Traveling by phoenix fire was a unique experience. There was no movement or pressure like portkeys, floo, or apparation. There was simply fire everywhere and you could feel warmth licking your body and see the others you were traveling with as well. Even though the distance must not have been very long, there was enough time for Harry to look at everyone he was traveling with; Lyra, Whispers, Hermione, Greg, an unconscious Neville, and Draco in a bodybind. The phoenix floated above them as if conducting the flames leading them to their destination.
Minutes ago; Harry, Lyra, and Hermione had gone to check on Neville to find that Greg had stolen Lockhart's coat and helmet before he had wandered off and had it draped around the unconscious boy while he was peeking around the corner every so often wearing the helmet. Greg got a quick explanation of what happened while Harry begrudgingly went back to get Draco, dragging the boy by his shoelaces as his head dragged on the ground. Harry smiled as he heard groans of pain from him along the way. When they were all together, fire erupted from the phoenix's wings and engulfed them in the phoenix's unique form of travel.
When the fire died away, they found themselves in the infirmary, with Aurors and Unspeakables running everywhere. They all froze at the sight of the children appearing in a ball of fire with a phoenix and were immediately approached by an Unspeakable who created a silencing field around them.
"What happened, Mr. Potter?" they asked.
Harry immediately pointed to Neville, "He needs help, he's been unconscious for over an hour. A wand exploded near him." Then he pointed to Draco, who was looking around fearfully, "He opened the Chamber of Secrets."
Immediately the Unspeakable levitated the blonde boy to a bed and applied sticking charms to make sure he stayed there.
Harry leaned closer to the Unspeakable and asked, "Are you Aspect?"
They replied with a scoffing noise, "No, would you like me to summon them?"
Harry nodded as Hermione said, "You really need name tags. For your code names, of course."
"I'll add it to our department's suggestion box," they said with a touch of sarcasm.
There was a small hum in the air as every person turned towards the entrance of the infirmary to see Arcturus Black, Agustus Stevens, Greg Goyle Sr, Brandt, Amicus Slant, and another Unspeakable walking into the room like they owned the place. Magic was pouring off all of them that was distinctly saying: Get out of our way.
Seeing his father, Greg started to approach but was given a quick signal to stay where he was. Brandt had a look of relief on his face while Arcturus just looked sinister. All of the Ministry employees just stood in place, waiting for them to do… something.
Arcturus stepped forward and said, "I will be speaking to the children before anyone else."
Brandt beckoned them to follow them out as a healer levitated Neville to a bed for treatment. Harry, Lyra, Whispers, Hermione, and Greg ran after the Black procession. After entering a classroom, the adults performed a myriad of locking and privacy spells on the room before sitting down in various places around the room.
"Did you win?" Brandt asked. "Is the Basilisk dead?"
Harry nodded, "It was close, but we did it. The Usurper is still down in the Chamber, I think it's going to eat the basilisk."
"We should get down there as soon as possible," Arcturus said with urgency. "We should salvage as much of it as possible."
"Contracts first," Mr. Slant said firmly. He pulled out a sheet of paper with quite a bit of text on it. "You all found out the identity of an Unspeakable," he gestured to what had to be Aspect, sitting next to him. "It happens enough that there is a standard magical contract you need to sign. Just don't reveal their identity or you'll be paralyzed below the waist until the person you told can be silenced or sworn to secrecy. Then only if the head of the Unspeakables wishes to give you your legs back will the curse be undone."
The children stared in shock at such terms that were common in the situation.
"Just to be clear," the solicitor added, "your other option is a memory wipe. To make sure the identity cannot be recovered, they will take the last thirty days along with it."
"I did a lot of studying that I'm not going to lose," Hermione said as she reached for the pen, quickly signing her name on the paper. Harry, Lyra, and Greg followed suit after.
The man pulled out another contract, this one was multiple pages, "How many of you were involved in the killing of the basilisk?"
"It was mostly Harry," Lyra told him. "Whispers took out an eye, I caught it on fire for a little bit, and Hermione was riding the Usurper when it struck the final blow."
All eyes turned to Hermione, "I didn't do anything, I was just trying to keep it from going in circles finding the chamber. Mr. and Mrs. Scamander probably did a bunch too, but they're petrified now."
The creepy man scribbled all of their names onto the paper. "We can assign ownership percentages later. Arcturus wants to have Brandt handle the sales of any parts we can salvage of the creature and Severus to handle the dissection and storage of the creature once he is revived. A standard 7% of the profits will be given to Brandt and 10% to Severus for their efforts. I'll need all your signatures."
They all looked confused except Hermione, who asked, "Is this like dragon slayer's rights?" Getting a nod from the solicitor, she explained, "When someone kills a magical creature that isn't owned by anyone else, the body can be claimed by those responsible for the killing."
