Armando's Interference
Sure enough, during breakfast the next morning, everyone was talking about the basilisk around the school. Two of Newt Scamander's books were making the rounds, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Titans of the Magical World. Lee had managed to get his hands on one of the copies of Titans that were in the library and had quite a few people huddled around him as he looked through it.
Harry stopped him as he passed by a page with the entry for the Nyuvwira. "Mr. Scamander told me he saw one of these eat a herd of zebras," Harry told the group surrounding Lee.
It wasn't a normal hydra as each of the eight heads didn't have its own neck. At the end of the snake, there was just a cluster of heads which made it so some of them were always forced to look behind the snake. There was a sketch next to the description which showed that it would be about forty feet long and compared it to a small sketch of a human.
The creature spent most of its time underground and was very toxic to be close to. It would glow in the dark when above ground and cause muggle airplanes and other flying devices above it to malfunction. They only existed inside a small reserve in the Matipa Complex Forest of Malwai. They weren't hunted to extinction like many other magical animals that might destroy the Statute of Secrecy due to their skin being so valuable as part of non-runic anti-flight wards.
Eventually, they got to the page on the Basilisk. There were a few pages that showed sketches of the different varieties that had been seen around the world. There were five pictures in the book of the carcasses after being killed. One was small, the size of a cobra, while others were nearly twenty feet long. One picture showed the one that Newt had spoken about that had been killed in India suspended in the air with numerous wooden spears impaling it from different angles. The caption stated that after they found it to be deaf, they lured it into the open where several dozen wizards conjured the spikes from above and used air superiority to kill it.
The last one was captioned as being killed on May 12, 1865. There was a team of nearly thirty wizards standing around the body, three of them holding roosters aloft as they posed for the photo. Harry wondered if any of them were still alive after all this time so he could ask them if the roosters helped at all. However, it looked like there were plenty of ways to kill a basilisk even without the Usurper to help.
Near the end of breakfast, there was the sound of marching boots outside the Great Hall, and a contingent of Aurors entered the room, drawing everyone's attention. At the front of the group was a very stern-looking auror with slicked-back hair whose face resembled an eagle with a very short, pointed nose as the beak. Harry didn't recognize the other two aurors in the group, but he did spot Amos Diggory standing with a ghoulish-looking man with short black hair, two Unspeakables, and two others without hoods.
The Auror at the front of the group called out, "Headmaster Dumbledore, we need to speak with you at once."
There was a lot of whispering as the headmaster got down from his seat at the front of the room and crossed it to leave with the group from the Ministry. Shortly after they left, the students started filing out of the room. Harry managed to find his way over to Daphne and Tracey and asked if they had any idea what was going on.
"Probably something to do with the basilisk," Tracey said with a shrug. "We all know about it, so I bet the Unspeakables are back for a checkup."
"Though sending Yaxley and MacNair is interesting," Daphne added.
"Who are they?" Harry asked.
Daphne changed out of her usual emotionless mask and sneered, "Friends of the Malfoys. Yaxley, as you can see, is a Senior Auror, but MacNair… he's one you need to worry about. He works in the Beast Division and disposes of dangerous magical animals. I'm guessing he's here to kill the basilisk."
"If we knew where it was, I bet Lockhart would have taken care of it," Tracey smiled. "Then his next book could be; Battling the Basilisk - The Tale of Saving Hogwarts."
"With a special dedication to his favorite student, Tracey Davis," Daphne smirked at her friend.
"Do you think that that man could really kill a basilisk?" Harry asked.
"That's what his job is," Daphne replied, putting her mask back on. "If he can't, he should find a new line of work."
Without any specific plans for the day, Harry and Lyra went to turn in some of their calligraphy homework to Professor Lockhart. Despite the monotony of the tutoring, they made sure to diligently do the lessons. At some point, all of their lessons were just a series of repetitions for the sake of drilling it into their heads. Casting the same spells over and over, the forms and movements for the knife training, Occlumency, filling out star charts, and studying everything for all their classes. Calligraphy was just one more thing, though it hopefully wouldn't last much longer.
