DISCLAIMER: I do not own Negima or Harry Potter. Negima is the property of Ken Akamatsu, and Harry Potter is the property of J.K. Rowling.
Italics text = character thinking to themselves.
Underline+Italics = character communicating with telepathy
Bold text = shouting
Bold+Italcs = Casting Spell/Ability
Chapter Twenty-six
Taking matters in one's own hands
"Well, now you know why he was happy about." Asuna said grimly.
It was breakfast time, the day after Negi' birthday. Ala Alba and Harry's group were reading the Daily Prophet with grim looks on their faces. And they weren't the only ones. Most of the Great Hall was unusually silent, fear and panic being seen on many faces. The reason?
"Massive break-out from Azkaban" was the title of the article that took the entire front page. Included were ten pictures of the escaped convicts. And to top it all, they were blaming everything on Sirius.
"Remind me again why shouldn't we kill Fudge and his bunch morons." Harry said in a strained voice.
"Getting sent to prison would halve the satisfaction." Eva said casually.
"I don't see why you're so upset. It was bound to happen sooner or later. At least they escaped now, when old snake face will order them to lay low and stay out of trouble." Asuna reasoned.
"They're blaming it on Sirius." Harry replied, still in a foul mood.
"Harry's god-father, the one falsely accused and sent to Azkaban without a trial, is Sirius Black." Hermione informed the group.
"What the hell is Dumbledore doing? If this was such an obvious target, why didn't he take any precautions?" Harry seethed.
"What do you expect him to do? I mean, what did he and his allies do in the first war anyway?" Asuna raised an eyebrow.
"Well, my parents..." Harry began.
"Your father was working as a hit-wizard and it was his job to hunt Death Eaters, not a holy mission from Dumb-as-a-door and his Order of Fried Chicken" Eva said, causing even Hermione to burst into laughter. "As for your mother, well she was not only a sure target as a muggleborn, but also a threat since she was a Charms and Potions Mistress."
"When you put it that way, the same could be said for my parents, since they were both Aurors." Neville commented quietly.
"Exactly. Dumbledore has only three kinds of people in the order. The ones in important positions and can supply valuable information, the ones that have no significant position but are powerful enough to mobilize as spies and the ones he can manipulate to do his bidding." Negi explained casually.
"I think I noticed the flaw in this." Hermione frowned. "The people strong enough to make a difference are either busy with their jobs and spying, or are to weak."
"Twenty points to Gryffindor." Eva grinned.
"But what can be done?" Neville wondered.
"The question is actually 'What can you guys do?', isn't it? " Eva smirked at them.
"Do what exactly?" came a disgustingly sweet voice from behind them.
"Fire Fudge and take over the Ministry. Now please leave us, we were just discussing what venom to boil the Undersecretary in" Chao quipped.
"I an the Undersecretary." Umbridge said with a slight edge.
"Basilisk venom it is, then." Haruna grinned and checked something on a clipboard.
The toad woman looked around and saw the evil glint in the eyes of many teenagers before leaving the Great Hall as quick as possible.
"That was entertaining." Luna smiled as she sat down between Harry and Chao, while Ron followed Umbridge' example.
"We should discuss this elsewhere. Meet us tonight at nine at the Room of Requirement." Negi instructed and left for his classes.
Later that evening on Harry and Hermione were heading towards the Room of Requirement under Harry' invisibility cloak. They had just passed the gargoyle that was guarding the entrance to the Headmaster' office when the statue jumped away.
"Severus, we must recover control over the Potter estate. I understand you don't want to damage the mind of Lily' son, but there may not be another way. And those Oclumency lessons that he'll have with you would be a perfect excuse to do it. According to Ron Weasley' reports, his dream-visions are getting more and more frequent, and worse: full of information." Dumbledore ranted as he and Snape passed the hidden duo on their way to the marble stairway.
"If you want it so badly, why don't you do it yourself?" Snape asked annoyed. "It wouldn't be the first time either. You can't expect me to believe he forgot what the Sorting Hat told him after he got Gryffindor' sword. That only a blood heir could extract it."
