Without the threat of impending doom hanging over everyone's heads, the teachers and students pushed themselves into high gear preparing for exams. It didn't help that they were now down two teachers, so McGonagall had spoken to the Ministry to bring exam proctors early and run study sessions in the great hall during the day between meals. This was much more work than they were typically used to and they grumbled a lot at the constant questions the students brought to them about their classes and work.
Lyra was spending a lot of time up in Gryffindor tower with her friends there. A lot of the students in the House of the Brave were incredibly jealous of her adventures in the Chamber of Secrets and thought one of them would be the student who would rescue the princess and save the day. It was also nice for her to be able to run around the castle without the need for a chaperone, so she was going to the most far-off places she could. Most days she returned to the common room at night with a different hairstyle and a very tired-looking Whispers.
Harry was mostly relaxing without the constant thoughts of needing to fulfill his promise to the Usurper, as he realized he could do anything he wanted. So much of the year had been taken up with exploring the castle and trying to find the 'Secret Chamber,' that there were plenty of moments in his day where he had nothing at all to do. He would like to have visited the Usurper but had no idea how he would get out of the chamber once he was inside. It took until Friday night for him to make up his mind to get the answer to his question.
After dinner, he found Tracey staying in the Great Hall to study, and asked her, "Can you walk me to the Slytherin Common room?"
She gave him a strange look, "Why do you need to go there?"
Harry looked a bit disgusted before replying, "I need to ask Draco something. He hasn't been showing up for meals."
Tracey smirked, "After your meeting, Marcus told him that his spot at the Slytherin table has been removed. He's been having Vincent and Pansy bring him food because the elves have been instructed not to do it by Veronica."
Harry grabbed a baked potato that was still on the table from dinner and they headed down into the dungeons. They ended up at the entrance to the common room with several other Slytherin students who looked expectantly at Harry to open their room.
To be a bit dramatic, he waved his arms and hissed out,
§Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.§
§Open.§
The others chittered with interest as they all passed through, into the common room. Harry spotted Draco in his dark corner with Vincent and Pansy and made a beeline toward him.
Harry flexed his magic a bit, and told the other two, "I need to talk to Draco. Leave."
Pansy all but fled, but Vincent stayed back until he got a nod from Draco and walked away. Harry placed the baked potato on the table and stuck a silencing feather in it, activating the field so others wouldn't listen in. Draco stared at Harry in frightened silence.
"How did Tom get out of the Chamber of Secrets once inside?" Harry asked without preamble. When Draco didn't answer, he added, "I don't want to be here any more than you want me here. Just tell me what I want to know and I'll leave."
Draco didn't answer him and instead asked, "You knew Tom was You-know-who. How?"
"It doesn't matter, just tell me what I need to know."
He still didn't answer Harry, and started to ramble, "He told me that he would be back. Even if we failed…failed to kill you. He said he'd be back. That some piece of him would return and kill everyone who betrayed him." He paused to stare at Harry, then said, "Then I betrayed him. I killed him. He's going to be back for me."
Harry stared at the boy incredulously, "Wait…" Harry began. "You're not that scared of me right now, are you? You're afraid that Voldemort is going to come to kill you, aren't you?"
Draco flinched at the name but nodded.
"I couldn't care less about you, Draco. I care about Lyra, my family, and my friends. I will kill Voldemort as many times as he wants to come back to keep them safe. However, right now, I need you to tell me how to get out of the Chamber of Secrets."
Draco continued his vacant stare at Harry, though this time was just with confusion as he eventually replied, "How the hell are you on a Quidditch team? Bring a broom."
"Oh…" That made sense. What didn't make sense is that no one had suggested it before they flew a flying carpet in an air bubble through the lake. Harry took the feather out of the potato and told Draco to eat up before heading out.
The weekend was even more tiring than the week for Lyra and Harry. They had been expecting to be able to relax in detention while making potions for Severus but were surprised to hear that they had been canceled and Brandt would be meeting with them.
After breakfast when he arrived, they were informed that the entire day would be taken up with Occlumency training, and all Sunday would be heading into Hogsmeade to visit the blacksmith to see how well they had kept up with their knife exercises.
When they met with Símone she congratulated them on the basilisk situation then pulled out a black ring with four colored stones on it and held it up.
"Since I can't teach the children over the summer when they disappear to unknown places, I had to create a method to help them prepare for the next stage of their training." Passing the device to Brandt, she asked him, "Steward, do you know how to play Simon?"
Brandt nodded but gave her a smirk, "Did you, Símone, create a magic Simon game?"
"Well, I didn't." she shrugged. "I had it commissioned as I thought it would be the best thing to help them prepare for the next lessons in the fall. I'm going to evaluate their shields and defenses now while you teach Whispers how to play."
