Author's notes:
Standard disclaimer. It all belongs to JKR. Thank you for letting us play with your toys.
I will continue to use the occasional song lyric in the story and will give credit at the time when needed.
This is the seventh book in my Slytherin Harry series and covers Harry's sixth year at Hogwarts.
Book 1: Harry Potter and the Muggle's Daughter
Book 2: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Book 3: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Book 4: Harry Potter and the Blood Traitor's Daughter
Book 5: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Book 6: Harry Potter; Flesh, Blood and Bone
Book 7: Harry Potter and the Lady of the Lake
If you haven't read books 1-6 you won't know what's going on. But the bonus is you've got six completed books before you even get to this one!
Fair warning, this story will continue to be dark and have mature language and situations in it.
Harry Potter and the Lady of the Lake
Chapter XXIV
Four
Two days later the three women stood in the first floor toilet before the sink that hid the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. Each wore the protective suits Lily and Mali had created. Wands were drawn and the power storage gems on Lily's suit were fully charged. They'd studied the maps the unspeakables had made of the Chamber and identified the places they felt most likely for Riddle to have left the Horcrux and were as ready as could be. All that remained now was to enter the devil's lair. Unfortunately, the place they'd identified as most likely to hold what they sought was at the very heart of it; the basilisk's nest. Thankfully, while no Horcrux had previously been found, they knew the Chamber had been cleaned. There would be no dead basilisk or shed skins to encounter. They would not cross blankets of bones or other refuse. Nor would they slide down pipes filled with centuries of slime to reach the caverns beneath the school and then the Chamber itself. It would simply be a trek down some two thousand six hundred sixty-six steps into what minister Bones hoped would one day be a museum chronicling the truth behind the most notorious of Hogwarts' Founders. Of course most wouldn't enter from here. They'd do so from a planned new entry in the cliffs outside the grounds of the school.
Luna stepped forward. Using her wand to make a cut on her finger she smeared the drop of blood on the wall beside the sink. The blood was immediately absorbed into the stone and a moment later a thin trail of golden light tracked from the floor, up the wall tracing the outline of a doorway into the wall. Once the light reached the floor again there was a heavy thunk followed by the grating sound of stone against stone as the door swung inward. A torch set in a wall-sconce flared to life, flickering on the breeze.
Ginny remained rooted to the floor. Just being in this toilet she was already reliving the nightmares of that year. This was where the basilisk had exited the Chamber. Just outside the door was the hallway Luna had been petrified in. The events and images in her mind never really seemed to fade. She could still clearly picture Luna falling, feel the terror and desire to run to her friend and Tom holding her back from doing so. How could it be that those events were near four years in the past?
"Love?" Lily asked.
Ginny blew a breath out. No matter what horrors had occurred where she yet had to walk, Sandra had been killed far from where she was. The worst of her nightmares was behind, not in front of her. "I'm fine," she said and stepped through the door. Down she began, pausing for a moment when the door swung closed behind them. She couldn't stop the thunking sound of it sealing again taking her straight back to her last trek down these stairs. Gathering herself she started down again. As she moved lower a second torch flared to life, revealing a small plaque that had been affixed to the wall. She stopped to read it.
The Notorious Slytherin
You stand upon the pathway that begins more than a thousand years of strife for the wizarding world. While the exact date remains lost, it is these stairs and the Chambers you will soon enter where Salazar Slytherin first broke from his wife, Rowena Ravenclaw and the other two founders of Hogwarts, Godric Gryffindor and Helga Hufflepuff.
"Minister Bones certainly does not intend to sugar coat things, does she?" Luna asked, crowded in beside Ginny.
"And well she shouldn't," Ginny growled. She started down again; three full turns below a third torch illuminated another plaque.
Blood Supremacy
Even before his fall into Dark Magic, Slytherin disagreed with the other founders in whom should be admitted to Hogwarts, only selecting to his house those students who could prove the 'pureness' of their blood and magic through two generations. It was here the notion of blood supremacy first took root in the wizarding world.
