When I woke up, I was back in the Hospital Wing. Within short order, I was sat up in my bed and Professors Sprout and Flitwick sat in chairs opposite me. Professor Sprout wore her usual blank expression, but Professor Flitwick seemed more agitated.

"Mr. Potter, can you please tell us what happened?" He asked.

So I did. I tried my best to pull as many details of the night I could. I edited the parts of Suraj crying, they didn't need to know that. I told them about the net and the systematic darkness in the corridor, the lights and sounds and empty portraits. When I was done, they sat in thoughtful silence.

Before either of them could say a word, the doors to the Hospital Wing dramatically swung open and none other than Cissy Malfoy came striding in.

All at once, I felt sentiments of safety and calm, warmth and that strange sensation that everything was going to be okay because mummy-

I shook my head again, pushing those feelings aside. For a brief moment, I looked into Cissy's eyes and saw her stare at me with nothing short of heartbreaking concern. I looked away. I had never received that kind of look before.

"Mrs. Malfoy." Professor Sprout greeted with grit teeth, her hands balled into fists in her lap.

Cissy paused and nodded to the two Professors. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but without a Headmaster for the school, I felt it appropriate that a member of the Board was on hand to help in this grave matter. It seems that despite the staff's assurances, Hogwarts remains a dangerous place for the Boy Who Lived."

"From what we have gathered," Flitwick said, placing a warning hand on Sprout's shoulder, "This was clearly a schoolyard prank gone too far. We will get to the bottom of it."

Cissy smiled and for a moment, Flitwick melted under her gaze. He then took a deep breath and opened his eyes with a keen intensity. "I do wish you wouldn't do that, Mrs. Malfoy."

Cissy spread her arms wide. "I'm certain I have no idea what you're talking about, Professor."

Flitwick looked away and took a deep breath.

Sprout butted in. "Regardless, we have the matter under control. While we appreciate the interest of the Board, it is unnecessary." Her tone was Arctic.

For once, Cissy seemed a touch annoyed by her reception. "Duly noted, Professor. However, the safety of this child is far too important-"

"I hardly think you're an appropriate authority to speak to the safety of children, Mrs. Malfoy," Sprout said. I was genuinely surprised she was capable of any emotion, let alone anger. "People like you…"

Flitwick hastily placed his arm under Sprout's elbow and urged her to rise. She was mad and her wand appeared in her hand by her side.

But that didn't scare me. No, the terrifying thing was the look of murder in Cissy's eyes. I didn't know what I could possibly say to diffuse this situation, but I knew the two women were a hair's breath away from coming to wands.

Cissy stared long and hard at the wand in Sprout's grip, but made no move to withdraw her own. Coolly, she glared back.

"I'm okay though," I said. "Nothing a little rest can't fix. Besides, I'm so used to hospitals at this point, what's one more visit?"

I laughed at my own joke and all three adults turned to stare at me with varying emotions. Sprout seemed annoyed by my interruption, as if I had foiled her well thought-out duel. Cissy melted and returned to her usual look of pity, which, for once, I was too distracted to be angered by. But it was Professor Flitwick's expression of profound despair that made the breath catch in my throat.

My favourite teacher walked the short distance to my bedside and he held my hand in both of his own. He stared at me right in the eye and with conviction I had never seen from another human being said to me, "Mr. Potter, I promise you we will get to the bottom of this. I won't rest until we do."

Cissy snorted in a most undignified way. "Hard to take that promise seriously when you have mobilised the staff to block out every attempt to get rid of that oaf from the grounds."

"Hagrid has nothing to do with this, he never did." Flitwick shot the words at her like angry cutting curses.

The tableau broke up after that. It seemed that nobody was willing to cross Madam Pomfrey when she ordered you to get out for making a ruckus.

I would be back in my dorm by that evening.

#

I sat in conference with Cedric and Suraj in the classroom from that fateful night. If Suraj felt uncomfortable to be back in this room, he didn't say anything about it.

"Am I the only one who is going to say it?" Cedric finally said, breaking the silence as I finished recounting Suraj's theory.

Cedric regarded both of us and then cleared his throat. "We have no proof. If the Aurors-"

"The Aurors are grieving and want nothing to do with this. They want it to be over. They're not willing to-"

"Suraj, you're not exactly objective in this situation." Cedric muttered softly.

I looked away, pretending not to notice the glare of venom that Suraj shot at Cedric.

"Look, I think- I think Suraj has a point." It seems like I was forced to play the role of peacemaker.

Suraj smiled and nodded at me and Cedric winced.

"I think we've learnt the consequences of sneaking around on our own. Weasley is still paying the price for it." Cedric made a valid point and my gut twisted.

"True. That's why I think we need to take this to someone with authority, someone who can actually help us." I threw back.

Suraj snorted. "Nobody is willing to help us. No offence Harry, but I tried everyone before coming to you. The adults are- they're in denial." There was more packed into that than I could understand, but I knew when not to probe.

