Regulus crept into the meeting with Sirius in front of him. He was more than nervous as he scanned the room, spotting Severus sitting with Draco and Hermione, locked in a discussion about who knew what. Beside them, James and Lily were occasionally adding in their own opinion until Hermione turned and glared at James with such venom that he visibly shut his mouth.

He recognised various people from school, teachers and students alike, and at one end a cowed-looking Dumbledore was sitting next to a man that had terrified him for years, Alastor Moody. He wanted to be anywhere other than here if he was honest, but he wasn't stupid. This was his only ticket out and he had to hold on to it with both hands, even if he desperately wanted to let go and run.

"Let's go and sit down," Sirius murmured low enough that only he could hear him. "You can sit next to Snape or Draco if you'll feel better."

Silently he nodded, heading for the seat next to Severus. "Welcome to the insanity," Severus muttered.

"That's not comforting."

"Oh?" Severus smirked. "I wasn't aware I was trying to be."

"Right," Minerva called. "As you can see Regulus Black has joined us." There were general murmurings. "Have you spoken to him about our request?"

Hermione shook her head. "Not yet."

"Well, now is as good a time as any," Minerva declared. "Mr. Black, we require your help. Inside Malfoy Manor is a diary we need. I imagine the protections will be vast."

Regulus nodded slowly. "I see."

"You are the only one with access."

He exhaled loudly. "And is someone catching me with it going to get me murdered?"

"Yes," Hermione replied bluntly. "It's black, with Tom Marvolo Riddle written on the cover. For the love of fucking Merlin, do not write in it. It will be blank."

He frowned. "It's a Horcrux isn't it?"

"Yes. So can you help?"

"Yes," he muttered. "But if I die, I'm coming back to haunt you."

Hermione inclined her head as if thinking about it, "That seems fair, all things considered."

He snorted despite himself. "You're fucking insane, you know that? Cousin, are you sure you want to marry her?"

Draco grinned. "Absolutely."

"Right. Well, moving on," Minerva interrupted with a small twitch of her lips. "Has he given any indication of when he wishes Kreacher?"

Regulus shook his head. "Not yet."

"Very well," Minerva sighed. "Hermione, do you have the portkey?"

"Oh! Yes, here." She thrust a button at Regulus. "Use it if you're desperate. It'll take you here. No one can latch on, but it sort of goes without saying that it's really only for emergency use. It cuts through anti-portkey wards too."

"I..how in the name of Circe!" Regulus stared back at her dumbfounded.

"We're very smart," Hermione retorted cheekily. "And at one point we very desperately needed them."

"Sweet Salazar," he breathed.

"Now. On to the report. Mr. Snape, have you been questioned yet?"

"No. I'm not due to meet with him until next week. He wants potions and is expecting an update."

"Do you have one to give him?"

"Unfortunately," he muttered. "What he wants is technically possible, but some of the ingredients are….not quite so easy to get."

Minerva sighed. "Am I to assume him getting a hold of this potion would be a terrible idea?"

Severus snorted. "Yes."

"Wonderful. Stall him if you can but don't risk your life or your safety, am I clear?"

"Yes," he sighed.

"Now, are we any further forward with anything else?"

"Not really. We're still trailing a few, but no ones up to much just yet," Dorcas admitted. "Nothing new appears to be being planned, although Benjy heard something about a Ministry takeover."

"He's not considering it yet," Regulus muttered. "Not enough people on the inside."

"He's aiming to manoeuvre them there?" Charlus asked.

"Yes. He was working on it the last I heard."

Minerva nodded. "If you get specific names, do let us know."

"Of course. He was throwing out several. He can't seem to decide between having someone well known like Lucius, Thoros, and Corban strategically placed or using unknowns and therefore people we wouldn't necessarily suspect."

Minerva let out a sigh. "Let's hope he goes for conspicuous. It'll be easier for us. Well, if no one has anything more, I'll let you go. Remember the word to call an emergency meeting is Tabby. If you can't cast a Patronus come and speak to me and I'll arrange lessons."

