I have to do this.
Father is in disgrace, and Mother has already been punished more than once just to hurt Father.
Make no mistake; I am more than aware that serving under the Dark Lord is not the wonderful thing I always imagined it would be, that Father always told me it would be. Father's own foolishness is why we're in this mess in the first place.
I suppose I could go to Dumbledore and try to get him to protect me, but that would leave Mother to the mercies of the Dark Lord. Besides, Dumbledore hasn't been able to protect Potter from the Dark Lord. Why would he do better with me?
Godfather keeps insisting that I need his help, but the Dark Lord told me that it had to be me.
Oh, good. That annoying ghost isn't here, today. "Serpentsorcia." Huh, I guess I did need Godfather's help after all. A quick compulsion charm to make the snake say, "open" and I'm down into the Chamber.
"Ugh. Disgusting." I assume the elves can't get down here. I'm starting to regret Mother and Father's insistence that someone of my breeding shouldn't know cleaning charms.
I have to climb through some rocks from a cave in, but I eventually make it to the corpse of the basilisk. I'm surprised to find that this particular story of Potter's accomplishments wasn't exaggerated. If anything, they were understated.
I prepare my instrument and return upstairs. It wasn't easy to get a hold of, but there are benefits to being rich. Getting back up the tunnel is difficult, but I manage to levitate myself.
Now, for a shower. Tonight is when it happens.
Luckily, as a prefect, I don't have to sneak around to be out after curfew.
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"So, what happened?" questioned Scrimgeour. Albus Dumbledore was dead, right as the Wizarding World needed him most. He just keeled over during breakfast.
Slughorn and Snape had both examined the body, as well as a number of Ministry employees, and Snape was now reporting the results.
"An extremely toxic poison. It seems to be a venom of some sort, but not one I've ever seen, before," replied Snape, only to be interrupted by Slughorn.
"Basilisk venom. Very nasty. He could have, potentially been saved if he had thought to call for his phoenix, but it is a very fast acting toxin." Slughorn was getting more and more nervous as things were progressing. It is possible that he's just afraid now that Dumbledore isn't here to protect him, but he was also going on the Minister's list of suspects. Along with Snape, come to think of it. Rufus remembered why Snape was never tried as a Death Eater.
"How was it administered? Do we need to question the house elves?"
"No," replied the Ministry's medical examiner. "He was pricked by a pin. We found a very small, goblin-steel pin infused with the venom. It had been hidden within the cushion of the headmaster's chair. It would have not been visible before the headmaster sat down, and in doing so, compressing the cushion and sticking himself with the pin. Frankly, it's an ingenious way to kill a man. I don't think we'll find who did this without questioning every occupant of the castle under veritaserum, and maybe not even then."
Minister Scrimgeour agreed with his technician. But Dumbledore's death was going to change things with this war. Voldemort would grow bolder now. It was time to crack down and really clean house with the Ministry.
Well, maybe now Potter will be more reasonable about working with him now that his protector was gone.
