A.N.: To FlyingOctOpus, 123me321you, and SlytherclawXHuffledor, thank you, thank you, thank you! Okay, another one to tide you over until the weekend! (By the way, Frank, thanks for telling me your birthday, I don't feel morbidly depressed and old anymore) ;P


Basilisk Fangs


"Now, remember, if anyone asks—not that they will!—I'm in the shops," Harriet said, as she and Hermes went down to breakfast very early on Saturday morning.

"Why won't you let me come with you?" Hermes hissed, as they entered the Great Hall: Harriet glanced over at the Hufflepuff table warily; She'd been wary of never being anywhere where there was a greater ratio of Hufflepuffs to the rest of the house representatives. All clear, though--Cedric and his friends had yet to drag themselves out of bed, probably after a night drinking with the alcohol Harriet knew they'd bought at the off-license beside the Apothecary in Hogsmeade.

"Because you don't have permission to go to London," Harriet said, smiling smugly at Hermes as he glowered at her, and at the injustice of her being within walking-distance of so many bookshops.

"Last year you weren't even allowed out of the castle without people getting in a flap! This year you're Apparating here, there and everywhere!"

"It's not like I enjoy it! It's not as though Sirius is taking me out for shopping and cream tea," Harriet said wistfully, glancing at Padfoot, who was sitting elegantly by her. She'd love for Sirius to take her out for clotted-cream teas and shopping: She imagined her father might've done those things with her, treating her, spoiling her—in-between professional Quidditch practices.

"You will be careful, won't you?" Hermes said worriedly.

"You're worried about me going to London with Sirius, yet, let me face a lakeful of Inferi, you're fine!" Harriet said in mock indignation.

"I didn't know you were going to fight Inferi. If I had, I would've taught you a far more effective fire charm. It was very lucky Cedric taught you the charm for those bluebell flames," Hermes said, white-faced: He hadn't slept all night after Harriet had finally left the hospital wing and managed to tell him everything. "And I cannot believe Dumbledore didn't let anyone know you were both leaving Hogwarts."

"Sirius knew!"

"And he'd have raised a very effective alarm if you didn't come home, I'm sure!"

"He'd have told you, dungbrains—and anyway, how are you intending to tell people I've gone on a day-trip to London with the convicted killer everyone thinks is still out to murder me?" Hermes opened his mouth and narrowed his eyes.

"I do dislike your periodic bouts of intelligence," he remarked tartly. "Think you're very clever, don't you?"

"Well, being in a lake surrounded by brainless dead bodies does give one a certain sense of mental superiority," Harriet smirked.

"That was a long sentence—did it hurt?" Hermes teased playfully. Harriet smiled and helped herself to fromage blanc with sugar and a freshly-baked butter croissant. (She did love the French influence on the cooking in recent weeks!)

"So what are you going to do while I'm gone? Hang out with that foul, festering, grubby-minded little trollop?" Harriet asked lightly, pouring tea for them. Hermes rolled his eyes. Harriet hadn't spoken a word to Rhona since Halloween—and Rhona definitely hadn't stopped by the hospital wing last week to check she was alive, even though news of the duel and how Harriet had been tortured spread through the school like wildfire. It was difficult to speak and see clearly when one had one's tongue jammed down someone's throat…or so Harriet would imagine. Rhona had been fiercely engaged with snogging Dean Thomas every time Harriet had been down in the common-room doing homework when the silence of Hermes' beloved library became too oppressive.

"Harriet, I really think you should try and make up with Rhona—I know you miss her," Hermes said pleadingly. He'd given up trying to force conversation between the two girls in lessons.

"Ha!" Harriet scoffed loudly. "Why should I make the effort? She's the one who buggared off! She's proved how loyal she is to our friendship! Do you think Sirius or my dad would have gone off in a strop if either of them got picked for the Tournament, hm? No!" Though she spoke passionately, Harriet knew she was lying, at least about the part about Rhona: She did miss her. Harriet loved Hermes, but there was a lot more time spent in the library and a lot less time laughing when Hermes was one's best-friend, and the dormitory felt like an ice-cube in the evenings before bed: She spent as little time there, and in the common room, as possible. She spent a lot of time with Norah, but it wasn't the same, and even Norah had found someone new in Dmitry, whom Harriet had hypothesised (to Norah's great embarrassment) one evening that Dmitry had got fond of her.

"Alright, fine, I'm not going to bother trying to help you both patch this up! You're both far too stubborn," Hermes snapped. "And anyway, I won't be going in with Rhona because she's going to Hogsmeade with Dean." His nostrils flared at Dean's name and he applied himself viciously to his sausages and bacon, hacking them into pieces.