Amicus nodded, "It's a rarely used legal method of ownership and dragons specifically can no longer be claimed along with a few other regularly hostile magical animals once they are slain due to various legal shenanigans by the member nations of the ICW. Rarer creatures, like basilisks, can be claimed by those who kill them, and then we get to reap the benefits from the remains."
"What are we going to do with a basilisk corpse?" Harry asked.
"Make money," Brandt smiled.
Harry trusted Brandt, so he shrugged and signed the paper, followed by the others. Greg looked a bit put out at probably receiving one of the smallest shares, but his father patted him on the shoulder regardless.
Arcturus joined the conversation, "While I will want to see all of your memories soon, I will hand the next part over to Unspeakable Aspect here."
With her face and voice disguised, Auror Morrow/Unspeakable Aspect said, "We have a problem. The entire school is still petrified, and we are only going to be able to make enough mandrake draughts for fifty people at most. However, I have been secretly observing the projects to cure the petrified students and while quite a few groups managed to figure out the standard recipe and method, the groups of both Harry and Lyra seemed to be doing something that is not the standard Mandrake draught. I think it would be best for us to wake up their teams first to see if they have made any improvements to the ritual."
"Can you wake up Newt and Tina too?" Lyra asked and Aspect nodded, then stood up and left the room, with Amicus joining her. When they were gone, the locking and privacy charms were refreshed.
Augustus was looking a bit bored, and even as he balanced perfectly on two legs of his chair, his wand was held firmly in one hand and pointed towards the door.
When all the privacy charms had been refreshed, he sat up with the front two legs of the chair hitting the floor loudly, then asked, "Can we get to the good stuff now? The kids took on a basilisk… A BASILISK. I want to see that."
Arcturus nodded and reached into his pocket to pull out a small silver disk. He tossed it into the air and it expanded into his pensive, large enough for everyone to stand around the outside of it. A wave of his hand and all the tables and chairs near it were swept towards the walls to give them space.
Brandt approached the children, "Harry, you know how this works, but for the rest of you, I'm going to put my wand to your head and I want you to focus on your experience today. Close your eyes and think it all through. When you've got it, give me a nod and I'll take the memory so we can view it in the pensieve."
"Is that what that is?" Hermione asked. "I read they're very rare. Hogwarts is supposed to have one."
Brandt nodded and kneeled in front of Harry as he focused on the day, starting with being in the forest with the Scamanders. After Brandt took the memory and placed it in the bowl, he proceeded with Lyra, Greg, and Hermione. Once they were thoroughly mixed, Arcturus told them to stand back and put his face into the bowl.
He was only in for a minute before coming back out, and said, "Just needed to cut out some bits for those not aware of Aspect's identity. Everyone can dive in now."
He leaned back down and the rest of the group mimicked his actions. The group appeared in the clearing where the Usurper had made its nest. The scene was frozen just as the Usurper had looked up towards the castle. Memory-Harry was staring at it intensely. Hermione and Greg started wandering around the memory, passing their hands through the objects around them and watching them reform.
Augustus was staring at the Usurper, "That's a big snake."
"It's not that big," the children all said at once, then chuckled nervously.
Arcturus started up the memory and Harry yelled to the Scamanders that the basilisk was near and they took off through the forest. As they passed the destruction at MacNair's camp, Hermione looked a little sick at the detail of Harry's memory from all the dead trolls, while Brandt laughed at MacNair who would now have failed at his greatest hunt.
"And then they just abandoned me!" Harry told everyone as the Scamanders took his broom and flew towards the owlery.
"They did the right thing," Brandt told Harry. "You needed to stay with the Usurper as the only one who could speak to it and direct it where it needed to go."
"I guess," he grumbled.
Arcturus sped up the memory and stopped to hear the chaotic battle inside the castle. After the noise of fighting stopped, Harry sat down to think, then he got up and told the Usurper the plan.
Arcturus stopped the memory as Greg Sr. asked, "How can we understand the Parseltongue?"
Lord Black replied, "If I had to guess, it's because it's a magical language." Looking at Harry, "When you speak or hear another snake, do you need to translate at all or does it sound like English in your mind?"
"It sounds like English, though I know the sounds from my mouth are some kind of hissing."
"That's what I thought," he continued. "A Cambodian Parselmouth would remember the conversation in Khmer and a Brazilian speaker might understand it in Portuguese. I imagine that's why there have never been any books of Parseltongue transcribed because it doesn't have any actual alphabet or phonetics."
Hermione seemed to be trying to pull a pen and paper from her pockets to write all of this down, but couldn't do anything with her form while inside the memory. Eventually, she just frowned and sat down.