Down and down they turned, past more than a hundred plaques chronicling the fall of the man and the effect his actions had had on the world they all lived in. Each plaque only angered Ginny more than the previous. The strife, the pain, the deaths that lay at this man's feet were incalculable. Since Slytherin's death, Tom was only the last in a line of seven, six wizards and one witch, to have attempted purges of those with less than pure blood from the wizarding world. The damage, according to the information provided, was far more than just the deaths, rapes and other crimes committed. The idea of blood supremacy, combined with inbreeding, was leading to a weakening of magic users within the UK and the world at large. As well, the documentation of increased numbers of squibs being born told the truth of an ideology doomed by its dogma. Magic was exceedingly fickle. It was not less, but more diversity it needed to flourish. Of course there were exceptions, but steadily, across the centuries, the purer your blood, the weaker your magic became. Even she, more powerful than one in ten thousand, wasn't spared. Based on what they knew of the witches and wizards of antiquity, Lily and Bill estimated her power would likely have only been in the ninetieth percentiles. If that weren't enough proof, the three most powerful sorcerers of recent UK history, Dumbledore, Tom and Harry, were all considered to be halfbloods. Of course both Harry's parents were magical, but while there was no denying James' pureblood status, Lily had been born of two non-magical parents. For goodness sakes Tom's father had been non-magical and his mother, despite her prowess with potions, by all they knew, was barely capable of performing magic. She was practically a squib! It had been the infusion of new blood with old that had super-powered the three. The ideology wasn't just abhorrent, if continued it would lead to the failing of magic entirely.
Finally they reached the bottom of the staircase and the cavern's deep beneath the school. A line of torches flared to life, revealing a long tunnel ranging between twenty and thirty feet in height. The floor that had once been littered with the bones of thousands of dead rodents and other creatures was now pristine flagstones just waiting for students to begin making the long trek down. A row of four plinths with a bust of each of the founders stood on the left of the passage. While the first three were washed in golden light; the fourth, that of Slytherin, was bathed in ominous red, continuing the theme of recasting Slytherin's reputation.
Ginny stopped before the bust of Slytherin. Lily and Luna stopped on either side of her. "The reputation of Slytherin is that of the evil house," Ginny whispered. "I thought it made me evil when I was sorted there." She turned to Lily. "How is the next little girl, terrified of what her family and the world will think of her, to survive when all of this only further condemns her?"
"The thought is to change the sorting. Each student will randomly draw a number from a hat and will be assigned to live in one of the four houses based on the number drawn. Houses will no longer be classified as Slytherin or Gryffindor or what have you, but instead be renamed; likely for some magical creature. Each year, through their fourth, students will rotate from one house to the next. Fifth through seventh-years will be assigned rooms in some other way. We're not entirely certain yet." She shrugged. "That's one idea. But you're correct, we cannot continue to honor him as we have while also affixing such a tarnished label to the students assigned to his house.
Ginny nodded thoughtfully. "I only wish someone with the strength to do that had come along before I was forced there."
"Do you truly regret it so much?" Luna asked.
"Not all of it," Ginny said. "But no matter what I do, and especially if what Mum suggests happens, there are those who will condemn me for being sorted there. It won't be till there is no one left alive who can call themselves Slytherin that the stain of it will not rest on at least one person."
Lily tipped her head to the side as she considered Ginny's words. "I'm sorry, Ginny," she said. "I look at you and I see a bright, intelligent, vivacious witch and I forget there are many who judge you solely on the name Slytherin. It's not fair, I know, but it only speaks to just how impressive you are that you bear it so well."
Ginny gave a small smile. "Yes, well what choice do I have?" She turned and continued down the cavern without waiting for the others to follow.
It was a few seconds with them watching her walk away that Luna spoke. "If you don't burn that hat, I will." She set off after Ginny.
