AN: What is up with Lockhart? This chapter will finally reveal it. All those theories and ideas and musings...well, I hope this will be somewhat acceptable for you guys :D
automaton14: Yes! I mean, I was updating before, just not this fic, and then life happened in August pretty far into September. But yes, I am back now :D
Toraach: Thank you very much! My fic is actually a result of me reading other fics that I found lacking in some areas, specifically the trials of puberty, constant angst in genderbender fics instead of showing a road into positivity, etc. Not saying that my fic is the grand solution, but it's a way for me to satisfy the needs other fics couldn't satisfy. And me and my beta already have outlined Draco's role for the coming year(s). It'll be...bigger than what he had so far :o)
Corvus Black: Thank you again. Yeah, I couldn't decide on which wood to use and eventually came back to Holly. It's also fitting in a way, I think: "[...]holly wands often choose owners who are engaged in some dangerous and often spiritual quest.[...]" Fits Rose as well, imo.
alix33: I'm so sorry to hear that! I hope you'll find something soon or maybe even already did so. These are difficult times everywhere, no doubt. What a bloody shitshow of a year.
ssj3gohan007: Don't you worry, Rose will win her Quidditch match before this fic is over :P But, seriously, she got unlucky in her first couple Quidditch matches. It happens. And, well, you'll see soon (in this chapter) what's up with Lockhart :o)
Only when she reached the end of the entrance tunnel and landed on her bum did she realize that she didn't have her wand with her.
Bollocks.
She sighed, running a shaky hand through her hair. Nothing could be done about that now, so she started walking, hoping beyond hope that Harry was okay. Not because she used to be him in a different reality, not because he was the Boy-Who-Lived. She wanted him to be okay because she cared about him. She may have been Harry Potter in another life but it was in the past. This Harry Potter was someone else from who she used to be. Similar to who she used to be in many ways, yet so different. She had grown fond of him, she had to admit. He was the sibling she used to crave for. Now she had him and she'd definitely not lose him now. Not now, not after coming to accept basically everything about this life, not after overcoming all of her initial struggles.
The tunnel system quickly grew darker and her regret over forgetting her wand was palpable. She reached out a hand to touch the oddly moist walls as a way of navigation. Thanks to her memories she was taking very wary steps in hopes of avoiding the various animal bones she knew were strewn across or the metres-long, shed basilisk skin.
The air was as stuffy as she remembered, but the stench of animal poop and rot, which was burnt deeply into her memories, was not there. Perhaps because the basilisk hadn't run havoc this time around. She definitely wasn't complaining though.
Thankfully, the tunnel system was pretty straightforward, so before long, she saw an eerie green light. She was about to hasten her steps when a sudden, loud thud startled her, dirt falling from the tunnel's roof as a result. She gulped, exhaled quickly and kept walking. Whatever was going on, her twin was okay, she was sure of it. She had to believe.
The entrance to the Chamber of Secrets was now visible, the intertwined snakes separated because the door was opened. She could hear the loud hissing of the basilisk and the sound of spells fired in rapid succession as well as the odd explosion. Lights, sparks, dust and smoke – they all were evidence of the battle going on and Rose had a strong gut feeling about who it was fighting Slytherin's monster. She set off in a sprint, almost slipping on the slick and wet ground, and entered Salazar Slytherin's hidden chamber.
Her gut feeling proved itself right. There, at the far end of the chamber, she saw the gigantic monster lunging for Lockhart, who had an almost manic grin on his face as he sent spells at it so quickly she could barely keep track of them. His usually immaculate self looked dishevelled, his golden locks wild and his designer dress robes dusty, dirty and torn. Closer to the entrance, she saw Harry and her heart plummeted so fast, she felt sick to her stomach. Quickly rushing to his side, she dropped to her knees, grasping her twin's frozen hand. She should feel relieved that he was just petrified, that there were so many puddles in this place, but the look of terror on his face, the way his hand felt stiff and unnatural in hers – it was so wrong.
She felt angry.
Very angry.
Looking around, she saw her brother's wand lying a bit away from him. Scrambling up after another quick glance at Harry, she went for the wand, marvelling at how unfamiliar and odd it felt. She then turned towards the still ongoing battle, spotting Lockhart.
Rose snarled at the glee on his face while her brother was lying frozen on the dirty floor of this place. "Stupify!" she yelled.
