"That," said Hermione "Verified Greengrass's story about the future."
"Or she's working for Voldemort," said Harry, wrapping his finger in his handkerchief.
Daphne Greengrass sighed, and walked over to Harry, and tapped his little finger with her wand, "episky!" she said firmly, and Harry jerked his hand away.
"I'm healing the cut, idiot" said Daphne.
Harry glowered at her, and unwound the blood-spattered handkerchief. Under the bloody cloth, his fingertip was perfectly whole.
"You healed it?" said Harry.
"That's what I said. Merlin's balls, you've seen episky before, surely." said Daphne Greengrass. "When your mo – whoever looks after you heals your cuts?" she said.
"I live with muggles" said Harry, turning away, just in time for Hermione to jab his handkerchief with her wand, and cast "scourgify!" which after some fizzing foam, left the handkerchief blood-free.
"Thanks Hermione," said Harry, looking at the floor.
"Oh just bloody great. I heal your cut and I don't get a single word of thanks, and she cleans your handkerchief, and she gets a thank-you. Ugh!" said Daphne Greengrass.
Ron snorted.
Meanwhile, Tracey stepped past the little group and entered the secret room, lit wand high.
"Oh wow!" she exclaimed "There's loads of scrolls!"
Hermione turned and lifted her wand, lighting it, and headed into the secret room – the floor littered with scrolls.
"Oh no" gasped Hermione "Someone's thrown scrolls on the floor!"
Ron rolled his eyes. "Someone needs to work on their – "
And that was when Daphne Greengrass hexed him.
"OW!" exclaimed Ron, rubbing his upper arm "She's bloody mental!"
Harry sighed. "Can you not hex Ron?" he asked, looking up at the secret room.
"All the scrolls are important," said Daphne Greengrass loudly, "If anyone steps on one, I will hex them."
Hermione had started picking up scrolls off the floor, while muttering "If only I knew some scroll preservation spells"
Harry went and helped. The secret room was fifteen feet by fifteen feet, and on the side wall was a stone hearth with a rusty old cauldron that was falling apart. The back of the room had a desk with legs in the shape of crossed snakes at either side, and the chair had the same crossing-over leg design like X's, but decorated like snakes. Against one wall was a sort of diagonal laths thing cum-wine-rack full of scrolls.
"This desk and chairs are medieval at least" said Hermione "The look like some examples in the British Museum." She'd made a pile of scrolls on the desk.
Harry stopped and unrolled the scroll and started reading.
'– Rowena persists in calling it Hogwarts. Just because we saw a pair of battered looking hogs when we were scouting the site. When time permits I will find a better name. So far Godric has suggested,
Awesome school of magic, Godric and Friends school of magic, and Salazar the Sex god's school of magic. Fortunately, Helga and Rowena were not there to hear that, though he did put poor dear Margarita completely out of countenance. Worst friend ever.
Ideas so far: Four friends school of magic.
Cairngorm magical college ( might be troublesome, we want to keep it secret)
Sorcery's home (Margarita claims it sounds like a cooking school)
Secret Sorcery School. (I like the alliteration.)'
Harry suspected this was written by Salazar Slytherin. And that he was at least as rubbish at naming things as Hermione. He tapped Hermione on the shoulder and showed her the scroll.
"Oh dear, it's ruined" said Hermione "All the writing's smeared into squiggles. I suppose the damp off the floor has done it."
Harry looked at the scroll again. It was fairly legible. "Hermione, it's quite legible. And I wear glasses," he added.
"Harry, it's just squiggles!" said Hermione petulantly. Then Daphne Greengrass snatched the scroll out of his hands, and looked at it.
"Potter, can you read this?" she asked slowly.
"Yeah. Of course I can."
"She was right," whispered Daphne Greengrass.
"Who was right?" asked Harry "Rownea Ravenclaw?, I mean all his ideas for a name are miles worse than Hogwarts."
"What on earth are you talking about?" asked Daphne Greengrass, staring at him eyebrows raised like he'd said something insane.
