Chapter Seventeen: The Heir of Slytherin

Severus and Fallen prepare to take on the Heir of Slytherin but run into a snag when Severus' cover is potentially compromised. Meanwhile, above ground, Valerian reinforcements arrive at Hogwarts.


Once inside the Chamber, it became difficult to consider it anything other than what it was.

It was long, which was what had given it the dark and foreboding impression, but there was actual light.

On either side of the chamber were towering stone pillars, set several meters away from the wall, with carved serpents twining around them and between each pillar was a single torch set into the wall.

The pillars prevented most of the torchlight from making its way to the center of the room, adding to the darkness that had appeared to stretch into the long room when they had stood at the door.

The entire room had an unusual greenish glow to it, which was odd given that the torches gave off normal light.

Severus and Fallen kept to the space between the pillars and the wall, which would hopefully keep the massive serpent they were there for from getting a good look at, or grip on, them if it made an appearance.

Harry, by default, kept even closer to the wall, until he couldn't anymore.

Beginning midway through the chamber, the space had flooded, forcing Severus and Harry to come out from their 'safe space' to avoid going through it, unsure of how safe it would be given how dark the room was.

Fallen paused for several steps, watching as Harry and Severus approached the looming centerpiece of the chamber, the real reason that it was impossible to mistake it as anything other than Salazar Slytherin's secret chamber.

A massive, stone statue, easily as tall as the chamber itself, had been erected at the farthest end, in the likeness of the Dark Founder.

Water had risen from the floor to almost a meter at that end of the chamber, causing Fallen to guess that the chamber, and likely the tunnel outside, was on a steady, but very slight decline, and Ron had been right, they had always been beneath the Lake.

'Fallen,' Brandon said suddenly. 'We've forgotten something seriously important in our rush to do this. We never found-'

There was a sudden movement in the shadows across the chamber and Fallen was moving before his mind fully recognized what it was seeing.

XX

Harry screamed, hands coming up to push at black fur as a heavy weight settled on his squirming form.

"Harry!"

"Give in, boy," Dark purred, pressing his nose almost to Harry's.

The amber eyes there went from cold and terrifying to suddenly not and Harry's head swam.

Distantly, Harry remembered the conversation he'd had with Severus about Dark's Talent.

\/\/\/

"Dark's Talent, however, is more like being forced into a small, unbreakable glass room and feeling everything that your body does, whether you want it to do those things or not, and being unable to stop."

/\/\/\

Harry felt like he could feel those glass walls being erected around him and hammered weakly at Dark's chest because he didn't know how to do it to whatever was happening in his head.

"Give in," Dark purred again, sounding far away and sweetly enticing.

It ended on a sharp yelp, and suddenly Harry could see the sickly green of the room again and taste the musty water in the air on his tongue.

Thirty seconds ago, it had been disgusting, but now Harry wasn't sure that it wasn't the best thing he'd ever tasted.

The preteen scrambled up and away before he'd fully gathered his feet beneath him, feeling Severus' steady hand under his arm as he was guided upward.

Before he could fully get his feet beneath him, however, the support was abruptly withdrawn, and the presence of the professor was no longer at his side.

Harry hurriedly fixed his glasses back to his face and was confused at the strange three-way stalemate between Dark, Fallen, and Severus.

'Never doubt the loyalty of your professor, Harry,' Fallen told him, never taking his eyes off Dark as he slowly closed the distance between himself and Harry. 'But before you were born, he was a loyal Death Eater. He betrayed the Dark Lord for your mother, but no one, not even Lucius, knows that. I'm not even certain he knows that I'm aware of it. I hadn't thought about the possibility that Dark might have found the Heir of Slytherin before we did and be down here with him or her, or I never would have brought Severus down to help us.'

Harry pressed a hand into Fallen's flank, but the wolf kept moving, pushing the boy back toward the wall the wolf had come from, forcing Harry to move with him.

He remembered being given a similar warning when they had realized that Quirrell was working for Voldemort the year before but wasn't sure what that meant to them now.

Fallen's move wasn't accidental, it was deliberately made to try and make Dark believe that Severus had been his only choice, not because he truly trusted the man.

Dark snickered, apparently not at all bothered by his failed attempt to gain a powerful Thrall in Harry.

"Do you have flashbacks, boy?" he asked, grinning. "Shivers, maybe? I do. Of the last time a Valerian put themselves between you and I."

Harry felt a rush of that anger again and pointed his wand at the dark wolf before he could think about it.

Like before, however, he couldn't think of a spell powerful or painful enough to use on the Traitor and his hand shook in his rage.

Fallen rolled his neck and stepped forward. "If you wanted to pick a fight, Dark, you really just had to ask," he rumbled. "I was waiting months for you to show your black heart again. Months to get a crack at the Murderer of my Queen and Rapist of my King."

Dark laughed, stepping forward to meet the red wolf, step for step. "And what proof do you have that His Majesty wasn't acting on his own, General?" he asked. "Maybe he just got so tired of playing the good guy all the time."

"Because Arcana would never have killed Tarana unless you forced him to," Harry said forcefully, wand still pointed uselessly at the dark wolf.

The words seemed to strike something in the Traitor because he paused, one paw raised mid-step, then began to laugh.

"I had thought you had taken him from that wretched mundane neighborhood," he cackled. "But you were bluffing that night in the corridor, weren't you General! You had no idea that I had lost Arcana until I arrived."

Fallen slunk slightly lower, watching Dark work himself into hysterics.

"Oh, that is too, too precious," he snickered. "Killing Tarana freed him, didn't it? Broke my control of him. But he waltzed right into the Heartbreak. That's almost poetic, to die of a broken heart he caused, wouldn't you agree, Tom?"

"Poetic indeed," a soft voice agreed.

Harry spun around, putting the new voice before his wand.

A figure was stepping around the legs of the statue of Salazar Slytherin, trailing his fingers along the stone cloak's hem.

