Here's the newest chapter for the "Harry Potter: the Serpent Lord", enjoy!
* Review response:
Penny is wise, ElementalMaster16, Taboo22, jafr86, amir22, major wallace, Hanzo of the Salamander 2.0, obsessivegirl73, god of all, thank you for your reviews, folks!
Naginator, Impstar, Vukk, read and see, what happens (I will hint that three reviewers guesses correctly, what will happen to Harry's lost eye)
m-f42, sorry, but that would have been too simple...
The Sinful, well, for me BFG is BFG-9000 from "DOOM II", and that one will not work around magic =P
Awsomeness7, no.
Reishin Amara, I've replied you via PM.
Armacryss, who said about it not being destroyed? As for why it was destroyed before Harry died - well, horcrux had weaker connection to Harry's body than his own soul, so it got 'disconnected' first.
Victorules, sorry, but, yeah, the fight was not as good as it could have been.
Still Not Dead Yet, you can say that those ...are eggs =) (yes, I know that his particular technology was developed sometime around late 2000-s, but, for the sake of the story, let it be there in 1994). Harry got the memories from his own horcrux, not the diary, and those 'think' independently. And yes, I'm writing my own challenge =)
Arct1cfox, yes, a bit. As paper-thin as this explanation is, I don't have any other. *wink*
* Disclaimer: I DO NOT own "Harry Potter" and its characters in any shape or form.
"human speech"
"wraith speech"
'human thoughts'
"spells / parseltongue"
This chapter was not beta-read yet.
Important! This story is on hold for the next month or so as I feel like I'm running out of inspiration there. So, for the time being, I'll concentrate on my "Naruto" stories.
chapter 25: Recovering
Dumbledore was sitting in his office, trying his best to understand what the diary that Fawkes brought from the Chamber of Secrets was... Of course, it was obvious that it was full of dark magic. The question was what kind of dark magic that was, since the diary contained a spirit that could possess someone, and the said spirit claimed to be the heir of Salazar Slytherin, just like Tom Marvolo Riddle – later under the alias of Lord Voldemort – did.
To the ancient headmaster it appeared that Tom had somehow split his soul, and had placed a fragment into the diary. This would explain why Voldemort was still in this world the previous year, even if he was nothing more than a parasitic wraith... And, unfortunately, Albus Dumbledore knew about a very dark ritual that allowed one to split the very soul and bind its part to a physical object... Most likely, the diary used to be a dark object called a 'horcrux'...
He was brought out of his thoughts when the gargoyle informed him that he had a visitor who wasn't either a student or a member of the staff. Telling the guardian of his office to let the visitor in, Dumbledore placed the diary into one of many drawers of his table and cleaned his table from various magical trinkets that he had there while he was examining the diary... Just when he finished preparing for the visitor, the door of his office opened, revealing an aristocratic blond man in his late thirties or early forties with an elegant cane in his left hand.
"What can I do for you this fine evening, lord Malfoy?" The Hogwarts headmaster asked as he greeted his guest. The man didn't greet back and just quietly took a seat across the table from him.
"Unfortunately, Dumbledore, I don't share your cheerful mood. It is always a sad day when an illustrious institution with centuries on history has to be closed, but we can't be risking the lives of our children, for they are our future." Of course, Albus knew that Lucius was talking about only pureblood children. "As the Board of Governors should have informed you, Hogwarts will be closed, thanks to the bastard who started attacking children within castle's walls."
"Oh. Then, I'm afraid, my owls haven't reached you yet." Dumbledore said with a smile. "Today, just after four in the afternoon the so-called 'heir of Slytherin', as well as the monster of the Chamber were terminated. So the castle is once again safe for the children and I see no reason for Hogwarts to be closed." The ancient wizard said cheerfully.
"...I see." Lucius Malfoy replied after a pretty long pause. "If this is not a secret, I'd like to know who was behind the attacks."
"The same person as the last time, Lucius." Dumbledore said. "But this time lord Voldemort was acting through someone else, by the means of a dark object of his creation that had somehow bypassed the wards around the castle." The elder Malfoy replied nothing.
"Very well... I shall be going then. The Board of Governors surely would like to hear about this happy turn of events as soon as possible." And not waiting for the Hogwarts headmaster to reply, lord Malfoy walked out of the office...
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A certain blond Slytherin witch slipped into the infirmary to visit her 'associate'. She'd have done this earlier, though, but she didn't want to be seen by the Weasley clan that were there to see their daughter (who was then sent to st. Mungo's hospital as treating the aftereffects of possession and life-draining rituals was beyond madam Pomfrey)...
Draconica stopped next to his bed and looked at the sleeping form of one Harry Potter, who now had a vertical scar on the right side of his face – thankfully completely healed by the phoenix tears even before he was brought to the hospital wing – and an eye-patch over the lost right eye... She didn't knew what came upon her as she walked up to the head of the bed and leaned over him.
