Chapter 14: My Story

We sit in an empty classroom and I open my golden egg. It emits a bunch of screeches that are so loud we all have to cover our ears. After the noise starts to replay I close the egg and hear Hella sing in my mind, 'Come seek us where our voices sound, we cannot sing above the ground, and while your searching ponder this; we've taken what you'll sorely miss, an hour long you'll have to look, to recover what we took, but past an hour, the prospect's black, too late, it's gone, it won't come back. Mermish.'

'Thanks...and also, ow, my ears.' I think back and hear a laugh in return before saying, "Come on, I'll take us somewhere we can talk without being overheard." they nod and I lead the other three down to the Chamber of Secrets. "Welcome to the famous Chamber of Secrets."

"Really? But what about the monster?" Cedric asks.

"I killed the basilisk in second year." I say as I lead them to the main chamber. We enter and I lead them to Salazar's office where I immediately pull out several books about healing and begin translating them, "Alright, so, I have a bracelet that allows me to communicate with Hella." I say as I write out the instructions from the book into English, "She heard the horrible screeching noise and translated it for me. Apparently its in Mermish, its a small song that we're expected to decipher."

"Mermish? As in the language of Mermaids?" Cedric asks.

"Yes. Lets go over the song line by line as I translate these books for Madam Pomphrey." I say, glancing up and receiving nods of agreement. "Alright so the first line is 'Come seek us where our voices sound, we cannot sing above the ground' seems pretty obvious, we're dealing with Mermaids so we'll be underwater for this task. The next part is, 'and while your searching ponder this; we've taken what you'll sorely miss'."

"So they'll be taking something precious to us?" Cedric asks

"Yeah, that seems to be the case." I say, "The next line is another obvious one, 'an hour long you'll have to look, to recover what we took' so we need a way to breath underwater for an hour."

"There's several ways to do that. The bubble head charm would work." Cedric says

"The last line is 'but past the hour, the prospect's black, too late, its gone, it won't come back' so I'm pretty sure that if we don't get whatever they took within the hour then the thing we'll sorely miss will die. It's a race against the clock to save something that we value." I say with a scowl, "Any other ideas for the breathing underwater bit? The bubble head charm isn't taught to fourth years."

"I am becoming an animagus." Viktor says, "My form is a shark, but I have yet to fully transform."

"Animagus..." I say thoughtfully as I finish writing a sentence, "That could work."

"What are you thinking, Iris?" Cedric asks.

"Oh, that's more of a thought for in the war than in the task." I say as I finish translating the book I'm working out of and get up. "We could become Animagi, there's a book in here that tells how even something like a Veela can become one. In fact, Cedric, its a book you should be happy to hear was written by your houses founder. Helga Hufflepuff."

"Really?" he asks excitedly.

"Yeah." I say as I walk over to a shelf and grab the book I'm talking about off of it. "The instructions make it so the person doing it has at least two forms though, if you all are alright with that we can do this rather quickly."

"I would love to." Fleur says and the other two nod in agreement.

"Great." I say with a smile before explaining the process. We all get to work and by the end of the hour all of us have managed to fully transform into at least two creatures. Viktor has made his first full transformation into a great white shark and is also a Eagle Hawk, Cedric is a European Honey Badger and an Orca Whale. Fleur turns into a falcon before becoming a leopard seal.

I end up having three forms. The first is a hellcat with coal black fur and emerald green flames on my back and paws. The second one is a small Chinese Fireball, fourteen feet long with onyx black scales and glowing green eyes. The third is an emerald green sea serpent, sixty feet long, with a line of long, thin spikes going down its back, ending about five feet down its spine, black diamond markings along its back and gleaming golden eyes.

We take to our human forms again and look around the room before I decide to take them on a tour of the chamber after a couple hours of reading in the library we go back to Salazar's study and Cedric clears his throat, gaining our attention. I look over at him and he says, "So, just to be clear, you own the chamber, right?"

"Yes. I claimed the line of Slytherin by right of conquest and by doing that I gained the chamber, as well as everything inside it, as my own." I say.

