Revenge
After Brandt and Tonks had left Hogwarts, Harry and Lyra ended up spending quite a bit more time in the room he left them in. Trying to distract Harry, Lyra took out Snape's book of weird spells and flipped to a random page to find a charm called "The Ventriloquist Jinx." It managed to distract Harry from their situation as they started to study a spell that would allow them to throw their voice to any place within their eyesight. It took almost until dinner for them to cast it right, but they finally managed to cast it. After the wand movement of touching it to their lips, giving it a twirl, and throwing the shimmering spell at a target with the incantation of "Ventriloquo!;" speaking into their wand for the next twenty seconds would make their voice sound from the target of the spell.
They had a bunch of fun casting the spell all over the room, though it only worked well to cast the spell twice, because by the time the third it was cast, the first one would be wearing out. Still, it was neat to toss their voices in various places and then hear themselves speaking from somewhere else. The book said that with enough practice, they could increase the duration of the spell or be able to use it in enchantments.
However, after dinner, Harry became restless again as he began to think about the day he had just had. He didn't want to trade his life with Lyra and the Hidden for anything, but it kept nagging at his brain that he could have had a different childhood without the Dursleys. That childhood had been stolen from him, and he didn't know why. With his mind made up, he headed for the main staircase to go confront Dumbledore and ask him why.
Hermione had eaten a small dinner and decided to review some of the notes from the helmet project. Despite the praise given to her by Penny and the twins, most of the work was done by them. She would need to do a lot of catch-up to even begin to understand the advanced runic arrays and arithmancy that were used during the project. Each day for the past week, she had been gathering new books together and going to the fifth-floor ballet room to look over all their notes and try to use her own research to understand everything they had done.
When she had almost arrived at the room, someone jumped out from behind a suit of armor and grabbed her, making her scream as they dragged her into an empty classroom. Once she was inside, she tried to draw her wand, only for the hooded figure to push her down and call out, "Expelliarmus!" wrenching her wand from her grip and into her assailant's. He threw it into the corner and cast another spell at the door, "Colloportus!"
Only when the door was sealed, did he drop his hood to reveal Vincent Crabbe underneath. He smiled at her shock and said, "Good evening, mudblood."
Hermione dropped her bag as she scampered to her feet, trying to pull herself up on a nearby table, stuttering, "W-w-what do you want?"
"Nothing much," the boy smiled like a devil, "just a little revenge. You made me miss a month of school, and got me over a month of detention."
"I didn't do that to you! You did it to me!" Hermione screamed, still afraid.
"You got what you deserved, what filth like you deserve." He cast a knockback jinx, knocking her over the table she was leaning on and back onto the floor.
When she got back up he aimed straight for her face and called out "Densaugeo!"
A pale blue light shot straight for her face, but she held up her prosthetic arm in time, squeezing a fist and causing the shield to rip through her sleeve and block the spell.
"Where did you get that?" he spat at her, then smiled like a devil. "No matter, I know the perfect spell to deal with that. How about a disarming spell to disarm your arm?"
The red light went straight for Hermione's shield, but when it hit, nothing happened. Vincent looked confused and tried Densaugeo hex again, but she deflected it again with her shield while she started to call out for help.
"We can't have that. Silencio!" he cast at her chest, but it still silenced her whole body.
Pointing the wand at her feet, he cast, "Ungisaugeo!"
The spell hit her foot and did nothing for a second before she started to scream but with no sound coming out of her mouth. He cast the spell a few more times on both feet and the look of pain on her face got worse until toenails burst through the top of her shoes, splintering and continuing to grow outwards.
"Disgusting feet to match your disfigured arm," he told her.
Hermione heard him laugh while keeping her face behind the shield, and he continued to cast other hexes at her, causing small cuts, boils, and bruises on her before the door was unlocked and he left, sealing the door again as she continued to cry in silence.
With his mind made up to confront Dumbledore, Harry was halfway up the main staircase when he heard sobbing. He almost didn't follow it, but then he remembered Theo Nott and put his current plans on hold to help whoever needed it. Walking down the hall, the crying got louder until he stopped in front of a door, but when he tried it, it was locked.
So, he took a big step back and cast, "Alohomora!" but unfortunately it didn't open. He called out inside, "Do you need help?"
He heard a whine of a response from inside, "Please help me."
Making up his mind, Harry pulled his staff out of his pouch and backed up to the other side of the hallway. Channeling his magic through the Lampong antler, he unleashed a pulse that completely shattered the door and he watched the shimmering red magic that had been locking it scatter and vanish. Stepping over the broken pieces of the door, he saw a girl on the floor who was bleeding out from various cuts in her torn Ravenclaw robes. She had a large circular plate over her face, and at least a foot and a half long toenails were growing through her shoes… Then he noticed she had bushy brown hair all around her head.
"Hermione!" he yelled and rushed to her side.
She lowered the shield and it collapsed into her arm. Her face was unhurt but her eyes were red and covered with tears. When she tried to roll to the side, she groaned in pain.
"What happened?" Harry asked.
She just continued crying and moaned out, "I want to go home."
