[A/N: Chapter 14 Part 2. Okay, I just couldn't justify drawing the Chamber scene out until Wednesday. DOUBLE POST - Make sure you read Saturn Rising, which is the previous chapter!]
[Tuesday, 13 April 1993 - Wednesday, 14 April 1993]
The twins were sleeping soundly on the floor in front of the library door when Mary returned, back to back. Ginny was awake, curled up in an armchair and staring off into space. Mary had to wonder if she had slept at all. She gathered her mirror from the side table and took a seat at the end of the couch, as far as she could get from the youngest Weasley, and resumed her meditation. By the time she finally managed to find her symbol, Ginny had joined the twins in sleep, still curled in the chair. Mary wasn't tired yet, so she grabbed another apple and slipped out to find Tom.
"I figured it out!" she announced happily, skipping over to the glowing boy. He was carefully levitating droplets of blood so dark it was almost black from his bowl to a series of runes.
"What is it?"
"The symbol for the seventh month."
Tom looked momentarily confused. "You mean Libra? Ohm over a bar?"
"Yes, the seventh month." Mary thought about what she'd just said for a moment, then carefully tried it again, in English. "Libra."
Tom laughed at her. "Didn't realize you were speaking Parsel?"
She blushed. "No. How long…?"
"Since the end of the power-drawing ritual."
"Damn it! Why didn't you say something?"
"It's not as though I have much occasion to speak it either," he said with a shrug.
"Do you grow out of speaking it accidentally?" Normally Mary knew when she was hearing or speaking Parsel, but then, normally there was a snake involved. She assumed that because she had been using it so much in the last two days (as compared to normally) that she had been getting confused.
"Well, keeping in mind that I've never actually met any other speakers, I managed to get it sorted out around my thirteenth birthday. It helps, I think, if you use it more often. At first you'll probably slip up more, but you should at least start noticing when it's happening. You've been teaching that Luna girl, right?"
Mary nodded, then realized that Tom wasn't actually looking at her. "How did you know about that?"
"She told me. She had the diary from the middle of January to the middle of February. Interesting girl." Mary nodded again. Luna was nothing if not interesting. She would have to ask the girl why she hadn't mentioned the diary. "Well, that will help, I expect. And there are a couple books in the library that weren't destroyed on the basics of casting spells in Parsel. Practicing that should help, too. Some things like finite you can just use their Parsel equivalent – that's actually how I realized I was switching accidentally – some spells weren't working like I thought they should – but there's a syllabary for enchanting that can manage some interesting effects. And of course, if you ever find books written in Parsel, it will actually be written using that syllabary. Definitely worth the read."
"Why are you being so nice to me?" The girl asked suddenly. It hadn't occurred to her before, but Tom had explained everything she asked so far, and even some things she hadn't. This was outright helpful, and he hadn't even asked for anything in return.
"The short answer is 'why not.'" He smirked, still not looking up from the drops of blood he was still levitating to various runes. "The longer answer is that I've been trapped in a diary for fifty years, with no one to talk to for most of that time, and I've spent the last seven months mostly talking to Ginny, who, it must be said, is not the best conversationalist. There's always the incentive that this will be much easier with your willing cooperation, so there is a payoff for keeping you happy, of course, but you've been asking good questions. And I like teaching. It's all about shaping your students' minds, after all. So I don't mind answering."
Mary could think of nothing to say to that. "Oh."
"Come on," Tom added, finally finished. "I'll show you where you need to put your Libras, and how to empower them."
"Rituals aren't always like this, are they?"
"You've been to other rituals. You know they're not."
"I mean with all the runes activated by different people at different times. I would have expected one person to do them all in order or something."
"Ah, no, this is a much larger scale, and we're working around a very unusual set of circumstances. Normally, I would do the same thing here as I did with the smaller circle – even if I didn't burn it into the floor, I would mix my blood into the paint and reach out to empower everything simultaneously, or at least most of them. If you have something like yours and the basilisk's runes, you'd need to do those separately, since they couldn't have any other blood in them. The next best thing would be to have one person draw and empower as they go, but since I have to explain each meaning to the boys, that wouldn't really work. This is more like an extensive warding project, where the runes are carved and then empowered by a number of different wizards, and then activated by a controller at the end. We're doing a little better than that, though, because the twins' magical signatures are almost identical. I'd guess Fred does more offensive charms when they collaborate, and George does more defensive. It will read as being consistently empowered, anyway, except for your personal identification runes. When we activate the circles, I'll basically set them off in the right order, but I won't need to put more magic into any of it."