Regulus blinked. "You can all cast a Patronus?"

"Most of us," Sirius agreed.

"Will you…will you teach me?"

"Of course. We can make them talk too," Sirius grinned.

"Offering lessons Sirius?" Benjy called. "I can't bloody get it."

"Me either," Marlene agreed.

"What? No, not all of you!"

"We'll help," Hermione cut in. "We're not doing much else."

"What's yours, Kitten?" Hermione cast. "Is that…a lioness?"

"Yup. It used to be an otter. I sort of miss it."

"That's way more impressive than an otter!" Sirius breathed. "What's yours?"

"A bloody lion," Draco groused. "Utterly ridiculous."

"Awww, it just means you love me," Hermione cooed as he pulled a face of distaste.

Sirius snorted. "Right. So, Reggie, Marls, Benjy. Anyone else?"

Everyone else present shook their heads. "Tomorrow then? Pick some happy memories."

Hermione and Draco walked up to the school in silence, neither of them sure what was waiting for them. "Mr. Malfoy, Miss Potter, come in." Minerva greeted them at the door looking sombre. "I've had Hagrid acquire you a rooster. Professor Flitwick, Professor Sinistra, and I will accompany you into the Chamber. But first, I assume you wish to acquire the diadem?"

"Yes, Professor. We'll need to head to the seventh floor."

If McGonagall was confused, she didn't show it. "Very well, do you want assistance?"

"Perhaps it would be best," Hermione sighed. "More eyes and all, in case it's not where I think it is."

"Very well," Minerva agreed, following her to the requisite corridor. Once there, she watched as Hermione walked in front of a section of wall silently wondering what on earth she was doing. She jumped when a door appeared. "Good Godric! You'll explain how it works before you leave?"

"Of course, Professor. Let's get this over with first."

Gingerly they opened the door. Hermione's heart rate accelerated as she attempted to block out Vincent Crabbe's screams from the last time she'd been there. Beside her, Draco was also pale, desperately occluding so they could get through this. He felt Hermione's hand slip into his, holding on tightly.

"It won't happen this time," she murmured.

Draco gulped but nodded. "Let's find the damn thing and get out of here."

"We're looking for a bust of an old warlock and a vanishing cabinet. I think it's up this way."

"This is…" Minerva trailed off, looking around her at the towering piles of things.

"The room of hidden things," Hermione supplied. "I'm sure there are some rare books in here. Maybe see if the elves can sort it out at some point?"

"They'd be delighted," Minerva replied dryly.

Slowly, they picked their way through the mountains of forgotten belongings. Draco paused at the vanishing cabinet before incinerating it. Minerva arched a brow, but didn't comment. Finally, they heard Hermione's voice call, "Over here!"

"Gods it's beautiful," Minerva breathed, her eyes on the diadem.

"Yes," Hermione murmured. "Shame he desecrated it."

"There's no saving it?"

"None. It needs to be totally destroyed." Minerva hummed, looking regretful.

"How do we get it down?" Draco asked quietly.

"We climb," Hermione sighed. "It can't be summoned, so we'll need to go to it."

"Of fucking course we do," he muttered. "I'll go."

Hermione shook her head. "No. I'm lighter and less likely to topple things. Just….maybe have your wands handy for a levitation charm when I inevitably slip."

Draco snorted. "At least you're realistic. Although….weren't there brooms in here?"

Hermione froze. "Yes!" she breathed. "Yes, there bloody was. Try and summon one and cross your fingers that someone didn't stash them between now and our time."

"Accio broom," Draco said succinctly. There was a beat of several seconds where nothing happened before the sounds of junk shifting caught their attention. A broomstick flew out of a hole in one of the piles and into Draco's outstretched hand. "It's a Comet one sixty. Gods these were worth thousands in our time!" he grinned.

"Fabulous. We'll keep it for the next twenty years and then sell it, but for right now we need it to actually work."

"Want to do it, Princess?"

"You know perfectly well that I do not," Hermione responded primly as Draco laughed at her.

"Not a flyer, Miss Potter?" Minerva enquired.

