A/N: User 'Minke' hit the nail on the head. Harry was forced to adapt to the information, a simple child's mind would have struggled.

Chapter 18: Snake!

"I understand that Miss Tonks has begun her training."

"She comes back late every night, I only see her early in the morning now."

With nothing else to do today, Hedwig and I decided to visit Albus. He's busy with all things associated with a new year of students. I rock the armchair back on it's legs.

"Sirius has informed me of your decision to register your form."

"As I'm apparently destined to rub shoulders with everyone in the community, I figured the fewer laws I break, the better." Doing illegal things isn't really on my 'to do list'. "Besides, it's not like anyone is going down to visit Reginald any time soon. And it's even less likely that he'll co-operate with them." I scratch Hedwig's head as she perches on the arm of the chair.

"Hide in plain sight?" Albus looks up from his paperwork briefly. "Come in." He calls out. I peek around the back of my chair as McGonagall enters the office. "Good morning, Minerva."

"Good morning, Albus, Mister Potter." She hands me the letter she'd been holding. "The owl would not budge with the letter." Ah, the supply list.

"This is a lot of Lockhart's books." I pretend to read the list. McGonagall's face sours.

"Professor Lockhart will be joining us in September to fill the post left by Quirinus." Albus explains to me.

"Oh? What's he like? I've only uh read a couple of his works." Lockhart writes very … eccentrically. Albus glances at McGonagall.

"He has a … well documented history." Albus says carefully.

"Look, I need to go back to Hogwarts. No matter what nefarious plot your, no doubt well founded, warning is about, I need to return to Hogwarts." I try and reason with the mad house-elf.

"Harry Potter sirs not be understanding!" He pulls his ears as he begins to weep again. I conjure him a tissue, which he stares at as if it were made of gold.

"Ok, listen. You've said, repeatedly, that I'm 'The Great Harry Potter', right?" He nods eagerly. "So, Logically I need to return to school so I can protect everyone from the plot. To keep everyone else safe?" He stares blankly at me.

"Harry Potter must not return to Hogwarts!" He pleads. I pinch the bridge of my nose. This isn't getting us anywhere. "Dobby's must be leavin now." He looks scared again as he vanishes.

Dobby? Where have I heard that name before?

"Harry!" I whirl around in the train compartment.

"Hermione." I grin as she tackle-hugs me. "Good summer?" Her parents had taken her to Belgium this summer.

"It's been fantastic. Bruges was beautiful." She begins to recount the trip as we settle down. "And I got your letter." She slaps my arm.

"Hey! What was that for?" I rub my arm.

"For having Hedwig fly all that way."

"She wanted to!" She hits my arm again. "Hey!"

"And that was for not telling me you were learning to be an Animagus."

"I'm going to bruise now." I mumble, massaging my arm. She ignores me.

"You mentioned it altered you, is that why you're so …" She gestures to me.

"Handsome?" Smack. "Hey!"

"Honestly." She huffs. "Tall."

"I'll have to see Madame Pomfrey at this rate." I pout, she rolls her eyes. "I'm as fit as a fiddle thanks to wolfy, or as fit as a wolf. I've never been sure-"

"'What's so inherently fit about a fiddle.' Yes, you've said it a hundred times." She shakes her head as she smiles.

"Lovegood, Luna." Lovegood? I look up at the girl walking towards the stool. I've come across a lot of trinkets in Albus' office created by Lovegoods. She sits on the chair and kicks her legs as she waits.

"Ravenclaw!" I join the rest of the hall in the applause. The hat is lifted and the blonde girl skips to the end of our table. I exchange a look with Michael Gelder opposite me, Clearly neither of us have seen somebody skip from the sorting.

"Weasley, Ginevra." Is the next name to catch my attention. Charlie's sister. The final Weasley. She is, quite predictably, sorted into Gryffindor.

"I'm quite certain the man has never written a truthful word in his life." Hermione huffs as she stomps down the aisle in the library. I'm disposing of my Lockhart books in an orderly fashion.

"I told you so." I smirk. I'd had Lockhart yesterday, it was quite clear that nothing but hairwax is between his ears.

"How does he do it? Write all this drivel and get away with it!" She waves her copy of 'Year with the Yeti' in front of my face. I put my own copy on the shelf. Maybe someone will enjoy the fiction in years to come.