Brandt didn't question her and took the device over to where Whispers was lounging and eating from a bowl of strawberries.
Sitting in front of Lyra first, "Let's see how the two of you have progressed in the time we've been apart."
She looked at the girl in her eyes and pointed her wand, casting, "Legilimens!"
They held eye contact for nearly a minute before separating. "Good job! I wasn't going after any specific memory there, I just wanted to gauge the strength of your defenses. If you want to use something like the memory of Devil's Snare, you need to either disassociate their weakness to fire and light or choose something else. My memories of fire easily defeated them." Turning to Harry, "Your turn."
Harry put up multiple layers of spikes in his mind and waited for the attack to begin. She started with probing attacks, looking for weak spots, but he just grew more spikes at the places she tried to get in. Finally, there was a pause and Harry could feel something building. Suddenly it felt like a giant hammer hit his brain causing his entire shield to shatter. The attack must have affected him physically because he found himself lying on the floor a moment later.
"Good job to you too, Harry. You have an incredible turtle-like defense."
Harry grumbled, "I don't want to be a turtle."
"Then don't," Símone shrugged. "How about we have a quick duel?" She waved her wand and cleared out an aisle between all the chairs in the abandoned classroom. "Paint spells only."
Harry was curious about where this was going so he stood at the end of the cleared path and drew his wand.
Without waiting for a signal, Símone shot off a blue paint spell at Harry. He ducked and shot off a red one of his own. After trading shots for nearly two minutes, Harry had been hit five times while she had only one spot, though it was directly on her heart.
"Lyra, why did we each miss so often?" their tutor asked.
"You were dodging, " Lyra replied.
"Exactly. Now while you might not always be able to break the connection with someone reading your thoughts, the mind is infinite, you don't need to turtle up and give them an easy target. Move your mindscape and defenses to places that can't be reached with simple attacks."
She continued to work with them even after lunch, beating down their minds and then telling them how to adjust their defenses. Then they spent an hour with her probing and triggering their emotions and seeing if they could protect themselves with oppositely charged or neutral memories.
Before dinner, Brandt was given the homework assignment of teaching the children how to play the game he had been doing with Whispers in preparation for their next lesson.
Following dinner, Brandt had a final meeting for them and had brought Madison and her solicitor from the Knitter Critter to finalize the purchase of the cuddling stuffed animals that Penny had helped develop. The older girl was there as well and brought a solicitor of her own. The boy looked a few years out of Hogwarts.
Brandt informed them that as he had been recently been made Harry's business manager, he would be assisting him in the contract.
The process was fairly straightforward, but while Madison wanted to buy the method flat out, Penny insisted on a percentage of future sales. She argued that something like the Aurora wool, that she was still working on, was a luxury good and would have limited large sales, the stuffed animals would get more regular sales and need to be replaced more often due to destructive children. Brandt agreed with her assessment and backed her push. The young solicitor seemed to be there just for show and nodded along in agreement. Harry was out of his depth and looked to Brandt for proper guidance.
For their knife lesson on Sunday, Ransom was a bit annoyed that they hadn't been coming for lessons but happy to hear that they had been keeping up with their practices. He was very surprised to hear that Whispers had wielded a knife to stab a basilisk but did not think it would be possible to train him to fight.
He did show them their first attacking movements and how to strike at an opponent in specific areas for different injuries. Once they had the basics of the movements, he went into his back room and yelled at Pik'kal to make 'soft knives' for him, then returned to have them run through more striking and blocking drills.
At the end of their day, they were given six knives each with some unknown runic language written on the blades. The strict blacksmith went to stab Lyra, only to have Harry block it with one of his knives and the man's blade bent as it hit. He ordered Lyra to practice more so Harry didn't have to defend her and explained to both of them that the blades on these knives looked and felt like metal but bent when they were struck against another solid object or person.
The next week, before exams, most of the other students stopped hassling Harry and the rest of the students who had been down to the Chamber. However, when it got too much, he grabbed his broom and headed down to the Chamber of Secrets to study while The Usurper continued to eat the Basilisk. Once when he went down there, he found Brandt and Snape casting preservation charms on parts of the creature and creating maps of what parts to take when the serpent was finished with its meal.
The tail had been the easiest for the kingsbane to eat as it had been able to fit its whole mouth around it and pull all of the skin and meat straight off. However, as it got further up the body, it could no longer open its mouth wide enough to fit around the entire body of the monstrous King of Snakes, resorting to sinking its fangs into the side of the carcass and ripping off large chunks to eat in smaller portions.