Harry stood up and began twisting his staff to give him strength, though this time felt different than when he had carried Lyra after Dumbledore's party. That time felt like energy flooding through him, this one felt like the muscles in his arms and legs were actually getting bigger. Holding the staff under one arm, he tried to pick her up, only for her to cry out in pain and grab somewhere on her back. He adjusted his grip to hold her across his shoulders like he did one time for Lyra, years ago when she fell out of a tree.
Focusing his mind on walking forwards, he carried her down five flights of stairs, at one point walking by someone in Gryffindor robes who stopped to look at him, then ran upstairs on his way. Continuing with tunnel vision, he made it down to the infirmary and called out, "I need help!"
Coming out of the office in the back, Madam Pomfrey stopped dead and asked, "What happened?"
"She's hurt," Harry yelled. "She's bleeding in different places, plus her feet, and back, and I don't know what else."
Without taking her down from Harry's shoulders, she proceeded to run nearly a dozen diagnostic spells, then when they were complete, she cast some kind of spell on Hermione, which froze her in the position she was across Harry's back, then levitated her to a bed. Once she was there, the matron slowly removed the petrification and straightened her out, one limb at a time, until she was flat on the bed.
Once completely in place, she told Hermione, "I'm going to put you to sleep, when you wake up, things will be better."
As she pointed her wand, Harry jumped in front and leaned down to his friend, whispering, "Who did this?"
As she whispered back, Harry's eyes grew dark and the room began to vibrate. Madam Pomfrey looked a bit frightened and cast the sleeping hex on him first and Hermione afterward.
Harry woke up in a hospital bed. As he tried to remember how he got there, he rolled to the side to see Madam Pomfrey casting several spells on a girl's bare feet. They were swollen, the nails were jagged, and there was quite a bit of blood. Now he remembered why he was there.
The healer looked up as he sat up, "You should not be awake yet, Mr. Potter," she scolded him.
Harry was definitely going to kill Vincent, but then he remembered he had promised Arcturus to let him know if he was plotting a murder. Just as he said, "I need to send an owl somewhere," Hermes flew into the room and perched himself on the bed rail.
Pomfrey looked at the owl, then back to Harry, saying, "That's a school owl, why is it responding to your call?"
Harry was a bit confused, but said, "I don't know, he just does that. Do you have something to write with?"
Not wanting to leave her patient, she just said, "There's paper and a quill in my office. Whoever you're sending a message to, make sure to mention that you are ok, so they don't worry about you too."
Harry scratched out a quick message to Brandt and returned to find Hermes chewing on the Lamassu tooth of his staff. As he nibbled, he grew a bit, even his feathers getting longer. When the owl was nearly twice the size he was before, he stopped, looked at Harry, then puffed out his chest to allow him to insert the letter into the pocket on his vest. With a great sweep of his wings, Hermes sprung into the air, ruffling hair and bedsheets all around the infirmary, and took off quickly through an arch in the ceiling and into the night sky.
Harry looked back toward the matron working on Hermione's feet and said, "You can put me back to sleep, I'll be waiting here for a response." Harry started to focus on a plan for Vincent, and as soon as the beds began to vibrate again, he was hit with a sleeping hex and passed out straight away.
Sometime later in the night, Harry was woken up suddenly as a strange smell flooded his body. Even though his staff was leaning against the wall, the antler glowed in response to his thoughts of wanting more light. Standing next to his bed was Madam Pomfrey, holding a small potion vial, and Brandt, dressed in a strange red jacket that looked more like a shell, and had a serious expression on his face.
"You have a visitor, Mr. Potter," the matron told him. "I am not used to people invading my infirmary dressed for war, please tell him that he may relax."
Harry took a few steadying breaths and looked over to the next bed where Hermione, having been changed into a hospital gown, was still sleeping. Brandt followed his eyes and saw the girl resting silently, but with heavily bandaged feet. When he saw Hermione there, he let out a large breath he was holding and relaxed a bit without being told.
"Healer Pomfrey," Brandt stated, "I need privacy with Mr. Potter."
"You have ten minutes and then one or both of you need to leave." She ran a quick diagnostic on Hermione, then went back to her office.
The Steward pulled a chair to Harry's bedside, cast an entire array of silencing and privacy spells, and took a quick glance at his still glowing staff, "I want to talk about that later," pointing towards the magical focus, "but for now, tell me what happened."
"I went to confront Dumbledore," Harry said, as Brandt grimaced. "I was almost at the top floor when I heard crying. It was coming from a classroom that I couldn't open and my unlocking charm wasn't strong enough to work. So I used my staff to knock down the door. I found Hermione inside where someone had cast a lot of cutting spells on her and cursed her feet so that the nails had grown through her shoes. She had the shield on her new arm protecting her face."
Brandt looked back over to the sleeping bushy-haired girl and saw stains from the tears on her face and clothes. With a quick twist of his wand, he cleaned her face and dried the stains on her hospital gown.
Harry continued, "I picked her up and carried her down here as quickly as I could, then I sent you the letter."
"You carried her down from the top of the castle?"
