Author's Note:
Sorry this one is so late, darlings, but I've had to take my vehicle to the 'doctor' and it ran a bit longer than I'd anticipated. Though not as high a price tag as I had thought it would be.
I hope everyone had a Happy Holiday, whatever it may be that you celebrate, and, though it's a bit late, enjoy the next chapter of
Harry Potter, the Valerians, and the Chamber of Secrets
Chapter Thirteen: Traitor's Revelation
Dark returns in search of lost property, Harry tries a new method to control his nightmares, and Yoko investigates one of those odd things you find in a toilet.
After such an easy-going holiday, Harry was almost worried that the return of all the students to the school would be just as unbearable as it had been before they'd all left.
Instead, he has so much homework to accomplish, that he barely noticed them, at least when he was in the library. It was a little harder to ignore the whispers and glares when he was passing by them in the hallway, though he put up a truly valiant effort.
Depending on how one looked at it, a distraction to end all distractions turned up at Hogwarts two weeks into the new term.
Returning from the library one evening, Fallen and Yoko smelled blood in the air and, fearing another attack, had investigated immediately, ordering the boys to go back to their dorm via another route.
All hell broke loose, however, when Fallen caught wind of another scent beneath the blood and promptly abandoned all caution.
"Fallen!" Yoko barked, darting down half the corridor before remembering the students they'd had with them. "Shit," he muttered, looking between the children and the direction the wolf had gone. "Come with me. Don't look down the corridor." He ordered, before bolting past the intersecting corridor and toward a half-closed door beyond the intersection.
Unfortunately, when you tell someone not to do something, that's exactly what they do.
Totally without meaning to, each of the children darted a quick glance down the corridor as they passed it.
Only Harry froze.
XX
The corridor was the same one Mrs. Norris had been attacked in, so it was really no surprise that Filch was the one the blood belonged to, because even months after his cat's attack, he still spent a truly unhealthy amount of time there.
What was a surprise was the fact that the corridor was flooded again.
Additionally, in a radius of about two feet all around, the water was pink and frozen.
Frozen because the one who had attacked him was not the Beast of the Chamber of Secrets.
It was the creature that still haunted Harry's nights.
The creature that, if his dreams last year were any indication, had now taken both his mothers from him.
"Dark." He whispered hoarsely, watching the two wolves dart through the water, twisting and rolling as they struggled to get a grip on wet fur.
"Harry!" Yoko snapped, stepping between the pre-teen and the warring wolves, trying to bodily press him away from the fight and into the safety of the classroom. "This is no place to stall. Move."
"Fool," Dark said, his voice just as malevolent and raspy as Harry remembered in his dreams. He snapped his jaws around the back of Fallen's neck and shook it until the red wolf yowled, before promptly throwing him to the side like trash. "You're not half the entertainment you used to be, General. Get a grip."
Yoko growled, low and threatening, the fur coming up along his spine, and planted himself between the approaching Traitor and Harry. "Get inside, Harry. Now."
"'Get inside, Harry,'" Dark mocked, snickered and lowering his head between his shoulders, though the move looked in no way submissive. "Rather useless, aren't you, boy. Tarana told you the same thing, didn't she? You and that fat tub of useless lard." He grinned, bearing bloody fangs at the boy. "Couldn't get inside fast enough for her to keep from getting her throat torn out, could you."
"Enough," Yoko snapped. "Harry had no part in Tarana's death. All blame lands firmly on your paws, Traitor."
Dark's grin widened. "You say such sweet, sweet things, Assassin." He purred. "I assure you; the death of the bitch is not something I wish to share the glory of."
Fallen huffed, getting to his paws with a wince and shaking his head, spraying blood through the water. "Glory?" he muttered. "Is that what it's called when you kill your Queen?"
"She was no queen of mine," Dark reminded him, turning slightly to keep the fox and the wolf in his sights, though he frowned as Harry was dragged into the room by Draco and Hermione, the door slamming shut behind them. "Well," he muttered, almost sullenly. "There's goes lunch."
The two other Valerians' lips peeled away from their fangs at the insinuation, but Dark paid them no mind.
"Onto our business," Dark said sharply, tail flicking sharply as his entire body shifted. "Where are you idiots hiding my darling brother?"
Fallen and Yoko were too in tune with one another to risk the glance they wanted to share and were too battle-trained to take their eyes off Dark.
"Come now, don't be difficult," the Traitor growled, almost impatiently. "It wouldn't do for more harm to come to the Squib before your eyes, now would it. Given your…precarious stance within this government and all."
"W-"
"We took steps to secure the King in the days immediately after your attack on Privet Drive," Fallen interrupted, shifting his stance just so.
Yoko rolled with the lie with the ease of someone who had been lying for most of their life. "We figured you'd be too busy searching for him to come and harass the students this year." He shrugged. "Have to admit, it was working rather well, given that here we are, moving into January and you're just now making an appearance."
Dark growled quietly, glancing between the two Valerians.
"I know he's here," he rumbled. "You wouldn't risk keeping him somewhere you couldn't properly keep an eye on. I hope you don't mind me taking a walk around my old stomping grounds."
Fallen waved a paw in 'by all means' type of gesture. "So long as you don't mind that we'll have your furry tail run off the property."
"Because that worked so well for you last time," Dark snickered.
"New year, new team," Yoko told him, faux-casually. "Last year, you had Arcana and Quirrell and no one in their right mind believed that you could remain hidden here on your own. Now, we have the advantage. There isn't a professor on this property that will hide you, and we've contained Arcana to a place of our choice, well out of trouble."
"You're all alone, Dark," Fallen growled, stalking toward the larger wolf.
"I'm never alone, General," Dark told him cryptically. "Try not to get too comfortable. This stalemate of yours only lasts so long as it takes me to find my Thrall."
Fallen had to dig his claws into the wet stone beneath his paws to stop himself from going after the retreating form of one of his Queen's murderers.
Instead, he threw back his head and howled, letting his rage and hatred burn through the sound.
XX
Neither Valerian was in any rush to let the children out of their sight now that Dark was back inside the castle walls, and for lack of anything else to do with them, were forced to bring them down to the infirmary when they delivered the seriously injured, and likely hypothermic, Filch to Pomfrey.
