Disclaimer: I am not J.K Rowling in disguise and I do not own Harry Potter.
I'm not dead yet! It will take more than covid to take down someone as handsome as me B-)
Just wanted to thank everyone who read again, between this chapter and the last it got past 10,000 views. I find it crazy that that many people actually read my ramblings.
I don't know if anyone noticed the reference to my favourite fic 'A Black Comedy' in the last chap. If you havn't read it do so. It funni.
Enjoy the the new chapter! Adios!
Chapter 4: Harpocrates
15th August 1995, 07:43am
Flat 14, Fyfield Road, Brixton, London, England
Harry appeared with a crack back at his blank, boring corner apartment in Brixton and, upon landing, scanned the room for any threats. They could be waiting for him to come back to try and make him go bye-byes again.
The flat was empty and silent, devoid of any personality.
Harry sighed and started to pack away the few personal items he had back into his trunk to move out again. They had known to come there once, there was no way he was going to be sleeping there again, and he couldn't be bothered to fidelius it. It wasn't worth the trouble.
He left a letter for the landlord on the way out with his trunk containing all of his worldly possessions shrunk and in his pocket.
As he descended the stairs to the ground floor a thought came to him and stopped him in his tracks.
'What now?'
He stood still on the third from the bottom step, one foot down and one up, pondering this question.
'What now?'
Well, obviously he couldn't let all that mess with Voldemort happen again and, unlike last time, now he was actually a fully fledged dark mage hunter not a scared teenager running for his life. Not that that would make it any easier, even in his many years of dark mage hunting very few had been as dangerous and influential as Voldemort was currently. Voldemort was at the level where even if you killed him, the destruction he had wrought and the influence he had would still cause chaos long afterwards. Indeed, that was how it had been in Harry's time, unlike some people for some reason expected, when the bad man had died it hadn't all suddenly been all sunshine and rainbows. There had been years of repealing legislation and hunting down remnants of an army that wanted to continue what Tom Riddle had started, and a series of pretenders to go along with it.
So, that was the long-term goal, but what about short term? What about now?
Hmm, he could really do with some food. He hadn't eaten since yesterdays slop in Azkaban, and it hadn't exactly been the most appetizing meal.
Harry nodded in satisfaction at his conclusion and continued his trek down the stairs, stepping out into the crisp morning air soon after. He took in a deep breath in and smiled. Everyone always talked about how miserable Azkaban made you feel, but they never seem to mention how the place smells like complete shit. After the damp and mildew of Azkaban the fresh air laden with scents of recently fallen rain and grass cuttings was heaven to his senses.
He walked to the nearest alley, checked that there were no security cameras, then apparated away to a familiar alley behind the Leaky Cauldron.
He walked in and smiled, the place looked as it always did at this time. Tired mages shuffled around and served coffees, Tom bustled behind his bar serving drinks and food and people in black cloaks had hushed conversations behind privacy wards.
"Mornin' young man, can I do summet for you?" Tom asked him from behind the worn and scarred bar, wide smile showing off his crooked teeth. Good man, Tom. When he had died many years after the war in 2027, many had come to his funeral, and then realised that nobody knew the barkeeps last name. He had had no known relatives, and everyone just knew him as 'Tom the Barkeep.' It had been equally sad and funny.
Harry walked from where he had been standing in front of the door and up to the bar with an easy smile to reflect Tom's, "yeah mate, full English please, I'm fucking starving," he said tiredly.
Tom grinned, "right away..."
"Harrison."
"Right away Harrison, find yourself a seat it'll just be a minute," the hunchback said cheerfully.
Ten minutes later Harry was sat at a corner table with his back to the wall and a view on both entrances, making his way steadily through an English breakfast and a strong coffee and once again mulling over what he should do.
Umbridge was going to be teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts this year. The thought of that woman made his fork pause midway to his mouth as he shuddered in revulsion.
Stopping her from doing that was as good of a goal as any. As much as he didn't want to ever set his eyes on the woman again he didn't think that he could in good conscience put all of those poor innocent souls at Hogwarts thought the horrors of her teaching for a whole year again, just the thought of the impressionable firsties having their lessons with her made him angry. When a teacher is so bad that the students actually resort to forming a rebel army to teach themselves, you know that something is definitely wrong. There was 16 days until Hogwarts opened her gates once more, he could more than likely figure out something in that time. Mmm, sweet thoughts of killing Umbridge.
'Slowly, don't forget slowly.'
'Yes yes, thank you, Harry.'
Speaking of Hogwarts, there was a certain insanely rare 65ft basilisk just lying around in its basement, and he could really do with some money. Harry grinned at the thought. He had been frothing with rage when someone had found the chamber in his… last life. Some guy who had put together what had happened in his second year had blasted through the sinks on the second floor girls bathroom and claimed the basilisk for himself. Somehow he had completely forgotten the dratted thing after the chaos of the war and that prick Marius Ewing had made a fucking fortune off of it. Well, he wasn't about to let that happen again. It was his.
Oh yes, now he had something to do.
Harry dropped his knife and fork to his now empty plate and stood, drawing on his jacket as he did. He frowned suddenly as he caught a whiff of himself. Ew, not pretty.
"Tom, could I have a room with a shower for a day? Need to be somewhere and I have nowhere to dump my stuff right now."
After a much needed, 30 minute shower to wash off the dirty feeling of Azkaban in scalding hot water and a change of underwear and trousers into some olive green cargoes Harry emerged from his room, now without his trunk, and walked back out to the alley behind the Leaky with a wave and a called 'cheers' to Tom on his way out.