"I've been carrying Whispers all over the place for years," Harry explained. "This was a bit harder because her back was hurt too, but with the help of the Lamassu fang, I managed."
"So you carried her and your staff down to the infirmary and sent me the letter."
Harry nodded, "Before she put Hermione to sleep," he looked towards the Healer's office, "she told me that Vincent did this."
"Oh thank Merlin," Brandt let out a huge breath, looking at the shock on Harry's face. "I thought you wanted to kill Dumbledore." Then he explained, "Your note didn't say anything about who, and when I left you, you were angry with the Headmaster, so I thought that's who you were going after."
"Do I look stupid?" Harry asked incredulously. "I'm angry, not a dunderhead." Brandt gave an internal chuckle at Harry using Severus's favorite insult. "I'd never go after someone too strong for me, like the…" he trailed off.
"Like the tree," Brandt finished for him, with Harry staring back in surprise. "Look, I have no idea why you and your sister hate that tree or why you want to kill it. You can tell me when you're ready. You can trust me." Harry seemed to think hard about what to say but just nodded instead.
Just then, Madam Pomfrey came back, they couldn't hear her through the privacy wards, but she solved that problem by poking it like a soap bubble with her wand, and the entire thing fell apart.
Brandt stared at her casual display of power, dismantling his wards with the slightest motion, as she said, "Ok, out. Mr. Potter, you were never injured, so you may leave as well. Miss Granger will be here for at least a day longer so her feet can fully heal."
Harry stood up and took his glowing staff and walked with Brandt out and down the hall to the room where they had their meeting with Narcissa, taking seats in the room illuminated by a bit of the stars from the window and Harry's staff.
"So what do you want to do now?" Brandt asked Harry, as he took off the heavy jacket and tried resting it on a chair, only for the dragon scales to be just too heavy for the chair, and the back snapped off and fell to the floor. Brandt just shrugged and took another chair to sit on.
"I want to kill him," Harry said firmly and with resolve in his voice. "I think that is the only way someone like him will stop. He is incapable of learning."
Brandt knew not to try to dissuade him directly, as that would just lead to a fight between the two of them. He needed to keep Harry's focus on the situation and see if he could find a different route that didn't involve murder, even though he still believed that it was very likely Harry had killed before. He didn't want to be an accomplice to a twelve-year-old killing someone. He had been sixteen himself, the first time he had been in a place where he had to decide whether or not to take a life.
So instead, he just asked, "How do you want to do it? This isn't an island. People will come after you, powerful people, like Vincent's father. If you kill Vincent, you won't be able to come back to this school. Are you ok with that?"
That made Harry think, and it also gave Brandt a small amount of reassurance that Harry had some kind of attachment to the school and being here in England. Because if Harry left, that meant that Lyra would be leaving too.
"What Vincent needs is to know what Hermione feels like. Not just for a day, but for the rest of his life. When I found her, she said she wanted to go home. She wanted to leave Hogwarts, leave magic. I want Vincent to cry every night until he can't stand his own life anymore and would prefer to live as a muggle until he dies."
Brandt gasped. The killing was one thing, but now Harry was thinking of visiting endless torment on the boy instead. Though it was technically better than murder… but was not by much.
"So, again, how do you want to do it?" Brandt asked.
He watched as Harry started sorting through his memories. It astounded him to watch, as it looked like he was dreaming with his eyes open. Brandt really needed to get that occlumency teacher for the children, and even if Harry wasn't a natural, he would benefit greatly from the talent as he already seemed to never forget anything. He watched Harry pull on the connections and strands of memory in his head while imagining the scene going on behind that mop of black and silver hair until he finally stopped and looked back at Brandt.
"Can you teach me the snake conjuring spell?" Harry asked, without preamble.
Yeah, that would certainly be the way to visit endless torments on the Crabbe boy. It also confirmed Brandt's theory about Harry being a parselmouth. The only way to completely control a conjuration was to manipulate its mind through magic or to give it a singular target during a duel. Another child his age might be able to conjure a snake but it would attack whatever was closest to it. Harry had to be able to control it if he wanted to use it for anything complicated.
"I can, but I need to talk to you about it first. I think there is something you haven't told me about yourself, something you may have told others, something related to the spell you want to learn. You're asking me for help to possibly kill someone or at the very least, make him wish he were dead. I want you to know that you can trust me, but it seems like you don't."
Harry looked trapped, and glanced around, "What do you mean?"
"You know exactly what I mean. Did someone tell you not to share this secret?"
"No… yes…" Harry looked down at his feet. "They all said that people would react badly if they knew, they said that this country has a bad history with people like me. Like the man that killed my parents."
"Well, you don't need to worry about that with me. I didn't go to school in this country, I went to Durmstrang. Watch my face when you tell me, and see how I respond. If you don't like it, go to Professor Snape, I bet he'd be happy to erase my memories. Yeah, I figured out that Snape also knows."
"Then you already know!" Harry exclaimed.
"I assumed, I didn't know," Brandt told the startled child. "However, I want to hear it from you directly. So we know we can trust each other."
Harry made a bunch of faces with his lips before looking Brandt in the eyes and saying, "I can talk to snakes. I'm a… parselmouth."
