizarding World had been sorted into the same house as Voldemort. The only respite Dumbledore had from it was the fact that his two best friends were a Hufflepuff and a Gryffindor, something that had not been seen in decades.

Dumbledore was reminded of another boy, and his heart clenched.

Hopefully, Molly could help. Dumbledore did not want another Severus Snape on his hands. Another broken child, having made mistakes left and right, and lamenting as the consequences of their actions swept away around them.

Gray wanted to learn how to apparate. His desire for doing so was not because it was useful, or because he particularly liked the sensation. Oh, no. If anything, Gray would rather never apparate again as long as he lived. Doing so had left him nearly tossing his lunch right out, only barely managing to hold it in.

Which was why a maniacal grin had appeared on Gray's face as he wondered exactly what effect it would have on Natsu. The motion sickness had left Gray spinning, imagine on him?

Evil, true, but Gray just had to know, had to see, the reaction.

"Come along. It isn't much farther." Mr. Weasley spoke.

Gray nodded at the man. Mr. Weasley had come to pick up Gray right from the school after he'd been dragged back. Sadly. Gray was sure he had a dozen tracker spells on him, and they were probably locked onto his skin or something, since by now all the teachers knew well enough that Gray had no qualms about running around sans clothing.

("What is he? A newborn toddler, removing his clothes because they make him uncomfortable?" Snape had sneered. Gray had pretended not to hear the man.)

They marched right through the door in the middle of a loud, yelling argument. The combatants? In a stark twist of events, Ronald Weasley had actually dared challenge his mother in a screaming match.

Lord have mercy on his soul.

"But mom! He's a Slytherin!"

Ron, Gray decided, was a walking, talking ball of irony, all mixed in one. He severely disliked Gray on principle because Slytherin's were all Blood Purist bastards, snobbish, sneaks that lived for the joy of messing with everyone else.

The irony, of course, was that while Ron was ranting about how all Slytherin's were racist, he was incidentally painting Gray as one merely because he was a Slytherin.

In other words, Ron was just as prejudiced as he claimed the Slytherin's were.

"Ronald Weasley! You will be nice to our guest! I certainly hope you don't act like this when he arrives! You'll be sharing a room with him, and-"

"Sharing a room? Are you insane! He'll kill me in my sleep!"

"Did you just interrupt me, young man? I AM YOUR MOTHER AND YOU WILL- oh, hello Harry dear." Mrs. Weasley then proceeded to do a complete 180, from looking like she was about to personally fillet her child to beaming at Gray as if he had just brought her a lifelong supply of pastries.

Gray gulped.

He'd avoided the real Erza, but it seemed fate was going to mess with him, because this woman, right here? She might as well be Erza's mother.

Elsewhere, Irene Belserion sneezed.

Frazzled red hair, mood swings, and, by the look of the kitchen, a love for sweets that rivaled all things.

Gray had the distinct pleasure of seeing Ron go scarlet as his hair, spinning around and locking gazes with Gray.

"Hey, Mrs. Weasley. I've been informed that I'm to stay with you guys for the summer." Gray bowed slightly in the direction of the woman. He could practically hear Ron's jaw smashing into the floor as Mrs. Weasley cooed about what a 'respectful young man' Gray was. "I hope I'm not any sort of bother. What can I do to help around here?"

This caused Ron to storm up the stairs in anger.

Well.

This summer was going to be fun.

The next morning, in the middle of a breakfast that bordered on holy because oh my god, that woman could cook, there were gasps hear aloud as the Daily Prophet arrived.

"Ha! I knew it! You fake!" Ron declared, tossing said newspaper at Gray. Gray blinked in surprise, staring at Ron in utter shock.

"Since when can you read?" Gray asked, still in shock. It was a genuine question. He had actually been convinced the other boy could not read, so learning that he could was eye opening.

Ron spluttered as his twin brothers chortled.

"OF COURSE I CAN READ, YOU SLIMY DISGUSTING EXCUSE OF A HUMAN-"

"RONALD BILIUS WEASLEY!"

Ron eeped and shot out of the dinning room like a bat out of hell.

"What's this, then?"

"Hm. Pass it along, brother, pass it along."

The twins looked over the paper, laughing loudly. Curious, Gray took a peek at the title of the headline. Even upside down, he could read it, clear as day.

SUSAN BONES, THE REAL SAVIOUR OF THE WIZARDING WORLD. HARRY POTTER : IS HE REALLY OUR SAVIOUR?

"Susan Bones."