It was a teen boy only a little older than himself with dark hair, in Hogwarts robes. There was no mistaking the serpent patch on his chest, marking him as Slytherin student, but he looked weird.

Even in the dim torchlight and the green glow, he seemed not all there, blurry around the edges.

"Are you a ghost?" Harry blurted out before he could stop himself.

The teen smiled mysteriously. "More…a memory," he said slowly. "Given life by taking hers."

He gestured to a still figure at his feet.

"Ginny," Harry breathed, taking a step toward her.

'No!' Fallen snapped. 'Stay away from him, Harry!'

"It would look rather suspicious if the girl died down here, Dark," Severus drawled casually, appearing completely at ease with the situation as it was. "Particularly if I'm the only professor who has been sent down to retrieve her. I can't say I have much love for the Weasleys, too many children with too little sense, but her death would compromise my place in Dumbledore's good graces."

Dark tilted his head, appearing to actually weigh the words. "That is quite the problem, isn't it," he drawled. "Allow the Dark Lord to rise again tonight, giving up your place in the hypocrite's good graces, or foregoing Voldemort's rise to cement a relatively well-placed informant. Decisions, decisions."

"Let me make the choice for you, Valerian," Tom said, raising his head to the top of the statue and hissing at it.

Harry stumbled, wide-eyed, away from the teen. "Fallen, I thought-"

"This boy is Tom Riddle, though I don't know how he has reverted to this age given that we've both recently met him at over sixty-five."

Dark snickered. "My Bonded has many tricks up his sleeve that are yet to be seen, General."

"Why risk any of them leaving?" Tom asked seriously, looking down at the Chamber as the sound of stone grating on stone came from high above them. "Let my pet obliterate them all. There is no suspicion at all, if he dies for foolishly coming here alone to find a missing student."

'Get out of sight and keep your eyes closed,' Fallen told Severus and Harry.

All three retreated to the dubious safety of the columns, with Severus still keeping the room between himself and Fallen.

"It does make it rather difficult for him to report on the Hypocrite's movements when he's dead, Tom," Dark told him, though he was far too casual to truly mean his words as a reprimand.

Harry watched through the pillars as Tom crouched down over Ginny and stroked her hair almost affectionately. "Why is he so fixated on Ginny?" he asked, wincing when his question echoed in the confines of the chamber, causing Tom to raise his head and look in his direction.

"Dark told me that things were different. That fifty years had passed since he and I were last in this chamber. He told me that you would be expecting that other me when you came down here, because I was still the only parselmouth in England, at least, I was supposed to be."

Dark snickered, having not bothered to move from his position in the center of the Chamber, not at all concerned with the basilisk as it roused itself, slowly as it ever did, from the nest its breeder had fashioned for it all those centuries ago.

"I wasn't exactly welcome at the Potters' home, Tom," the Traitor shrugged. "I couldn't possibly know what hidden talents the boy might have. Don't fret though, he is no descendent of Slytherin. Your beast will slaughter him as easily as it would any other."

"I thought that's what you were for," Tom drawled.

"If you aren't the Tom Riddle of this time, then what are you?" Fallen demanded, slipping through the shadows between the pillars to get a better look at the basilisk as it slowly uncoiled from the mouth of Salazar above them, twisting and twinging its way from the top of the statue toward its feet.

Tom waited until the giant snake was hovering over him and Ginny before speaking, laying a hand on the basilisk's scaley hide.

"A memory," he repeated. "Perfectly preserved in a diary for fifty years."

Fallen froze.

Diary.

The diary.

The same diary that nearly a month ago he had called benign.

Oh, gods. Fallen thought horrified by what he had allowed to happen by not being vigilant enough. Yoko….

"Dear Ginny spent her whole year pouring her sweet little heart and soul into the pages and the sympathetic soul on the other side. And with every secret she shared and piece of her heart she gave to me, I poured a little of myself back into her."

"Bastard," Harry hissed.

Tom smiled. "Through her, I was able to continue what Salazar had begun centuries ago. What Dark and I continued when I finally found this place all those years ago and so neatly pinned on Hagrid. As though he had the brains to find this place," he raised his arms over his head as though to showcase the magnificence of what they stood in.

"If he was half the fool he is now, he would never have been able to appreciate it," Severus said scathingly.

"Exactly!" Tom said brightly.

"You failed," Harry spat at them. "Hagrid is still here. Probably on his way down to help us even now."

Tom laughed as though Harry had amused him. "Is that what you're waiting for? Tucked away in your hole like rabbits there? Reinforcements? The door to this Chamber can only be opened by a Speaker. Once I close it, there will be no reinforcements!"

Harry smirked and opened his mouth.

Across from him, however, Severus put a finger to his lips and shook his head, wordlessly warning him against reminding Dark and Tom that Harry was also a Speaker.

"Kill the humans," Tom hissed, taking his hand from the swaying basilisk's skin and stepping away.

'Don't look it in the eye,' Fallen ordered, coming alive with a start, eyes bleeding black as he prepared to decapitate the threat.

"Oh, I don't think we're going to make it so easy for you, General," Dark purred, lunging out of the shadows of the pillars and throwing the two of them into a rolling ball of snarling fur and fangs.

Harry cried out, pressing himself against the nearest pillar, but had to duck around it when, rearing up on their hind legs, the two wolves tilted sideways and nearly pinned him, oblivious to his presence there.

XX

Harry stumbled upright and was nearly knocked over by the massive basilisk as it reared up and began to wrap its massive body around the preteen.

The Gryffindor slammed his eyes closed and pressed his palms over them for good measure, and was therefore startled when someone grabbed his robe and hauled him out of the way.

He would have struggled if it weren't for Severus hissing a spell he didn't recognize at the snake swaying above them.

The professor roughly shoved him in the direction the boy had already been heading - that is, away from the two wolves eager to tear out the other's throat.