Lockhart had been a bit strange since Valentine's day. For a couple of weeks after, his behavior was very erratic and paranoid. Now, a month and a half afterward, he was just strange. He had drilled them hard on banshees for a few weeks, then switched over to his book, Holidays with Hags. Hags were essentially what muggles thought witches were. Ugly, covered in warts, and with a taste for human children. The witch in the story Hansel & Gretel was a hag, but as Lockhart explained, one that didn't like to eat children raw.
Many hags lived amongst wizards, though they had to suppress their desire to eat human flesh. They still did eat most of their meat raw and had a particular fondness for fresh livers. Most of them made their living in brewing potions as something about their magic allowed them to understand the brewing process instinctually. The students were advised to keep clear of them and that they could identify a hag by an above-average number of warts on her face and four toes on each foot.
That lesson had ended last week, and now they were studying harpies. Daria had complained that they seemed to be focusing heavily on evil creatures that took the form of women but Lockhart seemed to just ignore her criticism. Harry was just interested in the number of different types of humanoid magical creatures in the world, while Lyra wanted some harpy feathers to play with. Now that they were on their way to turn in their assignments to him, she planned on asking if he could get her some.
The door to his classroom was open when they got there and they could hear him talking with someone in his office. The door to the office barely opened and the two of them peered in to see him speaking loudly with someone's face hovering in the flames of his fireplace.
"I don't see why the book isn't ready yet!" he said angrily. "I wrote it years ago."
"Yes, years ago," the man's face in the fire responded. "The editors need to go over it and make it worthy of the Lockhart legend."
"Fine, just keep at it," he said in a resigned tone. "You'll probably hear about it soon but there is likely a basilisk at Hogwarts. Start putting together as much information as you can on the beast and if it can be killed, I'll do my best to bring you an epic story for my defeat of the monster."
"A basilisk? At Hogwarts?" the face looked shocked while floating in the fire. "That would certainly be a bestseller."
"However, if anything happens to me, from the serpent or anything else, you have my final requests. Don't publish the old book unless I shuffle off this mortal coil, and if I do, you can open my last request envelope and include that with it. I guarantee that will make it sell more than any of my others."
"With a promise like that, I'm tempted to find a way to stop your heart myself so I can take a look inside. Well, I guess I'll just have to wait until your untimely demise to see this explosive reveal."
Harry and Lyra shared a look and crept back towards the entrance of the classroom where Lyra knocked loudly on the door and called out, "Professor Lockhart? Are you there?"
There was a shuffling noise in the office, and the Professor responded, "I'm in my office, come on back!"
They headed into his office and took out the parchment with their assignments on it and handed them over to him.
Harry tried to get some information, "I thought I heard you talking to someone as we came in," he looked around, "I guess not."
"Oh, you did, it was just my publisher. Just because I'm teaching doesn't mean I'm not still working on my next project."
"Are you going to kill the basilisk?" Lyra asked.
"If I get the opportunity," he flashed a sparkling smile, "I will certainly take advantage of it. Though it is probably cowering in fear from all the roosters around the school. No reason to come out if it's just going to die."
He took their assignments and went over them with each of them. He corrected some minor errors on their strokes and then set them up with their next lesson.
Before they left, Lockhart told them, "If you do happen to find the basilisk before I do, let me know and we can vanquish it together."
On their way back to the common room, they were stopped at the main staircase by an Unspeakable. In a completely unremarkable voice, they told the two children, "Your presence is needed in the Headmaster's office."
Hesitantly, they followed the man in hooded robes up to the top of the castle. The gargoyle at the entrance stepped aside without a password being spoken and they ascended the last flight of stairs to Dumbledore's office. Before the inner door was open, they heard Dumbledore call out, "Come in, Mr. Potter, Miss Black."
They entered the room to find Dumbledore, Snape, the Scamanders, and the group from the Ministry all standing around the room. It had been expanded to accommodate the large group, and in the corner was Armando Dippet's portrait mounted below Fawkes's perch. The phoenix had defecated on the frame and the previous headmaster was shooting death glares at the bird above him.