"Conqueror of stuttering messes."

"Who's our champion?"

"She's our champion!"

"Little icky Bagger with claws!"

Gray eyed the paper once more. Well. He wondered just exactly how Erza would take it?

(Erza stared at the paper before her. Across the table, her Aunt was watching her expectantly. Then, setting it down, Erza stood, tall and proud.

A single tear fell down her cheek.

"If this is what the people want, then I shall honor them, and be the hero that they deserve!"

With that declaration, a sword materialized into her hands as she held it up proudly in the air even as her Aunt started to yell about how she wasn't supposed to be performing underage magic and yadda yadda.)

Gray had another stalker.

sfvjnkrvlirbviur

Jnrvuhrivhirt

Lkfvnjrenvkurehuvhre

Fnvfrivhirj

Gray screamed gibberish into his pillow. Again.

Holy mother of magic, really? Again? Gray supposed that he shouldn't be surprised. He was famous here. A goddamn celebrity, literally. It was more of a wonder why this was the first one that he had encountered than anything else.

Ginny Weasley was a blushing, stuttering mess that trailed behind him, hiding behind random things with all the subtlety of Nasu whenever he was on a stealth mission. Considering it had taken Gray months to get his Invisibility Cloak back after Natsu he had foolishly allowed Natsu to borrow the damn thing, that should tell how discreet Ginny was.

Sure enough, the sound of creaking stairs could be heard. Gray sighed, silently pondering if Ginny was anywhere near as dangerous as Juvia had been. Juvia had been… Chaotic.

"He's up there! He is! Can you believe it? The Harry Potter, living in my house?" Ginny's whisper might as well have been a shout to Gray's sharper than usual ears. While his senses weren't as good as Natsu's, they were still stronger than a regular humans or even a regular wizard, so the words came in clear.

Ginny, and company. Joy, another one.

Gray groaned.

He hoped she'd get over this soon. He'd asked the twins about her once, and Ginny's normal personality was nowhere near this… Annoying. She actually sounded like someone he could come to get along with. This stalkerish bit, though? Gray seriously hoped it was just a phase. He really, really did.

"Are you sure we should be doing this? It's a bit rude, you know. What if he's sleeping?" the other voice asked, feminine and young.

Oh thank god. A voice of reason.

"I-" Ginny started to stutter before sighing. "I suppose you're ri-"

It was at this moment that Gray decided he'd had enough. Tossing himself off the bed, he made his way to the door in a few short strides. Ripping it open, he watched as the two girls, Ginny and a blonde, collapsed before him. They'd been leaning against it, and, with the weight gone, they'd fallen in a heap.

Gray crossed his arms, frowning down at the pair of them as they looked up at him in embarrassment.

The blond gave out a startled cry, her cheeks along with Ginny's turning red. Ginny looked away, cupping her face in her hands as the blond cried out, "Why are you naked!"

Wha-

Oh shit. He wasn't even wearing underwear. Gray scrambled towards the bed, but his dignity was already gone, blasted right out the window the second he'd opened that door. Oh god, he hoped Erza never learned of this.

He could just see it now, Erza chasing him down with a sword in hand for 'beseeching the honor of innocent maidens', nevermind that he'd literally caught them sneaking around at his door.

Gray managed to pull some clothes on before turning around. The blond was still looking at him, not having looked away the entire time. Goddamn voyeur. Not that Gray minded. He'd run around naked outside 24/7 if he was allowed, wandering eyes be damned.

Grey eyes locked with his and narrowed.

"Gray?"

Gray nearly tripped on his feet.

What?

Then, those grey eyes burst into a shower of tears that had both Gray and Ginny wondering what the hell was wrong and how they could fix it.

"I'm going to tear him to pieces. I'm going to stab a javelin of ice, right through his goddamn heart."

On the bright side, he'd found Lucy. On the negative side, she remembered… More than the rest of them combined. Enough to know how things came to an end, and it hadn't been pretty. It hadn't been pretty at all.

They'd all died. One by one, they'd fallen. First, Gray himself. Then, Erza. Finally, Natsu, ripped apart to shreds trying to protect Lucy. Dragons had torn apart their entire world until, at long last, in a moment of desperation, Lucy had teamed up with him.

Him being Zeref. Gray was still trying to wrap his mind around that one. Still, this was Lucy and Lucy wasn't one for making high tales. If she said the Dark Mage tried to help her, then it was true. She herself didn't know why, only that she'd once caught the Dark Wizard staring forlornly at Natsu's grave with unmasked tears streaming down his eyes.