"Well, I couldn't let everyone know that he's the heir of one of the founders! He already has too much political power! And as Lord Gryffindor he would out-rank me as Headmaster!" Dumbledore protested. "And as for me teaching him Oclumency, you know that there is a chance of him entering my mind! Sure, I could extract the more sensible memories for the duration of the lessons, but I don't know that even my pensive can hold that much." he added as the two turned at a corner.
Harry and Hermione exchanged a silent look and continued their walk to the hidden Room. As they entered and removed the cloak they noticed that were quite a lot of people there.
"What happened to you two? You both look like you want to murder someone." Chachazero asked as she landed on Harry' shoulder.
"Yep. We do. And the bastard's name is Dumbledore." Harry said angrily.
"What happened?" Negi asked.
"Well, for starters the Headbastard wants Snape to mess with my head to make me relinquish the Potter estate to him. Also, it turns out that I'm Gryffindor' blood heir since I was able to extract the sword from the Sorting Hat. Apparently the hat told me this, but I mysteriously got amnesia after a talk to the Headbastard." Harry fumed as he sat down, the entire room now deathly quiet.
"You forgot to mention that he has Ron spying on you." Hermione added. "He actually asked me something similar in our first year, but I declined."
"Yeah, he asked me, Fred and George the same this summer. He even tried to bribe us." Ginny admitted.
"He probably realized he can't rely on Ron after his jealousy from last year." Hermione said.
"How did you find out all this?" Kasumi asked amazed.
"We overheard him arguing with Snape while we were under my invisibility cloak. As incredible it may sound, Snape actually sounded like he didn't want to hurt me." Harry replied.
"I think it may have something to do with your mother, Dumbledore said her name at some point." Hermione mentioned.
"Did you hear anything else?" Eva asked.
"He wants Snape to screw with my head while giving me lessons of Oclumency. Any idea what that is?" Harry inquired.
"Well, to put it simply, it's a defense from a form a mind reading called Legilimency. You create mental walls and other defense to hide your thought and memories behind." Eva explained.
"But it still isn't enough to protect a mind from my artifact. Apparently, both Snape and Dumbledore constantly use Oclumency and I was still able to read their minds." Nodoka said with pride.
"Anyway, he wants Snape to teach me since he doesn't want me to accidentally find out any of his dirty secrets." Harry continued "Apparently even his pensive can't hold them all."
"Anyway, you said you have some ideas about how to deal with the mess we're in." Hermione reminded them why they were there.
"Yes, we do. And we invited some people that want to be involved in this." Negi said and everyone gathered around them.
There were Fred, George and Ginny Weasley, Lee Jordan, Angelina Johnson, Alicia Spinnet, Katie Bell, Neville Longbottom, Parvati and Padma Patil, Luna Lovegood, Ernie Macmillian, Hannah Abbott, Susan Bones, Daphne and Astoria Greengras, Tracy Davies and Blaise Zabini.
"You know, most Slytherins support Voldemort." Harry said looking at the three.
"Believe me, if it was after me I would have left the country already." Blaise said.
"What do you mean?" Negi asked.
"Throughout history, my family has usually been neutral in light versus dark wars. But near the end of the last war You-know-Who decided that who isn't with him is against him, and he had my uncle killed to persuade us to join him." Zabini grimaced.
"So what happened?" Harry asked curiously.
"We made an alliance with House Potter. When the Death Eaters came to get our answer, only Malfoy Sr. got away alive." Blaise smirked.
"My family vowed not to help You-know-Who, but we really don't trust Dumbledore or the Ministry either. You on the other hand we can trust." Tracy said.
"Well, our family is also allied with House Potter, but there's a bit more to it then in the Zabini's case." Astoria looked towards her older sister who blushed furiously.
"Care to enlighten us?" Harry asked Daphne.
"Are you sure you want everyone to hear this? It's kinda private. Though they'll find out eventually." she asked.
"Go ahead." Harry said.
"Fine." Daphne sighed. "For starters, you must understand that no mater how much of a Gryffindor your father was, he was still a coward when concerning your mother."