"No. It's…not normal! I much prefer my feet on the ground."

Kicking off, Draco grinned. "Gods this is amazing! Not quite as responsive as the Nimbus, but it's not far off, and given that it's ancient, that's pretty impressive."

"We're not here for a broom review Draco. Get the corrupted tiara so we can leave!"

"Yes Boss!" he saluted, making her sigh before edging closer to the diadem. Hermione and Minerva watched, holding their breath as he reached for it. Neither of them exhaled until he was on the ground again.

"Well that was anticlimactic," Minerva muttered.

Hermione snorted. "Wait til we try to kill it. It'll be dramatic enough then. Can we hope the basilisk is similarly drama free?"

"We can hope," Draco muttered. "Is there a plan?"

"Hope my parseltongue is up to scratch and wing it?" Hermione ventured.

"Seriously, Princess?"

She shrugged. "It's not like any of our plans have ever worked, now is it? Winging it was what we always ended up doing, so I figured we could just cut out the middle bit."

He shook his head, smiling ruefully. "Fair enough. Let's go and wing a basilisk murder and pretend that that statement isn't fucking insane."

"I'll collect the others," Minerva agreed, stepping out of the room, pausing to watch with interest as the door shrank and disappeared.

"You walk three times in front of that wall thinking about what you want," Hermione supplied in response to Minerva's unasked question.

"It's that simple?"

"It's that simple," Hermione nodded.

Hermione and Draco booth took a deep breath as they walked into Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. "Are we sure this is correct?" Filius asked with a frown. Beside him, Aurora clutched her rooster tighter.

"Definitely correct," Hermine muttered, peering at the sinks as she searched for the snake. "Ah! Gods, please let this work." She let out a string of nonsense hissing that sounded vaguely right and waited. Nothing happened. "God damn it!" she muttered before trying again. Slowly, the old mechanisms screeched as a hole formed and the sinks moved out of the way.

"Well done Miss Potter," Minerva muttered. "It's…well it's not what I was expecting."

Hermione hummed. "I can't imagine why. Lovely spot for a secret chamber housing a monster, don't you think?"

"How do we get down?" Professor Sinistra voiced hesitantly.

"Oh. We jump," Hermione grinned.

"And how do we get back up?" she squeaked.

"Elf or broomstick."

"And do we have broomsticks?"

"I do. Maybe we should acquire a few more, actually."

Minerva rolled her eyes. "This is why…what phrase did you use? Winging it is not the best idea. Cally!"

"Yous bes wanting Cally?" the elf asked as she popped into existence beside them.

"Yes. Could you get…four brooms from the broom shed please."

"Three! I'm not riding on my own," Hermione cut in quickly, ignoring the slightly startled looks of her former professors. Draco snorted but was wise enough not to comment as they waited for the elf to reappear.

"Everyone take one," Minerva instructed once Cally had handed the brooms over. "And then, I suppose we'll jump."

"I'll go first," Draco announced, heading towards the ledge, peering down at the seemingly endless tunnel. "Couldn't we fly down?"

Hermione paused. "Probably, actually."

He huffed. "Get on. Princess." Gingerly, she complied, clinging to him tightly as she buried her face in his back. She didn't move until she felt his feet touch the ground. She heard the Professors land beside them, the rooster giving a disgruntled squawk as it was jostled.

"Where to now?" Minerva asked brusquely, looking around the chamber with an expression of distaste.

"This way," Hermione murmured. "I don't know for sure where it is, in our time it was roaming the pipes, but perhaps starting in the inner chamber is our best bet."

Minerva nodded as she followed Hermione and Draco towards the door decorated with snakes. Filius and Aurora walked behind them silently.

Steeling herself, she hissed in an approximation of Harry's parseltongue commands. None of them moved as the snakes rearranged themselves and the door swung open, revealing a walkway flanked with snake sculptures and the imposing stone rendition of Salazar himself.

"Well…no one could accuse him of being modest," Minerva muttered.