He entered Diagon Alley and once more smiled as he beheld the place in all it's glory. It was still merry, still in denial that the dark lord had returned and people were talking animatedly and walking children around with their partners. It was only a matter of time before their fragile beliefs were shattered and the enormity of the fact that Noseless was back would turn the alley into a group huddled figures casting fearful glances over shoulders, but it was nice to see it like this regardless. He smiled every time he saw the place where he had comprehended that he was going into a whole new world for the first time, it was a special place for him, this arch of brick at the end of one of the main arteries of magical Britain.
"You're blocking the entrance, boy."
Harry pulled himself out of his reminiscing and turned to see… the back passageway to the Leaky. Then he looked down. Ah, half goblin, what a coincidence. Harry glared at him for calling him boy, he didn't like being reminded of Vernon. Ooo there's another person now on his shitlist. Harry weighed up the benefits and consequences of punting the rude man down the alley, jusged it not woth the effort and turned away and proceeded to walk off towards a place that he ideally wouldn't enter again. But really, if he wanted somewhere with the knowledge and capability to cut up a basilisk there really wasn't many places you could go, and even less who weren't lying about being able to do it. On top of that, goblin forged blades were needed to actually cut apart the beast at all, nothing else could penetrate that skin without causing damage. It was worth it for the cut throat prices the little shits demanded for the process. 10% his ass.
Harry absently slapped away a hand trying to nick his money pouch and approached the doors of Gringotts in all of their golden, gaudy glory.
"Mornin' lads," he said cheerfully to the two ever present goblin guards, he could never tell if it was always the same two on the front, they all looked the same. He normally called them Left and Right, most of the time in the order in which they stood. They gripped their spears and narrowed their beady little eyes at him distrustfully, not return his greeting. As always.
"Rude..." Harry muttered as he strode past them into the even gaudier (in his opinion) tellers Hall for the second time since he had fallen from the future.
He ended up in front of a goblin that looked like all of the other goblins, except this one was a redhead. Not a good look on a goblin.
"What?" The goblin grated, pouring as much impatience into the word as possible.
"Harrison Slate, I need some goblins handy with knives and a large space to process a 65ft long basilisk, soon as possible if you would mate."
The creature jerked his wrinkled head up. He was probably surprised but it was hard to tell because goblins were always scowling, "Gringotts does not take kindly to liars Mr Slate, if you are not being truthful it would end most unpleasant for you" he growled, then he pressed down on something behind his desk with his dark yellow fingernail, "Fangcrusher will be here shortly."
"Sure thing, Red," Harry said distractedly, gazing around at the people surrounding him. Their threats were completely empty of course. They couldn't risk harming a hair on his pretty little head for fear of the Ministry coming down on them like a ton of bricks and starting another war. Goblins may detest mages, but they don't want another war. They would most likely not win it.
Red sneered at me for calling him Red then we waited for a couple of minutes before a goblin with a heavy leather apron with knives of various lengths attached at the hip, presumably Fangcrusher, waddled out of a door behind Red. The teller turned and addressed the newest arrival in harsh foreign words of goblin-speak. Not Gobbledygook, they fucking hate that name. Sounds too prissy apparently. Harry agreed with them. One of the few things he agreed with goblins about
Harry caught the word garanajka in Red's sentence to Fangcrusher. Harry didn't know goblin-speak, didn't care enough to put in the time, as far as he knew the liaison to the goblins and Dumbledore were the only mages in the UK who spoke it. But he had got drunk with Filius one time and convinced his old professor and friend to teach him some swearwords in the language. And as one could probably tell from their general disposition they had a lot of curses and insults. This one, granajka, roughly translated to 'shame to his mother and his mothers mother.'
Yeah, not something which Harry or Harrison liked, both of their parents having been murdered.
Harry frowned, his finger twitching for his wand, yearning to catch it from the holster with a flick and a thought. Pop, pop, two dead goblins, just right up. "I'll tell you what, I will let you little bastards have 6 percent of the earnings from the basilisk in return for me not ripping your fucking head off for what you just called me," Harry flashed the shocked goblin a smile that didn't reach his eyes, which were suddenly hard and steely, "how about that, Red?"
They were a lot more accommodating after that.
Still managed to wheedle 7% of the profits by the end of the negotiations in Fangcrusher's cramped office though.
Fucking goblins.
Gringotts gave him permission to make a portkey to the chamber, after an oath that he wasn't leading them to harm and the assurance that he would be taking a separate one to the same place to ensure that he wasn't leading them into a trap, not that the goblins that they were sending weren't capable of dealing with any threats by themselves.
He and the three other goblins sent along with him, Rageblade, Hardgast and Värend appeared at the bottom of the long chute into the chamber. They were a long way below even the deepest dungeons of Hogwarts (which were pretty deep themselves) and the wards didn't reach down here, which is what let them portkey in. If they did reach down this far Hogwarts would probably have detected the class 5X beast nesting in it's bowels. Although, Harry didn't know if the ward that was supposed to detect dark creatures was even still up and running, it could have still been damaged from when Quirrell snuck in that Troll or adjusted when Dumbledore decided to house a Cerberus on the third floor.
'Hmm, Dumbledore fiddling with wards he most probably didn't understand would explain a lot actually. Like how a death eater sat comfy in the school for almost a year.'
"Where have you brought us Slate," one of the goblins, Rageblade Harry thought, asked shortly. He was trying to hide it, but Harry could tell that he was curious as he looked about the round chamber. There were entwined snakes carved into the stone ceiling, torches flared by themselves and behind them was the entrance to the chamber, a deep dark hole reaching for the surface above them.
"Well, what do you know of the Chamber of Secrets?" Harry asked with a shit eating grin on his face.
All three goblins turned to him sharply, their feet crunching the carpet of bones as they twisted, "surely, you jest," Värend grated flatly, echoing his companions sentiments. They were now looking around the chamber with sharpened eyes, most likely seeing the snakes in a different light now.