"So these last two years, whenever you would vanish without a trace, you were down here?" he asks curiously and I chuckle a bit.

"No, it actually took me a good two months into last year to come down here again for anything other than refreshing the preservation charms on the basilisk. But those few days I didn't show up to school at the end of my second year was because I was down here. The phoenix that helped me take on the basilisk took Ginny Weasley, her brother Ronald, and the idiot Lockheart and left. My magical core needed to properly bind to the chamber to make it officially mine so I needed to remain down here for at least two days." I tell him.

"Where did you sleep?" Fleur asks curiously and I gesture at a door that's on the wall to my left.

"The bedroom is though there." I say calmly.

"Um...alright, but why did you give us an advantage in this war?" Cedric asks and Fleur gives me a curious look as Viktor takes a seat on the couch that's by the door.

I sigh a bit before saying, "Before I can tell you that I'd have to teach you how to only let Legilimens hear what you want them too because Dumbledore likes to snoop." I say as I turn to them, they all nod so I teach them the trick, "Alright, Viktor already knows, but I side with Loki. What you all don't know is the fact that I have been helping Loki since just before his initial invasion because it's the only way I'm able to get revenge against the people who have wronged me in my life."

"What?" Viktor asks in a shocked tone.

"Let me speak before you all get angry." I say and they nod so I take my seat again, "So, you all know my brother's story, boy-who-lived and all that." they nod. "What you don't know is my story." I then open a nearby cupboard with a flick of my wand and a pensieve floats from it. I sigh before removing the bracelet that makes the mind connection to Hella and pulling several memory copies from my mind, the pensieve floats over and I drop the memories into the intricate silver bowl. "It isn't a happy story, but...come on. I'll show you."

They walk over to me and all four of us enter the memories. Around us the Potters house in Godrics Hollow forms, Harry and I playing with James on the floor while Lily laughs and snaps a picture before just watching us. Cedric frowns at the scene before asking, "Is this..."

"This is the night my brother became famous, yes." I say with a small scowl. "I remembered it thanks to the dementors that were searching for Pettigrew last year." The door bursts down and James tells Lily to take us upstairs. The scene shifts to our room, us in the crib while Lily speaks to us.

We watch as Voldemort bursts in, stuns Lily, and turns towards us, aiming his wand at Harry. Tiny baby me holds her hands up as he casts the killing curse and a brilliant golden shield forms around Harry, shielding him and making the curse rebound against Voldemort. Dumbledore comes and declares that it was Harry who defeated him before suggesting that I be raised by Petunia because Dumbledore thought it was best if I didn't grow up with a famous brother.

"He claimed the victory for Harry?" Cedric asks. "But that was your magic, right?"

"Yes, it was." I say. "The curse was aimed at my brother so I stopped it...but Dumbledore, in all his foolishness, took one look at Harry's scar and decided that the magic must've been his. So, he had my parents ship me off to the Dursley's." the scene shifts and shows me, a one year old baby, sitting up in my cupboard and reading a book. "I learned to read in less than a week because of Vernon."

"Where is this?" Cedric asks.

"The first room I had at the Dursley's house." I say with a small sigh, before we hear the door slam shut, "Someone had cut him off in traffic so he placed blame on the person he loves to the most."

"Who? There's no one he could blame here for that!" Cedric protests and I give him a sad look as I shift a bit away from him and behind Fleur.

"Girl!" Vernon's voice screams before the cupboard door slams open and the smaller me quickly places the book on a shelf and crawls hesitantly forward. A big, meaty hand grabs the tiny me and yanks me out of the cupboard, this is followed by a scream of pain before the memory shifts. Two year old me waddling around, cleaning the house while the Dursley's watch TV, "I was never allowed to do that." I say with a small frown, "Vernon thought it would give me ideas if I did."

"Do what? Watch the Television?" Cedric asks and I give him a look, "A muggleborn friend of mine taught me about them."

"Oh, yes." I say, "I was only allowed near it to dust it. On this particular occasion Vernon saw me glance out the window that's next to the TV and assumed I was watching the show."

