Tryouts and Experiments
It turned out that Brandt couldn't get out of his duties for Lord Black until the following weekend. Newt assured Harry that he and Tina had already started looking over potential sea routes for the Usurper to take to get to Hogwarts. None of that helped Harry and Lyra who were still moving carefully around the castle with Whispers, peeking around corners, and reading through the logs of the Explorer's Club to try and figure out where the Chamber of Secrets might be.
The Ministry had strongly suggested removing the roosters since they claimed to have complaints from students about the noise and stated that there was no proof of a basilisk being in the school outside the previous poultry deaths and the strange behavior of the spiders. Dumbledore argued that, despite no one seeing the serpent, the evidence did point towards it as a possibility, and keeping the roosters around the school would work to try and identify whoever killed the other chickens if they went after these roosters as well.
Outside of class time, Harry and Lyra both threw themselves into their respective projects to see if they could figure out how to unpetrify Mrs. Norris and Gabriel Truman. It became an unspoken contest between the two of them, and neither of them would share what approach they were taking to the project. Harry was trying to figure out why the Mandrake's scream was so hazardous to people. If chewing the leaves was a part of the animagus ritual, he wanted to know why the plant could also kill someone before putting the leaves in his mouth. There was very little information on why the mandrake had the effects that it did. All of the books in the library catalog on the plant just listed the properties without explanation.
This was one of the most frustrating things for Harry, and probably Lyra too. There were so many times since leaving the island that nothing had a good answer to their questions. So many questions they had for their teachers about why things worked got responded to with just 'Magic.' Snape was occasionally helpful with the properties of the potion ingredients; when the properties were related to symbology, it was easy to figure out. However, when the properties were biological in nature, the Professor often wouldn't have an answer of why that ingredient was used in that way.
Luckily, he was provided a break in his search with the midweek Quidditch tryouts. After an incredibly dull double History class, which he just spent looking through herbology books while Professor Binns's voice droned on in the background, he and Lyra stopped at the dorms for their brooms before heading down to the Quidditch pitch with the rest of their house. When they got down to the field, Penny was standing around the entrance.
Cedric approached her, "Can I help you Miss Clearwater?" he asked.
"I got a note to meet Madeline Gorgon here," Penny replied, referring to one of the Beaters for the Holyhead Harpies.
Quite a few of the Scamanders perked up at the name, while Cedric just sighed.
"I wanted it to be a surprise for all of them," he told Penny. Then turning back to the younger students, he told them with faux enthusiasm, "Surprise! Madeline Gorgon from the Harpies will be joining us to help me with the tryouts." There were quite a few cheers and excited noises from the other students. "She should be here any minute," Cedric added.
"Already here!" called out a voice from above. Wearing her team uniform, the beater plummeted from the sky, leaping off her broom from about forty feet up, performed a flip, then landed on one knee while punching the ground hard enough that it cracked in six directions from where her fist impacted the ground and made everyone jump backward. As she stood up, everyone could see a large knee pad and glove on the leg and fist that had hit the ground. Her broom floated down next to her as she stood up. There was a luggage chest attached to the back, behind the seat.
"It's good to be here," she smiled in a way that looked predatory, but everyone was still in awe of her entrance to be scared. "Your captain, Cedric, asked me to take part in your first training day. First thing though, I asked Miss Clearwater because she needs to make some improvements on your helmets. No one should wear them until this issue is fixed."
Harry felt a bit scared. He had decided to finally play partially because of the helmets. Penny was also a bit anxious as the beater had found something wrong with their project. From inside the chest on her broom, Madeline pulled out a small box and expanded it to be bigger than was needed to fit a helmet inside.
The lid was taken off, and she dumped out something that probably used to be one of the helmets that had been given to her. It looked like there had been at least two explosions from inside and one implosion. It was twisted and warped, and every few seconds flickered in and out of visibility.
"Don't worry, no one's head was in it," she told them. "You should be very proud of your design, I just found this one flaw with it, something that will probably never happen, but shouldn't be worn until the issue is fixed."
"What in Merlin's name did you do with this?" Penny nearly screeched at the woman who had destroyed her work.