"Tonks sent us a letter." I take the parchment from where I'd been using it as a bookmark. She snatches it from my hand and flattens it out on the aisle's edge.

"Us?"

"Saves her writing two letters I suppose." I set my copy of 'Magical Me' on the shelf too. A brilliant waste of money. The dates cross over and contradict each other at least 12 times.

"Tell me what?" She draws my attention to the post script.

"If I told you something impossible, would you grill me about it for 3 hours?"

"No."

"Promise?"

"Yes." She says impatiently.

"Hermione." I take a deep breath and meet her eyes. "I'm pregnant." She hits me with 'Year with the Yeti'. "Ow! When did you become so violent?"

"Can you be serious?" She glares at me.

"Sirius is far too old for Hogw- Ah!" I rub my head.

"One more and I'll use 'Hogwarts: A History'" She looks at me menacingly. It's a bigger book. Much bigger.

"Ok, ok." I hold my hands up placating. She folds her arms triumphantly. "Remember your promise."

"Of course. 2 hours and 59 minutes of grilling." Her smile widens as I groan.

"Might as well go somewhere comfortable. Don't want this to be overheard." She nods. "And we're not missing dinner." I say as we walk.

"And that's why you read with gloves on? So you don't absorb too much?" Hermione asks what feels like the 300th question as I lay flat on my back by the lake.

"Yes."

"And why you not-so-subtly touch my notes all of the time?" I smile at this one.

"Yes."

"And why you've always seemed older than you are?"

"Well, that could be down to any number of harrowing events, but essentially, Yes."

"It's fascinating." She says. I turn my head to see that she is still leaning against the tree.

"Tonks and Sirius only asked dirty questions. This was far more in depth." I close my eyes again. "It doesn't work when I'm You-know-what. Blissful silence."

"It must be nice after all that time. All the noise."

"It's much easier to sleep." I smile.

"What is that?" Draco wrinkles his nose.

"I believe we are looking at a dead cat." I say dryly. I knew I'd heard something. 'Rip … Tear … Kill.' Hardly something you'd say if you were about to kill someone's cat.

"Potter." I look up. Draco is looking at the wall. A crowd has formed now.

'The Chamber of Secrets has been opened.

Enemies of the Heir beware.'

"Enemies of the heir beware." Draco reads aloud. Very strange. I walk around the cat and almost trip. Snake. basilisk. Very, VERY big.

"My cat! What's happened to Mrs Norris?!" I'm vaguely aware of accusations against me of killing a cat as I try and fathom the giant killer snake. Albus arrives and I allow myself to be lead to Lockhart's office. Filch sobs as Albus inspects the cat. Draco and Snape are here along with Lockhart, who is making all sorts of remarks. Fingers are pointed at me. I feel numb. A basilisk in the school.

"If I may speak, Headmaster." Oh joy. Snape to the rescue. "Draco has informed me that he and Potter simply happened upon the scene. Merely in the wrong place at the wrong time." Wow. Snape to the rescue. I'd been wandering around with Draco, listening to him talk about brooms or something, trying to ignore the festivities. A holiday marking James and Lily's deaths.

"Is this true?" Albus asks me.

"Yes, sir." I swallow heavily.

"I see." Albus turns back to Filch to placate the distraught man.

"A basilisk, Albus!" I pace nervously in his office. "A fucking basilisk! How am I supposed to sleep with the knowledge that a basilisk is lurking around! It's at least a hundred feet long! Who calls a basilisk Nysa?" I anxiously rake my fingers through my hair.

"Are you certain you are not mistaken?" He asks seriously. We are, of course, alone.

"Mistaken? I was close enough to hear it talk. A basilisk. And the Chamber of Secrets? This is Salazar's pet." I drop into the armchair opposite Albus. "We're both parselmouths. Maybe I can tell it to piss off."

"Could you not follow the whispers? Find it's origin?" Albus suggests.

"Even if I could see the whisper of a basilisk, and if I hadn't pissed myself, then I'd walk in the opposite direction – Not into it's lair."

"Roosters!" Hermione drops a large book into my lap. I'd told her about the basilisk. "The rooster's cry is said to be deadly to the basilisk."

"It also says that there is no confirmed kills via rooster. Ever. But, Hagrids'"

"Roosters have all been killed! Somebody is protecting it!" She finishes my sentence.