"So what are you going to do?" Harriet asked, sipping her tea. Hermes brought out his S.P.E.W. notebook and the box of badges.

"I thought, if you're going to be gone for a few hours, I'd make the rounds in Hogsmeade, see if any of the villagers are interested in supporting us," Hermes said excitedly. Harriet arched an eyebrow. "And then I'll go to Flourish and Blotts."

"You'll wait for me to go to Gladrags, won't you? I've got to buy Dobby seven pairs of socks!" Harriet smiled.

"You know, I've thought whether we could work Dobby helping you into the campaign—you know, 'Kindness inspires far greater loyalty than fear,' but I don't know how we'd swing it without having to back it up with the whole story," Hermes sighed. "Oh well…I'll keep trying regardless. If I could get a little more exposure for S.P.E.W., it would be a big help."

"Right…" Harriet had just seen Rhona sauntering into the Great Hall with Dean Thomas—Seamus trailing dejectedly behind.

"You know, Harriet, I've been thinking—not about Rhona, about the Horcrux," Hermes sighed irritably. "If you're going to find it, you'll need a way to destroy it."

"Er…Yeah?"

"And Basilisk venom is so…well, venomous that it won't dry out for decades, and we've got a Basilisk decomposing at this very moment down in the—"

"Chamber of Secrets," Harriet said, snapping her fingers. "Good one! Come on!"

"Where?"

"Have you multiple personalities? The Chamber of Secrets, come on—You've never been there before, have you?" Harriet said, jumping out of her seat and tugging on the sleeve of Hermes' jumper.

"No, is it lovely down there?"

"Yes—rather like hell," Harriet smirked, striding down the Hall with Padfoot at her heels.

"I only meant," Hermes panted, as they reached Moaning Myrtle's corridor, "it's the Chamber of Secrets: All of the stories and studies I read about it, back in second year—they made it seem rather magnificent."

"Yeah, well, it's all perspective, isn't it," Harriet said. "The Death Eaters' Manifesto would claim Voldemort's the second coming!" Hermes rolled his eyes amusedly and followed Harriet into Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. It had been a long time since they'd been in there.

"So, where is the entrance to the Chamber, anyway?" Hermes asked, glancing around. Harriet strode to the very end sink: Myrtle reflected in the mirror; she was sitting on the cistern.

"Hullo Harriet."

"Hi Myrtle," Harriet smiled.

"You'd better not be making bother," Myrtle smirked. She glimpsed Hermes and blushed silver. "Hello Hermes." Hermes flushed and smiled awkwardly, giving Harriet a pointed look. Harriet smirked and crouched down, searching for the tiny etched snake on the tap. She licked her lips, remembering how the Gaunts could converse seamlessly in Parseltongue and English, and hissed softly, "Open."

Hermes shot a locking charm at the bathroom door and stared as the ordinary-looking sink disappeared to reveal the pipe entrance to the Chamber. "It's a little scary when you speak Parseltongue, you know," Hermes said quietly. Harriet sighed.

"You will know how to get us back up here, won't you?" she asked. Hermes rolled his eyes as she lowered her legs into the pipe. "I had to ask! Padfoot, you stay here—keep Myrtle company." Sirius scoffed and turned his nose away, annoyed. "We'll be back in a few minutes, and then you can have your adventure." Padfoot watched her as she let go and dropped. The strangest sense of déjà vu hit her as she slid down the large tunnel—she didn't slide as fast as she remembered the last time, and she was sure the pipe tunnel had been larger. She shot out of the end of the tunnel and skidded to a halt on the remains of rodents. "Lumos! Urgh! Scourgify!" She wrinkled her nose and the slime and muck cleaned off her clothes. Hermes shot out of the end of the tunnel with a yelp and skidded to a halt at Harriet's feet.

"I think it must've been madness or brains that got you out of here alive," Hermes whispered, glancing around as he lit his wand.

"Amazing how those two traits tend to coincide," Harriet remarked. "Come along." She led the way to the solid wall of rock in which, two years ago, Rhona had cleared a small hole for Harriet and Norah's escape from the Chamber beyond. She handed Hermes her bag; "I'll got first; pass your stuff to me when I'm through." She dived headfirst through the hole.

And got stuck.


"No!" she breathed, straining; her hips—which she had always thought slender—resisted.

"Are you stuck?!" Hermes laughed incredulously behind her. Something clicked.

"Are you taking photographs?" she shrieked indignantly.

