It took three weeks of secret planning and constant rescheduling for Hari to plan out the trip down into the Chamber of Secrets. They met in Myrtle's bathroom three hours before curfew on a Tuesday night.

"Ready?" Hari asked with a smile she hoped they couldn't tell was fake.

"Yes!" Astoria replied happily. Her hair was tied up in pigtails, which made her look younger than she really was, and Hari couldn't help but smile down at the girl.

Blaise nodded grimly and Hari turned to the sink. "~Open up, buttercup, ~" she said. "It's a long way down, so I'll slide down first and add a cushioning charm, then we'll use the stairs on the way up. Sound good?" They nodded, and Hari jumped down.

It was actually kind of fun, now that she was relatively certain that there wasn't anything dangerous waiting for her. She made it down, laughing as she hit the rough floor. It wouldn't even bruise, but Blaise and Astoria were a little more breakable than Hari was.

"IT'S SAFE!" she called up.

"OKAY!" Blaise called back. He came down first, landed with a small thud, and called up for Astoria to come down.

"What's the rubble from?" Blaise asked as he and Hari worked on repairing that part of the tunnel.

"Lockheart tried to attack me and Ron after the three of us got down here, but do you remember Ron's wand in second year?" she asked.

"Wasn't it held together by spell-o-tape?" he asked as they finished.

"Exactly," Hari laughed. They started walking further into the tunnel, putting up orbs of light as they went. "It rebounded violently," she continued, "He was trying to obliviate us but ended up erasing all of his own memories. He's a permanent resident at St. Mungo's now."

Astoria gasped and grabbed onto Hari's hand as the shed skin came into view.

"I forgot about that," she grimaced, and squeezed the girl's hand, "and the bones, too."

After her initial discomfort, Astoria approached the skin and examined it while she kept her hands firmly behind her back.

"This is disgusting," Astoria said happily. You'd think she would have looked revolted, but instead, she seemed excited. Like the Chamber was turning out to be everything she thought it'd be.

The party kept moving forward, stopping only when they came to the circular door. Hari opened it quickly and lit the torches along the walls. She could make out the corpse in the distance, but it mostly just looked like a dark mass. Astoria came up next to Hari and held her hand again. Hari looked down at the smaller girl and found her scared again. Hari squeezed her hand and quietly assured the girl that they were safe.

Further into the chamber they went, and the basilisk was finally within view. Its head was the first thing to appear in the dim light of the lumos orbs and the torches. It was smaller than she remembered, though still terrifying. She supposed that at twelve the beast had been wider than she was tall, but she could almost see over it now. It was still hard to believe that she'd killed it when she was only twelve. With a sword, a hat, and a phoenix. It was too insane to be real.

Hari stopped just after the entryway and looked down at the small pool of blood. It was hers; she knew it was, but it was still wet. After three years, it shouldn't still be wet. Astoria squeezed her hand and Hari flinched, but Astoria was staring up at her with confidence, silently telling her that it was going to be okay. Hari smiled softly while Blaise approached the corpse.

"It's well preserved," he muttered.

"I think there's some sort of stasis charm over the chamber," she replied.

"Did you really kill it with a sword?" Astoria asked.

"The Sword of Gryffindor," she confirmed. "Dumbledore keeps it in his office now."

"Isn't it goblin-made?" Astoria asked.

"Yes. I know what you're thinking, and I completely agree that it belongs to the nation," Hari said. "I have a feeling they'll be paying a visit to Hogwarts before the year is done."

"Have you thought of harvesting it?" Blaise asked. He'd pulled a little notepad out of his cloak and was jotting down notes.

"Not really," Hari admitted. "I was a bit… preoccupied."

Blaise nodded and continued writing down notes. "You know," he said without looking away from the beast, "you could get upwards of fifty, maybe eighty thousand galleons for this."

"Wait, seriously?" Hari asked.

"Yes," Blaise confirmed. "Of course, it depends on the harvest fee."

"I'll contact the goblins," Hari said. She never would have thought of harvesting the basilisk, and she was learning just how useful it could be to keep a few Slytherins around.

The year continued to be just as horrible as Hari had thought it would be. She shouldn't have been surprised when Umbridge started sitting in on classes. McGonagall and Snape had handled the woman beautifully. Those were truly good days. She'd heard that Divination had been bad though, and Care was downright cringy. Hermione and Hari had tried to warn Hagrid about her; Hermione went so far as to practically write his lesson plans for him, but Hagrid was always going to be Hagrid, and Umbridge was always going to hate him.