Given that Voldemort, or Riddle, or whoever had pretty much just signed his death note, Severus felt rather justified in defending himself against the basilisk as it aimed to kill him and Harry, and if some of those spells happened to prevent Potter from getting squished or eaten, then it was surely just coincidence as far as Dark or Riddle were concerned.

Not that Dark was likely to be concerned about much of anything but Fallen's attempts to tear out his throat in the immediate future.

From what little Severus could make out of the dogfight between the two wolves, Fallen appeared to have the advantage as they dove and darted around and between the pillars on 'their side' of the chamber.

There was a heavy tug on Severus' free arm and he was pulled off balance, but out of the basilisk's path as it temporarily gave up on trying to body slam him into the ground, and simply slashed its heavy tail toward them.

The pillars cracked beneath the blow, but held, much to Severus' relief.

Harry looked up at the professor with bright green eyes, panting with the effort of pulling the older man.

"What do we do?" Harry whispered.

"First, I need to get you out of this chamber," Severus told him, glancing around the broken pillar.

His stomach sank as he watched the memory of the Dark Lord stroll casually through the mini warzone the famed Chamber of Slytherin had become.

It appeared that getting them both out of the Chamber was going to become even more difficult.

"What about Ginny?" Harry asked, having not noticed Riddle moving to cut off the only escape route Severus had for Harry and Ginny, if he could get to her.

The sound of the Dark Lord hissing at the doors was lost to Severus' ears, amidst the hissing of the basilisk and the angry growls of the two wolves on the other side of the Chamber, but Harry's attention was immediately drawn to it and he paled.

"Oh no," he whispered, "Professor he's-"

The sound of stone grating on stone came again, as the doors began to shut, locking them all in the Chamber with the basilisk.

XX

The thud of the closing doors never came, however.

Instead, the water of the Chamber ran uphill, thickening and flying through the air until it was wedged between the stone.

More and more tendrils of water were joining it every second, widening the gap, though it fought for every centimeter it gained.

"Impossible!" Dark cried, he and Fallen having come to a complete halt as the streams of water continued to slip past them to join the growing mass of it at the front of the Chamber.

The water, a stagnant and disgusting green from the algae within it, took on a whole different hue as it created an arch between the two doors, pulsing in time with a speeding heartbeat.

Pulsing just like the plants did when Yoko commanded them to grow and twist and twine to his will.

Pulsing with the life of an Element.

XX

Though most of the room had frozen in shock at the sudden reinforcement of the doors, the basilisk had no care for such magic or surprise.

It reared and twisted, striking down at Fallen, who was too busy staring at the doors to notice.

A black blur, familiar though far smaller than any were used to seeing, darted beneath the archway and the fire of the torches all burned a familiar black and green.

Like crossbows, each torch set off a 'line' of fire that stretched and connected with others until there was a burning net stretched across the whole chamber, forcing the basilisk back and away from its targets, toward the statue it had come from, scales sizzling in the brief heat.

Two more torches stretched and twisted, creating a waist-high funnel almost ten feet across around Severus and Harry, cutting them off from any threat within the Chamber.

Enraged at the loss of its prey, the King of Serpents roared its fury to the ceiling.

In the middle of the Chamber of Secrets, the Valerian Queen - for even in a smaller, younger, looking form, she could be no one else - threw back her head and roared back.

It wasn't Arcana - for who else could control the Element of Water but the Valerian King - that answered her battle call, but a phoenix.

Fawkes, brilliantly red and gold soared over the water arch and rose high into the ceiling, screaming again before diving, talons first, for the first of the basilisk's eyes.

The snake thrashed, gnashing its long fangs at the bird, but Fawkes swerved and took further into the air.

Even half-blind, the basilisk moved up the statue of Salazar, giving chase to it.

Tarana twisted the net she'd created, molded it to a rope of fire, and lashed it behind the basilisk's head, jerking it back to the ground with a crash that shook the whole Chamber.

Dark shook himself free of his stupor and with a vicious snarl lunged for her. "I watched you die, you bloody bitch!" he roared. "I'll just have to do it myself."

Fallen descended on the Traitor with a vengeance, sinking his fangs deep into the back of his neck and twisting, dragging the larger wolf off his paws and to the ground before he could make it half the distance to the resurrected Queen.

Tarana, sure of her safety with the General at her back, reformed the burning net, widening a gap in it as Fawkes dove again.

It was a thrashing mass of serpent and phoenix beyond Tarana's barrier, but the agonized shriek of the basilisk just before Fawkes rose, black blood covering part of his tail, told of the loss of its second eye.

"NO!" Tom screamed. "This wasn't how this was supposed to go! Dark!"

Dark, however, was busy.

The return of the Queen had empowered Fallen and he was driving Dark into the ground, spinning, and twisting, tearing at the darker wolf and keeping him too occupied to think of anyone else.

Wind shredded ice, weaved around pillars, and hammered through icy barriers, forcing Dark on the apparently eternal defensive for the first time since Harry had encountered the Traitor.

This must be the General that everyone so often talked about.

Tarana, sure of her own safety, turned on her tail and moved quickly toward the 'fence' she had created to keep Severus and Harry separate from the carnage she, Fallen, and Fawkes had created.

"Harry," she breathed.

Harry dropped to his knees before the panther, so much smaller than the last time he'd seen her, barely coming up to his waist as opposed to his chest, and wrapped his arms around her tightly, tears in his eyes.

Even that was different.

She was smaller in build, not just in height, lacking much of the muscle that had made her such a dangerous opponent.

"Tarana," he cried, frowning when he reached out to her with his mind and couldn't find her. His lip quivered.

"Hush, little one," Tarana told him, nuzzling his cheek. "I know. I know, child, and we'll fix it, I promise. I'm so sorry you've been alone so long. So very, very sorry!"