"So it's okay that they're fading?"
"Yes. It's expected. If we carved them, they would hold the power longer, but these will last three days, which is long enough for our purposes."
Mary thought for a long moment as they walked around the everted bubble of the trefoil. The largest "circle" had been lined with both chalk and charcoal paints. On the standard loops, the white was on the outside, but here, white was on the inside. She still hadn't asked why.
"Since the twins are powering the ritual, does that mean they're going to be… responsible for it?"
"Do you mean, is this going to stain your immortal souls and make you Black Mages or some such rubbish?"
"No – wait, it doesn't, does it?"
"No, you have to dedicate yourself to one of the dark powers in a specific aspect to be a Black Mage."
"Oh, no. I meant since they're casting it, do the Powers answer them, or come through them, like at the Sabbat rituals, or what?"
"Ah, no. I'll be activating and directing it, so I'll interact with the Powers. You four will be linked into the breaking and binding ritual as kind of… counterweights, basically, to stop it all collapsing while I'm demonic, but you won't actually do anything, or probably even notice anything different at that point. Now, just being this close and this involved in any Black ritual is going to incline you a bit more toward the dark, but not appreciably more than celebrating Yule. If you were actually activating it, you'd be firmly rooting yourself on the dark side of things."
"So the power circle…?"
"Not Black. Dark, yes, because it involved taking foreign power and using it to add to your own, or in this case, mine, but there were no Powers involved. I'd say you're… neutral leaning dark, at the moment. And that's not likely to change much unless you start doing a lot of rituals outside of the holidays. Otherwise you'll shift slowly back to neutral over time."
"They call it 'balanced' now," Mary noted idly, vaguely relieved that she wasn't going to end up a dark witch over this.
"Whichever. Here," they had finally reached the spot for the first Libra symbol. They were not far from the point they had started at, originally, but presumably there had been a reason for walking all the way around the circle. At the very least, she had gotten to see the chains of pretty, empowered runes. They reminded her of muggle Christmas lights, though much larger.
Tom floated one of the bowls of charcoal paint to her. "This is fairly simple. You just paint your symbol on the line, and then reach your magic out to touch it like I did with the power circle. When you feel you've made a connection with the rune – and mind it won't be as obvious with no blood connection – start pouring power into it while thinking about the most important things that make you yourself. It will start to glow. When you feel it's not taking any more power, and it won't be a lot, seal it by saying theto, with the intention of capping it off and saving it for later."
"Got it."
"Go ahead. I'll watch you do the first one."
As instructed, Mary painted in the ohm-symbol over a bar, then let her hand hover over it as she had seen Fred do, trying to push her magic out in the same way Tom had done. After a moment, she thought she felt something like a hollow spot, pulling at her magic. She pushed more power in the same direction, trying to think of what made her herself. Mary Elizabeth, she thought, Slytherin's Heir, Girl Who Lived, parentless, friend of Maia and Lils, I love to be free and hate to be used, I don't know… I'm just me. Thankfully, at that point, she realized that the rune wasn't taking in any more power, so she whispered, "theto," and capped it off, before opening her eyes to see it glowing the same bright green she saw when she looked in the mirror.
Tom nodded. Mary let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. "I've set white lights over all the other spots you need to define yourself," he said, taking no notice of her relief. "Make sure you get all of them. I'm going to go wake the twins so we can finish empowering everything else, and then I'll do a final check while you all rest, and then we can finally do this." He actually sounded excited. Mary was amazed. She was ready to be done with all this herself. She missed her bed, and thinking of Hermione and Lilian reminded her that they must be worried.
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There were at least forty white lights indicating spots where Mary needed to place her symbol, though she lost count after twenty-seven. She painted and empowered each one carefully, finishing just in time to watch the twins empower the last of the basilisk runes. Then, as Tom began to double-check their work, they took a bit of string and painted a large white circle, tangential to each of the lobes of the trefoil. There were no runes on the circle, and it appeared to be merely a guideline, because when they finished, one of them yelled across the room, "Riddle, which way is north?" Tom pointed absently toward the statue. The necromantic loop was apparently oriented due south. The boys continued with their painting, creating a large black diamond tangential to the circle, its points at the cardinal directions. They added more runes at each of the cardinal directions on the circle and the diamond, as well as the intersection points between the two. These must have been standard, because Tom didn't seem interested in them at all.