Harry had never seen the snake eat so much before. Normally it would feed on small rodents as snacks and then head into the ocean to find bigger fish before returning to The Giver's home to rest and digest. With the continuous feeding, The Usurper was looking… fat. Instead of having one or two large bulges that it was digesting, its entire body was bloated and whenever it wasn't gorging itself on basilisk meat it would just sleep.
Harry did have a few conversations with it about the people it had met and its impressions of them. The Usurper described Dumbledore as a vast monsoon, a powerful storm, being contained by strong walls. Stevens was described as reminding him a lot of Mango, impatient and playful, but with a hidden strength and desire to lead. The analysis of his friends then became a bit stranger.
Greg was described as potentially indigestible, while Hermione was possibly tasty except for her arm, and Gemma smelled like a chicken as it explained that Brandt had fed it some while on their journey over. Daphne was determined to be cold and suspicious while Tracey was reported to be a kindred spirit. Hayden was inconclusive but had a scent similar to the wandmaker that was helping The Giver learn to use his wand. Blaise however was the most interesting of the descriptions as the Usurper said that he had the taste of fear all over him, but none of it was his own.
When he wasn't studying in books, Harry had taken it upon himself to try and clean up the Chamber. Lyra came down to help and they spent time outside of class using the scouring charm around the entrance area. One thousand years of dirt and grime were very hard to remove and they were barely able to get half of the entrance area clean before final exam week was on them.
Saturday before exams. Was split between Occlumency before lunch and knife training. For occlumency, their teacher taught them how to envision and play the Simon game in their minds. Then, after a long instruction, they got Whispers to play the game with each of them inside their minds. They couldn't play with each other as they couldn't establish the connection yet, only with Whispers or an older wizard.
It was strange having that kind of interaction with their little brother. So far they had just been dealing with his attacks and dominance games, but now it was more like a conversation between them. He would tap out one pattern on the projected memory of the device and they would repeat it back to him. Símone told them she expected them to be repeating patterns of at least twenty-five but more likely forty lights by the end of the summer. Lyra also asked to take the physical game back with them so the other Hidden could learn to play.
During their knife lessons, they were instructed more on attacks, and how to defend against them. He pushed them to strike harder against each other and told them not to hold back just because they were related. They continued to attack and defend until Lyra hit the handle of her blade into Harry's elbow.
"Good!" Ransom praised her as Harry let out a stream of curses and gibberish. "With a blade in your hand, you shouldn't forget that the bottom is also a weapon.
Before they left for dinner Ransom challenged Brandt to a knife fight with the bendy knives. Brandt enchanted the blades to leave green marks on their bodies and began the fight. By the time they finished, Brandt looked like a zebra while their teacher just had two hits on him, one on the arm and the other across the stomach.
The Sunday night before exams were to begin, a meeting was held in the Scamander common room with the full house. They were all gathered around the fire pit and waited for Newt to address them.
"It's been quite a year," he began. "First, I have an update on Mr. Longbottom's condition. From what his grandmother has told me, he is not fully conscious yet but is healthy enough for examination by a mind-healer to determine his condition. Regarding Tina, she should be on her feet again by mid-week."
Harry, Lyra, and Greg were worried for Neville, but the hospital was taking care of him, so he should be ok.
Newt continued his speech, "I have looked through all of your grades so far this year and you have all performed admirably. Tina and I have spoken to nearly all of you about your future plans and what you want to study in the future, so I hope that we will be able to keep you interested and motivated in your pursuits. If any of you have any more questions or suggestions for the future of this house, please let me know before you leave school at the end of the week.
"We have one more thing that I need to address before sending you to bed to get a good night's sleep before your first exams." He turned to the side of the gathered students, "Mr. Diggory, please come forward." As he walked out, Newt spoke to the rest of the students, "Mr. Diggory has completed all but one of the requirements I put down to become the house prefect for Scamander, next year. The one remaining was a special project that only benefits us." He turned to the older boy, "Do you have any last-minute ideas?"
Cedric looked a bit nervous and pulled a notepad out of his pocket, flipping through the pages before stopping halfway through, "Could we do a group photo of everyone in the house? Mount it on the wall in the study room and continue doing it every year?"
There was an interest in that from the other students, so Newt smiled, "I approve this as your House Project. Next year, you'll need something different to maintain the position. We will meet Friday evening to take the photo and it will be on the wall when you all return in the fall. The last thing we need to do is vote on Mr. Diggory for the position of Scamander Prefect for next year."
He looked around the room and called out, "All in favor?"
The decision was unanimous.
Exams were just like in the winter; old men and women came into the castle to socialize with each other and look annoyed as they proctored exams for the students of Hogwarts. The written exams were long, complicated, and dredged up every bit of information they were supposed to have learned over the whole year. However, after every written exam, they had the practical sections which were much easier and more fun as well.
