Chapter Twelve: House of Slytherin

Christmas arrives at Hogwarts and while the students are gone Harry reconnects with an abandoned talent as Draco visits an old friend. Meanwhile, Fallen requests the aid of another potential collaborator to investigate the evidence left behind by the Beast of Slytherin.


Dumbledore, oddly, wasn't in his office when McGonagall left Harry, Draco, and Fallen there.

While Draco and Harry took the opportunity to investigate the various gleaming, spinning, and shrieking devices around the office, Fallen used their distraction to investigate Dumbledore's desk.

The General wasn't quite as good with Wards and Nets as the Scout was, so he had no plans to try and get into Dumbledore's desk, but the wolf was satisfied with ruling out any paperwork the Headmaster may have foolishly left on his desktop for the world to see.

Predictably, however, there was nothing of value.

A couple of correspondences with the Ministry, a list of 'misbehaving' students from Filch (on which Fallen was completely unsurprised to see Fred and George underlined and circled at the bottom, as though the whole staff wasn't already aware of the trouble the twins regularly got into), and a framed photograph of Dumbledore and a thin, frail-looking old man smiling with an arm around one another's shoulders, while their other hands were locked in a handshake.

'Nicholas Flamel, I imagine,' Brandon said, voicing Fallen's own thoughts. 'They seem rather close, don't they?'

Fallen hummed. 'I suppose, given that they went to war together against Grindelwald, they would be.'

With nothing of interest on the desk, Fallen turned his attention to the rest of the room, gaze skittering away from a tall cupboard.

'Seriously?'

'What?'

'Oh,' Brandon laughed. 'Conniving old fuck. A little more to your right. He's got a powerful Notice-Me-Not, or something like it, there. You just skipped right over and didn't even notice.'

Fallen's lip peeled away from his fangs and he tried, again, to focus on the cupboard. And for several seconds, he was able to see it. Dark wood with gold accents, it was more shelf than cupboard, though there were cabinets both above the shelves and a larger one beneath it.

'There's more than one spell at work there,' Fallen told Brandon, though he didn't try to look at the thing again. 'I believe that's where the Headmasters hold the Hogwarts Pensieve.'

'A good source of information,' Brandon pointed out.

'But not really worth the hassle of breaking into it and past the protections I'm sure Dumbledore, and Hogwarts itself, have on it.' Fallen said. 'We've got an idea of where it's held now, we'll send Yoko after it if we need to.'

Brandon snorted, but Fallen turned his attention to the two boys, who were crowded over a golden perch on the far side of Dumbledore's desk from the wolf.

Approaching the Gryffindors, the wolf watched as whatever held their attention, promptly burst into flames, and turned to ash.

Harry cried out and staggered away from it, but Draco turned to his guardian with dancing blue eyes and grinned.

"Did you see it?"

"I've seen it before, yes," Fallen told him, laughter in his voice. "Don't worry, Harry, this must be Fawkes, Dumbledore's phoenix familiar. They are nigh immortal creatures, who burn instead of dying. Like certain breeds of dragons, certain breeds of phoenix will bond with wizards and witches as familiars."

"They're really rare!" Draco added, smiling and looking back at the pile of ashes as it began to shift and move. "But they only bond to powerful witches and wizards."

"It's also more untenable, as, like dragons, a phoenix will outlive their bonded witch or wizard, despite your kind's longer lifespan," Fallen said.

"I'm happy to see he's had his burning," Dumbledore said, stepping through the door, smiling though it didn't quite reach his eyes. "I've been telling him to get on with it for days as he's been very dreadful looking."

Harry drifted closer to Draco as Dumbledore moved past them to his desk and gestured for them both to take seats.

As the boys got comfortable, the door burst open and Hagrid came through, already yelling about Harry's innocence.

Harry sank into his chair as Fallen and Draco turn their attention to him.

"He didn't stop ter talk but I saw him seconds before that kid was found, he never had time, sir-"

"Hagrid," Dumbledore tried to interrupt, but Hagrid kept going, waving around, what took Fallen several seconds to recognize, a dead rooster to emphasize his argument, though it was equally as likely that the groundskeeper simply didn't know it was there.

"-it can't've bin him; I'll swear it in front o' the Ministry o' Magic if I have to-"

Dumbledore glanced at Fallen with a long-suffering expression on his face but Fallen merely lifted a shoulder in a shrug and made no effort to interrupt Hagrid's defense of Harry.

"-yeh've got the wrong boy, sir, I know Harry never-"

Dumbledore sighed and said loudly, "Hagrid! I do not think that Harry, or any of his friends, attacked those people."

Hagrid froze and, looking extremely embarrassed for having barged into the Headmaster's office and ranting like a lunatic, apologized and slipped out of the room.

"You don't think he did it?" Draco asked bluntly while Dumbledore brushed rooster feathers off his desk.

"I do not," Dumbledore said, leaning forward and fixing both boys with a stern gaze. "Regardless, I need to speak with you. Both about what you may have seen in the corridor when you found Sir Nicolas and Mr. Finch-Fletchley, and to ask if there was anything else you may wish to share with me?"

Harry shook his head. "No, sir, I didn't see anything."

Dumbledore planted his elbows on his desk and, resting his chin on the backs of his hands, he studied the two boys, expression somber.

"Are you certain?"

'Conniving old coot,' Brandon sneered. 'To use that on two students.'

'I certainly hope you aren't using Legilimency on Lucius Malfoy's heir and his friend, Headmaster,' Fallen drawled, curling his tongue around one of his fangs.

Dumbledore's gaze flicked to Fallen and quickly returned to the two boys, though there was far less intensity to it now.

Harry and Draco were oblivious.

"I didn't see anything," Harry repeated. "It was too dark. I didn't even really see Justin until I tripped on him at the bottom of the stairs. One of the windows was cracked open, I think, and it had blown out some of the torches in the corridor."

Dumbledore leaned back in his chair and glanced between the two pre-teens. "And there's nothing else you two would like to share with me?"

"Why would we?" Draco asked, appearing honestly confused and offended that Dumbledore even thought he would want to interact with him.

Dumbledore raised a hand, placating the blond. "Given that you boys have found more than one of this creature's victims, I simply wished to make sure none of you had seen anything and that you were all doing alright in the inevitable aftermath of what occurred at the Dueling Club the other day."

Harry shut down abruptly. "I'm fine, Headmaster, thank you for your concern."

Draco's lip curled his own mask firmly in place. "They'll need to do better than a few rumors. I've been dealing with those my whole life."

'He doesn't seem to be trying all that hard to get answers out of them,' Brandon observed.

'No, he doesn't,' Fallen agreed. 'And he capitulated rather quickly when I pointed out that he was using a mind-reading talent on two minors in his educational care.'

'You think he doesn't want to interrogate them?'

'More like he doesn't care if he gets answers out of them, which is odd,' Fallen said. 'It would have been wiser to wait until now in the conversation to touch their minds and ensure they weren't lying. He outed himself to me too soon.'

'Why would he question them if he didn't care about the answers he received. He has to have some care for the children under his roof, otherwise, he never would have become Headmaster, and students are getting attacked.'