They just stared at each other for a very long time, before Harry let out a large breath.
"See, that wasn't so hard," Brandt told Harry. "But you are right, many people in this country would treat you differently if they knew. Outside of the country would be different. Parselmouths around the world have been known for powerful healing magics. Many muggle symbols for medicine include a snake based on legends of parselmouth healers from before the Statute of Secrecy. It is a very rare gift that no one knows for sure where it originally came from, but there are others all over the world."
"There are others?" Harry asked excitedly.
"You could probably even find one or two in the Philippines. Nestor's grandmother seems to know everyone, you could probably ask her about it. I have heard of quite a few in India, and around Uagadou, where Erayden goes to school." Harry looked excited to learn of this. "However, I do have a few more questions that need to be answered before I teach you the spell, if you don't want to answer, you don't have to, ok?"
Harry nodded, and said, "Ok…"
"Is Lyra a parselmouth too?"
"No…" there was evasion in the boy's voice which had to mean something.
"Did you learn magic from The Giver while speaking parseltongue?"
"Yes."
"Do you speak with the Usurper and your familiar, the cobra named Flare?"
"Yes."
"Have you spoken to any other snakes?"
"The ones around the island, but they're annoying. There is also a house somewhere near Mrs. Abbot's tea house that has snakes in it. I always listened to them walking by when I was younger, but I had no idea what I was hearing. Also, the snakes in the pet store in Manilla…" Harry stopped to think for a moment. "Professor Snape's snakes, and the Occamy that Mr. Scamander brought to school at the end of the term."
"Impressive, so let's teach you the snake-conjuring spell."
The two of them worked into the night, at one point, they were startled by a prefect on patrol trying to get into the room, but the door was too securely locked for them to enter. As it was a conjuration, it was way above Harry's current skill level, so they had to start with a lot of theory and tried to get him to conjure a beetle first as it was a much simpler creature.
Luckily for Brandt, Harry knew lots of insect anatomy from them being part of his diet for so long and he had no issues with focusing on all the parts of and biological processes before creating a large blue beetle from the spell, which skittered away as soon as it appeared. At 3 a.m, Harry let out a large yawn and Brandt poured a small amount of a fizzing red potion on his belt into a tiny glass and told Harry to drink. He immediately perked up as a feeling of warmth spread to every extremity of his body. He looked back and forth to see smoke coming out of his ears, but since Brandt didn't seem to be concerned about it, he tried to ignore it as well.
An hour later, Harry managed to conjure one of the smaller, non-venomous snakes he knew. Brandt explained that it would take a lot longer and much more practice to create larger and more deadly snakes with the spell, but that didn't matter as Harry had thought of what he would do to VIncent while he was practicing, and it didn't need to be a venomous snake… it actually was better that it wasn't.
It was then that Brandt got to hear the snake language for the first time. Harry conjured a small snake about a foot long that was brown on the top, with small bits of white between its scales as it turned white on its belly.
Harry looked down at his conjuration and said,
§Hello, lesser-snake.§
Brandt looked on intensely as the snake hissed back,
§Hello, speaker.§
To the Steward, the snake's voice just sounded like a regular hissing, but Harry's voice sounded like a banshee whispering with a mouth full of cotton candy. Truthfully, Brandt couldn't figure out what it sounded like, that was just the first thing that popped into his head. They spent the next thirty minutes teaching Harry how to vanish his own conjurations, which was considerably easier than the other spells and slightly different than vanishing someone else's as it was his will that the conjured creature should exist or not.
Brandt knew that the sun would be rising in a little over an hour and he needed to get back to the manor, so he left Harry with final instructions.
"You and your sister will be supported in the decisions you make, though I would advise against killing Mr. Crabbe. I do not want to know the details of your plan so that I can deny knowledge later if I need to speak in your defense." He pulled out a piece of paper and started writing, as he continued to talk, "Make sure to plan everything you want to do in advance, and if possible, make sure there is nothing that can trace back to you. Try to give yourself an alibi, a reason that you were never there. Other than that, I will speak to you about this at a later date." He passed a letter to Harry, "Put this near your bed so that your roommates can see it. It will tell your friends to pass it on to your first teacher of the day, so you can get a good night's sleep."
Harry took the folded note, flexed his fingers a bit, then said, "Thank you," and left the room.
Brandt wrote another note, put his heavy-scale coat back on, and walked back to the infirmary. He gently picked up Hermione's hand and placed her thumb on the back of the letter, and cast, "Colloportus Suuso."
There was a small glow of her hand and the paper, then he wrote on the front, "From Steward Brandt," placed it on the table by her bed, and left the school through the main entrance. As soon as he was out the gate, he hiked quickly into Hogsmeade and to The Three Broomsticks restaurant. Ignoring the other patrons, dropped a sickle on the bar and used the floo to get back to Black Manor.
Once inside the house, he nearly collapsed from exhaustion. He needed to be awake for a meeting at the ministry in just a few hours and if it weren't for the work of an ancestor of his - Eridani Black, some four hundred years ago, he would be totally screwed.