The memory resumed and the Memory-Harry and the Usurper split up. When Harry reached the owlery and the students there accused him of being the Heir, they paused again.
"Shit," Arcturus cursed. "Brandt, when we are done here, take the prepared package to The Daily Prophet." Turning to the children, "From your lack of reaction at Mr. Potter speaking to the snake, I assume you know about this already? Well, since finding out about his ability, I have been putting together information on some of the more productive Parselmouths in history other than The Dark Lord. I'm sure all of you know it's impossible to stop the spread of good gossip in Hogwarts and the only reason a special edition of the paper hasn't been printed yet is that nearly all the students and staff are turned to stone."
The memory began again and continued up until Harry spotted the message next to Lyra's staff. Arcturus dropped his hands to his side and the pensieve went dark, with only their forms hovering in the endless abyss.
"I'm going to switch to Lyra's memory now." Arcturus made some gestures with his hands and they were in the Great Hall, filled with people.
Lockhart welcomed everyone to the tournament, though he was already wearing the black helmet and golden jacket. He asked for the main doors to be closed so they could begin. Students started looking at large charts on the walls to see what orders they would be fighting in. Though, after several minutes, the doors burst open to reveal the basilisk, its eyes wide as everyone began to turn to stone. At that moment there was the sound of a bell ringing and heavy doors being shut all over the castle.
Memory-Lyra unleashed a torrent of flame from her wand at the monster, but it was uninjured and didn't advance toward her at all. There was a hissing voice that Lyra recognized as Parseltongue, and Harry translated for everyone.
"It's the Heir, he's telling the basilisk to move out of the way."
The basilisk retreated into the hall and the cloaked Heir strolled into the room. Lyra's face grew furious and drew her staff, slamming it into the ground to spit out a shadowy tendril, which acted as a fist, punching the Heir in the stomach. It whirled around for another swing, but the heir cast a bright light which dispersed the darkness, then shot a red spell towards Lyra which split in several directions and hit her from all sides, making her collapse to the ground.
The memory was paused. "Five galleons to the one who can identify that spell," Arcturus told the adults with him.
"A cutting curse of some kind," Augustus replied.
Greg Sr. shook his head, "Yes and no. The spell looked like a cutting curse, but it didn't visibly cut Lyra at all." He paused for a moment before saying with a curious look, "I think I've seen it before. Was that a Broken Marionette Curse?"
"It was, good eye," Arcturus said. Then he explained, "The curse severs various parts of the body's nervous system so that the target cannot move their limbs or speak. Like if you take a puppet and cut all the strings. It can only be used for a surprise or a defenseless target as dodging even one of the segments makes it ineffective."
The memory started up again. Lyra and her staff began to float out of the room. Brandt asked for it to stop again and they replayed the edge of the memory to see Gilderoy Lockhart sneaking away.
"He'll be back," Greg said quickly.
Lyra's memory continued as she was held in front of the basilisk's face, which caused the basilisk to be bashed in its side by a powerful blow of magic, breaking many portraits along the wall and shattering stone. The heir performed some spell on Lyra, then reached into her robe and ripped out the amulet underneath. Holding it up to the basilisk caused it to be knocked into the wall again, causing further damage. The heir threw it to the ground and stomped on it until it broke.
Lyra explained to the others about the amulet and that it contained the power of the thrust from the centaur with the spear they had met.
From there they watched as the Heir wrote his message on the wall next to her staff and led the basilisk up the stairs, petrifying two students who came out of a broom closet to see what the noise was.
As Lyra continued to float along, the Heir stopped and looked around, hearing pounding on the door outside below, then hissed at the basilisk which Harry translated as, "Someone is at the front. Protect me then come down when they are dealt with."
Just as they were about to continue watching the memory, Hermione stopped them, "Lyra, does anything interesting happen from here?"
She shrugged, "I guess not? He didn't talk to me or anything, just took me down into the chamber, and then I laid there until Harry showed up."
"We should switch to Harry or you'll ruin the big reveal about the Chamber," Hermione told Arcturus.
"Sure, fine," Arcturus shrugged and dropped his hands, everything faded away then brought up Harry again.
They went through Harry meeting Greg and Neville and using the spiders to direct them through the castle. They met up with Hermione and a blob of fuzzy air and everyone spoke with a buzzing noise until Harry took a jar from Neville and ran off.
When he turned the corner and revealed the devastation of the corridor, Arcturus slowed down the memory and examined every detail of the destruction. He was also very interested in what happened to Professor Binns but resolved to ask the Scamanders once they had been revived.
They continued through to the opening of the chamber and Greg got a nod from his father, "That is a stupid password."
Then Lockhart made his entrance. Brandt held up his hand to stop the memory and looked toward Arcturus, "Do you recognize that axe?"
