Harry stretched out luxuriously in his bed in the Gryffindor dorm room, somehow glad to be back amongst the crimson curtains and bedding that smelt of mothballs. He was so caught up in his nostalgia, that he almost forgot about his little problem.
"Mr. Harry Potter, sir! Is you alive in there?" Dobby the elf squeaked from outside his curtains. Harry undid the sticking charm he'd stuck on it and poked his head through to scowl at Dobby.
"Dobby, honestly," he whispered, "Go home to Malfoy Manor. I'm quite safe here." Dobby, who wore an upturned bowl upon his head and clutched a mop handle in his hand as a makeshift helmet and rifle, wrung his hands and squealed in protest.
"I cannot, Harry Potter. You are not safe here. Master said so!" Harry rushed to throw up privacy charms, sushing as he waved his arms around.
"You'll wake the lads, Dobby," he chided gently, "I'm safe, Dobby, safer than I've been in all my life. Now stay quiet or go home." Dobby looked close to tears and blue in the face trying to keep his cries in. Harry sighed.
"Alright, how about you guard me from in here and get some sleep?" Dobby perked up and scuttled into bed by Harry's legs, cuddling the mop handle like a teddy bear. Despite Dobby's comforting presence, Harry slept fitfully as anguished cries pervaded his dreams. He woke the next morning to the sound of a shrill war cry. In a knee jerk reaction, Harry threw both his arms out and wrapped his magic around the two figures grappling on his bed, picking them up and slamming them both against the wall across from his bed. Harry could hear something snap and cut off the spell in alarm. Blinking the sleep from his eyes, Harry rushed over to Ron and Dobby sprawled on the floor. Dean, Seamus, and Neville tumbled from their own beds from the commotion.
"Ugh remind me never to wake you up again, Harry," Ron said as Neville helped him sit up.
"Sorry! Sorry! Are you alright? I heard something snap." Harry grabbed his friend's head and twisted it around, looking for injury. Finding none, he rushed to Dobby, who sat up with Dean's help, head wobbling around in dazed confusion. Ron groaned and pulled out the broken pieces of his wand that was shoved in his back pocket when he hit the wall.
"I think I found what snapped, Harry." Ron examined his wand hanging by a thread of its core.
"Yeah, well you're lucky it wasn't your neck," Seamus joked, slapping Ron on the back.
"Dobby is glad it was not his neck either," the little elf said, toddling to his feet.
"What's Malfoy's elf doing here?" Dean quirked an eyebrow at Harry.
"He's got this insane idea in his head that I'm in danger here." Harry ran a hand through his hair in exasperation.
"Dobby is sorry, Weasels. Dobby heard Harry Potter cry and thought you was attacking him." Ron's mouth floundered, but he decided to dismiss the elf's mishandling of his name, instead directing his attention to Harry.
"Yeah, mate, I heard you turning and crying in your sleep. You alright?"
"I'm fine, it's just a nightmare." Trying to change the topic of the conversation, Harry reached out for Ron's wand.
"It's no use, Harry," Neville said from his side, "You can't fix a wand after it's been snapped."
"I can at least try, can't I?" Harry held the wand and found the strands of magic that made up its core, using them to pull the broken pieces back together, down to the microscopic level. The magic, however, was difficult to grasp and slipped from his fingers like water or sunlight. Try as he might, Harry could only mend the wood. He shook his head and looked to Ron with a frustrated sigh. Ron shrugged, thinking his wand was whole again and tucked the wand away. The other boys crawled back into bed and left Harry sitting in the common room, too awake now to sleep.
The first day of classes was interesting to say the least. Harry hoped beyond hope that the new material would be more challenging, but found repotting mandrakes and transfiguring rats into goblets hardly took a toll on his magical power reserves. After transfiguration, however, McGonagall took him aside gently and shut the door after the other students had gone. Harry schooled his features and listened calmly to what McGonagall had to say.
"Mr. Potter, I know you don't want to hear anything more about the events of this summer, but I'd like to apologize for my inaction. As your head of house, I should have noticed something or checked up on you in the summer." Harry felt his heart tremble, though none of his turbulent emotions showed on his face. Anger roiled within him as she spoke, but he pushed it away from himself before he responded to her.
"I'm sure it wasn't your fault, professor. My...problem existed way before I was ever sorted into your house. You did everything you could." Something about her apology bothered him and his brow furrowed. "Is it standard procedure for teachers to check up on muggle-born students?"
