By the time the roosters began crowing Harry was nearly half asleep. Their sound forced him awake, however, and the second he realized where he was he raced to stand behind a pillar before whispering "Speak to me Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts four."

Behind him Harry heard the grating of stone on stone.

His heart raced. Perhaps he should have taken a second or two to prepare, but he had wanted to make sure that the roosters would crow. They'd either gone silent or began squawking when the statue moved, but as Harry heard the sound of hissing and scales against the floor several seemed to calm down.

He scrunched his eyes shut.

Come on come on come on…

He could sense, though he refused to open his eyes, a disturbingly large head looming beside him.

"Hungry…" The snake hissed. "Food…" and then: "Danger! Danger! Get away!" He felt the looming head suddenly jerk towards the entrance and the massive body begin coiling itself swiftly towards the door.

Harry crossed his fingers, becoming more and more worried as more and more of the snake passed his location, and then—

A rooster crowed.

Only one had, but one was enough. The front half of the basilisk thumped heavily on the floor, scaring the roosters all over again. Had—had it worked?

Carefully, because he didn't know if the basilisk's eyes lost their power at death, Harry felt in front of him until he came across a massive scaly wall. He poked it, then pushed it, then punched it. It did not move, and no hisses could be heard.

Ha!

Ha!

Ha!

Harry couldn't stop himself from literally jumping up and down in excitement.

Bye Bye Basilisk goal completed without injury. 1000 XP awarded. Level Up!

Congratulations, you are now Level 18.

Ha!

"Take that, you stupid basilisk." Harry whispered. "See who you can hurt now!"

The roosters, apparently resettled all over again, were now chatting to each other. From the direction of the noise, Harry was fairly sure one had already managed to hop onto its conquest's body.

"Ha!"

Still with his eyes scrunched shut, Harry went about trying to make it to the entrance. In the end the basilisk's body was so great it nearly blocked the narrow passageway between the chamber and the bathroom, and Harry was forced to climb over the beast in order to make it down the path.

As he went Harry dropped bits of crumbled bread. He didn't particularly want any of the conquering roosters to die down there, but he also really didn't want to accidently catch the basilisk's eye. Thankfully, several seemed more than eager to follow the edible path, so Hagrid wouldn't be out of roosters entirely.

Finally at the entrance, well away from the basilisk's head, Harry opened his eyes. Of the twelve or so roosters he'd started with, about nine were nearby and he could hear the others coming along slowly.

He'd just managed to get all the way to the girl's bathroom, and close the door, when he realized he made a huge, huge mistake.

"Fuck!"

This. This was why he should have brought a book. If he had brought a book, or really anything else to entertain him, then he wouldn't have drifted off and forgotten to do the most important thing: talk to the basilisk!

Harry's knowledge of Riddle, for someone who had already lived 29 years and seen many other memories specifically about the man, was… lacking. More than that, it didn't look as if there were many ways to close the gap: no one would talk about Riddle, no one would write about Riddle, no one would hint about Riddle, no one would sing about Riddle.

And Harry really wanted more information on the man who had successfully killed him once already.

His plan had been to question the snake and see what it knew (it had, after all, apparently had quite a close relationship with snake-face, given its complete willingness to follow his directions), but that was off the table now. And to think he'd thought it had gone so well!

"Shit!"

And then he heard a wavering voice. "Hello? Are you a boy?"

"Shit!" Harry repeated, much more quietly, before yanking the bag of roosters behind him as he darted into the hall.

By the time he'd returned Hagrid's poor pets (which had taken longer than he'd hoped, considering Hagrid had already noticed they were missing and was now poking around), stopped being quasi-invisible, and made it back to the dorm the other boys were starting to get up.

Seamus grunted at him questioningly as he slipped through the door.

"Bathroom." Harry muttered, before making his way back to his bed to start getting dressed.

As Harry and the rest of the Gryffindor first years rushed down the stairs for breakfast Harry considered that he'd really made more than a few mistakes in dealing with the basilisk. Forgetting for a moment his plan to interrogate the snake, he'd also completely ignored Monday's schedule: Potions followed by Herbology followed by DADA. Herbology was fine, of course, but the other two?

