Chapter Twenty Two: A Second Look
"Aargh!" Harry pulled away from the embrace of his friends as blinding pain erupted from his scar. He clamped both hands to his forehead and winced.
"What's going on, Harry?" Ginny asked worriedly.
"It's Voldemort," Harry cried as he slid off the hospital bed and began to move toward the doors. "He's here!"
"WHAT?!" his companions all shouted at once.
"You've got to be kidding me!" Ron said.
"What'll we do?" Hermione exclaimed.
Harry turned to face them, "Alert the D.A," he said. "And find someplace to hide. He may already be in the castle."
Hermione took out her coin and performed a complicated charm to make the face of it resemble Voldemort and write the words "He's here" in the space where the date and time of a meeting would normally appear.
"What do you mean by, 'find someplace to hide'?" Draco rebuked Harry while Hermione was charming her coin. "We have to do something. The school is under attack!"
"I have to do something," Harry countered him. "This is my fight!"
"You can't do it alone," Draco warned.
"I can't let anyone else die, either," Harry said as he began to move toward the doors again.
"Oi," Ron exclaimed, and he quickly moved to stand in front of the exit, "You're not going anywhere without me!"
"Nor me," Draco agreed.
"And we're coming too," Ginny said as she and Hermione walked over and stood in front of the boys.
"There will be no need for any of you to go anywhere," Harry argued. He pulled the time turner from within his robes, twisted the dial four times, and disappeared.
In a flash of light, Harry found himself standing in the hospital wing exactly two hours previous to the moment when he'd told his friends that Voldemort had come to attack Hogwarts. He tucked the time turner back into his robes and set to work. Right about now, he knew, he and Draco were trapped in the dungeons of Malfoy Manor, battling the Lestranges just before Voldemort broke free of the curse Draco had placed upon him. This was the moment when he called for aid through the bond with Ginny. He turned and raced through the doors of the hospital wing and down through the school's corridors in search of the headmaster. He had to stop Dumbledore from dying at all cost if the school was to survive what was coming that evening.
He guessed he'd find them near the dungeons, based upon the events that he assumed took place while he and Draco had been at Malfoy Manor. He had set the D.A. to the task of destroying the test parchments that were being laced with potion in Snape's office. As expected, he found them all in the corridor outside of the potions classroom. He waited in the shadows, keeping himself out of sight and watched Ginny's face for the tell tale far away look that would indicate she had heard him call to her through their bond. He held his wand over his head and whispered the incantation for the disillusionment charm as he waited.
As soon as he saw Ginny's eyes loose their focus, Harry sprang into action. Just as Fawkes swooped down onto Dumbledore's shoulder, Harry placed his invisible hand on the old man's forearm and held fast. The bird, the headmaster, and Harry were instantly whisked away to the Headmaster's office.
"Harry, would you kindly show yourself, please?" Dumbledore said in an amused voice. Harry removed his disillusionment charm and looked up at the man who was moving brusquely toward an open window and pointing his wand toward it. A silver light shot out of the end of Dumbledore's wand before the old wizard turned back to look at Harry.
"Now that we can both see each other," Dumbledore smiled pleasantly but eyed Harry carefully, "would you kindly explain how it is that I have just sent someone to save your life at Malfoy Manor, and yet, here you are?"
"What do you mean you sent someone to help me, it was you who came!" Harry exclaimed.
"It was not me, or I could not be here with you at this moment. Would I be correct to assume, Harry, that you are here now by use of the time turner you acquired from Professor McGonagall?"
"Yes, sir," Harry said, his mind reeling from the effort of putting together the pieces of this puzzle. "If you didn't save me at Malfoy Manor tonight, who did? And why did he look just like you?"
"He looked like me because I needed Voldemort to think he had destroyed me. It was Peter Petigrew who came tonight to save you, Harry."
"But Petigrew died in the Chamber just after Christmas!" Harry was beginning to wonder what had become of his sanity. Perhaps the alteration of time was affecting him adversely.
"No, we staged Petigrew's death in the Chamber after Christmas. It worked for him once; we figured it was worth another try." The headmaster's eyes were twinkling merrily as he observed the confused expression on Harry's face.
"Let me start from the beginning," Dumbledore said as he pulled his pocket watch from within his robes. "I believe we have about an hour and forty five minutes before we need to have sealed the entrance to the Chamber, do we not?"
Harry nodded numbly and sank shakily into the nearest arm chair.