"It's for the biography—it's called How Time Flies. I rather think A Moment on the Lips, A Lifetime on the Hips would be more appropriate now, though," Hermes said. Harriet kicked out and met her target; Hermes groaned.

"I've let you down," Harriet whimpered, stuck and disbelieving. "I've let myself down! I'm an horrific beast!" She couldn't believe she'd got stuck.

"It's alright," Hermes laughed behind her, and she felt the tension around her waist ease up as he carefully moved the rocks around her to widen the passage. "We're getting old and ugly."

"At least we're doing it together," Harriet sighed, scrambling through the hole and turning to take hers and Hermes' things as he prepared to clamber through. They walked down the passage to the glinting emerald eyes of the two stone snakes.

"Open."

"Oh…" Hermes gasped softly, as the two halves of the stone entrance parted, revealing the long, dimly-lit chamber. "My…!" Hermes followed Harriet, though slowly, taking everything in, as Harriet marched down to the Basilisk's emaciated head: the skin of the snake was shrivelled, dark emerald-green rather than the vicious poisonous green it had once been, and revealed the skeleton within.

"You defeated this all by yourself?" Hermes whispered, awed, as he paced the length of the twenty-foot Basilisk's corpse.

"You can keep the stunned disbelief to a minimum, thanks," Harriet said dryly.

"No, I mean…you were as tiny as Dennis Creevey in second year…I'd only ever seen pictures of the Basilisk, I'd never imagined…It's difficult to picture the scale, just from numbers," Hermes said, his eyes wide as he stared at the corpse.

"Right—so, these fangs? What do we do?" Harriet asked.

"A Severing Charm—I've been practicing."

"Ominous," Harriet said, raising her eyebrows at Hermes. "How many do you reckon we'll need?"

"One or two, just to be safe," Hermes said, standing over the Basilisk's head. Safety-first when dealing with antidote-less Basilisk venom, Harriet thought. "You can always come back if you need more." He pointed his wand at one long fang and muttered something, frowning in concentration. With an echoing clunk, the fang fell to the floor, the top cleanly severed. Harriet glanced around as he severed the second: The Chamber seemed smaller now, less fearsome. There was a large expanse of dried blood and ink on the floor by the wall—Harriet's blood, and the diary's.

"Is that where you nearly died?" Hermes whispered; he held out the fangs, which he'd wrapped with utmost care in his Gryffindor scarf.

"Yeah," Harriet sighed. "Come on, let's get out of this infernal place." Hermes followed her, walking backwards, toward the entrance to the Chamber, no doubt memorising what the statue of Salazar Slytherin looked like. The doors slid shut behind them with a faint hiss.


Hermes used a Levitating Charm on both of them, lifting them up the pipe back into Myrtle's bathroom. Padfoot's nose was the first thing Harriet saw and he gave her face a big lick as she clambered out of the pipe, and Harriet tugged Hermes out: "Shall we go, then? Bye, Myrtle."

"Will you come and visit me again, Hermes?" Myrtle asked hopefully.

"Er…I'll try," Hermes said, and ran. Padfoot snickered as he followed them downstairs, and Hermes pointedly did not look at Harriet as she skipped along. Then they reached the Entrance Hall and it started again: the taunting, the snide looks, the flashes of Harriet the Harlot Sucks. She ducked into a big crowd of Gryffindors waiting to get past Filch and slipped her Cloak on.

"Harriet!" Hermes hissed, glaring at the place where she'd disappeared. "You know I hate talking to you under that infernal thing!"

"Tough! Tell everyone to stop being such bastards and maybe I wouldn't feel the need to hide," Harriet hissed back, passing by Filch.

She felt wonderful as they walked down towards the gate, past Hagrid's cabin and the Beauxbatons carriage and the Abraxans, then into Hogsmeade: Nobody saw her to recite the most cringe-worthy lines of Rita Skeeter's article, to laugh snidely at her as she passed, and though she saw the Support CEDRIC DIGGORY badges, nobody pressed them to change their message for her benefit.

"I'll see you later then," Hermes mumbled, fumbling in his bag for his S.P.E.W. badges.

"An hour, Sirius said," Harriet said quietly, glancing up the lane past Dervish and Banges, where there was a spot Sirius could safely reveal himself and Apparate them to London. "I'll meet you outside Gladrags."

"Alright," Hermes nodded, looking quite dejected. He looked up in her vague direction and said, his expression lifting, "Good luck!"