The decrees, on the other hand, were getting out of hand. No spellcheck quills. No boys and girls within six inches of each other. No toys or games that weren't 'educational.' No talking about the tournament. No pets outside the common room. No casting recreational spells. Forced consent to mail checks for illegal contraband. No literature from muggles or 'half breeds.' It was ridiculous, and the entirety of the student body was on edge.

Fred and George were making the best of Hari's investment. They'd started testing out new products on willing volunteers. The first years were the easiest bait, and Hermione yelled at them constantly for taking advantage of the kids, but Hari just sat back and watched. She was incredibly grateful that she hadn't been given the prefect's job. In truth, she didn't think the twins were doing anything wrong. They even paid the kids! Hari thought it was a win-win.

After they'd perfected a few inventions, they started selling them to the general population. Hari had even allowed them ten minutes at the start of HA meetings to push their product, as long as they helped out by teaching. She kept a few Fever-Fudges on hand for emergencies, and honestly, the products cheered people up! Hermione, now that she represented the rules, was being super annoying about the whole thing. She couldn't look past the apparent injustice to see how happy it was making people. And they needed something to distract them from Umbridge. Everything Hari had seen from them was brilliant, and she was glad she'd invested early.

The Hogwarts Alliance was the only thing keeping Hari sane. It was the one place where everyone could just be themselves. One room where house and blood were ignored (by threat of punishment, but still). Plus, she and Cedric blocked out time afterword to snog.

Hermione had performed a brilliant piece of magic on fake galleons so they could communicate with each other. The students who attended the meeting were progressing at an almost alarming rate. She ended up separating all the students by skill level. She had settled on five levels of skills instead of seven, to make sure the age groups were mixed up a little. The lowest level had the most people in it. All but one first year, most of the second years, and half of the third years. The rest of the third years, bar Astoria Greengrass, were in the second level with some fourth years and Seamus Finnigan. The third level was fourth, fifth, and sixth years, plus Astoria, and the fourth level was the rest of the sixth and seventh years. The fifth level was just Hari, Cedric, and Hermione.

After shields were mastered, they moved onto stunners. After they could all successfully stun someone, they moved onto jinxes and hexes. Battle charms Hari had learned from Odo made an appearance as well. Hari found that with consistent practice and an encouraging environment, the students improved quickly. Teaching multiple age groups at once had been a bit confusing at first, but it had paid off. Kids were asking the older years for help regardless of house or status, and the older kids were helping them without complaint.

Dennis Creevy, a second year Gryffindor, was often found with Draco Malfoy. Draco would bend down to explain something at Dennis' eye level and encourage the boy proudly when he accomplished the spell. Astoria Greengrass had brought in the entirety of the Slytherin second and first years and had encouraged them to make friends outside of their house. She and Colin Creevy were rarely seen apart within the walls of the Room of Requirement. Daphne Greengrass and Susan Bones had taken a liking to each other, and to everyone's surprise, Luna Lovegood was 'adopted' by a first year Hufflepuff named Rose, who followed Luna around whenever she could.

Things got a lot worse for Draco as Umbridge continued gaining power. His parents were safe from retaliation behind the ancient wards of Malfoy Manor, but Draco wasn't. The Dark Lord was laying low, but that didn't mean that he wasn't recruiting.

Graham Montague, Fergus Cowly, and Adrian Pucey had been marked over the summer and had been given the 'honor' of recruiting inside Hogwarts. From their blatant bragging, Draco knew that their main targets were those in Slytherin house, but they were also instructed to test the waters with the older Ravenclaws. All the fifth-year students, except Pansy and Tracy Davis, were firmly against the Dark Lord, and the older students made their lives hell.

Out of the three marked students, Montague was the only one being subtle. Draco knew the older boy was watching his every movement. Whenever he left the common room, he had to shake the boy off by using secret passageways and taking roundabout paths to wherever he was going. Pucey and Cowly were just hexing him whenever they could. It wasn't anything too damaging yet, and he had always made sure to have a personal supply of healing potions so he wouldn't have to go to Pomfrey or Snape for everything, but his consistent refusal would come back to bite him in the ass eventually.

On top of regular schoolwork, HA meetings, and Hermione's O.W.L. review schedule, there was animagus training. Cedric, Hari, Fred, George, Hermione, and Ginny were finally ready to insert their mandrake leaves, which Snape had provided for them.

