Chapter 17: Through The Gates Again
Harry leaned on the table staring down at the marauders' map nibbling on his fingernails. He could feel the eyes on him but was trying very hard to ignore them. But after another ten minutes, he huffed.
"What?" he snapped.
"Pup…" Sirius said slowly. "You should go rest-"
"There's no time to rest." Harry snarled. "We need to get to Hogwarts and find the horcrux before Voldemort does. He's already amassing his armies. We need to find a way into the castle and find it!"
"Harry you almost suffocated." Dudley snarled. Harry flinched.
"I'm fine." he insisted. "How are we gonna get into Hogwarts without getting caught?" the five companions exchanged looks, Susan being the most exhausted-looking of them all. Ron was the first to shake his head but join Harry's side.
"Shrieking shack?" he offered. Harry shook his head.
"Too obvious. Plus snape knows about it, so it's probably guarded." harry muttered.
"Honeydukes?" Hermione questioned.
"Too deep in Hogsmeade," Dudley argued. "I bet you anything death eaters are swarming that place like wasps."
"There are seven secret passageways out of Hogwarts," Harry muttered, pointing to them on the map. "Filch knows about these three. This one caved in a few years ago and we don't have time to blast through it. That leaves this one…"
"That leads out to the forbidden forest…" Ron muttered.
"And I think I know where," Harry muttered darkly. "I thought it was odd that Aragog managed to get out of Hogwarts without getting caught…"
"Nope!" Ron shouted. "No no no no nope. We are not going back into that fucking hellscape! I've already been bloody scared for life once thanks!"
"I'm not sure I want to know…" Susan muttered, giving the still pale Ron a side eye.
"There's an acromantuala nest in the forbidden forest," Harry admitted flatly. Sirius choked on his saliva.
"There's wot?!" he demanded roughly. Then he leaned back. "Blood hell…" then he looked at the particular passageway with a queasy look. "Well thank god we got bored with that one… its the longest passageway. After walking for about an hour we agreed it wasn't worth it and gave up on mapping the rest." then suddenly Sirius gasped and pulled the map closer. "Oh my god…"
"What?" Harry asked. Sirius looked up with a grin.
"We missed one!" he admitted. "There are eight passageways, not seven… only." he trailed off and rubbed his beard thoroughly.
"What?" harry cried hopefully. "Is the entrance accessible?"
"Probably," Sirius muttered. "But it might be a touch hard to get to."
"Why? Harry demanded. "Where is it?" Sirius put his finger on the map. The group frowned and looked up at him with a raised eyebrow.
"Uh… Sirius." Ron said with a huff. "That's the black lake." the old animagus nodded with a firmly closed mouth.
"Are you saying…" Harry began before the meaning sunk in.
"The entrance is underwater?!"
Deep in the dungeons of Hogwarts was a portrait of a woman pouring a massive jug of water into a comically tiny glass. In 1976 four friends were jovially playing with a toy water gun that one of their number had brought with him from the summer. The water splashed the woman right in the face. She had grumbled and muttered curses before swinging open. That had been 21 years ago. Back then, they discovered the basin hidden behind the portrait and thought nothing of it, though they would come to revisit it a few years later. On this day, however, the long silence of the room was suddenly ended. Dudley Dursley was the first to emerge from the tunnel, being the strongest swimmer. He helped Ron out of the water, followed by Hermione and Susan. Harry and Sirius appeared next. They all shook themselves out before Hermione pulled out her wand and charmed them all dry again. Harry began looking around curiously.
"When we first found this place we thought it was an old prefect bathroom," Sirius admitted with a grin. "Then Peter tripped into it and said that it was way deeper than we'd originally thought it would be. But I guess we forgot to map it out."
"I don't find that very surprising," Hermione muttered. "That was harrowing… especially when the door closed behind us…" Harry had to admit, the sudden plunge into cold wet darkness had been a bit jarring, though Susan had quickly ended it with a spell.
"Alright!" Harry cried before pulling out the map again. "The thing we're looking for belongs to Ravenclaw. I think we should focus on the places associated with her." he looked up to Hermione.
"Ravenclaw tower, the library, the astronomy tower and the clock tower." Hermione listed off.
"Big fan of towers," Dudley remarked with a chuckle.