"It was so stupid of you to go and face the basilisk alone." The blond witch whispered. "What possessed you to do that? Sometimes you act so much like an idiotic Gryffindor..." She made a pause. "But, I guess, that is what make you who you are, right... Harry?" Her forehead gently touched his, while she just as gently cupped his left cheek with her hand... But a couple of seconds later she straightened up, putting her normal aloof mask back on, and started walking away. But she stopped just several steps later. "Get well soon,.. Potter." She said softly as she looked back at him. And then she resumed walking, while wondering what had possessed her during that moment of intimacy...
If only she knew that for some reason Harry wasn't as unconscious at that moment as she thought, and had heard and felt everything she did...
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Harry awoke more a day later, and was not at all surprised to find himself in the Hospital wing. Some sweets on the table next to his bed wasn't that surprising too, as he did have friends that would wish him to get well soon... Putting his glasses on, the scion of the house Potter looked around, quickly noticing lack of the screens in the infirmary: it appeared that the mandrake restorative draught was already brewed and administered to the petrified students (and one Astronomy professor)... At this point madam Pomfrey entered the ward, apparently notified by an alarm of some kind that had woken up.
"Good morning, Mr. Potter." She said. Indeed, according to the clock on the wall of the infirmary, it was almost seven in the morning. Harry was looking at her for several seconds, before asking:
"For how long was I unconscious?"
"You were brought here by headmaster's phoenix at about four fifteen in the afternoon on the day before yesterday." She replied. "And now that you're awake, I'd like to finish checking your health, young man." Sighing, Harry just allowed her to do her job, hoping that she'll be done soon and he'll be allowed to leave: honestly, aside from being one eye short, he felt fine.
"So..." He started cautiously when madam Pomfrey stopped waving her wand around him – he had actually recognized some of the diagnostic charms she used, but most were unknown to him yet. "Am I free to go?"
"Oh, not so fast, young man." The medi-witch tried to scold him. "I know you think you are fine, but your magic is still low, and your body still needs rest: phoenix tears, as marvelous as they are, put a lot of strain on your body as they actually force it to heal itself." She paused. "I'm sure you know about your new scar and your eye..." Harry nodded. "Well, I'm sorry, but I can do nothing about either of those. No one can. Also, I've noticed that whatever magic was saturated around your old scar, it is gone for good..."
'So, she knew about the dark magic around the scar on my forehead, but didn't knew it was a horcrux.' Harry concluded. 'But why didn't she do anything about it before? It's not like it's my first time in the Hospital wing.' Then he thought about his memories that Dumbledore had sealed at the end of the previous school year: he knew about those, but was yet to sort through those. 'I'm quite sure that the ...headmaster has something to do with that.' The young Potter, though, decided that listening to what the nurse had to say about his health right now was more important than trying to guess what the headmaster was scheming.
"...-Seems that I'll have you to spend another night or two here, to make sure that you are most definitely alright." Apparently, he had missed some part of her 'speech' while he was deep in his thoughts. Oh, well... He sighed.
"Fine." After all, he already knew that arguing with madam Pomfrey about when he is ready to leave her care was useless... "But can you tell me, what happened to ms. Weasley? I can see her in the ward?" He asked then.
"Well..." The Hogwarts nurse said, while lowering her head a bit. "She had most of her life drained by whatever ritual the 'heir' did, so she was sent to st. Mungo's for treatment. They said that she'll recover eventually, but it's not likely that she'll attend Hogwarts the next year." Harry too lowered his head: poor Ginny, she did nothing (at least, as far as he knew) to deserve this...
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As soon as Harry was released from the Hospital wing, he headed to the Myrtle's toilet and to the Chamber of Secrets, which surprisingly was just as easy accessible to him as it was four days ago. Even the gates that Tom Riddle placed to block the pipe were gone... Well, the corridor was still blocked by the collapse caused by the magical explosion of Ron's wand, but now, armed with Voldemort's knowledge of magic, the young Potter quickly cleared the way for himself, and reinforced the ceiling so that there will be no new collapses.
Finding the exact pipe where the serpent's carcass was proved to be not that hard, thanks to the very useful point me charm... The body of the basilisk, despite the time passed, was still in perfect condition, so the scion of the house Potter decided to do possibly a very stupid thing and try to take snake's eye as his own. An eye for an eye...
With a wave of his wand, Harry transfigured a stone on the floor into a glass jar that he knew he'll need. Then he added an unbreakable charm onto the jar, and filled it with saline... Carefully taking the serpent's right eye out of its socket, the green-eyed wizard shrank it down to the size of an human one – this proved to be quite a task, thanks to the magical resistance the basilisk possessed...
"Stabilis corporis!" The young Gryffindor cast a spell that 'overwrote' the magical properties of the eye, to make the magic think that its current state was the normal one: he didn't want to lose 'his' eye again from a simple finite incantem, after all. Placing the 'corrected' eye into the jar, Harry sealed it there and placed under the stasis charm. Finally, he shrank the jar and put into a pockets of his robe.