Harry rubbed his cheek against her neck. "You came back," he cried, heedless of the tears that he was dripping into her fur. "You're here, you came back!"

"Always, little one, always," Tarana promised him. "I'm sorry I couldn't step with you this time, but I promise we'll talk all about what we've missed soon. First, we must get you out of this Chamber."

Harry shook his head, tightening his grip on her. "I don't want to leave you."

"Harry," Severus said, pulling gently, neatly compartmentalizing the return of the Queen to be dealt with later. "You can't stay in here."

"Draco is beyond the doors with Arcana," Tarana told him. "He'll take you back to the others. The rest of us will meet you there, but first, we need to deal with the threat here, and I can't do that if you stay here with me. Do you understand? I don't know where you are right now. I need to know that you are not here."

Harry sobbed as he realized that she was sending him away again because she could be distracted. "But-"

"She doesn't stand alone here this time," Severus told him. "This will not end like your birthday."

"Harry," Tarana said, tossing her head gently to break Harry's grip on it. "I have a job for you. And you can't do it from in here. Can you help me?"

Harry's lip quivered.

"I need Arcana inside the chamber, and he can't hold the door much longer. Can you open it for him? Can you bring the Crown to bear against Dark and the basilisk?"

Harry nodded hesitantly.

"Promise me, Harry, that you will open the door for Arcana."

"I promise," Harry whispered.

Tarana nodded and looked up at Severus. "I'm counting on you to get him there."

Severus sneered but raised his wand.

Tarana threw back her head and roared, spinning the 'fence' of fire up like a twister and slamming it down on the memory of Tom Riddle, still screaming in Parseltongue for the basilisk to tear the bird apart, to smell it and rend it to pieces.

His voice was lost amidst the fury of the fire.

"Go!" Severus barked, pushing Harry toward the door.

Tarana darted at their side, before swerving wide to the right, slipping neatly beneath a desperate lunge on Dark's part to avoid a vicious blade of blood-red wind, which neatly spun and narrowed into a spike.

Tarana's presence on the dark wolf's other side, prevented him from fully swerving away from it, which would have brought him into the path Harry and Severus were taking to the door.

Though the spike missed completely impaling Dark, it still drew blood and not the first.

Fallen grinned, bloodthirsty and vicious, as he darted parallel to the Queen, corralling Dark toward the net of fire that still contained the thrashing, blinded basilisk as it struggled to find and eat the twisting and diving phoenix.

Fawkes was a deadly beauty of his own, his screech alone causing the King of Serpents pain, and every dive and twist drew bleeding gashes through the scaled hide that was impervious to most spells. And out of every dive, he threw his wings wide and circled the high vaulted ceiling, watching and waiting out the giant, ground-bound serpent that had threatened those in his care, those in the care of his companion.

Never again would this beast terrorize Hogwarts or its students.

Fawkes and the Valerians would make sure of it.

XX

"Ginny!" Harry suddenly cried, turning to look back into the chamber, only Severus' grip on his shoulder kept him from going back for her. "Professor-"

"I don't know how you plan to get through your guardian's net," Severus drawled, twisting them both and flicking his wand in the general direction of Riddle's memory.

He assumed the teen was using the Weasley girl's wand, because he hadn't had it a few minutes ago, but was using it to rather mediocre effect now.

"But-"

"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised," Severus sneered breathlessly, and Harry had to commend the fact that even though he was dueling the teenage form of the supposedly darkest Dark Lord the wizarding world had seen yet, Severus was still able to snark at him. "given that you can barely pass a Potions exam, but not all of us have a leaky sieve for a memory, Potter."

Another sharp spin and Severus shoved him between the shoulder blades.

Before Harry realized it, he was beyond the stone doors and was suddenly in Draco's arms and they were both very, very wet.

XX

"Seriously?" Draco asked, slightly hysterically.

"You should really count your blessings that I managed those last few seconds," came the familiar deep rumble of the Valerian King. "It would put a more serious damper on this whole 'freedom' thing if I crushed my hicari's charge before we truly first meet."

Harry spun out of Draco's tight, probably a little hysterical, grip.

Arcana was lit by Draco's wand light and crouched close to the floor, tail curled neatly around all four of his paws, and staring at Harry with familiar - and not in a good way - black eyes.

"He-"

Draco, feeling his tension, squeezed his forearm. "He's alright now," he whispered. "He's free and Dark can't brainwash him again."

Harry's grip tightened on his wand. "We can't-" he grit his teeth, his hate for the creature that had killed Tarana warring with his desire to keep his promise.

"We can-" Draco assured him, causing Arcana to glance between the two boys, because Harry hadn't completed a sentence yet, but the two appeared to be having a conversation regardless. "He Bled Ron before we came down the tunnel."

"The link currently only goes one way," Arcana told him slowly, "I can't very well open myself up to him until this idiocy on my brother's part is through."

Harry stared at him and Arcana met his gaze evenly, black bleeding out of his eyes as the preteen watched.

"I am sorry, boy," the King said, straightening to his full height, easily taller than Tarana had been before whatever had happened to shrink her down.

This close, Harry could tell that though the tiger and the panther had been close in height, Arcana was the taller, and bulkier, of the two cats.

He swallowed nervously as Arcana took a single step toward him, but the tiger, surprisingly, buckled a paw and bowed to the child.

"You have my sincerest of apologies, Harry Potter," Arcana told him. "If I had known that things were this bad, both for you and for this school, I would not have kept Tarana from you as long as I have."

Harry frowned. "Kept her?"

"It is a story that she would likely be happy to tell," Arcana said, straightening. "But first, we must put down the basilisk and retrieve Ginerva Weasley. Young Malfoy and Tarana tell me you can Speak?"

Harry nodded, swallowing nervously. "Yeah, I'm a parselmouth."

"Then you can open the door?"

Harry hesitated. "How do we know we can trust you?"