When they were done, they dragged Mary back to the sitting area to have another meal and nap until Riddle came to tell them he was ready. Such concepts as regular meals and normal hours had vanished along with the sun. None of them had any idea of the time, though Mary was fairly certain it was still Wednesday morning. Instead of having a nap, however, the three who had been actively helping with the ritual preparations spent the interval explaining what was expected to happen to Ginny, who had been avoiding everything to do with the process, but had finally asked what she had to do to get out of the thrice-damned Chamber. They had nearly finished when Tom reappeared.
"Everything looks correct," he announced. "If you are all ready, we can begin. There's no stopping once we've started, so mind you use the facilities and get food or drink before if you need it."
Ginny headed for the door to the cave with a grumble about stupid Slytherin and the stupid lack of proper facilities. Mary didn't have the heart to let her go squat in a corner again. All other things aside, it was terribly unsanitary. She pointed the younger girl to the WC, and watched in amusement as Ginny very vocally refused to speak to Tom over his little trick the day before. He wasn't bothered.
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Finally, it was time to begin the proper rituals. At one of the twins' insistence, Tom checked the time. It was two in the afternoon on Wednesday, which meant they had been in the Chamber for a little more than two whole days already, and had been preparing this mad Frankenstein ritual almost as long, if they counted the time Tom had spent in the library laying it out.
The first part was the invocation of the Chaotic Power in the Aspect of the Lady, Luck.
Tom dimmed the lights, for effect, as the five of them stood around the circle he had seared into the stone floor with the power-drawing earlier. "We call," he declared dramatically, "on she who rolls the dice; who governs the gamble, the chance and the hazard; who watches over the unexpected, blessing and folly, accident and happenstance, keeping the balance of ease and hardship! We call upon serendipity, fluke and fortune! We call upon the Lady, known as Luck!"
A presence slowly coalesced in the center of their informal circle, solidifying into the form of a woman of indeterminate age, dressed in what seemed to be Greek robes, or perhaps Roman. Mary suspected that Hermione would have known what they were called, but she certainly didn't. Her hair was black as night, her skin whiter than any human, glowing more clearly than Tom, and her eyes a piercing green, brighter than Mary's and sparkling with mischief.
When she spoke, her voice was low and teasing. "You know, Tom Riddle," she said to the one who had called her, "most would think it folly to call upon chance to govern a ritual such as this."
"I am not most," he grinned, matching her teasing tone. "This is naught if not a gamble, and I can think of no more appropriate goddess to govern its progress."
The Lady smiled at him. "And what would you offer my brothers and myself, when all is said and done? Nothing for nothing, they say in your House. You must pay to play…"
"I would offer the free power in this chamber all around us, the magic of a great serpent, now dead. She was a worthy companion, and I would her power make a worthy sacrifice, to be apportioned as you who govern the act see fit between the others who answer the call."
"An acceptable forfeit, bold child, and fitting, for yourself and your companions. If you lose, of course, your power, too, will be taken – there will be nothing left of you."
"Ah, but if I win," Tom said, his tone pure bravado, "A feat of magic unlike any the world has ever seen, an unlikely twist in the weaving of Fate, and a new element of uncertainty in the future."
"Agreed," the goddess said, nodding to the boy. He bowed deeply in return. "Cast the die, Tom Riddle, and let things fall out as they may." Her body dissolved again, but her presence remained, a dark and heavy addition to the power already filling the air.
Tom led the way to the second circle, the one for the golem-making process. He positioned the five of them around it where the points of a pentacle would be. He stood at the north, with Mary at his right and Ginny at his left, the twins anchoring the two southern points. Their only role in the rituals was to bear witness to his activities. As the twins had explained to Ginny and Mary, they were a decent enough group for it – two male, two female; two children, two (technically) adults at fifteen; all touched by darkness in one way or another, but still fundamentally balanced. Tom would have positioned them with these dichotomies in mind.
The bowl of blood was already waiting in the center of the circle. Mary supposed it was left over from marking the trefoil runes before, since she hadn't been asked to donate an additional sample. She felt Tom's magic extend to fill the circle, activating the runes in one fell swoop. They blazed with white light. She understood nothing as he spoke the invocation. It was certainly no language she had ever heard spoken before, and might not even have been limited to a single language.