Filius snorted, but stifled it quickly as the sound reverberated around the chamber. "Now, where would you hide your giant, murderous pet snake," Hermione mused, her eyes darting around the chamber.

"Potter said it came out his mouth," Draco reminded her, grimacing. "It was a horrifying thought before…but now.."

"Yeah… let's not dwell on that, thank you," Hermione shuddered. "Apparently Salazar was in dire need of a Mind Healer."

Draco grinned. "Fancy a fly, Princess?" He waved his broom at her for emphasis.

"What? Why?"

"Let's go look in the crazy man's eyes and see if we can find his pet."

"Oh…." Hermione huffed, clearly arguing with herself. "Fine. Fine, we…we can do that."

Draco arched a brow, but waited until she had gotten a hold of herself before levelling the broom. "Hop on then."

"You're enjoying this," she muttered.

"You riding my broomstick, Princess? Always." He grinned, dodging out of the way of her hand only to be clipped on the back of the head by Minerva who was doing a better job of hiding her amusement than her colleagues.

"That's quite enough of that, Mr. Malfoy," she commanded brusquely.

"Sorry Professor," he muttered, sitting down on the broom, holding it steady for Hermione. "We'll be back in a moment." Hermione almost laughed at how chastened he looked as she climbed on in front of him, feeling him wrap an arm around her waist to pull her back. "Hold on tight, Princess," he murmured into her ear as he jerked the handle of the broom up and headed towards Salazar's face.

Gingerly Hermione climbed off and into an eye socket, trying not to think how utterly bizarre that sounded in her head. Creeping forward carefully, she cast a Lumos, angling her wand through the pupil of the statue in an attempt to see. Gleaming scales reflected the light back at her and she drew in a sharp breath. She knew it couldn't touch her but the lingering fear was still present. An aching sadness for Harry hit her as she took in the giant coils of the snake. They hadn't really had time during the final battle to appreciate its size, but she vividly remembered the short, scrawny, twelve-year-old Harry had been. It was miraculous that he had survived.

"Princess?" Draco called softly, startling her out of her thoughts.

"It's in here," she called back.

"Is there enough room for the rooster?"

"Surely we can just hold it up to the hole?"

Draco nodded. "Probably," he agreed. "How are we going to make it crow?"

Hermione froze, realising she hadn't considered that as she edged her way back to him. "I don't know. Let's hope one of the Professors has an idea."

He nodded, silently guiding her back onto the broomstick and taking them back down to the floor of the chamber.

"Well?" Minerva asked.

"It's in there. There are holes for the pupils though, so the rooster can be held there and the noise should reach it. Has ah…anyone got a plan for making it crow?"

Minerva tisked. "Of course we do Miss Potter. Filius is going to cast a Lumos Solem."

"Ah." Hermione nodded slowly. "That's…rather clever."

Minerva arched a brow. "I have no idea how you survived to reach us given your lack of foresight, Miss Potter."

Hermione shrugged. "To be fair, Professor, we did make plans…they just didn't often work and we ended up having to wing it surrounded by chaos. You sort of get used to it."

Minerva closed her eyes as if praying for patience. "I'm very glad you have the help of the entire Order this time," she muttered.

"Me too," Hermione murmured back, leaning into Draco as she contemplated how differently things might have gone if they'd had it in their time.

"How are we getting the venom?" Draco asked suddenly. "None of us can reach it."

All of them froze. "That is a problem, Mr. Malfoy," Minerva muttered. "Was there space for a person to fit through the eye?"

"No," Draco replied slowly. "How attached to Salazar's face are you?"

"It's a historic artefact!" Aurora replied scandalised as she realised what he was thinking.

Hermione snorted. "Please Professor, if you have any other ideas, we're all ears."

The woman whimpered but remained silent. "Is it possible there's a trigger to open the mouth?" Filius asked quietly.

"Yes," Draco sighed. "Will we kill the giant snake and then look? If we can't find it though, Salazar is just going to have to accept the loss of an eye."

"Very well," Filius murmured. "Aurora, can you take the rooster up? I'll cast the charm."