Lily, considering just how much damage that hat had done, stared after them. Ginny had more than made her preference known to the hat yet it had placed her in Slytherin anyway. What right did it have to forever label anyone, much less someone who wanted something else, in any manner? Shoving her thoughts aside she hurried after them. Catching them at the entrance to the Chamber itself she stopped next to the girls as they stood in the entry. Of course it wasn't her first visit to the Chamber, but the ghost of the dead basilisk sprawled across the floor in her memory still caused her heart to shudder with the near heart attack she'd had that day.
She still couldn't believe it; that her son had slain such a beast and lived to tell the tale. It was incomprehensible… It had become routine. A mountain troll, perhaps one of the largest on record had preceded the basilisk. A dragon, a Hungarian Horntail, the most vicious of the lot, had followed. And then a kraken. Perhaps not the most dangerous per say, but when one considered the fight occurred in a realm completely foreign to one of the combatants, perhaps it was. He'd had help, of course, but when things had looked their worst, it was her son charging in, leading the fight and slaying the beast. Loyalty, bravery, intelligence and cunning; he was the epitome of each founders' ideals. Her anger spiked at the very thought. It would be no less than criminal of her if she didn't do everything in her power to discontinue the sorting in its current form. Her resolve hardened; she may have sacrificed her magic to protect Harry but that did not mean she did not yet have considerable power to wield. She would bring Amelia around to changing a thousand years of precedent or find someone who would.
Unseeing of the changes that had been wrought, Ginny stood in the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets for the first time since the sliver of Tom Riddle contained in the diary had brought her there to die. The memories here were legion. To call them horrifying abused the definition of the word.
There, she had stood the first time she had been forced to release the basilisk.
There, she had stood immobile while he berated her for failing to kill Luna.
There, Hermione, Penelope, Collin
There, she had stood while caged within the basilisk's cavernous mouth. Her mind hand been her own, but not her body. She had fought with everything in her to break his hold. The barest scratch against the serpent's fangs and she would have died free. Her will, her power hadn't been enough. He'd broken her completely. Later, under that outcropping, she cowered and sobbed after he had forced her to use her hands on herself. There didn't seem a single place within the Chamber she could look without reliving a terror that had been visited upon her.
A hand slid into hers, startling her out of the dark and twisted path her mind had fallen into. A second hand on her other side slid into hers. "We're here," Luna said from her right.
"And we will follow you anywhere," Lily added on her left.
Ginny swallowed tightly. These two women, she had nearly killed one and wronged the son of the other so badly she sometimes still struggled to understand their love for her. They gave and they gave and they gave and she felt as if she only ever took and here they were again, propping her up when all she wanted to do was flee. Flee the horror, flee them, flee her weakness, inadequacies and cowardice.
"Bravery is not being unafraid," Luna encouraged.
"It is being frightened but going forth anyway," Lily finished.
Ginny's vision shifted. There, it was true she had cowered after Tom's assault, but over there the diary had fallen when she'd turned the tables on him. There as well, and there, and a half dozen and more places the diary had landed. Oh, she'd paid for her victories, many times over. But in the end, she had lain there; at the base of the great statue of Slytherin's head. She had listened to the battle that had raged between Tom, the basilisk and Harry, Neville and professor McGonagall. And she had fought. She had held on. She had poured every bit of herself into holding Tom back. And they had won. She had lost battle after battle to him, but in the end she, with her friends, had won the war and destroyed him. Together they had been stronger.
"Together," Ginny said.
"Together," they agreed, and hand-in-hand they moved into the Chamber. They ignored the displays and various artifacts that had been set up, purposefully moving to the statue and the entrance to the basilisk's lair where they stopped for a moment. Gathering herself again, Ginny stepped through. She stopped again, blowing out a slow breath as her eyes settled on the massive reconstruction of the serpent that had lived here. It was coiled tightly with its gigantic head set atop its body and there was nothing she could do to stop the phantom stab of remembered pain through her body as the glittering yellow stones used for its eyes pierced her. She staggered back a step under the onslaught.
"Easy," Lily soothed, catching her.
"We've got you," Luna said.
Ginny nodded, gasping, "I'm ok."
