Chapter 22: Year Two Begins!

Disclaimer: You know the routine by now, I don't own anything you may recognise and probably ninety percent of the things you don't. I'm just dabbling in the pool or ideas and seeing what I can come up with.

"I guess this would be the thing that you were talking about Gilderoy?" Dumbledore questioned as the meal began, Lockhart chuckling to himself.

"Yes, I thought I'd give them a little test before school even begun, to test their awareness, as you can see some of them, probably more than what we can see failed that little test." Lockhart spoke with amusement as the crowd of students were part glaring at him and part staring in admiration. "Though it may seem a bit unfair for those that have yet to learn about these things I felt it fine to have them caught in the crossfire, at least with something as harmless as a bit of glitter." Lockhart justified, getting a nod from Dumbledore. "They have learnt quite the valuable lesson don't you think?" There were a few frowns among the teachers but some of them nodded their heads in agreement.

"Are you not concerned that you could make them paranoid?" Professor Sprout asked and Lockhart chuckled slightly, waving it off with barely any consideration.

"If a little prank like that would make them paranoid then surely, they have greater underlying issues, no?" Lockhart asked and turned his attention back to the students as the Sorting Hat started to sing. Another song, voicing the positives to each house, the students were silent during the song, out of respect to the age-old tradition, the first years, who had been nervous at first seemed to be put more at ease as they watched in awe. "You'd think that people would get tired of the song, year after year even with it changing the contents, but it always manages to impress." He commented quietly to Elizabeth as the song came to its conclusion and the students started cheering and applauding.

Professor McGonagall walked forward, unrolling the enrolment scroll and beginning to call the first years to be sorted. "I think some of them do it out of respect, but I think it's also down to the spell work." Elizabeth muttered back thoughtfully, the hat had sorted students for a thousand years and it seemingly hadn't faded in its effects over the years. Still able to be capable of rational thought and sort the students to where they needed or wanted to go. One by one they were called up to the hat, everyone silent as the student sat and then politely clapping and cheering as the house was called. Elizabeth glanced at Lockhart. "I don't think you mentioned it, what House were you in when you were sorted?"

"Ravenclaw, many an hour was spent with a book in hand, but I did eventually realise, there was only so much that you could learn from a book." He explained with a smile and Elizabeth nodded her head turning back to look at the students, noticing that several of the female students were giving her looks that clearly showed their jealousy at being able to sit and have a conversation with Lockhart, though she dismissed it out of hand. She had no interest in the man in question outside of working together. "I see my adoring fans are already plotting your demise." Lockhart joked as he politely clapped for the student that had just been sorted into Slytherin. Elizabeth glanced back at him and smirked.

"I think they'll find it a bit harder than they anticipated." She said, knowing full well that although her magical knowledge was limited, she had other tools at her disposal if any of them did try something. It wasn't her attempting to be over confident, but she'd be more than willing to place a bet on herself over a school student. "Though, I suppose I shouldn't underestimate them completely," she added almost as an afterthought. "Afterall, many a person has met their end by underestimating their opponent." She said thinking back to Rapture, to Columbia and the events that had transpired there, let alone what had happened throughout history. Underestimation did nothing but lead to defeat.

"A piece of advice I learnt myself through personal experience, if I had not caught the Hag by surprise when I battled her, I believe she underestimated just how fast I could be with something so simple as a severing charm." Lockhart attempted to humble brag and Elizabeth, who had looked away again, resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She had noticed that he seemed to like drawing the conversation back on to himself as many times as he could. A sign of a weak ego that needed constant pumping up if ever she saw one. With the adoration that he had, she wondered why his ego was so fragile. She frowned slightly as she turned back to her food, pushing it around on the plate as she found herself lost in thought.

Over at the Ravenclaw table, Harry took a sip of his drink as he watched the interaction between Lockhart and Elizabeth, part of him bemused at the look of annoyance that seemed to flit across Elizabeth's face and part of him thinking about possible revenge plans that he could possibly do against the man who pranked almost the entire student body. Glancing around, Harry noticed that the Weasley twins and Lee Jordan had their heads together and were pretty much guaranteed to do something but how long they waited was anyone's guess. Even though they were Gryffindors, they definitely had strong Slytherin aspects to them in the way they meticulously planned out their pranks. He stopped that train of thought, his dealings with the Slytherins so far had pointed more in the opposite direction, they could be louder and more brash than the Gryffindors that they claimed to be opposite of. He turned his head looking over the Slytherin table as their next student was sorted and frowned as he saw Blaise and Pansy talking with glances between both Harry and Elizabeth. Pansy saw him looking in their direction and smirked, like she knew something that he didn't. He frowned, wondering what was going on but shook his head, dismissing the thought. 'I don't need to get stuck on some plot that they want to try, not with what is happening.' He thought to himself as he clapped at the next student being sorted into Ravenclaw. He died, or at least as close to it with what would happen upon heading into an alternate timeline from the way that Elizabeth had explained it.