Fallen watched the Headmaster thoughtfully. 'It's entirely possible that Dumbledore wants Harry and the others to investigate the Chamber of Secrets, as another of the 'tests' he has for his Savior. In this case, however, it almost seems as if someone else demanded that he question Harry and he's therefore only putting in the bare minimum of work.'

'Who would have the power to command the most powerful wizard of the age?'

'Someone who has more power of a different sort,' Fallen answered. 'The Ministry of Magic, the Board of Governors, the Wizengamot, just to name a few.'

'Well, we could always ask our resident insider to put a stop to it if it's the Board of Governors,' Brandon pointed out.

Mentally, Fallen grimaced. 'It's unlikely that Lucius took up the place he'd built for himself on the Board, given the state Draco and I were in over the last half of the summer.'

'But then, who would he trust to hold his interests on the Boar-oh.'

'It's not really a matter of trust,' Fallen sighed, 'but a matter of convenience and family loyalty. Trust me, no one is likely happy about it except Nathaniel.'

'So, odds are far higher that it's Nathaniel pushing the Board to push Dumbledore,' Brandon concluded.

'If it's the Board of Directors at all,' Fallen agreed.

"General," Dumbledore said, interrupting the conversation between Fallen and his other half, and looking at the wolf over his half-moon glasses. "If you would be so kind as to escort the boys straight to the common room. I'd rather avoid any further incidents."

Fallen's lip curled.

XX

The common room, predictably, was a madhouse, though few were brave enough to try and talk to Harry, given what they thought of him, and even fewer were willing to brave the General's temper and approach him.

Fred and George, either reading the wolf's frustration or Harry's growing unease with the level and nature of the attention, distracted the common room entirely by unveiling a new joke product they were currently testing.

Harry and Draco quietly shared their visit with the Headmaster with the others, but it wasn't long before Fallen ushered all of them up to bed, despite it only being nine at night.

"I have things to do and have no interest in hunting you down tonight. You obviously can't focus on schoolwork and you've all had an exhausting day. You had all best still be in bed when Yoko and I come and check on you, whenever we come and check on you. Am I clear?"

There was a chorus of affirmatives from the children, though none of them were too enthusiastic about it.

Once he was sure the five of them were in their dorms and apparently not interested in coming back down, he made his way back toward the portrait hole.

"Oi, Fallen!"

Raising his eyes heavenward, Fallen grumbled quietly.

The twins ignored his displeasure and crouched on either side of the wolf.

"How much trouble is Harry in? Really?" Fred asked.

"None," Fallen told him. "Dumbledore apparently doesn't believe that any student is capable of the level and complexity the magic required for these attacks."

George glanced at the stairs. "Can we do anything to help?"

Fallen narrowed his gaze on the twin teens, not just a little suspicious.

"Nothing dangerous," Fred assured him, though the grin on his face says he isn't telling the entire truth.

"We just wanna help," George agreed, also grinning.

Fallen raised his head so he could see both teens out of his peripheral vision. "Keep them here in the common room," he told them. "Keep everyone here in the common room if you can. Curfew is in an hour, but it would be best that everyone stays out of the halls until we're sure that this thing has returned to the Chamber."

Fred and George saluted him. "Yes sir, General, sir." They chorused, before turning back to the common room and letting the wolf leave.

XX

Fallen stopped at the corridor where Yoko was, apparently, still investigating the scene of Nick and Justin's attack, because there was a truly hideous looking hedge blocking the entire corridor. Fallen could have jumped it if he was so inclined, but he didn't know what Yoko was doing and it wasn't in either of their best interests to interrupt the fox.

XX

Instead, his next stop is to the infirmary, where Pomfrey was in a fit to be tied over Yoko not releasing the two victims and leaving them to 'languish' on the floor like trash.

"I'm sure he's only trying to find something that can help end this, Madam," Fallen tried to assure her, though he was taking cautious steps back toward the door even as he said it.

Healers were terrifying.

Pomfrey pointed a savage finger in his direction as she advanced on him. "You tell that fox that he best release those poor souls to me immediately or else. How dare he leave them lying there, on the same cold stone floor that monster had left them lying on."

"I'll ask him to move things along," Fallen told her, before darting out the door.

'Really?' Brandon asked.

Fallen glowered at the closed infirmary door.

"I plan to do no such thing," the wolf sneered. "They're bloody petrified. There's no evidence that says they're feeling anything."

'When you think about it though, there's no evidence that says they aren't either,' Brandon pointed out.

Fallen ignored him.

XX

Almost on cue, the curfew bell rang, and Severus' door opened, admitting the General into his quarters.

"I really should consider rescinding your invite," Severus told him, sitting on the couch surrounded by books as opposed to essays for once, and a glass of, by the scent of it, his strongest scotch.

Fallen tilted his head. "Nothing then?"

Severus sat back and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Nothing." He sighed. "Albus tasked us with going through our private libraries in search of anything that could cause petrification like this, but even this new information isn't jumping out at anything in my collection."

"Wouldn't Grubbyplank be a better choice? Or any of the staff in her department?"

"She claims that nothing she's ever heard of can petrify the living and the dead. Even with all the resources we collectively have at our disposal, I have my doubts that we'll find anything before another student is attacked." Severus admitted, tilting his head back so it rested on the back of the sofa in the most vulnerable move Fallen had ever seen in the potions master.

"Has he been keeping the Ministry informed of the attacks?" Fallen asked. "Dumbledore, I mean. He's obviously looking into the cause, he's had you all digging into your personal and professional libraries for weeks now, but there's been no mention of the attacks in the Prophet, regardless of its edition."

Severus sighed and sat forward, steepling his fingers. "He's been giving them the barest of information," he admitted. "He doesn't want the Ministry to close the school down, but he likewise can't keep the attacks a secret."

"Has he considered sending them home, at least?" Fallen asked, feeling a mix of understanding and rage burning through his veins. "If for nothing else than their personal safety."

"He has," Severus assured him. "But he'd also theorized that if they closed the school, the attacks wouldn't stop, the perpetrator would simply return with the rest of the school and begin again when it reopened. You haven't brought it up to me, so it must have likewise already crossed your mind."

Fallen sighed, jumping onto the armchair on the opposite side of the table and making himself comfortable. "I don't necessarily disagree with the idea," he admitted. "But if we could find evidence that would parse down the potential list of creatures of the Chamber, closing the school down would allow us to pare down those suspects and counter them when the school reopened, further narrowing potential attacks."

"Fallen, if the Chamber of Secrets closes down Hogwarts, it is unlikely to ever reopen," Severus told him.

Fallen's brow furrowed. "The logic and thought process that led you there escapes me."

"Albus informed the staff after this most recent attack, that the Chamber had been opened in the past. Fifty years ago," Severus told him, reaching for his glass. "The school had been terrorized by the Heir of Slytherin and his monster, and the Ministry arrested Hagrid, who went to school here at the time, as the Heir because of some creature he was hiding at the school."

"That's bullshit," Fallen said bluntly. "Given the nature he has now, Hagrid likely always had a creature or something in his care."

