The two spent the remainder of their hour, lazing around the room, primarily laying naked in bed and talking. The room Tom had called forth had included a shower, and they eventually made their way into it to clean up. They held each other and exchanged several gentle kisses, but it was a much calmer and relaxed atmosphere now. A stark contrast the the heated desperation of earlier.
The aging reversion came on rather suddenly, and it was just as unpleasant changing back as it had been to age up in the first place. They gathered up their clothes and dressed slowly, both reluctant to bother returning to the real world on the other side of the doors. But eventually, they did, and the pair left the room behind to wander the halls.
"We could probably catch the tail end of the feast if we wanted," Harry said, not sounding entirely convinced by his own suggestion.
"No, I don't think so. But a trip to the kitchens seems a worthwhile endeavor."
Harry grinned. "Ah, now there's an idea I can get behind."
The pair made their ways through the empty corridors, and down the grand staircases.
Tom stopped first. "Wait," he said rather suddenly, reaching out and placing a hand on Harry's shoulder to stop him from going any further.
Harry frowned in confusion and looked back at Tom, but his eyes quickly glazed over with a distant sort of confusion. He looked around, trying to pinpoint the source of what he was hearing.
A distant whisper.
"Rip… tear… kill…"
Harry almost didn't hear the hissing echo at first, but it didn't take more than a moment for it to register.
"…soo hungry… for so long…"
"Fuck," Tom whispered and bolted down the stairs with Harry instantly trailing after him.
"Tom, is that what I think it is?" Harry asked with wary panic starting to seep into his voice.
"It's impossible!" Tom said as he leapt the last two stairs onto the landing and made a hard right turn, down a corridor.
"Kill… time to kill…" the hissing voice continued, getting louder now as they approached the first floor.
Tom suddenly came to a skidding stop and Harry ran into his back.
"Ooff! Why'd you stop?"
Tom stood there with a calculating look on his face.
"What if… Harry, you have to switch completely to your Black Sight," Tom said, turning to face him.
"What about you?" Harry asked, a knot of panic forming in his chest.
"As an heir of Slytherin, I'm immune —"
"You were immune. You don't carry Slytherin's blood anymore!"
Tom came up short, a look of fear filling his eyes. "Shit."
"Is it really the basilisk?" Harry asked in a hushed whisper.
"She sounds the exact same as before… but how?"
"I'd like to know that too. Shit, it's getting louder," Harry said, turning and looking around in all directions. The voice sounded like it was coming from both behind and in front of them, echoing through the old stone castle walls in misleading ways.
"Close your damn eyes!" Tom hissed.
"Same to you!" Harry said back, closing his eyes while performing a few necromantic magic hand gestures to enhance the normal Black Sight he used, to a higher level of detail. Fortunately, Hogwarts was filled with so much magical energy, he could practically see everything even with his eyes closed. Everything was black with white pulsing patches of glowing light along every surface, and in every enchanted piece of ornamentry and architecture.
"Hold my shoulder," Harry ordered, and he felt Tom's hand grasp his shoulder. He began to walk as briskly down the hall as he could while making sure Tom didn't stumble as he trailed blindly directly behind him.
"We're almost to the bathroom," Harry whispered.
"Blood! I smell blood!"
"Shit, shit, shit," Harry whispered under his breath.
"Do you see any sign of the basilisk with your sight?" Tom whispered.
"No…" Harry said, moving forward even slower now.
"She's probably in the pipes between the walls."
"If there are pipes between the walls, why the bloody hell isn't there dozens of entrances to the damn chamber?" Harry asked, almost incredulously.
"They're enchanted. Only she can use them. It's some sort of magically expanded and restricted space. They're not really there, but they are. I never entirely understood it myself, I just figured out how to order her where to go, and meet her there from the outside."
Harry stopped suddenly and gasped.
"What?! What do you see?" Tom asked urgently.
"I just saw an incredibly bright blur. It's the same light I saw around her the last time I saw her down in the chamber when I got her venom for Snape. Then there was this light that appeared in the wall all of a sudden and she vanished through it. Now there's nothing."
"Where along the wall did she disappear?"
"Er… it's along the same side of the corridor as Myrtle's lav. Probably about halfway between us and the end of the hall."
"Then she's going back down into the chamber," Tom said with certainty. "Listen, the voice is fading too."
"So… safe to open our eyes?"
"It should be," Tom said.
Harry opened his eyes and looked around hesitantly for a moment before sucking in a sharp breath.
"Holy crap," he whispered and slowly began walking forward.
Tom did so as well, but with a slightly quicker pace, so he got in past Harry and came to a stop first.