"Nope" Harry replied, popping the 'p', "and if you know of Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets, can you guess at what were about to go cut up?" He questioned cheerfully.
"Slytherin's monster," Värend breathed, showing an uncharacteristic amount of emotion for one of its species, "Slytherin's monster was a basilisk… fitting, I suppose."
Harry chuckled, "indeed my diminutive friend, now lets be off fellas, time and money wait for no goblin and all that lark," Harry waved his wand lazily and cleared the bones in his path, leaving the way forward clean. The goblins hefted their packs with various sampling and measuring implements and followed Harry through the circular entrance.
They trekked along the dingy pipe (Harry using scourgify liberally the whole way)until they came upon the huge snakeskin lying dead and shed on the floor to the side. It was about 50ft long and yellowed with age.
Harry gestured to it with his free hand distractedly while he viscously cleansed the floor in front of him again, "you reckon we can do anything with that? It's probably about 200 years old, but it can probably be used for something right? It's still basilisk after all."
The goblin who had stayed quiet so far, Hardgast, ran a sharp nail along the scales and examined the tip, which hadn't managed to scraped anything off. "The skin is still strong, it can be sold for cheaper or ground down for potions, this will be included in our cut."
There didn't seem to be an offer or a question there. Harry just shrugged and gave the go ahead. The three set about rolling it up then loaded into a bag that obviously had an undetectable extension charm on it, as the skin that was half as tall as he was when rolled up was eaten entirely by the sack now slung over Hardgast's shoulder.
The go-ahead was given and they continued, Harry eventually got tired of the dim light from the torches and sent a bright strip of lumos running along the top of the pipe in a long strip, casting a harsh white light onto their surroundings.
They soon came upon their first problem, that being the huge mound of rubble that they found after the pipe ended and emptied into a large room that Harry had forgotten was there. Harry had no clue how Ron's wand had managed to cock up an obliviate so badly that it took out the ceiling, but that was a question for another day. Maybe Lockhart was just that incompetent.
"Ahh shit," Harry muttered, tapping his wand against his leg and trying to figure out what to do with it, he peered the small gap where he had crawled through last time, no chance of him getting through that way this time. Merlin, had he really been that small? A memory of the knobbly kneed, scrawny and bloody Harry Potter surfaced to his mind. Yes, yes he had.
He turned to look down at the goblins, "you guys live under the ground right? Any ideas?" they turned to him with identical unimpressed looks. He wouldn't be getting any help from them. "Useless fuckers," he grumbled, wand still tapping his leg.
Harry thought for a moment longer then jabbed his wand at the pile, levelly incanting 'licens indu unus', a harsh white beam shot from the tip of his wand and struck the rubble, Harry concentrated and the beam stayed attached, unmoving. Then, slowly, the rock started to flow to the tune of his intent and the mound rose and narrowed, the loose rocks and dust coalescing, becoming smooth and more solid. Harry waited until the pile finished, the end result making it seem like there was a solid wall blocking the way forward. Harry didn't wait for one of the goblins to make a snide remark, instead he slowly dragged his wand from the floor next to his left foot, up and over his head, then over next to his right foot. He did it with effort, as if there was something trying to stop the passage of his arm over his head.
The transfiguration was more intricate and took more effort than necessary, but by the end there was a badass 8ft high arch with snakes decorating the edges cutting through the barrier that made the effort completely worth it. He even added a smaller, goblin sized archway to the right of it for his new friends. Let nobody say that Harrison Slate isn't thoughtful.
Rageblade turned to look up to him from where he was staring at the smaller entryway and scowled at him, well, scowled at him deeper, he was already scowling. "I would gut you where you stand if there wasn't money to make, Slate," he growled.
Harry laughed, the sound echoing harshly around the cavernous room they were in, "you're welcome buddy, now onwards, to adventure!" Harry brandished his now lit wand in front of him like a torch and skipped through his entrance, pausing on the other side to turn and watch as the goblins tried to get through the ward he had put on his door. After a minute they gave up and with mutinous expressions and angry mutterings the three reluctantly sidled through the smaller archway he had constructed.
Harry grinned, he always enjoyed taking the goblins down a peg or two. It was said of goblins that the only thing as unbreakable as their blades is their pride. He had always been good at breaking things.
Soon enough, they approached a huge metal door with carved snakes locking it in place. The entrance to the chamber. Seriously, Salazar's tendency to put snakes everywhere seemed a bit overkill to Harry. There were snakes covering the whole structure, in the ceiling, in the girls bathroom, in the door, engraved into the floor and even trailing along the sides of the pipes. Harry wondered if the founder had gone slightly insane in his old age. It would explain the obsessive need to put snakes everywhere. And of course the huge 5X beast capable of killing whole villages in minutes that he hid under a fucking school that he himself founded.
Harry turned to his compatriots, "right, I would prefer if you lot not divulge what you're about to hear here, it could potentially do some damage to my no doubt stellar reputation if this were to get out," without waiting for an answer he turned back to the door and hissed, "~open~". A small trio of indrawn breaths and the rasp of metal sliding against metal was the only indication that his less than revered magical talent had indeed carried over. He wasn't sure if he was happy about that or not.
He wasn't entirely worried about the three of them blabbing, goblins didn't really give a shit about mages, and so most likely wouldn't bother mentioning it to one. Unless offered a sufficient amount of galleons of course, and even then mages were normally too arrogant to go to a magical creature for blackmail material anyway. And if people did find out, well, he wasn't in school any more and also wasn't a celebrity. He would probably get a few idiots calling him a dark wizard, but he didn't really give a shit. For some of the things he had done to catch or kill dark mages, he probably could be considered one himself by some.