McGonagall fidgeted with her robes as if the temperature bothered her and Harry knew he'd found something. Minerva McGonagall didn't fidget.
"It is common practice for heads of house to pay muggle born students visits in secret to confirm that their magical abilities are safe from discovery. You were an exception because we thought your relatives were already familiar with magical rules."
"I didn't know I was a wizard until the day Hagrid came to get me. I was denied my Hogwarts letter until he came. If I'd known, maybe things would have been different."
McGonagall looked stricken. "I didn't know of any of this, dear boy," she said, reaching out as if to comfort him. He allowed her gentle touch on his shoulder, but shut his eyes against her expression. He didn't want pity, not now.
"Who told you not to perform your routine checks with me?" He asked almost in a whisper.
"Why, Dumbledore, of course." She admitted this reluctantly and spoke with malice snaking its way into her voice. Harry was satisfied and ended the awkward encounter. He plastered a serene smile on his face.
"Thank you, professor. Honestly, I don't blame you for anything. Good morning." With that, he spun on his heel and walked away. Late as he was for Defence, Harry had to stop in the corridor and hide behind one of the heavy red wall hangings to give himself some time to recover from the jarring confirmation that Dumbledore was his enemy despite his hopes that his case was an oversight. The floaters in his head spoke soothingly to him. It is as we said. The old one cares not for what happens to others in his grand scheme for the wizarding world. Whatever his intentions, you must be wary of one who does not care. Harry struck the stone wall at his side and heaved a shuddering sigh. Grief washed over him and he wished he could fly away quite free from the ugly thoughts that plagued his mind. Stepping out from his hiding spot, he found himself face to face with Lockhart, who was sneaking out of his own classroom.
"Ah! Harry! You startled me," he yelped, hand on his heart. "Don't worry about being late, dear boy. Tell you what, I'll forget you were ever late if you do me a favor."
"That is unnecessary, professor," Harry said curtly, taking a step away from him, "I was with Professor McGonagall. She can vouch for me."
"Ah, yes," Lockhart said, slightly breathless, one eyebrow arching, "Anyhow, I need to attend to...er….matters. I'll leave you in charge!" He sped off, walking heel to toe away to hide in his quarters. Harry cautiously entered the Defense classroom and was immediately hit in the face with a hyper pixie who'd been improperly fed sugar because Lockhart was under the impression that pixies ate only pixie sticks. He grabbed the disoriented little bugger, whipped out his wand, and cast a web shaped immobilus before restoring them to their cage. Harry was met with many thanks from his classmates, whose hair and clothes suffered the pixies ministrations. Several girls who were stuck upside down to the wall cried grateful tears. Again, Harry thought that a career as a handkerchief would be lucrative after all. Aside from this discouraging start to the year, things continued as they were the year before, lulling Harry into a state of lethargy that transitioned gradually into despondency. While Snape and Flitwick did their best to instruct Harry in their extra lessons together, both lacked the manic zeal that Quirrell brought to Harry's lessons. Quirrell always cared less about what Harry could handle and instead pushed him to his limits in magical theory, if not casting. He was thinking about how much he actually missed Quirrell during one of Snape's defence lessons.
"Harry, pay attention," Snape snapped, gesturing to the training dummy Harry stood in front of. "We can stop now if rictusempra is too difficult a spell for you." Snape was being short today because of a faculty meeting gone awry due to Lockhart's bumbling. Harry's fingers clawed at thin air and he could feel his pupils dilating, his vision tunneling. He grew stone still, raising one arm and before either of them breathed again or blinked, the dummy was in pieces on the floor, rent quietly asunder by Harry's roaring magic. It was exactly like what he envisioned doing to Lockhart that day in the book store. Snape was in front of him at once, furiously grasping his still outstretched hand in his own.
"Harry, that was foolish," he growled, kneeling to examine him, "Why did you do that?"
"I'm tired of drilling these spells, that's why," Harry snapped, pulling his hand away. Snape snatched it back, trying to get a better look at it.
"Even so, you must do them because I say so. Never do that again!" Snape's voice was almost a hiss.
"But why?" Harry asked, feeling as if he was burning from the inside out.