She was unable to suppress the look of surprise when Lockhart dodged her spell effortlessly. He then dodged again, but this time another lunge from the humongous beast, which crashed into a pillar, causing it to collapse and forcing a roll from Lockhart to avoid being crushed. The basilisk kept hissing angrily and only now did Rose see the blood seeping from its deadly eyes – they had been slashed.
"Look at this magnificent creature, Miss Potter!" Lockhart shouted, his voice bordering on insane. "My Everest!" He shot a quick, silent spell at it, but it did not penetrate its scales. "Slaying this will make me immortal! My name, my legacy, it will last forever –" Lockhart dodged another of the basilisk's attacks and took a moment to look at her, his eyes and voice murderous. "– and you will not take this away from me."
"You are insane!" Rose yelled at him. All of this for his legacy?! She shot another stunning spell at him, though he erected a protego to block it with the ease of years of obvious experience and the blink of an eye later he dove away from the basilisk's bite.
Lockhart just scoffed at her. "Insane are those who settle with mediocrity!" Another flurry of spells was sent towards Slytherin's monster and still, nothing penetrated its scales. It just appeared to be getting madder and madder. With a hissing roar, it reared its head then lunged forward and through another pillar, sending rubble and rocks flying everywhere. Lockhart slid away from a boulder-like piece of the pillar and she was forced to roll away too.
"Extraordinary," she heard Lockhart say as the dust settled. "A pity its scales are only rivalled by dragons' scales when it comes to resistance to magic. A pity it has to end like this."
Rose furrowed her brows. "Bloody hell are you on about?" she asked out loud, though he didn't answer her. Instead, she heard a rooster's crow.
Immediately following that, she heard the most dreadful sounds of pain she had ever heard anything make: a voiceless, breathless gurgling cry of anger and agony and all throughout the rooster kept crowing. Before the dust from before had any chance to settle more was created by the giant snake's pained trashing. Thick, muscled flesh kept crashing into pillars and walls.
Rose tried to get as far away from it as she could, the heavy dust making breathing and seeing a painful act. All she could do was to scramble and crawl towards Harry's general direction to protect him from any rubble that may or may not fly his way.
Before she had reached him, however, a thud, which shook the entire ground, echoed through the chamber, followed by silence.
Then, laughter. Gleeful, euphoric laughter. "I have done it! I have found and slain a basilisk! Slytherin's basilisk! Thousands of years old!"
This bloke…is worse than the Lockhart I remember.
"Now, what to do with you, Miss Potter?"
Ah, bollocks. Rose heard steps approaching her. "Just...bugger off."
"I would if I could, but I very much doubt I should." Lockhart was standing in front of her now, looking oddly regretful. "I really don't like doing this. It's necessary, though, Miss Potter. You and your brother will have to say goodbye to your memories. If word got out about this, it would look bad on my resumé, don't you think?"
Rose gave him a deadpan look. "You released this – this thing in a school full of children just to kill it for your own ego. Bloody hell did you think it would look like?!" Her grip on Harry's wand tightened, her muscles taut and ready to spring at a moment's notice.
"That's fair, but it was a risk I was willing to take." Lockhart shrugged elegantly and gave her his infuriating grin. "You've dragged this –"
With lightning-fast reflexes Lockhart erected a silent protego behind himself and immediately moved away from her, probably as a way to keep her in his vision range. By doing so, he revealed the attacker to her, and Rose couldn't help but be stunned. If anyone were to come here to help and maybe save them she'd have expected it to be Professors Dumbledore or McGonagall, maybe Sprout considering she was a Puff. But Snape? By himself? That was quite the surprise. She locked eyes with him, just for a blink of a moment, then he quickly eyed the dead basilisk before his attention settled on Lockhart, who was standing battle-ready, his wand aimed at Snape, though his eyes flickered over to her every other moment.
"Professor Snape," Lockhart greeted the potions professor. "I certainly didn't expect to see you here."
Snape squinted his eyes, just barely. "I have come to collect the children. What have you done to Potter?"
"As you can see, she is perfe-"
"The boy."
"Ah." Lockhart played again that rueful role. "That's not on me. That's on the basilisk, though I think Mr Potter got lucky since he saw its eyes through a puddle. I think."
Rose felt her anger resurface and got back up to her feet, her wand-arm shaking. "Why'd you drag Harry down here anyway?" she asked, her voice shaking. How did you get him to open all of Slytherin's locks?
He flashed her his brilliantly white teeth with a brilliantly fake grin. "I needed him and his...special talent. He was compelled to oblige."