The snakes stopped their metallic song and fell silent. After a few more sounds of moving parts from inside the door it swung open on silent hinges, revealing the legendary Chamber of Secrets in all its dark and depressing glory. And there, lying dead centre in the middle of the chamber at the end like it had only just been killed, was the basilisk. It wasn't as big as he remembered it being, probably due him being significantly taller than he was then, but it was still a frightening sight to behold.
Harry could hear the goblins muttering to each other in goblin-speak as they approached the giant snake. He walked right up to the mouth of the thing, his footsteps echoing around the chamber intertwining with the shorter spaced ones of his comrades. Snakes and wizards brandishing staffs leered over him from either side as he made his way down to the main event. It was just as he remembered it, dark green and all spikes tipped with yellow. Horns rose out of the top and pointed upwards.
He could still see his blood pooled on the floor from where he had been impaled and, away from the snake, the oily black mess left over from Tom's diary. It was as he suspected then. Like many rooms that people planned to remain undisturbed for a long amount of time, there was a strong stasis charm on this chamber. It was the only ward, probably to stop anyone from detecting the place. Harry imagined that it probably wasn't put in place to preserve the dead body the monster it contained, most likely it was to stop cobwebs, moss and mildew setting in. It was just a lucky side effect that it also perfectly preserved the extremely valuable dead snake along with everything else.
"Here we are gentlemen, one basilisk, as promised" Harry said with a flourish, gesturing to the still glistening hole where one of the deadly eyes used to be.
Värend cast a beady eye on it, "it is in remarkable condition for something dead for two years, Slate," he paused then lifted an arm in the air, tracing shapes with a claw, eyes closed. A smile that was somehow scarier than the normal glare affixed his face, "an ancient stasis ward, almost definitely cast by Salazar Slytherin himself, this will increase profits drastically."
Harry shuffled away a little, the little guy looked about ready to bust a nut at the idea of profit, "right, yeah, so can we start on the work? Time is money you know." He emphasized this by rubbing his thumb and fingers together.
The three goblins started out of their reverie and started unpacking their satchels, pulling out various measuring and sampling tools. Harry started on his part of the process and unpacked the eight stones that would be transporting the thing to a holding room. They were mainly used for international magical transportation of cargo, but they were handy for all kinds of things. The way they worked was you organised the stones, four in a rectangle on the floor and 4 above them around whatever you wanted to transport and it would send everything inside the area to a destination set beforehand by a mage, much like a portkey, but the portstones couldn't transport living things.
It took a while, and he almost crushed Hardgast when he moved the tail end of the creature to fit it into his rectangle, but eventually he was done, and eight stones linked by a golden light entrapped the deadly serpent.
While he was at it Hardgast measured it, turns out the beast was actually around 67 feet long, so he would be getting even more money.
About the money…
To put it simply, basilisks were really fucking rare. In the last 100 years there had probably only been about 28 of them found and less then that killed. The ones that were found normally didn't last long, as a snake that killed people with a look tended to get noticed and hunted down by groups of angry mages rather quickly.
This one was definitely the largest one ever killed. It had been left to grow for at least 900 years, and it definitely showed. Even with only a 7% cut, the goblins would be making a hefty sum from the sale of its parts, not to mention his cut. They would be releasing the parts to the market gradually as to not make them worthless, but by the end he would probably have enough money to make house Slate equal to one of the Noble families. Potion makers, experimenters and probably the DoM would all be clambering to get their grubby mitts on the venom and skin so they could poke at it.
He had ordered them to let him keep a 7ft long roll of the skin and a fang but the rest would be sold. He was almost tempted to keep the skull so he could hang it somewhere or maybe make it into a chair or something, but the lost value from doing that was in the thousands of galleons so he refrained.
Harry walked from the last stone he had activated over to the small group of goblins, who had been comparing notes and crawling over the basilisk for the last half-hour.
"Evaluation is done," Rageblade said, tapping a blood stained claw on the parchment in his hand, "if the market values of the parts remain roughly the same, the whole basilisk should make a profit..." the goblin paused on the word 'profit', savouring the taste of the word, "...of around 316,000 galleons." The goblin let loose another unsettling grin, which looked more like he was bearing his teeth, most likely to scare a child, "a 22120 galleon profit for Gringotts, most satisfactory."
And that was about as much of a compliment as you could get from a goblin.
Harry grinned and tapped the stone next to him twice with his wand, causing the stones and the snake to vanish in a golden flash, "good doing business with you lads, when can I expect the money to start rolling in?"
"We should be finished with rendering the basilisk by the end of the month, and the first payments will probably be deposited into your vault as soon as Gringotts starts distributing into the market, are you portkeying back to Gringotts?" Värend asked.
Harry looked around at the now snake-less chamber, "nah, I'm going to do a little sightseeing."
They gave him one last collective sneer then portkeyed away back to Gringotts, leaving Harry under the eyes of the huge statue of Salazar Slytherin in all his monkey-like glory. Without the snake and the goblins, he suddenly felt very small. The stone walls arched up high into the darkness, and all of the statues were larger than life, making it seem like he was walking in a giant's world and he had just wandered onto the threshold.
He hadn't been lying, he had actually stayed to have a look around. His reasoning was that, even if Salazar had only built this to house his pet snake and look impressive, it wasn't likely that the slide was the only entrance into the place. Mages were proud species by nature, especially the older ones, there was no way in his opinion that the founder would have used something as undignified as a slide. It could be that he had always apparated in, but Harry doubted it. He was a Hogwarts founder; there had to be an entrance to the castle somewhere.
And so Harry spent the next 20 minutes tracing his hands over all of the what felt like thousands of snakes in the chamber, straining for some feel of magic from one of them and whispering "~open~" at each one.
Eventually he got to one snake that was sliding from behind the statue of Slytherin. It was as tall as he was and its tongue was flicking out as if to scent the air. Harry laid his hand on the tongue palm first, he could feel the magic around the mouth of the beast and could tell it was most likely an entrance to something.