For Transfiguration, they needed to perform all the exercises they had learned for the whole year to start with. Match to Needle, wood to metal, metal to wood, shaping, object to bird, object and animal into a matchbox, switching spell, and finally the big deal - turning a live mouse into a snuff box. The final spell was taught only in the last few weeks, right before everyone was petrified by the basilisk, so the examination authority had informed everyone that leniency would be taken into account due to the recent circumstances at the school.
One of the hardest parts for most students was catching the mouse. They were given a box with a mouse in it and it would jump out the moment the lid was removed. There were various methods different students used to catch their mouse before performing the spell, though Harry just flexed his magic and his mouse fainted. Lyra yelled at hers to stay still and it froze in fear. They heard that William stunned his mouse with a small electric shock and Colin used a burst of light from his wand to daze it before performing the transfiguration.
Like the shaping exercises they had done with their matchstick and needle, every student's results came out a little differently based on how they envisioned a snuff box in their heads. The previous exercises of turning objects into matchboxes with an incantation had trained their magic on how to create a box with moveable parts. Now they had to create a similar object from a living creature with bonus points given to students who were able to add extra detail to their boxes and points were subtracted for boxes that retained mouse-like features.
Harry's box was rectangular and unvarnished silver in color with a working lid and had no mouse-like features at all. He tried to shape the metal on the lid to show a pair of lampong antlers, but he couldn't make them symmetrical in the time that was allotted for the test. However, on close examination, the proctor found a few small white hairs on the underside of the box. Lyra transfigured a round and a rose-gold color box that opened on a very basic hinge. She was able to work in concentric circles on the lid and smooth sides on the rest. They heard from other students that boxes often had tails or blinking eyes or noses sticking out of the sides of their projects. The gossiping proctors were overheard talking about a mouse whose back opened on hinges to see its inner workings.
The Herbology exam involved handling various plants. Harry's green thumb helped immensely during this and both he and his sister got top marks for the tests involving the Devil's Snare. The proctors wouldn't allow them to handle the plant without gloves or a bright light but were still amazed when it was afraid of them instinctually. Harry also brought in a sample of the demiguise fertilizer that he had produced for extra credit, along with the flobberworm jerky that had come out of the same bin.
Charms was fun as, after going through everything they had learned so far, they were allowed to be creative with the dancing pineapple exercise. Most students just made the fruit wobble and spin on its base, but a few took it up a notch. Harry cast two halo charms on the plant then had it flip upside down and dance on its crown, like the legs of a spider. There were very few other students who thought of doing the same. As it was a charm, Lyra first cast a flame freezing spell on hers, then lit it on fire before having it bounce and spin all over the desk.
For potions, they had to brew a dose of a strength potion, then demonstrate its effectiveness by drinking it, and lifting a large metal weight. They had previously learned how dangerous this potion could be as Snape had explained it was a potion of strength, not bone density. If you made the potion too strong, your arms might break before you realized it when lifting a heavy object. If you made it too weak, it just wouldn't do anything as the potency was based on your current level of strength.
Their professor had used Harry and Colin as examples for that as there was a large difference in their physical strength. Snape arbitrarily assigned Harry a strength value of six and Colin a three. He then took out a pre-made potion that he said had a value of five. He provided both Harry and Colin with weights they couldn't lift and a dose of the potion for each of them. Colin was able to lift his weight after the potion, while Harry's level of strength was unchanged. Though it wouldn't make the drinker weaker.
As a result, during the exam, each student being tested had to have their own strength and the potency of their potion evaluated before they were allowed to drink. Regardless of the testing, there were still three students in their year that had to report to the infirmary for minor fractures as a result of their potions being just barely too strong. Harry was initially told by the proctors that his potion was too strong, but having tested it at this level during the potions club and knowing how to deal with temporary boosts in strength from the Lamassu fang on his staff, he convinced the proctor to let him try and succeeded with flying colors.
Defense Against the Dark Arts went well for everyone. As first-year students, they didn't have actual Dark Arts to deal with and were primarily dealing with all the magical pests that were attracted by degrading magical effects. Many of the other things that Lockhart had spoken to them about, like boggarts, banshees, yetis, and other lessons were for higher years or supposed to be covered in a Care of Magical Creatures class, not DADA. They were also given a chance to have a mock duel with one of the proctors but after the article in the paper, all the students that were mentioned as having faced down a basilisk were given top marks and told they didn't need to do the extra credit.
History was just regurgitating facts onto paper and Harry found that he could sometimes use his strange memory finding ability to help him dig up the answers to the ones that he couldn't figure out right away. However, he soon realized how little he had been paying attention, to begin with, as he couldn't recall the things he hadn't learned when it was taught; due to using the class to study other subjects or nap. Astronomy was similar, though, he had been paying attention there, and doubled down in his last-minute studying after the prophetic messages from the centaurs.