"Just take a minute," Luna said. Ginny nodded again.
"Slow, deep breaths," Lily said.
Ginny followed the sound of their voices and slowly her thundering heart returned to normal. She drew another breath and determinedly raised her head. The serpent was nothing more than a rendering; the gemstone eyes incapable of harming her. "I'm okay now," she said.
Luna pressed in at her side; looping her arms around Ginny's neck she kissed her cheek. "I love you."
Ginny reached up and wrapped her hand around Luna's head. "You too, Luna. I love you too."
Luna kissed her cheek again. "Come on, it's just over there. Let's get this over with."
Ginny followed to where Luna was pointing and nearly laughed. "Right there, sitting atop a life size bust of Rowena Ravenclaw that had been set into an alcove in the wall was Ravenclaw's diadem. "How on earth did they miss it?" she asked.
"It's the Memory Charm," Lily said. You can't see it unless you've broken the charm. She dropped Ginny's hand and strode across the chamber. "All I'd have had to do was come in here," she muttered.
Luna and Ginny moved in behind her. "Is there really nothing else on it?" Luna asked.
Ginny drew her wand and cast a detection web at it. It registered only the Memory Charm. "And you'd immediately forget," she said. She cast three more webs at the statue, getting the same result from all of them. She shrugged and reached for it. "Nothing for it then."
Luna pulled her back. "Don't be foolish," she said. She conjured a large pair of cooking tongs. "Get the bag ready."
"Of course," Lily said. She pulled the bag from her pocket, shaking it out she held it open wide. Luna took a breath, plucked the diadem from the bust and quickly dropped the Horcrux into the bag. Lily quickly closed the bag, sealing the Horcrux's magic inside.
Harry and the rest of the Order, that had been able, had gathered in the Defense classroom when he suddenly stopped pacing and whirled around. "The bloody Chamber!" he exclaimed eyes locked on Bill.
"My god," Hermione gasped at the same moment. Another second and the three of them were rushing to the door. Kai zipping up in front of them brought them up short.
"Move," Harry said softly.
Kai merely crossed her arms over her chest. Clearly unimpressed with him. "Don't make me move you," Harry bit out. She tipped her head challengingly. Harry clenched his fists tightly and a humming sound filled the air. Kai pointedly yawned. "Gah!" Harry exploded spinning away from her again. He stormed to the window where he leaned against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. Fury coursed in his veins. He well remembered Kai's tiny fist knocking a dragon out cold. For all his power he was impotent against her and he knew it.
Daphne moved to his side, cautiously reaching to place a hand on his shoulder. "It has to be a good sign we suddenly remember," she said.
"Just because they've broken it doesn't mean one of them isn't hurt or they don't need help."
"You have to have faith, Mate," Neville said. "She's kept us from harm before. I'm sure she'd let us go if they needed help."
"Yeah," Harry agreed softly, never taking his eyes away from the window and the view of the grounds below. There was no point ruining their faith with the truth of just what the goddess might allow to happen if it served her goal. "I'm sure." Neville clapped his shoulder.
Ginny stepped back from Lily and the bag she was holding. Just that quickly before it had been sealed away the Horcrux had woken and she'd felt it examining them. "Can we just destroy it now?"
"I'm afraid not," Lily answered.
"Why not? Ginny asked.
"We were hoping to find a way of destroying it without destroying the diadem."
"What on earth for?" Luna asked.
"It's a priceless relic of our history," Lily said. "If we can save it, we need to try."
Ginny narrowed her eyes. For all appearances, it wasn't exactly right to say Lily was immune to magic. She'd been affected by the Death Curse; spent six years in coma after being struck by it. Ginny had felt the Horcrux waken, was it possible, even from within the shielding bag it was influencing Lily? She held her hand out. "Give me the Horcrux, Mum."
"We're not destroying it now," Lily said.
"That's fine," Ginny said. "I'd still like you to give it to me."
Lily studied her a moment. "You think it's affecting me, don't you?"
"No relic is worth even a single life."