Neither of them wanted to think too much into that one.

Zeref had sent her back in time in one last ditch effort to prevent the Apocalypse, but she hadn't gone alone. No. Someone had followed, someone broken and twisted by the horrors of that time, someone who'd cut her down without an ounce of remorse.

Lucy shook her head at him.

"No, Gray. What's done is done. He's gone. Natsu… Natsu took care of it."

Gray bit his lip.

Natsu, but not their Natsu. The other Natsu. This whole divergent timeline thing was going to give him a goddamn headache. On the bright side, he'd found the last person in their little group. Natsu would be thrilled, no matter how much the goddamn knucklehead denied it.

The new Lucy was… Pretty absent minded.

She'd been reborn as a girl named Luna Lovegood. Much like in her last life, this Lucy had the innate ability to commune with spirits. Except, this world wasn't like theirs. There were no Celestial Spirit Keys, or anything similar to that.

So, when Lucy turned and spoke to spirits, she literally looked like she was speaking to the air.

"What in the hell is a wrackspurt." Gray deadpanned.

Lucy laughed, hand seemingly waving at something in his hair, something only she could see. Er. Okay?

Neither of them noticed Ginny, or the jealousy shining in the other girl's eyes.

Gray's first meeting with Gilderoy Lockhart went much like his first meeting with Vernon Dursley. On the bright side, Gray had learned some restraint in this new world, so the only thing that ended up frozen was Lockhart himself and Gray didn't have to pay for an entire store of merchandize, because that would have likely bankrupted him, family fortune or no.

On the negative side, the press had yet another field day, and Gray was henceforth known as the Ice Prince of Slytherin.

Gray stared at the literal rotting corpse of a horse pulling the carriage.

What in the living fuck.

Gray had totally called it.

Natsu had taken a sniff. Just a single goddamn fucking sniff into the air the second Lucy had walked into the Grand Hall with the rest of the first years. That was all it took.

"Lucy!"

Luna spun at the call of her name. Her other name. Old name, technically. What was it now? Luna, Gray thought it was?

Her eyes locked with Natsu's across the hall.

"Na- Natsu?" she stuttered out.

Of course, she knew he'd be here. Gray had told her all about it, although he hadn't told Natsu or Erza. If they wanted to ignore all his letters the entire summer, then he would ignore them back.

It was almost worth it, walking Natsu literally vault his way across the hall, colliding with the younger girl in a mix of limps.

Hogwarts was then treated to the rather odd sight of a twelve year old and an eleven year old trying to eat each other's faces off with their lips. Natsu and Lucy literally had no chill. Gray had expected this from Natsu, but he was surprised Lucy was reciprocating just as eagerly for the whole world to see.

Psh. Didn't miss her his fucking ass.

It was an even more startling moment when, half an hour later, Lucy managed to get herself sorted into Ravenclaw instead of Gryffindor where everyone had expected her to end after that 'little' show.

Not saying anything had almost been worth it. Almost, because of Natsu's reaction. What made it negative, in the end, was neither Natsu and Lucy. Oh, no. Those two were too lost in each other to see anything else.

Nope.

What made it negative was Erza hunting him down later.

"You mean to tell me you knew where Lucy was for months without informing us!"

Hogwarts was once more treated to an odd sight, this one being of Harry Potter running for the goddamn hills as Susan Bones tried to skwer him with what seemed like every sword, knife, and javelin off every single suit of armor in the entire castle.

"Wait, what do you mean you didn't get any of our letters? I wrote you tons!"

"... Natsu, since when the hell can you write?"

Gray was promptly set on fire.

Dobby found himself pinned to the ground, frozen and bound as the Great Harry Potter peared down at him, an icicle forming in his hands, the tip of it jabbed at his throat.

Dobby whimpered.

"The fuck are you and the fuck were you doing to my stuff?"

"Enemies of the Heir Beware! You'll be next, Mudbloods!"

"What's a Mudblood? Wait, is that… is that a cat? Which one of you fuckers did it! Come out and fight me!"

Natsu was… Rather protective of felines. Gray assumed it was because he missed Happy. They had yet to find the little Exceed, although if they would find him at all would be questionable.

Gray now knew that this wasn't an alternate reality. At least, not in the same sense as Edolas.

They had died.

They'd all died.

Silently, he wondered if the rest of their guild mates were scattered about elsewhere.