"Because I have every intention of pulling my traitorous little brother's spine out through his nose," Arcana told him flatly.

Harry flinched at the image and Draco looked vaguely green.

"Come on, Harry," Draco urged him. "They probably need his help."

"Oh, I doubt that," Arcana said, amused. "Tarana has been particularly vengeful since we turned our sights to Hogwarts, and I have no doubts as to what kind of rage my General has whipped himself into over the last few months. Still, it would be nice to go to battle with my Kin again."

Harry took a deep breath and turned his head so he could see the glittering, somehow accusing emerald eye of the nearest snake. "Open," he hissed.

XX

While Arcana convinced Harry that he wasn't planning to murder Tarana and Fallen as soon as the door opened, Tarana and Fallen were rapidly losing their advantage.

Though still powerful, Tarana was essentially still recovering from a serious case of dead, and had been forced to release the net containing the basilisk, and Riddle had wasted no time in setting it against Tarana for the slight of having contained it in the first place.

With the far end of the Chamber, the part where the water was highest and deepest, now opened to him, Dark had slowly begun to turn the tide against the General, freezing it to create more powerful defensive barriers.

Fallen still hammered through them, but he had been running himself into the ground for weeks and his endurance had suffered for it, the blows coming with less speed and more recovery time between each one.

'I hope you and the King have a better plan than keeping all the shit contained to a single toilet, Tarana,' Fallen called to her, clawing his way over a mound of ice that had probably at one point been one of the pillars before the thrashing basilisk broke it, to come at Dark from above and to the side, forcing the dark wolf to abandon his currently favorite target: Fawkes.

Tarana leapt over half a column, probably the other half to the one Fallen had just climbed, though there were so many of them by this point that she couldn't be certain, and darted between two mostly intact ones to avoid the head of the basilisk as it slammed into the ground where she'd been seconds before. 'It's about as good as the one I handed to you in Diagon Alley,' she admitted.

'That's not reassuring!' Fallen growled. 'That plan was a shit one, too!'

The two Valerians darted away as the basilisk's thrashing about nearly hit them both and a nasty cutting hex took their place, slicing a gash almost as long as Severus' arm along the scales.

"I thought the basilisk was immune to most spells," Tarana said, ducking as the tail came and nearly threw her into the column she stood beside.

"If I had to guess, Fawkes has been busy since he stopped trying to pull scales off it," Fallen returned, snapping viciously at Dark as the wolf got too close, only to miss and have to dart out of the way, nearly colliding with Severus, when a massive spear of ice rose out of where his paw had been seconds earlier. "Don't look a bloody gift horse in the mouth, Tarana."

"Do you always talk this much?" Severus asked, only partially irritated.

The chatter between the two Valerians was grounding, but he'd much rather not have to deal with the basilisk for much longer, and Riddle had, somehow, disappeared and reappeared back on the stone base of Salazar's statue.

Behind the bloody snake.

As though summoned by his growing frustration, the stone doors at their backs ground open again, hopefully for the last time.

XX

Even flanked by preteens instead of the rest of the Crown, Arcana couldn't have passed as anything but a King as he stood in the doorway, head high and black eyes fixed on Dark.

The dark wolf took several steps back, head hung low, though he was far from cowed, glaring hatefully up at the tiger.

The basilisk, like the Traitor, was equally as unimpressed, though the arrival of the King appeared to rejuvenate Tarana and Fallen, who flung themselves forward against it, hurling fire and wind with such ferocity that it turned their end of the Chamber into a firestorm, obliterating the massive spears of ice that had hindered them.

The firestorm howled, raging against the basilisk, pushing it back bit by bit, but the strength of the Valerians hadn't returned, and the violent storm quickly burnt itself out.

As it faded, however, chains of pulsing green water hammered the snake back to what amounted to a minor pond, where the water itself seemed to struggle to pull the King of Serpents to its death, though the water wasn't nearly deep enough to drown it.

Tarana, freed from the fight against the basilisk, turned her rage on Dark, executing a sharp change of direction by bouncing off the thrashing basilisk, bringing Dark to the ground as he observed the fight now firmly in the favor of the Valerian Crown.

Dark got to his paws, shaking water from his fur, laughing. "I seem to remember quite a bit more power to your strikes, Your Highness," he taunted.

Tarana bared her fangs at him in a far from pleasant grin. "Shall we test your theory, Traitor? You couldn't take me alone in Surrey, I doubt you can do it now."

Dark swerved and struck low.

XX

'Go, Severus! Destroy the diary and get the girl. Tarana will occupy Dark for several minutes, at least.'

Severus made no sign that he'd heard the wolf, too practiced to give away the fact that Fallen was talking to him at all, but he took the opportunity to move swiftly through the debris that had become this end of the Chamber, toward the miraculously intact statue of Salazar and the two students, one former, that remained on the base.

Fallen could feel his reserves running dry, but as the tail of the basilisk flung wildly around the chamber, struggling to orient itself and tear itself free of the water-chains that bound it, he drew on his flagging strength and sharpened a final blade, dropping it from above as Arcana struggled to keep it contained, severing the head.

The head slipped off the neck of the serpent with a splash, the slimy water quickly turning a dark black. The body gave a single, final flail before it went totally still.

Slowly, Arcana loosened his chains, stepping carefully into the Chamber.

"It's not a hydra, Your Majesty," Fallen told him. "The head will not sprout another."

Arcana snorted. "Fallen, given what I've heard about this school over the last few months, I wouldn't put anything past it. I don't remember it so neatly trying to kill its occupants before."

Fallen smirked tiredly. "Sire, you have no idea."

Arcana tilted his head, before turning his attention to the swiftly ending duel between Severus and Riddle, a foregone conclusion as far as Fallen was concerned, given this Voldemort only had the barebones of his Dark Arts mastery and Severus had decades on this one that he didn't have in the true one.

'Can we trust him, General?' the King asked.