"Please give Ginevra the Horcrux," Luna said. She'd drawn her wand and was holding it on Lily. "Don't make me use this on you."
"I want your word it won't be destroyed till I say," Lily said.
"I can't make that promise," Ginny said.
Lily pressed her lips together tightly. "All right then." She held the bag out. "You take it and I'll trust you know what you're doing."
Ginny closed her hand around the bag. Pulling it away from Lily she shifted it behind her back. Backing away a good ten feet she then said, "Now, tell me the real reason we can't destroy it."
"I already have," Lily answered.
"That's it?" Luna said. "You only want to try and save the diadem?"
"The diadem and whatever else he's used to create the rest."
Ginny held her eyes before shaking her head. "I don't know if I'm disappointed that I believe you or not."
Lily turned her head, as if Ginny's words imparted physical pain on her. Maybe if she'd had her magic she'd have tried. She'd been skilled and she was powerful. Maybe she could have cast a charm Ginny wouldn't notice and break. But she had sacrificed her magic and the suit and wand she wore weren't programed for a Memory Charm. She had nothing but Ginny and Luna's faith in her to convince them. Focusing intensely on her daughter she implored, "Ginny, please, there are things you don't know… Don't ask me for more," she cut across Ginny's response.
"What could possibly make you think it was worth the risk?" Ginny said.
Luna let out a gasp as her wand clattered to the floor. The petite blonde shook her head back and forth. "No," Lily said. "Don't you say a word."
"What?" Ginny demanded. Luna clapped her hands over her mouth and backed away from Ginny fearfully. Ginny darted forward and grabbed her by the shoulders. "What do you know?" she demanded. Luna shook her head jerkily. Ginny shook her. "You tell me, Luna Lovegood. You tell me right now!" Her oldest friend continued to shake her head as tears slid down her cheeks. "Luna!"
"Harry is a Horcrux."
The words froze Ginny in place. And a million and more thoughts went through her mind in less than a second. She couldn't have heard correctly. It was impossible. If there were a Horcrux in Harry it would have possessed him long ago. There was no way it would not have. Even if it hadn't, if it were somehow hiding in him, surely Andi would have noticed… Or would she? Was this why the real reason the goddess had stopped her entering Harry's mind the day before? Would the signature of the Memory Charm been close enough to the Horcrux she would have discovered it?
Luna let out a strangled cry and sank to her knees, drawing Ginny's attention. "No," Luna whispered. "Please no. Not Harry. Not him." She stopped and slowly looked up at Ginny. "Not them," she breathed.
Lily swooped down on her. "Stop, just stop." She kissed the girl's crown. "There's a way. I don't know what it is, but I promise there's a way." She took Luna's face in her hands, holding her steady. "There's a way we can save them."
Luna 's breath came in short gasps as Lily's words reached her. "H–ho–how d–d–do – do —"
"There's another prophecy," Lily answered. "It says, through Ginny Harry can live."
"What?" Ginny asked.
Lily turned; reaching for Ginny she tugged her by her hand. "Sit down with us. Just sit down, calm down, and promise I'll tell you everything."
"You've been keeping this from us?"
"Yes," Lily said. "Yes we've been keeping things from you. And I'm sorry, but we never wanted you to know. You should never have had to know this." She stopped and waited while Ginny stared down at her. "Please, Ginny, we were just doing the best we knew how."
Luna reached up and took Ginny's free hand. "Sit down. We need to talk. She needs to tell us what's going on… Please."
Ginny closed her eyes. After a second she let out a little huff. "Like I said before, what choice do I have?"
"In this case," Lily said, "I think only one."
Ginny let out a world-weary sigh and sat down. "All right then."
Lily settled; sitting cross-legged she kept one hand of each of the two girls in hers. "This actually starts many years before Tom was even born with an ancestor of Ginny's by the name of Arthur Sloane Weasley. He was the father of the last female Weasley before Ginny and was accomplished at making arithmetic projections. On the birth of his daughter he made a projection telling when the next female Weasley, when Ginny, would be born." She closed her eyes, recalling the specific words.