"We should take take into account any connection to You-Know-Who," Susan argued. Harry nodded.
"Slytherin common room, the chamber of secrets…"
"Trophy Room," Ron argued. Harry gave him a confused face. "Remember that award to Tom Riddle I had to polish over and over? If he was so worried about being connected to muggles, why did he leave it there when he hid the horcrux here?"
"That's a good point," Harry admitted. "Alright, Sirius, you go with Hermione, hit Ravenclaw tower first, then check all the other places. You know Hogwarts best, so you can get around quickest. Dudley, you and Ron take the map and head to the trophy room. Look for anything out of the ordinary. Susan, you and I will hit the chamber of secrets. The route to its entrance is the most public, but we can get around unnoticed the easiest." Harry muttered before pulling out his watch. "Keep an eye on the time. Meet back here in an hour." The group all nodded. Sirius pushed open the portrait. But when it swung open it hit someone in the face. Sirius yelped and everyone stumbled backwards.
"What in the world…" a woman began before stepping around the portrait. She was dressed as a death eater, and blinked at them dumbly. "Po-" she began. But Sirius fired a stunner and she toppled over lifelessly.
"Bloody hell!" Another much more familiar voice cried in shock.
"Neville?" Harry called out nervously. The teen poked his head around the portrait. His smile was beaming.
"Harry!"
"Neville!" Dudley cried back with his own smile. Then it faltered. "Bloody hell mate what happened to your face?"
"She did," Neville said darkly with a jerk of his head to the crumpled woman below him. "Alecto Carrow. Really lives up to her name. Her and her twin brother are the new dark arts professors. They've usurped Umbridge for the lowest spot on the Lupin to Lockhart scale."
"Dark arts?! They teach dark arts here now?" Hermione cried in Alarm. Neville's chuckle became sardonic.
"Yeah, Hogwarts has gone through a bit of a makeover this year." He joked in black humor. "But not all the changes are bad! I can show you a really good one in fact! But first," he looked down at his 'professor' with a sneer. "What's should we do with her?" The group stared down when suddenly two members eyes lit up.
"I have an idea." Harry and Ron cried in unison before flashing each other matching smiles.
It was much easier lifting Alecto Carrow at 17 than it had been lifting Crabbe and Goyle at 12. But still just as,if not more, satisfying when they slid her wand into the door Handle barring her exit.
"You know, there's just about stuffing Slytherin a into broom cupboards." Ron snickered.
"Oi!" Dudley yelped.
"Well not you!" Ron amended "other dickish Slytherins."
"She'll be in for a rough time when she wakes up that's for sure." Neville offered, though his grin was just as sniggering. "Now come on! Its the weekend, so everyone should be in their common rooms, but Dinner 'll be starting soon." Then he led them down a dimly lit corridor until they stopped in front of a painting Harry had never seen before. It was a portrait of a wizened old wizard, with a long, wild, bushy grey beard and a vaguely familiar tatty old hat. His robes were equally tatty and worn with age, but might have been red at one point. On his hip he had a rusty empty scabbard, a dull-looking knife, and an empty wand holster. He was leaning against a sign at a crossroads smoking a pipe. The arrow pointing to the left read: HOGWARTS, 1km. "Oi Gariff! Open up yeah?" Neville barked. The wizard tilted his head, so that his eyes peeked out from under his hats brim. Harry was astounded by how much strength was smoldering in them.
"Ah…" the man began withdrawing his pipe, thick northerner accent drawing out. "Young maestur longbahum. An guess I see."
"Yes sir," Neville spoke with a grin.
"Hmm," Gariff remarked, giving each other them a glance. Then he went back to casually leaning against the sign. "Given my regards to the others won ya lad." He drawled before swinging open, revealing a passage beyond.
"Will do!" Neville called back leading the other down the tunnel.
"I don't think this passage is on the map." Sirius mutter casually.
"It wouldn't be." Neville called back with a grin, "it just showed up a few weeks back, along with the others."
"Others?" Hermione questioned. Suddenly Neville stopped.
"Wait here for a second." He muttered before he pushed open the portrait of the other end.
"Hey guys!" He called into a cavernous sounding room beyond.
"Bloody hell it's Neville!" The very familiar lilt of Seamus Finnegan cried in awe.
"Blimey!" Colin Creevey exclaimed ecstatically. "I thought the Carrows caught you! How'd you get away?"