'I trust him with Draco's life, Sire,' Fallen assured him. 'Though he does have a cover to maintain. He's watched by more eyes than ours.'

Arcana scoffed. 'And Albus Dumbledore?'

Fallen looked at the King. 'The man holds his cards close to his chest. He works toward the betterment of the Wizarding World but a recent conversation with him has convinced me that he doesn't much care for collateral damage, be it us or his Savior.'

'Tarana will not like that,' Arcana observed, turning his attention to the brutal fight between his brother and his queen.

'Honesty, she knew it before we did,' Fallen told him. 'She severed political ties with him last year, though at the time Yoko and I had disagreed.'

Arcana turned knowing amber eyes to his General and the wolf ducked his head.

'I see,' Arcana sighed.

Before they could continue their conversation, however, there was a sharp yelp from Dark and they were forced to attend to the fucking Fiendfyre that had been summoned to the Chamber.

XX

Severus would admit to being a little disappointed that Tom Riddle didn't live up to the man Severus had loyally followed in the years after his schooling.

The duel between the two was over in minutes, because Tom Riddle wasn't Voldemort, not yet.

He was a student still learning of the influence he had on others and of the hypnotic draw of the Dark Arts.

Severus was a master and he showed Riddle, with every sharp swipe and stab of his wand, just what he had stepped up to try and match.

It was likely the only time the potions master would ever best his former master, after all. Why not make it count?

Severus neatly tucked the newly confiscated wand into his pocket and advanced on the teen.

"Renervate," he said, flicking his wand at Ginny.

There was no response from the girl, and he frowned.

Riddle sneered at him. "You think it's that easy?" he asked.

Severus ignored him, turning his attention to the diary beside the girl instead, flicking his wand at it and summoning to his hand.

Severus looked at first one cover, then the second, even flipping through the pages, with one hand, but could find nothing interesting about it.

"Incendio," he murmured, dropping the diary to the ground.

He frowned again when the spell fizzled out rather than catching on the leather and paper.

Riddle snickered. "You don't think I protected the knowledge I hid there? All the research I'd done on this Chamber. On the noble Salazar Slytherin and his quest to purge it of all those hateful muggle-borns? Such a mundane method won't work. Leave it be, Professor. It will all be over soon for her regardless.

Severus glanced at Ginny and sighed, picking her up.

Riddle smiled triumphantly as he turned to walk away, the redheaded girl tight in his grasp.

"You do, eventually, learn to play your cards close to your vest," Severus told him, turning and pointing his wand at the diary.

"I already told you no mundane spell will work," Riddle cried.

"Fiendfyre is no mundane spell, boy," Severus told him, as the massive, fanged head of fire snapped out of his wand, swallowing the diary whole before it swerved up, briefly out of the professor's control, to obliterate the memory, who screamed even as he disappeared.

Fiendfyre was one of the most dangerous spells of the wizarding world that wasn't one of the Unforgivables, because it would burn anything but was extraordinarily difficult to control and nearly impossible to extinguish.

Severus ignored the startled cries of the Valerians as he bent his will toward controlling the enchanted fire, out of the corner of his eye, there was a flash of black and, taking a chance, the professor flicked his wand toward it and was rewarded with a yelp that did not come from the resurrected panther.

Raising his wand to the ceiling, Severus wrested with the spell for control and it abruptly exploded.

"Apologies," Severus drawled, glancing at the Traitor several meters away from him, glaring at him as he licked what was a rather nasty third-degree burn and hissing with each lap of his tongue. "Fiendfyre, you understand, is not easy to control. Can I get you medical attention?"

Dark glanced around at the destruction of more than half the Chamber of Secrets.

Columns lay in pieces be it from the basilisk's brute force or the Valerians' Elements, the torches were burnt nearly to the ends, giving the Chamber, already dimly lit, a far more eerie appearance.

In the shadows, Fallen, Tarana, and Arcana were stepping slowly and purposefully toward the Traitor.

Dark curled a lip. "All the advantage in the world," he murmured spitefully, "and you still couldn't kill them."

Severus tilted his head, not sure who the dark wolf was speaking to and not willing to risk drawing his ire or attention.

"Give me freedom, Severus," Dark told him, getting his paws beneath him.

Severus didn't hesitate, couldn't hesitate, pointing his wand at Arcana, the closest of the Valerians, and swung his spell wide.

XX

"Son of a bitch," Fallen swore, head spinning as he tried with only partial success, to get his paws back under him. The world thumped around him and his vision swam again. "Did you just give me a concussion?" he growled, stunned. He wasn't sure he'd had a real concussion in this form before, given that he healed so quickly.

"I could have tried to kill you instead," Severus drawled, stepping through the slowly recovering Valerians. "I don't suppose any of you are in any condition to go and make sure Dark doesn't kill the children we left on the path back, are you? Lockhart wasn't truly meant to magically defend them, after all."

Arcana groaned, pulling himself fully to his paws and, surprisingly, didn't sway.

"It will be a pleasure," the King purred, taking two, measured steps before bolting through the doors after his brother.

XX

Arcana could feel the thrum of stone beneath his paws.

Hear the startled cries of the children, of his Bonded, ahead of him.

Taste his brother's blood in the air.

Smell, faint though it may be, his Kin along the tunnel.

Even after months of being completely free of Dark's Talent, everything still felt fresh and new after nearly a decade as a slave to every dark thing the Traitor called on him for.

His white fur was nearly silver in the dim light as he darted past the large chamber he and Tarana had found the children in on their way down to aid the retrieval of Ginny Weasley, further startling them all.

Arcana slid to a stop as a wave of filth came down from the pipe Dark must have just escaped up, barely missing the sludge by jumping out of the way.

"You should enjoy this freedom while it lasts, Arcana," Dark called down. "I'll be dogging your steps from now until doomsday, waiting, watching for another mistake."