Severus shrugged. "Albus, if I remember correctly, was the Transfiguration professor at the time, and believed the same as you did, that Hagrid was a convenient scapegoat. There were rumors before this that he had earned Hagrid's devotion and loyalty because he'd believed him when no one else did, so it wouldn't be unlike Albus to fight tooth and nail to prove his innocence."

"It would explain how he was expelled from Hogwarts, and yet still managed to gain a job on its grounds," Fallen admitted. "Dumbledore would have given it to him to try and make up for the fact that he couldn't finish attending it."

Severus saluted his logic with his glass.

"By that same logic, however," Fallen said slowly, "Hagrid is here. During this opening of the Chamber of Secrets. As soon as Fudge gets his head out of his ass, even Dumbledore won't be able to prevent them from coming for Hagrid."

Severus nodded. "A possibility that grows with every attack on the students," he told him. "You know him better than I do. What are the odds that Fudge won't suddenly side-step Albus to save his career?"

Fallen stared at him. "You already know that answer. The whole of Wizarding Britain knows that answer."

The two fell into silence for several minutes, in which Severus returned to searching his books.

"Explain something to me, Severus," Fallen said, suddenly breaking the silence. "Putting aside the stupidity of anyone suspecting Hagrid, as simple and naïve as he is, to be the Heir of Slytherin, why did the attacks stop if Hagrid hadn't been the perpetrator fifty years ago?"

"Now that I know the time frame," Severus said slowly, obviously thinking his answer through, "I can probably pinpoint the source of a rumor that has flown around since my time at Hogwarts. Fifty or so years ago, a student had died at Hogwarts, a third or fourth year. It fits in with the time frame that Albus claimed the Chamber had been open previously. A death, a murder at Hogwarts, would have threatened its closure, especially if the attacks associated with the Chamber's opening of the time continued."

"Fifty years ago," Fallen said thoughtfully, tilting his head. "That would have been around the time-"

The door burst open, startling Severus and Fallen enough that Severus nearly spilled his tumbler.

"Sorry," Yoko panted, though he looked far from exhausted.

Fallen straightened, looking at the fox hopefully.

The Assassin looked energized, dancing in place in the open doorway.

"You found something," Fallen breathed.

Yoko grinned. "Get your kit, Severus, I need your help!"

XX

It took Severus all of two minutes to gently coax the thin scale out of the cracked stone, a full twenty minutes to retrieve their first real piece of evidence about the attacks they'd found thus far.

"I can tell you that this isn't a dragon scale," Severus told them, slipping it into a container specifically designed for preserving scales for use as a potion ingredient. It wasn't a long-term solution, but it would serve its purpose for the moment. "It's too thin. I'd hazard a guess that it's likely a snake scale, though I've never seen one of this size, not even on manticores or chimeras."

"It is furthering the idea that Salazar possibly bred a hybrid or mutant," Fallen said, sniffing at the container before shaking his head. Severus put the lid on the container, sealing it, as Fallen added, "I don't recognize the scent of it either, though that could simply be because I don't have enough access to it to remember it."

"Once I get it under my microscope, I may be able to get more information on it, but I'm not a magizoologist," Severus told them. "You'll need someone more knowledgeable."

Fallen looked past the potions master, toward the fox. "Hagrid?"

Yoko shook his head. "Grubbly-Plank is more likely to be of use. She'll have the connections in that world to get us an answer if she doesn't have one. If I remember correctly, she used her sabbatical to dabble in breeding a few years ago."

"Given the history Hagrid has with the Chamber, it would likely not be wise to put him on any information-gathering missions, just in case someone does come looking to blame him for these new attacks."

"Hagrid wouldn't attack these people," Yoko said defensively.

'I don't disagree,' Fallen told him, glancing down the hall as though a student or member of the staff might be lying in wait as they wandered back toward the dungeons. 'Hagrid was accused, arrested, and expelled on the grounds that he was the Heir of Slytherin while he was attending Hogwarts fifty years ago.'

Yoko looked as offended as such a comment should have made him. 'What foolishness? Why has no one been by to re-arrest him or whatever after the first few attacks?'

'I'm surprised you're so eager for him to be arrested,' Fallen said, amused. 'Dumbledore has only been sharing the bare bones of information regarding the attacks. I had originally speculated that it was to ensure the Heir of Slytherin was caught, as if the school closes the odds of catching him fall to zero until it reopens again, if it does at all. Now, I'm certain that it is also serving the purpose of keeping Hagrid out of Azkaban as long as possible.'

Severus closed the door of his private lab behind the two Valerians, before striding toward the complex looking microscope in the corner.

With several different cauldrons in various stages of brewing, Yoko and Fallen gave the entire center of the room a wide berth, following the potions master across the room.

"It's definitely a snake," Severus told them after several minutes. "There doesn't appear to be any obvious signs of most of the other things we've created snake hybrids out of here, but those same signs don't appear in chimeras either, as the serpent's tail isn't directly affected by any of the rest of the body, so that doesn't prove or disprove anything…. I'd hazard a guess that this creature is the same one that Salazar Slytherin bred, there appear to be signs of serious malnourishment, so it has likely been hibernating," the professor leaned away from the lens to look at the Valerians. "Given that we have no idea what the creature is, however, it's equally as possible that it's parthenogenic and created offspring at some point over the last thousand years."

"That's a rather terrifying prospect," Yoko said, shifting nervously. "If even one of these things was able to birth another, can you imagine how many might be in the Chamber after all these years?"

Severus and Fallen exchanged a glance.

"I'm hedging my bets on just the one," Fallen said after a moment.

"You can't know that though," Yoko pointed out.

"We can surmise it based on the fact that there haven't been more attacks," Severus countered. "If there were, just for a number, a dozen of whatever this mutant is down there, we should have seen at least four times the victims."

Yoko grimaced. "Thank the gods and spirits for small mercies, I suppose," he said. "I'll talk to Grubbly-Plank tomorrow morning before breakfast, but while we wait for her answers, we still have one other thing to focus on."

"Who is the Heir of Slytherin," Severus said.

"It's not going to be an easy search," Yoko sighed, "you've already pointed out that simply because one had the blood of a Founder, doesn't necessarily mean that they have the same ideals. Look at Draco, he has the purist blood of the Malfoy family but regularly hangs out with half-bloods and muggle-borns because Fallen reminded him that blood didn't dictate a person. He was raised to see all sides of that argument."

'Be that as it may,' Brandon pointed out to Fallen, 'in this case Slytherin and his Heir must have the same ideals. While his blood and ability are enough to open the Chamber and attack students, there hasn't been a pureblood attack yet.'

Fallen tilted his head and relayed his other half's observation to Severus and Yoko.

Severus clenched his jaw, staring down at the two Valerians.

Yoko scoffed and tilted his head, appearing for all the world as though Severus had wordlessly offended him. "Please give us a little credit, Severus," he sneered.

"I've been bonded to those of Slytherin House for nearly my entire tenure as the Malfoy guardian," Fallen reminded him, rolling his eyes. "While the odds are higher that the Heir is a member of your House, those odds aren't high enough to discount one of the others."

"And until we can pinpoint who is attacking their fellow students, every student is a child first, House second," Yoko added. "Besides, I have no interest in leaving you out of this investigation, not when you've practically given us all the information we currently have. We'll defend the rest of the three Houses from your hate and you can ensure that we don't focus too heavily on Slytherin."