"Well then I- I don't know what to do. Except maybe keep an ear to the ground, see if we spot anything suspicious? We have nothing else to go on, do we?"

Cedric clenched his jaw but agreed after a moment's thought.

Suraj sighed. He got up and swept out of the room without another word.

Even if he didn't say it, I knew what he meant. I knew what he felt: You won't help me either.

#

Dear Harry

I'm glad to hear you're in good spirits and recovering. It wouldn't do for you to be lounging around and not getting up to any trouble. Unseemly, truly.

As to your question, it is a valid one and frankly, I'm surprised the Aurors have dropped the matter. I'm not aware about what happened 50 years ago, it's a little before my time at the school as I'm sure it's easy for you to believe given my fantastic youth. But I have a friend I can reach out who is a bit of an avid historian and might be able to help.

I'll write to you when I have something. Until then, stay light.

Yours,

Sirius Black

#

Visiting Hagrid had been on my agenda since that curious spat between the Professors and Cissy. When the gentle giant came to visit me at St. Mungo's, I resolved to do better when I got back to Hogwarts. Like an ever-present minder, Cedric sat next to me, staring worriedly at the curiously tough 'cakes' that Hagrid placed in front of us with two jug-sized cups of tea.

Hagrid was tending to the fire in his little hut. Now that winter was ebbing and making way to Spring, he didn't need the fire as much, but Hagrid said he found comfort in the ritual.

Nearby, Fang purred in his dead-like sleep on the ground.

"Do the Professors have any news on the ones tha' attacked yeh, Harry?"

"Not yet, they made a big announcement at breakfast the next day and students are being questioned, but nothing yet." I answered. What I left unsaid was that I hated the renewed looks of pity and indignation that followed me wherever I went nowadays. Coming down to Hagrid's was a welcome respite.

"They'll find the ones responsible," Cedric said, almost ritualistically. There was a hint of fire in his voice when he said it, which was noticeable to me since I was so unused to hearing it from my usually jovial friend.

"Bad business, the whole mess of it, if yeh ask me." Hagrid shook his head, bouncing his shaggy beard from side-to-side as he sipped from a mug the size of my face.

In the ensuing silence, I sized up Hagrid and tried again to guess at his age. Underneath all the hair, who knew how old he was? But one thing was for certain, Hagrid had been groundskeeper for longer than most people could remember.

"Say Hagrid, there was something else I wanted to ask you about." I licked my lips and allowed the hot tea to burn its way down my throat as I took another sip in preparation.

Hagrid considered me with a fond stare. "Go on lad."

"Well, Auror Moody mentioned something to me during Winter Break when we were looking for… well, you know."

Hagrid froze but nodded almost imperceptibly.

"He said that the Chamber had been opened once before, 50 years ago. I was wondering if-"

The words died on my throat. Hagrid regarded me with such intensity that I didn't dare to continue. Not sensing the groundskeeper's mood, Cedric ploughed on.

"You've been at Hogwarts longer than anyone, we were wondering if you knew anything about-"

Hagrid stood up and marched to his front door. He threw it open and turned back to us, his face a picture of stormy silence.

"Leave."

We hastily obliged.

#

"Do you have any other leads to follow then?" Cedric asked when we were safely back in the Common Room, sitting pensively on bean bags.

I shook my head. "I reached out to someone I know, but they need more time to look into it too. I was not expecting Hagrid to... feel so strongly."

Cedric sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He did that when he was tired after having spent ages pouring over a difficult transfiguration problem that refused to yield to him.

"Well, I'm fresh out of bright ideas and-" He stopped and looked at the fireplace, his words dying unspoken.

This should have been the point when I urged him to continue his train of thought. But I didn't. I had fears of what followed that 'and'.

-and this is dangerous and I want nothing to do with this.

-and this is how you lost a leg and Fred ended up petrified.

-and I regret making you my friend.

So I let the 'and' go and stared into the fire with him.

#

Professor Merrythought was ancient. We met once a week in her cramped classroom and went over the Defence Against the Dark Arts work. She was meticulous to a fault and there didn't seem to be any eventuality with any creature or curse that she hadn't already encountered and overcome five times over. She moved slowly, belying her age as her snow white braids of hair fell messily to her face and she brushed them aside with her wrinkled and tiny hands.

I had been thinking a lot about whom to approach, who would know what happened 50 years ago and would be willing to tell me. The list was not very long. There was Professor McGonagall, who still scared the daylights out of me. Madam Pince too but she didn't seem to notice or retain anything that didn't involve her beloved books. Hagrid had proven to be a dead end and Professor Binns was literally dead. That left glorious old Professor Merrythought.

"I believe," she said, eking out the words slowly, as if tasting how they felt on her tongue, "That will be all for today, Mr. Potter. Off to lunch with you."

I gathered up my belongings and was about to step out, when I steeled my courage and turned around to face her.

"Professor, can I ask you something?"

"You just did young man." She chuckled in that wheezy way that long-time smokers of long pipes do and coughed at the end. "But you may ask another something should you so wish."