"Good heavens," the medi-witch breathed. "Argus!"
She had the professionalism to wait until she had Filch stabilized before turning on those that had brought him in. "Was this-?"
Yoko shook his head. "Dark," he told her, glancing back at the group of students behind him.
Pomfrey followed his gaze and, with a clucking of the tongue, quickly dished out slabs of chocolate and calming draughts to the Gryffindors.
"Lucky you weren't all killed," she muttered under her breath.
"It was likely sheer luck that Filch stumbled on him first and not one of the students," Fallen told her.
Pomfrey nodded sharply. "Dinner has just begun," she told them. "I suggest you lot head there. I'll likely be busy here for several hours and the Headmaster should be informed of the intrusion." She pointed at the Gryffindors. "Any of you need to stay here with me?"
None of the Gryffindors were all that eager to be outside of the Valerians' protective sphere at the moment and they all quickly shook their heads.
"Thank you, Poppy," Yoko told her, gratefully, turning and leading the Gryffindors down toward the Great Hall.
'Can you keep your temper under control, General?' Yoko asked as they approached the marble staircase that led to the Entrance Hall.
Fallen had the grace to look at least mildly apologetic. 'Honestly? Not likely.' He admitted. 'I'll speak to Dumbledore and the Heads. Find out what the hell happened in that corridor.'
Yoko nodded sharply, turning and disappearing back up the stairs.
"Yoko!" Blaise called, voice shaking.
"He'll be fine," Fallen assured him. "He's only going to speak with Myrtle. Hopefully, she'll have seen something. Like why Dark was in that corridor and how he got into the school at all at the tail end of a school day."
Blaise didn't look as reassured as Fallen had likely hoped, but Draco nudged him into the Great Hall and, it must have been written all over their faces because they were immediately accosted by the Twins.
By the time Draco had a moment to look for his own guardian, the wolf wasn't by their side any longer.
XX
'I need to speak with you and your House Heads immediately,' Fallen informed the Headmaster as he stalked up the aisle toward the Head Table.
Perhaps it was the tone he used or the urgency in his gait. It might have even been the fact that Yoko wasn't in the Great Hall.
Regardless, Dumbledore didn't hesitate before getting to his feet and leaning down to whisper to McGonagall, who in turn paled and got to her own.
Severus was on his feet and already moving toward the side door of the Great Hall, the one that they rarely used, and had it held open for the Headmaster by the time he reached it, Fallen slipping inside immediately after him.
It was a matter of moments before the four Heads of House and the Headmaster stood before the General.
"Argus Filch is in the infirmary with Pomfrey," Fallen told them bluntly. "He was attacked in the same second-floor corridor as his cat."
Sprout gasped, hand flying to cover her mouth. "Is he-"
"Petrified? No. At a glance, he's suffering from several severe lacerations and at least one bite to his forearm, odds are also high that he has some form of hypothermia."
The staff looked grimly at the wolf.
"Dark?" Severus asked evenly.
Fallen nodded. "Yoko and I caught blood in the air as we were escorting the children down from the library. He was still standing over your caretaker and had likely done the whole thing on purpose."
"Why would he attack a member of the staff?" Flitwick asked, glancing nervously around the shadows, fiddling with the handle of his wand.
"To draw out the Valerians here at Hogwarts," Dumbledore said evenly, looking down at the wolf.
Fallen nodded. "While I can't disclose the details of the conversation Yoko and I had with him, I can tell you that Dark's assault on Filch had nothing to do with those on the muggle-borns, Nick, or the cat. At this moment, I doubt Dark knows they've happened."
"I'm going to need you to disclose that conversation, Fallen," Dumbledore said. "A member of my staff was injured tonight in order to draw you and Yoko out into the open."
"And I have no intention of sharing it," Fallen repeated. "The conversation involved classified information regarding my people. At this time, I am operating under the assumption that Filch was in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"Dark is still here in the castle, Fallen," McGonagall said. "We're having enough problems with the Chamber. If word gets out that Dark is also attacking people…."
"I am aware of the implications, Professor," Fallen told them. "I hold my stance. I will not reveal the details of our discussion with Dark at this time. Yoko is currently investigating any potential secret passageways in that corridor that Dark may have used to get into the castle. If you're through asking me questions I won't or can't answer, I'd like to try and track Dark's scent and ensure he actually left the building and isn't in some dark corner biding his time. We're no more interested in having him on this property than you are."
Fallen raised a paw, paused to give them all a moment to ask him any more stupid questions, then turned and left the chamber, and the staff within it.
Most of the school was so engrossed in their own conversations that they didn't even miss the losses at the Head Table or the wolf as he darted back out the Great Hall.
XX
Yoko wasn't at all surprised to find that one of the third-floor entrances had been Dark's method of entry, something that he relayed to Fallen when the wolf rejoined him in the damp corridor.
"I admit that I was thinking something closer to the bathroom," Fallen said, frowning. "Why else would she have flooded it again if it wasn't because someone trespassed where they weren't wanted. There's been no one at the school to harass, embarrass, or generally upset her."
Yoko eyed the wolf through narrowed, suspicious eyes. "I assume you want me to talk to her?"
Fallen shrugged. "Well, you are far less likely to insult her," he pointed out.
Yoko huffed. "You'll miss me when I'm gone, wolf-breath," he said, turning away from the General.
Fallen growled low in his throat. 'Don't even joke about that, Yoko. Not now.'
Yoko half-turned to look at Fallen over his shoulder. 'You'd be lost without me, Fallen,' the fox told him. 'I can't in good consciousness leave you alone, now, can I?'
XX
Myrtle Warren, or Moaning Myrtle as she was known to most of the Hogwarts' student body, was the newest ghostly resident of the school, and although she was dead, and there was no way the hormones that had run through her when she died could still be doing so, she was also somehow the most hormonal.
The incident at Nick's death day party wasn't abnormal, she was honestly always on a precarious tipping point and it didn't surprise Yoko in the slightest that Fallen had no interest in trying to get information from Myrtle.
"Myrtle?" he called, nudging the door open wide enough to slip through it. "Are you alright? I saw the water outside."
If the corridor was wet, the bathroom was flooded.