There was a sense of an additional presence joining them in the circle, wrapping around them like heavy cotton wool. It pushed them toward the center, and then, when none of them moved from their positions, burst through them, entering the circle from every direction at once. It took Mary's breath away, though Tom's litany was unbroken.
The blood in the bowl rose up, a ball of darkness distinguishable even in the now-very-poor light – was it really only Tom's glow? The darkness seemed more a hole in the universe, a complete absence of anything, rather than simply darkened blood. It began to grow, shifting and changing, spinning slowly and developing into a humanoid shape as Tom's chant increased in intensity, repeating every thirty seconds or so.
Mary couldn't have said how long she had watched, fascinated, as the ritual (and the golem) took shape in front of her, but she couldn't imagine Tom could go on like this much longer. Yet still the pace of his invocation, or spell, or whatever it was that he chanted endlessly, increased. The strain was evident in its pitch, creeping upward. The crescendo reached its peak suddenly, at least for the human witnesses, who had no idea exactly what the details of any of the rituals entailed. The goddess, Mary thought, probably did.
At the moment of climax, Tom's voice broke. Mary would have looked to him, to see if he looked stricken, or if this was meant to happen, but she could not tear her eyes away from the shape in front of her: in that moment, the darkness had become a man.
Mary marveled at him as he turned slowly in the air. His hair was dark, skin pale and limbs long. He was taller than Tom, Mary thought, though it was hard to estimate in his horizontal position, with broader shoulders and a stronger jaw. In short, he looked very much like the man Tom might be in his mid-twenties, which she supposed was probably his age, if one counted the years he had been "awake" in the diary. She flushed as she saw that he was also, as might be expected when a teenage boy was creating his own body, quite well endowed, even in his inactive position. She did not have much experience for comparison, mind, but it was, at least, larger than those she had seen on the Greek statues Catherine had showed her last summer.
Tom was still speaking, winding down the ritual. The new body floated gently to the floor, curling around the bowl, now empty. The Constructive power left the circle, its presence adding to that of the Lady in the air around them. Eventually Tom's voice trailed off, and he bowed to the circle, then turned and bowed to the space outside the circle, where the Powers hovered.
He cleared his incorporeal throat and said, "It's done." The four witnesses relaxed and left their places as he levitated the body again, holding it upright. Mary was surprised to see it was only a few inches taller than Tom from the diary, though it was recognizably him, and, though she hadn't noticed earlier, breathing. "Mary, come take its pulse," he ordered, clearly irritated with his inability to touch it properly. All Mary, who had never taken a pulse before, could say was that the pulse definitely existed, and was regular and strong.
"Excellent. Possession time again," he said with a grin.
He slid behind her eyes before she could blink, still holding the golem upright, and traced her left finger over her right wrist, opening yet another cut, just as he had after the power-drawing ritual, though not nearly as deep. He dipped one of her fingers in the blood that welled forth, finger-painting on the golem's pale skin, making reddish-orange streaks. Mary, pushed aside again, wondered idly how it was that she was right-handed, and Tom left-handed, and where, exactly, the light was coming from, since even Tom was not available now as a source. He declined to address these thoughts, though he did respond when she wondered if the placement of the runes, a line of them down the left arm and two lines on the left shoulder blade, extending halfway down the back, as well as five individual symbols on the right pectoral and upper arm, were significant. Apparently, where they were marked didn't matter, but since they would be permanently burned into his skin, their placement was, in his words, artistically arranged.
Just as with the power circle, when he was satisfied with his runes, Tom took hold of her magic and used it to activate them, burning them into the golem's flesh until they turned black. It didn't react. Tom said it wasn't conscious to feel it, which Mary couldn't help but think was a good thing. She picked up an ambivalent feeling from Tom as he slipped out of her mind, returning full control to her. She shivered. Hopefully that wouldn't have to happen again. Ginny was looking at Mary in disgust. The twins seemed fascinated.
That accomplished, they moved on to the second, two-part ritual. Tom placed the golem in its leaf of the trefoil before joining the diary in his own. Fred and George were instructed to take the north and south points of the diagram, respectively, while Mary was sent to the east, and Ginny to the west. They sat, cross-legged, to wait and bear witness.