There at the end of the hall, written in blood, in foot-high words on the wall between two windows, and shimmering in the light cast by the flaming torches, was a message.
THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE.
"How is this possible," Tom spoke softly, frowning and shaking his head in disbelief. Suddenly his eyes widened and Harry glanced over at him just as some sort of epiphany clearly entered his mind. "The diary."
Harry's eyes widened. "You've got to be kidding!"
"It's the only explanation."
"Where did you leave it before… you know…?" Harry asked in a hush.
"I left it in Lucius' care," Tom whispered back.
"Lucius? Shit, you don't think that Draco could have come across it and brought it to Hogwarts?!"
"I would like to hope that Lucius would do a better job of keeping it safe. If he left it somewhere that his twelve year old son could just come across it, I would be desperately disappointed in him," Tom ground out in a sharp quiet voice.
Harry looked back up at the wall and noticed something else. Harry grimaced. Hanging from the torch bracket by her tail, was a cat.
"It's a cat," Tom said, seeing what Harry had now shifted his gaze to.
"She's petrified," Harry observed. He glanced down at the floor and found that it was wet with water, scattered in puddles across the stone tiles all the way back towards Myrtle's bathroom. "Guess she lucked out and caught sight of it through the water."
"It was probably intentional," Tom said, shaking his head. "I backed out several times before I finally got the courage to follow through with letting the beast actually kill someone, and even then it was more an accident than anything else. I hadn't expected Myrtle to be in that damn bathroom…"
Harry looked over at Tom with surprised eyes. "Seriously? Is that why there were so many petrifications? I thought it had to be an insane number of coincidences that could lead to every one of the affected students being petrified instead of killed."
Tom grimaced and looked away. "I kept backing out at the last minute, so when someone got close, I'd conjure a reflective surface, or cast a spell to draw their attention to a mirror, or some armor."
Harry let out a small, mostly surprised little laugh. "Blimey… I never knew."
Tom scowled. "I was embarrassed."
"Embarrassed that you didn't want to kill them?"
"Embarrassed that I chickened out," Tom hissed quietly.
"Well, if the basilisk just returned to the chamber, there's a decent chance that who ever summoned it is down there. If we hurry, we can probably catch them," Harry said, nodding his head towards Myrtle's bathroom.
Tom nodded in agreement. "Yes, but we must hurry."
The pair turned and took several water logged steps towards the loo before Tom stopped and grabbed Harry's shoulder.
"Damn it," Tom hissed.
Harry followed Tom's gaze and felt like groaning. A rustling din of well-fed and happy voices were slowly filling the air. A huge group of students began to appear from the staircase at the other end of the hall that came directly up from the Great Hall.
"The feast must have just ended," Harry groaned.
"If we run now, there's no question that we'll be accused of having a role in this."
"How the hell could anyone think that either of us had anything to do with this?"
"People are irrational, but mostly, I worry that Dumbledore will think that the horcrux within you possessed you and made you do this."
"Oh crap, that's actually a totally reasonable guess. But he's going to do that anyway.Whether we're caught here or not."
"It's best if he's the only suspicious one then," Tom said in one last rushed whisper before making to jog towards the oncoming group.
"You've got to hurry!" he called out to the crowd in an incredibly convincing terrified tone. "Something awful has happened!"
Harry came up beside him, looking horrified and confused as well. "Someone get a teacher!"
Assured that he had their attention, Tom turned and jogged back towards the wall at the end of the hall with the writing. He glanced back over his shoulder several times, in a panicky way, to make sure the others were following. Harry followed his lead, playing the confused and frightened second year that he was supposed to be.
The large group finally came upon the scene and there were gasps and frightened whispered to be heard all around.
Then someone shouted through the quiet.
"Enemies of the Heir, beware! You'll be next, Mudbloods!"
Harry's head jerked back and he found Draco had pushed his way to the front of the crowd and his normally controlled and sharp eyes were alive and his face was flushed. He grinned at the sight and then looked down at Harry as if he expected approval, but his face fell rather quickly and he seemed to force some sort of control upon himself as he recovered his usual public demeanor.
"What's going on here? What's going on?" Attracted no doubt by Malfoy's shout, Argus Filch came shouldering his way through the crowd. Then he saw the cat hanging from the light bracket and fell back, clutching his face in horror.
"My cat! My cat! What's happened to Mrs. Norris?" he shrieked.
Then his eyes fell from the cat, directly down to Harry and Tom.
"You!" he screeched, pointing accusingly. "You! You've murdered my cat! You've killed her! I'll kill you! I'll —"
"Are you bloody mad? We just got here! It was like this when we arrived!" Harry exclaimed.
"What possible reason would either of us have for attacking your cat?" Tom added, putting up a convincing front of fear and confusion.