"I wailed on this piece for hours, and nothing happened with it. When I couldn't break it, I took it as a personal insult and locked it in a room with a live bludger, and when I came back a week later, it was like this." She pulled out another box and dumped out the contents to see the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw helmets in similar states.
"I repeated the test on the two of these and found that after approximately 134 hours of continuous abuse, the helmets exploded. I doubt that would ever happen in a quidditch game, but your design needs to have some way of venting excess power before anyone should wear it."
Penny took a look at the mangled remains of her work, and after a few moments of mourning their loss, agreed with the professional helmet destroyer, "We'll need to get working on it right away."
Cedric didn't think this was important for the rest of them, so he started leading them away and let Penny finish up with Madeline.
As they were walking away, Harry heard Madeline ask, "Where's the other little girl? She was practically hanging off you last time."
"Hermione's been spending too many late nights studying, she's needed a lot of daytime naps recently."
Harry resolved to check up on her, it sounded like she needed a friend.
Everyone in the house had shown up for their first tryouts, but Cedric wasn't sure if everyone wanted to play. Madam Hooch had arranged for all the school brooms to be available to them to use in the tryouts, though he, Lyra, Harry, Greg, Millicent, Arthur, and Megan had their own from home. He suspected that Arthur had just borrowed his sister's broom, though.
Cedric drew his wand and fired off blasts of paint toward four spots on the ground, leaving marks of purple, blue, gold, and red on the grass.
"Everyone who is interested in playing, please stand on the appropriate color; purple for chasers, blue for beaters, gold for seekers, and red for keepers."
Everyone hustled over to the spots, though Lee, Meli, Daria, and Luna just sat down on the grass to watch. On the purple spot for chasers were Sue, Lily, Megan, Patricia, and Colin. The orange for beaters had Harry, Greg, Millicent, and Neville. Gold for keepers had Lyra and William.
Cedric saw that just Arthur was on the red spot, and told him, "I'm also going to be trying out for keeper, but just because I'm the captain doesn't mean I'll get it. If I do, there's still a spot for the reserve position."
"My sister wanted me to try out," Arthur told him. "If I do anything, I want to be in a spot where I can easily watch for incoming bludgers."
"Fair enough," Cedric shrugged. "Everyone mount up! Let's do ten laps of the stadium, as fast as you feel comfortable going. Weave in and out of all the spectator towers as you fly. When the first person finishes their fifth lap, I'm going to release the training bludgers. They won't hurt you, but they will leave a mark on you if you get hit. Even if you're trying out to be a beater, I want you to avoid them. For now, I just want to see how you fly."
Everyone grabbed a broom that didn't have one and they all took to the sky. Lyra was the immediate leader of the group, pulling far ahead of the others. Harry kept pace with the few students older than he was but tried to go as fast as he could. He wasn't entirely sure how Lyra, who had the same broom as he did, was able to go so much faster than him.
Cedric stayed near the middle of the mass of students but it slowly became evident that it was by choice. Harry could see that he was keeping an eye on everyone in the air, and was an exceptional flier as he would occasionally sit sideways, or even backward, as he observed all of the students. When it was needed he would fly closer to someone to give them small tips and keep them from going too far off course.
One of the people Cedric spent the most time close to was Neville. The younger boy had a fiercely determined look on his face as he flew, but would have sudden bursts of acceleration, and occasionally his broom would seem to lose power for a moment before picking up again. It didn't appear like he was in any danger, just that he wasn't in full control of his broom.
Lyra had managed to gain a full lap on Harry by the time Cedric stopped and flew closer toward the middle of the pitch before casting a very well-aimed spell at the box in the middle to release the bludgers. It was at about this time as well that Madeline finished speaking with Penny and mounted her broom to hover in the middle of the field and watch everyone finish their laps.
The bludgers caused everyone to stop trying to be fast and start avoiding the flying menaces. Quite a few people got hit in the first minute after they were released, but they just left big green splotches and didn't cause any damage or push the students off course. Whenever one of the training bludgers targeted Madeline, she swatted it toward one of the leaders of the group, which happened to be Lyra most of the time. Harry had to resist his urges to protect her and also to avoid the bludgers when they came from him instead of knocking them away.