Tom, whose leaf was closest to Mary and Fred, began to speak again, without further preamble, this time in Latin, though Mary couldn't make out any of the words or the meaning behind them. The cardinal runes and those tying the diamond and circle denoting the edges of the enormous design were the first to flare into light. The circle was like ink, its runes silver, and the diamond the opposite. Where they joined, the runes burned like natural fire. Mary could feel the containment circle recognize her, a slight brush of static against her magic. The smaller, complex tangle of lines around Tom lit next, the runes glowing or drinking in the light, according to their line. So far as Mary could tell, the colors they had been when they were charged did not matter at all.
Mary noticed that Tom had neglected to heal her wrist in his excitement, just as the Destructive Power manifested, whipping around the circle and stirring up the ambient magic like a small, unstable cyclone. This ritual was the shortest of the three, and no sooner had the Power arrived than it coalesced into what Mary could only describe as a bolt of darkness, edged in gold. It struck the Diary, sinking into it and then exploding outward, tearing the magic of the book apart, though the pages were left intact. Tom's form faltered for an instant, flickering, before he regained his composure and completed the spell. The Destructive Power rose up to wait with the others. The air was so heavy now with potential and magic that it felt as though a storm was about to break, like lightning would have to strike among them to release the buildup.
Tom's smaller circle vanished in a gout of blue flames. He stood, moving as though in a trance to the center of the trefoil. To Mary's surprise, he seemed to leave part of himself behind, a glowing mass of power, dark and roiling. He spoke from the center of the circle, in Latin again, invoking the Binding Power; then in Greek, for the Cooperative Power. They manifested more slowly than any of the others had done, and in a more contained way. Each presence was drawn to one of the three leaves of the circle, the Binding Power in the necromantic leaf (where a poison-green spark had appeared without Mary's notice), and the Cooperative Power raising up the golem. Finally, the unknown language, again, called down the hovering Constructive Power. This came down to envelope the magic Tom had left behind him.
There were no words for this last ritual. It was too new, too unlike anything that had ever been done, or at least anything that Tom knew of. There were elements of the binding ritual of the Horcrux, yes, and elements of the vampire ritual, what he could remember of it, but it was fundamentally different from both of these. It operated on intent, defined by Tom's force of will alone. He knew exactly what he wanted from each of the Powers, and by their natures, they would know as well.
The trefoil burst into the same blue fire that had flared at the end of the second ritual, twisting where it ought into the shapes of the underlying runes. As though that was some sort of signal, the Powers rushed the center of the circle, converging on Tom, carrying, Mary thought, their respective elements to the binding.
The magic in the air rose to a point where it was almost painful, and then surpassed it. There was a keening sound from the center of the circle, but the whirling did not cease. Finally, an eternity later, or no time at all, when Mary was certain she could not bear another instant of this torture (for a third time), the Lady's face appeared in the darkness. She winked, and dropped into the tempest what was, unmistakably, a die.
The magic collapsed inward, the Powers gone in an instant, and all light vanished from the cavern, along with the pain, and the excess magic in the air. Mary could breathe again, and it wasn't until she noticed this that she realized she hadn't been. No sooner had she made that realization than she collapsed, the last of her strength gone.
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The first thing Mary noticed when she woke up was that there was light, and it was directly over her face. The second thing she noticed was that Tom was producing it, and using a wand to do so. The third thing was that it was not the familiar, teen-aged Tom, but the fully adult Tom they had created as a golem.
She sat up, head pounding, and looked around to see all three of the Weasleys sitting together on the floor, the boys supporting Ginny, who looked about as good as Mary felt. All the lines and runes were gone. The Lady hovered to one side, apparently enjoying the tableau. She caught Mary's eye and grinned.
"Are we satisfied, Mr. Riddle?" she called, always teasing.
Mary nodded at Tom, and he smiled, genuinely for once, before calling back to the goddess, "There's just one thing left, Lady." He made an elaborate motion, as though kissing his fingertips and blowing it to her, producing a tiny pink ball of wandless magic that he sent across instead. "A kiss for Luck." He winked at the goddess and she laughed.
"You charming rogue. I'll be keeping an eye on you," she said, and left, the lack of her presence leaving what felt like a void, after three days of drowning in magic.
"Were you just flirting," "With the Lady?" the twins asked, as though they absolutely could not believe what they had just seen.
Tom smirked at them, completely unrepentantly. "She started it, letting me pull this off." He spun in a circle joyfully. "You have no idea how amazing it is to have a body. It's just… euphoric. All the time."
"Are you high again?" Mary asked, head still pounding.
"Yes," Tom giggled. "Absolutely and unequivocally. And as I said last time, it will wear off eventually."