"How do we know it's dead?" Hermione asked quietly.

"I can cast a healer's charm that monitors vital statistics," Aurora replied. "It'll tell us whether the rooster worked."

Hermione nodded. "Ok," she murmured, watching as the Professor flew up to Salazar's eye and cast a charm she was unfamiliar with. A small rectangle pulsed with information she was too far away to see.

"In place!" Aurora called, as Draco wrapped an arm around Hermione from behind.

"Lumos Solem!" Flitwick called, guiding the light towards the rooster who appeared to blink in confusion for a moment before it crowed. The resulting high-pitched scream of the healer's charm made all of them wince. "I think it worked," Filius muttered wryly.

"Now, let's spread out and see if we can find a way in," Minerva commanded, as Aurora and what appeared to be a stunned rooster reappeared.

"He was getting agitated," Aurora offered by way of an explanation.

Draco snorted, but tugged Hermione towards Salazar's face, carefully eyeing the floor in case anything was obvious as she began circling the statue, running her hands over the stone as she slowly climbed up the depiction of his beard.

"There's something here!" McGonagall called from the other side of the head several minutes later. Cautiously, they made their way back down to find the witch standing on his moustache, eyeing his right nostril with interest.

"You have got to be kidding me," Draco muttered as Hermione stifled a laugh. "Get on the broom, Princess. I'm not climbing up the other side of Salazar's beard. I can't quite believe I climbed the first side."

Laughing properly now, Hermione did as she was told, allowing him to take the broom up to hover near Minerva. Aurora and Filius were close behind them. "There's a sort of indent," Minerva muttered. "I….well it could be anything, but why hide it here?"

"Seems a bit strange," Hermione agreed. "Then again, word has it he was a strange man so…."

Minerva snorted. "Indeed, Miss Potter."

"We're going to push the indent aren't we?" Draco sighed.

"Yes," Minerva and Hermione agreed simultaneously.

"Bloody Gryffindors," Draco muttered, earning a smirk from Flitwick.

"If someone could catch me if this goes horribly wrong, I'd be most grateful," Minerva announced before she touched her wand to the indent and pushed. There was a grinding of stone as Salazar's mouth opened. "Well," she grinned, "That solves that."

"Dragonhide gloves, everyone," Filus called. "And for the love of Merlin, don't touch its eyes. They were closed, Miss Potter?"

"Oh…I…yes. Yes, they were."

"You're sure?"

"Reasonably?" she hedged.

"For the love of Circe," Draco muttered, raising his wand. "With your permission?"

Hermione nodded, feeling the familiar invasion as he cast a silent legilimens and entered her mind. She shoved the memory forward. "They were closed," he announced.

"Good. Don't touch them." Filius nodded. "We'll need to render it down. Merlin only knows what could be done with the scales and flesh, but for today fangs only. We can cast a stasis charm on it for when this is over. Miss Potter, you'll help us return?"

"Yes," She agreed slowly. "On the condition that Severus gets some parts to play with. He…he really is a genius with potions. I can only imagine what he could do with a previously undiscovered ingredient."

Filius nodded. "Very well. I can't see the harm. Now, shall we get those fangs and get out? The damp is starting to become bothersome."

Half an hour later they stood in Minerva's office, triumphantly holding a reinforced bag of basilisk fangs and several vials of venom. "Charlus has agreed to store these for us," Minerva informed them, handing the bag over. "Take it and the diadem straight to him. We do not want them getting into the wrong hands. I've opened my floo for you to use. And Miss Potter, Mr. Malfoy…." she paused, waiting until they were looking at her. "Well done. We…we will never be able to repay what you've done, but thanks to you, the end is in sight. This is the first step."

Hermione swallowed audibly but nodded, her throat feeling too constricted to answer. Minerva was right. This was the first step towards the end. For the first time since Harry's death, she allowed herself to believe that maybe, just maybe, they could actually do this. Beside her, Draco kept a tight grip on her as he led her towards the floo, wrapping his arms around her tightly, the bag and Horcrux box squashed between them as he called out their destination.