His musing were interrupted by Filch joining Natsu in his screeching about how their would be punishment. So it was that an unholy alliance was born between the most unlikely of comrades.

"Hey! Get away from him before I freeze your ass and turn you into a snakecicle!" Gray yelled. The snake whimpered, backing away.

"Cruel speaker. Can I not have but a taste? These foul humans, summoning me without warning!"

Gray titled his head. Okay, he supposed he could see how that could be annoying. Still. He couldn't let the snake bite random people.

"If you want to bite someone, bite the one that summoned you, not random strangers!" Gray scolded before motioning towards Malfoy.

The snake turned towards the rapidly paling Slytherin.

"You dare summon me, insect?!"

Malfoy screamed as the snake leapt at him. It didn't make it. Instead, it was vanished by a single wave of Snape's wand.

"You- you- you can speak to snakes!" Malfoy cried out, staring at Gray, utterly terrified.

Gray shrugged.

"Meh. You should have seen Lisanna. She could talk to anything. There was this one time she refused to let us crush a cockroach because he was an 'interesting conversationalist'. Can you believe it?" Gray shuddered.

Cockroaches were on his top ten list of grossest things ever, right below the one time Natsu had flung his dirty underwear at him.

After that, the rumors of Gray being the Heir of Slytherin spread rather rapidly. It did not help that he was, in fact, a Slytherin. Or, that he didn't give two shits about said rumors and would randomly sneak up on the people spreading them while hissing randomly.

Said rumors came to a grinding halt when Luna Lovegood was found petrified.

Blood traitor or no, literally no one could believe that Harry Potter would attack one of his three bestfriends or that Seamus wouldn't be avenging her at this very moment if Harry had had anything to do with it, at all.

"I'm so sorry, Mr. Potter. We just- we need to be seen like we're doing something."

Gray responded to this declaration by drop kicking one of the Aurors sent to arrest him.

Fudge was officially on his shit list.

"My Aunt lodged a formal complaint. She's put in an order for the removal of Minister Fudge by making for a motion of No Confidence. I cannot believe that he would dare- UGH!"

Gray had managed to get away easily enough from the Aurors. He'd literally been doing it his entire life, so it was childsplay. He hadn't been found yet either, despite the fact that he was literally still in the school.

Gray had to give props to Dumbledore. Gray knew for a fact that the man had over a dozen tracking spells on him, but Dumbles had yet to divulge anything he knew, to the point where he'd been removed as Headmaster and McGonagall was currently running the school.

Erza was pacing up and down, rage evident in every step.

The Ministry's attempt to capture Gray had, of course, made the front page of the news. The second people had started shouting left and right how they'd known all along that Potter was the Heir, they'd endured the Scarlet Wrath.

Gray almost felt sorry for them. Almost.

"How's Natsu?" Gray asked, because the last time he'd seen the other boy he'd looked inconsolable. Whoever the hell this Heir really was, they'd made an enemy of the wrong people.

Fairy Tail always protected their own, even if there was only four of them left.

"He was banned from the Gryffindor Common Room after burning all of Ronald Weasley's possessions to ashes." Erza admitted, tilting her head and looking like she wished she'd been there to help.

Gray winced at the mention of Ron.

The other boy had gotten better during the summer to the point where they could grudgingly get along, but all of that had blown right out the window the second this whole Heir bullshit had started.

Then, the pair of them felt it.

Erza reacted before Gray could.

Spinning around, a pair of knives appearing out of nowhere, Erza flung them with practiced ease. There was a yelp and scream as Fred and George Weasley found themselves stuck to the walls, metal just barely avoiding flesh and instead impaling itself into cloth.

"I never miss. Twitch, and the next one goes through your hands."

Both boys gulped.

"Now. Tell me, what are the pair of you up to and how did you find us?"

The next morning found Gray with an arm full of crying House Elf.

"Great Harry Potter sir! Dobby is so sorry! Dobby tried to stop them, he really did! But, Master was craftier than Dobby anticipated! To think that he'd trick the Minister into thinking the Great Harry Potter was the Heir! Please, forgive me sir! Please!"

"Dobby! You need to calm down a bit, alright? Look at me!"

Gray pushed the elf back slightly, hands rested on the creatures' small shoulders. Big green eyes, like tennis balls, blinked up at him. They were rimmed red from tears, snot falling from the elfs face in droves.

Gray was already going to have to burn this outfit. Not that he minded. It would give him more of an excuse to walk around naked anyways.

