Chapter 10

"Potter-Black, do you really think that Salazar Slytherin would have ridden a slimy pipe down to his chamber?" asked Snape as Harry opened the way in to the Chamber of Secrets when they had returned to school.

"I assumed this was the snake's way out, and that I just hadn't found the human way," said Harry.

"You could ask it for stairs," said Snape.

Harry did so, and added lights.

"Now I feel a real dork," he said.

"From self-realisation comes the first step to enlightenment," said Snape.

Hermione sniggered.

"Pick on Harry day, I see," said Harry, cheerfully, climbing into the stairway.

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Hermione cried out to see the dead snake, clinging to Harry.

"It's bigger than I remembered," she said, her teeth chattering.

"It looks smaller than I remembered," said Harry.

"You have grown a lot," said Snape. "It's bigger than I might have imagined; you're insane, Gryffindorish, and I give you my respect. Pity about the eyes, but I might be able to salvage something, if you want me to rend it down for you."

"Oh, have what you want, sir," said Harry. "I'm no great potioneer, I doubt I can use anything of it. Though basilisk skin clothes would be sort of neat, just for bragging rights."

"Also fairly spell resistant," said Snape. "Well, you should learn how to render it; Miss Dagworth-Granger wants to. That should keep your weekends tied up and busy for the foreseeable future so that has to be good."

Hermione squee'd.

Harry face-palmed.

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What was scarier than being in a basilisk chamber with Snape was being in a basilisk chamber with a jovial Snape. The lectures he gave, however, were surprisingly interesting.

They also searched the chamber methodically, discovered Slytherin's library, which Harry had to translate, and the ritual chamber.

"Potter," said Snape, "Have you any objection to testing whether other blood curses can be removed?"

"Not in principle, sir," said Harry. "But if it's to cure Tom Riddle of being an arsehole, I seriously doubt it would work."

"You'd probably be correct on that," said Snape. "Don't call him an arsehole. Arseholes are useful." He paused as Harry assimilated that it wasn't his language he was being called on. "Just think what pain you'd be in if you didn't have one," said Snape.

"Was that a joke you cracked?" said Harry, disconcerted.

"Now, would I crack a joke?" said Snape.

"Damned if I know, any more," said Harry, frankly. "What did you want done?"

"One of my little snakes has a blood curse. Her family are all grey, and have never had any truck with the dark lord."

"If a kid has a blood curse, if that's as nasty as it sounds, I'd do what I could, whatever their affiliation. Even if it was Malfoy," said Harry, indignantly. "But as his problem is terminal stick-up-the-arsery, I'm afraid it's incurable. It needs self-awareness."

"Whilst taking exception to your terminology, I'm afraid your comments on my godson are just enough," sighed Snape. "I need to talk to the family, but if you are willing enough, we could do that as a, uh, dry run, perhaps?"

"Is it a familial curse? Because her starsign might make a difference in when it is done," said Harry.

"I'll find out all I can," said Snape.

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True to his word, Sirius intervened with the goblins over Severus Snape's right to inherit the Prince title, citing a certain manipulative headmaster having hidden all of the frantic letters from Gringotts to get in touch. Severus read his grandfather's last letter to him, and was neatly kidnapped by Sirius and Regulus before he could shut himself in his own quarters with firewhisky. They helped him drink it, and commiserated with him that he could have been reared by his grandfather once his father showed signs of violence, and would probably have been a Marauder, since the old man had been violently opposed to Voldemort.

"We'll find you an ani...mani...magus...us form, ol' boy an' put it all behind us," said Sirius.

"What you have behind you is middle-aged spread," said Regulus.

"Why do I want an..animuswatsit form?" asked Snape.

"To be a Marauder," said Sirius. "Damn bad show. Parents di'n orta have children without licences. Mine used crucy...usy..ari..tis. No better'n using fists. If I'd known, wouldn't have hated you."

"Water under the bridge," said Snape.

"Water? Water? I despise water," said Sirius. "Fish make love in it." At this point he passed out, and soiled himself, and in true brotherly spirit, Regulus and Snape heaved him into the shower, and turned it on.

"He's a pompous git when he's drunk," said Snape. "The original quote was coarser."

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Astoria Greengrass had not expected to be spending her birthday, which happened to be on Halloween, or Samhain, as her family called it, in the chamber of a partially-dismembered basilisk, in a ritual robe, with her family smuggled in to be around her.