Lord Black walked through the memory and looked at it up close, his eyes widened in shock, "Unless it's a fake, I'd say that's Wit's End."
"Really?" Augustus asked.
To the confused looks of everyone else, Brandt explained, "It was crafted about three hundred years ago, and it's been said, but never proven, that it was made by Ravenclaw's Heir. Supposedly, it was an attempt to recreate Goblin forging techniques. I'm sure that Miss Granger knows that Ravenclaw's motto is 'Wit beyond measure is a man's greatest treasure.' This axe was to be used when you are at your wit's end."
Augustus smiled, and said, "Nice history lesson, but let's get to the basilisk fight already."
The memory was sped up again as Hermione plummeted down the pipe then the rest of them followed, though she did not show up at the other end.
"Should we switch to your memory now, Miss Granger? Is it better for the story?" Arcturus asked.
Hermione didn't seem to pick up on the hints of sarcasm as she thought about it, "I think it would be better if we go back to when I fell down the pipe right before I meet up with Harry again."
"Fine," he replied, not having expected her to give any direction at all.
The next time they stopped was when Lockhart turned on them and knocked himself and Neville out. Augustus Stevens decided it was his turn for commentary.
"That man is an idiot. Did he honestly think the wand of an Auror would work against his son? That boy shouldn't have been using it himself, but Lockhart's lucky he wasn't casting something more dangerous or he would be dead. Where is he, by the way?" The grimaces on the faces of the others told that ending. "Ooops, sorry, spoiler…"
The adults got a chuckle at Lockhart introducing himself and getting knocked out by Harry, then they continued the memory. Greg's father gave him an approving nod for staying and protecting Neville as Harry and Whispers went ahead.
When they got into the Chamber and Whispers vanished, Brandt stopped the memory as everyone stared at the empty chamber and he pointed to the side and asked Harry, "Is that what you see when Whispers or other demiguises are invisible? And other disillusioned people?"
There was a small sparkle in the side of the room and Arcturus moved the memory forward to show it moving. Harry nodded at how Whispers looked in his memory. Harry rushed to Lyra and then engaged in the skirmish with the Heir until it was revealed that it was Draco under the hood. A range of emotions was seen on the faces of the adults. Arcturus looked furious, Brandt was delighted, Greg Sr. was shocked, and Augustus looked completely indifferent.
Lyra was getting a bit annoyed, "Hey! If none of you noticed, I'm just laying there on the ground. Just play the memory and ask questions later!"
Arcturus chuckled and bowed to her, "As you wish, young lady."
The memory continued, with Brandt commenting on the effectiveness of their blood amulets, then with the reveal that it was teenage Voldemort possessing Draco got many many reactions as to how Harry knew about that, but angry looks from Lyra had them continue the memory. Brandt complimented Harry on his handling and leading the conversation with Riddle. All of the adults grew deathly serious when the specter mentioned that he performed a ritual with the death of Myrtle Warren. When Draco revealed the book as Riddle's weakness, the only person who looked like he might know what was going on was Lord Black, looking even more thoughtful as the axe didn't destroy the book. Then Riddle called for the basilisk.
In Lyra's memory, they had only seen the head of the snake, seeing its entire length come out of the statue, along with the damage that had been done to it since Lyra had seen it last drew impressed looks from the adults present. When it raised its golden crest, those impressed looks turned a bit fearful.
As the basilisk told Harry it was going to kill him, Harry added a bit of running commentary that he felt a bit sorry for it, that it had no idea what was coming as the snake thought roosters were the kingsbane and it was immune. After Harry threw the axe, Arcturus told Brandt to see if it could be retrieved as the body was dissected. When Whispers stabbed the other eye, they looked around and realized Whispers must be outside wondering why everyone had their faces in a large bowl.
Just as the basilisk king let out its tongue to try to taste the direction toward Memory-Harry, Real-Harry held up his hand to stop the memory.
"Wait! I think Greg needs to get a turn now," he told them.
Greg smiled as Arcturus switched the memory and showed the bulky boy sitting next to Neville, who was still unconscious, hearing the loud movements and crashes from the inner chamber. He looked over at Lockhart to see the man standing up, and started to follow the noise into the hallway.
"Wait, Professor!" Greg yelled
"Professor?" Lockhart looked confused, "I've always wanted to be a teacher, but right now I hear a party going on, and that is where I need to be, I am a celebrity after all."
He started to walk away again, but Greg called to him to stop again, "You're not dressed for a party!"
Lockhart looked at himself and took off the bulky black helmet he was wearing, "You're right! The colors clash horribly! But where should I put my hat and jacket?"
Greg looked thoughtful and replied, "I can hold them for you, sir. Just until you come back."