"Dobby, listen to me. I know you're scared, but you have to tell me what you know. You have to tell me everything, so that we can fix it, okay?"

The little elf sniffed. Then, with a look of determination, he nodded.

"We've looked hundreds of times. It's not here. It's not on the map, it just isn't!"

Recruiting Fred and George Weasley came with the added boon of their map. A very interesting map that not only showed each and every secret passage in the school, but also showed each and every person and exactly what they were doing at the time.

Erza's eyes trailed over the map repeatedly, almost as if she believed if she glared at it long enough it would reveal to her the information she wanted.

"This map must have been made by tying it to the wards of this castle. There is no other way that it would be able to show us not just the layout, but the location of everyone inside. There must be a way!" she growled.

Fred and George frowned. Obviously, they hadn't considered that.

Natsu snorted, rolling his eyes at them. This got him a few glares.

"Isn't it obvious?"

"Oh? If you're so smart, then you tell us what to do, flame breath." Gray snapped.

Natsu looked right at him. The usual fire wasn't there, which made Gray uncomfortable. Natsu wasn't meant to look like that. He was meant to look like an upcoming storm. Seeing him so… Lost was foreign.

"Salazar Slytherin was a Parselmouth. That's a rare skill. So rare, that the most effective guard he could make for his Chamber would be Parseltongue itself.

Gray, along with the others, all froze. Gray felt like hitting himself at such an obvious answer, staring at them in the face the entire time. Picking up the map, Gray closed his eyes and imagined a snake, slithering towards him.

"Reveal yourself." he hissed out.

The gasps all around told him he'd hit the money on the mark.

Of all the things that they had expected, Ginny Weasley was not it.

Because, there she stood. They'd waited for this. They'd waited for her. They'd come down to this place after the map had revealed the entrance, and waited. Then, she had appeared. Small, walking down the steps like she owned the place, a small book clutched to her chest in the same way Mard Geer used to clutch that E.N.D. book.

Used to, before he, like everyone else, got incinerated by Acnologia.

"Gi- Gin?" Fred stuttered out, voice horrified.

Ginny Weasley stared up at them, except at the same time, she didn't. Her eyes weren't their usual shade of blue. Instead, they'd been replaced by malevolent red, glowing out towards them.

Eyes that Erza recognized. With a growl, she summoned a sword.

"You. Voldemort. You did not learn your lesson from the last time this blade bit into your flesh. Do you wish for a refresher?" Erza demanded, already taking a step forth towards the possessed first year. The thing controlling Ginny smirked.

"Wait, you can't! Gin is in there!' George cried out.

Erza froze, eyes widening in realization.

This wasn't the same as last time.

This wasn't Quirrell, who had willingly given his body over to a monster. This was a child, a little girl. Someone who had been defenseless in the face of true evil and had been ensnared by it's cruel grip.

"Oh, that matters not. This child… She is nearing the end of her usefulness. She's fed me. Fed me so much, so much of her heart, of her soul!" the monster crooned, laughing at them.

In that moment, Gray decided. He was going to kill this fucker, if it was the last thing he did. Yes, Ginny Weasley was a bit on the annoying side, but anyone who could do this to a child, well… They didn't deserve to live. They didn't deserve a second chance. All they deserved was death, and Gray would deliver. If that made him a bad person, then so be it.

Those red eyes turned to Gray.

"I have you to thank, you know. You made this all possible, Harry!" Ginnymort praised. "You, and your friendship with that girl! You and Luna! Oh, how envious Ginny was! You should have seen it! You should have felt the feeling of utter betrayal she felt when you wouldn't give her the time of day, yet you spent every passing moment that summer with 'Loony Lovegood'!"

That was a complete and utter exaggeration and, by the looks on Ginnymort's face, the fucker knew that too. That didn't stop Gray's fist from clenching, the ground beneath him starting to chill and freeze.

Ginnymort spread her arms out wide, that book of hers still clutched tightly.

Wait…

The book.

Gray eyed it, slow realization drawing in him. It should be inconsequential. Unimportant. Something you see and then ignore. If that was the case, though, why would it be here? Why would she bring it here, in her moment of conquest? Why, unless…

"You're tied to that book, aren't you?" Gray bit out, eyes narrowed.

Ginnymort froze. Then, she tossed her head back and laughed.

"Oh, Harry. You are sharper than you look. I still don't understand how a pathetic little Half-Blood like you managed to defeat me at the height of my power, but-"

"I didn't." Gray interrupted.

Ginnymort paused, staring at him in surprise.