"Brilliant." I say sarcastically. "As if it wasn't tough enough to kill already." I sigh. "I'll talk to Albus, see if he's got a game plan. I don't even want to try and follow this thing without him."

"I know you're in here!" Filches voice rings through the restricted section.

"Great." I dig into my bad for my pass … which expired last year and physically expired. Damn magic. "Shit."

"Language." Hermione scolds whilst looking panicked.

"Good luck." I cover myself with the invisibility cloak. Hermione looks stunned. I lift up the edge and grin. "I'm kidding, get in her." She glares at me as she hides beside me.

"I hate you." She hisses.

"Why are we here?" I complain. Hermione decided, on my behalf too, that Quidditch would be a good way to spend time whilst Albus is away doing God knows what.

"It's fun." She says. "Supporting your house. Or my house." Gryffindor VS Slytherin. "Draco's playing." She offers.

"And he's terrible."

Back, back!" Lockhart pushes through the crowd. A rogue bludger just crushed my arm. "Broken!" He proclaims, brandishing his wand near my arm. "And easy fix!" He smiles brightly. I think I'd take my chances with Nysa the basilisk over this.

Albus had insisted on waiting until the Christmas break to deal with the snake, as there would be less students around. He hadn't appreciated my 'Less collateral' comment. We now walk side by side, Albus carrying a caged rooster, through the hallways.

"Have you ever some across a basilisk before?"

"Once, when I was a young man." He says. "The beast was 12 inches long and dead."

"Wonderful." I mutter.

"It's impressive. I'll give it that." I stand a few metres away as Albus inspects the great vault door beneath the girl's toilets.

"And Miss Weasley is within?"

"A couple of minutes ahead of us." I confirm. Albus disillusions the rooster and cage as he walks to me.

"The door is safe. Are you ready?"

"Almost certain death? Let's go." I stand in front of the door. "Open." I hiss in Parseltongue, just as Ginny had. The door springs to life. "Heir of Slytherin." I say morbidly. The duelling club had given me yet another nickname after Draco, the idiot, had conjured a snake. "The magic is green here." I say to Albus. "Salazar would come through this door at least every couple of days." We cautiously walk down the steps into the huge chamber.

"Anything?" He holds his wand high, illuminating the cavern.

"The snake's about, look sharp." I point to the giant head. "It lives in there, but it's open-" I feel it's presence behind us and spin to face it. The pressure builds in the air as I meet it's eyes as it lunges at us. I transform into the wolf and dive at Albus, pushing him out of the way as a dagger pierces into my chest. The basilisk's tooth drags me through the air along the lunge path. The rooster cries out as Albus quickly recovers and the basilisk falls limp onto the floor as I change back.

"Ah!" I hiss.

"Harry!" Albus skids across the floor as he kneels beside me. I grip his arm.

"It's got me, Albus." I look down at the blood covering my chest. Fawkes appears at his call. "Tell everyone … I was fabulous." I fall backwards and close my eyes.

"Harry, It's healed." Albus sounds unimpressed. I crack one eye open and tilt my head forward.

"Oh." I climb to my feet, brushing the dust off. "Well, that was suitably terrifying."

After we'd found Ginny, Albus has destroyed the book that had apparently possessed her. He had extracted some of the venom and the book exploded as it soaked in. He instructed me to seal the Chamber of Secrets. There had been lots of crying and frowning as the Weasleys had been informed with some of the details. All I got was a big scar on the upper right of my chest. Luckily my heart wasn't pierced.

"And then I got the beast in a headlock." I mime the action. "And threw it into the toilet! The damsel was saved and I looked glorious." I strike a heroic pose. Hermione rolls her yes, not impressed at my Lockhart-esque retelling of the story.

"That's the best you could come up with over the whole Christmas break?" She drops her attention back to her book. I skulk over to her and sit against the tree. It's a nice spot really. A nice view of the lake.

"Sounds more exciting than a rooster doing all the work." I nudge her. "A rooster bested Albus Dumbledore." I laugh. "Spose it was his rooster though, so it's his triumph, not that he can tell anyone there was a thousand year old basilisk under his school."

"Couldn't you at least pretend to be revising?" Hermione glares at me as we sit in the library. I've got my feet up on the table and I'm attempting to balance on one chair leg. I don't think it agrees with the action.