"You've killed my cat! I'll have you strung up by your thumbs for this! I'll —"
"Argus!"
Dumbledore had arrived on the scene, followed by a number of other teachers. He swept past Filch, Harry and Tom, and went directly to the cat.
"I swear Professor, we had nothing to do with this!" Harry said, pleadingly.
"But where were you then!?" a voice called out from the crowd.
Harry turned to find Ron Weasley pushing his way to the front, where he took a moment to glare at Malfoy before turning his gaze on Harry.
"What?" Harry said, in confusion.
"You two weren't at the feast!" Weasley said loudly, a look of triumph on his face. "So where were you, then?"
"You honestly think that Harry would want to celebrate on this night, of all nights?" Tom asked incredulously. "If your parents had been murdered, would you want to spend the anniversary of their deaths surrounded by laughing children, gobbling down sweets? Are you a complete idiot, or just monumentally insensitive?"
The triumph left Weasley's face and it was replaced with a bright pink flush and a look of indignation mixed with embarrassment at being called out in front of so many people.
"Mr. Prewett!" McGonagall said in a scolding tone. Tom looked appropriately abashed and bowed his head a bit.
"Sorry Professor," he said.
"What about my cat!" Filtch bellowed, practically sobbing.
Dumbledore removed the cat from the bracket and turned to face them.
"Come with me, Argus," he said to Filch. "You, too, Mr. Potter, Mr. Prewett."
"I swear it Professor! I just got here seconds before the rest of them! We were in the common room this whole time. We were just coming down to see if we could get some sandwiches from the house elves. We didn't do this!"
"And I am not accusing you of having done so. But as you said, you were the first on the scene. I would like to know what you saw. Now, come along."
Dumbledore turned and walked towards the crowd, and it quickly parted, letting him through, followed by Harry and Tom, Filtch, McGonagall, Remus, and Snape.
"My office is just up the stairs, if you'd like to use it," Remus offered softly from beside the headmaster.
"Thank you, Remus," Dumbledore said.
The group quickly made their way up the flight of stairs and down a short corridor to Remus' office. Remus pulled the door open, ushering the group inside and closing it behind them, while Dumbledore made his way directly over to Remus' desk.
Dumbledore laid Mrs. Norris on the polished surface and began to examine her. Harry and Tom exchanged looks of annoyance and frustration before positioning themselves to the back of the group along the wall.
The tip of Dumbledore's long, crooked nose was barely an inch from Mrs. Norris's fur. He was looking at her closely through his half-moon spectacles, his long fingers gently prodding and poking. Professor McGonagall was bent almost as close, her eyes narrowed. Snape loomed behind them, glancing back towards Harry and Tom with concealed curiosity.
Filch was heaving dry, racking sobs, and Remus seemed to be attempting to console him.
Dumbledore began muttering softly under his breath and Harry recognized the detection spell, though he thought the man was being a bit overly thorough, since he had surely realized by now that the cat was petrified. It wasn't like the man had never seen this before. He wondered if perhaps the man was just putting on a show for Harry and Tom, thinking they'd be more impressed or something equally ridiculous.
At last Dumbledore straightened up.
"She's not dead, Argus," he said softly.
"Not dead?" choked Filch, looking through his fingers at Mrs. Norris. "But why's she all — all stiff and frozen?"
"She has been Petrified," said Dumbledore. "But how, I cannot say. . . ."
Harry internally snorted, though he didn't show it outwardly at all. He'd always wondered how no one had ever suspected it was a basilisk that Tom had used. The legend said it was a beast of some sort, and it was owned and raised by Slytherin, so some sort of serpent was honestly a fairly decent guess.
Harry had always wondered if Dumbledore actually did suspect what the creature was, but refrained from saying so aloud for fear of setting people to a panic. No doubt the parents would want to pull their students out of the school if they knew a giant basilisk could go slithering through enchanted pipes and access nearly any place in the school.
Yeah, now that he thought about it, Dumbledore probably had worked it out already.
"Ask them!" shrieked Filch, turning his blotched and tearstained face to Harry and Tom.
"No second year could have done this," said Dumbledore firmly. "Even one as prodigious as young Harry here. It would take Dark Magic of the most advanced sort, to accomplish something of this effect."
"Surly, Argus, you can't honestly think that Harry would do something like this?" Remus said.
"But they were there! And you heard that Weasley boy - they weren't at the feast!"
McGonagall turned her gaze to the two boys and raised a single arching eyebrow. "Not that I think either of you had anything to do with this, but I would like to know what the pair of you thought you were doing wandering the halls."
"I just… didn't want to be around everyone," Harry said, looking down at his feet and shrugged awkwardly.