"Yeah, I hear being married has that effect on you." Harry glanced towards Negi.
"Well, because of that, he chose to hide a few of his obligations as the last Potter." Daphne said.
"Such as?" Harry urged her to continue.
"Such as having more then one wife." Astoria grinned.
"Yes. And to get away from that he had only one choice: multiple marriage contracts for you." Daphne looked away with a blush.
"In other words you are one of my wives-to-be." Harry groaned.
"Yeah. To be honest, I thought that your magical guardian somehow negated the contracts, since you never talked to me about it. But it seems that you simply didn't know. And no, the contracts can't be negated." Daphne said.
"Great, just great." Harry sighed.
"What's wrong Potter, am I not good enough for you?" Daphne asked a little hurt.
"Oh, that's definitely not the issue here." Harry assured her. "It's just that, well, I'm not too experienced in these sort of things. As in at all. You can ask Parvati on what impression I left her at the Yule Ball."
"You're not that bad Harry. You're just too honest to yourself. It was obvious that you didn't want me as a dance partner, or to dance at all for that matter." Parvati shrugged.
"Any idea who else good old Prongs engaged me to?" Harry asked.
"Prongs?" Asuna asked confused.
"My father's prankster nickname. He got it by becoming a stag animagus." Harry said.
"What's an animagus?" Chisame inquired.
"Someone who can turn into a specific animal at will. It's a form of wandless self-transfiguration." Hermione explained.
"Hm, sounds useful, remind me to look it up." Negi said thoughtfully.
"Well, you were engaged to the daughter of the Drake family, but she went missing on her second birthday when the rest of her family was killed." Daphne said thoughtfully. "And there was..."
"Me." Luna admitted. "I didn't mention it for the same reasons as Daphne.
"Well, I suppose it could be worse. I could have been engaged to a lot more girls or to someone I hate. Though I still don't know who this Drake girl is." Harry said thoughtfully.
"She may not even be alive." Eva pointed out. "From what I've read from the Restricted Section, many dark rituals use infants as sacrifices."
"Thank you very much for that lovely mental image." Harry grimaced.
"Your copy of the marriage contract should be in the main Potter family vault. If the bonding spell is still active, she's alive." Blaise informed.
"Main vault? How rich am I?" Harry asked shocked.
"Very. You should arrange a meeting with the goblins to find out everything. But I know for sure that you have more money then Malfoy." Blaise said.
"Uh, you just had to mention the ferret." Tracy grimaced.
"I wonder what he'll brag about next. Maybe he'll say he bought Britain: 'I always wanted my own kingdom, so I had daddy buy it for me' " Fred mimicked Draco' voice.
"Anyway, I had Nodoka check everyone to see if they're trustworthy. The only one that wasn't was some Ravenclaw girl, Cho something, who thought you killed Diggory, and so we wiped her memory." Eva explained.
"So, what will this group do?" Hermione asked.
"Train to fight Voldemort and stabilize wizarding Britain both economically and politically. Half of the people we gathered either have or will have a seat in the Wizengot. And all of you have considerable magical talent. You just need some help to bring this out." Negi said.
"We are creating a group that will do what the Ministry and the Order of the Phoenix doesn't. We will fight fire with fire and we will wipe out the Death Eaters permanently." Asuna said.
"We're in." Harry said after exchanging a quick look with Hermione.
"We are going to use every resource this castle provides, and that includes Ravenclaw' Chamber of Needs that we are inside of right now, Slytherin' Chamber of Secrets, Gryffindor' Chamber of Rituals and Huflepuff' Chamber of Time, the last of which we still haven't found yet." Eva said.
"You mean all founders had hidden chambers?" Hermione asked in awe.
"They built them according to their personal strengths. Ravenclaw for charms, arithmancy and wards; Slytherin for combat magic, dark arts and magical creatures; Gryffindor for transfiguration, runes and flying; Huflepuff for herbology, potions and astronomy." Negi explained.
"How on earth do you know all this?" Susan asked.