The water must have, at one point, risen almost two thirds up the walls, because every candle bar two were damp and extinguished, giving the bathroom a rather gloomy looking appearance, certainly almost completely dark, given the cloudy weather going on outside the window.
"Come to throw something else at me?" Myrtle glugged from somewhere in one of the toilets.
Yoko's brow furrowed. "Throw something at you? Why would I throw something at you? Did someone else throw something at you?"
"I was just minding my own business, and someone thought it was funny-" the girl emerged with a fresh wave of water that came up to Yoko's chest and forced the fox to brace himself or be swept backward. "-to throw a book at me!"
"That could have seriously injured you!" Yoko exclaimed, shaking his fur. "I'm glad you're physically unharmed. Can I help you find the person who did it?" he asked.
Myrtle swept toward him, hovering close enough that the two were practically nose-to-nose. "Why would you help me? You want to make more fun of me?"
"Myrtle Warren," Yoko said firmly. "I have never, in our brief acquaintance, ever mocked, belittled, or hurt you and I am offended that you would think that of me at all."
Myrtle swayed slightly, weighing his words before sagging. "I don't know who did it." She admitted. "I was sitting in the u-bend and it came through my head."
Yoko forced his ears back, aware that though such an act couldn't have physically harmed Myrtle, it would certainly have hurt her ever-fragile feelings. "If we had somewhere to start, I could help you find the person, but if there's truly nowhere for me to begin-"
"The book!" Myrtle cried, floating over the fox's head and coming to hover over a dark corner. "It got flushed out. Maybe it could help you!"
Yoko followed the ghost-girl and crouched down to sniff at the soggy book.
Even with just a once over, Yoko could tell that it wasn't a book so much as a diary or notebook of some sort, with a leather-bound cover, unfortunately, it was so sodden that there was no human scent attached to it. Also, thankfully, it had been thrown into the toilet that Myrtle was known to haunt and therefore it hadn't been used, because ew. The very possibility caused Yoko to wrinkle his nose.
"Anything?" Myrtle asked eagerly, coming even closer to the fox.
"Nothing mundane," Yoko told her, almost absently. "Normally, I would do this for nothing, Myrtle, because no one deserves for things to be thrown at them. However, I noticed blood outside in the water. Was that also your doing?"
Myrtle looked affronted. "No!" she looked thoughtful when Yoko was completely unmoved by her theatrics. "It might have been Filch," she admitted. "He was screaming earlier."
"Was this before or after you flooded the hall?" Yoko asked, tone teasing.
Myrtle smiled awkwardly, shrugging. "After," she admitted. "He started screaming about me and I was already so angry that I went past the u-bend so I wouldn't have to hear him."
"And you didn't think to check on him when the screaming changed?" Yoko asked her, disappointment seeping into his tone.
Myrtle shrugged. "He's always screaming." She told him. "We ghosts don't pay much attention to him anymore."
Yoko huffed quietly, amused but not surprised. "I guess you didn't see or hear what might have attacked him then."
Myrtle shook her head before her expression twisted again. "It wasn't long after someone threw that at me though," she said, pointing hatefully at the book between Yoko's paws.
Yoko tilted his head as he returned his attention back to the offensive piece of stationary, giving it a more thorough look now that it might be a lead to someone who might have seen Dark's attack on Filch, though he couldn't imagine the wolf giving up on the chance to maul one of Dumbledore's students, as opposed to his adult staff.
He recognizes a great deal of the spells that were Weaved into the Net, most of them protection and not all of them light, or even grey, in the eyes of the wizarding community.
Something else pulsed beneath the protection Net like a heartbeat, but it was there and gone as soon as Yoko caught sight of it, as though it had disappeared even further beneath the Net to avoid his gaze.
"Well," Yoko muttered, getting to his paws and stepping away from the diary, warily. "This is…different."
XX
Fallen was returning to the second-floor bathroom when Yoko found him.
"Anything?" the fox asked him.
"Of a sort," he said. "He's definitely retreated fully from the school, at least for the moment. He took the passage to Hogsmeade, though hopefully at this hour it's closed, and no one will be harmed. You?"
"She didn't see anything, but she heard the attack. Someone threw something at her, which caused her to retreat into the pipes beneath the bathroom."
"Another dead end," Fallen sighed.
"Not quite," Yoko told him, turning back toward the bathroom. "Come on, I need your Element to get this thing out of the bathroom before someone else finds it."
Fallen tilted his head and blinked after the assassin but followed him regardless.
XX
As they had the year before, the Valerians became, what Draco had then insisted, but had obviously since changed his mind, 'anally overprotective' with Dark's return to the school.
Fallen and Yoko hadn't liked having the boys out after dark before, and they were even less likely to allow it now.
It was particularly difficult for Harry and Draco because more often than not, quidditch practice took place as or after the sun was going down, and neither Valerian liked to leave the other alone, even though they were growing more and more sure that Arcana was no longer completely enthralled by his brother.
\/\/\/
It was well after midnight when Yoko pulled the journal-diary-notebook thing out of his hiding place beneath the couch, the only area in the room that they had been able to hide the thing without touching it, not willing to risk anything until Yoko could more accurately pinpoint what spells had been used to protect it, and what that presence had been.
"Any ideas?" Fallen asked him.
Yoko didn't answer for several minutes, nose deep in the Net. "All I can tell you for certain right now is that this thing was not made by a wizard, not originally, and I can only tell you that because the location of the place it was purchased is on the back of it. Many of the protection spells on here are of a darker nature, but that doesn't necessarily make it dark, just that it was owned by someone who had an inclination toward darker spells."
Fallen settled out of Yoko's reach, watching the fox tilt his head this way and that, occasionally jerking it as though something had tried to bite him.
"Do we not plan on talking about it?" Yoko asked, breaking the silence between them after nearly an hour.
"About?"
"What Dark said. That he'd lost Arcana."
Fallen swallowed and looked away from his lover. "I almost left the castle," he admitted, causing Yoko to give him his full attention. "When I went looking for Dark."
"For Arcana?"
Fallen nodded. "Almost every instinct I have is drilling into my core that I need to be out there, looking for him. That we need to get to him before Dark does."
"What stopped you?" Yoko asked evenly. He wasn't sure if he was more upset that he wanted Fallen to go out in search of their King and he wasn't or that Fallen had nearly done so without a word to Yoko about it.