"Well I had some help," Neville admitted before shooting his grin back to his still hiding companions. Harry grinned and walked into the light beyond.
"HARRY!" rose the jubilant cry of the smattering of students beyond. Dozens of other old friendly faces could be seen in the crowd, including Hannah and Ernie, Cho and the Patil twins, lavender, Ginny, and Colin's little brother Denis. There were students from every house present, though the few Slytherins were in the younger years, so Harry didn't know them all that well. They seemed to be sticking close to the fringes, drawn forward occasionally by one of their friends in the other houses. But everyone had a smile. They all receive handshakes, or pats on the back. The cries of 'dragons over London?! Was that you?!' and 'nice work with the ministry!' were very prevalent. But a few interactions stood out.
"Come here you wanker!" Ginny roared at Ron angrily, marching up to her brother and punching him in the arms "that's for leaving without tell me you knob-end!" She punched him again, "that's for giving mum bloody kittens!" And one last punch, "and that's for ruining Bill and Fleur's wedding!"
"Owww…" Ron moaned in agony, clutching his arm. "Not that shoulder again…"
"Dean?!" Susan cried over the cacophony, "what are you doing here?! Last I saw you were with Gripnok and Fangtor!"
"We would have been caught by snatchers if it weren't for the maintenance team," Dean said with a grin. "They got me to Hogsmeade, and Abe got me here."
"Who's Abe?"
"Abeforth." Seamus explained, "Dumbledore's brother. He runs the hogshead pub. Brings us food when the elves can't get it to us. Nice bloke. Bit cagey sometimes, but alright."
"Arianna's was the first portrait that showed up," Neville explained before he led the group back over to the wall they'd emerged through. There were five portraits on the well, as well as all four of Hogwart's crests. The middle portrait featured a young woman with a kind casual smile and the same icy blue eyes dumbledore had had, though without his signature twinkle. "The others just kinda showed up after." To the left and right of her were four other portraits. Each was a single window to a room, with distinct design. The Rightmost was a hunting lodge, complete with a massive elk's head over a roaring fire. The subject was missing though.
"That's Gariff's," Neville explained. "They each take turns guarding." And it wasn't hard to figures out who 'they' were. The other three portraits had living subjects.
"It's very nice to meet you!" The buxom woman in the kitchen cried jovially, thick German accent sounding kind. "I am Heidi! Zis is Regina und Vasco!"
"Pleasure." The man in the solarium drawled.
"Quite " the woman in the library added. The two woman were opposites. Where Heidi was short and plump, with white hair tied up in a messy bun and a face marked by heavy set laugh lines and a smattering of flour with a mixing bowl in her arm, Regina was tall and lithe with long loose dark hair, and very put together with a tightly corseted dress. There wasn't a speck of dust into the little study she lived in. She was sitting at her desk, book in one hand, quill in the other. Vasco was also the opposite of Garriff in every way. His coffee toned skin and short manicured beard gave him a severe angular sort of face. His outfit was very crisp and short, with flared pants cutting of at the knees and trimmed shirt at the elbows. He wore an array of fine rings on his fingers and several gold earrings. The telescope, which he periodically gazed into gleamed in the sun. He practically breathed wealth and power.
"Where are we?" Harry finally asked.
"Mate, it's the room of requirement," Dean said with a grin. Harry blinked in shock.
"Neville found it first. He started to let others in after. The Carrows like to come after people who fight back, so we needed someplace to lay low for a bit without leaving. Not that we really could, what with death eaters crawling all over the border and Hogsmeade."
"Told you," Dudley remarked.
"One day one of us got hungry, then Ariana showed up. Then one day Ginny forgot her… lady things…"Dean muttered, Ginny smacked his arm. "And the others showed up. They're all hidden down a hallway that's not too far from the commons. Gariff guards Slytherin, Vasco guards Ravenclaw, Heidi guards Gryffindor and Regina guards Hufflepuff."
"This is brilliant!" Harry cried with a grin. "It's like Hogwarts itself is fighting back!"
"My thoughts exactly. There are other new passages too! Just look for a lion, badger, snake or an eagle. Any of them will lead somewhere else." Neville remarked with a grin.
"Brilliant!" Ron cried. "It'll be much easier to get where we need to go now!"