"Sayo-chan became friends with the Grey Lady. It turns out that she was Ravenclaw' daughter. She told her all this." Kasumi said.
"So, where are Gryffindor' and Huflepuff' chambers?" Harry inquired.
"That…" Asuna began and looked around "is a very good question." everyone sweatdropped.
"O-kay. In other words we need to find them." Hermione said.
"I don't know about Gryffindor, but Huflepuff' chamber is probably near the greenhouses." Neville said.
"Yes, but it's either underground or has some really amazing wards, since noone has ever seen it since the school was built." Daphne pointed out.
"It's most likely underground, since there are few wards that could completely hide something like that, and none of them existed a thousand years ago." Yue agreed.
"It could explain why the potions classrooms are in the dungeons. Tradition. I mean, noone sane would make potions in a place where they can't naturally get rid of any dangerous fumes." Hermione said.
"And here I thought that Snape just liked cold, dark and creepy places." Harry said sarcastically.
"Uh, you should see his office! I almost lost my breakfast when I had to go there in our second year." Hermione shuddered. "He holds body parts in jars all over his office."
"What were you doing there? He never gave you detention." Tracy asked surprised.
"We needed some rare ingredients and he happened to have them." Hermione said hesitantly.
"You actually managed to steal from Snape?" Fred' eyes bulged.
"It was for the greater good." Harry said in a very good imitation of Dumbledore' grandfatherly voice.
"Such as?" everyone leaned towards the two.
"We made a Polyjuice potion so that me and Ron can get in the Slytherin common room and interrogate Malfoy." Harry sighed.
"When and as who?" Daphne narrowed her eyes.
"During the Christmas break as Crabe and Goyle. The two of them and Malfoy were the only Slytherins left." Harry replied.
"I tried to transform into Bullstrode, but got the wrong hair." Hermione grimaced at the memory.
"I wondered why you were in the Hospital wing for most of the break." Ginny remembered.
"Yeah, I finally found out what a cat girl looks like. Ack!" Harry' grin was wiped by a smack to the head from Hermione.
"Remind me to introduce her to Koyomi." Negi whispered to Konoka, making her giggle.
"At any rate, even if we find the Chamber of Time, we have nearly no clues on the Chamber of Rituals." Chisame pointed out.
"Well" Chao said after a few minutes of silence "We know that rituals leave some magical markers where they were performed. I'll try to make a device that will track down a location with only old markers, but I can't make any promises. With the amount of magic this castle has, there's bound to be some massive interference."
"Very well, we'll leave it to you, for now." Negi agreed.
"This Chamber has stored within many items and is able to conjure just about anything a master could, but anything created by the room can't leave this room. After some trial and error, we found out that we can use the room to assist us in doing permanent duplication spells, so that won't be a problem. Here, we can get any book the school library has, including the restricted ones. Normaly, I would propose to make it out main base of operations, but apparently some of the professors know about it, and since it's easy to enter, it would be too risky." Eva said.
"That leaves the Chamber of Secrets. Tell me Harry, how secure is it?" Negi asked.
"Very, only a Parcelmouth could open it, in there are currently only two known: me and Voldemort." cue shiver.
"Voldemort." Eva smirked "Voldemort." She repeated "Voldemort." "Voldemort." "Voldemort."… she continued saying it for over a minute, until the irritation everyone was hearing overcome the fear. "Remember, if you can't even deal with hearing the name, you'll never be able to fight him."
"So, how exactly do you open the Chamber?" Negi asked.
"I just say 'open' in parceltongue and any door opens." Harry shrugged.
"In other words you don't even need to be there. All it needs is for the sounds to be heard in the vicinity of the entrance." Kasumi pointed out.
"I'll get on it as soon as this meeting is over." Chao said.
"Which is now. Potter, me ,boya, Chachamaru and Asakura are going with you to the Chamber of Secrets right now to see what state it's in." Eva said as she got up.
A.N.: Well, that's chapter 26. Things are finally starting to move and the group has some new allies and plans. The plot thickens as more secrets are revealed.
Make sure to review and tell me your thoughts about the direction the story is taking.