"When you and your friends discovered Petigrew was impersonating Mr. Filch in order to gain entry into the Chamber of Secrets, it became clear to me and to the Order that Voldemort was planning something that had to do with the school. Intelligence operations since that time have revealed exactly what we suspected, that Voldemort would try to attack the school sometime during the Ministry's investigation of Hogwarts, most likely the last day. Given the summons of Professor McGonagall and myself to the Ministry on the eve of the final day of the investigation, we assumed it would happen tonight. We knew Professor Snape had been replaced and that our young Mr. Malfoy was key to the success of Voldemort's plan. But we also knew that our dear Draco has been playing the double agent for some time now."
"He said you were teaching him Occlumency," Harry muttered.
"Yes, Professor Snape has been training him vigorously since the Christmas holiday, preparing him to face Voldemort should he ever have to. We had also hoped to save his mother, but alas, one cannot be rescued against one's own will."
"If you knew all of this, why didn't you tell me?" Harry asked, awestruck.
"Because you had to accept Draco on your own terms. I couldn't ask you to forgive him on my word alone. I made that mistake before and the result was that you and I both lost a good friend and ally."
"Sirius," Harry sighed.
"Yes, and I couldn't risk losing you to the same mistake. I allowed you to use your own judgment and said nothing to Remus that might have gotten back to you. I took a chance on the goodness of your character, and so far, it has turned out for the best."
"Why did you let them take us to Malfoy Manor?" Harry asked.
"I never intended for them to take you, Harry, only Draco. Draco knew that he would have to go back eventually. He wanted to save his mother, and I wanted him to bring Severus back to us."
"That little snot!" Harry exclaimed.
"I beg your pardon?" Dumbledore raised his eyebrow at Harry.
"He let me think saving Snape was all my idea, when that was what he went there to do in the first place!" Harry said, a twitching at the corners of his mouth belying his outrage. "I can't believe he did that to me!"
"He is, after all, a Slytherin," Dumbledore smiled as he spoke. "And Slytherins do have their beneficial uses. Being cunning and smooth is often far more appropriate in a given situation than being brave and daring, Harry. If anyone was going to succeed at getting Professor Snape back to Hogwarts, I knew it would be Draco Malfoy."
"Yes, I suppose so," Harry murmured, replaying the events at Malfoy Manor in his head once more, trying to piece in this new information. "So, it was Petigrew, disguised as you with, I would guess a Morphus Draft, who threw himself between me and Voldemort's killing curse?"
"Yes, Harry, it was. Even Remus Lupin does not know that Petigrew survived the Chamber incident. Petigrew was petrified when Remus found him. There is another basilisk down in the Chamber, a very small one, born of Mr. Longbottom's toad and one of Hagrid's chicken eggs. It was part of Voldemort's plan for capturing Hogwarts. He was always fond of his basilisk, and was most displeased to learn you had killed it. Petigrew was sent to breed a new one and then to assist Voldemort's entry into Hogwarts by digging a tunnel from the chamber to the forbidden forest."
"Wouldn't that take an awfully long time to dig a tunnel so far?" Harry asked incredulously.
"Not when one knows the proper spells to perform," Dumbledore said. "The tunnel was ready long before the first Hogsmeade visit, and Petigrew used it to enter the chamber and feed the basilisk. That day that you and your friends decided to follow him into the Chamber, he had run short of time. Mr. Filch is a busy man around the holiday season, assisting with the cleaning and decorating of the school, and Petigrew was finding it difficult to keep up with those duties and keep the hungry beast in the chamber satisfied enough that it would not go searching for an exit to find its own food. If the snake had escaped the chamber, it might have been discovered, or lost, and Voldemort would not have been happy about either of those outcomes. So he took a chance during dinner one night at using the lavatory entrance that he knew we were regularly patrolling. You and your friends followed him, and Professor Snape followed you."
"And gave us all detentions," Harry murmured.
"Rightly so, Harry. You should not have been down there endangering your lives. Nevertheless, your little excursion did help us learn what was going on. When I sent Remus into the chamber to find out what Petigrew had been up to, he discovered the tunnel, the young snake, and a petrified Scabbers, whom he assumed to be dead. I had Madame Pomfrey prepare me some Mandrake Draft from the Mandrakes that, thankfully, we already had on hand, and gave some to Scabbers the Rat. Upon regaining his mobility, Petigrew transformed into his true self and confessed to me all that he had done. I then forced him to swear an oath of loyalty to me to be fulfilled when I called for him. He has taken up residence in the Shrieking Shack since then, a fitting place for him to recall the life debt he owes to you. Tonight, when Professor McGonagall left to report to the Ministry, she took Petigrew, disguised as myself, with her, though she did not know that it was him. And it is Petigrew whom, I do believe, should be arriving in the Great Hall with you and the rest of the Order of the Phoenix right about…now!"