"Thanks," Harriet breathed: She didn't want to admit it, but this searching for Horcruxes thing was a lot creepier than she'd originally anticipated. She still couldn't get the images of Inferi-babies out of her head, she saw them when she slept. She had been trying very hard to meditate before going to bed, but it was difficult, because the silence in her dormitory every night was so cold it rendered everything impossible. Sirius slipped under the cloak as a man once they were trotting past lovely little thatched cottages with bright autumnal gardens, and besieged her instantly for information on what had happened down in the Chamber of Secrets, "since you haven't seen fit to tell me about that yet!"

By the time they reached a stile at the end of the lane, Harriet had told Sirius exactly what happened in the Chamber of Secrets. He was at once frantic, appalled, and fiercely admiring about her saving of Norah—"Lily and James would have done exactly the same…in fact…James once did."

"When you told Snape to poke the Whomping Willow's trunk," Harriet said disapprovingly, eyeing him up. Sirius cringed slightly guiltily.

"Yes…well, I do feel bad about the way I treated people back in those days," Sirius said, as they climbed over the stile carefully. "Your dad and me, we were a regular couple of arrogant little berks."

"Snape was Mum's friend, did you know?" Harriet said quietly, wondering. Sirius paused, glanced at her briefly, and nodded.

"Yes… Nobody ever knew how that happened…he was, I think, rather sweet on her for a time," Sirius said thoughtfully. "We always wondered what Lily could see in him…she must've had her reasons for liking him, though, I think…Here we are."

Harriet glanced around; Sirius offered his arm, and taking a deep breath and wishing they could have used brooms or Floo, she latched onto his forearm and after a few seconds' constricted breathlessness, they appeared—or rather, arrived, as nobody could see them at all, safely beneath her Cloak—in a small unkempt lawn in the centre of a downtrodden Muggle square of what once had been magnificent Georgian townhouses, but now stood grimy and derelict—several of them had broken windows and piles of rubbish out the front of the fenced lawns: in summer, it would have been a dismal spot: in mid-November, it was ten times worse.

"Charming spot," Harriet wrinkled her nose.

"It gets better, believe me," Sirius said darkly, and taking a gentle hold of her wrist, made his way across the road to the pavement, directly outside houses eleven and thirteen. "You've got your wand, Harriet? Tap the fence three times." Harriet did so.

Out of nowhere, between houses eleven and thirteen, appeared a very battered door, followed almost instantly by grimy walls and dirty windows, hung with moth-eaten lace curtains. The gate, with its black paint peeling and the metal rusting, that had expanded in front of number twelve opened as Sirius pushed against it with a squeak, and they made their way through the atrociously-kept garden, up the short path to the worn steps: the front door was black, the scratched and shabby-looking black paint peeling, with a heavy silver doorknocker in the form of a twisted serpent. No keyhole, no letterbox; Not expecting company.

"Come on…" Sirius took Harriet's wand gently and tapped the door, murmuring something, and handed her wand back. "And keep your voice down," Sirius whispered hoarsely. Harriet nodded, and they slipped over the threshold into almost total darkness; Sirius closed the front door behind them and tugged off the Cloak, folding it for her: holding her lit wand aloft as Harriet tucked her Cloak into her bag. The light did not go very far: Sirius murmured something and a faint hissing sound of old-fashioned gas lamps filled the long, dismal hall, illuminating a cobwebby chandelier and candelabra of silver, wrought like serpents, the silver-gilt frames of lopsided portraits, blackened with age, the tears in the peeling silk wallpaper, the dust launching into the air with every slight movement on the horrendously mucky rug. Something many-legged scuttled behind the skirting-board and Harriet wrinkled her nose.

"Where are we?" Harriet whispered; even if she hadn't been asked to keep quiet by Sirius, she would have whispered: the atmosphere in here was that of walking into the house of a dying person. Sirius just pressed a slender, clever finger against his lips and led the way quietly to the staircase, which would have once been handsome.

"This is my family's ancestral home," Sirius whispered back dejectedly, as they climbed the stairs, which were lined with faded green carpeting.

"Your—?"

"Yeah…I'm the last Black left, as Regulus is dead…so it's mine now," Sirius sighed heavily, glaring around as they stepped up quietly: Harriet saw a pair of long, moth-eaten curtains, a severed troll's-leg umbrella-stand, and a row of shrunken heads mounted on plaques on the wall: they were house-elves, and they each had inherited a rather snout-like nose.

"But this is a Dark wizard's house," Harriet whispered, glimpsing more hints of the pureblood vein—the Slytherin vein: where it wasn't blackened with age, the upholstery on the sparse upholstered furnishings had once been a beautiful emerald-green silk, and the decorations were all serpent-themed. Sirius chuckled darkly.

