Mission: Dr. B.D. : Diary; Roosters; Basilisk Death
Snape had two choices. He could enter Gryffindor Tower as himself or he could enter it as Minerva. He much prefer to enter it as himself, but then he'd have to go through the whole debacle of explaining to the Fat Lady why he wanted in. This would lead to being questioned by Minerva about why he had been in her house. She'd pester him until she found out where he had heard about the diary. The last thing he wanted to admit to the Queen of the Lions was that her cubs were giving him advice.
So the choices were: grow breast or confess. With regret, 009 downed the bottle of polyjuice potion containing one of the stern witch's hairs. The back of his closet contained a hidden door that none but he knew about. In it, he stored the few heirloom possessions he had inherited from the Prince line upon his mother's death. A beautiful forest green frock was amongst the things he had received. It had been his Grandmother's. Never did he imagine he'd be putting it on.
A few minutes later...
'McGonagall' clipped up a set of stairs, skirt flowing, then waited for a set of stairs to swing his/her way.
"Why Minerva, what a pretty frock you're wearing!"
"Why, thank you Filius!" 009 felt like he was about to choke, this was worse than being Potter, worse than being Dursley, than being Lockhart! He needed to finish this mission quickly and he needed to escape the charms teacher who seemed to be trying to charm him!
"Are we any closer to knowing what caused the students to be petrified and how to deal with it?"
"According to the kno, ah, Ms. Granger it is a Basilisk. I've spoken with Severus. He insists that he will deal with the snake. He doesn't trust anyone else to do so. 'They'll just ruin extremely, rare and valuable potions ingredients.'," McGonagall/Snape mimicked Snape's dark tone, soft spoken voice. "So I've decided to leave it to him. I have plenty of other things on my plate to see to, what with the Board of Governors and parents wanting decisions made about whether to extend the school year or prorate the tuition due to the school closing."
"Speaking of which, I thought you were going to be out of the castle today, visiting students and their families," said Filius.
"I've just popped in to retrieve an item a student left behind. I'll be leaving again soon." Lies should always be kept as close to the truth as possible knew the double agent. "Ah, here are my stairs. Well, good day to you Filius." With that, 'McGonagall' swept up the next three flights of stairs.
The rest of the diary retrieval went without a hitch. It had been lying beneath a pile of old robes underneath Ginevra's bed. Didn't McGonagall ever check her cubs' rooms or demand that they be cleaned? Un-made beds, clothes on the floor, spilt nail polish on the dresser. The house elves cleaned the common rooms, but the students were supposed to be responsible for the dorms. Snape was hard pressed to believe there weren't still people living in here. How could the students have packed for an interminable time home and yet have left so much behind?
Snape changed back into his own clothes. The chest area was a bit snug, but he refused to remain in the dress until he returned to his own body. He could deal with a female appearance in his own clothing better than his own body in a dress. McGonagall/Snape sat down and opened the diary and found nothing to read. It was empty.
Recalling Potter's letter 009 grabbed a quill and wrote, "Hello, Tom."
"Hello. Who is this?" appeared on the page.
"Your servant." A throb of pain shot through Snape's left arm. "I seek to assist you with your plan."
"Will you give your body over to me, your soul."
"I already have, my Lord. I wear your mark." Another lick of fire flowed through the snake and skull.
"Of what mark do you speak?"
"The servants mark. A snake and skull."
"Prove to me your worthiness. You say the correct things, but I don't sense that you mean them. If you truly are my servant you will return me to the girl so that I may become whole again."
Whole again? Voldemort was trying to become whole again!? Snape about had a heart attack then and there, but managed to scroll out one last line before shutting the diary, "As you wish." Snape wasn't sure exactly when he had returned to his own form, but as he looked down he realized he was himself.
009 didn't know what the diary was, but he knew without a doubt that it needed to be destroyed. That monster would not be allowed to return, not if 009 could help it. New drawings needed to be added to his art portfolio of goals and plans, but right now he needed to feed a dog.
Somehow, after Hagrid had been taken away it had fallen to Snape to feed and walk Fang. Snape liked dogs, other than the three headed variety. But why this one had to drool so much he didn't know. "Lick your chops." The dog followed the instruction, removing the slobber from his lips. "Good dog. Outside." The two strolled the grounds, enjoying the evening. On the way back Fang caught his leg in some brambles as he tried to escape a freighting noise (a hopping bunny). Snape searched the little cabin for something to use on the wound and became incensed; the half-giant had a tails worth of unicorn hair in his first aid kit!
Snape mended Fangs leg. When he left the little cabin the first aid kit was short about half a unicorn's tail. Snape considered it payment for dog care and he could sell them to fund the next part of his plan.
The truck pulled up outside Hogwart's gates. A man in black billowing robes awaited the driver. "You sure this where you want the roosters delivered?" asked the bewildered man. 'Why would anyone want anything delivered to the crumbling remains of a building and a broken down gate?' pondered the man. But the pay was good, so what did it matter to him?