As if on cue, Harry heard the sound of his own voice echoing painfully through the corridors, "Professor, please…please…you can't die, you just can't! We need you too much, sir!"
"It seems we are beginning to catch up with ourselves now," Dumbledore sighed. "Come, Harry, we have a Chamber to seal before our anticipated guest comes in through the back door."
Harry stood up numbly and followed the headmaster through a portrait hole at the back of his office. They descended a long, narrow stone staircase and came to a stop at a small wooden door. Dumbledore pushed the door open and stepped quietly through, indicating with a finger to his lips that Harry, too, should be as silent as possible. They stepped out into the corridor that had housed the three D.A. rooms up until the Ministry's investigation had begun and moved silently along toward the door to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.
"Good evening, Myrtle," Dumbledore said to the ghost as though he had come just for a visit with her. "How are you tonight, my dear?"
"Oh, hello Professor, hello Harry, it's so good of you both to come and visit me. I've been so dreadfully lonely. The other ghosts are ignoring me as usual, the insensitive pricks! Sir Nicholas of course was kind enough to invite me down for the Bloody Baron's annual End of the School year celebration, but I don't think I'll go. The Grey Lady is certain to tease me about my hair again. As if I could do anything else with it, being that I don't actually have any tangible hair. Just because she was lucky enough to die when hers was all done up nicely, straight from the hairdresser's…" Myrtle continued on in this vein, seemingly oblivious to the tasks to which Professor Dumbledore had set himself. Even as Myrtle was bemoaning that she had not only died in pig-tails, but also while wearing a school uniform and socks that didn't match, the old Professor was waving his wand at the sink fixture that covered the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. In an instant, the fixture was transformed into a great bolder, a tiny stream of water running down its side like a waterfall bursting out of the mountainside from a spring buried within. The snake that had been carved into the faucet now appeared at the base of the bolder, near the floor.
"Well that certainly won't do," Dumbledore mumbled as he gazed crossly at the snake carving.
"Exactly as I was saying to the Bloody Baron last night, Professor," Myrtle continued, seeming certain that the headmaster was responding to her most recent complaints. "Peeves simply should not be allowed in here, ever. This is my home, the only place of privacy I have! He comes in here and the only recourse I have is to blast him with water until he leaves. Then, of course, Mr. Filch gets all upset, and I know you've asked me before to be kinder to that old goat, but you know he never considers my feelings at all when he comes storming in here, raging about the water on the floor…"
The headmaster muttered something under his breath and pointed his wand at the boulder he had conjured. A stone wall stood in its place now. There was a brick missing at the top out of which the water pipe flowed, and the snake carving was clearly evident on the brick just to the right of the gap. The headmaster frowned in concentration and aimed his wand again. With another wave and a mutter the brick wall became a gargoyle statue, water springing from its mouth like a fountain, the snake carving revealing itself on the left forearm like a glistening tattoo.
"This simply will not do," Professor Dumbledore cried.
"It most certainly will not," Myrtle agreed. "Mr. Filch should take control of the situation if you ask me! Peeves has been a menace for as long as he's been in existence, but that doesn't mean we should just stand by and allow him to have free reign in the school. Why, just the other day…"
Professor Dumbledore frowned again and stared at the snake carving on the arm of the gargoyle.
"Professor," Harry said quietly, "Is there some way that I can help, sir?" Myrtle fell silent and began watching the pair of wizards quizzically as though she had just now realized that neither of them had been listening to her at all.
"Perhaps there is Harry," the headmaster replied. "We need to find some way to seal this entrance, but I simply cannot force the sink fixture into a form that is devoid of the snake carving. Without the snake, the fixture will not respond to Voldemort's command to open. But it seems to be charmed in such a way as to prevent the removal of that snake. What would you suggest?"
"I noticed you continue to allow the water pipe to flow," Harry said. "Perhaps there is a connection?"
"That, too, seems to be beyond my ability to control. The carving was placed upon the faucet of the sink fixture. The charm upon the snake seems to have transferred itself to the object upon which the snake was carved."