Compelled to? She figured it had to have been a compulsion charm, though she wondered when and how exactly he had had the opportunity to use it on Harry. In the middle of a large group of students would have been risky, but then again, this Lockhart was a whole lot more dangerous than the one she had been used to.
She glanced back down at the petrified form of her twin, a twinge shooting through her heart. He didn't deserve to be used like that. Growling, she turned around without any warning and aimed her wand at Lockhart. "Expelliarmus!"
Lockhart dodged her spell just in time and created yet another protego in one smooth motion to block a stunner from Snape. Rose had already risked quite a bit when she had tried to stupefy him earlier, a spell she, a second-year, shouldn't know. Thankfully, Lockhart hadn't commented on it, but she sure as hell wouldn't take the same risk with Snape. So, she decided to simply spam the disarming spell.
Lockhart proved himself to be an ingenious duelist, however. He transfigured a pile of rubble into a solid wall in front of himself, then went on to conjure a swarm of wasps, and said swarm rushed towards her. Her eyes widened in panic, but that quickly vanished when Snape incinerated them with a fireball, the heat washing over her. Snape then blasted Lockhart's wall with the exploding charm, sending debris flying everywhere and Rose cringed, fully expecting Snape to have gone overkill here and guts and body-parts to be lying about, but nothing of the sort was to be seen once the dust had settled.
Lockhart was gone.
"I will levitate your brother, Potter."
Rose turned to look at Snape to see him doing as he said, levitating Harry's frozen form. "How'd you know to get down here, Sir?" she asked him.
"I was taking a walk and saw the entrance, so I decided to investigate. Finding you, your brother and Gilderoy Lockhart was pure coincidence."
She'd believe that the Dursleys were good-hearted people before she'd believe this story.
It had been quite some time since she had spent any time in the castle's hospital wing. With the help of Snape's Patronus – which, curiously enough, happened to be a doe – they got a message to Dumbledore, who then, or so she assumed, sent Fawkes to collect them. She really liked the phoenix and hadn't seen him in a while; an incredibly elegant and intelligent animal.
The headmaster had waited in the hospital wing for them and she had given him a quick rundown on what had transpired, minus the reason why she had suspected Lockhart in the first place. Now, she was sitting in a hospital bed and waiting for news on Harry. Even though she knew what to expect, which would be the need for the Mandrake Restorative Draught, she hoped to be surprised. The chances, in her opinion, weren't even bad. The mandrakes should be past maturity by now, so using their roots for the potion should not be an issue. Maybe there could already be a few stocked?
She knew she didn't need to worry, but she still did.
The door to the hospital wing swung open, startling her. Before she could do anything, she was suddenly enveloped in the strong and gentle arms of her godfather, and she just sagged against him. It didn't matter to her when or how he heard about what happened or how he arrived here so quickly. The fact that he was here trumped anything. She didn't even think about him, her mind occupied with Harry's wellbeing, but now, that Sirius was here, she knew she needed his presence more than anything else.
"Are you alright, Rose? Are you hurt? Do you need anything? Just say –"
"I'm fine, Sirius," she said and gently retracted herself from his embrace. She looked at him, his eyes filled with worry and fear. "I'm fine, I promise. I barely did anything down there."
He pressed a kiss against her forehead. "Don't do something that stupid again, okay?"
"No promises." She grinned at him, but that went away quickly again. "Is Harry going to be okay?" Is the draught ready?
Sirius sighed and sat down on her bed next to her, pulling her into his side. "They said he's petrified and for that, there's a draught they have to make. Around next week he should be the same, old Harry again."
She nodded. So, she would have to wait for a week. That was okay. Of course, she'd rather he'd be woken up now, but a week wasn't so bad.
She was startled again by a violently opened door of the hospital wing, and she was sure the angry vein on Madam Pomfrey's forehead was this close to attacking people.
"Rose!" Megan immediately rushed to her and pulled her into a hug, which she returned with equal gusto. "We just heard what happened! Lockhart cursed your brother?!"
That was what Dumbledore was going with? It looked like the Chamber of Secrets would have to remain secret in this life as well.
"Kind of." She looked at her friends, shrugging at the unconvinced looks she was getting. "He'll be okay in about a week or so I've been told."
Before they could say anything else, Madam Pomfrey ushered them back outside. Sirius had to leave as well and she was given a light sleeping potion. She was sure she'd need it too.