The first few days weren't horrible; Hari had found a charm to stick the leaves under their tongues. But as the second week came around, there was a problem. The taste that permeated from the leaves was overwhelming. Hari, having a rather weak stomach, vomited at least twice a day. She was determined to push through the pain, but Cedric found a solution.

It wasn't a great solution, but it did the trick. The six of them decided to spend the remaining three weeks without taste at all. After writing to Sirius about it, he'd responded in all caps, cursing his past self for not thinking of something so brilliant. He said that Peter had lost ten pounds because of it, James had had to sit out of a quidditch match because he felt so awful, and Remus had played nurse in the evenings.

After keeping the mandrake leaves in their mouths for a month, they spit the leaves into a vial in the light of the moon's 'pure rays.' They added one of their hairs to their vials, then a teaspoon of dew that Fred and George had acquired and kept in the dark for seven days. The final ingredient was a chrysalis of a Death's-head Hawk Moth. George took all of their vials (they were carefully labeled) and kept them in a quiet, dark place until the next electrical storm.

While they waited for the storm, they had to recite the incantation, Amato Animo Animato Animagus, every day at sunrise and sunset. Luckily, they only had to wait a few weeks. The first electrical storm of the year occurred a few weeks before Yule break. The six friends met up on the astronomy tower to discover their forms. George gave them their vials, and they recited the spell for the last time.

"Amato Animo Animato Animagus," they said together.

Each then fell into a trance-like state, where they met with their inner animal. George was the first to come out of his trance. Ginny was next, then Hermione and Fred. Cedric took a few extra minutes, and Hari came out of her trance soon after him. Everyone wore secret smiles as they stared at each other, waiting for the first person to announce their form.

"Didn't Sirius say that it was really rare for an animagus form to be a magical creature?" Ginny asked, somewhat nervously.

"You're a magical creature too?" Hari asked, glad that she wasn't the only one. Ginny nodded and relaxed.

"I'm a runespoor," she said with a wide smile.

"That's a three-headed snake, right?" Fred asked, and Ginny nodded again.

"Wicked," the twins answered together.

"I'm a red fox," Fred told them.

"I'm an arctic fox," George added.

"You guys are gonna be so adorable," Hari gushed. "What are you, Mione?"

"A brown bear," she smiled. "What are you?"

"A thunderbird," Hari said as she laughed at the ridiculousness of her life. "I guess it's fitting, considering my lightning-like scar. What about you, Ced?" She finally turned to her soulmate, who had been uncharacteristically quiet.

"Don't laugh," he warned them. He looked apprehensive, but he was also struggling not to laugh.

"Why would we laugh?" Hari took a step forward and put a hand on his arm.

"I'm a golden snidget," he said.

Hari's lips curled inward, and she bit down on them with her teeth to stop herself from smiling. Hermione was covering her mouth with both of her hands, but her smile was evident in her eyes. Ginny had just turned around and jerked occasionally as she fought her laughter. The twins though, they were looking at each other and communicating telepathically.

"That's amazing," Hari finally said. Cedric glared at her softly. "No, really! Ced, you're going to be so tiny and fast! You'd make a great scout."

"A thunderbird and a snidget," Ginny snorted, still facing away from them and Hermione slapped her arm.

"It's kinda funny," Cedric admitted.

"Will you let me chase you on my broom?" Hari asked eagerly and she grabbed his bicep. "Snidget's were the original snitch!"

"Maybe," he grumbled.

"That means yes," George grinned.

"Come on, we're going to miss curfew," Hermione said.

Lessons with Snape were getting more and more disturbing. Tom was an interesting person, and Hari found herself fascinated with his life. His story. He was the perfect student, the perfect prefect, the perfect head boy. He was whoever he needed to be in any situation. He never lost his cool, at least not where anyone would see, and he was utterly brilliant. His O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s had been nearly perfect, and he was spoken highly of by everyone who knew him. Everyone except Albus Dumbledore.

She supposed these memories were supposed to show her that Albus had known the truth about the boy for all his life. That he'd seen evil in little Tom and had done his best to warn others of the dangers that came with associating with him. But what Hari saw was a grown man bullying a child, and a child that could've done anything he put his mind to. A brilliant child, who had ambition and passion and power. She saw a grown man, an already famous and powerful wizard, that was intimidated by an eleven-year-old boy. And she felt sick.