A quick look at Snape had a flash appear in Harry's head and a voice told him, "Do not get angry, do not say anything. Tell Lyra."
Harry whispered in his sister's ear to relay the message.
Amos Diggory stepped forward from the group to speak, "Harry, Lyra, we were brought here by the Ministry because the portrait of the previous headmaster informed us that you were attempting to bring a wizard-killing creature to Hogwarts. Everyone seems to believe that there is a basilisk in the school and that the creature you know can kill it. Have you seen the basilisk?"
"No, but…" Harry started.
"Yes, the crab," Amos interrupted. "There are many other reasons that it and the other spiders around the area might be reacting in this way. A basilisk isn't the only possibility. So far, no one has been able to provide us with any evidence that such a creature exists, and the petrification of a cat and a student isn't enough for us to believe your story."
"We know it's here!" Lyra started, but Harry placed a strong hand on her shoulder as he was getting a glare from Snape.
Harry was trying his best to keep his Occlumency mask up despite not having mastered the anger emotion. He just whispered in Lyra's ear, "Hot springs," and some of her annoyance melted away from her face.
"We aren't inclined to believe someone from the other side of the planet that you have access to a mysterious creature without a name that can kill basilisks." That came from the eagle-faced auror that Daphne had identified as Yaxley. He continued, "We received a portkey request from the Filipino Ministry for the transfer of a large magical animal. That request has been denied."
The annoyance on Lyra's face made a fast resurgence alongside Harry's. The look on Snape's face was pleading with the two of them to stay quiet. He just squeezed his sister's arm as he forced himself to not react.
"So what do you want from us?" Harry asked.
The one identified as MacNair stepped up, "Just to tell you that we will not be making allowances for any creature to enter into Magical Britain from abroad. Should one make an appearance, I will be tasked with hunting it down and killing it."
"What about the basilisk?" Harry asked, while almost squeezing Lyra's arm tight enough to hurt. "Are you tasked with killing that?"
"Should such a creature exist that poses a threat to the lives of true wizards, and this isn't just a prank from school children, that would be my job to kill it. However, I have received no such assignment yet."
Dumbledore addressed them, "I expect no rash actions from the two of you. This will be sorted out in time."
"Is there anything else?" Lyra asked menacingly.
"No, Miss Black," the headmaster told her. "You may both leave now."
The two children tried their best not to show their fury as they marched out of the office and down the stairs.
When they had passed the gargoyle guarding the office, Lyra blurted out, "What the hell?"
Harry shushed her, and said while pointing to his head, "Snape told me to keep quiet. He probably has a plan. Let's go to his office and wait for him there."
While they waited for their professor to come down, they ducked into the Potions Club classroom nearby. There were a few other students there who acknowledged their presence as they moved to their station and dissolved the protections. Harry had a batch of his hair growth potion that had just finished brewing and Lyra was working on a fire protection potion that would work on her broom so she didn't need Brandt to cast the charms he did before when she flew with the hoohoos.
Harry transferred out his potion to separate containers and cast preservation charms on them, while Lyra started applying the paste in her cauldron to a plank of wood she had for testing. The Potions Club room had a large stone bunker, similar to the ones in the Scamander study room for testing volatile substances, and once the plank had been coated, she levitated it over to that area. A few of the other students stopped what they were doing to come to watch.
Harry motioned to the spectators to back up as Lyra drew her wand and incanted "Incendio!"
Raging flames descended on the plank of wood in the stone bunker for nearly thirty seconds before letting up. When the flames went away, the board was still there, unburnt by the flames. Harry approached the plank and reached out for it, but pulled his hand back.
"It's hot," he told Lyra. Reaching a bit closer, "It's really hot. You won't be able to sit on something like that."
Lyra sighed and said, "Back to the beginning." The two of them went back to the shelves of books in the room to look through ingredient encyclopedias to find something that might mitigate the heat and still be able to maintain the same amount of fire protection.
They had been researching for nearly thirty minutes before they heard the sound of adult voices coming down the hallway. They had left the door open so they could see someone coming, but as the people coming passed by, it was Yaxley and MacNair. They took a quick look into the room before moving on.