"Ready for class, Harry?" Hermione asked. Ever since he'd gotten onto the Quidditch team she'd decided it was her job to keep him on the straight and narrow, going so far as to question him about his homework everyday and to refuse that he'd done it or that it could be any good if he had.

(Harry had slapped that down quick—he wasn't a lost eleven year old that needed the guiding hand anymore, and Hermione's habit of viewing herself as naturally superior to everyone else really needed to disappear far quicker than it had before. Still, even if she now knew better than to question him about his homework, he saw no use in convincing her that she didn't need to be his personal conscience.)

"A bit tired," he responded, "but I'm sure I'll do as well as usual."

"You really should put more effort into being ready for class, Harry." Hermione said. "A good night's sleep is important, you know."

Neville, looking half-asleep as usual over his bangers and mash, mumbled something.

"What?" Hermione asked.

More mumbling.

"You really must speak up. I mean—"

"Harry's doing perfectly good in Potions." Neville finally said. "You—"

"Perfectly well." Hermione interrupted. Neville glared.

"You just want him to behave more like you, which there's no reason for—being you works for you, Hermione, not him." Harry wanted to applaud Neville for mustering enough courage to defend his friend—that was always where he'd done best, but it was still good to see that he didn't even look scared of speaking his mind, for all that the courage quickly left him in most other circumstances.

"What do you mean by that?" Hermione said, somehow affronted.

"Oh, you know he's right." Harry said, then to lessen the blow he grinned. "Or does being you not work for you?"

"I—I mean, I—what does that even mean?!" Hermione said.

"It means," Ron grumbled from his seat beside her, "that he, unlike me, doesn't care that you're a know-it-all. Now shush."

Hermione made a face at him, but didn't react otherwise. It turned out that the acceptance of even a few of her peers had boosted her confidence enough that she could take a few comments, though she clearly didn't like the teasing and Harry had worked hard to keep Ron and his other roommates from being so oblivious to that.

"Let's delay the argument to after Potions, yeah?" Dean said.

"Yes please." Seamus said. Out of all of the boys, he looked the most awake, but that was primarily because of the blatant anxiety in his every movement. "I'm fairly sure Professor Snape'll kill me if I make one more mistake, and if he doesn't my parents will: do you know how much cauldrons cost? Because I do now, and they're not cheap!"

"How much do they cost?" Hermione asked.

"I converted the amount last night." Dean said. "They're about 20 to 40 pounds, depending on quality."

"And I've already gone through three!" Seamus moaned. "My parents said they're going to make me work all summer to pay it off!"

"There, there." Joshua said, patting Seamus's shoulder consolingly. "Remember: if Snape kills you then you won't have to work!"

Harry and the rest of the boys laughed. Seamus weakly grinned. "Sounds like a plan!"

After breakfast came a dreary Potions lesson with an encouraging lack of explosions, Herbology, lunch, and the DADA test.

As usual, however, the second Harry didn't have class or meals or practice he escaped to the library. Out of all his year mates, only the Ravenclaws and Hermione spent extended time in the library, and the former saw no point in unnecessarily talking which meant he only had to deal with his one-time best friend.

Which was not to say he disliked talking with her!

Well... maybe it did.

It wasn't that she was necessarily worse than anyone else he hung out with, it was just that they were all eleven. Eleven year-olds were fine to deal with most of the time, but they were also exhausting. He'd had the same problem in St. Grogory's, really, but he'd been able to stave off most of the headaches by not attempting to actually make friends, only be friendly. Here he knew public image was much more important, so he found himself forced to constantly talk with Ron and Hermione and Neville and every other eleven year-old about eleven year-old problems in eleven year-old words to find eleven year-old solutions.

The library became his salvation very quickly.

And anyway, despite the lack of regulations involving published works, the sheer number was still helpful for all his other goals.

Today he'd decided to focus on finance. Money was power, after all, and he really needed to figure out how to tell how much of that power he had and what he could do with it.

(Also it was about as far away from the issue of not having spoken to the basilisk as he could get, and he really wanted to distract himself from that failure.) (Stupid.)