When everyone had finished their laps, Madeline passed out colored shirts to everyone; some green, some red; then explained what she wanted them to do.
"The shirts will be your team color. Chasers - pass to your teammates, and steal from your opponents. Beaters - Protect your teammates, and try to hit your opponents. Seekers and Keepers will also act as chasers, everyone needs to know the fundamentals of the game, no snitch in play for now." She waited for everyone to gather around their teams before continuing.
"Since there are more players than a typical team, we're going to play with two quaffles and three bludgers. When I blow my whistle, the colors of your jersey may change and you'll need to change strategy and adjust to new targets." She pulled out sets of beater bats and handed them to the ones trying out for that position.
Without giving them any more warning, the professional player shot two quaffles into the air, with the group chasing after them, and after the first few passes released the three training bludgers.
The exercise was particularly difficult for Harry. Before he had just hit a bludger back and forth with Gwenog, now he had to target his housemates, as well as protect them. However, when he first hit Lily with one of the bludgers and saw it didn't do anything to hurt her, he gained a bit of confidence to go after the others, though he still didn't put his full power into the swings.
Switching between different players whenever the whistle blew was also difficult to do. One minute he was targeting someone, the next he was protecting them. It was nice that Lyra was impossible to hit, and he even tried to put more power into his swings against her when nothing was able to hit her. The changing jerseys created a great deal of chaos for those tossing around the quaffles as the last person you passed to or even someone who just passed one to you could be on the other team a moment later.
After nearly thirty minutes, Madeline blew the whistle twice, causing all the balls to fall to the ground and the jerseys everyone was wearing to change to black. Cedric went to land on the ground, and after a moment of confusion, all the other players joined him.
Cedric took the lead on the next drill, leading groups of three chasers to try to score on him or Arthur while two beaters tried to tag them without any defense. Lyra and William were sent to try to catch snitches while two other beater candidates tried to get them. For the purpose of the trial, the snitches being used didn't vanish at all, they were just exceedingly fast. This drill went on for quite some time as Cedric, with Madeline's help, switched out different people into different teams of chasers and beaters to try to see how everyone worked together. It was quite fun for all of them to play together, even if they weren't really playing quidditch.
After the sun had completely set, everyone but Cedric and Madeline went in for dinner.
The entire school had heard that the Scamanders had been fielding their quidditch team, but since Cedric was the one deciding on the positions and he didn't show up to dinner that evening, no one knew what the final lineup was going to be. There was no harm in telling anyone who was trying out for which position, so that was all anyone disclosed to the other houses who were asking.
No one was particularly surprised that Harry had tried to be a beater, as he had dented the bludger in the quidditch museum and was known to be somewhat violent when the situation called for it. It was a foregone conclusion among the students and faculty that he would get the position, and that Lyra would get the role of Seeker, due to her being Harry Potter's little sister. When Lyra overheard someone saying that, it fueled a desire to prove herself out of Harry's shadow, and went to sit at the Gryffindor table with her friends there.
Harry wasn't sure who Cedric would pick to be the other beater on the team. As Harry would exchange blows with Millicent, he knew that she was stronger and could hit harder than Greg, but Greg was more capable on a broom. Whatever his natural talent was to take hits from spells and magical objects, it probably wouldn't help with quidditch. It might help when taking a hit from a bludger, but Harry didn't want him to test that.
Harry had no idea who might be a chaser, except for Sue Li. She seemed to have some experience playing and was able to handle the quaffle better than any of the others in their house that tried out for the position. Though chasers had to be the most well-coordinated with the others on the field, being the best solo flier didn't mean Sue would be the best person to fly as a team.
Cedric was guaranteed a spot as the keeper. Not just because he was the captain, but because Arthur didn't make a good showing as the only other person who wanted the position. Harry thought might take the reserve spot, but he still seemed to have a very justified fear of spherical objects flying toward him. Back in the common room, Cedric made a brief announcement that he would make decisions about the starter and reserve team on Sunday evening when everyone returned from spring break.
