Disclaimer is in chapter 1.

The panic that captured the school in those few moments was broken as Albus Dumbledore pushed through the crowd, his very presence broadcasting a quiet security that calmed the younger people present, and even had a noticeable effect on the adults.

"Calmly everyone," he said serenely, "Be calm, and we'll work this out. What has happened?"

"Potter did it!" Draco bellowed, loud enough to be heard through the school. "It was Potter!"

"Shut it, Malfoy!" Ron snarled, taking a step toward the young Malfoy heir, only to be held back by Harry and Hermione.

Albus was looking around slowly when Argus Filch pushed his way through, grumpily telling the children to shove off. "What are you all doing out here, no gatherings in the halls, I'll put you all on... Mrs. Norris?"

The caretaker froze for a moment, staring at the body of his cat, and then let out a wail as he rushed forward.

"What happened here!?"

"That is what we're here to determine, Argus." Dumbledore said calmly.

Filch looked around, eyes lighting on Harry, Draco's screaming coming immediately to mind. "What did you do to my CAT!?"

"I... I didn't do anything!" Harry protested.

"And yet you were here when we all arrived," Severus Snape said silkily.

"We were just going back to our rooms!"

"And skip the feast in the great hall?"

"We were invited to Nick's death day party!" Harry protested again, looking for all the school to be wallowing, lost in the events.

Xander stepped back, not really caring about it right then. He had the same morbid curiosity as anyone, but while Hermione seemed to be alright, he was worried about Wednesday.

"Hey," He nudged her, "Are you ok?"

She didn't look at him, her eyes fixed on the cat's stiff body. "Something's not right."

"I think we sort of established that."

"No. That's not what I meant." She said, eyes glaring at the cat. "There was death in the air, Alexander. I could feel it."

"Cat looks pretty dead to me."

She shook her head, "No. It's not."

"Argus, your cat isn't dead."

Xander twisted back as Albus made that pronouncement, the echoing sound of Lockhart yelling 'I knew it!' going unheeded by most.

"She's not?" Argus looked up, hopeful.

"Merely petrified." Albus confirmed, frowning pensively.

Xander again tuned out the others, focusing on Wednesday. "How'd you know that?"

She gave him a flat look, "I know death."

"Oookay," Xander said slowly, "You remember what I told you last year about the creep factor? The bell at the top of the meter just dinged."

Wednesday paid him no mind, however, as the crowd moved away from them and followed Dumbledore toward the DADA offices. She looked at the blood on the wall, then shook her head. "It wanted death. It was calling for it, for a painful death. Why did it show mercy?"

"What?" Xander asked, looking around to see if anyone was listening. He didn't like the way everyone was ready to jump on Harry as the culprit, and couldn't help but feel that Wednesday might be setting herself up for the same. "What it?"

She let out a slow breath, then looked at him steadily for a moment.

"The serpent."

Then she turned and was gone.

Xander watched her go, hands going out in plaintive confusion. "Serpent? What serpent!?"

The castle had little else to speak of in the coming days, the rumors of the Chamber of Secrets were on everyone's lips as the aftermath of Halloween rolled over them all. In history of Magic, Hermione actually managed to talk old Prof Binns into recounting some of the legend before he droned off about Goblin's again.

After classes, Hermione was noticeably absent from their normal study hours, leaving Xander and Wednesday to themselves. Which seemed to Xander to leave him all alone, as Wednesday had become even more focused than her normal self, leaving him out in the cold.

He turned back to his Grimoire, learning spells as the fancy struck him, mostly looking for the cool ones. He tried his hand at Arithmancy, the concept of developing his own spells being incredibly cool to him, but found that he wasn't much better at magical math than he was at regular math, and he'd tested pretty low there.

So, for the moment, he moved that aside and started looking into other types of magic for fun. The Grimoire had a really excellent index system, in which all he had to do was whisper what he was looking for and the book would fly to the appropriate page, and even provide a list of books in the library on the topic.

While he had been looking through for creating spells, Xander got sidetracked by enchanting objects, then was immediately enthralled by a single notation at the very bottom of that page.

The Magic of Body Art.

Xander blinked. Magical Tattoos? So cool.

Unfortunately the book only had a very brief discussion of one example, which kind gave Xander the creeps. A Spell known as the Dark Mark, which had been used by Mr. Mold in his Shorts during his reign of terror over a decade earlier. It described the mark in detail, surprisingly, listing it as a means of summoning the Lord's minions, punishing those who failed the Lord, and possibly even providing the Lord with information about those who had been marked.

The hows weren't listed, though, just some speculation on the methods. According to Evans, who had seemed to have done the majority of the research on the topic, the Mark had to be a compilation of several spells from multiple fields of magic. One of the fundamental cornerstones, in her opinion, was the Protean Charm, which originated from a school of magic not commonly used by European Wizards.