"I am revising."

"For what?"

"Err, Balance? We'll call it Quidditch practice." I shrug.

"You don't even play Quidditch." She scowls.

With out exams fast approaching, Hermione has begun her frenzy of revising and rechecking all of her notes several times over.

"You should relax a bit. You'll burn yourself out before the tests even start, then you'll perform sub-optimally for the real things." She snaps the book shut.

"You're right." She looks surprised. "Where's the real Harry?" I smile.

In the last Quidditch match of the term, Draco managed to get knocked off of his broom. Personally, I think he's playing up the leg injury a bit, but I'm visiting the hospital wing for moral support.

"Draco! Got your peg-leg yet?" I lean against the curtain pole, smirking.

"Potter." He scowls. "If you're here to mock me, you can leave now."

"We should celebrate – You did win after all." Even if Hufflepuff caught the snitch. "been meaning to ask, What's your house-elf called?" It'd clicked in my head when I'd thrown him his robe in DADA last week. Dobby had washed it, and not at Hogwarts.

"It's Dobby, why?" He frowns.

"Draco, I- oh. It's you." Lucius Malfoy. I try not to look concerned, I'd heard that Ginny had told Hermione, who then told me, that Fred and George Weasley has seen Malfoy Senior and were intending to not pass up the opportunity to play a prank on him. And judging by his normal, for a Malfoy, face – They've not done so yet.

"Ah, Lord Malfoy. A uh … pleasant day?"

"Until I heard my son had been injured, yes." He drawls, almost rolling his eyes.

Quietly at first, and then louder and louder, a whistling fills the room. Almost like a … firework? I take a large step away from the elder Malfoy. A flash hits him in the head, clearly something propelled from down the hall. A bang and a flash of light and … Bras and knickers all over him. I'm too stunned to laugh. Or maybe too afraid. He raises his arm and he looks as if he's about to explode.

"Father?" Draco ventures. Lucius takes a deep breath and start to fiercely throw the garments on the floor.

"Master has given Dobby clothes." A voice, barely above a whisper. I turn and pull the curtain beside Draco's bed. Dobby, having apparently responded to Draco's voice answering my question, has a lacy red brassiere on my head. "Dobby is free."

I don't even know why these things always seem to happen near me.

"Another year under our belts." I lean against the stone pillar of the courtyard. She looks relieved. "Are you going to tell me why you've looked so smug since breakfast?"

"Do you remember when I asked you to condense all of the dates in Lockhart's books into a timeline?" She turns to me.

"You mean when you caught me before I went out for a run and forced me into the library? I remember the accompanying headache."

"I wrote a letter to the Daily Prophet." She pretends not to hear me. "They wrote back this morning and, although I won't be credited, they are going to use the information to reveal Lockhart for the fraud he is, this convince people to dig into his background." She smirks.

"Oh, the scandal." I laugh. "Hermione Granger, you are evil."

"Who do you suppose will teach Defence next year?" I ask as we settle in the train. Hermione invited Ginny to sit with us, they're sort of friends.

"Whoever it is, they can't be worse than than Lockhart." Hermione says, still proud that she had him fired, no doubt.

"No, I guess not." I smile lightly.

"An Auror, maybe a curse breaker?" Ginny suggests. She doesn't talk much.

"Somebody that's actually qualified?" I laugh as I lay across the seat. "Not a chance." Hopefully they have more than 6 brain cells though. "So, Hermes. Where you heading this summer?"

"I don't know who 'Hermes' is, but I am going to Germany." Hermione answers.

"And I'll be stuck here in the tender care of Tonks." I sigh dramatically.

"Don't pretend you won't enjoy it."

A/N: And the second year in a nutshell. I hope it's still entertaining without all of the details, i tried to keep the sections snappy.

Harry's Animagus abilities are unknown simply because nobody cares to check. 'Nysa' the basilisk's eyes had no effect on Harry - A parselmouth and he was, of course, being dramatic once he saw Fawkes arrive to save him. And by amazing happen stance, Dobby was freed!

So he's gotten a bit older, more experienced and the wolf has effected him, in more ways than just appearance. I also have this strange idea of Harry being able to have more than one Animagus form by learning from the wands he will touch. Thoughts?

So, let me know what you think of this condensed year, i'm fairly happy with it. Enjoy!