Saturday morning, Lyra received a notice from Brandt that he would be arriving the following day before leaving for the island. That gave both of them the whole day to focus on their projects for the petrified students. Lyra hadn't revealed what her team was trying to do, and Harry hadn't told her what he was working on with the Twins. He did get her to promise to check in with Hermione as she had been too busy with different projects to meet with him at all that week, and Sunday was when she and most of the school would be leaving for spring break.
Sunday afternoon was also when Harry and Lyra would go on their own expedition, camping in the depths of the library. If there was any place to hide the most secret chamber of Hogwarts, it would fit well into the infinite atheneum.
After breakfast, Harry split off with George, Fred, and Lee, while Whispers, Lyra, and Penny headed for the Ravenclaw common room. The twins led them to a tapestry on the sixth floor of a man in a brown robe who had a hand made of wood and lichen growing on the side of his face and carried a staff. He looked familiar to Harry for some reason.
One of the redheads approached the man and declared, "This is not a nice place to meet." Once Harry heard that he smiled as he knew who it was on the tapestry.
The hanging shimmered and he stepped into it, and past the robed man like he was walking down a trail. Lee jumped after him, with the other redhead gesturing for Harry to follow.
As soon as Harry stepped into the tapestry, his vision shifted and he was standing in a dark corridor, barely seeing the first twin and Lee in front of him, though as he continued to walk, their forms and the corridor brightened until they started to head up a winding stone staircase, eventually getting to the hidden lab they had been at before.
Harry groaned. While he enjoyed looking through the castle for all the hidden surprises it had, it would be impossible to find everything that was inside it. Especially after the reveal from Newt Scamander that students and faculty had been adding more secrets over the last 1,000 years. Though the Weasleys seemed to have extensive knowledge of the castle, beyond what any other student seemed to possess.
As Lee started to unpack a few books he had collected and the twins were putting away, Harry decided just to ask outright, "Hey, do any of you know where I can find the Chamber of Secrets?"
All three other boys stopped dead and turned to him, silent for a moment before Lee responded, "Why would you want to know about that?"
Thinking some honesty would be the best policy here, Harry told them, "I am confident that the monster that petrified Gabriel and Mrs. Norris; the basilisk, or whatever came out of the Chamber. Fred and George seem to know more than anyone about the castle, so if anyone would know it would be the two of them."
Rubbing his red hair, Bert told him, "You really think this is Slytherin's monster? I guess it would make sense that the founder of the snake house would have the King of Serpents as a pet. No idea where the Chamber could be, I always thought it was a myth."
"Not that it stopped us from trying to find it," Ernie interjected. "We do know more than anyone about the castle, but we've never been able to find anything about the Chamber, no matter where we looked. You seem certain about it though, what do you know about it?"
"I can tell you what I know, but not how I know," Harry told them. "Is that ok?" The Twins and Lee nodded. "I know just a few things - the room is below the castle, it has a door that is made of snakes, and there is a large statue in which the basilisk sleeps. That's all."
"It's very hard not to ask you how you know all that," Lee said with his eyes wide.
"It's more than we've ever been able to figure out," one of the twins said.
"Below the castle is a maze," said the other. "However, if there's an entrance with a door of snakes, that is probably in the Slytherin common room. We've only been there once and that was just to say we were there, just popped in, looked around, and left."
Harry nodded, he'd visit Tracey to see if he knew of any such door, probably something that none could open if no one had been there. However, that would have to come later. Now they needed to work on the anti-petrification problem.
Changing the subject, Harry asked, "Lee, did you get the rats and squirrels?"
"Just rats," he replied, then walked to a corner of the room, pulling a cover off a cage to reveal nearly a dozen rats in the cage. "What are we going to do with them?"
"I want to see how the Mandrake scream affects them," Harry said with that comment drawing concerned looks from the others.
"They're just rats," Harry commented. "I'll give them to the Slytherins to feed to their snakes later."
The twins paused, then said together, "You've been there too!"
Harry rolled his eyes, and responded, "Like I told another Slytherin; guessing that there are snakes in the Slytherin common room takes as much brainpower as guessing there are gingers in the Gryffindor common room."
Lee was the first one to start laughing, followed by the twins. When they had stopped, Harry collected the silencing ear muffs from the shelves and tossed them to the others while saying, "But yes, I was there for the first time last week. I knew about the snakes before that though."