"Good lad!" He tossed Greg the helmet, then took off the dragonscale jacket, handing it to him as well. It was very heavy, his knees buckling slightly under the weight. "A little something for your effort as well."
Lockhart took two galleons from his pocket and fanned them between his thumb and index finger before placing them on top of the jacket, bundled in Greg's hands. With that done, Lockhart turned back down the hallway and strolled down it, like he was on a red carpet entranceway.
Greg Sr. grinned broadly, "Marvelous work, boy. True Slytherin cunning."
"But I'm in Scamander now," Greg replied.
"Your ambition and cunning will always show your true colors," his father told him.
Greg blushed and received a side hug from his father as Arcturus switched the memories back to Harry's perspective.
Everyone watched and laughed as Lockhart introduced himself to the blind basilisk, then flinched as the creature bit off everything above the thighs and let his legs fall to the floor separately as it swallowed. They all flinched again a couple of seconds later as Harry blew a large hole in the side of the Serpent King and got knocked on his side. Now, in the memory, Harry was able to hear the sound of his ribs cracking beneath him.
Then came the arrival of Dumbledore's phoenix, protecting Lyra and as soon as they started to hear screaming, Hermione raised her hands to get the memory to stop.
"Finally! My turn!"
Arcturus was getting a little frustrated at everyone conducting the memory, but switched it to the memory Brandt had taken from her. It started with her in the prison cell, but she told him they could skip that. It sped through a bell ringing and the cell opening. Yaxley drew his wand and fell to the ground and then there were more blurry shapes and buzzing noises as until meeting up with Harry, the memory was going at a very fast speed until she jumped into the large pipe down to the chamber.
Harry noticed after a few seconds that the pipe Hermione was moving down was much narrower than the one he had been in, it also was much straighter, and didn't take as many twists and turns. At the bottom, it didn't fall into a pool of murky liquid but leveled off for a while, giving Hermione a chance to slow to a stop and stand up. She waited there for a while and no one came, so she called many times for the others before lighting her wand and walking away from the slide.
The memory was sped up again as she roamed down random pathways, marking them with paint as she went. There were small rooms here and there, but every time Hermione went in one, it was empty or looked like it had been cleared out ages ago. Finally, she arrived at a circular room with no other door that had a large pool of water in the center of the room. As she stared into the water, the head of the Usurper came out and she screamed, then ran away as fast as she could with her eyes shut.
The memory went black for the most part as she no longer remembered seeing anything, but bits and pieces remained as her hearing or some other sense created a shadow of the world around her. As she couldn't see where she was going, she did eventually crash into a wall. When her eyes opened, the Usurper was above her staring right into her eyes.
"No!" she cried in the memory, "Please don't petrify me! Not down here! They'll never find me to wake me up!"
The Usurper hissed, and Harry translated as, "I'm not going to hurt you. You carry the scent of my emissaries. That's me and Lyra," he clarified.
"I didn't know that. I thought it was the basilisk," she complained.
The memory continued to show her begging until she realized she wasn't going to be eaten or petrified. Then they started to hear the thunderous noise of the battle in the chamber. As the Usurper started to move towards the noise, Hermione called it back and ended up getting a ride on its back, as they continued towards the inner chamber with Hermione throwing out paint spells in the maze-like hallways so they didn't get lost. When they got to the door, The snake hissed for the door to open, but it stayed put, so it turned back the way it came until it hit a turn in the hallway.
"I wasn't sure why it was leaving until it turned around," Hermione told the group.
When the Usurper turned back, the whole body seemed to clench before shooting forward as it slithered at breakneck speed down the corridor, with Hermione screaming along the way, and shattering the door to enter the room. Hermione covered her ears as the snake let loose a fearsome crow then watched as the heavily injured basilisk convulsed and died. Arcturus switched the memory back to Harry.
Everything continued with the introduction of Tom to Hermione, then his 'death' at the hand of Draco. When Draco tried to argue that he had saved them, Arcturus frowned. "He is kind of right… I guess I won't kill him."
"I still might," Harry told them. Greg looked a bit uneasy at the statement.
"Fair enough," Arcturus gave him a nod. "Though Lucius is involved in this somehow, so I might yet have someone to kill."
Hermione looked a little uneasy at all the casual talk of murder but said nothing. The memory finished with them collecting Greg and Neville, then traveling by phoenix fire back to the hospital wing.
They all stood up quickly as Arcturus ended the playback and found Whispers sitting at a small table with Astray, eating cheese and fruit together. The Urisk quickly bowed to everyone and walked into an alcove, vanishing from sight.
Greg Sr. asked everyone, "You all saw that right? That's not at all weird to you?"
Augustus replied, "On a scale of one to what we just saw in that memory, I'd say a demiguise having a snack with an Urisk rates at about two and a half Quibblers."