It was.
The snake's mouth opened to reveal a dark passageway which, like the rest of the chamber, lit up with eerie light emanating from green flames the moment he entered. It ended after just two flights of stairs. Halfway up, Harry felt the heavy wards of Hogwarts wash over him. He paused to see if anything would happen, cursing himself for forgetting about them. When nothing happened, he breathed a sigh of relief. He really didn't need Dumbledore noticing him right now and sticking his overly large nose into his business. The wards were based on identifying the magical core of the former and current students, Harry realised, and that was one of the few things he had dragged from the future.
The passageway emerged into an unused classroom in an unused corridor on a mostly unused floor, the 5th one to be exact. To Harry's knowledge, the only things that the floor was used for was the prefects bathroom, and a place for a quick shag in a rarely frequented room like the one in front of him. He wondered if that was on purpose, if Slytherin had put something in place to discourage using this part of the castle.
Harry nodded and fixed the location in his head so he could come back to it some time, he assumed that somewhere there would be a snake carved into the wall like in the girls bathroom 3 floors below him.
Once back in the chamber, Harry observed the last place in the massive room that he hadn't explored; the huge metal door to the left of the giant statue of Slytherin that the basilisk had come out of on that awful day in his second year. He was reluctant to open it again, although he knew he was being unreasonable. After all, it wasn't as if the same thing was going to happen again.
Harry stared up at the door and glared into the eyes of one of the engraved snakes on the front of the door. It couldn't move, but Harry could swear it was giving him a mocking look.
"~Speak to me Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four.~" Harry hissed.
Much like the entrance to the chamber, although on a much larger scale, the door was silent for a moment before the snakes drew back from the centre and the hiss of metal against metal once again rang around the chamber hollowly as the snakes sang their song. Once finished, the door swung open to reveal a pipe coated with slime and long dead skin. There were no lights within and it stank, Harry recoiled under the nasal assault and swore, casting a bubblehead charm on himself on instinct to filter out the awful scent.
"Right, lets see if the Chamber of Secrets has any more secrets..." Harry muttered as he clambered his way up to the pipe, pulling himself up and into it. Harry wiped his hands and knees free from the muck with a quick charm then lit the way in front of him and started to make his way down the pipe, wand extended in front of him to light the way.
He had been walking for roughly ten seconds when he heard a sound that he really hadn't wanted or expected to hear again.
Harry froze as he heard the sound of something heavy sliding across muck and metal somewhere ahead of him, the sound echoing off the walls of bends in front of him. He was brought back to his second year, Tom Riddle with his arms outstretched as the same sound emanated from a dark hole...
"No fucking way," Harry breathed, his breath starting to shorten as he slowly began backing away to where he had come from, stumbling over a bone in his hurry.
"~I smell BLOOD, mother said there would be BLOOD.~" A disjointed voice hissed in what he could tell was parseltongue, the rasping, wet noise was getting closer.
Harry scrambled to his feet, turned tail and bolted, cussing repeatedly and frequently as he did so. His mantra of 'fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck' bounded off the walls of the pipe and followed him tauntingly as he struggled to keep his footing amongst the debris in his way.
"~Finally I can RIP and TEAR, mother always said...~"
Harry didn't even pause as he reached the thankfully still open heavy metal door, flinging himself out of it and casting an arresto momentum on his way down, pure desperation powering the spell as he heard the sliding get closer and closer.
Harry hit the floor and rolled with it. His palms were cut from where he had slipped in his escape and stung against the impact as he pushed them into the floor to roll back to his feet. He span to face the door. It took a few seconds of him staring at the mouth of the pipe blankly before he realised that he had absolutely no clue how to close the entrance again. Laughing slightly hysterically at his predicament, Harry turned around once more and ran from what he was desperately praying to Merlin wasn't real.
'Of course the basilisk had a kid, why not? I'm Harry fuckin Potter, I really should have expected something like this.'
Harry ducked behind one of the pillars to the side of the room and put his back to it, considering his options. He laid the back of his head against it as well and glared at the ceiling above him. He just knew that somewhere above him, someone was laughing at him.
"Fawkes? I could use a little help here buddy, for old times sake?" He called into the air, feeling like a bit of an idiot.
There was no response.
Harry cursed, "I'm going to flush that fucking birds ashes down the toilet next time I see it," he grumbled.
He couldn't let this Merlin be damned thing loose on the school, even if there were no students around the teachers were still there, and he really didn't want their deaths on his hands. Therefore, the only option left to him was to kill it. Again. He really had to stop getting into these situations.
Harry heard a dull thud from the entrance to the basilisk lair.
"~I can smell blood, so hungry… mother said there would be blood for me...~" Well, now he knew what gender the big one was. He wasn't sure what to do with that information.
Harry breathed a long suffering sigh to the ceiling and conjured a blindfold, placing it over his eyes so he wouldn't get turned into a garden ornament. He then placed a charm that the Hit-Wizards used when he was a part of them on his eyes. It hadn't actually been invented yet, having been made in 2012 by a spell-crafting witch who was fiddling with homenum revilio, and accidentally came across a variation which briefly outlined everything in her surroundings instead. The Hit-Wizards used to use it when vision was poor and they couldn't risk using lumos. Since it gave him vision straight to his brain through his magic, and not through his eyes, he could see through his blindfold and would be able to see the basilisk without instantly dying.
As soon as he finished the incantation the world flared to life around him once more. Everything was fairly poorly defined but it was far better than being blind. The chamber became a mosaic of various shades of grey; it all had an odd shifting texture that reminded Harry of TV static that gave him a headache, but it was better than being blind or dead.