From there, Harry started to experiment with the rats. After placing the cage outside the room, Harry brought one struggling rodent inside and Lee put it inside a smaller cage. Once all of their earmuffs were on, the one Harry assumed was Fred brought out the mandrake pot. They all exchange a look before the plant creature was pulled from the pot. They could see the mandrake screaming and the rat went limp after a few moments. After placing it back under the soil, they removed their ear coverings.
"Is it dead?" Lee asked.
The twin that Harry assumed was George spoke an incantation and a blue ring appeared around the rat. It immediately changed to red and vanished.
"Yup, totally dead," he told them.
Harry took the rat from the cage and examined it. The rodent's eyes were wide open but were lifeless. After disposing of it in a sack, he went back outside and retrieved another rat. This one must have understood that the room contained death and started to struggle fiercely as he placed it in the smaller cage.
"Can you perform the spell on the rat while the mandrake is screaming?" Harry asked George.
He was a bit hesitant but nodded.
This time, when George performed the spell before the mandrake was pulled out, the ring stayed blue for nearly five seconds before it changed to red. Harry had them repeat the experiment a third time but asked Fred to hold the plant out of the pot for only two seconds, and this time the rat survived. The fourth experiment exposed the rat to repeated screams for two seconds, and after the tenth time, the rat was still living.
"I've got a theory," Fred started. "Dad always said that aurors have to be careful with stunning spells. Too many too quickly could kill someone. Maybe the length of the scream is what is killing the rats."
"Then what is it doing the rest of the time?" Harry asked.
George pointed his wand at the rat and incanted, "Petrificus Totalus!" The rat's legs all snapped close to its body and the tail went out straight as a pencil. "Try it now," he told his brother.
After putting their earmuffs back on, Fred pulled the mandrake back out of the pot as George performed the spell to check the life signs of the rat. After two seconds, the limbs of the rat became unstuck and it started rolling around, then five seconds later, it died.
"What made you think of that?" Lee asked after they had repotted the mandrake and disposed of this rat.
"Well the whole point of this is to undo petrifications," George shrugged. "I wanted to see if the mandrake could undo a petrification jinx."
"We obviously have to turn it into some kind of potion," Harry spoke up. "You said it's called a 'Mandrake draught,' so it would need to be consumed, right?"
"We need to find a way to curse the rats," Lee added. "Then we can see if the scream can break those."
"I don't know any curses," Harry frowned.
"Most of the curses people think they know are just jinxes or hexes," Fred told him. "Jinxes have minor effects, hexes are slightly worse, and curses are often permanent or severely damaging. We don't know any real curses either, even if they are called that."
They spent the next hour performing hexes and minor transfigurations on the rats to test how the mandrakes were able to reverse the magic. George also tried to see if it would work on inanimate objects, transfiguring a beaker into a bird, but the scream did nothing to it, even if transfiguring a rat into a beaker was able to be reversed. Similarly, after transfiguring a match into a needle, the scream of the magical plant did not reverse that either.
After a bit of debate, George allowed Fred to hex his hand with boils. Lee and Harry grimaced at the sight of the pustules on the back of his hand, then set the mandrake free from the soil. They couldn't hear the screams with the covers on their ears, but after ten seconds of screaming the boils had not gone away, as they had done on the rat.
"Maybe you need to hear the scream?" Harry suggested.
"These aren't mature enough to kill a wizard," Fred commented. "We can lift Georgie's earmuffs for a few seconds without permanent harm."
"I don't want to test that," George said apprehensively. He had already started to pour a boil-curing potion over his hand.
Lee dug out another set of earmuffs and shrunk them down to a miniature size, then retrieved another rat and stuck it over its ears with a charm before putting it in the testing cage. Once it was inside, Fred cast the boil hex on the rat and it started to shriek as pustules started forming on its stomach.
Harry's hypothesis was confirmed as the scream of the mandrake didn't reverse the spell while the tiny earmuffs were on the rat. However, as soon as Lee dispelled the sticking charm holding them in place, the boils started to vanish. Though in their celebration of the success, the boys didn't stick the mandrake back under the soil and the test rat died.