The Sympathetic magic of the charm would allow the lord to affect any other Dark Mark, as long as he had access to at least one. From there the spell work was presumed to be fairly simple, though according to Evans the Lord had managed to somehow lock the spells in such a way as no one had yet discovered how to unlock it.

The concept was cool, Xander thought, not that he had any interest in creating dark marks for himself or anyone else. Still, he found the bibliography for the subject and started pulling books out of the library. Unlike most of his preferred areas of interest, almost everything on magical tattoo work was actually in the open area of the library and not in the restricted, so Xander soon found himself happily learning all there was to know about the art and magic of body pictures.

Which, actually, wasn't as much as he'd hoped.

Most magical tattoos were, literally, magical tattoos. They had no powers, or anything really cool, they just moved around the body like their real world counterparts might, and looked cool. Xander had no real interest in that, however, since he really didn't understand the idea of marking one's body with something permanent just for cosmetics. What if his taste changed in the future? When he was five he loved the care bears on TV, but the idea of one of those printed on his chest was really kinda disturbing at twelve.

And so he was about to give up the avenue of reading when he came across one spell, buried deep in an old tome that had more dust on it than paper.

To Charm an Image with the effect of a spell.

That was more like it, Xander decided, and he dove into some of the coolest reading since he had discovered comic books when he was four.

Life moved on at the Castle, however, and within a few days things were slowly coming back to normal as the school prepared for the next Quidditch match of the season. The Gryffs were playing this time around, against Slytherin, and that all but guaranteed an exciting match. Xander found himself pressed into attending as part of the Slytherin group, ostensibly to cheer on their new seeker, Draco Malfoy.

Much to her dismay, Xander had succeeded in guilting Wednesday into joining him, so that he'd have someone to talk to, er, talk at. Even if she never said a word back, Xander was pretty sure she'd be more intelligent company than most of the rest in his section.

The game got underway more or less normally, with the usual high flying and heavy handed play from the two antagonistic teams. Immediately the crowds were treated to a show of aerial acrobatics from Harry as to give them all shivers as he dodged a particularly insistent bludger that seemed bent on turning him to paste.

The game went on, scoring climbing, and it became clear to everyone save Madame Hooch apparently, that something was up with said bludger.

"Why don't they stop the game?" Wednesday asked, sounding only mildly curious. "As I am to understand, that thing is obviously been tampered with."

Xander shrugged, "Don't know."

"Maybe the Slytherin's have it right," She shrugged, "Cheating is part of the game. Curious, I had thought that these people believed otherwise."

Xander winced as one of the Gryff chasers took a hit from the other bludger while the twins were covering Harry. "That had to hurt."

"Indeed. It's a more interesting game than I had believed."

Xander chuckled dryly as the time out ran out, and the game began again. In seconds the bludger was chasing Harry down again as he swooped and twisted in the air to evade it. Xander wished that he could fly half as well as Harry, but knew that there was some serious talent packed into the scrawny kid and just had to admire it from the ground level.

"Why has he stopped?" Wednesday asked calmly.

Xander shrugged, then followed Harry's gaze to where Draco was floating on his broom, taunting Harry as the Golden Snitch floated just by his head. Xander groaned softly, shaking his head, and couldn't help but imagine just how scary the world would be if Draco Malfoy really was as good as he thought he was.

"He had better move now..." Wednesday shook her head mournfully as the bludger slashed out of nowhere, slamming Harry around, "Too late."

Harry careened about, heading for the ground in a hurry as Draco seemed to wake up. They two almost crashed in midair, then Harry slammed into the soft ground and seemed to stick there. There was a hush as everyone watched the players rush his position, then Harry shifted and looked down at his hand in a daze. He lifted it slightly, then seemed to pass out as Wood arrived and held his hand up to show the Snitch secured in it.

The crowd screamed, but no as loud as Harry, who let out a wail that could only be of one dying it seemed. People hushed again as the teachers arrived, Lockhart leading the way with his wand already drawn.

"Step aside everyone!" Lockhart called dramatically, "Just a broken arm, I can fix it with a simple charm..."

Harry murmured something, shaking his head, and Lockhart laughed genially. "He doesn't know what he's saying, folks... one moment boy, I'll have it fixed in a jiff..."

The Professor leveled his wand at Harry's arm, began to flick it through the air as he opened his mouth to speak, and then screamed as his arm broke in three places. There was a shocked hush as Lockhart screamed pitiably on the ground next to Harry, who seemed to only want to move away from the Professor.

Xander, in the stands, meanwhile glanced at Wednesday who was sliding her wand away.

"Didn't know you cared about Harry," he said.

"I do not. I, however, care a great deal less about that fool."

"Fair enough. Teach me that one?"

Wednesday considered for a moment, then nodded curtly.

"Cool."

The excitement over the match only lasted a few hours, however, before it was eclipsed by something far more sinister.

The mysterious agent of the Chamber had struck again, and this time it wasn't a cat.