"Where do you need to go?" Ginny asked.
"Yeah, what are you doing back here anyway Harry?" Seamus asked. The room fell utterly quiet.
"Er…" Harry began nervously. "Well… we're searching for a magic item that used to belong to Rowena Ravenclaw."
"Ravenclaw?" Seamus asked.
"Has anyone heard the diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw?" Hermione asked hopefully.
"You mean the lost diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw?" Pavarti asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Yes!" Hermione cried jubilantly.
"Well no," Cho argued with a scoff, "because it's 'lost'." She emphasized with finger quotes.
"Yeesh Harry, did you really date her?" Dudley hissed into his ear.
"Shut up." Both he and Susan hissed back in embarrassment.
"Well believe it or not that 'lost' diadem or whatever has been hiding somewhere here at Hogwarts this whole time." Ron piped up. "And we've got to find, or we won't be able to win this war."
"Where do you want us to look?" Neville offered, while several others nodded in rapid agreement. Harry winced and opened his mouth to argue against their help, but Sirius put a hand on his shoulder.
"It will go a lot faster with more people helping." He argued. Harry weighed Thai then nodded.
"Right! Well, we've thought of a few-" the rest of his words were cut off by an intercom message. The voice filled Harry's veins with fire.
"Attention. All students must present themselves to the great Hall immediately. There will be no exceptions. Failure to appear will result in. harsh. punishments." Severus Snape finished with a firm annunciation. The intercom died again with Neville grinning.
"Brilliant! As soon as everyone's down there the halls will be empty and we… Harry?" He ended nervously. Harry's hands he white knuckles around the map. Thanks to countless charms and protections it remains intact and would smooth out like new. Regular parchment would probably have torn. Especially with how his hands were shaking.
"No." He finally snarled hoarsely. When he looked up Neville flinched slightly. Harry smiled, that same cold glint in his eyes. "No, I think we should head down to the Great Hall. After all, the headmaster summoned us." He drawled 'headmaster' coldly. Then he hummed in thought. "Sirius, gather the Order. If we're going to do this, we're going to need all the help we can get."
"Going to do what?" Seamus demanded. Harry grinned.
"I think it's time we take back Hogwarts!" He cried exuberantly. The crowd broke out in jubilant cries. Sirius tossed Harry a look of growing pride, though his eyes had been growing slowly more wearied as the day went on.
"Come on," Harry muttered to Susan, grabbing her hand and dragging her towards a few students who were handing out spare robes.
"Harry wait," Susan whispered, pulling him to a stop. "Please… don't do anything reckless about Snape… I know you're angry… I know you said-"
"He killed my parents." Harry snarled.
"No, he didn't!" Susan hissed desperately, "You-Know-Who did!"
"But he-"
"Yes! He delivered the prophecy, but how was he supposed to know it would be about you?" Susan demanded. "There are dozens of prophecies that get delivered and retold every year, Harry. Half of them go unfulfilled. It's not about who delivers them. It's about who acts on them." She took a deep breath, "I believe that Snape is probably as much of a victim of that goddamned prophecy as you are."
"How can you say that?!" Harry cried in horror, "after what he did?! After what he said!"
"I am all for you being angry at him for killing Dumbledore and saying those things to you Harry." Susan snapped. "I'm less okay with you become sucked up into some misdirected vendetta against a man who, from what I understand, loved your mother like a sister, and probably was just as devastated by her death as you are." She put a hand on Harry's cheek. "You're allowed to be upset at him for the things he's done. There are plenty of things to be upset about," Susan admitted. "But don't blame him for You-Know-Who's crimes just because he's an easier target." Harry pulled a twisted grimace of distaste. So Susan pulled out her trump card, as she was so good at doing. "You once promised me you wouldn't lose yourself to revenge. Please don't break your promise." She begged. Harry's face flooded with remorse.
"Oh god… I'm so sorry Susan."
"It's alright," Susan said with a sigh. "I've gotten used to the fact that you just can't seem to keep promises about keeping a level head." Then she grabbed his head and marched up to the student. "Two sets of Gryffindor please." She gave Harry a coy smile, "someone need to keep his out of trouble. Turns out Hermione is really bad at it."