Severus nodded stiffly. "Very well."

Fallen nudged the man's elbow. "So much for having more time for your House this year." he grinned.

Severus rolled his eyes. "Get out of my lab. I'd like to get some sleep before I need to teach morons again in the morning and it will require quite a bit of my patience."

"If you think we can be trusted, we'll see about coming down to help go through your books while you finish those essays before the term ends," Fallen told him as they were escorted to the door.

"The help would be appreciated," Severus told him.

XX

The following morning found Fallen, not Yoko, outside the rooms set aside for Professor Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank, the aging professor responsible for one of the side electives of the Care of Magical Creatures core classes.

After further thought, it made more sense for the wolf to talk to the woman, as he would be able to more accurately follow any thoughts she may have or insight she would be able to give.

It helped that, like Yoko and Hagrid, Fallen had always had a great rapport and understanding of the Care of Magical Creatures professors.

"General Fallen," Grubbly-Plank said pleasantly enough, given Fallen rarely, if ever, had spent time with her outside of classes before. "How may I help you?"

"Do you have a moment, Professor?" Fallen asked her. "I was hoping you might be able to point myself and Yoko in the correct direction regarding the creature attacking the students here."

Grubbly-Plank's expression went very stiff. "Of course, General, come inside. Any assistance I can bring on this matter I will gladly give."

Fallen slipped past the professor and settled beside the woman's coffee table, tilting his head forward to slip the cord around his neck to the floor. "Yoko found this scale late last night around the area that the latest attack took place in. Severus deemed it too fragile for any of his usual methods and suggested you."

Grubbly-Plank snorted. "Always was a bright one, that boy," she said, picking the case up off the floor and tilting it to get a good look at through the plastic. "It doesn't look like anything I've seen before," she said. "I'll look at it properly after breakfast, but my eyes aren't what they used to be. I may need to send this to some friends of mine in the magi and cryptomagizoologist fields."

"Dumbledore appears to be trying to keep these attacks as under wraps as possible. Would they look into it without further information as to why you're asking?" Fallen asked her.

"I'm sure I could come up with a suitable reason," Grubbly-Plank said. "If I can't give them the real reason, however, I can't expect a swift response, particularly given the upcoming holidays."

"As you said, Professor, any assistance you can give me is welcome," Fallen assured her.

Grubbly-Plank nodded sharply and pulled herself back to her feet.

Fallen could hear her joints cracking and his ears twitched.

The old witch smiled wryly. "Kettleburn and I have both recently been discussing retiring," she confided in him, "though I don't think I'm quite ready to go that far."

"Substituting is always an option later when your husband finally drives you back out of the house," Fallen told her. "It would also give you more time with those sanctuaries of yours."

Grubbly-Plank chuckled. "I think my husband would be very displeased if I suddenly started getting involved now, General, but the idea of causing him grief for a year or so does have some merit."

XX

If the school had been a powder keg before the double attack on Nick and Justin, it was on a hair-trigger now.

Two days after the attack, the few students that had resolved to stay at Hogwarts with their friends were now quick to change their minds.

By the second day, and with the end of term coming ever closer, the number had dwindled to pretty much the three heirs, the Valerians, Katelyn, Theodore, and two or three others.

The term wasn't over yet, however.

Fallen was irritated that they would need to wait for Grubbly-Plank's contacts to get back to her, a process that would likely take well after the next term began, but found himself easily distracted as not only the Weasleys and Harry's friends, but practically the whole of Gryffindor rallied behind the Second Year against the rest of the school.

He watched at least one Fifth Year shoot a Trip Jinx at a Third Year Hufflepuff that was making fake hissing noises in Harry's general direction.

The defense had likely begun with the Gryffindor Fifth Years, because Fred and George had taken the accusation as the joke it was, and escorted Harry to class screaming at other students to get out of the way of the Heir of Slytherin, openly mocking the fear of the other students in the corridors.

Unfortunately, while the twins' actions amused Harry, they did nothing to stop the churn of misinformation and fear that painted Harry as the Heir of Slytherin.

Percy Weasley had spent over twenty minutes in the common room scolding his brothers one evening for making Harry's situation worse but had deducted ten points from a Sixth Year Gryffindor that had been quietly whispering that perhaps the other Houses may have had the right idea in the common room the following morning.

Yoko had laughed as the prefect stormed off to breakfast, nose in the air.

'It appears that Harry's been adopted,' the fox told Fallen.

Fallen grinned and made no secret of hiding his fangs from the Sixth Year.

As quickly as Gryffindor moving to defend Harry, the Weasleys were closing ranks even from within their own House.

XX

If there was anyone who wasn't pleased with Harry's new and unwanted title, however, it was Katelyn.

When the twins led Harry and his friends through the corridor, heralding the approach of the 'great and powerful' Heir of Slytherin, Draco, Ron, and Blaise had watched her face do something particularly sour.

"She's probably just dying to say that she's the Heir," Ron muttered to them.

Draco rolled his eyes. "Ron, my family tree has been hammered into my head since I was tall enough to look at the tapestry. Trust me, we're not so directly related as to be Slytherin's Heir."

"What about her mom?"

"Some witch from Beauxbaton," Draco said dismissively. "She's not even from here."

XX

All too soon, the semester was coming to a close and the school was emptying out, leaving the three heirs and the Weasleys alone in Gryffindor Tower and few others in the rest of the school.

Katelyn, as usual, had returned to Malfoy Manor, according to Draco it had been at her father's request for the Christmas social scene.

"The what?"

"Social scene," Blaise said, tilting his head back awkwardly over the couch arm he was resting on to look at Hermione at the table. "It's pretty much the last set of parties by our elite for the social season, which ends when we go back to school."

"But why does she have to go, and Draco's stuck here," Ron asked, pointing is Sugar Quill at the blond. "I mean, aren't you the future Head?"

"Because Draco's a stubborn brat," Harry commented quietly from his window, where he was slowly flipping through an old sketchbook.

Draco flipped him the fingers, which was quickly becoming his favorite non-verbal expression, now that he knew what they meant. "Because Father expects me to use this time to catch up to Granger and while the Manor's library is extensive, this one has more books geared toward our curriculum," he said, narrowing his eyes on Harry's unresponsive form.

He glanced at Yoko, spread out on the rug between his armchair, the couch, and the window that Harry had reacquired.

"So, pretty much you're exempt from the stuffy parties so long as our girl here keeps kicking your ass in class?" Fred asked, smirking.

"Fuck you very much," Draco replied evenly.

"Yes," Fallen said. "And it's unlikely that Draco will be forced into those parties until he turns sixteen in so long as he continues to trail behind her."

"If I were you, Draco, I'd drop my grades deliberately," George laughed, clapping the younger boy on the shoulder. "From what I hear, those parties are boring as hell."

Draco grimaced. "Even worse when you're forced to attend and don't understand why."

Blaise rubbed his forehead. "My mom was forcing me to attend as soon as I understood the concept of 'stay still and stop moving so much'."

Ron pulled his candy quill out of his mouth again. "Wait, you went to those things, too?"

Blaise sat up just enough to scowl at him. "Seriously?"