"Time dawned.
One began.
One who are two, two who are One.
Where one goes the other will follow
The Champion first. Marked upon his brow.
She to follow. Seventh child of the seventh child.
Seven generations hence.
The Power he knows not.
The Dark Lord shall brand her very soul.
Through her, the Champion may live.
Without, he shall die."
Lily stopped. We wanted to tell you both. We were going to tell you at the end of summer before your fifth year. Your brother and I were outside Harry's room and we overheard you talking about the deaths you felt responsible for and being afraid of the deaths yet to come and we couldn't. We just couldn't. And honestly, a day or two later it didn't really seem to matter all that much. You both fit the descriptions; you were in love and wanted to marry. You'd arrived there on your own without any pressure from it. So what did it matter…? Only a short while later we first started to suspect Harry was a Horcrux and maybe it did matter. We didn't know. We thought about telling you our suspicions. You certainly had a right to know you were choosing someone afflicted as Harry is. Two things stopped us. The first being that none of us believed it would change your mind. The second, we feared the burden was just too much. Because you can never tell Harry. He can never even suspect the truth."
"Why?" Luna asked.
"You have to understand, we know Harry carries a piece of Riddle's soul within him. We also know Horcruxes are sentient in their own right. Ginny's experience with the diary provides the proof. There is no indication the Tom Riddle resurrected in the graveyard has any clue at all about what happened with the diary. The Tom Riddle Ginny knew, the one whose image we see in Neville, Harry and Minerva's memories of the battle in this chamber is young. He's still the handsome head boy who no one suspected. Hermione hit the nail on the head. A Horcrux is not content to just sit and while away eternity. It's a rival; always on the lookout for a means to escape. We don't know why Harry seems unaffected by the Horcrux he carries, but we must assume it knows everything Harry knows. And we cannot assume that just because it hasn't yet, that it is incapable of affecting or even controlling Harry. For now, we believe the Horcrux is bidding its time; letting us complete the job of destroying its rivals. But if it were to become aware we know of its presence we have to assume it would act… And we are not ready to deal with that."
"No," a new voice spoke. "You are not. "Nor are they."
Quick as they could move the three were on their knees before the goddess. "My Lady," Lily said.
The goddess smiled and reached to touch a single finger, first to Luna, then Ginny's forehead. "And with that, my vision again passes to my sister," she said. She put a hand under each girl's chin and raised them to their feet. "Rise, Child," she said to Lily.
"My Lady?" Lily said, climbing to her feet. The goddess watched her a moment before saying, "Destroy the Horcrux, my Child."
Lily hesitated a second before inclining her had. "As you command." When she looked up again the goddess was gone. "Thank you, my Lady," she whispered. The moment she turned to Ginny and Luna they snapped out of the trance the goddess had left them in. "Are you ready then?" she asked.
Ginny withdrew a small phial from her pocket. "Yes."
Lily held the bag out, ready to open it. "When you're ready then."
Ginny positioned the phial, tipping it so the think black liquid was already falling when Lily opened the bag. Ginny tipped the rest of the contents in and Lily closed the bag tight again before tossing it to the back of the chamber. The muffled sound of a scream followed by a whump came to their ears and then the acrid smell of brimstone to their noses.
Lord Voldemort sucked in a breath and his hand went to his chest as he sat in his throne room. As quickly as it had come the pain faded away to nothing again and he rapidly dismissed it.
Author's notes:
Good lord, that's where my life has gone. I'm so busy with everything else I nearly forgot to post this week!
How long do you think it will be before old Moldyshorts starts to figure out things are really starting to get kind of bad for him? Will he figure it out at all? I did start this story with the question in my head of what even one, single, solitary, semi-responsible adult with Harry's bes tinterest in mind might change. That said, I never wanted it to be a bed of roses either. It certainly hasn't so far, but I really am struggling to bring about the final confrontation and just what that will look like.
And next week's torture: Chapter 25, I Like When You Call Me That