Yellow Eyes

A cold dark chamber.

There were still too many things that he had to find out, it was somewhere in Hogwarts, it was something that could kill with a look. Would it even happen here? is it something that has happened here in the past? Multiple questions went through his head and Harry sat looking at his food, a look of deep thought on his face as he tried to solve a puzzle with dozens of missing pieces. "You okay?" A voice snapped him out of his thoughts, and he looked up at the sixth year Prefect Penelope Clearwater.

He looked slightly confused as he responded half-heartedly, "hmm?" He asked non comitally as she looked at him with a slight bit of concern.

"You seem to be distracted by something, anything I can help with?" She asked and Harry shook his head.

"No, I'm fine, something I'm trying to think through, and I think I'm missing a few pieces." Harry muttered dismissively and continued his absentminded pushing around of his food. "I'll work it out eventually." He said with another dismissive gesture and turned his attention back to his food, pushing the thought out of his mind for now. For all he knew it may not even be related at all to the situation that the house elf had warned him about. He had no evidence and he was jumping to conclusions. "So... has anyone else read Lockhart's books properly yet?" He asked looking at the others from his year getting a few groans from some of the guys.

"Everything in it was vague, no details and very quick on the dramatic story telling." Terry complained, "with everything he's done you'd think he'd give a bit more detail in the actual spells, they're more like story books rather than proper defence books."

"Well, if he's a terrible teacher then he still shows he's a good business man." Cho commented off to one side, though she was a year above Harry, they still had the exact same books. "I'd advise you make use of the library both inside and out of the common room." She suggested and got a round of nods in agreement. "There's a lot of the previous second year material there and although it's not going to be exams like the O. or N.E. and more based around his books and lessons but you'll still need to know the things that he's not going to be focusing on." She continued to explain, although she still had two more years before her O. they were not known as the house of the intelligent for no reason and several of them had already looked into what to expect in order to try and prepare as much as they can.

"I didn't get through them all, but do they actually have any spells in them other than descriptions?" Lisa questioned bringing the topic back to the books, getting the shake of the head from several of the others who had finished the books. "How could they allow him to put the books as class requirement if there's no spells?" She questioned in confusion getting a couple of agreements from the others before Harry spoke up, he had puzzled over it as well but there was only one thing that he could think of.

"Experience, the books are less about the spells and more on how they're used they're adapted for a commercial point, but the tales are still there, if he's as good as the books represent, he should be able to teach the spells behind them," Harry offered as some form of an explanation. "Guess we'll find out in the first lesson." Harry added to finish the topic. Turning his attention back to Cho he shifted the topic away, not wanting to just speak about Lockhart he moved the topic towards Quidditch. "Is Roger sorting out practices for more reserve players? I know one of our chasers graduated so he's got to fill that role too." Harry added getting a nod from Cho.

"He spoke about it on the train, he's going to give it a week for people to get settled in and then he's going to start try-outs again, I think he's going to try and get a full team of reserve players, though limit their practice to less than what he gets the main team doing, just to keep them going but not as mandatory as it's less likely they're going to play."

"Free to join for more I guess?" He asked and she nodded.

"Of course, I don't think he'd ever turn away someone who wants to do extra practice."

The meal turned more towards small talk after that, the group discussing their holidays and the places they travelled, many had been intrigued when Harry had commented that he had gone to New York, a lot of the people in his year either not travelling much during their holidays or were not raised in the Muggle World so were more intrigued at what the muggles had to offer to draw their attention. Of course, Harry didn't mention anything about the Purge that had happened in the different New York that he had visited so he talked about some of the places that he had visited instead.

But all good things must eventually come to an end and as Dessert cleared from the tables, Dumbledore stood to make another announcement. "Now before you return to your dorms, I have a few announcements to make. Firstly, I would like to introduce our new Defence against the Dark Arts Professor Lockhart, he has kindly agreed to join us for the year to impart some of the knowledge he has acquired on his numerous adventures. As some of you have no doubt witnessed, he has definitely approached this from a unique perspective." He paused as the polite applause broke out and with a small smile, he could hear some of the people muttering about the pranks. Even the girls who had fallen for his charms were making the odd comment about it, though no doubt the School Girl crush would end with them forgiving him almost instantly. "Mr Filch would like to remind you that a list of banned items can be found pinned to the door to his office on the fourth floor and would also like me to inform you that several new items have been added to it." There was silence following that announcement, no one truly listened to it, at least the majority of it, not to criticise Filch but anything that had the potential to be even slightly fun was pretty much banned in the Caretakers eyes.