"Come again?"

Gray's face twisted into a feral looking grin that would look more at place on Natsu's face.

"I didn't." Gray repeated. "My mother, a filthy little mudblood, did." Gray revealed, enjoying the way Ginnymort's face twisted in horror. "You were stopped by the pure force of a mother's love, nothing more and nothing less. You lost to a mudblood, and now you'll lose to the son of one too."

Ginnymort screamed, and that is when things got messy. Well, messier.

It turns out a Basilisk isn't much in the face of Dragon Slayer Secret Arts.

The smell of cooking snake flesh could probably be smelled all the the way up to the Astronomy Tower. Natsu had been rather… Vindictive in his revenge.

As for Ginnymort, her attempts to fight them ended rather abruptly when she tried to turn her wand on her brothers. Keyword being the word try as it was that moment that the real Ginny Weasley fought tooth and nail and blasted herself with a Bat Bogey Hex, which gave them enough time to disarm her and take the diary.

Ginnynort struggled against the bonds they'd put her in as they examined the book.

"How in the hell do we destroy this thing?" Fred demanded, looking at the book in a mix of horror and disgust.

"It'll fix her, right?" George continued.

"It should." Gray twisted the book from side to side. They'd already tried a multitude of things, from him freezing it to Natsu lighting it up the same way he'd done to the basilisk.

Ginnymort laughed.

"It's too late. Far too late. Soon, this child will fade and I shall be reborn, stronger and more powerful than ever before!"

Gray looked up.

"Your almost as annoying as Ivan, and let me tell you, that asshole was one annoying bastard."

Ginnymort continued to grin, like a cat that had finally caught it's canary. Being trapped and bound didn't seem to dissuade her- him- it from the concept of winning. Even the dead basilisk didn't dissuade her, which made Gray very uncomfortable.

She had something else up her sleeve, something she'd achieve unless they could destroy this blasted thing.

"Let us try this. I hear there is little basilisk venom cannot vanquish." Erza spoke, turning and striding towards the snake corpse. That caused alarm to shine in Ginnymort's eyes, which was the best good news Gray had gotten in a while.

Which, of course, meant that was the moment someone had to fuck it all up.

"I told you, Minister! I followed them! I followed them, and there they are, about to sacrifice that girl to the Dark Lord!"

Gilderoy Lockhart deserved a special place in hell as he stormed the Chamber of Secrets, Minister Fudge on his heels with a multitude of Auror's following behind him.

The clash between five Hogwarts students and the best Auror's the Ministry had to offer, including Mad-Eye Moody who Fudge had managed to convinced to come back for one last mission, was annoyingly evenly matched. Gray's usual clash with Aurors involved him distracting them and then running like hell, a tactic that simply as not an option right now.

"Someone stab the bloody thing! He freaked when Susan mentioned it!" Gray yelled out, creating more cover for them as they traded fire with the Aurors. Erza was literally dancing between them, deflecting spells off a sword as they tried desperately to stun her. They'd have managed it too if Gray hadn't created said cover.

This wasn't like when they were older. They were younger, smaller, and had nowhere near the abilities they'd had in their past lives. If they did, there was no way in hell Lucy would have been caught by that basilisk, element of surprise or no.

Fred managed to retrieve one of the fangs off the corpse. Tossing it to George, who held the diary in his hands, the other twin lifted said fang into the air and prepared to stab down when-

They were all interrupted by a blast of dark energy smashing right into the roof. A literal tornado of it appeared around the still bound body of Ginny Weasley, before it pooled and blasted out in a ring around her.

Gray's ice wall shattered on impact.

Erza alone managed to defend against it, and even then, she looked better off than the time she'd taken the Jupiter Cannon to the face.

Before them stood a smirking teenager much unlike the girl that had once been bound. Said teenager laughed, took one look at the book he had once been so protective off, and casually lit the thing aflame.

Red eyes locking with the Minister, the youth smirked.

"Thank you, Minister Fudge. Your interference was just what I needed. They had just figured out how to kill me, too. Worry not, for you will be rewarded. Lord Voldemort always rewards those who aid him."

With those chilling words, the teen disappeared before their eyes, the only sign that he had been there being the loud cracking sound of a disapparation, which should not have been possible because they were in Hogwarts, goddamn it, but this Chamber apparently didn't play by the rules. At least, not when it came to it's Heir.

The frustrated screams of Fred and George Weasley as they watched their sister, their only sister, ripped away from them would haunt Gray for the next few weeks.