Brandt looked to everyone and said, "I'm sure we'll have a lot to discuss later, but I've got a date with The Daily Prophet, and I'd bet my last two knuts that there's a horde of Unspeakables and Aurors outside that want to talk to the kids."
Sure enough, right outside the door were Amelia Bones, Alastor Moody, Tonks, a very pissed off looking Corban Yaxley, Auror Lamb, and five Unspeakables; though one of them was a head taller than the others and had gold trim around the outside of their hood. Looking directly at Moody, Brandt reached into his pocket, then stopped and smiled, garnering a perplexed look from the old Auror. Brandt smiled and then walked away.
"My people need to talk to the children," Amelia Bones told Arcturus.
He turned to Augustus, "Stevens, please handle this."
He stepped forward, "I am familiar with the events that have transpired. I can answer your questions for now. Are the Scamanders awake?"
One of the Unspeakables replied, "we are assessing their condition first, but we hope to wake them shortly."
"Good, I can speak with you there and they may be able to provide additional information when they are awake." he walked right past the Aurors and towards the Hospital wing. Amelia and Yaxley followed, but Moody and Tonks remained behind.
Whispers jumped up and over to Tonks, who caught him and ruffled his hair, "Are the lot of you alright?" she asked them.
Whispers made a stabbing motion, and said "Eeeeye Staaab."
Lyra translated, "He stabbed the basilisk in the eye with my knife."
Moody's real eye widened, "You're taking a piss at me. No? Well good job little guy!" he reached over and ruffled the creature's hair as well.
Arcturus was busy looking at the group of Unspeakables who were still there, then asked the one with gold trim, "Is that you Saul?"
The very tall man pulled down his hood to reveal a gray-haired gentleman with a mustache that stuck out straight to the sides and a slightly manic look in his eyes.
"Don't worry about the identity thing,'' he told everyone, ''I'm one of the very few that has a known identity. I tend to play around with time in my job, so when people see me by myself and out of uniform they need to be able to run away to avoid being involved in a corrupted timestream. We're fine now." He rolled up one sleeve and checked one of six oversized watches on his forearm that seemed to have many more hands than normal. "Yep, we're fine right now."
"So what are you doing here, old friend?" Arcturus asked.
"My people and I need to talk with Mr. Potter, Miss Black, Miss Granger, and the rest of their Mandrake teams when they wake up in…" he looked at a different watch than before and tapped it a few times, "six minutes and thirty-four seconds." He looked towards Greg, "Don't worry young man, maybe our paths will cross again in the future… or the past… or something else."
"I hope not," Greg Sr. told him as he started leading his son away very quickly.
"You have that effect on people," Arcturus smiled.
"I think I'll leave Aspect at the school after I leave," Saul told him. "I want them to document the basilisk and this other serpent that you brought to our shores against Ministry approval. There probably will be a substantial fine associated with that."
"I think that fine could be waived in exchange for access to the Chamber of Secrets," Arcturus smiled. "If not, send me the bill."
Saul led them back to the hospital wing where the statues of Fred, George, Lee, Penny, and two Ravenclaws that Harry didn't know the names of were standing and waiting in the middle of the room. Newt and Tina Scamander were also spotted on a bed to the side of the room with Dougal standing next to them and making a mournful cooing. Whispers rushed over to join them.
Another Unspeakable entered the room carrying a large long-neck bottle with a tortoiseshell design on the outside. They pulled a long pipette from the top to show a yellowish liquid inside and proceeded to place two drops in each of the eyes of all the statues standing up in the middle of the room. It took a moment, but the stone coloring of their skin faded back to normal and they all cried out, almost simultaneously, "Aaahhh! Basilisk!" before looking around and saying, "What the hell?" with a few curses thrown in due to the confusion.
The Unspeakable with the bottle informed them they were alright and had been revived, at which Penny urgently asked, "Did we miss exams?"
"Still a week away," Hermione told her as her mentor ran over to hug her.
"You're not in jail… is it over?" she asked.
Hermione nodded, "Harry and Lyra killed it. I got to ride another giant snake, it was terrifying."
Penny looked around at the twins talking with Lee and Harry while Lyra was next to the Scamanders, who were still petrified. "Why are we the first ones awake?"
The Unspeakable, Saul, approached her, "You, Miss Clearwater, and your group brewing the mandrake draught along with those four over there were the only two groups that seemed to be on the verge of something successful that wasn't the standard recipe. As we have too many students and faculty to cure with the current supply of potion, we want to see what you have been doing to see if you have done anything to help us revive everyone. Please come with me."