That was all he had time to plan for, as he heard the basilisk getting far too close for comfort. Teeth bared in a humourless grin that probably would have made anyone who saw it think he was slightly insane, Harry stepped out from behind the pillar, wand raised towards where he heard the snake still rambling manically.
The snake before him was possibly just above half the size of the last one, which of course didn't make it any less scary looking. Its head had two horns protruding from the top of its head in-between its eyes, curved to point forwards and outwards. It had a line of spikes trailing down its spine, and more hanging from its jaw and around its eyes. Harry of course couldn't tell what colour it was, but he assumed it was a deep, almost black green like its dear mum old had been.
Without waiting, Harry started silently casting conjunctive curses at the eyes of the beast, walking backwards slowly to try and keep some distance between him and the snake, he wasn't some Gryffindor to go charging at it like an idiot.
After roughly 80 years of using a wand offensively it was safe to say he had good aim. His new Red Oak wand was still new to him however, so his first spell hit just under the left eye of the basilisk, making it hiss in annoyance and whip its head to the left on reflex. This presented him with a better target for the right eye, however, the outline of it through his magical vision painting a fairly obvious target for his wand. He adjusted his aim, stance sideways and solid to move to the new target, he took a deep steadying breath and cast. The second conjunctive curse hit it dead on its eye, causing it to start screaming and flailing. Harry was sprayed with a good amount of what had to be eyeball fluid, as it was only around 25 feet away when he hit it.
"Yah! Yah! There you go motherfucker!" Harry shouted, he started walking forward to press his advantage, casting strong bombardas, causing the basilisk to screech even louder and recoil as Harry repeatedly hit it with explosions that shook the floor of the chamber, trying to get a blasting curse into its new weak spot and blow up its head.
Suddenly, it seemed to collect itself and lunged towards Harry, mouth opened wide and its fangs dripping with venom in sync with the blood from its eye. Harry cursed, sent the strongest blasting curse he could manage into its mouth with one of his javelins following it, then stepped to the side back behind the pillar in time to narrowly avoid the mouth of the serpent, which struck the floor where he had just been, cracking the marble causing a loud thunderclap to echo around the chamber. Harry could hear the snake screaming something, but it was so frenzied and crazy that he couldn't make out a word of it.
Harry grinned as he thought of possibly the most stupid thing he could do in this situation.
He swung himself around the other side of the column and climbed up onto the back of the huge serpent, using the spikes as leverage as he mounted it like a horse.
Harry grasped one spike at the back of the head of it and held his wand in the other, casting the strongest sticking charm he could to his feet as he struggled to remain in his position, the basilisk had cottoned onto the fact that he was on top of it and was thrashing and trying to get a look at him with its remaining eye. It was pretty angry now, the blasting curse had done some damage to its tongue and mouth and the javelin seemed to have lodged in the back of its throat, occasionally making it gag. Harry could hear a low hiss as the venom on the inside started making its way through the metal of his conjured projectile.
Harry started casting the strongest cutting curse he knew, sectumsempra, repeatedly at the top of its head just inches away from it as it writhed and screamed in pain. Even with the close distance and the power he was pouring into the curse it still took five curses on target and three that missed to open a large gash in the top of its head, causing a torrent of blood to start spraying out of the top of it like some sort of demonic land whale's blowhole.
Harry blinked through the blood covering his face and wiped it free. He took aim with his wand, his other hand gripping the left horn of the crazed animal desperately, but the beast was still thrashing and screaming in pain and his wand was waving in front of him to waver uncertainly.
Just as he was about to send a javelin straight through the top of its head, the snake – perhaps feeling that the end was near – rolled over and tried to crush him under its massive weight, causing him to blast the javelin at an awkward angle into the wound, making it non-lethal, just hugely painful. Harry's eyes, rimmed with blood not of his own, widened as he felt the motion shift sideways under him and he hurriedly cancelled the sticking charms on his feet before they unintentionally killed him. The sudden cancellation threw him bodily off the beast as he followed the direction of the serpent as it rolled, sending him crashing into the sharp rubble of a section of floor that the basilisk had destroyed in its panicked spasms.
He impacted the floor hard, and he clutched his wand to his chest on instinct as to not break it hearing a sharp crack as his right humerus was broken against a protruding block of stone in its place. The various other, smaller, bits of stone cut into him and opened gashes on his face and back as he bounced off the stone and landed on the floor, the warm blood coating his face and hands contrasting against the cold marble sharply.
Harry grabbed his wand with his other hand, thanking Merlin that he learnt how to cast with his left, gritted his teeth against the pain emanating from his right arm and stood again. He probably would have died there if the basilisk hadn't had to take the time to right itself from where it had rolled onto its back, as it was he barely avoided its second lunge at him as he dove to the left, throwing himself to the ground again and wincing when the jolt travelled through his right arm.
He scrambled to his feet and started running back to the lair, transfiguring some of the larger rubble into rough and slightly deformed Gorillas to keep it occupied as he scampered away, cradling his limp right arm as he went.
He heard loud hissing and the sound of shattered stone impacting marble as he sprinted down the centre of the chamber, desperately correcting his balance as slick blood on the soles of his boots tried its best to slip him up on the smooth black marble floor.
Harry raised one more wall between him and the basilisk, which was still occupied with one of the Gorillas which had managed to clock it around the face. He entered the main part of the hall, where the long then set his back against a wall and pointed his wand at his broken arm, using a medical charm that sets bones straight on it, causing it to snap straight.
"FUCK," Harry cried in pain, eyes closed, neck taunt and his left fist striking the floor in his agony. Forgetting to numb it before brutally wrenching it back into place had been a bad idea. Harry, panting in pain, focused on his metamorph powers and slowly knitted bone and marrow together to how it should be, his intent paving the way for his powers to heal it in short order. Harry rotated his arm a few times then nodded in satisfaction. All that was left of the injury was a dull shadow of the pain of the break.