Mary rolled her eyes as the twins snorted with laughter, and even Ginny looked like she was hiding a smile.
"Can we go home, now?" the younger girl asked plaintively.
"You can go home," Tom said. "I think I'm going to go to America. I hear good things about Miskatonic."
Mary cast a time charm. It felt wonderful to use a wand again. It was nearly six, which was good, because she was starving. "Do you think we could just show up in the Great Hall and get dinner?" she asked the crowd.
"If you do, I'd be tempted to stick around and watch you try," Tom said, but then added more seriously, "Before you go, we need to alter your memories. I don't particularly want to be hunted down and held accountable for the actions of Lord Voldemort, and I doubt any of you want to be sent to Azkaban for participating in a class seven experimental Black Arts ritual."
Ginny looked as though she wanted to object, but her brothers were already nodding.
"We thought you'd say something like that."
"We've also been thinking about the diary."
"Something like that needs to be thoroughly destroyed."
"Or else it's going to give away the story fairly easily."
"We'll stab it with a basilisk fang," Tom said. "Basilisk venom destroys everything. The story I'm thinking of runs the same until the lights go out, but with the diary out here somewhere in the open, instead of hidden away in the Chamber. I start railing and threatening you for destroying my basilisk, as though Voldemort hadn't managed that quite thoroughly already, and one of you bright sparks takes the book and impales it on a fang. Personally I like Mary for it – Girl Who Lived Defeats Dark Lord Again sort of thing."
"Oh, please, no," Mary said, but it was too late. The twins had the look of a prank decided on in their eyes.
"Perfect." "All credit to the Girl Who Lived!"
"Fuck you, Tom."
"Maybe when you're older. So. Ink goes everywhere, I die in a shrieking mess, you lot get stuck down here for three days until the magic dissipates enough that you can get your wands to work, and you wander around until you find the way out. I'll show you the tunnel up to the Slytherin dorms. That one in the bathroom used to be a closet a century ago, and now it's just a pain to deal with, especially getting out. I'll modify your memories after we get to the point that Mary can find the way back to the dorms, or one of the other exits, if you don't want to take Gryffindors through the commons. I'll send the true memories back to you by owl once I'm safely out of the country."
"I want all my other memories back, too!" Ginny demanded.
"They're under blanket obliviates. I'm sure whoever questions you will release them. Though you may not want to see them, after. For starters, there were five suicide attempts, not just the two."
Ginny swallowed hard under her brothers' concerned looks. Mary would have bet a lot of money they were wondering how they had missed so much this past year.
Tom, unconcerned, handed the diary to Mary. "Impale this on a basilisk fang," he instructed her.
She did as she was told. Ink spurted everywhere as all the enchantments not related to the Horcrux failed.
"I hate you so much," she glared at the man, stuffing the ruined book in a pocket and pulling out her wand to siphon the ink off of herself.
"No, wait!" "You can't!" the twins stopped her.
"They're right," Tom said, with a grin at his dripping Heir. "You wouldn't have had access to magic, according to the story we're writing." He did send a drying charm at her, which made things slightly better.
"So, any objections to the plan?" he asked. No one offered any, so he led them back through the Chamber proper, through a door none of them had noticed and into a bedchamber.
The universal reaction to this was, "There's a bed. Why did we spend the last two nights sleeping on the floor?" To which Tom calmly replied, "You never asked. And it amused me."
He collected a number of empty vials from a cupboard and ordered a full-length mirror to open in Parsel, revealing a passage which led upward through a series of tunnels and spiral staircases. After a good twenty minutes' walk, they reached a passage marked with an ouroboros, which meant it led to the Slytherin commons.
There the party paused. Tom carefully removed all memories after the basilisk died, replacing them with the bare bones of their story, which their minds would build up into realistic memories over the next few minutes. Then he disillusioned himself thoroughly and completely locked down the last five minutes of their memories. It would likely go unnoticed, and at the very least should effectively hide what had actually happened. He watched as the kids spotted the ouroboros and followed the tunnel back to the common room, then retreated back the way they had come, to take another track toward the Forest and freedom.
Wednesday, 14 April 1993 Somewhere Under Slytherin
On finding the way to the Slytherin common room after a small eternity wandering in the darkness, Mary elected to go directly there. She and the Weasleys were exhausted, starving, and most importantly, dying of thirst. Anyone who had a problem with Gryffindors in their common room could bite her.