Once all their exams were over, Harry and Lyra went down to the Chamber of Secrets to check on the Usurper. They arrived to find Brandt and Newt in the Chamber watching the kingsbane eat. It was almost disgusting how fat the snake was, looking like the largest and scariest flobberworm in the world. Its movements were slowed and strained as it was eating the face and eyes of the Basilisk. While it had been eating for over two weeks, it also hadn't been expelling any waste either. It spoke regularly about the 'change' it would undergo and Newt speculated that it was storing what it had eaten to prepare for whatever was about to happen.
The four of them watched as the kingsbane stuck its long fangs into the face of the basilisk corpse and ripped out the venom glands below the eye sockets, then dropped them to the floor of the chamber where they started burning the stone.
It turned to Harry and said in a tired voice,
§The change is about to begin.§
§It is good that you will remove the body from here.§
§Otherwise, your school would end up like the other mountain on the island.§
§The body of the king would salt the earth under your school.§
§Its final act of vengeance would have been to forbid magic and life from the area.§
Harry translated the message to Brandt and Newt as the Usurper scooped up the venom glands from the ground and swallowed them like two very spicy meatballs. Newt seemed to be surprised at the news about the other mountain and why it was so dead, while Brandt seemed to nod in understanding as if it was a large puzzle piece that had been put into place for him.
As soon as the Usurper had finished swallowing the glands, it made a sound like an incredibly angry burp and started to inch its way across the room to the other side, away from the corpse of the basilisk. Every so often, it would burp again and a small purple cloud came out. Newt pulled out his wand and cast bubblehead charms on all of them in case the cloud was poisonous.
Once the massively obese snake was up against the opposite wall, near the feet of the statue of Slytherin, it mumbled one final message,
§The change begins.§
With that said, all of its scales shifted slightly, and a pus-like substance started oozing out from its skin, yellow in color and slightly corrosive as it started to hiss as it touched the floor. Both Brandt and Newt were furiously taking pictures with their cameras during the process. The pus was like jelly in its viscosity and started to pile up around the serpent and the wall it was entrenched against until it was completely covered. From there, the cocoon of jelly grew in size outwards until it was about thirty feet from the wall and fifteen feet tall. When it had stopped growing, it began a slow pulse, like a heartbeat.
The four of them stared at the giant pulsating blob for nearly a minute before Lyra asked, "Now what?"
They all turned to Newt who just looked uncertain, "I have no idea. I've never seen something like this. I'd take a sample, but I'm afraid I'd break whatever the containment is. I'll need to take samples when it comes out."
"I've got an idea," Brandt pulled a shrunken chest from his pocket and expanded it to normal on the floor.
Once it was open, they could see that it had stairs inside, but Brandt just pointed his wand down and made a yanking motion. A few seconds later, the body of a stunned lamb flopped out onto the ground next to him. He made another pulling motion and a large white orb the size of a fist came out as well. Holding the orb in one hand, he made a figure-eight movement over and over as the orb started to glow, growing stronger and stronger.
After nearly a minute, he turned to Lyra, "Do you have any of your sticking solution with you?"
She did, and Brandt stuck the orb to the side of the chamber near where the head of the Usurper had been, inside the yellowy cocoon. Moving the sheep next to the orb, he tapped the ball and a sparkling field expanded until it surrounded the sheep.
"A preservation charm?" Harry asked.
"A bit more complicated," Brandt told him. "It will keep the sheep preserved and stunned. Just for future knowledge, it's always better to use an enchanted item than a spell itself. Enchantments will last longer than a spell and are more reliable for repeated use. Also, I'll be notified when the sheep has been eaten and we'll know the Usurper is awake."
"Good plan," Newt complimented him. "I've never seen an enchantment that both preserves and keeps something stunned or sleeping before."
"Family secret," Brandt smirked. "Lord Black uses it… for something else."
Newt's mind seemed to be racing through the possibilities of what such an evil man could be using that enchantment for and decided he didn't want to know.
Dinner was a raucous affair. Large blue banners with the Ravenclaw crest hung from all the walls, signifying their victory in the House Cup. For the previous seven years, it had been held by Slytherin, so this was a huge upset. Slytherin had still won the Quidditch Cup, but the broken streak had hurt them more for the other trophy.
Before desserts came out, Dumbledore approached the lectern to address the students. He waited patiently for the noise to die down, surprisingly noticing the Weasley Twins smiling at him while sitting perfectly still and quiet. Stranger things than that had happened before. Not many though.