"Where would I start?" Fallen huffed. "It's been months since the last time anyone saw him. He could be anywhere."
"You're thinking the same thing I am then," Yoko said, going back to the diary. "That it was Tarana's death that broke him."
"Yeah," Fallen sighed. "Which of course brings about another problem entirely. One I'm not sure that Dark has thought of."
"That he's free and hasn't searched us out yet?" Yoko grumbled.
"That he's free and dying," Fallen countered.
Yoko flinched. "There's no way that Tarana got a death blow in if Harry watched him tear out her throat."
"Follow the thread, Yoko," Fallen prompted. "Assume with me that it was Tarana's death at his proverbial hand that reset Arcana's mind and freed him from Dark. He's shedding that control like layers of an onion and beneath that fog is his Mating Bond to his Queen."
Yoko groaned. "A bond that was severed when she died. But that would mean that he's been in agony for months, Fallen. And that's assuming he's still alive. Months under Dark's command only to come up for his first breath of fresh air in years to the Heartbreak. He could have long since succumbed to Oblivion."
"I can't think of him as already gone," Fallen admitted. "The idea that one of the Crown is still walking and free has given me hope I'm not ready to give up. To lose them both…."
Yoko said nothing, leaving the General to his thoughts.
/\/\/\
They hadn't spoken again of the King's potential freedom or his potential death, but the idea that Arcana might have survived and vulnerable was adding additional tension to their unease at having Dark nearby, particularly on top of Slytherin's Chamber and the beast it contained.
Fallen had gone down to see Severus after four days of fruitless searching for the Traitor.
\/\/\/
"Still nothing?"
Fallen wasn't at all surprised that Severus knew that he had been searching for Dark with a drive that could, by most, be considered dangerously close to obsessive.
"He's been smart. His scent is congregating in areas that I suspect are hidden entrances, but he knows better than to drift too far from them without someone in the building to help him. Since you're all on alert as well, it limits his movements even further."
"I am curious as to why he would continuously return to the school when it's clearly not a wise place to be right now."
"I'm not sure," Fallen admitted. "Yoko and I implied that Arcana was guarded somewhere where he couldn't be easily freed. Given that there are few allies we would trust to guard our King, whether he was under Dark's control or not, process of elimination puts him either here or somewhere in Azkaban."
"You would risk putting him with the worst criminals of our world?" Severus asked.
"Wouldn't you?" Fallen countered. "Given who you know who is imprisoned there. Tarana's Shade would not have left him unguarded long, though I doubt he's spent the last decade pining."
Severus' lip curled. "It was never either of their styles, was it." He doesn't give Fallen the chance to continue that line of conversation, no more eager to talk about James Potter's right hand now than he had ever been. "What other reason could Dark have for remaining at Hogwarts, where everyone, up to and including the Headmaster, is waiting for him to return?"
Fallen stared into the fireplace for several long minutes before he answered. "Did you know that Voldemort is the last descendant of the Gaunt family?"
"I can't say that it ever came up during our time together," Severus drawled.
Fallen snorted in half-hearted amusement. "To be honest, we're not certain he's the last, but he's the most obvious. Dark is bonded to him. The Traitor found the most famous Dark family in your world to anchor himself here. We came long before Grindelwald and Voldemort were even alive, so the most famous family of the time was-"
"Salazar Slytherin," Severus stated. "You're joking."
"Not hardly," Fallen told him. "We weren't here for the Founders, we were two or three centuries too late for them, but if anyone would know anything about a Chamber made to cause chaos, death, and mayhem by the greatest tie he has to Hogwarts, it would be Dark."
"You think he's investigating the attacks? How would he even know they happened? You appeared to be under the impression that he has spent the last several months looking for Arcana."
"And it is one of the few things Yoko and I appear to agree on regarding Dark and Arcana," Fallen told him. Severus raised a brow but didn't ask, letting the wolf continue. "However, Dark was inside the infirmary the day before yesterday. There was no way he missed the three petrified people there. He may not have come knowing about the attacks, but he definitely knows about them now."
Severus grimaced and sighed. "Lovely."
"If I could just catch the fucker, we could have a long talk about what he's learned over the centuries regarding that fucking Chamber," Fallen growled, frustration billowing over for a moment, and the air got heavy and hard to breath before he wrestled it back under control.
"Odds aren't high that Dark will share any of that information," Severus pointed out, deciding not to comment on the wolf's loss of control, merely beginning to put his desk back to rights again. "He's likely known about it for centuries, if he knew about it at all."
"The chance to try and make him, given all that he's done to me and mine over the last decade alone, would be enough to keep me pleased for a long time." Fallen rumbled. "Given that you've all been tasked with trying to find him tells me that a conversation regarding the Chamber has likewise crossed Dumbledore's mind?"
"Albus has the same idea, yes," Severus told him. "Though I think this was more for something to do about the attacks because we are all well aware that if four war-trained Aurors can't contain him, and he's brought you and Yoko to a standstill in the past, I doubt there's much we'll be able to do to contain him."
"I'm not even sure how I plan to contain him," Fallen admitted. "I have several short-term ideas, but nothing long-term. Nothing that would hold him long enough to get answers out of him anyway."
"Speaking of answers, has Grubbly-Plank heard anything from her companion?" Severus asked.
Fallen shook his head. "Nothing," he sighed. "Though she did say that it would likely be some time, given that we'd sent it out just before the holidays."
"In that case, you have some free time. Read this and agree that the dimwitted buffoon needs to be dropped from my class."
/\/\/\
Though Fallen spent a considerable amount of his free time during the daylight hours tracking down where Dark spent his evenings, he and Yoko remained in the tower almost all night every night, even though Dumbledore had professors doubling their patrols in the hopes of dissuading Dark from getting too close to anything important at the school.
Yoko had commented wryly that all it had taken was a threat the Headmaster didn't account for to take the Traitor's presence seriously, reminding Fallen that though Dark and Arcana had actively been searching for the Philosopher's Stone the year before, it had been the Valerians, Severus, and their charges-though they hadn't necessarily been invited to investigate-that had stopped Quirrell and his two borrowed guardians from getting their hands on it.
It wasn't for lack of care for the Hogwarts' staff, however, that the two Valerians didn't participate in the ongoing search for Dark.