"I hope he knows what he's doing," her father asked Professor Snape, anxiously.

"He knows what he's doing," said Snape. "But he'll be using Black family magics, which as I understand it was the family who cursed your ancestor in the first place, which should make it easier for him. But you, your wife, and your daughters need to sign this non-disclosure contract not to speak about any Black secrets you encounter. I've already signed it," he added. He had told Harry off for revealing his family magic to him, and swore an additional oath not to reveal it. "Uh... how good is your relationship with your house elves?"

"Very," said Cyrus Greengrass. "Why?"

"Did you know that elves are also under a blood curse, to make them small and bound to slavery?"

"I did not. Where are you leading?"

"Potter intends to break the blood curse on all of them. If you invited your elves to participate, they would be more likely to remain loyal to you, and it would help them."

"I'll think on it. I want to see if he frees my little girl first."

"I suspect he'll free all your family so you can consider having more children," said Snape. "Oh, and I should imagine he might ask you to join the Potter-Longbottom-Black-Prince alliance," he added, casually.

Sirius had come as well, once he knew that, like the Longbottoms, it was a Black curse; the participation in such a ritual by the head of the family would add considerably to its efficacy. Snape had come up with a potion, using portions of the basilisk tongue, which enabled those who drank it to temporarily use parseltongue, and hence to better take part in Parselmagic. Cyrus and Apollina Greengrass shuddered to hear the sibilant hissing of the tongue of snakes, and marvelled to see Sirius and Harry filled with the starry void. Astoria felt as if she was wafted through the heavens As she flew through the stars, something heavy was pulled from within her, and she whimpered as it hurt in all her bones. Her bones often hurt anyway, or ached, intolerably. This was a sharper, more profound pain, but somehow easier to bear.

And when the chanting stopped, she sat up, and her pale cheeks bore the colour of a healthy young girl.

Cyrus, too, felt something being drawn out of him, and felt lighter for the experience.

Harry swayed, but remained upright.

"Young man, I can see she is fit now; and I could feel the curse leave me," said Cyrus. "Pumpkin, I feel bruised but invigorated. What about you?"

"Oh, daddy, that's the perfect way to put it! I... I should think we owe Mr. Potter a life debt."

"No, thank you," said Harry. "Having Ginny Weasley owe me that when I rescued her from that big snake was bad enough. It was a Black curse; call it putting right a wrong, and we are on even terms."

Magic acknowledged this with a warm flood of light, and a chiming noise.

Harry sighed in relief.

"That... that's the basilisk we came past? You killed it?" said Greengrass.

"Yes, nearly died too," said Harry.

"If the offer of joining your familial alliance is open, I would be delighted to be a part of it," said Greengrass.

"Oh, that's excellent, the more the merrier," said Harry. "We stand for equality, muggleborn or pureblood, human, goblin, elf, centaur... if you will accept that, we'd be pleased, wouldn't we, Padfoot?"

"I... well, until I saw your elves assisting, I had not thought much about it," said Greengrass. "A better relationship with goblins? Something I am all for. Anyone who despises those who handle his means of subsistence is a fool."

"Welcome aboard," said Harry.

Astoria hugged him. Then she hugged Hermione.

"Will you help me catch a live one as good as him?" she asked, cheekily.

Hermione laughed.

"Well, I am sure we will all be closer friends in school?" she asked it as a question of Daphne.

"I'd do anything for anyone who helped my little sister," said Daphne, fiercely.

"How soon before Dumbledore comes meddling in?" asked Greengrass.

"That's the beauty of using Salazar Slytherin's ritual chamber," said Snape, smugly. "It isn't covered by the wards which are under the headmaster's control. Nor can he get in. All he knows is that I'm attending a Samhain party with your family. As to Harry..."

"I informed the headmaster that he would be celebrating Samhain with me," said Sirius. "Now, I suggest we all relocate to your property, Cyrus, and make that true."

"What an excellent idea," agreed Greengrass. "A time for celebration indeed as well as being able to tell our ancestors that the curse has gone."

Hence, Harry and Hermione attended a traditional Samhain gathering, with its ritual fire, offerings to the dead, and grotesque masks to ward away evil spirits. And Harry lit a candle for his parents, and offered up bread and wine and his own blood to their memory, praying that their spirits rested in peace.

And for the first time in his life, more so than from the prior incantatum effect, he felt one with his parents, and surrounded by their love.