Cedric's magic had been feeling weird for several weeks. He'd been ignoring it, since he wasn't struggling to cast, but it was getting harder. He thought it might have something to do with his and Hari's bond, but they hadn't completed the bond yet, and there wasn't any literature (that he could find) that suggested changes in between each stage of bonding. He hadn't brought it up to Hari because she had so many other things on her plate. She had the future of all of wizarding Britain to think about, and he couldn't justify bothering her with something so small.

He was in the library studying for N.E.W.T.s when he felt a pull on his magic. Once again, he tried ignoring it. But the third time it tugged on him, it hurt. So, he angrily gathered up his study supplies and headed out of the library. He didn't put any conscious effort into where he was going; he let his feet and magic do all the work for him. He ended up in the dungeons. It was odd, but he didn't think the castle would lead him towards anything dangerous, so he kept going. On the very bottom level of the dungeons were about a dozen empty classrooms. Cedric was pulled to one in particular and entered to find Neville Longbottom.

"Hey," Cedric said awkwardly.

"Hi," Neville replied, equally as awkward.

"You weren't waiting for someone, were you?"

"No, I just…" Neville laughed, "It's going to sound barmy, but I just felt pulled here."

"I was too," Cedric said. He was thrilled not to be the only one, and he and Neville started talking about how jittery and eager their magic had been feeling. While they were talking, Hermione and Hari entered.

"Hey," Hari smiled when she saw Cedric. "What are you guys doing here?"

"What are you doing here?" Neville countered.

"We felt pulled here," Hermione said. "Like the castle was leading us here."

"Us too," Cedric told them. "Has your magic been feeling off?"

"Yeah," Hari confirmed.

"You didn't say anything," Cedric said.

"Neither did you," she countered.

They stood in an awkward circle, just looking at each other while they waited for something to happen. But nothing did. There were several more hours until curfew, so they transfigured a few small desks into one large table and worked on homework.

After the castle brought them all together, they started spending more time together as a group. Hari, Hermione, and Neville already hung out a lot, but Cedric started going out of his way to seek out the other two almost as much as he sought out Hari. They were convinced that something would happen eventually, so they put it out of their minds.

Now that Hari was always flanked by Hermione and Neville, she didn't have to worry so much about being attacked, verbally or physically, in the halls. Neville had seemingly made it his personal mission to put others in their place and would simply not allow people to talk badly about her. It was odd, but Hari loved it. Being made a prefect had given Neville the confidence and the push he had needed to finally come out of his shell.

Tensions were coming to a head in the snake pit. The Dark Lord had lost some of his most powerful followers and had begun recruiting from the lesser families, or families with children that were close to graduating. The three seventh year boys that had been marked over the summer had amassed a small following that included Pansy, Tracy Davis, Curtis Evercreech, Holden Ledbury, and Timothy Morcott. The common denominator in the group was that none of them were that powerful. Pansy was the most powerful of them and had been appointed their leader, despite the fact that she wasn't marked. But Pansy's power had still never come close to Draco's. The problem was that they attacked as a group after getting their chosen prey alone. Even Draco would have struggled against a group of eight.

Theodore Nott had been their primary target all year. When the return of the Dark Lord had been announced, he had jumped into action right away. He knew what his father would expect of him and had begged Draco for sanctuary. He'd accepted, and Theo had spent the summer at Malfoy Manor, behind their ancient wards, while his parents played host to the madman. The first time they had ganged up on him, they'd only threatened him. In their own words, they just wanted to explain the displeasure that Lord and Lady Nott felt with their son and reminded him of everything he had to lose if he continued his 'childish rebellion.' When Theo had held firm, they roughed him up a bit. It hadn't been bad enough to go to Snape or Pomfrey, but Draco had seen the writing on the wall and had started stocking up on healing potions. The third time they targeted Theo, Draco had seriously considered going to their head of house, who was also his own godfather. But Theo had been adamantly against it, and Draco had respected the boy's wishes.

Most of Slytherin house was trying to remain neutral, but the Dark Lord's supporters were loud. Pansy had made it her personal mission to hex all the other fifth years whenever they had to pass through the common room, and she was flanked by two sixth year boys who really just wanted to fuck her. In Draco's opinion, the house of snakes was going to shit. They'd forsaken subtlety and cunning for brute force and intimidation. It was overwhelmingly Gryffindor, and it was shameful. He could only be expected to stay quiet for so long.