"I wanted to keep Harry distracted. You know… keep his mind off of more unpleasant things. It's been two months since school started, but I still feel like I barely know my way around this labyrinth sometimes. I was getting him to show me around. The Weasley twins showed Harry a bunch of hidden passage ways and hidden doors last year, so we were basically just exploring all of those," Tom explained.
Dumbledore nodded and hummed. "Can you describe the scene when you first came upon it?"
"It was just like when you lot got there," Harry said with a shrug. "Water puddles on the floor, creepy writing on the wall, petrified cat."
Filch let out another noisy sniffle.
"And you saw no one else there?"
"No," Tom said, shaking his head. "The corridor was completely empty when we came upon it. It was only moments later when we heard the crowd coming from the Great Hall, and we ran to go get someone."
Dumbledore nodded again and turned his gaze once again on Harry.
Harry flinched as he felt the lightest feather touches of someone trying to slip into his mind. Panic whirled in him for a moment, as it was one thing to tease Snape by letting him see Harry's empty physical mindscape, but another thing entirely for Dumbledore to see it.
Harry instantly looked down and tried to look timid. Normally, an attempt of legilimency like that would include the slightest bit of compulsion to retain eye contact, but Harry had already shown a resistance to compulsion magic the previous year, so hopefully Dumbledore wouldn't get overly suspicious of it.
"Look, Mr. Filch," Harry began softly, "I'm terribly sorry about what happened to your cat, but I swear we had nothing to do with it," He looked up and met the nasty old man's gaze looking as sincere as any person could.
Filch's eyes were puffy and his face was red with grief and fury. He turned away from Harry and instead focused on Dumbledore. "My cat has been petrified! I want some punishment! I want whoever was responsible!"
"We will be able to cure her, Argus," Dumbledore said gently. "Professor Sprout recently managed to procure some mandrakes. As soon as they have reached their full size, I will have a potion made that will revive Mrs. Norris."
Filch's expression began to melt into one of hope and relief. Dumbledore turned his focus back on Harry and Tom and said, "You may go."
"Thank you sir," Harry said, bowing his head respectfully, to make sure the man didn't have a second go at his mind.
Harry and Tom turned and quickly left the room. They went down the corridor, behind a tapestry, through a narrow passage and out the other side before finding an unused classroom and ducking inside and throwing up a privacy ward.
"Do you think there's any chance the person who did this is still down there?" Harry asked.
Tom shook his head. "I sincerely doubt it. We could go check, but I'm not convinced we'll find much, and after what just happened, Dumbledore might have the portraits track our movement."
"Do you think the basilisk could help any with describing the person who released it?"
Tom looked skeptical. "Can't say for sure. It's worth a try, at least."
"Should we go tonight?"
"I don't think that would be wise."
Harry sighed and nodded. "Yeah, me either, I just wish we could. The idea of leaving this to stand as it is for any time makes me uneasy."
"Well, at least it should be a good six to eight weeks before another attack," Tom mused.
Harry looked at him skeptically. "What makes you say that?"
"The horcrux has to drain energy from it's host, but it can't do it too quickly, or the host will become ill, and suspicious. On top of that, it should be trying to build a reserve of energy to use at the end of the year when it attempts to gain independence from the book. It probably took nearly all of its stored energy since the start of term just to control the student to do this."
"Two months of energy for one night of possession?" Harry asked, looking rather unimpressed.
Tom rolled his eyes. "I doubt this is the first and only time it's possessed it's host. It didn't register with me at the time, but I heard someone mention that all of the roosters had been found dead last week. I know that long before I tried bringing the basilisk out, I made damn sure that all of the roosters were dead first. One crow and the basilisk would be dead."
"Okay… so it's likely to be awhile before the host is possessed again… honestly that kind of sucks, since my next plan for trying to figure out who it is, was to set my version of the marauder's map to tracking the movement of anyone who goes in or out of that bathroom."
"That's still a brilliant idea, it just might take some time to bare fruit."
"It's probably wise to question Draco tomorrow, too. If he doesn't have it, he still might have some knowledge of the diary. If that doesn't pan out, I'll see about arranging a meeting with Lucius in person. I don't want to risk putting anything about this in writing though."
"Sounds like a plan. I suppose we should get back up to the common room, now though."
"Yeah… awe, shit."
"What?"
"I was still hoping for those sandwiches," Harry pouted.
Tom blinked at him before smiling and chuckling. "Okay, let's go to the kitchens first, then we go back to Ravenclaw tower."
Harry grinned and nodded.
The ward was banished and they left the classroom, making their way back down several flights of stairs and past the great hall, back onto their original quest for nourishment.