"The Zabinis maintained their neutrality throughout the last two wars, Ron," Yoko said. "That doesn't mean that they aren't of the same social standing as the Potters and the Malfoys."

Ron squinted at Blaise. "But he's so much more laid back than Draco! I forget sometimes!"

Hermione sniffed. "More like all the time," she said, causing the boys to laugh and Ron to scowl at her and try to defend himself.

Fallen watched as Harry took the moment of cheer to slip out of the common room, sketchbook tucked under his arm.

XX

That night was the first of many as the week between the end of term and Christmas passed.

Yoko and Fallen usually resorted to tracking Harry by his scent because he was never in the same place twice and he was likewise never in the Tower at curfew.

Two days before Christmas, Fallen found him huddled up against the brick wall on the Astronomy Tower, despite it being nearly in the single digits.

"Harry."

Harry jumped and slammed his sketchbook shut, a pencil rolling away from his, likely numb, fingers. "Fallen!"

"What are you doing up here? There are warmer places to sketch."

Harry shrugged and looked up at the vaguely cloudy sky above them. "I couldn't get the angle right."

"Angle?"

Harry shook his head, scrambling to his feet and keeping the sketchbook pressed against his chest. "Nothing. Just…art stuff."

The pre-teen slipped past the wolf and headed down the stairs, hopefully heading back to the Tower.

Fallen tilted his head at the pencil the boy had left lying on the stone.

XX

"He's crying again," Draco told Fallen one night.

'Sketching?'

Draco hummed. "I'm really surprised to see it. I was starting to think he'd never draw again, seeing as he buried it so often."

'It's a good thing, Draco,' Fallen told him, not for the first time.

"But he's so sad when he does it. How can this be good?" Draco asked, and Fallen could imagine the blond huffing irritably because there was an aspect of his friend he didn't know.

'It's part of his process,' the General told him. 'For Harry, sketching is likely how he processes things, how he processes emotion, both the good and the bad. I'm happy to see him cracking it open again, even if it was only to flip through the ones he's drawn in the past.'

XX

Christmas morning was rough, particularly for Harry.

Christmas and his birthday had been two days of the year where Harry could consistently count on Tarana making an appearance, be it in his dreams, a physical presence and a voice, or simply a gift in his cupboard when he finished his chores for the day.

This year, he knew there was going to be none of those things, and he tried not to let it weigh on him as he and his friends opened their presents that year.

He mustered up smiles when they would show him the presents they'd gotten, and duck his head as he always did when they each opened their drawings, simple line things of the Valerian Crown and Collective under the Gryffindor and/or Slytherin banner, depending on who he was giving it to as a gift.

"Sorry they're not…like last year's," he mumbled, fumbling with the tape on one of his own gifts. "I…I didn't know what else I could get you that your mum or dad couldn't get you, Draco, or that Desmond would let you keep, Blaise."

Blaise and Draco exchanged a glance.

"Licorice," Blaise said, looking back at Harry.

Harry blinked at him.

Draco shrugged. "You can't really screw up sweets, Potter," he teased. He held up the rolled-up piece of paper before beginning to retie the red and green ribbon that had held it shut. "Thanks for these, though. They're awesome."

Harry's lip quivered slightly as he smiled at them.

"First time?" Blaise asked him quietly, glancing at Ron as he eagerly tore into a square of fudge from his mom, apparently ignoring the rest of them. "Drawing her I mean."

Harry nodded.

Draco whistled in Ron's direction and the redhead looked away from the book on the Chuddley Cannons Harry had apparently bought him.

The blond tilted his head in Harry's direction and Ron squinted at the little gift that Harry was fiddling with before his eyes lit up and he jumped to his feet.

"Open it, Harry!" he urged, dropping onto the end of Harry's bed, narrowly missing the dwindling pile of gifts there, and causing the pile to tip over and scatter regardless.

Blaise spun on his bed so he was sitting on the edge closest to Harry, and Draco came to lean against the nightstand between their beds, all of them watching a suddenly suspicious-looking Harry as he eyed them before doing as Ron asked.

He was startled by the locket that ended up in the palm of his hand.

Made of sterling silver with a durable-looking chain attached to it, there was a fierce-looking snake etched into the metal cover and Harry's last name and birthday finely etched in the back of it.

Glancing up at his friends, Harry thumbed the latch on the side of the locket, and it flipped open easily.

His breath hitched and he ran his thumb over familiar features.

"Guys-"

On one side, was the smiling faces of Harry's parents and on the other was the upturned face of Tarana. All three of them appeared to be glowing with happiness.

Draco dangled a handkerchief over Harry's shaking shoulders and the blond softened as he watched the shaking hand take it.

"We figured it was easier than the photo album," Blaise said quietly.

"Admittedly, we kind of stole the idea from you," Ron said, trying to make Harry stop crying. "You made one for her last year, right?"

If he was trying to make him stop, he had chosen the wrong words. Harry sobbed as he nodded.

"Me and Arcana." He whispered, running his finger over the other photo.

The moment was ruined when the door slammed open.

"Did he open it yet?" Hermione asked in a rush, before being practically forced into the dorm when Fred and George pressed against her to see inside.

"Just did," Blaise told them, though he glanced at Draco.

Draco had his lips pressed together. He had argued with the others that this gift, even though everyone wanted to see Harry's reaction to it, wasn't really something that should be witnessed by too many people, and had tried to convince the twins and Hermione not to intrude.

Hermione had insisted, however, and though Fred and George understood Draco's reasoning, they certainly weren't going to be left out if Hermione wasn't.

Any chance of Harry having a good cry, however, was gone.

As soon as Hermione and the twins had burst into the room, Harry had pressed the locket to his chest, ducked his head, and stifled the tears until red-rimmed eyes and tear tracks were the only evidence that he'd cried at all.

"Hope you like it," Draco said, instead of what he really wanted to say, "we had to steal and desecrate one of the pictures in your album to make it."

Harry immediately closed the locket and slipped it over his head, letting it lie on his chest, resting over his pajamas on his heart. "It's perfect," he rasped, smiling at it and running his thumb over the snake on the front.

"Not to ruin the moment, but you might want to hide that under your shirt once term starts again," George pointed out, smirking.

"Wouldn't do for the whole world to know you're really the Heir of Slytherin or anything," Fred snickered.

XX

There was one strange thing in the entire morning.

Each of the three heirs received gifts from unknown senders.

Draco opened a jewelry box and pulled out a silver ring with an opal stone the size of a large pebble in it.

Blaise unwrapped a thin cardboard box to reveal a bracelet that despite its intricately braided strands of fine gold, silver, and emerald still managed to look masculine.

Harry got a pouch with a simple black sapphire in the shape of a black cat topped with a tiny silver hook that could hook a chain through it and turn it into a necklace or charm bracelet if Harry were so inclined.

Hermione had been the reasonable one and stopped Draco from immediately slipping the ring onto his finger.

"You don't know who it's from!" she hissed at him, glancing over her shoulder at the door. "That thing can do anything to you!"

Blaise glanced down at the bracelet curved in his palm. "She's right," he said. "We should at least have Fallen or Yoko look at it first. Maybe a professor."