He motioned for all the conscious students to follow and they left the hospital wing, arriving at a large classroom in a place that Harry could have sworn used to be a broom closet. On one side was everything from the secret workshop of the Weasley twins, and the other had a whole library of books and numerous chalkboards covered with notations that could only be the Ravenclaw's work as well.
"How'd you get all our stuff?" Lee asked one of the hooded Unspeakables.
They replied dryly, "We are from the Department of Mysteries. We could get your favorite stuffed animal you lost at daycare when you were younger."
"You could?" Lee was shocked. "Can you get it for me now?"
The Unspeakable reached into his robes, pulled out a teddy bear with a red ribbon tied around its neck, and passed it to Lee.
"Hey! This isn't Napoleon!" Lee said.
"It was worth a shot," the Unspeakable shrugged and waved their wand causing the conjured bear to vanish. "We got your stuff because we assigned you the project and we were able to do it because we wanted to."
The groups of hooded individuals split up as each group started to explain their projects and what they planned on doing. The much more knowledgeable adults followed along and ended up changing a lot of their notations and ideas, conjuring more chalkboards to make more notations and perform even more advanced magical arithmetic.
Harry and Lyra ended up leaving their groups to talk with each other as they both seemed to have the power or ideas behind the projects, but very little of the knowledge.
"So, what were you guys doing?" Lyra asked.
"The Twins were constructing a dual ritual circle to capture the power released when we boiled a screaming mandrake alive in a stew made of various potion ingredients used for snake venom antidotes. How about you?"
"Slightly less violent for us," Lyra said with a smirk. "We set up a blessing circle, with a ritual absorption circle below it. We were going to cover a mandrake in thick mud so it wouldn't scream, place it in the circle and use a lot of the same ingredients you were putting in the stew to power the blessing of the mandrake. Then when it was done, cut the blessed mandrake into tiny pieces and put it in a stew."
"You were going to activate all the ingredients?" Harry asked.
"That was the plan. What were you going to do?" Lyra replied.
"I'm not sure…" Harry frowned. "Though it was my idea to boil it alive and make the thickness of the stew just enough so it would scream while the stew was boiling."
Slowly, the other group members joined Harry and Lyra in the center and the Twins conjured a few shaggy purple sofas to sit on as they waited for the Unspeakables to go over everything they were doing. Finally, there was a quick conference between the hooded people, before they passed a stack of papers to Saul who still had his hood off. He leafed through them and then approached the students.
"So…" he began slowly. "Neither of your plans would have been successful." All the students looked disappointed, then he continued, "However, your ideas were excellent, innovative, and on the right track." He gestured to Lyras group, "Yours would have failed because the blessing would have created an exceptionally loud mandrake and probably killed most of the people in the castle before it could be used in the ritual." Everyone looked frightened, but Saul didn't seem to be concerned.
He gestured to Harry's group, "On the other hand, your group created a ritual that was too violent for such a fragile magical plant that it would have created something I'm sure we will study for years to come." That seemed to be even scarier than the other group's failure.
"This is why we had an Unspeakable monitoring everyone's progress and the good news is that by combining both of your ideas we will be able to create a mandrake that will be strong enough to be subjected to the violent death that was planned for it and create a much more potent version of the Draught."
That garnered small cheers from the students as they smiled at each other. Though Saul wasn't done addressing them.
"Two more things, the first is you will all be allowed to watch some of the experts from my department prepare and perform the blessing and ritual. However, you will not be able to do it yourselves… ever. I will be extracting blood oaths from all of you that will be preserved in a phylactery that you will never recreate this, develop it more, or share it with others unless directed by someone who is a current member of the Department of Mysteries. Or you can have the information removed from your minds. It is not a memory wipe, we will, quite literally, reach in and take all information about these projects from your heads and you will be unable to form the thought processes to recreate those memories."
Not surprisingly, everyone chose the blood oath. After repeating the words aloud, the blood for each of them was placed on a round crystal that absorbed it, turning them red. Another Unspeakable then poured liquid silver over them and shaped the cooling metal for each into a three-sided pyramid and attached a chain to them. Finally the Unspeakable inscribed each student's initials and the date on the side of the silver pyramid and placed them inside their robe.
The blessing and ritual didn't take very long. The students sat behind a large window where they couldn't hear anything but saw a group from the Department of Mysteries roll a very large mandrake in mud and ensure it was completely covered on all sides, with just its leafy top sticking out. The leaves were anointed with some kind of oil and laid on a table covered with geometric patterns and runes. Various ingredients were placed at points in the circles and then they began to glow.
The light of magic came from the ingredients as they swirled and entered the mud-covered mandrake. As soon as the light died away, they hoisted the large, baby-like plant into a waiting cauldron and a silver triangle above the workers began to vibrate. They all looked up at it and then continued their work. All of the work was so smooth and methodical like they had all done it hundreds of times before, though this particular process was brand new to them.