Lyra quickly signed to Harry, [Follow][Vanish]
The two of them exited the classroom and turned the opposite way to find an alcove to duck into and turn invisible. Then with careful and quiet precision, they both ran back to catch up with the two men from the Ministry. Both of them walked past the Potions Classroom, where Snape's office was, and made two turns in the hallway before ending up at a blank wall.
Yaxley spoke up, "Only the worthy," and then the two of them walked straight through the wall.
Lyra approached the wall with Harry running to catch up with her. Before he could say anything, she recited the password and walked through with Harry jumping forward to enter with her.
On the other side of the wall was the Slytherin common room. They had seen it before from looking down through the well, but seeing it in person was interesting all the same. Harry quickly pulled Lyra to the side as a student left through the wall they just entered. It was smaller than the expansive office above them, but that was because the office was big enough to also cover the area which had the dormitories below it.
Harry could see a bit of Lyra's sparkling arm pointing towards where the two men stalked across towards the dormitories, with several students watching after the two adults walking through their sanctuary as if they owned the place. Carefully, the two of them snuck around the students in the room to follow Yaxley and MacNair.
The two men stopped in front of a door and knocked. After a moment, it was opened by Draco Malfoy.
With all of his usual charm, the blonde boy asked, "What do you two want?"
"Watch your tone," Yaxley scolded him. "We're delivering a message from your father. He wants to know if you've done the thing."
"He didn't tell you what it was, did he?" Draco smirked. "I bet you really want to know about it too."
MacNair pulled a long knife from his robes and pointed it at Draco, who didn't even flinch at the sight of it. "Just give an update so we can get out of here," he told the boy.
"Fine, you can tell my father that Vincent failed his assignment, so I had to do it myself. Any news when he will be back at school?"
"Crabbe's boy will be back after the break," Yaxley told him. "He's going to need you to look after him."
"I will find those responsible so he may have revenge," Draco said with a dark expression. "The mudblood is more popular than ever, but her time is coming sooner than later."
"Don't get too full of yourself," Yaxley warned. "Your father wanted us to remind you that you are not to be involved in whatever is happening."
"Just leave if you've got nothing else to do here," Draco swatted away the blade that MacNair still had pointed at him, then walked back into his room and closed the door.
MacNair cursed at the closed door, "Stupid pissant. His father has been in prison and knocked lower than ever and he still thinks he's the prince of Slytherin."
Yaxley just grunted an agreement and the two of them went to leave. Harry and Lyra hugged the walls as they passed by, oblivious to the two invisible children. After they had passed, Lyra went to leave as well, but Harry caught her, pulling her further down the hall. Arriving at the room after Draco's, Harry concentrated on the feather hanging around his neck, and after a small silencing field had been put up, he drew his wand and pointed at the lock, saying, "Alohomora!"
There was a small click and the door opened, with the two of them entering quickly and shutting the door. Once they were inside, Harry focused on the feather charm and expanded the silencing field as much as he could, until it filled the whole room, then dropped his invisibility, with Lyra following suit.
"What are we doing here?" she asked.
"Vincent is coming back in two weeks. I want to leave him a welcome home present," Harry smiled.
"What are you going to do?" Lyra asked.
"I was thinking of flooding his room with conjured snakes, but I don't know what would happen if I leave them here alone. I don't think they need to eat, and I don't know if they would just vanish like other conjurations, so maybe just a message on the wall. I just don't know what to write."
They sat there in silence for a minute before Lyra suggested, "Just one word. 'Suffer,' should be enough. My first thought was something about Hermione, but that would point back to her."
Harry thought about it, then looked around the room, "I'll put it on the back of the door. He won't see it until he's inside and feels safe."
Using the color-changing charm, Harry slowly wrote the word SUFFER, in red and all capitals on the back of the door. Lyra smiled as she saw that he was adding a little bit of the flair they had learned in calligraphy to the lettering, making it a beautifully threatening message.
When he was done, he turned to Lyra with a smile, "Ok, let's get out of here. Also, use your silencing feather on the way out. Just enough so no one hears our footsteps or breathing. We really should have done that on the way in."