Ron stared at the cat between Harry's fingers and tilted his head. "Kinda looks like a panther, doesn't it?"

George leaned down until he practically had his nose on it. "Dunno just looks like a cat to me."

Ron rolled his eyes but didn't push it.

"What did you get?" Fallen asked from the doorway.

The Gryffindors all practically jumped out of their skin.

"Holy-"

"Fallen!"

The wolf rolled his eyes. "If Granger wants to keep something hidden, she should probably use a tone that doesn't register high enough to shatter glass." He drawled, lifting a paw and hopping slightly so that Yoko could squeeze under him and into the dorm room.

The fox jumped onto Blaise's bed and the dark-skinned pre-teen lay the bracelet before his guardian. "We all got something like it. Draco has a ring and Harry has a pendant or charm or something." He told the two Valerians.

The room was quiet as Yoko tilted his head this way and that as he looked the bracelet over. "The metal and gemstone are real. Fine quality too, easily something worth a great deal of money."

"Who would spend a lot of money on people they don't know?" Hermione asked skeptically.

"They didn't," Yoko told her, tail flicking. "This is not a new commission. There's age to the magic imbued in it. Protection, both defensive and offensive," he narrowed his eyes and moved a paw, as though moving something physically. "It's a web. There are dormant spells on it too, buried beneath the active Net to be set off under a particular set of circumstances." He looked over at Fallen. "One of them is an inactive, rather advanced, portkey spell."

Fallen gave the ring, now back in the box Draco had received it in, a hateful sneer. 'Should we throw them into the fire and see if it will melt it down through the protection charms?'

'I'd rather wait and see what we can find out about who sent them,' Yoko told him. 'This isn't jewelry you find in a store, Fallen, this is heirloom quality merchandise. The kind of stuff that gets handed down. If this is a trap, someone is giving away something that might be worth more than all the gold in their account.'

Fallen stared at the ring for another second or two before sighing. "None of you wear them," he told them. "Once this thing with the Chamber is settled, we'll deal with your mystery gift giver. Dumbledore gave you the Cloak last year, Harry?"

Harry's brow furrowed as he leaned forward over the edge of his bed, dislodging Ron in the process, to dig around in his trunk. "Yeah, but I didn't know about it until over the summer. Tarana said something about it having to have come from Dumbledore because the other person would have been too far away."

Fallen nodded but didn't tell them why he'd asked in the first place.

Harry pulled out a sock he'd somehow managed to misplace the match to and dropped the pouch with his pendant into it, before handing the sock over the Blaise, who did the same with the box. Draco needed to use a little more force, given that the sock wasn't really big enough for what they were putting in it, but they did manage to get the three strange gifts into the sock and back into Harry's trunk before Fallen ushered everyone back out of the dorm room so they could prepare for breakfast.

XX

For most of the day, the Gryffindors did their level best to keep Harry, and one another, entertained and distracted from the loss they'd suffered since their last Christmas.

Draco, in particular, deliberately baited either Hermione or Ron into what he called 'debates' but everyone else in the tower called 'arguments', which only ended when Harry put an end to them, siding with one or the other.

But, under pressure from Fallen, Blaise, and Yoko, Draco disappeared around lunch to eat with Severus, taking time for himself and his family during the holiday and not solely focusing on Harry and his emotional well-being.

Neither Draco nor his godfather spoke of the terror that Hogwarts had currently become and Draco instead filled the visit with talk of his classes, his homework, and his opinions on his professors, specifically the idiot that was their Defense Professor.

He wasn't too worried about his opinions getting back to his professors, given that Severus wasn't likely to be all that fond of them either.

A couple of hours before dinner, Draco and Fallen returned to the common room so Draco could dress for dinner.

Hogwarts' Christmas dinner was different than normal dinners at the school.

With fewer students and staff staying at the school, it was usually a long table to suit the smaller number of attendees, meaning that even though the teachers usually sat at one end of the table, they were still at a table with their students, interacting with them as they didn't during a normal meal.

Like much of the rest of the school, the Great Hall had been decorated before the end of term. There were a dozen frost-covered firs, the leaves of which were colored a deep blue, possibly curtesy of Yoko, and enchanted snow fell from the enchanted ceiling from a combination of spells from Fallen and Flitwick.

The Gryffindors were surprised that Fallen had even participated in decorating for Christmas, given that the approach of Christmas had made the already tense and irritable wolf even more so, as the General was what Yoko and Tarana had affectionately called a 'scrooge' the year before and became a surly bundle of red fur around the holidays.

At dinner that night, Dumbledore led the group, consisting of two tables as opposed to the one from the year before, in renditions of his favorite Christmas carols, with Hagrid getting louder and louder with every glass of eggnog he downed.

XX

Fallen and Yoko weren't at dinner.

As soon as Fallen had returned from lunch with Severus and Draco, the two Valerians had slipped out of the castle, sure that their charges were in good care, surrounded by the staff of Hogwarts for dinner.

They spent the humans' meal down in the forest, running, hunting, and playing in ways they hadn't been able to since their reunion the year before, given Tarana's 'third wheel' status and the direct threat of Dark and Arcana that year.

When the Valerians eventually returned to the common room only an hour or so after dinner ended, exhausted but happy, to find Harry in his window seat with his sketchpad open on his knees, they concluded that, despite the holes where people, Valerian and human alike, should be, it was a good day for all of them.

XX

Draco decided that it was time to visit Theo a little less than a week before their next term was to begin.

He'd briefly thought about waiting until Fallen returned to the common room-because while he had a vague idea of where the Slytherin dorms and common room were from his family's stories and in relation to Severus' own office and private rooms, he'd never actually been there-but eventually decided that he didn't want to wait that long.

That good intention slipped right out the window when it turned out to be harder than he'd anticipated finding the Slytherin dorm's opening - a section of the wall that would slide away when given the password - given that the entire dungeon was made of stone wall.

"Draco."

Draco grimaced. "It's not curfew yet," he pointed out.

"No," Fallen agreed, sounding far too amused given that curfew was for another two or three hours yet. "But what are you doing?"

Draco scowled. "I thought the definition of a stupid question was a question you already know the answer to."

Fallen chuckled and turned on his tail. "You're a little too far," he told his charge. "This way. I'll warn you though, I know where the entrance to the Slytherin common room is, but I don't know what this term's password is going to be. I didn't know the last term's either."

Draco scowled, coming to a complete stop. "So why are you showing me the way anyway?" he asked, irritated.

Fallen looked at him over his shoulder. "Watch yourself, Draco," he warned.

Draco rolled his eyes. "Sorry," he muttered.

Fallen snorted. 'I'm sure you are,' he sneered in return. "You can always knock on a door, Draco. There are occasionally people on the other side who open them."

'And when there's not, you blow it open and render the door useless,' Brandon snickered.

'I don't think that's something he needs to learn at this point in his life,' Fallen pointed out.

"Malfoy?"

Draco half-turned to look at the approaching Slytherin. "Theo," he greeted, "I was looking for you."

Theodore narrowed his eyes and glanced behind the Gryffindor to the wolf behind him and then returning his gaze to the blond. Because it was the holidays, neither student was wearing a uniform, leaving no sign of which House either belonged to.