"Finally, a more serious announcement, as many of you know, Magic can be a wonderful thing. But there is also a danger to it that many underestimates, last year, throughout the school we witnessed a unique experience, windows started to open in the school, but not just the ones to let in fresh air." He stopped with a smile to see that he had all their attention. "They were windows to what could be, visions for lack of a better word, so far they have shown to be harmless, a little peak into what you could see though we are monitoring , however I advise any student that witnesses them to not try and use any magic on them and to report what you find to a Professor, though they seem to close on their own after mere moments of being open. Professor Trelawney has also asked that anyone interested in interpreting these are more than welcome to speak to her in the Divination Classroom." With that he paused again to measure the reactions, there was a lot of mutterings, many unsure as to what to think in regard to what he said, having been told what the Gryffindor Chasers had witnessed he listened more towards their table and could hear them muttering about the Death Eaters that they had witnessed. It pained him to know that it was a possibility that could befall the School, but he also knew that he'd do everything in his power to stop that from ever coming true in this time.

Elizabeth, to his side frowned slightly, the thought of people with magic being able to open the rifts concerned her greatly, there was a lot of danger that could potentially come through and there was also a potential for a lot of chaos if people started tampering with things without thinking them through at all. As the students started filtering out, she stood up as well, bidding good night to the other Professors and walking towards the entrance, several of the students greeting her as she moved between them. responding just as politely she joined in with the Ravenclaw Students as they made their way towards their dorm and with that the head boy/girl dorm that she used. As she walked, she made the usual comments between the students asking about their holidays, the new third years she asked about their electives, bemused at the lack of people taking Divination. But whether that was a criticism on the class and professor or just the general Ravenclaw attitude towards it. Looking around she saw the first years trailing behind the rest of them being escorted by the fifth-year prefects. With barely a look she noticed Harry step up beside her, "What did Dumbledore have to say?" He asked quietly, looking around at the students to see if they were listening but pretty much were all engrossed in their own conversations.

"He thinks he knows what it was that you saw, though without more information he can't tell for sure." She responded just as quietly. "I'll tell you later, the walls have ears after all." She said with her eyes darting towards the portraits. They weren't paying attention, but they listened, they spoke, and they gossiped.

"It all has to do with him." A dreamy voice spoke behind them causing them both to jump in surprise and spin around, staring at one of the new Ravenclaw Students.

"I'm sorry?" Harry managed to speak after a few moments of silence, the three just looking at each other in confusion

"Hmm? did you do something?" The girl asked in response before skipping past him continuing towards the Ravenclaws that were turning the corner. The two turned to watch her leave before sharing a look.

Elizabeth was the first to break the silence as they were left in the corridor. "Did that just happen?" She asked slowly and Harry just stood in silence, "anyway," she paused again shaking her head, clearing her confusion away. "Let's get this talk out of the way before everything truly begins, perhaps we can find out what's going on quicker than last year.

"Are we just going to ignore that?" Harry asked pointing in the direction of the girl that had just gone by.

"Sometimes, I feel it's best not to ask. She's definitely unique, or just very observant... or completely detached from reality." Elizabeth commented as the two turned right where the students turned left. They arrived at the portrait to her room and Elizabeth glanced around before giving the new password, Shock Jockey, named after a vigour back from Columbia. The two entered, Harry making his way over to the sofa and dropping down on it. "Dumbledore thinks it's because of Voldemort." She started and Harry found himself nodding.

"I wouldn't be surprised, but I'm confused as to how." Harry agreed as she walked over, sitting down next to him.

"It's related to the text you found. The Chamber of Secrets is open. It's happened here before as well, fifty years ago. At the time it was him according to Dumbledore, possibly before he truly became Voldemort. I wonder if anyone else around here remembers it." She trailed off thoughtfully.

"There can't be many here that do, I know Professor Flitwick wasn't a teacher at that time, Professor McGonagall possibly? Dumbledore would know more as well I guess but not too much... is there anyone else we're not thinking of?" Harry questioned and Elizabeth shrugged.

"How long has Hagrid been here?" She questioned after a few seconds of silence. "I wonder if he knows anything."