Harry condensed the field of his feather until it was just around his body, and watched Lyra do the same with her earring, then the two of them vanished. Opening the door just a crack, they snuck back out and closed the door, then crept back into the hallway. Snape's classroom door was open and two Slytherins were waiting in line to see him, so they skipped seeing him and retreated to the alcove they had turned invisible in before.
When they got back to the common room Newt and Tina were having tea at the kitchen nook in the corner with Patricia. They had books and notes spread out on the table around them and were pointing to different things in them as they spoke. They needed to speak with the Scamanders but didn't want to interrupt just yet, so they just retreated to their favorite tree where they found Whispers enjoying a snack with Astray. The Urisk looked guilty, as if he had been caught doing something he wasn't supposed to, and ducked behind a branch, vanishing from sight.
"What just happened, Whispers?" Harry asked.
Their little brother just picked up the last piece of cheese that was there and ate it, while giving them a shrug.
For the next half hour, they took turns having staring contests with Whispers. Lyra was still trying to figure out how to surround her mind with the Devil's Snare defenses. It wasn't so hard to imagine, it was just very difficult to make it behave as a defense that could counter a mind probe. The plant was very slow-moving, so getting it to work against the nature she knew it to have from her studies was extremely difficult.
Harry, on the other hand, was trying to add an extra layer of spikes on top of the existing one. Maintaining two walls for Whispers to break through was difficult and typically both of them would fall when Whispers would get through the first one. They were both working hard on their mental defenses as they wanted something to show Símone when their lessons resumed.
Before they started to get headaches, they stopped to work on their forms for their knife training, but were interrupted by Patricia calling them from the base of the tree, telling them to go see Newt and Tina. They both quickly jumped down from the tree with Whispers following soon after and approached their Heads of House, standing by the exit to the maze.
"We need to have this conversation in our office," Newt told them and led the way out of the common room.
When they arrived, Whispers ran across the room where Dougal was sprawled on a large beanbag and flopped down with him. Tina gestured for the children to sit around a coffee table they had in the middle of the room.
"So, about the Basilisk," Newt began. "The old Headmaster's portrait did an extraordinary job of messing things up. Nestor cannot create an international portkey without permission from the British Ministry to bring the Usurper here. However, that's not the biggest issue that he has caused."
"What?" Lyra asked.
Tina looked serious before telling them, "People in the Ministry now know that the two of you were somewhere in The Philippines before coming to Hogwarts." Seeing their panic, she quickly added, "The Headmaster tried to rectify the situation, by saying that this was one of the places that the two of you had been before Hogwarts. He explained that Harry was moved around regularly and The Philippines was one of the last places you were before Hogwarts."
"Do they know about the Island?" Harry asked, with a bit of fear in his voice.
"No," Newt told him. "Not exactly. Part of the protections of the island that the ministry established is tied to the two of you, Nestor and his team, and a few people in the Filipino Ministry. Only those people can reveal its location or what is on the island."
"Is that Gutiérrez man one of the people?" Lyra asked.
"He could be," Tina said. "I'll need to check with Nestor and see if he can be removed from the permissions on the wards if he is, but that would only mean that he couldn't tell others. He would still know himself."
"The other thing that Dippet's portrait tried to impress upon the ministry is that we really have no proof of the basilisk existing, just strong evidence that it might," Newt frowned. "The two of you seem positive that it is here, that The Usurper told you. While it makes sense that this creature might know where its mortal enemy is, what doesn't make sense is why it would have waited so long to pursue it, and why it needs children to do its scouting. The two of you have many secrets you haven't shared with us, I just want to ask if there is anything you can do to help us convince the ministry to arrange the portkey."
Lyra started, "Harry…"
Harry turned to her and shook his head, then faced the Scamanders, "We know it is here, you've seen the crab, someone has been killing the roosters, that's all you need. We will just need to find another way to bring the kingsbane here."
"The Ministry will be watching for it," Tina warned them. "That MacNair man used to serve Voldemort but got off the same way as Lyra's father did. He is no stranger to killing."