"That's not true!" Hermione cried even as she pulled her tie tight around her neck. "I'm plenty good at keeping Harry out of trouble!" She insisted. All of the present seventh years and some of the sixth years turned to her with unimpressed faces. She looked back at them with irritation before suddenly horror bloomed over her face.
"Oh my god." She gasped. "Oh my god…"
"Oh great!" Ron huffed. "Well done Susan. You've bloody broken her!"
"Keep your voice down." Neville snapped. Then the other portraits all opened up. "Dudley, tell Garriff what's happening."
"Will do." Dudley agreed as he followed the Slytherins back down Garrif's passage. He couldn't help but wonder at how different his life would have been, had he worn these robes for the first time at eleven instead of seventeen.
"What's appenin?" Gariff demanded with raised eyebrows.
"Sheer bloody revolution," Dudley responded with a grin. Gariff's eye lit up.
"Well iss bout bloody time!" He cried before disappearing from the frame as the leat Slytherin, a tiny first year with pigtails, hopped out of the passage. Where he went was a mystery.
"Which way is the commons?" Dudley asked. The little Slytherin grabbed his hand.
"This way." She said cheerfully before pulling him along.
In the now empty room for requirement, Vasco was strapping his wand holsters to his forearms, while Heidi pulled on an outer robe and Regina rolled up her sleeves.
"Ah!" Regina called with a smile as Gariff walked into his frame, her french accent a sharp contrast to his own. "Ze Dursley boy told you zen?"
"That he did," Gariff responded before he reached for something just out of frame. It was a silver sword with a hilt covered in rubies.
"Vell!" Heidie bellowed. "Ve've been hiding in ze shadows long enough da?"
"Indeed." Vasco barked, a thick Spanish accent rolling off the tongue. There was a loud hissing noise before a massive cobra landed on his shoulders. "Time to show this 'dark lord' what Hogwarts truly means. We are not so defenceless as he thinks after all."
"No." Gariff agreed with a wide grin and the fire in his eyes "we are not." Then he marched out of his frame again. He appeared in a blank landscape in the North Tower. The distant sounds of many moving feet would have once put a smile on his face, proof positive of all the good they'd done in the long run, but now just filled his with grim determination. "SIR CADOGAN!" he bellowed, before giving a very shrill whistle. There was a loud clanking before the knight charged it, fat little pony snorting excitedly.
"My lord!" The knight cried ecstatically, repeatedly flipping his visor back up as it clanged shut. "Is it time my lord?!"
"Indeed it is Sir Cadogan," Gariff said with a nod. "Spread the word. I have to rouse the hunt."
"I've kept him safe for you, sir, just as promised," Cadogan said as he passed the pony's reigns to the old wizard.
"Thank you, Sir Cadogan," Gariff said before he effortlessly climbed up. "Let's go, Chauncey!" And then the horse was off, galloping at a speed Cadogan could never manage. The knight beamed as Gariff disappeared before clanging away in the other direction.
There was much to do. Portraits to rouse, ghosts to wrangle, books to free!
It seemed Hogwarts had woken from her long slumber.
And Lord Voldemort would regret it.
A/N: Good evening my dears,
I have dragged myself from my sickbed to deliver this to you.
I might do paintings of the four portraits at some point,
Idk yet,
I am very ill (probably sinus infection, possibly just a really REALLY bad cold. But it's not the plague, I have two tests to prove it) and don't have much energy for really anything, hence why this is being posted today and not yesterday.
chao-hellsing: I must admit, the sheer panic of your laughter made me smile. Thank you for that, I needed a bit of a boost after such a shitty week. :)
Aslan's Princess: I will never agree with animal abuse. No matter what animal it is. I don't even agree with abusing tarantulas, and I'm severely arachnophobic. You want it as a pet that's fine, just take proper care of it. (and proper care includes keeping it faaaaaarrrr away from me)
Dudley is such a joy in this series, he's really grown.
But I think he rather ruined all of his good karma with the goblins when he helped crash a dragon through their floor and ceiling and destroyed the entrance to the bank. XD
Bellatrix did get him pretty good, but Sirius wouldn't let something like that et him down.
TIS BUT A SCRATCH!
Well, that's all for now!
See you all next week.
I'm gonna go blow my nose so hard my brain melts. Maybe then the sinus headache will go away X(
Don't forget to keep on reading!
-TTC