Arcana's muzzle rippled with his quiet snarl.

"Or maybe I'll focus on Tarana. She was definitely dead that day in Surrey. Did you use that spell? You must have." Arcana's growl vibrated his body. "She won't be tied to the Potter Line anymore. To the boy. They'll be even better pawns, wouldn't they? All that fire in her veins turned against you. That passion."

Arcana roared. "You touch her, so much as breath in her direction, Dark, and I'll tear out your throat."

Dark cackled. "I seem to recall that promise being made once before, don't you?"

Arcana roared again, pacing uselessly beneath the pipe.

"Dark!"

XX

Oblivious to the drama of the royal brothers, Severus and the remaining Valerians had stepped outside the Chamber and Tarana had told Harry to shut it, blocking the headless basilisk, and the damage done to the Chamber itself, from the view of the children.

The professor had, twice, tried to revive Ginny before the spell worked.

She screamed as she came to, thrashing and crying, but stilled when Draco pressed a hand to her shoulder and called her name.

"It's alright," he assured her. "We found you."

The redheaded girl sobbed, crossing her arms over her knees and burying her face in them. "It was me!" she cried. "But I didn't mean to! T-Tom made me! He t-took me over!"

"You're fine," Fallen reassured her. "We know this already. Relax."

Severus rolled his eyes. "Panic attacks don't work like that, General," he drawled.

If anything, his voice made things worse because he was a professor and he hated Gryffindors and she was going to be expelled.

The list would likely have gone on indefinitely if Tarana hadn't managed to pull herself away from her reunion with Harry in what relative privacy they could attain in an open tunnel.

"Step back," she ordered. "Let her breathe and give her a minute."

The circle around the First Year widened, but it wasn't until Ron came barreling down the tunnel and threw himself down beside her that she truly began to get control of herself, throwing herself into his arms.

"I tried to tell you at breakfast," she sniffled. "But then Percy was there, and I couldn't tell in front of him."

'That was this morning, I believe,' Fallen told Tarana and Severus.

"Explains why she was taken this afternoon then," Severus muttered in return. "If she gave up the diary and what it did, Riddle's plan to reopen the Chamber would have ended before it began."

Tarana looked at Arcana, hidden in the darkness.

The tiger shook his head and turned to go back down the tunnel.

The panther frowned.

XX

"How are you alive?" Draco asked bluntly once Ginny had calmed down and they were all on their way back to Lockhart and Arcana.

"Draco," Fallen murmured, but his warning was half-hearted at best.

"You remember finding Harry locking in his bedroom and crying, right Fallen?" Draco asked, glaring at him. "I just want to make sure that she's staying."

Harry's fist clenched in Tarana's fur.

Tarana twisted to look up at the brunette, careful not to break his grip. Neither of them, it seemed, was all that eager to be apart from one another. "They did what?"

Harry shrugged. "I don't…I don't remember a lot," he mumbled.

"This year has been a rather long story," Fallen said evenly. "Answer the boy's question, Tarana."

Tarana's ears pressed back against her skull, but it said a great deal about the growing guilt she was feeling for having left Harry alone that she didn't call the wolf to task for his tone.

"The long explanation will take too long," she admitted. "Quick and dirty? Arcana resurrected me using the same spell he resurrected us with the last time, though he claims to have made some…minor adjustments."

"Last time?" Severus asked.

It was Fallen, not Tarana, who answered his question. "You didn't think we survived the obliteration of a planet, did you? Arcana, as King, had been our priority in fleeing the destruction and he was the only one alive when it was destroyed. He brought us out of the Ether with a ritual that none of us had heard of but apparently has been in the Royal Family's library for millennia. Given the fact that it needs an amplifier and something precious to coax the right souls to the magically created physical form, it's pretty much a one-shot, forbidden deal."

"So, Arcana can resurrect the dead?" Ron asked, grinning. "Is that like his Talent or whatever?"

Tarana shifted. "Arcana can't raise the dead," she said. "My anchor to life had changed in my time here and he could never have used the same one he'd used the last time, even if it had survived that first ritual. It likewise contains and commands too much power and pretty much drained him dry, magically speaking." She glanced at Harry. "The spell also resets the person it's resurrecting, bringing them back with a clean slate. Harry, I'm sorry, child. When I came back I didn't have a connection to you or your family any longer. Arcana though was there. I could see the pain he was in due to the broken mate bond. It was killing him and became our first priority to fix. I promise you, if I had known of what was happening here at the school, we would not have been so far away while we did it."

Harry averted his gaze but tightened his fist in her fur.

"It would have been nice," Fallen answered for him, an edge to his tone. "If we had known you were around we could have even sent word that things were changing drastically here. Reinforcements would have been nice when Yoko was attacked."

Tarana's mouth opened and she looked ready to demand an explanation.

"I'm just really glad you're alive," Harry said firmly, cutting the two Valerians off before it could become an argument so soon after Tarana's return.

Fallen sighed, but let it go and agreed. "It may be a while before I can forgive you, leaving us alone here with this…madness, but yes, it is good to see you hale and mostly whole, Tarana."

There were affirmations all around, even Severus giving her a less hateful and suspicious look, glancing down frequently at her and Harry as though to make sure that the two were still there, still connected.

'I assume you sent the Shade?' Fallen said, breaking the silence of several minutes

Tarana blinked. 'I haven't seen him in over a decade,' she assured him. 'He was here? Did you see him?'

Fallen shook his head. 'I didn't have the time. By that point, things had gotten…difficult.'

"Does that mean that Harry isn't Tarana's Bonded anymore?" Draco asked suddenly, frowning.

"Not at the moment," Tarana told him, though it took her a moment to adjust to the sudden question. "As soon as we're done with the mess above ground, I plan to begin weaving the ties that connect me to the Potters again and, hopefully, if you're willing, Harry, we can try the Bleeding again."