"Quite," replied the man in black. They began with the farmer handing the cages down to Severus, who stacked them off to one side. They worked contentedly together for nearly an hour. "Old McDonald had a farm, e.i.e.i.o. With a..." Snape started to quietly sing the old tune as he pulled another cage off the truck. Then froze and scowled. A flick of his wand later and the last ten cages were off the truck. "Obliviate." Snape erased only the floating of the cages and the singing of the song from the famers mind. The few seconds of memory loss hardly affected the old timer at all. "Thank you for the delivery. Here is your payment."
'Must've lost track of time,' thought the farmer. It was easy to do that with farm work. He couldn't recall moving those last ten cages, but he must have done so. "I thank you. You need any more deliveries you let me know." The farmer climbed in his truck and drove off.
Snape summoned the house-elves that were in charge of moving luggage from the train to the dorms. "Take these cages and place them throughout the castle in all of the corridors. Fill Myrtle's bathroom with them. Put at least twenty of the cages in the hall outside that bathroom.
The elves looked around at the hundreds of cages. "Is you sure sir? Shouldn't roosters be going to the kitchens?" asked the head elf.
"I have another use for them for the moment. If they are still viable afterwards you may use them for a chicken feast for the return of the students."
The elves grinned and several began to bounce up and down on their feet. "The students be returning sir! The house elves be very bored sir. We be happy to have the students back!"
"If this plan works the students should be back within the week."
"Oh thank you sir! We be looking forward to their return! Is there anything else you be needing us to do to help?"
009 paused and thought for a moment. "I need the roosters to crow. But you can't be present when they crow. Do you have ideas for how to make that happen?"
"Just wait 'till morning sir. We wills cover the floor with worms and bugs sir," replied Fazzle.
"The sun and food will make them crow. They is claiming their hunting ground when they crow sir," explained Dizzy.
"Once one crows the others will follow," Barbette finished the other's thought.
"Cages to the halls and bathroom," ordered the head elf. Elves popped in and out taking cages as they went.
The castle's residents gave odd looks to the rooster cages, but only one complained. "There's chicken poop on my floors! Who's going to clean my floors!" screeched Filch.
The next morning Snape went from cage to cage casting sonorous on the sleeping fowl. He found a catatonic Filch being licked by his familiar, Mrs. Norris. The two were on the floor strewn with worms and bugs and snoring roosters. Snape had no time to assist the dour man, he needed to open the chamber before the roosters crowed.
"Fazzle," Snape called out, "Please take Filch and to the infirmary." The elf disappeared with the man and his cat.
Snape continued on to the girls' bathroom. 009 had a mission to complete. He had already investigated the bathroom and had found the tap with the snake on it. As head of Slytherin house he knew just two words of parseltongue. Each new head was taught by the previous how to say, "open," and "enter," in the snake language. They were the words used to open the passage between the Head of House quarters and the Slytherin's common room.
009 hid in Myrtle's stall. His hands shook as he cast obscuro on his eyes and sonorous on his throat. Then he spoke in the amplified voice in parseltongue, "Ssosspesssnss." The sink sunk squeaking and screeching. Snape waited until he heard the whisper of the first rooster crow in the distance then he called out, "ssesnstssessr."
The basilisk emerged from the cavernous tunnel, slithering across the floor until the distant whisper of morning became a cacophony of, "Cock a doodle do!" Such a strange way to kill a poisonous monster, but die it did, in the space of one, peaceful breath.
The roosters were anything but peaceful. Peeves was going about the castle opening cages. There were too many male chickens in too small an area and they each were fighting to claim their territory, their worms and bugs. Feathers flew. Wattles wobbled. It was crooned chaos. Were Filch not already catatonic he'd be having a heart attack.
Snape ignored all this, entranced by his prize. The snake's width came to above Snape's knee. Looking into the hole Snape couldn't even spy the tail! The basilisk seemed to go on forever. Snape withdrew a potions knife from his robe. He lightly pierced the basilisk venom sack, getting just a few drops on the blade. 009 placed the diary on the floor.
"My servant. What are you doing?"
A voice Snape hadn't heard in more than a decade sounded from nowhere.
"Imbibing you with the strength of the basilisk, my lord."
"Good, good. Wait!" The voice cried out, realizing that this wasn't good at all. But it was too late; the knife plunged through the pages and ink spilled like blood across the floor.
"Severus! Whatever is going on?" exclaimed McGonagall from the doorway, her hair and dress an array of feathers.
"I've killed the snake and the diary."
"What diary?"
Snape gave no explanation, he just pointed at the mangled pages.
"What of this mess? Peeves let the roosters our of their cages. It's taken the house elves nearly an hour just to corral them. The school is covered in feathers and bird droppings."
Had he really spent nearly an hour admiring his new potions ingredient? "What of it? I did my part. Surely someone else can deal with the cleanup." Snape turned back to the basilisk and ran his hand down its scales.
McGonagall's eyes widened as she finally took notice of the giant snake in the room. "I must commend you Severus. You've done a great service to the school. I will see to it you receive an award. Merlin, First Class I should think. You can do with the snake as you wish."
Snape's eyes gleamed. There were potions he had read about, potions that did amazing things. But never did he have the chance to make them. Basilisk were exceedingly rare.
'McGonagall' exited the bathroom. Had Snape been looking her way instead of at the snake he would have caught a flash of white beard and twinkling eyes in the tartan frock as a manipulative old man, who wasn't so very far away after all, morphed back into himself.