Of course, the second he'd brought his books back to a table Hermione sat immediately opposite him.

"I've decided to get a head start on our Potions homework." She started, "you should—I mean, is there a reason you're not doing the same?"

Harry grinned. "Yep. Snape—sorry, Professor Snape—said the paper wasn't due for a week. I'll probably get started on it Wednesday or Thursday, but for now I want to learn about the magical economy."

Hermione frowned, but not in reproach. "The magical economy is different than the non-magical economy?"

"Of course it is!" Harry said. "I mean, magic changes what's possible for people to do on their own." Seeing she hadn't quite caught on, he continued: "Like, let's say you accidently lose your house key. If you lived in the muggle world, you'd have to call someone and pay them to get you into your own house, and then you'd have to pay for a new key, and maybe even a new lock entirely if your key was stolen instead of lost.

In the magical world, on the other hand, if you're locked out of your house then you just use the unlocking spell or, assuming that you have additional protections on your front door—can't see why you wouldn't—it would still likely be hard to lose, like a password. You couldn't lose a password, and even if someone else figured it out you could still use it and likely another one to change the password. The only thing you really have to worry about is forgetting it, and you basically spend all of school memorizing a password a week."

"Well, yes," Hermione agreed, "but that doesn't mean that the economy works differently."

"There is also, as far as I can tell, far less regulation, international trade, and 'necessary' goods—like food and that sort of stuff, because apparently almost every witch and wizard has at least a small garden that they maintain themselves. Look, all I'm saying is it acts nothing like the muggle British one."

"Is it really relevant for an eleven year old, though?"

Harry almost laughed out loud. Hermione, arguing against knowledge?

But then, it was true that she hadn't been placed in Ravenclaw. Hermione loved learning, admittedly, but she was most into learning to do things. Magic, because of how amazing it was, was automatically included in its entirety, but really Harry couldn't see Hermione diving into the economic equations to determine which way of calculating GDP was most reasonable. She was into magic and knowledge that was useful, though it was true that what information was included in that group changed over time.

And for most eleven year-olds, she was right. Money in general wouldn't be particularly relevant for a good number of years.

"You are aware I am wealthy, right Hermione?" Harry asked.

She blinked.

"Remember? Famous? Everyone knows my name? People call me the next coming of Merlin after Dumbledore?"

"Harry!" Hermione gasped, aghast.

"I'm not bragging! I'm just saying—that's what they think. Anyway, I almost definitely have money and the like from that, and I'm pretty sure my family is rich on their own too, and I'm an orphan, so—I might as well figure out how to do all this now, right?"

"That makes sense." Hermione admitted grudgingly. "Could you—I mean, do you mind handing me your notes when you're finished? None of your reasons really apply to me, but I will have to deal with that sort of thing eventually."

"Sure."

The two then fell silent, absorbed in their books and note taking.

Finally, after hours if sweat and tears (and/or dull reading, it was definitely one of those), Harry found one of the things he was looking for.

According to the ministerial addendum to the private banking addendum of Ministry/Goblin Nation relations, if Harry filled out form 52ABX-32QJ(13), then the Goblins would be required to send him a comprehensive report on all the assets he had or could have control of in the bank at the time the form was received. Not only that, but the comprehensive report had to be sent to him within 113 hours of his owl arriving at the bank.

Not only that, but filling out the ministerial form 67B-14 granted him rights to the minutes of any trial— they could be redacted as the government wished, but they had to be sent within one week of the request.

(Harry wasn't quite clear what that had to do with goat populations within 100 meters of Goblin territory, which was the regulation it was nested under.)

Noting the books he'd found the information in (unsurprisingly, Hogwarts had a section of the library solely devoted to an extensive record of Wizarding/Goblin relations) Harry said goodbye to Hermione and dashed to the owlery.

With any luck, by the end of the week he'd have a better idea of his resources and—far more importantly—Sirius would be beginning his bid for freedom.

A very, very productive day if Harry did say so himself.

(Now if only his brain would shut up about the mistake with the basilisk.)