"I won't lie, I'm kind of hesitant to ask him, I feel more like I'm using him when I have these talks." Harry said sadly, he had meant to spend more time with the friendly Games Keeper, but things just kept getting in the way, other than trying to find information from him, he had neglected the man who had helped build a connection to his parents through the Photo Album he got at Christmas.

"You care about his feelings, you're not just making friends to get information from him, we'll just have to make a bit more time for him... though not his cooking." She joked mildly with a small shudder, she had tried the Rock Cakes he had made during one of her visits and to say they left much to be desired was an understatement.

"In the end we're left with two maybe three people to ask about this so far but how do we bring it up with them, hi we travelled to an alternate dimension to find out what the next evil is, can you tell us something about what happened fifty years ago because it may be connected to it." Harry asked, turning his head and looking at the moonlight shining through the window.

"Hold on a moment," Elizabeth stopped the conversation, reaching up and gently turning Harry's face to look at her. "huh," she muttered as she studied his face, paying particular attention to his scar. "I didn't notice this before." She said, gently cupping his cheeks, "your scar has faded." She said after a few more moments of studying his face, before releasing her grip and standing up, walking over to her desk to look for a small mirror to show Harry. With how fast she turned, she missed the blush that had formed on his cheeks before he quickly tried to get himself back under control, the realisation as to what she said sinking in.

"But it's not faded the slightest all this time." Harry said, standing up and following her to the desk as she turned around and handed the mirror to him. He took it carefully and tilted it slightly looking at the reflection of the scar to notice that it did look like it had faded slightly, "but why now?" He questioned slowly and Elizabeth couldn't give him an answer, "do you think it has something to do with what I did?" He asked and again there was no answer from her.

"We start with one mystery and now add a second and a third to it." She muttered then laughed. "you just can't do anything by half can you?" She taunted as Harry put the mirror down. "But we are going to have to leave this for another time, it's getting late." She finished and ushered Harry towards the door that would leave into the Ravenclaw Common Room. "Your first day back, try not to pick any fights with the Slytherins." She said as he opened the door. Harry turned back to look at her. "Yes, I know you don't start them, doesn't mean you can't avoid them." She pointed out and Harry's mouth stopped mid protest. "That's what I thought." She smirked slightly as he turned back and walked into the Common Room, Elizabeth closing the door behind him and walking back over to her desk, grabbing her notepad off the desk, flicking it open to the most recent entry. Looking back over towards the door she frowned as she sat down, "what connection does the scar have to everything?" She questioned as she started writing down her recent observations. "Is it faded because of the incident or is it faded because of some other situation?"

'Proximity?' She scribbled into the notepad, 'Is it due to proximity to Voldemort? Would it work like that? if it hadn't faded any time during his youth, why would it suddenly change now, from what Dumbledore mentioned it had to have come from being hit by the killing curse, it also had to leave some form of connection. She stopped for a moment, looking into the mirror looking at her reflection, her hand coming up and brushing above her brow.

The reflection flashed, replaced for a moment by a sight from her past. A bathroom from Rapture cracked and ruined, water leaking onto the floor as she stared at the face of her past, blood trickling down from where she had rubbed moments ago. She flinched back, the image shifting away again as she rubbed at her eyes, her notepad forgotten on the floor. "Those days are past." She muttered tiredly in protest at what she saw, "I think I just need to sleep." She whispered, standing up and walking over to her bed.

HPCVHPCV

The first day back, adjusting to a true early morning wakeup call was a shock to a lot of students, Harry was one of the first to wake, followed closely by Stephen who after last year and nearly missing breakfast before class did not want to make that same mistake again. The two were leaving the dorm room as the others started to move and they made their way downstairs. "Didn't get much time to catch up yesterday, how was your holiday?" Harry asked and Stephen punctuated the start of the conversations with a yawn.

"Not getting up at early hours was probably the best part, we did go to France for a couple of weeks, my father has a few friends who live out there, so we stayed and got to see the sights." Stephen responded, "even got a bit of a look at Beauxbatons, it wasn't open cause the summer like us, but just seeing it from the outside was impressive though I think Hogwarts still has it beat."

"Personal preference or?" Harry asked trailing off and Stephen shrugged his shoulders. "It's interesting, you're the second person I've spoken to that both went to France and went to Beauxbaton, either to visit it properly or just in passing." Harry mused as they cut through a secret passage that cut off a chunk of the trip.