Two large slabs of stone were brought in with ritual circles inscribed on them, they were placed standing up on either side of the cauldron and levitated to continuously orbit the stewing mandrake on opposite sides. As the ritual went on, the lines of the circles grew brighter and brighter. Towards the end, more ingredients were added to the stew and various stirring methods were used. Almost none of them were circular stirring and a few of them needed rods with special materials in different shapes to stir. It dawned on many of the students in the groups that no matter how complicated they thought what they had been doing was, it paled in comparison to the real thing.
Finally, the ritual slabs themselves were shattered and placed in the flames below the cauldron where they slowly turned to dust as the ingredients inside turned a glowing yellow color. One of the Unspeakables brought in Filch's cat, Mrs. Norris, and held the feline next to the fumes coming off the cauldron. After ten seconds, the cat started to scratch and claw at the hooded person, to which they just stunned it and started filling up small perfume spritzers with the contents of the cauldron.
The students and faculty in the Great Hall were woken quickly, with just a spritz of the potion sprayed on their faces. Since the last thing they had seen was a giant basilisk, everyone panicked the moment they were awoken, but the sight of the Unspeakables and Aurors eased their minds quickly. A few people were in the process of casting spells and needed a shield to be set up around them before revival. Snape, in particular, cast a ribbon of purple light that needed four Unspeakables to contain as it broke through two shields immediately.
When Dumbledore was awoken, he just nodded to the Unspeakable in front of him, "Is it over? Did he do it? I can see that he did. Well, I guess I've got to start getting the school ready for exams." Then he walked off, leaving a very confused hooded person standing there before moving on to the next revival.
The students that had been in Madam Pomfrey's storage closet were revived with similar reactions, though when Vincent Crabbe first spoke, he asked carefully, "Is Draco still ok?" Then after seeing their responses, he shut up and wouldn't say anything else.
The Unspeakables tried to undo whatever had happened to Professor Binns, but he was unable to be returned to being a ghost. The black cloud with his features simply moved around the hallways and when his form ran into a wall, it simply changed course instead of passing through. They tried using an entire bottle of the spray on him, but he remained the same floating black cloud with human features occasionally appearing.
By the time students were going to sleep, the only statues left were Newt and Tina Scamander. The reason they had been left for last was that they were the only two that had fought the basilisk and were presumably injured during the fight. Harry, Lyra, and Cedric stood nearby to watch as a team of specialized healers readied themselves for the petrification to be lifted.
Both of them groaned as they regained the ability to move. When Newt had regained his wits, he immediately told the healers who were working on him, "Help her."
Newt had a few bruises and fractured bones and was fixed up within an hour, Tina was another story. She had numerous broken bones in her torso and injured organs from the fight and was told that it would take some time for her to be healed completely. When Harry asked why they couldn't use phoenix tears, he was told that they were too rare and most of the birds never give them out. That didn't make sense as Dumbledore's phoenix had visited them and given them out like candy. However, he was also told that the tears also cause rapid healing which, in the case of damaged organs, could cause complications due to the speed and surrounding broken bones. The three of them were assured that she would fully recover in around two weeks.
The two Scamanders were slowly filled in on the events that had transpired since their fight with the basilisk by Arcturus and he managed to talk them into providing their memories from the fight.
Author's Note: I guess it's worth mentioning since my favorite nitpicker commented on it. I mean that in a loving way, no offense intended. You keep me on my toes in terms of needing things to be properly researched and explained. The three-minute slide was calculated based on the following.
I had previously stated that the castle sits approximately 200 feet above the lake. The Chamber of Secrets is below the lake. Using the movie as a reference and that there was still light permeating down to the bottom of the lake, I estimated that it was around 150 to 200 meters deep, so I marked it as 570 feet. The entrance was on the second floor, so another 20ish feet. I mentioned that the ceiling of the Chamber (where the lake probably is) was 100 feet above the floor, bringing the total distance, entrance to the Chamber, to 890 feet.
Then I looked up different slides around the world and settled on the ArcelorMittal Orbit, in London. It is 243 feet high (from where the slide starts, not the tiptop of the structure) and the slide takes approximately 40 seconds. By using elementary school algebra, I was able to deduce that if that twisty slide had a time of 40 seconds, an 890-foot slide would have a time of 2 minutes and 26 seconds. Then I just rounded up to 3 because two minutes sounded too short and two minutes and 26 seconds sounded like they were counting it off.
Also, the hallway with the snake motifs will serve a purpose, and as you learned from this chapter there is a whole network of rooms and hallways down there as well.
I was originally going to put this note at the beginning of the chapter, but I thought it would have been lame to start it that way.
Couple more chapters left...