When it was quiet enough, he started his speech, "Congratulations to everyone on finishing another year at Hogwarts!" his voice boomed through the room silencing any stragglers still talking. "This year saw many interesting events, and while we did all get stoned together, we came out of it on the other side stronger, smarter, and ready for Hogwarts to bring in another year of fresh minds while sending a graduating class off into the world to make their mark on it."
There was loud applause and a few students wondered if they heard the Headmaster's phrasing correctly.
The applause died down as sparkles of gold started to float through the air towards Dumbledore. They swirled together until two large golden plaques were created and plucked from the air by the Headmaster.
"So now we just have two more presentations before dessert is served. We have two awards for Special Services to the School. The first goes to the students responsible for removing the blight of the basilisk and the self-proclaimed Heir from Hogwarts. This award is dedicated to Harry Potter, Lyra Black, Gregory Goyle, Neville Longbottom, Hermione Granger, Gilderoy Lockhart, and Draco Malfoy. Each one of them has done Hogwarts proud in their dedication to the school. Stand and be recognized!"
As they stood on the benches, the ones who weren't Draco turned to look at the blonde boy with anger in their eyes. It was hardly noticed as the hall burst into applause again.
"The next award," Dumbledore's voice broke through the clapping, "goes to some of the same individuals, and some others. While the Unspeakables may not give out rewards, we do. So this Special Services award goes to the students who helped brew the enhanced Mandrake Restorative Draught to return the population of the school, the centaurs, the Ministry employees, and Mrs. Norris back to their unpetrified states. Frederick Weasley, George Weasley, Lee Jordan, Harry Potter, Penelope Clearwater, Hermione Granger, Declan Scott, Natalie Gibson, and Lyra Black! Stand and be recognized!"
Another round of cheers went off as the larger group was applauded.
"The House Cup for this year has already been decided," the Headmaster began. "However, for next year, those that received this award will start the year with fifty points towards their houses. Stay on your toes everyone; as even though Scamander came in last place, it was only due to the number of students in their house. Individually, every single one of them led the average point rankings per student, so the other houses will need to step up to meet this challenge as more students join Scamander House in the fall!"
That was a bit surprising to hear, for all of the Scamander students. It also painted a target on their backs.
"Dessert is served!"
There was a large flash on all the tables as they were filled with every type of sweet, cake, and confectionery that could be imagined; as well as a few that were beyond imagination.
Saturday morning came with all the students rushing to throw together their things to get out of school on time. Students showed up sporadically to the Great Hall to stuff their faces before returning to their dorms to pack some more. Harry realized he hadn't sorted out his expanding pouch from the night of the Chamber and ended up emptying it all on the bed so he could sort it and put it back in his trunk to be found more easily.
When he and Lyra realized they wouldn't be seeing their teachers for a while, they rushed around to say their goodbyes to as many as they could find. Severus, Newt, and Tina told them they would find some time to visit over the summer but would be busy with many other obligations as well. Snape also reminded them that for at least a month, he would be dissecting the basilisk corpse.
Professor Sprout told them that she would take their fertilizer dumpster and move it to the others in the herbology warehouse, though when Newt and Tina were gone, she'd be short a demiguise to help her maintain it. Flitwick told them to keep up with their charms work and to be prepared for much tougher work in the fall. Minerva informed them that she probably wouldn't be able to visit them as there would be special events going on at Hogwarts over the summer that would need her supervision, but she would try to make time for them before the start of the year. While everyone was still packing, they took a broom flight down to the lake area with Whispers to visit Hagrid. They both told him about the pus cocoon of the Usurper and he smiled and told him he couldn't wait to see what the beautiful beastie would turn into. They couldn't enter the Permissible Forest to speak with the centaurs without an escort, so they resolved just to make it their first task in the fall.
It was strange. At the beginning of the year, Harry had planned on finding the King for the Usurper to kill, then going back to the island and staying there. Now, the Usurper seemed to be making Hogwarts its home and he had friends and a desire to return himself. Even Whispers was enjoying his time here, including the cold climate of Scotland. On their flight back to the castle, Harry looked over the glassy lake, the quidditch stadium, the astronomy tower poking up through the middle of the castle, and smiled at Lyra, knowing they would be back but the island would always be home.
Other students had started to line up for the thestral carriages, so Harry and Lyra just turned their brooms to fly down to the train station where they found Brandt speaking with a large group of young Aurors. Tristan was among them, and the two of them greeted him with a hug as they were mostly ignored by the other wizards in red jackets. Brandt gave the two children a nod but continued to chat with all the others until the carriages started to arrive and higher ranks of law enforcement started to yell at the younger generation to get to their positions.
As Tristan ran off, Brandt approached the children and Whispers, telling them to go find their trunks by the train where the elves had delivered all the students' belongings. That and he would be meeting them in London when they arrived. As they had been the first students to arrive, they managed to get an empty compartment with no difficulty at all. When the train began to fill up, they were joined by Greg, Tracey, and Hermione. None of them said anything, just relaxed and enjoyed the silence before the train started to move.