During his training with Arcturus, there was one time when he had been working for over two days straight and still needed to work at least another full day before he would be finished. That is when Lord Black showed him Eridani's creation. In the back of the manor was a room that was barely bigger than a broom closet that contained a bed. Big enough for one person, with an hourglass built into the headboard.
He had heard myths of time turners in the past, as the first rule on ritual magic at Durmstrang was - DON'T MESS WITH TIME. The second was - DON'T MESS WITH TIME. They were then given more detail and time turners were mentioned as something to stay away from as they would cause more problems than they would solve.
So when Arcturus showed him this room and told him he could get a full night's sleep in less than ten seconds, he was hesitant to use it. His Lord went on to tell him that the construction of a time-turner was an incredibly delicate process and the only real danger to using one was erasing yourself from the time stream by creating a paradox. It didn't make a difference to anyone else as you just won't exist anymore. Time would fix itself by destroying the person that messed with it. There was no chance of actually altering the time stream or destroying the universe.
However, if you use a time-turner to take yourself away from everyone else for a brief period, then no paradox could be created and could be incredibly useful to a creative user. It could be used to be an eyewitness to a past event, as long as you don't try to change it, or you can use it for extra research time on a long project. However, Eridani Black decided to use the time-turner she made for a more noble pursuit… catching up on sleep.
By binding the hourglass to the bed frame, and making it so that the bed would drop you into the room below before you entered it, that took the possibility of a paradox off the table. Combine that with a runic sleeping trap she had copied from a Mayan tomb, you didn't even have to worry about working to fall asleep when you laid down.
When Arcturus collected him from the lower room the first time, he strongly warned him against regular use, telling him, "You will still age while you sleep, you don't want to wake up one day and feel like you are eighty years old when you are only seventy. I believe that is the reason why Albus Dumbledore appears to be so old. He has too many responsibilities and not enough time. He thinks he will live as long as the last Headmaster of Hogwarts - Armando Dippit who lived to be over 350. Even if every wizard could live that long, they should not be careless with the time they have."
Remembering his lesson, as soon as he made up his mind to enter the room, he heard a creaking noise from inside the room, which he guessed was his future self being deposited into the lower room. Waiting an extra few seconds to be sure he didn't run into himself, Brandt opened the door and crawled into the bed, only bothering to remove the dragon scale jacket, before spinning the hourglass eight times, then once more just for good measure. The door closed on its own as he felt the powerful sleeping curse wash over him and he collapsed into a world of dreams.
Despite having three time-turners, Albus Dumbledore did not like being woken up early. Today, he woke up from a staff emergency alarm. He relaxed a little bit after he saw that the gem on the alarm was glowing blue, denoting that it was only a level two emergency. His clock showed that it was 5:30 a.m, so he threw on a yellow bathrobe and pink slippers, then took a passage behind his bedroom desk down to the staff room. Despite being on the seventh floor, he only walked down one flight to arrive at his destination.
Magic was an amazing thing.
Poppy Pomfrey sat at the front of the staff room, near a box that had triggered the alarm. One by one, the remaining staff members entered the room. Some were dressed for the day, and others were still in their sleeping clothes. Some of them were grumbling about the early hour, but that stopped as soon as they saw Poppy waiting for them, and knew she wouldn't have done this frivolously or as a drill.
She waited patiently as everyone arrived and then said, "Last night, there was an attack on a student." This drew many breaths. "Miss Hermione Granger was attacked by an unknown assailant. I treated several different injuries, and I determined that the entire incident lasted several minutes. I had a house-elf retrieve her bag and wand, and determined that she cast no spells to defend herself. So whoever did this must have disarmed her and then taken their time in their assault."
"How did you find her?" Flitwick asked.
"She was delivered to my office by Harry Potter. He carried her in, then sent a letter, with the Black Steward showing up to speak with him a few hours later. They had a private conversation and then left the room. Just before I came here, I found a letter by Miss Granger's bed, signed by the steward on the outside. When Mr. Potter first came in with her, he was extremely agitated and I had to stun him to keep his accidental magic from disturbing my ward."
Dumbledore stood up from his seat, "I will go and speak to Scamander House. Heads of House, please go speak with yours before they head down to the Great Hall for breakfast. Inform them that we are investigating an incident of an attack on a student. Do not give out her name, though her absence will be noticed and I'm sure everyone will know what happened by the end of breakfast. Everyone, please keep an eye and ear out for students discussing this, as the student who did this needs to be caught quickly and they will be dealt with harshly."
With their assignments, the staff all left the room and Albus returned up the passageway to his apartment and office. He needed to handle this situation quickly and carefully. The perpetrator was more than likely to be from a 'respected' family, as who else would be so brazen? Miss Granger's status in the school was gaining even faster than she probably realized. Mr. Flint had come to him the other day about new helmets for the Quidditch teams and he was shocked to discover that the helmets he was asked for were under a patent from nine students including the young muggleborn. Not to mention her future involvement in Ludo Bagman's project, and throw that in with whatever her involvement was with the Blacks and young Harry, and her importance vastly outweighed any politician's child and not ruffling some feathers.