"It's dangerous, Harry," Snape said, more gently, "and that's all I can say. You are yet young and the magic you just demonstrated is too much for you. Let that be as simple as it sounds for now." Harry didn't protest again, but he felt the same desperate, burning curling in his stomach. Things went much the same with Flitwick, who insisted that the pace they were moving at was adequate and he could not teach what Harry could not handle.
"You are still young, Harry. Let it be for now," the little goblin squeaked, taking Harry's hand in his. They were staring at the furniture all suspended in various angles in the cavernous room of the old castle, like pieces of shrapnel emanating from the epicenter of Harry's outburst. Harry shut himself away during his free hours in the library.
"Harry, this isn't healthy," Hermione said, "You've been reading nonstop for weeks. Why don't you spend some time with us outside? Hagrid's invited us to his hut. The books will be here when you come back."
The idea that Hermione of all people was trying to get him to stop reading jolted Harry out of his stupor and he dropped the heavy volume on the table as if it stung to touch it. Madame Pince looked up only briefly from her reading to raise an eyebrow at them.
"You're right. I'll...I need to go outside. Yes, that's right." Harry raked a hand through his hair and sighed. "Thanks, 'mione," he said, allowing himself to be towed away and outside to where his friends waited. The visit with Hagrid involved many crushing hugs, rock cakes, and strong tea to wash the lot down. For a few hours, the fire of urgency Harry had stoked for the first month and a half of school died down. He let these quiet, happy gatherings distract him and he could forget his troubles. On Halloween, however, the blaze of anxiety returned with full force.
Harry stared up at the frozen body of Mrs. Norris, hung up by her tail, and suddenly, he was quite glad that he chose not to eat anything at Nearly Headless Nick's deathday party. The smell of blood dripping from the wall drifted up his nostrils and he could feel his empty stomach threatening mutiny. Flanked by Ron and Hermione, Harry had to stop them from running into a pool of water turning pink from the blood that dripped into it. What bothered him, however, was the anguished whispers retreating from the hall. He was so focused that he didn't even notice the rest of the school coming from just around the opposite corner of the Conspicuous, well used intersection to make the same gruesome discovery.
"The Chamber of Secrets? What the bloody hell is that?" Ron looked shaky, looking searchingly at Professor McGonagall. The answer came the next day when the professors, hard pressed to keep the students' curiosity under control, explained the legend surrounding the Chamber of Secrets.
"What a load of dragon dung," Malfoy spat, looking up from his potions homework. He, Pansy, Ron, Harry, Hermione, and Blaise were settled quite comfortably in the abandoned girls' lavatory hiding from Colin Creevey. His companions looked up in surprise.
"I thought you dark families lived on Slytherin legends," Ron said, brows furrowed.
"Hardly, Weasley," Blaise said smugly, "What Draco means is that the legend is obvious anti-Slytherin bull because there was no way he could have gotten away with mass murder."
"He was evil!" Ron shot back, "Evil people don't care about getting caught!"
Pansy piped up and said, "He wasn't evil, only more conservative. Muggles used to kill people with magic back then. His concerns were valid, not evil."
"Honestly Ronald, I don't blame you for being biased because of your upbringing, but you really should think before you speak." Hermione crossed her arms in exasperation as
she spoke. Harry watched the argument unfold from where he was leaning against one of the stalls.
Malfoy closed his books knowing he wasn't going to get anything done and said, "Slytherin was first and foremost a teacher. He couldn't have founded this entire school if he wanted to spill magical blood and hurt children. That you would assume any of us would value senseless murder is offensive." He looked fleetingly to Harry and snapped his eyes back to the group. Ron scrunched his face up, his eyes low and his cheeks blooming red.
"I'm sorry," Ron mumbled, "honest, I didn't mean anything by it."
Draco sniffed and arched an eyebrow. "I know, Ronald, I just like watching you squirm." Ron's face relaxed again and the tension in the room melted seamlessly back to normal. Harry wasn't sure how he knew, but he had a strange, wary feeling about him as the study session dragged on and he knew they were being watched. Rising slowly to his feet and placing a finger to his lips, Harry took up a defensive stance, aiming his wand at a bathroom stall. The others quieted and watched Harry cautiously. With a flick of his wand, the stall door flung itself open and a ghost burst, wailing from the toilet, spraying water everywhere. Whoever it was flew too fast around the room for anyone to see and pinged off the walls. Harry looked hard at the ghost and saw strands of magic that made up the ghost's form that moved like hair in a gusty wind. With the help of a modified body bind curse, Harry halted the movement of the strands and pinned the ghost in mid-air.