They were running short on lab rats.
With two of them left, the last test Harry wanted to run was to see if the silencing feathers he had would protect someone from the scream of the mandrake. Both of the remaining rats lived through the testing to prove that the silencing field would protect a rat inside one from hearing the scream, the scream could not be heard outside of the bubble, and a rat inside the bubble with a mandrake could hear the scream and be cured of a hex while there.
"Now, we just need to figure out how to put the scream effects into a potion," Harry commented.
"Why?" Lee asked. "Couldn't we just have one scream at someone who is petrified and it would reverse the curse?"
"That's assuming, a petrified person can still hear things," Harry responded.
"We should test it on Mrs. Norris," Fred spoke up. "If it doesn't work, or if it works too well, there's no harm done."
George frowned at his brother, but still nodded, "Harry and Lee can take us to the Scamanders' office. The cat is there and I bet Harry could talk them into letting us test the theory."
It was worth a shot, so Harry bundled up the sack of dead rats to take down to the Slytherins later and the four of them took a hike down to the second floor. When they knocked on the door, Tina answered and let them in.
Once they were seated, Harry addressed her, "We think we found a solution to the petrification and wanted to test it on Mrs. Norris."
Tina gave them a scrutinizing glare, and responded, "What did you figure out? The Unspeakables have informed us of the solution that exists, so I'll be able to tell you came to the same conclusion."
"We want to have a mandrake scream at Mr. Filch's cat," Lee told her.
Tina looked thoughtful but shook her head. "It won't work. I'm guessing your research led you to find that the scream will reverse minor spell effects"
George replied, "On living creatures that can hear the scream, yes. Is Mrs. Norris not able to hear it?"
"I'm not sure about that, just that the potions master who discovered the solution the last time already ran your test and determined the scream to not be powerful enough to break the curse."
"That sounds like those who were petrified could hear the scream, the curse is just too strong," Fred weighed in. "Could a Sonorous charm on the scream enhance the power?"
Tina shook her head again, "No, the Sonorous charm projects volume, not magical power. A criminal in America once thought to try your idea and use mandrakes as a bomb, dropping them into populated areas with the sound amplification charm in place. However, the charm effect completely replaced the magical scream of the plant, and while it was incredibly annoying, no one was injured or killed. The culprit is still in prison for attempted mass murder."
Harry filed away that piece of information for later use. Modifying the scream of the plant, even with magic, eliminated the effect. They needed to find a way to magnify the magic itself, which he might be able to do with a blessing, but would need to study more to figure out how to invoke it.
The others looked a bit disappointed, but George asked hopefully, "Any chance you could point us in the right direction?"
"You're already going in the right direction," Tina smiled approvingly. "Keep studying the Mandrakes, but if you need to perform any experiments with the plant, please talk to Professor Sprout first." Seeing a half second of guilt on their faces, she closed her eyes as she ran her hand through her hair. "Next time you run any experiments, talk to Professor Sprout first," she said firmly.
With her glare on them, they carefully backed out of the room to plan their next move.
Once they were back in the hallway, Harry held up the bag of dead rats, "Can we run these down to Professor Snape before going to see Sprout?"
"You want us to voluntarily go see the dungeon bat?" Lee asked incredulously.
"He's not that bad," Harry argued.
"I haven't gotten detention all year since moving to Scamander," Lee said thoughtfully.
"Not going," Fred said defiantly.
"Aren't Gryffindors supposed to be brave?" Harry teased.
Lee laughed, and said, "Now you've done it. Never challenge a Lion's pride."
George nodded, "Now we have to do it… it's the first rule in the book."
Fred fixed his face in a grimace and added, "First sign of fangs on that vampire and I'm out."
When Snape opened the door to his classroom and office, he did a double-take at the students on the other side. Fred and George jumped back a bit as the professor's hand twitched toward his wand.
"You boys don't have detention today," he said slowly.
Harry held up the sack he was carrying, "I have some dead rats for your snakes."
"Why do you have dead rats?" he asked darkly.
"Just running experiments," Harry responded with a shrug.
"Come inside," Snape ordered all of them.
"Said the spider to the flies," Fred whispered as they inched in slowly.