After changing into solemn black robes, Dumbledore made his way down to the Scamander common room. Still, a marvel to behold, he plucked a few lemons from the tree and made himself a glass of lemonade, though he kept it light on sugar, to preserve a bit of the sour flavor he loved so much. As he waited, Astray joined him for a few minutes and they shared a few crackers with cheese. Though when the first student exited the dormitory, the Urisk vanished.
The girl exiting her room from the second-floor landing looked down and saw the headmaster sitting there, drinking lemonade, and froze.
Dumbledore looked up at her, and smiled, "Good morning, Miss Moon," he said in his most grandfatherly voice. "Please stick around before going to breakfast, I need to speak with everyone."
Eventually, the whole house was up and gathered around by the exit, Dumbledore looked around at all of the students, then asked, "Where is Mr. Potter?"
Colin Creevey spoke up, "He's sleeping and left this on his bed," he stepped forward and passed a folded paper to the headmaster, and his sister Lyra looked a bit concerned. On the outside, was written, To Harry's First Professor.
Dumbledore opened it up and read it quickly:
From Brandt, Steward of House Black.
To whom it may concern: I assume by now the faculty have been made aware of last night's events. If they haven't, please speak with Healer Pomfrey. Mr. Potter had a very trying night and after a long discussion with him, he eventually fell asleep in the early hours of the morning. As a result, he will be unable to attend at least his morning classes.
The headmaster folded it up and placed it in his pocket, then addressed the students:
"Last night, there was an attack on another student that left them in the infirmary." He added that, so it was clear that Harry was not the one who was attacked, as he was in his room. "The staff will be investigating the incident, and when the culprit is found, they will be punished severely with possible criminal charges being filed." He gazed at all of their serious faces, and said, "If anyone hears something about the attack, be sure to tell a professor immediately. I am also awarding fifty points to your house as Mr. Potter was the one who found the student and brought them to the infirmary. I imagine that is why he needs a little extra sleep today. Please do not disturb him or pester him when he wakes up. I will not be naming the student who was attacked." He took another few seconds before telling them to run along to breakfast.
Dumbledore was right, and before breakfast had begun, everyone was aware that Hermione was the one who had been attacked. A large group of students ended up visiting her in the infirmary while quite another large group started interrogating other students for answers. Throughout the morning, Professor Flitwick had to shut down two groups of his Ravenclaws that started to form inquisitions and were stopping students at random to demand answers.
Quite a few Slytherins were running scared as they were being targeted as the most likely culprits and there were rumors of a bounty being placed by Fred and George Weasley of ten detention-worthy pranks in exchange for information leading to the culprit. Professor McGonagall confronted them about this rumor and was told it was obviously fake as, in their own words, "If it were true, we would have offered a much larger reward."
Harry woke up a little after lunch and went immediately to his project room as he had a lot of planning to do. He started by practicing the snake conjuration spell as well as the vanishing, and when he was able to do both as successfully as the night before, he moved on to the next part of his plan. Emptying his entire pouch onto the ground he began to sort through it, pulling out everything he had collected since obtaining it.
He handled the core piece of the Lampong antler that Ollivander wasn't able to powder, examining the pointed black rod before putting it back into the pouch. From there, he sorted the various preserved fruits from the island and put them in their places as well. On a shelf next to the large fertilizer bin, he had seven blood bowls sitting there. Five of them had preservation charms on them and one had dried up after the new moon the previous week. He left it there just in case he needed it after he broke the preservation charm on the next one in order. He was still waiting for The Giver to try and contact him.
There was a large container of the manure he had collected that he wanted to try to brew into the durability potion he had used for his staff and also test it for the improvements he had thought of since starting potions class. After everything was sorted, he made sure the invisibility cloak was on top of everything and put it all back into the pouch.
Feeling as content as he was going to be with his preparations, Harry decided to go to class. He walked into the middle of the Defense Against the Dark Arts class and everyone went silent at his arrival. Luna got up out of her seat next to Lyra and let him sit down before moving to another. Lyra's hair seemed to be permanently giving off sparks as he entered the room, and slowly died down as he sat down next to her.
"Well!" Lockhart called out, "For Mr. Potter who just arrived, let me repeat, today is the last day of our section on my adventure with the yetis. I wanted to leave you with an idea, just something I thought of during my time among these frosty giants. Despite their ferocity and physical power, the yetis do not have any natural enemies. Only wizards will try to harm them. Nearly all magical species around the world have some creature that hunts them or attacks them for their magic, however, the yetis do not.
"I'm sure many of you have been wondering, what do these abominable snowmen have to do with the Dark Arts? The answer is, that they have nothing to do with them except that something about them does not allow for dark creatures to hunt them, even any type of parasite. Dragons occasionally have to deal with a mind lamprey or a stygian leech, but no natural predators exist in the areas around where the yetis live. We are going to open a discussion on anything you want to know now about these great creatures" He looked around at the students and called on one, "Yes Mr. Adamson?"
From there, Harry tuned out the discussion as Lyra asked him very seriously, "Who did it?" with her hair sparking a bit as she did.