Ron winced, looking down at the twist of fabric around his upper arm. "I don't know why anyone would want to go through this again."

"And you haven't even felt the connection forming yet," Draco smirked.

Ron paled. "It isn't over?"

"Arcana said that it was only half connected, him to you, and that wasn't even finished yet."

The group turned the corner and Severus and Draco's wand light illuminated the massive snakeskin for the second time.

Lockhart looked relieved to see them all and was sitting as far from Arcana as he could possibly get.

The tiger looked amused at his attempted distance but looked up at them as they approached.

"All is well?" he asked them.

"Well enough, for the moment," Fallen assured him. 'The two of you have a great deal left to explain.'

Arcana's eyes narrowed warningly.

'No, hicari,' Tarana said sharply. 'They have been through more than enough to have earned an explanation. And not just over the last year, but over the last decade.'

Arcana's eyes slid away from them and into the darkness. He sighed. "Of course," he murmured, before changing the subject. "Dark fled up the pipe to the bathroom. I'm not sure how the rest of us plan to get up there, given the sharp drop. Fallen?"

Fallen shook his head. "I'm dry," he told them.

Lockhart shifted, nervously. "Are we stuck down here?"

"No," Severus sneered at him. "I assume you've met Zabini?"

Tarana nodded. "He was with the House Heads in the Great Hall when we arrived," she told him. "They seemed to be unsure of the best way to proceed." She said, judgment in every syllable.

Severus sneered but didn't appear surprised. "I suppose we will need to review our options when we get there."

XX

After a long trek down the remainder of the tunnel, filled with broken conversation and non-linear storytelling as the children tried to catch Tarana and Arcana up on what had happened over the school year, but didn't appear to have any particular timeline in mind when they did it, they finally came back to the entrance of the underground tunnel.

The Valerians and Severus eyed it, trying to work out logistics.

"I could send a message up to McGonagall," Severus theorized. "With the danger over I imagine she will be less 'confused' on how to handle this."

Tarana snorted inelegantly but didn't appear to have anything to say regarding the witch, at least nothing she wanted to say out loud.

As the professor drew his wand, however, Fawkes, still covered in the gore of his battle with the basilisk, but amazingly somehow more beautiful for it - not like the Valerians who were covered in blood, gore, and slime and smelled like it - soared down from above, trilling at Severus, tilting his head this way and that, looking nothing like the warrior-bird that had come with Tarana and Arcana to help them.

"Fawkes," Draco breathed, reaching out a hand to him.

The phoenix eyed him with glittering eyes but didn't move toward his hand.

He didn't move away from it either, but with a glance at Fallen, Draco dropped it and tried not to be offended.

"Fallen!"

All eyes turned to the pipe Fawkes was resting on.

That was Dumbledore's voice.

"I have Madam Pomfrey with me," the Headmaster called. "Please send up the children first, preferably Ms. Weasley, so we may check them over immediately."

Ron scowled. "How the hell - heck - are we supposed to do that?" he grumbled.

Fallen snorted. "The phoenix, Weasley. Their tails can hold an extraordinary amount of weight, given their size. It won't hold all of you at once, but it will get you up to the Headmaster."

None of the Valerians, or Severus, were paying much attention to Lockhart.

Given what they'd just gone through, he simply didn't seem like that much of a threat any longer.

It was a moment he took advantage of.

With shaking hands and the prospect of facing both Dumbledore and the Ministry for his unsanctioned use of the Memory Spell on the many witches and wizards he'd taken credit of the actions of, he grabbed Ron by the shoulder and, spinning him around snatched his wand from his hand.

Arcana's eyes darted from the wand to the professor.

Fallen stepped forward, growling low in his chest, when Lockhart pointed his newly confiscated wand at Draco.

"None of you can remember this," Lockhart mumbled. "It's got to be this way-"

"You don't want to-"

Arcana went ignored.

"Obliviate!"

Arcana darted forward before the first syllable had finished coming out of Lockhart's mouth, body checking Ron hard enough that he hit the floor with a cry of pain, muffled by the massive bulk of the tiger as he covered his new charge with it.

Fallen had swerved to the side, knocking Draco out of the line of sight for Lockhart's Memory Spell, and turned to deliver what he seriously hoped was going to finally be a killing blow to the nuisance.

Before he made it that far, Ron's wand, overtaxed by the power of the Memory Spell and from repeated usage by Ron himself all year, exploded as the core finally gave up.

Severus, who had drawn his wand to defend the students from Lockhart, and his quick thinking was the only thing that prevented a massive cave-in.

In seconds, however, golden pillars of magic appeared from the ceiling and seemed to support the broken sections.

"Fallen!" Dumbledore called. "Is everyone alright?"

The Valerians looked at the pillars of magic and then at one another, before Fallen finally answered, stepping toward the pipe as Fawkes, who must have taken flight when the wand exploded, landed on his back.

"We're fine," the wolf assured the professor. "Though I'm not sure what condition Lockhart is going to be in, or how long this ceiling will hold. Move quickly."

"Understood," McGonagall called, voice shaking.

Severus' lip curled.

"Ronald, what the hell happened to your wand?" Tarana hissed viciously.

Ron and Harry flushed red.

"Er - that's part of a story probably about as long as yours," Harry said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head.

Tarana's eyes narrowed on the two preteens but was distracted by Fallen calling Ron and Ginny forward to be brought up to the rest of the professors, then by Severus as he knelt beside the newly retied Lockhart.

"I think you and I will need to have a serious conversation with Albus, Fallen," the man drawled, pulling Lockhart's wand from his pocket and holding it up before himself. "This sort of idiocy should never have been allowed to teach our future generations."

Fallen's lip curled. "Some wizard," he grumbled. "Who forgets where they've put their wand?"

Draco and Harry glanced at one another.

"Neville," they said together before the stress and emotion of the last few months finally caught up with them and they collapsed into laughter, leaning against one another for support.