The satisfaction didn't last long, however, as the basilisk exploded through his hastily constructed wall, sending pieces of stone scattering across the chamber. It was a scary sight, it had blood running in rivulets an all sides of its face, with Harry's javelin sticking out the top of its head like an antennae. It was literally spitting mad, occasional drops of venom spinning from its mouth and sizzling angrily on the floor of the chamber, turning solid marble into oily black puddles.
"Morgana's saggy tits would you just fucking die?" Harry grumbled in irritation as he stood, wand in his right arm once again as he got to his feet. He rose it and blasted the floor in front of it, causing rubble and dust to fly in the air and hit it in the face and leaving a hole in the floor. Harry transfigured some blasted bits of marble into a dozen jagged spears and launched them with a strong banishing charm towards the animal. He followed with a storm of darts made from the smaller rocks. One of the stone darts struck it in the hole where its eyes used to be, and blood started pouring out of that as well. This was about the best he could do, the hide was far too spell resistant for piercing hexes and most curses so he had to resort to brute force, something which he was fortunately very used to doing.
It hissed in pain then swung its tail around in a whip-like motion, attempting to slam him across the room. Harry stood his ground as the end of the monster came careening to him and transfigured another section of marble to rise out of the ground in a triangular wedge, with the pointed end pointed at the flat side of the oncoming force. The tail hit the barricade with a sickening crunch. Harry winced. It's ridiculously strong skin had been its downfall, it was so strong that the barrier didn't cut into it and soften the blow, instead it hit it full force and the ribs and spine took the brunt of it instead.
Again, it screamed in agony. Harry's ears were starting to ring from the high pitched bellows of the creature. It pulled away from the barrier, and Harry could see that the back portion of the creature was bent at an odd angle to the rest of it. It was turned with its other eye to him now, glaring at him balefully and trying to kill him with it again. All it did was give him another target.
He let the slightly dented wedge drop and started flinging conjunctive curses at its other eye, some velox iaculum's thrown in for good measure because he liked casting it. He got it on the fifth spell this time, as it was starting to spasm and droop as it started to succumb to its various injuries. The last of its eyes exploded in a shower of gore much like the last.
He could have taken of the blindfold and the charm then, but he didn't have enough time. He was already on the move, sending piercing and blasting hexes at the mouth of it as it screamed in pain. Some hit, causing flakes of skin and tooth to fly around the room. Harry had to dodge the bits of stone, one cut with that venom would kill him very quickly.
However, none of this was actually killing it. In desperation and annoyance, Harry marshalled a good amount of power, held his wand in a firm two hand grip and yelled, "Depulso!"
The wand kicked back harshly, hitting him in the chest with the force of the charm. The bright yellow light struck his opponent halfway down its body and sent it sliding and spinning at a high speed across the chamber. The spell worked because it wasn't actually trying to penetrate the skin, instead just applying force upon it.
It hit the wall on the other side of the chamber hard. The sound of cracking stone and bone once more rang around the chamber as ribs and ornamental snakes were broken apart. As he had hoped, the snake was now lying lengthways along the wall underneath several huge snakes that arched over it. Harry transfigured three of them into huge chains and attached them to the floor, making them as tight as possible as to keep the basilisk contained. It struggled and squirmed, trying to set itself free. Harry matched his will against that of the basilisks and gritted his teeth, tightening the chains more and more. The chains started to heat up and turned red, energised by the magic and negative intent that Harry was putting into his task.
Try as he might, the thing was huge. Even if it was injured it was also still extremely strong, and not much that he could conjure would contain ever be able to contain it. After a couple more minutes of struggle with the hissing of the red-hot chains burning the scales of Slytherins monster complimenting the furious hissing of the snake itself, one of the links in the middle chain eventually snapped, and the chain fell limply on top of the snake and on the floor. The other two around the neck and tail held for the moment, but they wouldn't for long.
Harry dropped the spell and started casting sectumsempra again, but the distance was too great and the skin too resistant and Harry stopped the futile endeavour after a short while. It probably was only tickling it. He cast his eyes around the chamber, looking for something large so he could transfigure it into an animal of equal size of the basilisk to challenge it, or maybe raise a golem, when he saw the huge statue of Salazar Slytherin out of the corner of his eye and did a double take. An idea that only he could think of entered his head. Harry smiled the same slightly insane smile he had smiled earlier when he had decided to ride the basilisk, only wider and maybe slightly more manic.
'Perfect.' There was some sort of beautiful irony in this plan.
Harry turned his wand from the still struggling dark creature and turned it on the massive statue of the 'Greatest of the Hogwarts Four', and cast the strongest animation charm that he could without killing himself. A dark blue light shot from his wand and impacted the stone face of the man, causing it and the rest of the body to glow the same blue for a brief moment. Harry felt the drain on his core immediately and staggered backwards at the sheer amount it was taking from him, almost falling over. Nevertheless, he gritted his teeth, the smile on his face was now showing all teeth and hd gone slightly feral, and kept his wand trained on the stone giant as he dictated its movements.
Ever so slowly it came to life, and started to move. Its right arm, the only one being free, began to clumsily try and push itself free from the wall it was attached to, impossible stone joints squealing harshly around its shoulder and elbow and letting loose chips of granite. There were a series of ear-splitting cracks of stone and loud rumblings that shook the whole chamber as the behemoth broke itself free from its confines, coming to life under the power of Harry's magical strength, creativity and, most importantly,his intent.
Meanwhile, the basilisk had managed to get break itself free of the last two chains and was now once more making its way to Harry, leaving a bloody trail behind it as it slithered its way over. It was relying entirely on smell now, its nose leading it where the two sightless gouges where its eyes used to be could not.