Harry was about to leave the Chamber, when the mad scientist in him awoken: there, right in front of him was a basilisk, an extremely rare breed of magical snakes. He absolutely must at least try to study it! And since the basilisk was actually a female one, it was ought to have some ova. Those would be interesting interesting to study, very much so... So, creating another unbreakable saline-filled jar, the young Potter started the delicate procedure of getting the ova out of the basilisk – he intended to sell the carcass as soon as he could come to Gringotts, so he needed it to be in the best condition possible...
...An hour later Harry emerged from the Chamber of Secrets and continued on his way to the Gryffindor common room. His homework wasn't going to do itself, no matter how much he wished it would. At least now he had Tom's memories to help him where his own knowledge wasn't enough...
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Now that everyone was revived, and the 'heir' was no more, the school resumed as normal. Aside from the Defense Against the Dark Arts, of course, since Lockhart was in no condition to continue 'teaching'. And as all other professors were busy with their own classes, Albus Dumbledore had to be the fill in. At least he was actually teaching something useful each lesson, unlike the previous two professors...
Free passes for all end of year exams (the mark being either an average of the marks the student got before his or her petrification, or 'Acceptable') were offered as a recompense to those, who were attacked by the 'heir', by the Board of Governors. This didn't apply to OWLs and NEWTs, though, and thus fifth and seventh years still had to catch up on their studies as soon as possible... Harry too was given a free pass, but only for his DADA exam, but the green-eyed Gryffindor wasn't upset by this too much...
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On the Friday evening three weeks before the end of the school year Harry finally decided to check a very interesting room that, according to Tom, allowed one to hide anything. This room was located on the seventh floor opposite the tapestry depicting the attempt of Barnabas the Barmy to teach trolls ballet... Since Harry hadn't heard about this room before, he decided that asking someone who knew the castle really well about it was in order, so he summoned one of the many house elves that worked in Hogwarts, to see what they knew about this place.
As it turned out, the 'secret' room – the Come and go room as it was called by the house elves – could do so much more than providing a place to hide things: according to Trinky the elf, the room could change into what one needed it to be. Thanking the elf for this information, the scion of the house Potter dismissed her and started experimenting...
It took him several tries, but he managed to configure the room into what he needed for the ritual to replace his destroyed eye with the one he took from the basilisk. Sealing the door from the inside – he didn't want anyone to interrupt the ritual – Harry took the glass jar with the eye from his pocket and, returning it to its original size, removed the stasis. He then paced the ritual onto the silver pedestal in the center of one of the two ritual circles. Removing his eye-patch he took his place in the other circle. He took a deep breath to prepare himself for whatever was to come and let his magic flow into the ritual circles.
"Vicarius meus: oculus!" Bright white glow surrounded both him and the eye. Then there was pain, and he knew no more.
He woke up several hours later – early in the morning of Saturday, according to the tempus charm; His right eye felt sore... It felt! It was there! The ritual was successful! Not wasting any more time, the green-eyed wizard ran towards the nearest surface that could be used as a mirror. In the reflection he saw himself, his left eye was still bright-green and human. His right one was now yellowish and slitted, a snake's eye... And looking into it was making him feel weird: apparently, the eye had retained some of its magical properties, though, those surely were not as powerful now. Maybe it could petrify someone who looked straight into it and didn't have any sort of protection from the gaze... But it was not much a problem as Harry decided that he would still wear the patch – he didn't want to be more of a freak than he already was...
Surprisingly enough, no one noticed that he was absent from the dorms in the night. But then again, all second years were more interested in choosing electives for their third year... Shrugging, Harry joined the rest of his classmates.
The electives they were allowed to chose from were Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, Care of Magical Creatures, Divination and Muggle Studies. And since they weren't allowed to drop any of the courses they already had, it seemed to be stupid to pick mire than two or three electives. But Hermione being her usual knowledge-hungry self went ahead and signed for all five...
Harry himself, remembering his desire to be some kind of a medic – he still wasn't sure which one, though – chose the courses he thought would be the most useful for him: Ancient runes, as runes were used in many rituals, including healing ones; Arithmancy for spell creation and modification; and Care of Magical Creatures, to know more about the ...beast potion ingredients came from.
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The rest of the school year passed without any major events. Harry was getting some weird looks for the first several days after his release from the Hospital wing, thanks to the eye-patch he now wore, but no one dared to call him names because of that as everyone seemed to know that he had slain the monster from the Chamber.
Exams were easy for Harry, thanks to the knowledge he got from Tom Riddle, not that it allowed him to beat Hermione... Neville, Draconica and Daphne – who, along with Tracey, now was a part of the gold-and-silver clique – did well too. Of course, there were some problems with the DADA exam, thanks to Lockhart teaching them nothing, but all members of the DS got O's and E's...
Just like the previous year, the Great hall was decorated with red and gold, as Gryffindor won the house cup again, outscoring Slytherin by almost thirty points. The elves once again outdid themselves with all of those delicious dishes they cooked for the feast.
The train ride back to London was uneventful for Harry, Neville and Hermione with the later two discussing some of the more advanced Herbology books, while the young Potter was making plans for his visit to Gringotts...
That's all, folks!
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