We watch Vernon go red in the face before he jumps up and yells, "You aren't allowed to watch the television you little freak!" He storms over and grabs the little me by her hair, yanking it as he forces the tiny me towards the basement door, "I'll teach you to obey me, freak! I got a little surprise for you!"

The memory shifts and we see Aunt Petunia sneak seven slices of bacon into the cupboard. We watch as the younger me eats the bacon before I say, "That's all I got."

"That day?" Fleur asks in a concerned voice and I shake my head.

"That's all I got to eat for the week." I tell her as the memory shifts, three year old me reading a law book in my cupboard.

The tiny me reads something and sighs before standing and getting out of the cupboard, walking over to where the Dursley's are eating the meal I made them that day. "Uncle Vernon." the little me says shyly and he glares down at her. "I just thought you'd like to know that if you officially transfer my custody to Aunt Petunia then the government will pay you money for taking care of me." His eyes shine greedily so tiny me shows him the book and says, "That would give you enough money to buy Dudley the new tricycle he wanted."

"Good job on finding this, Iris." Vernon says with a greedy smile which makes the smaller me give him a confused look, "What is it? As your question."

"Who is Iris?" the smaller me asks which makes Vernon and aunt Petunia pause.

"You..." Fleur says slowly, "You...you didn't..."

"I didn't know my name, no." I say, "I only found out because he was in a good enough mood to let me ask a question. He didn't like when I did that."

"Petunia, surely we've called her that before." Vernon says.

"No, dear, I don't think we have." aunt Petunia says with a sad look that Vernon doesn't notice before looking at the smaller me. "Tell us what you think your name is."

I tilt my head and say at the same time as the smaller me, "My name is Freak."

The memory fades as Vernon explains what my real name is. We then watch seven year old me tend to Strike Tail, and the zoo trip where I released the python until I realize how quiet the others are being. I look over at them and find them looking frozen, and furious. I pause the memories and sit down to wait for them to get over their shock. After a while Cedric says, "You thought..."

"I thought my name was Freak until the age of three, yes." I say calmly. "I have grown to...dislike certain things. The word freak being a big one...let's finish the memories before you rant, yeah?"

They all nod so I play the memories. We watch as I free the python again and I choose to ignore the next several memories as they go through the rest of my 'childhood'. Eventually I get pulled from my silent thoughts when Viktor asks, "What is in the basement? The memories fade before it's shown."

"Nobody here wants to see it." I say blankly, "To put it simply, torture chamber. Keep watching, please. I want to get this over with."

We go through my first year at Hogwarts, which ends with Harry saving the Sorcerers Stone, which I stole before Dumbledore could destroy and sent back to the Flamel's. Then the memory shifts to just before my second year, I ignore it as a drunken Vernon takes a glass shard to my face, Dobby watching quietly from the closet.

The scene shifts again and we go through my second year, Fleur ends up hiding her face in her hands during my fight with the basilisk; the memories continue until it finally gets to the night Petunia had enough. They see the wounds that the most current me is treating and all gasp because among the numerous wounds, carved into my back, is the word Broken in big letters across my shoulders. Viktor frowns and asks, "Why that?"

"Broken?" I ask and he nods, "Because I like girls. Vernon read my diary and found that out so he carved that into my back to remind me that no girl or guy would want someone as broken as I am."

"Are these the worst memories?" Cedric asks, sounding sick.

"No, the worst memories would make someone who didn't live through them vomit." I say blankly as we watch Petunia tend to the other me's wounds and take me to the car. After that I show them the seers trance I had in my dreams and the memory shifts rapidly between visions.

"What was that?" Viktor asks, sounding dizzy.

"A seers trance." I say. "I toned it down for you, its much more disorienting to live though." We finish the memories with a few small glimpses of how I'm treated by Loki and Hella before we exit the pensieve. "So, as you saw from those few brief flashes, in the few months since I've met them, Hella and Loki have treated me better than pretty much anyone else; helping Loki is the only way I could get my revenge against everyone who treat me like...well, you saw."

I sit back at the desk and put my bracelet back on, grabbing a book and opening it as the others silently contemplate what I just showed them.