"Cripes, Potter, it's only moaning Myrtle," Blaise said with a chuckle, "You had me believing something was about to attack us."
Myrtle squirmed under the hold of Harry's curse and squealed. Harry cut off his spell and held his hands up while muttering rushed apologies to the irate spirit.
"You uncivilized oaf! Why-how did you even manage to do that to me? ME! A GHOST! Have you no respect for your elders?" Myrtle inspected herself meticulously and nailed Harry with as mean a glare as a ghost could produce.
"I'm sorry, Myrtle. I thought you were Collin."
"Well I guess it's okay if it's you, Harry. If I'm cursed by anybody, it might as well be you." Myrtle winked at him and Harry felt as if he was chewing sand.
Harry gave up on sleep that night as he'd done for more than a few nights since he found Mrs. Norris strung up in the hall. His head pounded as the anguished hissing from that night wound through his head like barbed wire. Creeping down to the common room, he settled himself in a chair, prepared to pull himself into his mind so that the floaters could help his mind rest. It was only when he heard a sniffle coming from the window seat that he realized he wasn't alone. Peeking behind his armchair, he spotted pink pajamas and a tuft of red hair.
"Ginny," he whispered. "are you okay?" Ginny started and wiped hastily at her eyes.
"Hey, hey," Harry said, getting up and placing a hand firmly on her shoulder to keep her seated, "Tell me what's wrong." Ginny folded and crumpled forward into his arms.
"Harry, she's taken it and I don't know what to do," she said between hiccups, "I've done something wrong-" With that, she dissolved again into heart wrenching sobs. Harry said nothing and held her close to him, anger welling up inside him. He probed her mind gently and saw what she was so afraid of. A diary. It was the one Lucius stuck into her cauldron. The next thing he saw was Ginny painting with a dead chicken's blood on a wall. Her mind was under the influence of...something he couldn't quite pick out. Harry retreated from her mind as quick as he'd entered, afraid of attracting the attention of whatever it was that was buried in Ginny's thoughts. When Ginny quieted, Harry wiped her tears with a conjured kerchief and gently asked, "What happened, Ginny?"
"Millicent Bulstrode, Harry. She took my diary. I need to...I need it back. I don't know what to do." Ginny was about to fold again and Harry took the chance to make eye contact. He made a full assault on her mind and seized the thing that had a grip over it, shoving it in a box in his own mind. Working swiftly, he wiped the memories of what Ginny did and made her think she was only upset about losing her diary.
"I'll get your diary back, Gin. Why don't you go back to sleep?" Ginny nodded stiffly, eyebrows furrowed. She mumbled a quiet thank you and shuffled up to the girls' dormitory. When she was gone, Harry sighed and punched a pillow, burying all hopes of getting any sleep at all. The thing you extricated from that girl's mind left its mark on her. The floaters were louder in his mind than usual. Harry groaned against his migraine and flopped down on the couch.
"I know," he muttered, "and wiping the memories should help, but she'll have dreams for a while."
Let us examine the prisoner. Harry closed his eyes and pulled himself into his mind. With the floaters behind him, he let his captive go and tethered it to a leash, all the while pressuring it to relinquish its secrets. The thing writhed, hissing its displeasure.
"Leave me or I'll kill you," it said, "I'll flay your mind and leave you a vegetable." Undeterred, Harry hissed back. "You will tell me who you are and why you've been hurting my friend." The thing stopped struggling and seemed surprised.
"You can understand me?" It hissed again and it was only then that he realized they'd been speaking in parseltongue. Harry redoubled his efforts, hissing, "Who are you? Tell me, or I'll never let you free." The thing only laughed at him, slipping away from his grasp.
"Your occlumency skills are admirable, but I'm a step ahead of you. Come and find me in that diary your friend lost." The creature slipped away, sapping the last of Harry's energy. When he woke, dawn was just breaking and his head pounded as if he hadn't slept at all.
You wake, the floaters rumbled gently, This is fortunate. You overtaxed yourself and you are unwell.
Harry cursed and sat up slowly. He replayed the moment the thing slipped from his grasp over and over again, frustrated with himself and his body.
Fret not, for these things improve with time. The creature that escaped was older, far older than any wizard should have lived. Rest now. Harry had just enough time to claw his way back into bed before the floaters knocked him out.