"Any particular reason?"

Draco held up a familiar box. "Have time for a game or two?" he asked. "Before we go back to being House rivals and all that bullocks."

Theodore tilted his head. "Have you gotten any better since we last played?"

"We played three years ago," Draco pointed out. "One, I beat you in our last game, and two, I've been playing against Weasley for over a year. Of course I've gotten better."

Theodore shrugged. "Let's see if he's given you any new tricks then," he said, stepping around the blond and his guardian. "Pureblood."

"Draco?" Fallen asked as Draco followed Theodore into the common room.

Draco shook his head. "I'll be fine," he told the wolf. "Go back to Harry."

'I think it's time to stop treating the boy like he's going to break, Draco,' Fallen told him. 'He's proven himself to be remarkably resilient and is, by all accounts, recovering well and healthy.'

"But it would make me feel better to have you there," Draco pointed out.

'Draco.'

Draco rolled his eyes. "I'll try," he said.

Fallen nodded. "Good. You boys enjoy your game."

"See you around, Fallen," Theodore said, waving as the wolf turned down the corridor.

XX

Draco's second greatest opponent his age, his first obviously being Ron, was Theodore Nott.

Draco won the first game they played - and took great pride in it because of how difficult it had been to win it - and was well on his way to doing the same with the second when he finally brought up the other reason he was in the dungeons.

"So, I have a question for you," Draco said, moving his knight to take one of Theodore's pawns.

"Figures," Theodore snorted. "Why else would you come down here? You've made your choice in Houses and friends pretty clear."

Draco frowned at him. "What's that supposed to mean?" he asked defensively.

"You just seemed pretty content, running around and playing hero."

"I spend more than half the year last year in detention and almost got killed for one of Dumbledore's stupid bleeding-heart things." Draco snorted. "I don't think anything we did last year counted as 'heroic'. We all almost got ourselves killed."

"Glad to see you've still got some brains left in your head," Theodore drawled. "I was beginning to think you'd thrown away everything we'd been taught."

"I didn't throw away anything," Draco assured him. "I just had to learn to adapt what I was seeing here to what I was told by Father."

Theodore rolled his eyes. "Adapt, huh?"

"That wasn't what I came to ask you about," Draco told him. "My views on muggle-borns and half-bloods haven't changed enough to not know that we're becoming a minority. I still believe that they're ruining our world. I came to ask what the hell Katelyn has been doing?"

Theodore blinked. "Doing?"

"Don't play stupid," Draco growled, leaning an elbow on the table and bracing his cheek on his palm. "I've seen her in the library more than once holding some sort of court or shit with some of the other Slytherin girls. Some of whom are older than she is. What is she doing?"

Theodore leaned back in his armchair and sighed. "Honestly, I didn't think the upper years were going to be able to hide it for long anyway."

"They've been hiding it?"

"She's trying some revolution or another," Theodore told him. "She came into the dorms last year under the obviously mistaken impression that simply because she was your cousin she was going to get the same respect we would have afforded you as one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight Heirs, particularly one our parents are all so connected to as your father is with ours."

"Mistaken," Draco muttered.

"Yeah, they disabused her of that pretty fast that first week," Theodore admitted. "And they weren't all that nice about it. Sometime over the summer, she appears to have gotten it into her head that the 'women of our society were seriously repressed and needed to fight for what was theirs'."

"Spirits," Draco muttered, covering his eyes with his palm. "How badly has she made a fool of my family?"

"It's getting pretty bad," Theodore told him. "I don't know what kind of education she got of France's Wizarding Society, but it isn't meshing well with what actually gets taught to the rest of us. She's convinced a bunch of other girls from as high as Fourth Year that there's some great 'conspiracy' that the 'men' are using to keep them suppressed."

Draco grimaced. "I'm guessing she's tried to go after everyone in Slytherin."

"You'd guess right," Theodore agreed.

Draco groaned quietly.

While Draco was still too young to legally take up the Malfoy Ring, even as his father's heir, it had been his mother, in her more lucid moments, that informed him that while his father might appear to have all the power in their family, any lord worth the galleon they turned knew that the women kept them there, ensuring that they were invited to all the right parties with all the right people to keep their families in the social standing required, without making waves by trying to step above their station.

Draco inhaled and dragged his palm down his face and straightened, giving the board between them his attention again. "I'll ask Fallen to talk to Father or Uncle Nathaniel. She's making them look like they don't teach her anything."

Theodore hummed and they got lost in the back and forth of their game.

XX

Draco had forgotten how much fun it was playing against Theodore.

Ron was, hands down, a better player than Theo was, but Theodore had all the sass and back-handed comments and insults that Severus and his father had taught him were as much a part of the game as the moves made on the board.

Lucius had told him, repeatedly, that if he couldn't win a game of chess when someone was insulting him, he wasn't worth the pieces on the board.

Severus had been a little more eloquent about it, calling it a battle on two fronts, of wits and strategy.

In between those snide comments, subtle insults, and not-so-subtle attempts to throw each other off their games, other topics did come up, though each was careful in how they answered, aware as ever that they were currently on two different 'sides'.

Eventually, with the situation at the school being what it was, however, their conversations did turn to the Chamber of Secrets and the attacks on their fellow students.

It was rather refreshing to discuss the topic with someone who had grown up on some of the same stories as Draco.

"Honestly," Theodore drawled, sipping at the hot chocolate one of the Hogwarts House Elves had brought him and Draco half an hour ago when it became clear that the two weren't going to be through for at least another few hours. "They're all idiots if they think Potter's the one attacking people."

"Exactly," Draco said, shaking his head. "He's practically a muggle-born, raised like he was, and he's friends with half the muggle-borns of Gryffindor."

Theodore pointed a finger at him as he moved his bishop. "You have to admit that the attacks are rather suspiciously tied to him though," he said. "Maybe someone's attacking them on Lord Potter's behalf?"

Draco chewed on the tip of his tongue for a moment, debating with himself.

"Harry doesn't really have enemies," he admitted.

"Oh?" Theodore asked, leaning forward.

"He's got this…knack," Draco said slowly, choosing his words carefully. "In a couple of minutes, he can pinpoint how best to morph his behavior to please those around him. I don't think he realizes he does it."

"He does it unconsciously?" Theodore asked. "I mean, you and I learned how, but I have to think about each action before I take it."

"Doesn't think about it," Draco assured him. "On the train last year, I didn't even realize he was doing it, until I watched him interacting with me, Ron, and Blaise. He doesn't change what he thinks, just how he acts and what he says." He nibbled his lower lip, debating whether it was wise to share his suspicions regarding why Harry had learned that particular unconscious habit or not, before ultimately deciding that it wasn't anything he wanted Theodore using against his friend.

"I don't suppose you've got suspicions as to who Slytherin's Heir might be?" he asked. "I asked Father and he told me that as far as his records go back, the line died out like sixty years ago."

Draco didn't tell him what Fallen and Yoko had said about Voldemort because his father hadn't said anything about Voldemort.

It had made him wonder if his father even knew that Voldemort was of Slytherin's direct line, but he hadn't gotten the guts to ask Fallen if Lucius knew anything about it, given that he hadn't told Fallen that he was asking around after the Line of Slytherin.