Lyra looked a bit frightened, but hid that feeling away quickly, looking at Harry who was lost in thought. He didn't respond for a few minutes until Hermes flew into the room through an open window.
"I need to talk to Brandt," Harry told them.
"If we need him here quickly," Newt stopped Harry from heading to the desk to get parchment, "I should send him a Patronus. I'm not sure if I know him well enough though."
"Why does that matter?" Harry asked.
Newt ignored him and stood up while focusing on something, but Tina responded in his place, "All magic has limits. The Patronus charm can be used for repelling dark creatures and inspiring hope in those who are near it. The other use for them is to send messages that can reach anywhere in the world with very few things that can stop the message from arriving. However, you can't send them to just anyone, they can only be sent to someone with whom you share a personal connection, and the connection has to be both ways."
She looked up to Newt, who had drawn his wand and was still focusing on his thoughts, then continued, "Unfortunately, it can't be used to contact someone who you aren't familiar with, someone you feel a connection with that doesn't feel it in return as strongly, or an enemy."
At that point, Newt brandished his wand and incanted, "Expecto Patronum!"
When Harry and Lyra had seen his Patronus before, it had been too small to identify, but this time, the spectral guardian was quite a bit larger and could be easily identified as a bowtruckle.
Newt looked at it and said, "Can you please contact Steward Brandt and tell him we could use his presence at Hogwarts as soon as possible?" However, the glowing stick creature just floated in place and didn't vanish. Looking back to his wife, "I don't know where he could be to contact him by floo. Harry, you should just send him your letter."
Harry ended up scratching out a letter quickly, and Lyra scribbled out a note to include as well but didn't show it to the Scamanders. Hermes took it and flew off into the twilight sky.
Even though the next morning was a school day, Brandt showed up to the common room in the morning before breakfast and took Harry and Lyra directly to the Scamanders' office. Along the way, he said that Newt and Tina had mentioned that they were keeping something secret about how they knew of the basilisk, but wouldn't reveal it. Lyra told him they wouldn't be telling him either.
Newt had arranged for them to have breakfast as they discussed what they should do. Tina broached the subject of the basilisk one more time, "I just want to make certain that you're sure that there is a basilisk here. There's no room for error in this."
Lyra activated a silencing feather and the two of them had a quick conversation where Harry seemed to be saying 'No' quite a bit, before relenting to something at the end.
Lyra informed them, "We know for a fact that there was a basilisk here for the last time there were petrifications at Hogwarts and we know for a fact that it was a basilisk that killed someone here. We don't know for a fact if Filch's cat and Gabriel were petrified by the basilisk this time, but we were given the crab to specifically warn us if a basilisk was nearby. So unless there is something else that could mimic the presence of the King of Serpents, it's a basilisk."
"That's good enough for me," Brandt told the Scamanders. "What about you two?"
"It will have to be," Newt said. "Now how do we bring the Usurper here?"
"Can we just get France to allow a portkey?" Brandt asked.
"No," Newt replied. "One of the things that Dippet did was alert neighboring countries that we might try that. He didn't get to be 350 years old without picking up a lot of tricks. He doesn't have portraits just in our country but all over Europe too. It would be safe to assume that other magical governments won't allow a portkey of a giant killer snake into their territory, and any that might give access for a portkey would probably try to capture or kill it."
"Could it just swim?" Lyra asked.
"Maybe?" Newt wasn't sure. "It probably couldn't go over land because of the Statute of Secrecy, it would need to travel the sea routes, and avoid muggle shipping lanes."
"How would we make sure it would stay on track?" Tina asked. "You can't use a broom or carpet underwater. Would it be able to follow a mapped route?"
"We won't know anything unless we ask the kingsbane," Harry told them. "Can I leave school to go back to the island?"
"No," Brandt objected. "I'll go. I need to arrange some changes in my duties with Lord Black and then I can go in a day or two. You have those blood bowls so we can communicate when I get there. Inform The Giver that I will be coming soon and we can figure it out from there."
With a plan in mind, they split up to put it into action.