Given their history with him, the nightmares that had become once in a while occurrences in most of the Gryffindors had spiked with a vengeance, made doubly worse in Harry's case, given that he now had more fodder than the others did.
Yoko, no doubt the more 'emotional' of the two Valerians, was, more often than not, preoccupied with the diary he'd found to comfort more than Blaise, and even then, it was usually after particularly brutal ones that he abandoned the Net around the object to go to his charge.
This meant that ensuring the emotional and mental well-being of those he'd taken under his proverbial wing fell on Fallen.
Given his own gruff nature and lack of patience and practice, the wolf thought he was doing rather well, particularly when Yoko's persistence with the diary comes up with a rather alarming piece of information.
"This is one of the most complex Nets I've ever encountered," he told Fallen, nearly a week after they'd found it. "There are several knots in it, but they're each entwined with at least three different Nets and beneath those, there's something dark. Darker than anything else I've ever encountered on this planet."
For the first time, Fallen noticed that it wasn't determination that had kept Yoko's attention on the artifact, it was desperation and fear. "Is it a danger to us? To the children?"
"I don't know," Yoko admitted. "And that's what's making me nervous. There's nowhere else I would trust to have this, then in my immediate sphere of influence, not until I can get a better look at the presence that keeps shifting away from me. I'm finding it difficult to pull the Ward Lines away from it and to focus at the same time."
"That's…a rather remarkable level of sentiency," Fallen said.
"I know," Yoko replied. "I want to trace another Line or two, try and track the ends of a knot that might be a problem if I touch it wrong, and I'd like to have you look at it for me. Your Eye sees minds better than I do."
"Whatever you need," Fallen told him. "But for All That Is, be careful, Yoko."
Yoko sneered at him. "Who are you talking to?"
Fallen didn't mention that it was, by far, the weakest retort the fox had ever given him.
XX
Almost two weeks to the day, Filch returned to stalking the corridors, terrifying students because, if it were at all possible, he'd become even more cantankerous than usual.
The Valerians avoided him as often as they could because it was clear that the caretaker was blaming them for the attack, though he had never mentioned it to their faces-likely because if he said it to either one of them, Fallen would have torn his throat out without a by-your-leave, not simply mauled him for the pleasure of doing so.
Despite her skill, Pomfrey hadn't been able to fully heal Filch's arm, because it had spent too long frozen by Dark's Element. Several nerves had been lost to the hypothermia and, as he'd refused to go to St. Mungo's, several of his tendons had likewise suffered, all of which prevented him from regaining the full use of his arm.
Neither Valerian was that hurt by Filch's increased dislike of them, as his opinion of them usually flexed based on how he felt about their charges that year, and it had been in all the years he'd been in service to the school.
They also had something else to worry about.
Around the same time that Filch was being released from Pomfrey's care, Yoko had successfully loosened some of the knots in the Net on the diary, allowing him to get a more direct read on the presence beneath the dark, unknown shadow and the Ward Lines.
He'd been so startled at how easy it had been, given how difficult the presence had been beforehand, that he'd accidentally retightened the knot and had to backtrack almost an hour and a half's worth of work.
"Are we sure this is the best choice?" Fallen asked one night, as they settle across from one another, the diary between them. "The Eye isn't exactly built for this type of investigating."
"Tarana would be the best choice," Yoko admitted. "Her Talent would make her most familiar with the minds of others. Without it, your Eye is the next best thing."
Fallen sighed. "Be swift then. I'm not comfortable with the amount of power I'll be expending on this, especially given the dual-threat we're under."
"Needs must, General," Yoko replied. "Whenever you're ready."
The presence reacted to Fallen's intrusion the same way it had Yoko's: it tried to hide.
It took the two Valerians almost an hour before Fallen could see it long enough to get a good enough idea of what it was.
"Whatever it is, despite how active it is, I don't think it's actually active. More like…sleeping?" he guessed. "It isn't truly aware of what's going on, probably only that you're fiddling with parts of it. I'm no expert, but I'd hazard a guess that it activates when the diary is opened."
"Is it safe?"
"I can't say," Fallen admitted, though he didn't look pleased about it. "My first instinct says 'no', simply because of the types of spells the owner used to protect it. There's no evidence there, however, to say that the presence itself isn't benign and is simply a byproduct of the Net on it."
"You're not comparing this thing to Hogwarts, are you?" Yoko asked skeptically.
"Not hardly," Fallen scoffed. "For one thing, Hogwarts is centuries older than we have been on this planet and has seen more magic used than anywhere else in the world. For another, I don't think it's old enough."
"I recognize a lot of the spells that are part of this section of the Net," Yoko said, looking back at the diary, though Fallen couldn't follow Threads as easily as Yoko could, he had no problem finding the part Yoko referred to. "Some of them have been used as part of that pen pal program Hogwarts tried x-amount of years ago, though that program hadn't interested me then, so I didn't really investigate the spells past how interesting they were. I don't know what aspect of the program these Lines are for or how they connect to now."
Fallen shrugged. "Honestly, we may have taken this as far as we can. The only way to find out more information is to test it. I wouldn't risk anyone with it because of that shadow you've found on it and we can't test it ourselves."
Yoko didn't look pleased but sighed. "I'll see about Unweaving the worst of the spells. Maybe I can lighten the shadow enough that we can ask someone to test it for us."
Fallen looked skeptical but agreed to return to the topic if Yoko's theory panned out.
XX
It had been more of an unspoken agreement than any real decision on the Valerians' part to keep the diary a secret from their charges, though given their nightly terrors, there was only so long that such a thing could last.
Given the frequency, they shouldn't - and weren't - surprised to find that it was Harry that found them out.
He came down to the common room at nearly two-thirty in the morning, to find Yoko staring, rather fixated, on a normal looking leather-bound book. He obviously wasn't reading it because the thing was still closed.
"What's he doing?" Harry asked Fallen, rubbing the sleep from his eye.
The wolf watched him with little surprise to see him out of bed. "Working to find out if it can be useful before handing it over to the relevant authorities," Fallen told him. "He's trying to Unweave the Web on it without damaging the parts beneath it."
Harry dropped into an armchair, rubbing his arms against the fading winter chill that still hung around the castle, despite the fire in the hearth. "Can you all see things like he does? The Web or whatever?"