"I met with Brandt last night, you can't know for now."
Lyra stared at Harry for so long that it gave him a headache, then she just nodded, and her hair calmed down a bit.
"Though I told him about that thing that I can do, and he taught me that spell that Newt did when we told him our story and told him about that thing that I can do."
Lyra focused on figuring out his cryptic message, then widened her eyes, and said, "Show me later."
After dinner, Harry visited the infirmary with Lyra. There were quite a few students, entirely other Ravenclaws visiting Hermione. Her feet were still bandaged, but she was smiling a bit, which made Harry feel better. Her little Martin figure was sitting beside her bed as he shouted and waved his tiny sword at the swarm of visitors. One student noticed Harry and pushed some others aside so he could approach the bed. Penny was sitting there as well and started to push all the others away so they could have some privacy.
The mouse figurine was squeaking and waving his sword at Harry and Lyra, which had Hermione say, "This is Harry, remember? He gave you to me." The figurine relaxed and gave Harry a small salute.
Lyra looked confused and asked, "Can he remember?"
Hermione frowned, "I guess not." She pulled out a folded note and passed it to Harry, "Brandt left this for me."
Harry tried to open it, but couldn't. However, when she saw he was having trouble with it, Hermione reached over and the paper unfolded at her touch. "That's neat," she commented as he opened it.
Miss Granger,
If you don't remember, Mr. Potter delivered you to the infirmary last night after an incident. If you remember what happened, I ask you not to disclose the student that did this to you. It is being handled.
Steward Brandt
When Harry finished, Lyra skimmed it and passed it back to Hermione. She asked, "What are you going to do?"
Harry's eyes darkened as he told her, "Nothing you need to know about right now."
Lyra pulled out a silencing feather and activated it before either of them could say something else.
"Are you going to hurt him?" Hermione asked.
"Do you want me to?" Harry asked back.
"Yes," she responded immediately. Then, "No… I don't know. All these people showed up here! I didn't know I had that many friends. People are saying Fred and George put a bounty on... my attacker. Why do people want to do this for me?"
"Because you're nice?" Lyra asked. "I think you're nice, and if Harry doesn't do something, I will. Do we need another reason?"
Hermione's eyes began to water as she smiled, "Thank you."
Harry thought she looked tired, so he took Lyra and left, with the group of Ravenclaws that had been there before pooling back into the room. On the way out, he shared a dark look with Penny and then continued on. Back in the common room, Harry and his sister split up and he went to his room to get an early night's sleep.
Harry woke up in the middle of the night, it reminded him of being back on the island when he used to hunt fireflies in the middle of the night. Unlike those nights, he wasn't hunting bugs, he was using the skills he had learned hunting snakes… to hunt a snake. Getting out of bed, he turned invisible and started to sneak away. Even though he was already invisible, he fished his father's invisibility cloak out of his pouch and put that on top of his already transparent self, pulling up the hood. He wasn't sure if that made any difference but better safe than sorry. Just before he left the room, Whispers approached him and stared straight at him while sniffing the air.
Harry lowered the hood on the cloak and turned visible, "Hey little buddy," he said quietly.
Whispers must have picked up on what was going on, as he picked up a stick he had found somewhere and said, "Weee hunt snakes."
"Not you,'' Harry said as quietly as he could. "Can you guard my bed?"
Whispers let out a soft growl in protest, but then crawled under Harry's sheets and peaked out with glowing blue eyes. Harry gave his little brother a nod and vanished again, flipping the hood back up. The common room was dark, with no moon in the starlit sky of the ceiling. Again, it reminded him of home to see all the trees and shadows from the stars above. After he gazed at the room for a moment, he followed the maze out into the hallway.
Once he was outside, he stopped dead as he saw Professor Sinestra patrolling the hallway with her wand lit up and scanning the dark corners of the area. Just to be on the safe side, he avoided walking in the light as he crept by the astronomy professor. If anyone was going to see him in the dark while invisible, it would be the woman who spent her nights in the dark, looking at the stars. Harry snuck by a prefect and Professor Burbage on his way down to the second subfloor.
He hadn't been out past curfew before, but it seemed like quite a few people were patrolling the halls tonight, probably to keep students from doing exactly what he was trying to do. Away from the staircase, he didn't encounter anyone on the lower floor until he turned a corner and encountered the gargoyle guarding Malcolm Constantine's (The Bloody Baron) portrait room. Harry approached the sleeping stone monster slowly, but it didn't react as he stood in front of it. Not wanting to make a big deal out of this surprise gift, he walked by and activated the light sequence to reveal the secret passage.
When he got to the portrait, Malcolm was sleeping in his frame, so he just whispered, "I need to get into the office." Without waking up, the door to the side of the portrait revealed itself and he walked inside.
Alone in the expansive and empty office of Salazar Slytherin, Harry pulled out his staff and illuminated the room. It looked just the same as it did during the day, and with the light covering every surface, Harry placed a sticking charm on the staff and left it there as he approached The Well of Serpents. Pulling off the cover, he looked down into the common room below. Everything was dark except for a bit of light coming in the reptile terrariums and a bit of refracted starlight through the lake and the windows. He realized a bit too late that his staff might project light down into the other room, but after leaning back and forth, he saw that it didn't.