"I do have one suggestion, sir, though it's just a guess. May I try?" Harry said.
"Certainly, Harry," Dumbledore agreed and took a small step backward. "What did you have in mind?"
"Hagrid told us that Unicorns are the natural enemies of snakes," Harry replied.
"Yes, this is true," Dumbledore agreed and eyed Harry quizzically, one hand stroking his long beard.
"I think it would be easiest if I were to simply show you, sir," Harry continued. Dumbledore nodded his approval and Harry aimed his wand at the Gargoyle statue. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the dream he and Ginny had shared so many times, muttered the transfiguration spell, and slowly opened his eyes again. Standing before him was the water fountain with the Unicorn statue in the middle, water flowing from its magnificent horn. The snake carving had found its way onto the Unicorn's left foot. With another wave of Harry's wand, the hoof came down and stamped upon the snake, crushing the head of it on the basin's floor.
"Well, it seems you have managed to do what I could not, Harry," Dumbledore said, his eyes twinkling more brightly than Harry had seen them in a long time. The headmaster smiled warmly and patted Harry on the back. "Well done, Harry, very well done indeed. Voldemort will not be able to enter through here now."
"Couldn't he just blast the fountain out of his way?" Harry asked.
"That fountain is made of the stone of Hogwarts," the headmaster replied emphatically. "Every inch of this castle is magically fortified to be impervious to any spell that would destroy ordinary stone. But, just to be certain, I believe we could add a spell or two more. You've wanted to redecorate in here for some time, haven't you Myrtle?"
"Only for about fifty four years," Myrtle huffed.
"Well, there's no time like the present," Dumbledore said pleasantly. He aimed his wand at the base of the fountain and began a spell that slowly transformed the cold stone floor into rich, lush green grass. Huge trees similar to the ones that could be found in the forbidden forest sprung up in place of the toilets and sinks. Flower patches surrounded in rock walls, and long stretches of grass replaced the towel racks and garbage bins. An inviting path of broken stones ran down the center leading from the window at the back of the room to the door that led into the corridor. Only the toilet stall where Myrtle actually died remained the same in the entire room. Everything else had become a beautiful wooded garden glen.
"Well," said Myrtle, "Now that is an improvement!" She smiled from ear to ear as she floated from one corner of the room to the other.
"It's beautiful, sir," Harry agreed, "but how does it help?"
"It's simple, Harry. Every bit of this room is now surrounded in the same protective spell that surrounds this entire castle. The trees and grass and flowers and stones of this garden are simply the physical manifestation of the protective barrier placed upon the room. If I had wanted to, I could have made the barrier entirely invisible…"
"Like the one that surrounds the outside of the castle?" Harry interrupted.
"Yes, exactly, Harry, only this one never comes down to let anyone through. And I do hope that the new decor will help ease the conflict between our caretaker and this room's resident ghost. Wouldn't you agree, Myrtle?"
"Oh, I most certainly do, headmaster, sir! Oh, it's beautiful, sir. Thank you ever so much, sir!" Myrtle gushed.
"You're quite welcome, my dear Myrtle. We should take our leave now, Harry. This entrance is sealed, but if I know Tom Riddle at all, he will not be so easily dissuaded. He will try to enter from another way if he can. I'll need you to do a couple of things for me, please."
"Of course, sir," Harry replied obediently, excited to be asked at last to take some active role in the Dark Lord's defeat.
"If you wouldn't mind too much," the headmaster said with a smile, "I would like you to go and find your head of house and explain as much of this to her as you can. Poor Minerva will be going out of her mind with worry by now."
"Yes sir," Harry said, his spirits falling slightly.
"And then I would like you to assemble the D.A, please, and have them prepared to defend each common room. Place a few extras in Slytherin's house if you would. We have always been a bit short on students from that house who fully understood their own importance to the preservation of this school." Harry smiled proudly as his heart swelled. He indicated with a nod of his head that he would do all that he'd been instructed.
"I must go now, Harry," Dumbledore said. "The Order must be summoned. Thank you for your help. I'll see you in the Great Hall in approximately thirty five minutes."
"O.K," Harry nodded. The headmaster smiled and called for Fawkes, who immediately appeared upon the old wizard's shoulder. An instant later both bird and man were gone and Harry was left in a daze. He shook his head and set off down the corridor in search of a teary eyed Professor McGonagall.