"Harriet, you know about my brother," he chuckled softly, eyeing the curtains warily over his shoulder.

"Were your parents Death Eaters too?" Harriet whispered. She couldn't imagine Sirius had been born to a family of Dark wizards—but then he could hardly help being related to them, as Harriet couldn't help being related to the biggest family of Muggles anyone could ever meet.

"No, no, but believe me, they thought Voldemort had the right idea—they were always angling for the purification of the Wizarding race. I had an aunt who tried to legalise Muggle-hunting."

"They don't really scream the type of people you'd like spending time with," Harriet whispered, wrinkling her nose: the stench of sweetly-rotting wood and fabric filled her nostrils and made it difficult to take large lungfuls of dusty air.

"Ho! No, I was usually the one doing the screaming," Sirius said sourly. "I…I never thought I'd have to come back here ever again."

"I know what you mean," Harriet sighed. Sirius glanced at her; she flushed slightly. "I was so excited when you asked me to live with you—that I'd never have to go back to the Dursleys…" Sirius smiled affectionately at her and cupped her chin.

"When all of this is over, when my name's cleared—we'll be a real family," Sirius promised, smiling, and slipped an arm around her shoulders as they neared the landing.

"Did you live here when you were in the Order?" Harriet asked quietly, glancing around.

"No! I ran away when I was about sixteen," Sirius mused, frowning around as he led them to one of the doors off the landing.

"Where did you go?" Harriet asked softly, glancing around; the drawing-room must, once, have been handsome—olive-green silk covered the walls and moss-green velvet curtains hung in the tall windows; the room was high-ceilinged and filled with large, heavy, dark pieces of furniture similar to what one might find in a Victorian antiques shop.

"Your dad's place," Sirius smiled. "Your grandparents were really good about it—they sort of adopted me as a second-son. When I was seventeen, I got a place of my own—my Uncle Alphard left me a fair bit of gold—but I was always welcome at Mr and Mrs Potter's for Sunday lunch." Sirius was speaking normally now, the door closed behind him: the walls in the drawing-room were covered with grubby tapestries, the carpet exuded great puffs of dust whenever they stepped, and the curtains were buzzing; something made the keys of the grand piano echo inside the casing and it was entirely an eerie place. Harriet could not imagine how Sirius had grown up in a place like this—and how he must have felt, being sorted into Gryffindor when everyone in his family was obsessed with pureblood supremacy. "Mrs Potter made a mean bit of crackling on the roast pork."

"You like crackling?"

"Oh, yeah! Love it—James and me always used to fight over it! Your granddad always had cream, ice-cream and custard with his puddings, always," Sirius smiled, but it faded as his eyes found a large floor-length tapestry that glittered dully with golden threads.

"Did Dad have any brothers or sisters?"

"No—I suppose that's why we were so close—we both wanted more satisfying relationships," Sirius sighed. "Mr and Mrs Potter always wanted more children—your dad was…he was 'an extra treasure,' Mrs Potter used to say, he came along when they were already ancient," Sirius bit his lip and concealed a cheeky grin. "They adored him…not unlike Prongsie cherished you."

"I saw them, once, my grandparents, except I didn't know they were my grandparents," Harriet said slowly; Sirius frowned at her, mildly bewildered. "In the Mirror of Erised…It showed me my family." Sirius reached out, smiling wistfully, and tenderly touched her cheek.

Harriet smiled: She had found her parents' wedding photographs: her grandparents had indeed been very old when their son married Lily: her grandfather had the same exact nose as her, even though he was probably as old as Professor Dumbledore was now, silver-haired and still with James Potter's moderate good-looks he'd passed down—she had her grandmother's untidy raven hair and cheeky, sort of impish half-grin, and though her eyes were dark as night, they smiled the same way Harriet's did: She always smiled with her eyes.

"So… What are we doing back here?" Harriet asked, glancing around.

"Yes…that… I want you to meet someone, someone who knows about the Horcrux you took, or rather, the locket belonging to my great-grandmother Hesper. He's forbidden from speaking to anyone in the Black family about it."

"Regulus?"

"No…Regulus is dead," Sirius said heavily. "It's my mother's beloved house-elf. His name is Kreacher—Kreacher, come here!"


A.N.: …debating whether to update the next chapter too, but then I'll only have a backlog of about eight! I'm getting behind! I'm at Christmastime now, and wondering how to bulk up the 'week leading up to Christmas' and the Yule Ball…Oh well, I'll figure something out!