The classroom was set up how it had been for Harry's last visit, though only two students were slaving away at the detention stations.
"I will talk to Mr. Potter in my office," Snape told them. "The rest of you take a spot and brew the potion on the desk." He took a look towards Lee, "Mr. Jordan, it seems that being separated from these troublemakers has improved your behavior this year. They can explain to you how this detention works."
"But we're not here for detention," George argued.
The darkness seemed to radiate off of the professor as his face fell into shadow. He loomed over the group of boys causing them to almost bend backward before he stood back up and the shadows vanished.
"Consider it a credit towards your next detention," Snape told them. "I'm sure you'll all be back here soon." Turning to Harry, "My office, now."
After closing the door behind them, and putting up a privacy ward, Snape asked Harry, "Why do you have a sack of dead rats?"
"We're working on the project the Unspeakables gave the students," Harry responded. "They died in the experiments."
Snape summoned the sack to his desk and pulled out one of the dead rodents, muttering spells and waving his wand over it, then the rest of the ones in the sack. He looked slightly confused, then proceeded to run more spells over them.
After another few minutes, a look of understanding came over his face, "Those terrors have a mandrake in their possession, don't they?"
Harry did his best to blank out his emotions and present a mask of relaxation, "What makes you think that?"
Snape just rolled his eyes, "These rats have all died from what appears to be an overdose of something similar to the Reparifarge spell. It reverses transfiguration effects, but if done too much on something that has no magical effects on it, it can be harmful or even deadly. I'm pretty sure none of you could cast the spell with that much power, however, the mandrake scream has a similar effect, and the Mandrake Draught is what all of you kids are trying to brew."
Harry fueled his thoughts with that of the hot springs and just shrugged and Snape's assumption.
"I'll feed these rats to the snakes in the common room," the professor sighed. "Is there anything I can assist with on your project so you don't need to perform dangerous experiments unsupervised?"
Harry thought for a moment before responding, "Do you know a way to magnify the magical effect of something? Or put a sound into a liquid?"
Snape's look grew serious, "You are talking about rituals and blessings, something that I will not instruct you on at your age. Now, go out and join Mr. Jordan and the Weasleys, brew one of the potions at the desk, have everyone record their results, and then you may leave."
Harry frowned a bit at his professor's response and left to join his project group with their faux detention. Once Harry was gone, Snape locked his door again, and put up additional privacy wards. Taking a pinch of floo powder, he tossed it into the fire and called out, "Black Manor!" before strolling through.
On the other side of the fireplace, he exited into the grand manor of Arcturus Black. Darby the house-elf stood waiting for him, "How mays I be helpings yous?" he asked.
"I need to speak with Arcturus," Snape responded. The elf gave him a small bow and gestured for him to follow.
They arrived at a room with large reinforced doors that Snape wasn't sure of the purpose of, and the elf vanished, presumably going inside. A few minutes later, the door opened and Arcturus came out, followed by the elf.
"What seems to be the matter, Severus?" Lord Black asked.
"Harry is interested in ritual magic," he replied.
Arcturus gave a sinister grin, "Interesting, what does he want to do with it?"
"The whole school is trying to recreate the Mandrake Draught because of the Unspeakables and their project. Harry has figured out he needs to magnify the effect of a mandrake scream and infuse it in a potion. I have told him he is too young for me to instruct him on such magic."
"As you shouldn't, you are an esteemed Professor of Hogwarts after all." Arcturus continued to smile, "I will send Brandt to provide him with a book on the theory and basics."
Snape nodded, but looked a bit uneasy, "Mr. Potter is working on the project with the greatest troublemakers the school has seen since his father roamed the halls with his gang of misfits. If there is any way you can find a way to keep them from being more destructive than they already are, it would be most appreciated by everyone at Hogwarts."
"We will do our best," he replied, but Severus was unconvinced.
Review Response: For everyone who has said that this story is going to take forever - This will go on for years, Muah ha ha ha. No, seriously… it will.
Also, everyone seems to be assuming the snakes are actually going to fight. Maybe they're going to fall in love at first sight and have lots of little snake babies together. I have purposely left the Usurper's gender completely ambiguous so far…