"Given the training, yes," Fallen answered. "There's a celestial point of the body, between the two natural eyes, that grants you enhanced vision, specifically the ability to see auras in people. For a Valerian, we don't see people, so much as we see magic. Yoko was training himself in Weaving and Unweaving before he was ever of the Collective, and he was one of the best even before the Fall."
"But it's not just a Valerian talent?" Harry asked, looking over at Yoko.
"Not necessarily," Fallen shrugged. "My understanding is that it's easier for us to learn as opposed to your kind, but Cursebreakers and the Ministry's Unspeakables each use their Third Eye in their line of work."
"Can I learn it?"
Fallen tilted his head. "I don't see why you wouldn't," he answered. "As I said, it appears to be easier for a Valerian to learn though, and I've never seen someone without the Gift of Sight open their Third Eye as young as you. Younglings like you lack the discipline required to meditate and humans, in general, seem to dwell longer and harder, making it harder to clear their mind to do so. One leads into the other, which leads to the opening of the Third Eye for the first time."
Harry turned his attention to Yoko, watching the fox twitch occasionally, once putting a paw over one corner of the diary, though he never actually touched it.
When Harry didn't say or ask anything else, Fallen put his head back on his paws and dozed, letting the feel of Yoko working soothe his ragged nerves and temper at still having not been able to keep Dark out of the school properly.
Between one blink and the next, Harry was asleep in the armchair.
XX
The school was slowly beginning to lighten up as they approached the middle of February, the terror that had come over the school, each person waiting for the next attack, began to lift with no new attacks since the dual attack on Justin and Nick.
To further brighten the mood, Dumbledore had told the school one morning that Sprout had reported to him that the mandrakes were flourishing under her care - and Yoko's though he hadn't spent much time with them once he got his paws on the diary - and soon they would be mature enough to brew the Restoration Potion that would cure the afflicted.
The students were dropping their guard little by little, as the worst had seemed to pass.
The staff, however, remained vigilant.
The threat of the Chamber of Secrets might have been fading into the shadows, but Dark continued to appear, almost at random, in the dead of night.
Surprisingly, even when one of the teachers stumbled upon him, he didn't engage them, fleeing into the darkness of the school.
The staff had, with good reason, not mentioned that Dark was wandering the halls, but had maintained the curfew under the guise that it was a precaution against any additional attacks from the Heir of Slytherin.
There was only one member of the staff that hadn't gotten the memo that the threat wasn't over.
Draco and Hermione had overheard a conversation between McGonagall and Lockhart, where the Defense Professor had attempted to convince their Head of House that the threat of the Chamber had been nullified by Lockhart's presence.
Draco passed the conversation along at lunch.
"The buffoon thinks he's the reason that the attacks stopped," Draco snorted, shaking his head as he reached for the roast on the table. "That it was only a matter of time before he caught the Heir."
Blaise rolled his eyes. "Not likely," he muttered.
"McGonagall didn't seem that impressed either," Draco told them. "Looked like she was sniffing dung through the whole conversation."
"At least he's trying to keep morale up," Hermione sniffed. "He also said he had an idea to boost morale." She elaborated.
Fallen looked at a weary Yoko.
Given Lockhart's history with 'surprises', it wasn't as reassuring as Hermione seemed to think it was.
XX
Valentine's Day was not a happy holiday for Harry.
He was ignored, for the most part, in the muggle world and had expected much the same when he had arrived at Hogwarts the year before.
It wasn't.
\/\/\/
Harry snickered as Draco tore up the three marriage proposals from their fellow students.
"Aren't you a little young for that?" Hermione asked.
"Not really," Blaise told her. "Parents start looking into potential matches around their child's tenth birthday."
"Protocol," Draco snarled, shoving the pieces of the letters into the goblet beside his own, oblivious to Seamus' scowl as it was his goblet, "is that this," he held up the fourth proposal, "is kept between the parents. I don't get a say in it one way or the other until I'm fifteen."
"That's horrible," Hermione scowled. "You don't get a say in it at all? What if you don't like the person?"
"It's not usually about feelings, Hermione," Tarana told her. "Most pureblood families search out matches based on magic and genetics. Remember that their goal is to ensure the future of their magical line. Feelings can always come into play later, if they come into play at all."
"That's-" Hermione seemed to be at a loss for words.
"It's something that's falling out of favor though," Ron told her. "More and more of the light families are allowing their children to marry and have kids with whoever they want."
"Which is how you end up with seven kids and little money, isn't it?" Draco sneered.
"Draco." Fallen warned. "That's uncalled for."
"I didn't mean it like that," Ron grumbled. "Just meant that it's a stupid tradition and we don't really follow it anymore."
"That's not accurate," Yoko told him. "Even the light families acknowledge the need to continue their magical lineage. The further down in the family line you go, the more leeway you get, but the Heirs are usually required to adhere to a set of guidelines, regardless of what side of the political divide you fall on."
"Your brother, for example, will likely need to marry someone at least of a magical nature, but they don't need to be of pure blood," Tarana told him. "Even James, when he married Lily, was granted permission from his father because Lily was such a powerful First-Generation Muggle-born."
"What?" Harry asked, suddenly paying a great deal more attention.
"Remember the conversation regarding blood supremacy?" Tarana asked.
The group nodded.
"Not all muggle-borns are as powerful as you are, Hermione, or as powerful as Lily Potter was. If Lily wasn't half as powerful or as influential, as she was Fleamont, your grandfather, would have put pressure on James to find another wife, though, given his feelings for your grandmother, he likely would have caved when it became clear just how in love your parents were. The fact remained, however, that she had no lineage to speak of."
"And no money," Draco pointed out.
"Money would have been of little matter to the Potters of that generation," Fallen revealed. "It was around the time that the muggle world was going through its Second World War, and the Potter family had donated millions of galleons to the relief and support of London because it had been repeatedly bombed during the war. Lord Fleamont and Lady Euphemia had only just begun to rebuild their fortune."
Tarana nodded. "They weren't penniless, but their vaults had taken a serious hit in their generosity. Of the sixteen properties they'd had prior to the donation, they currently only retain three."
"Harry…."