"I was wondering if you could tell me a bit about what happened at Hogwarts during the last attacks, 50 years ago."

Her good humour left her. I could sense she was about to tell me something quaint to brush me off, but she held back. She eyed me with a kind of focused attention that would have otherwise made me flinch. But having been eaten by a basilisk did wonders for my tolerance of fear.

"Why do you ask?"

I thought about what I could say to explain myself. But in the end, the truth has its own power.

"Because I saw a good man be eaten in half and if there's anything I can do to help his son, I want to."

She blinked. After a moment that felt like an age, she pinched her cheek and blew out her braids from the front of her face. "Why don't I call in your lunch."

I let my bookbag fall to the floor and limped back to my seat in front of her desk.

#

"Hagrid was framed!" Cedric blurted out.

I nodded.

"That's- that's-" He stopped, unable to find the words. So he paced.

The Common Room fire blazed merrily in the background as I spent a few precious moments marveling at Cedric's faith that pacing can make anything better.

He stopped at last. "Have you told Suraj?"

I shook my head. "What would be the point? I think we hurt Hagrid enough by bringing it up, I don't want to hurt Suraj too."

Cedric exhaled and looked up, his eyes screwed shut as he thought about what to do. "You're right, Harry. It won't do any good. It doesn't bring us any closer to the perpetrator of this round of attacks anyway."

Another breath, another moment, a little more pacing. Cedric then sat down in front of me and pulled out his charms essay. I enviously noted he got a little animated gold star from Professor Flitwick for his perfect O on it. Heedless to the treasure that the essay was, Cedric turned it around and began to write on its back. After a few minutes' scratching, he stopped and looked up to me.

"This is what we know for sure. The person who did this was definitely a parselmouth, they wouldn't be to control the basilisk otherwise. That's how we know they're a dark wizard. But the last known parselmouth in Britain was You Know Who."

I bit my tongue. I hadn't told Cedric that there was another Parselmouth in Britain, one in this very room in fact. I should have told him. I knew that. But I remembered the abundance of caution that Dumbledore and Moody emphasised. I remembered the words of worry from Shacklebolt about the reputation of parseltongues.

I regret making you my friend.

Cedric had never said those words to me. Ever. But I feared the day he would. Would this cursed ability of mine be the reason he…?

"Where did you go off to?" Cedric looked at me with furrowed eyebrows and tense shoulders. Bollocks. I made him worry again.

"I- Nothing. Just thinking."

There was so much more to it than that. He knew that too. But he didn't press. And I didn't offer.

There was only one other place that might be able to offer a solution, or maybe, a direction. It was the one place I was loathe to go back to. It haunted my dreams and filled my every waking moment with the threat of overwhelming fear.

Chocolate Frogs are delicious and chocolate-y, but Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans has a Chocolate Frog flavoured bean that is chocolate-ier than the chocolate-iest Chocolate Frog that ever chocolated by a chocolatier.

#

I didn't rush back to the Chamber of Secrets, not at first. The price for running headlong into danger was high. Very high. And I had learnt that lesson after paying the price in flesh. Weeks passed and I focused on my schoolwork and Cedric and watched as Suraj withdrew more and more from everyone around him. The few times I saw him in the Great Hall or in the corridors, his gaze was planted firmly on the ground and he refused to acknowledge me or anyone else. I knew, for Suraj's sake, time was running out.

Yet I was waiting for something important, someone very important.

My magical nerve endings had finally stabilised with my body. When Healer Tonks came by for her regular weekly checkup, she waved her wand and pulled up a photographic vision of my inner nerves, nodding and clicking with approval.

I didn't need her to tell me that things were improving, I could feel it. My gait was getting longer, the rest periods I needed in-between walking to classes grew shorter and more infrequent, Cedric could walk faster when he shadowed me in the mornings. The pain was unnoticeable. Sometimes, I even forgot about my prosthetic – it was merciful.

So it was with great enthusiasm, I walked into a scheduled appointment with someone exceedingly vital to my overall plans. It was after classes ended, the sun was beginning to set later than usual as the spring days grew longer. In the last dying rays, I entered the empty classroom with desks and chairs piled to the side and the long windows opening into a sight of the grounds around the school.

Curiously, the room was empty and I looked about once and then twice. Perhaps I was early? I checked my watch and no, I was here at the appointed time.

I walked to the front of the room and played with the blackboard, running chalk across it and writing my name on it absently. Waiting.

A few more minutes ticked by and I wondered if I had got the day wrong or maybe read something else incorrectly? Something had to be the matter.

I was making my way back to the door, confused and somewhat disappointed when the hair on my arm stood on end.

I stopped and a split second later, I found myself hoisted into the air. I yelped as I was turned upside down in midair and rotated slowly.

In a dark silhouette of the room, obscured by the shadows of the waning light, a peg-legged man with a wildly rotating blue eye limped out and glared at me. The scars on the sides of his face making him uglier and more sinister.

"Constant vigilance, lad. Without it, you die – remember that!"

"Good evening to you too, Mr. Moody."