Starting with where he remembered Daphne's room was, he began to look around the area to find Vincent. He found Tracey's room easily as well, as both girls had put the tapestries he had given them on the ceilings. Blaise also was easy to find as the marking on the floor was still there and glowed slightly. Next, he found Draco's room, but that was because the boy was still awake and writing an essay at his desk with the lights on.
Figuring that Vincent would be the next one over, Harry moved the well over the next room and looked in, not being able to see anything in the dark. Figuring that this might happen, Harry positioned the well near the side of the covered bed, then drew his wand and cast next to him, "Serpensortia!"
The brown and white snake that escaped his wand looked up at him as he ordered it,
§Obey me.§
The serpent responded in an affirmative tone,
§Yes, speaker.§
Harry picked up the snake by the tail and said,
§Smell and taste the sleeping child in this room§
He lowered the snake through the portal into the room for nearly half a minute before pulling it back up and placing it on the floor. From there, he reached into his pouch and pulled out the blood amulet he had made with Whispers on the train, and held it in front of the snake.
§Is this the same scent?§
The snake bobbed its head.
§Yesss§
Good, now Harry could act. Reaching into his pouch, he pulled out a pair of gloves, his mortar and pestle from potions class, a long length of demiguise rope, and a preserved branch containing two of the custard apples that grew on the island. The little brown snake just watched and observed his process.
Harry put his gloves on, broke the preservation charm, and split open both fruits to remove the seeds. He then took off a dozen of the scales of the peel and used his potions knife to cut up bits of the branch they were attached to, placing all of them into the pestle. He pressed down on them slowly to extract all of the liquid and sap from each part of the fruit. Then, with slow, methodical motions, he used the mortar to grind the mixture up, infusing his anger and desire for vengeance into the fine paste.
Once that was complete, he tied the end of the rope onto the brass snakes on the outside of the well and tied a silencing feather to the other end. He then paused and looked over all the assembled materials. This should work.
Looking back at the snake who was observing everything patiently, he ordered it,
§Open your mouth, show me your fangs.§
The conjured snake obeyed and Harry took a large amount of the paste he had made, smearing it all over its teeth and inside its mouth. Then he said,
§You will climb down this rope.§
§Then bite that boy as many times as you can on his left arm, the one closest to his heart.§
§Bite his hand, bite his shoulder, bite his elbow.§
§Then climb back up the rope to me.§
The snake merely nodded as its mouth was full of the paste from the exotic fruit. Harry activated the silencing feather and tossed the coil down into Vincent's room then picked up his accomplice and let him wind down the rope.
Harry couldn't see under the bed hangings, but he definitely noticed as Vincent began shaking the bed as he was getting bitten. As he wasn't inside the silencing field, he couldn't hear anything either, but he was in obvious signs of distress. Vincent got up and tried to stagger to the door, but collapsed, his left arm dangling loosely at his side.
The snake climbed slowly up the rope, so as soon as possible, Harry just pulled him up all the way. Quickly, he thanked the conjured snake and vanished him, then threw everything back into his pouch, pushed the well back to the center of the office, and headed for the exit. Making sure he was completely invisible and cloaked, he made his way out past the sleeping portrait and down the one-way hall.
He was almost to the stairwell when suddenly Professor Sinestra and Babbling ran down the stairs with a Gryffindor prefect in tow. Before heading further down, they stopped and told the prefect to stand guard there. Then they continued to run further down.
Harry didn't know her name but knew she was the sixth-year prefect. As carefully as he could, he hugged the walls to walk around her and crept up the stairs. There was another Gryffindor prefect next to the hallway for the first subfloor hallway which he crept by.
Professor Lockhart was standing guard on the main floor by the stairs down. He was looking around frightfully and shining his wand at random.
As Harry snuck by the man, he called out, "There you are! Pungo!"
Harry spun around but Lockhart had cast his spell in the opposite direction from him, and a scream was heard down that way as he chased down the intruder, yelling, "I caught them!"
Harry used the opportunity to run as fast as he could to the common room, where he slipped inside and made it to his bed where Whispers was waiting for him. Once he was there, he thanked Whispers quietly for guarding his spot and took out a half dose of a dreamless sleep potion he had brewed in potions club the last term, changed into his pajamas, and drank the potion. Whispers cuddled into him and yawned as the two of them fell asleep.
Author's Note:
The custard apple - Annona reticulata: The seeds are so hard that they may be swallowed whole with no ill effects but the kernels are very toxic. The seeds, leaves, and young fruits are insecticidal. The leaf juice kills lice. The bark contains 0.12% anonaine. Injection of an extract from the bark caused paralysis in a rear limb of an experimental toad. Sap from cut branches is acrid and irritant and can severely injure the eyes. The root bark has yielded 3 alkaloids: anonaine, liriodenine, and reticuline (muricinine). Harry purposely mixed it all together and infused his magic with a desire for vengeance into it. It would end up being much stronger.