Harry looked over at Neville, who was looking up at the vaulted ceiling.
The Gryffindors around them followed his gaze upward and quickly scrambled away from the table.
Dozens of owls were diving for the Gryffindor table, many of them had pink envelopes.
Fallen cut no less than six from the sky entirely and, when at least a dozen of the owls tried to land on or around Harry at the same time, Tarana twisted the fire of the many hearths and burned everything that wasn't the tables or lower.
"Tarana! Not everything in here is for Harry!" Fallen snarled, scrambling under the Gryffindor table to avoid being singed.
As abruptly as it had begun, the firestorm disappeared.
The Queen took several deep breaths before she raised her head to stare lividly at Dumbledore. "Fix this," she growled. "If another marriage contract comes to this school for Harry Potter or anyone else, the next thing I set fire to will be the hair on your head and I'm not too partial right now as to whether or not it's still attached to your head. This place is not a bloody zoo!"
/\/\/\
It had been weeks before they could get the smell of charred feathers out of the Great Hall.
Tarana had been called up to the Headmaster's office two days later for a meeting between herself, a Ministry official-who may or may not have been the Minister himself-, and the Headmaster.
In the end, the list of things that weren't to be sent to Hogwarts was expanded to include marriage proposals or contracts and love potions or charms with the risk of a serious fine and possibly time in Azkaban if broken.
This year, Tarana wasn't around to ensure that mandate was followed, but Harry seriously hoped that the Valerians remembered the Fiasco, because he was really not interested in getting mail on Valentine's Day.
He was deliberately running late that morning, in the hopes of missing the mail delivery, and when Harry finally made it down to the Great Hall, there was thankfully no mail on his plate.
It was a rather small win, however, given that the Great Hall had been decorated so gaudily that he was afraid, for a moment, he'd walked through the wrong doors.
The walls had been covered in large, lurid pink flowers and pink streamers had been laced over the mantles.
Worse still, while there was no mail on his plate, heart-shaped confetti was falling from the enchanted ceiling above them and had piled on the table and the golden dishes like snow.
He looked up at the Head Table to see what Severus had made of the change of decoration but met Dumbledore's eyes instead.
The Headmaster tilted his head to Harry's empty plate and raised his goblet to the boy, before turning his attention deliberately to McGonagall at his side.
"What is he wearing?" Blaise asked.
He and Neville had been running as accidentally late as Harry had been deliberate, and the dark-skinned pre-teen was staring up at the Head Table as well, though a little further down than where Harry's own gaze had gone.
Lockhart was dressed to match the room.
The pinkest of pink robes, with hearts of various sizes decorating his equally as pink hat.
"Don't," Draco said. "Please, don't."
"But-"
"I am aware that he is dressed more garishly than Dumbledore and I am aware of the irony given that the man must dress in the dark. I will scream if one of you says something," Draco hissed through grit teeth. "I can pretend that he's not dressed like a tulip if you don't say anything."
Blaise and Harry exchanged a glance before grinning widely and sitting down opposite Ron and Draco.
"Oh god," Ron muttered, scooting as far down and away from the three heirs as possible.
It was clear from the looks on his friends' faces that Draco was not going to get what he wanted.
While Harry and Blaise alternated between making quiet, snarky comments about Lockhart's love wardrobe, Yoko watched Neville take Blaise's distracted state as an excuse to scamper as far down the table as he could from his best friend.
The fox frowned.
XX
"Honestly," Fallen said after several minutes of Draco biting his tongue to try and avoid making the oh-god-it's-too-easy comments he obviously wanted to. "I'm more surprised none of you has mentioned McGonagall and Severus."
Distracted from teasing their friend, the group turned back to the Head Table.
On either side of Lockhart, the professors, near and far, looked rather stony.
McGonagall, however, looked like she had swallowed a lemon and it had gotten stuck somewhere. Even from where they sat, the Gryffindors could see the muscle in her cheek flexing.
For someone that had passed, rather successfully, as a spy for at least a month, Severus' expression spoke volumes. To Harry, it seemed like someone had dumped a large beaker of Skele-Gro down his throat and it kept trying to make a reappearance, only for him to forcefully swallow it back and begin the process again.
Draco's grin was not friendly.
"Oh, it's almost worth it now," he said, rubbing his palms together, not unlike evil overlords everywhere.
Any amusement that may have bred up and down the Gryffindor table as the Heirs, and their friends', spread their opinions around - the twins had even drafted a rather catchy, off the cuff rhyme at one point - died a swift death as Lockhart got to his feet as breakfast came to an end.
"Happy Valentine's Day!" he shouted. "And may I thank the forty-six people who have, so far, sent me cards! Yes, I have taken the liberty of arranging this little surprise for you all, and it doesn't end here!"
The blond clapped his hands and, through the door, marched a dozen dwarves.
Dwarves were short, stocky, and not pretty.
Definitely not someone or something that one would see in the company of Lockhart, who appeared to value appearance and reputation over much anything else.
Fallen, who had great respect for nearly all magical creatures, nearly lost his mind when they walked through the door wearing togas and golden wings and carrying harps.
Yoko wisely bit his tongue and kept his amusement at the spectacle they made to himself.
"My friendly, card-carrying cupids!" Lockhart said proudly with a beaming smile. "They will be roving around the school today delivering your valentines! And the fun doesn't stop here! I'm sure my colleagues will want to enter into the spirit of the occasion! Why not ask Professor Snape to show you how to whip up a Love Potion! And while you're at it, Professor Flitwick knows more about Entrancing Enchantments than any wizard I've ever met, the sly old dog!"
Flitwick promptly buried his face in his hands and shook his head, but Draco took one look at his godfather's face and promptly lost any composure he had tried to maintain, laying his head on the table and cackling into his folded arms.
"For any of you who don't have the sense the gods gave the human race, the look on your Potions Professor's face warns you that anyone who tries to ask him about Love Potions will first be fed poison, by force if necessary. It will amuse me to see you try, however, so by all means." Fallen called into the Great Hall. "I'm sure once you've learned that lesson, he'll cure you…maybe."
More than half the Great Hall snickered as Severus' expression, if anything, got even more severe, promising retribution to Fallen at the earliest opportunity.
Fallen grinned widely and tossed his head, daring him to bring it on.