They were visited by many others as they traveled, and halfway through, Lyra left to go see all her friends as well. It was late in the evening when the train finally pulled into the station in London. Harry took his trunk, in its briefcase form, and put it over his shoulder, let Whispers climb on his back and continue his nap while holding him around the neck, and grabbed Lyra's trunk as well to get off and find her. Just as he got off, he spotted Tonks and Moody waiting for them.
"Ready to go, lad?" Moody asked.
Whispers perked up at his voice and climbed down to waddle over to Tonks and reached his hands up to be carried. She hoisted him up and he fell back asleep in her arms immediately.
"You're coming with us?" Harry asked.
"We're assigned to Lyra until her Arcturus takes his thumb off the Minister or her father is back in Azkaban," Tonks smiled.
Brandt approached them from behind Harry, along with Lyra who took her trunk back from Harry. "We've got to speak to some adults for a bit," he told them. "Moody, you make sure that no one is carrying any dangerous or illicit materials around the children, ok?"
"What are you talking about, Steward?" Moody growled as magic blue eye started spinning everywhere while Brandt just smirked and started leading the children away.
"Mr. Potter!" a voice called out and Harry turned to see Cynthia Abbot approaching him with Hannah in tow.
Harry smiled and ran over to her, "Cynthia!" greeted her happily.
"It's good to see you too, Harry. Though, I'm still waiting for you to make a reservation at my tea shop with the Minister of Magic."
Harry froze as he remembered, stuttering, "Uh…" He turned to Brandt and asked, "How's the… thing?"
He nodded to Harry, and then said to Mrs. Abbot, "We hope to have that reservation made before the beginning of the school year. Maybe we can make it a tradition to visit before every year starts?"
"That would be nice," she replied. Then looking down at her daughter, "Hannah, is there anything you want to say to Harry?"
Hannah looked a bit embarrassed, and said, "Can we hang out more next year?"
Harry looked at the girl he had named a demiguise after and realized that she hadn't spoken to him much in the spring term. Almost like she just vanished without being petrified. He had seen her around the school, but she would disappear when he tried to talk to her.
Regardless of all that, Harry replied, "Sure, that sounds fun!"
After Cynthia had led her daughter over to one of the floo points, she kneeled and whispered to Hannah, "Do you think you'll ever tell Harry that you sent the singing Valentine?"
Hannah went bright red, "Mommm! Not here, please!" Then she dragged them through the flames to their home.
The next group to approach Harry and Lyra was the Patil family. Brandt shook hands with the father of the twins while Lyra chatted away with Parvati. Padma was too busy reading to pay any attention.
"Please send my thanks to your son for allowing me to purchase his carpet," Brandt told the older man. "It was instrumental in saving Hogwarts."
"He was quite surprised that you bought it for such a high price, and wondered if you would be willing to sell it back to him," Kumar replied.
Brandt smiled, "Not a chance. I plan on taking an Antarctic vacation at some point and lounging under the Borealis, among other great adventures. I would like to remind you of Lord Black's invitation to view his favorite rug in his manor house. I believe that your son would be interested in viewing it as well."
"There is something you are not telling us but it is piquing our interest," Chanda smiled. "We will be reaching out to you to schedule the visit."
Lyra and Whispers said their goodbyes to Parvati before they moved on.
Harry was busy having Lauren Davis fuss over him as Tracey told her about the Usurper and how Harry brought her to see it.
"It's fine!" Harry tried to explain. "I've only seen the kingsbane kill scary people before."
"You've seen it kill people?" Lauren nearly screamed. "Tracey Davis! Why would you go near such a creature?"
Tracey looked at her feet and shifted back and forth, "Because Harry said it would be ok."
"It's fine," Harry repeated, "I spoke to it later, and it told me that Tracey is a kindred spirit. I don't think it would ever hurt her."
Both of the Davises turned to Harry and looked at him in confusion.
"What does that mean?" Tracey asked.
Harry just shrugged, "I think it's a good thing." They both grimaced a bit, but said their goodbyes and went on their way.
Their next visitor, they saw coming from a long way off. The escorts in blue uniforms, this time without the spears, followed Blaise and his mother over to Harry and Lyra as quite a few people stood around watching. After a small nod from Alessandra to Brandt, he whipped his wand to create a privacy ward around the group of them.
"Good to see you, Mr. Potter, Miss Black, and Whispers," she smiled.
Whispers stepped forward and reached up to shake her hand, trying to say her name, "Lesssaandra."
"Still amazing," she smiled, then kneeled to give the two children a big hug.