"We don't know either," Theodore told him, shaking his head. "I haven't made a decision one way or the other, but we appear to have sort of, drifted to either being excited about it being opened and what it means for our cause, or being terrified of whatever was so powerful that only Salazar Slytherin could control it," Theodore admitted, before turning thoughtful. "You know, given how volatile Fallen and Yoko have been this year toward him, Lockhart seems rather…unafraid, don't you think?"

"You don't think Lockhart is the famous Heir of Slytherin?" Draco asked, torn between astonishment that Theodore had made such a leap in logic, and irritation that he had made such a ridiculous leap in logic.

"Well, he has no fear of the Valerians, some of the most dangerous creatures in our world, and doesn't seem all that concerned with the attacks on the students here," Theodore pointed out. "The bumbling idiot thing he's got going for him would be a good distraction. No one would think of him because he's an idiot."

Draco shook his head. "If that's an act, it's a damned good one," he scoffed. "I'm still trying to figure out why the stupid old man hired him as the teacher for one of our most important core subjects."

XX

Draco and Theodore ended up playing chess until well after lunch, and then simply talking like they hadn't done since before they'd started Hogwarts.

Dinner was well underway when they finally left the common room and headed for the Great Hall, having missed lunch entirely.

"Draco!"

Draco raised his eyes heavenward and turned to look at Percy Weasley as he stormed down the corridor toward him, eyeing Theodore, who looked bored with the whole process, where he stood a little ways ahead of Draco, having been leading the Gryffindor up to the Entrance Hall.

"What are you doing down here?" Percy hissed at him, narrowing his eyes on Theodore before looking down at the Second Year.

"Should I be asking you that question?" Draco countered.

"Draco," Percy said shortly. "You shouldn't be down here. It's not safe to be wandering around dark corridors."

Draco snorted. "Weasley, my godfather lives down here. I grew up with at least half of Slytherin's Second Year and am acquainted with at least a third of the rest of it. Of the two of us, you are the one who should be more worried about 'wandering through the dark corridors'."

Percy drew himself impossibly taller. "I'm a prefect, Draco, nothing's going to attack me."

Draco glanced over his shoulder at Theodore, who watched the interaction with half-lidded eyes, his bored expression never changing, before turning his attention back to Percy.

"If this creature or whatever, can attack a ghost, Weasley, what makes you think that it will stop and think before attacking you?" Draco drawled quietly. "You who are so far out of your depth and territory down here that it might not even be the Heir of Slytherin or the creature in the Chamber that gets you."

Percy's lip curled. "Been talking to your fellow Slytherins long then?"

Draco withdrew a single step before his expression walled over.

Percy immediately looked apologetic, but when he opened his mouth to voice that apology, Draco turned on his heel and stalked back to Theodore's side. "Do what you like," he said sharply. "For your information, Weasley, Gryffindor couldn't give me an adequate chess challenge, so I went searching for better players. Not that it's any of your business who I spend my spare time with."

"Draco!" Percy called, but only got a dismissive wave of Draco's chess set box for his trouble.

Theodore eyed the Gryffindor out of the corner of his eye as they walked toward the stairs.

"He's been patrolling the dungeons more and more," Theodore told him, turning most of his attention back to the path in front of them. "That one. I haven't figured out yet if he has a girlfriend he's meeting down here, or if he's trying to catch the Heir of Slytherin himself. Either way, he thinks pretty highly of himself, for being a lion down in Professor Snape's territory."

Draco rolled his eyes. "If Dumbledore can't catch the Heir, there's no way that he is going to catch him, not even able to Speak," he paused. "And you realize what that means, coming out of my mouth."

Theodore smirked.

They continued in silence until they were outside the Great Hall doors, where Theodore put a hand on Draco's shoulder and pulled him to a stop.

"One more thing," he said, pulling a folded-up page of the Daily Prophet out of his pocket. "I remembered your father's rule on the Prophet while we're here at Hogwarts. Consider it payment for the matches."

Draco frowned at Theodore's back as the Slytherin walked into the Great Hall, leaving him there.

The paper was roughly folded, so the edges didn't quite match up, and the glimpse of the headline he managed to catch made him grimace.

XX

Ron was so engrossed in his food that he didn't really notice when Draco drew Harry and Blaise's attention to the article Theodore had given to him.

The headline read: 'Inquiry at the Mystery of Magic' and was obviously a follow up to a previous article regarding the flying car Arthur Weasley had owned.

\/\/\/

INQUIRY AT THE MINISTRY OF MAGIC

Arthur Weasley, Head of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office, was today fined fifty Galleons for bewitching a Muggle car.

Mr. Nathaniel Malfoy, a governor of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where the car crashed earlier this year, called today for Mr. Weasley's resignation.

"Weasley has brought the Ministry into disrepute," Mr. Malfoy told our reporter. "He is clearly unfit to draw up our laws and his ridiculous Muggle Protection Act should be scrapped immediately."

Mr. Weasley was unavailable for additional comment, although his wife told reporters to clear off their property or she'd set the family ghoul on them.

/\/\/\

Blaise glanced over at Ron with a grimace. "How much trouble do you think he's going to be in when he gets home?" he whispered.

Draco stared at his uncle's name in the article and was more concerned with what it was going to do to his reputation with the Weasleys that his uncle said such unflattering things about the Weasley patriarch's ability to lead his department, no matter how true it may or may not have been.

"I still think I should write to Mr. and Mrs. Weasley," Harry murmured, looking miserably down into his dish, what little appetite he'd regained since Christmas apparently deserting him. "It's my fault we were driving the car in the first place. Ron shouldn't get into trouble because of me."

'I think you're overestimating the amount of fault you should be owning up to,' Fallen said, dropping heavily to the stone floor behind the two Gryffindors, Yoko jumping up to curl as close to Blaise's hip as he could to avoid encroaching on someone else's personal space.

'You were both complete idiots for using that car to get to Hogwarts, but you had also both independently agreed to the method and should equally own up to that decision. You didn't put a wand to his head and threaten him with it, he agreed to take the car.'

Harry glanced down the table where Ron was now staring at them with narrowed and suspicious eyes and wasn't sure how much of that he believed.

"Here," Harry said, taking the article from Draco and sliding it toward Ron. "Nott gave this to Draco."

Ron was silent as he glanced over the article before paling and looking up at Draco with a scowl.

"Don't look at him," Yoko advised him. "He didn't make that comment."

"He also didn't fly the bloody car," Fallen grumbled.

"How much trouble do you think my dad is in?" Ron asked, looking down at the article again.

"Given that he was only given the fine?" Yoko asked. "This is likely the end of it."

Yoko glanced through the legs of the Gryffindors across from him and met Fallen's gaze.

Fallen closed his eyes with a silent huff.

Neither one of them mentioned that it was likely only the beginning.

Nathaniel may have made the comment, but the weakness in public opinion regarding the Weasleys wasn't something Lucius was going to let slide.

Fallen was going to need to be better about keeping the Prophet out of Draco and Ron's hands or risk a fracture in the group of friends in case Lucius brought the Prophet to bear against the Weasleys.