XX
Though some hid it far better than others, it was likely that Lockhart was going to be dead by the end of the day, if the rest of the staff had any say in the matter.
All-day his 'cupids' would burst into classes, interrupting the lesson, to read or sing their valentine's deliveries to recipients much to the blushing embarrassment of most of the said recipients.
Even once the dwarf was gone, it was hard to redirect the classes back to the lesson when everyone was picking on or teasing their classmate.
For the most part, Harry and his friends managed to avoid being a 'target', but given that he was Harry Potter, it appeared that not even being the 'Heir of Slytherin' could completely kill his appeal to people.
In the late morning, on the way to class, Harry was cornered by one of the dwarves, and depending on who you asked, his day got a whole lot better.
XX
The call of his name had made his blood turn to ice and his face to warm in anticipated embarrassment.
Fallen, several paces ahead of them had turned on his tail and made to come back, but Harry had already been held up, the dwarf tugging sharply on his bag and all but hemming him into a corner.
"I've got a musical message to deliver to 'Arry Potter in person," the dwarf said, twanging his harp in a far from musical way.
To Harry, who swallowed nervously, it sounded vaguely threatening.
"Let me go," Harry mumbled, ducking his head and trying to move past the creature. "Not here."
He flinched hard, elbow jamming into the stone wall behind him when the dwarf grabbed him by the wrist to keep him in place.
"Stay still," the creature grunted.
"No," Harry said, pressing himself against the wall and closing his eyes, waiting for the inevitable embarrassment.
There was no music.
Cracking open one eye, Harry was startled to find that, so focused had he been on Fallen ahead of him, he'd forgotten that Yoko was behind them.
The dwarf was, very lightly, entangled with the fox's signature vines, one of the tendrils wrapped around his throat and swaying, though there was no wind, so that that the leaves brushed its cheek.
"In this country," Yoko purred quietly. "'No' still has meaning. The boy politely declined to hear your message at this time, and you proceeded to lay hand on him. Twice. I will give you oh, let's say a healthy and round five seconds, to decide if you want to risk giving him that message right now, or live to try and do so again at a later, more private, time."
Fallen paced behind the fox, head lowered as though hunting, licking a fang threateningly.
The dwarf looked at the General over his shoulder. "Sorry 'bout this, General. Just doin' a job."
"This place is not a circus," Fallen told him, unamused, as Yoko's vines slipping away as slowly and as softly as they had twined around the dwarf. "It's a school. If Lockhart wants to play games with the education of the students attending, he'll be hearing from the Malfoy family solicitors when my charge's grades suffer for it. Perhaps suggest that he make a mockery of the school where I can't see it."
"Nor I," Yoko growled. "I think I've had about enough of this farce today, given how much class time we have lost with this idiocy."
The dwarf saluted sloppily, already darting away toward his next valentine.
"Maybe spread the word!" Draco called after him, smirking.
No one noticed how red Ginny Weasley had gone, or how quickly she ducked into her classroom.
XX
The dwarf must have taken the parting to heart, because for the remainder of the day if a 'cupid' walked into a class attended by the Valerians, they turned around and walked back out.
More than a few useless House points had been gifted to Yoko and Fallen by thankful professors.
XX
The common room got a great deal more packed after curfew had come and gone, but given the noise level, most went to bed earlier than normal for some peace and quiet, particularly given the fact that Lockhart's 'surprise' had been exhausting to some of them.
Once it had more or less emptied out until only a few die-hard studiers remained, Yoko secluded himself, mostly hidden by the couch, to work on the diary, insisting that he'd nearly gotten a particularly complex Knot untangled.
Harry had abandoned his due-in-three-days Transfiguration essay, to convince Fallen to spend 'just a half-hour' on teaching him the basics for meditation.
It proved to be just as difficult as Fallen had claimed it would be.
Emptying his mind sounded easy in theory, but Harry constantly found his attention, even focused on nothing, drifting to things that he needed to do, things he wanted to do, things he missed, things he wished he had said differently in class today.
The list was endless, and it was frustrating.
He was lamenting how hard it was to a totally unsympathetic Fallen, when Ginny gasped beside him, causing all three of them to look up at her.
The redheaded First Year was looking, horrified and embarrassed, between Harry and the diary between Yoko's spread front paws.
Fallen narrowed his eyes on her. "Do you know who it belongs to?" he asked her, startling the girl.
Yoko lifted just enough to shake out his fur before settling down again. "We found it by accident and have been trying to figure out who it belongs to so we can return it." He lied.
Given the dark nature of what the protection spells hid, neither he nor Fallen had any intention of giving the book back to its owner.
Draco, oblivious to what he walked through, dropped down onto the couch beside Harry and opened his mouth to complain to Fallen about something or other, before closing it and raising a brow at Ginny, wordlessly asking if there was anything she needed.
Ginny went redder than her hair and squeaked.
Rolling his eyes, Draco made himself comfortable on the couch. "Did you need anything, Weasley?" he asked her.
Ginny shook her head quickly. "Idon'tknowwhoitbelongsto," she said quickly, already turning on her heel and all but running up to the girl's dorms.
Draco blinked after her before turning back to Fallen and Harry, the reason for his earlier irritation forgotten.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
Harry dismissed Ginny's behavior, for the moment, with a last look toward the girl's dorm, before telling Draco about the frustrations of trying to clear his mind for meditation.
The blond was a much better board for it than Fallen was.
The two Valerians weren't quite so easily put off, however.
Yoko and Fallen exchanged a look, curious and concerned, because it was far from the first time that Ginny had tried to approach either one of her brothers or Harry and Blaise.
Percy had, the first time, put it down to Ginny being upset about the attack on Mrs. Norris because she was apparently an avid cat lover.
The twins had taken a little more convincing, but eventually had lost interest, given that they were 'so much older' than their two younger siblings, though they were quick to check in with them after each of the attacks.
Ron had dismissed his sister as easily and far faster than Percy had and wanted little to do with her at all.
'She is a rather odd duck,' Brandon pointed out of Fallen.
'I think she's someone worth keeping an eye on,' the wolf countered.
'Why's that?'
Fallen stared up the stairs for several seconds before turning back to try and wrangle Harry back to his homework, their half-hour long up. 'I don't know.'