Harry leaned into the warm embrace. It felt comforting and empowering like he could do anything in the world that he put his mind to. The feeling slowly went away as she released them and stood back up. He shared a look with his sister and he could see a look on her face that she had experienced something strange as well.
"Thank you for saving my son," she told them. "While I'm sure the other students who received the award played some part in defeating the basilisk, Blaise informs me that Mr. Malfoy probably did nothing of value and the others probably did only slightly more. Am I wrong?"
"No," Lyra admitted.
"I would like to know how involved Mr. Lockhart was," she requested.
Harry shared a look with Lyra, and replied, "He was slightly less useful than Draco, though he did let me use his axe."
She looked a bit confused at the statement, but replied, "Well, his death is a shame. He could have done many great things had he lived. I would like to offer you and Miss Black the boon I promised as a reward. If there's anything I can ever do for you or provide for the two of you, don't hesitate to ask."
Harry couldn't think of anything. A week ago, he thought of asking her for that sand-pit, portkey arrival point from Hannah's winter party to place at the bottom of the slide for the Chamber of Secrets, but it seemed like a waste to use it all there. Lyra saved him from responding by telling her that they'd think about it.
After saying their goodbyes to Blaise, Brandt led Harry, Lyra, and Whispers over to where Hermione was meeting with her parents.
"So," her father started, "Hermione says she rode a fifty-foot snake that crashed through a door and killed an even larger snake? Is she going to be encountering dangerous magical creatures every year?"
Brandt shrugged, "It could be, though I didn't go to Hogwarts. Durmstrang was always filled with nasty surprises. In my second year, I had to navigate a nest of Ice-silk spiders whose webs could cut your limbs off before you felt the pain of it."
Emma looked terrified, "That sounds horrendous, how did you survive?"
"I had a wand," Brandt told her. "Just like Hermione has one as well. Magic allows for amazing things to happen as well as incredibly dangerous situations, but also gives us the tools to survive them with our wits and knowledge. This is something Miss Granger here has in spades."
He watched their reactions and their concern for their daughter. It reminded him a little of his parents and how they dealt with the danger magic put him in every year at Durmstrang. "Speaking of wits and knowledge, I have something for the two of you."
Brandt reached into his pocket and pulled out a small package wrapped in twine, passing it to Hermione's parents.
"This is a small library of magical healers' textbooks. In the one on top, you'll find a certificate of authorization so that if any magical law enforcement officers find you with them, you'll be allowed to keep them and your memories. You can also ask Hermione for help with any questions about how some of the magic will work. She will also need to unshrink the package of books."
"But I can't do magic outside of Hogwarts," Hermione protested.
Brandt pulled a sealed envelope out of his pocket, passing it to Hermione, "When you get home, unshrink the package. Shortly after that, you'll get an owl with a warning to not perform magic at home. Send the owl back with this envelope and you won't be bothered for the rest of the summer."
"That sounds like you are telling us we are about to bribe a government official," Dan told Brandt.
He replied with a shrug, "If you never open the envelope, you'll never know for certain."
"Plausible deniability?" Emma asked, and got a nod in return from Brandt.
Goodbyes were exchanged with Hermione and they returned to where Moody and Tonks were waiting for them.
"All finished?" Moody asked.
Brandt nodded and pulled a large golden ring from his jacket, passing it to Tonks. "This is a portkey to the island. Enjoy your vacation, Miss Tonks."
"You're not coming with us?" Harry asked.
"Not now. I have quite a few other responsibilities to attend to first, along with assisting Severus with the basilisk corpse." He smirked at the children as he ruffled the fur Whispers's head, "Believe it or not, my entire life isn't about shepherding around you kids."
Harry and Lyra both gave him a firm handshake, even as Lyra had a strange look on her face. The four wizards and one demiguise grabbed hold of the golden ring and waved to Brandt as Moody started the countdown.
Seconds before they vanished, Lyra perked up and looked at Brandt, saying, "You're Bootes!" then disappeared in the portkey travel.
Brandt looked confused as Lyra vanished, 'My boots?' he thought. He looked down, and sure enough, one of the buckles was undone. After kneeling and fixing it, he stood up and snapped his fingers twice. Four men in black robes, who had been walking around the platform randomly, approached him and pulled something invisible from their pockets. They each reached inside the objects and withdrew potions of swirling orange and blue liquids.
One at a time, Brandt took an eye dropper and squeezed out four drops into each man's potion, turning the contents gray and solid. When he was done, he collected the invisible pouches and turned them inside out to reveal snakeskin on the inside. Then told the men, "Your payments have been delivered to your vaults. I will have another job for you in a month, make sure to wear thestral hide from head to toe."
Then he turned on his heel and apparated away.