"Terry, right?" He asked getting a nod in response. "Yeah, I ran into him while in France. Apparently, he spoke to his parents about what had happened, and they freaked out a little bit." He stopped again as he remembered the conversation he had with Terry before focusing back on the one that they were originally having. "I think I prefer the look of the Castle over theirs, theirs looks more like a huge manor house and I won't lie, I'd be more scared of breaking something that costs more than I could probably ever afford in there." He said getting a laugh from Harry. "You said you went to New York, didn't you? I didn't think the MACUSA let many outsiders in to the large muggle populations without a permit or some kind of tracker and from what I've been told they can take forever to get."

A look of surprise crossed Harry's face before he quickly recovered, it was something that hadn't even been a concern when he had left but he should have taken into account different laws and rules before he started talking about it. He blinked, his brain working faster to think of an idea on how to cover it. "We got lucky." Harry blurted out, thinking quickly and stumbling in an attempt to look like it had been their screw up that had almost got them sent back to England at the start of the holiday. a weak cover but it could potentially work. "We were stopped when we arrived but because we arrived by Muggle means they assumed we didn't know what we were doing and then added bonus, me being well me." Harry said with a cheeky grin, playing on the popularity of his fame to try and glaze over what the two did. "Surprised they even cared over there, the conflict never really reached them from what I read." Harry commented off handily.

"Celebrities are celebrities, regardless of how far it reaches, a name carries weight." Stephen agreed as they turned to walk down the stairs towards the Great Hall. "So just like that you got your pass and were allowed in?" He asked in amazement and Harry smiled.

"Just like that." He finished, glancing away at the doors that led to the School Grounds, he had seen a couple of things when they had been there that had stuck with him, it was not something he was eager to repeat without rushing through its next time. "But it was fun, got to see the sights, visit various monuments, met a couple of interesting people. stayed more on the Non-Magical side though," he admitted with a small smile. "Keeps from getting too detached I think."

"Detached?"

"There's two worlds out there, the Magical and the Non-Magical, I want to see it all, the non-magical's have made so many things that Wizards and Witches could only dream of and vice versa I hastened to add, though their imagination is coming pretty close to hit it in their books."

"I noticed you seem to keep using Non-Magical instead of Muggle now, how comes?" Stephen asked as they sat down at the Ravenclaw table.

"I don't know, it's kind of just happened, you know that feeling where something doesn't sit right? it just felt wrong. So, I kinda just stopped using it." He admitted with a shrug as he started his breakfast.

"I guess being raised outside of the Magical world, it does stand out as odd." Stephen agreed, taking a drink of the Pumpkin Juice he had just finished pouring. "It's pretty much ingrained into the society so you're not going to see it disappear any time soon." he continued, reaching for some food.

"Perhaps, but it only takes one or two people to start to change." Harry said with amusement, "inaction doesn't do anything to improve anything." He stopped and smiled in amusement... "And here we are having a conversation as if we're twenty not our actual ages." He said with amusement, the two looking at each other before laughing.

"I guess we do fit our houses stereotype." Stephen said after he had calmed down.

"Not that it's a bad thing, I hope Mr Cornfoot." The voice of Professor Flitwick cut in, the laughter stopping instantly as the two jumped in surprise to see their diminutive professor standing behind them with a stack of schedules to start handing them out.

"Not at all sir," he hastily responded, looking slightly sheepish as he did.

"Smart," Flitwick responded with a small smile and handed the two their schedules. As he walked away the two looked at each other and Stephen looked slightly sheepish.

"I don't know how he managed it, but he just scared me more than Snape EVER will." He said getting a small nod from Harry who found it more amusing than frightening as he looked down at his schedule.

"Oh, that's just not fair." Harry groaned dropping his head onto the table.

"What's not fair?" Terry asked as he sat down next to the two.

"Our schedule." Harry griped as he held it up for Terry to read.

"Okay then... oh that's just harsh." Terry quickly found himself agreeing as he looked at the lessons they had today. "History into Potions with Defence as the final part?" He put the schedule back down and started rubbing the bridge of his nose. "So, sleep time followed by torture followed by guess work on whether it's going to be good or bad."

"Just... kill me now." Harry said with resignation, banging his head on the table again before pushing himself back up into a proper sitting position. "If there is a higher power, Lockhart will not be terrible." Harry essentially pleaded as he mentally steeled himself for the coming day.

It was already setting up to be a long one.

TBC

Well its been a very long time since I last updated.

No excuses other than just not writing, nothing would come to me and so I took time away from it. I'm hoping that the next chapter wont take as much time to write but at the moment I'm currently trying to find flats to rent. It's a long winded process and way more hassle than I'd like but it needs to be done.