Harry was starting to sag under the huge effort that it was taking to direct the statue as the snake got closer and closer to him, the sound of it sliding across the smooth floor was wet now as blood ran from its eyes and under itself, lubricating its passage.
"Come on… come onnnnnn..." He fell to one knee, grey eyes glowing almost white under the blindfold as his magic flowed out from his core and through his whole body.
Two loud cracks sounded through the chamber as Salazar separated his bare feet from the floor. The snake got closer.
"Come on, come on, come on..." He repeated, teeth gritted and jaw clenched.
Harry was on his hands and knees now, lips pulled back in a snarl as he kept his wand trained and his consciousness from falling away. The snake was close now. Maybe only twenty feet away, rearing its head to strike once more. He could see it out of the corner of his eye as he focused on his creation.
"Come on comeoncomeoncomeon COME ON!" He roared, pouring more and more magic into his animation spell.
The snake's head shot forward to Harry's distracted and bloodied form one last time, confident in its strike, confident that this time it would get a taste of the blood it had been craving for so long. Its jaw was open wide, smell guiding its fangs towards his pray.
Not ten feet from Harry, the basilisk suddenly jerked back and its head slammed to the floor, snapping its mouth shut with a snap as its momentum was stopped suddenly and forcibly. It turned to the right in confusion, not being able to see what had stopped it but being able to feel the pain of something clamped around the broken section of the back half of itself.
Harry let out an animalistic roar as he twisted his wand violently, causing the snake to be pulled backwards towards the reborn Slytherin. As it slid backwards the statue brought its other hand to bear and slammed it downwards.
The last thing Harry saw before finally passing out from the magical exhaustion was the fist of Slytherin feet away from the head of the basilisk. The darkness that had been creeping inwards from the edges of his vision since he had revived the statue finally closed in, and his world became as black as the marble he collapsed face first into.
-oOo-
Harry woke and immediately noticed that his face was pressed against the floor, and something damp was covering his eyes. He groaned and pushed himself up on shaky arms. His hands slipped out from under him the first time, so he tried again and pushed himself back onto his arse. He peeled the blindfold free from his face and cancelled the magical sight charm. His wand had been clutched in his outstretched hand, still pointing towards where he had been aiming it when he fell unconscious.
With the charm off, he could see that the damp thing over his eyes had been the blood-soaked blindfold. He grimaced, he didn't know if that was his blood or the basilisk's.
Speaking of the basilisk…
Harry looked up and grinned, a couple dozen feet away lay the prone, unmoving body of the basilisk. Slytherin's statue was lain awkwardly next to it, its bloodied fist still extended as it had been moments before Harry lost consciousness and relinquished control of it.
Its last act had been to drive the steel spear still lodged in the back of the basilisk's head straight through its brain and into its mouth. The force with which had struck the spear had driven it straight through the lower jaw of the beast and into the floor, pinning it in place and propping the mouth open to showcase the still dripping fangs and row of equally deadly teeth.
Harry grinned. He had just killed the child of Slytherin's monster with a statue of Slytherin himself. Oh, what he wouldn't give to be able to rub it in Tom's ugly mug right about now.
Harry limped over to it, healing multiple small cuts on himself as he did. He approached the front of the behemoth, the face of Salazar Slytherin lying sideways next to him, sightless eyes gazing ever forwards. He flicked the nose of the beast and laughed.
"That's Harrison fucking Slate to you, bitch."
-oOo-
15th August 1995, 12:55pm
Gringotts, Diagon Alley, City of London, England
Teller Flametop (known as 'Red' to those who wanted to piss him off) looked up sharply from a report from some debt collectors he was reviewing as he heard a commotion outside of the bank. His beady eyes narrowed and his clawed hand drifted to his knife that he always kept to his side. He hadn't ever needed it, but it was better to be safe than dead. There were low mutterings and shocked exclamations, he could see a circle of people around a figure slowly move towards his general direction as people scrambled to get away from whoever it was.
The crowd parted hastily to reveal a man heading straight for him with a slight limp, covered in blood, gore and what appeared to be bits of eyeball of some kind. His hair was matted with dried red ichor and his face was a pattern of lines from where he had tried to wipe it away.
Flametop recognised the man. He was the annoying one from the morning who had recognised Goblin-speak and brought Gringotts much profit. He wouldn't ever tell anyone, but the man had unnerved him. Goblins had a good feeling of magic; it was how they were so good with wards. And the magic he had felt from the man when he had got annoyed had been all-encompassing, he hadn't felt an aura like it since the old man, Albus Dumbledore, had waltzed into the bank. He had wondered at the time how everyone around the unnatural looking man hadn't sensed it and looked askance. And then Slate had gone from genial to terribly dangerous in an instant when he found he had been insulted. Flametop did not want to be subjected to those glowing grey eyes again.
His feeling of unease was not in any way reflected in his expression, and yet inwardly it grew when he saw the ear to ear grin the man was wearing, showing two rows of perfectly white teeth against the stained red of his face. He didn't appear to care that he was leaving bloody footprints trailing along the perfect white of the floor behind him, or that everyone in the bank was staring at his blood-soaked and torn form, some in disgust, some in awe and some in fright.
Slate approached his desk, wide grin still in place.
"Red, you're not going to fucking believe what just happened."
Flametop gulped.
AN: Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed the fight. I certainly enjoyed writing it.
I saw that some got confused at my take on metamorphmagi. No, they are not amorphous blobs, Harry said he could change gender because he was saying hes a full metamorph, not because he regularly does it. As you can probably imagine, vanishing your penis is not something you would want to do without a very good reason. Tonks and Harrison will be at heart female and male for the duration of the story, no matter who they morph into.
Anyway, the next chapter is on its way probably in around a week. Thank you for all of the reviews, this is a new experience for me and it's encouraging me to write more.
See you lata