"Well it's got that Rowena wanted to call it Hogwarts because they saw some um, injured hogs when they were scouting for a building site, and that he and Godric had thought of some other names, but frankly they're all crap. I mean… four friends school would just stupid."
"Potter… this is unreadable squiggles. Future me said only you could read some of the scrolls, because Salazar Slytherin had written them in parsel-writing. Which sounds like a stupid, made-up thing, but here you are, going on about something you read in illegible squiggles."
"It might be just that his handwriting's so bad he can read it" said Hermione, who'd stopped picking up scrolls and taken to looking in scroll after scroll. She stopped at one and was reading, her lips moving. Harry gave her a glare.
"Granger, what have you found?" asked Tracey.
"This one's in Latin. But it makes no sense. Someone's apologising for missing gaming night, Margarita is sick." said Hermione.
"Yeah" said Harry "He mentioned Margarita in the one I read."
"Who the hell is Margarita?" asked Tracey. "I've never heard of her."
"What's gaming night?" asked Lilith.
"Well obviously, they've got a weekly sesh playing chess or something" said Ron. "Stands to reason, wizards, gaming, ergo wizards chess."
Harry could hear Hermione groan.
With everyone helping, soon all the scrolls were off the floor, and everyone was looking at them and Perks was looking at the scrolls on the scroll-rack ,which was made of diagonal wooden slats.
"This one's not in Latin, but it's not english" she said, holding a little scroll.
Hermione barged in and looked at it. "Its looks a little like welsh." she said.
"Pansy might be able to read it" said Daphne Greengrass.
"Parkinson?" said Hermione sourly.
"They're Welsh." said Daphne.
"That explains everything" said Hermione.
"Don't be so bally racist!" said Daphne. "She just hates you, that's all."
"She's a blood supremacist bitch" muttered Perks.
Harry looked over at Perks, who glared at him. Harry broke eye-contact, and stared at the floor awkwardly.
"I feel," said Daphne Greengrass awkwardly. "That I need to tell you all something important."
"We know you're married to him in the future, You've been going on and on about it" said Tracey.
"Kind of Pathetic really," added Lilith.
"No. About Harry's family tree." said Daphne.
"What" said Harry, staring at her, feeling swelling indignation that she'd talk about his family.
"The Potters are… well let's not talk about them" she said "Everyone saw the snakes on the front door to the chamber?"
"Well of course we did" said Ron.
"They had green eyes" said Daphne, pursing her lips.
"Were those real emeralds?" asked Hermione.
"Harry Potter has green eyes. His mother had green eyes" said Daphne "And Harry Potter can talk to snakes. Salazar Slytherin could, famously, talk to snakes."
"That's a little bit of Voldemort's powers transferred to me when the tried to kill me, it's the scar" said Harry tiredly. "Professor Dumbledore explained years ago."
"Well he was lying like a… lying liar," said Daphne Greengrass, "Your blood opened the door to Slytherin's office, you can open the door to the chamber of secrets, which has green eyes on the snakes. Your mother, who had green eyes, was, I'm told the descendant of a long line of squibs, from Slytherin. His squib daughter. Squibs, so I told myself, when they marry, they can have magical children. Much like Granger and Perks here."
"So… they're not muggle-born?" asked Lilith.
"Well, a squib is not much different from a muggle" said Daphne. "And it makes the tradition of abandoning squibs in the muggle world look stupid. If they just married someone else's family's squibs they'd probably have proper magical children, instead they are often lost."
"What is the technical difference between a squib and a muggle anyway?" asked Hermione.
"I have no idea" said Daphne. "If there is one anyway."
"Hmm" said Hermione "It's not all or nothing. Or there'd be miles more magical children born."
"And there aren't many." said Tracey "Just a few dozens every year. Mum goes on about it. At length."
"Her mums' a healer," explained Lilith.
"And 'muggle-born' like Perks and Granger" said Daphne. "So. Potter's got Slytherin blood from his mother. I was told more about that, but it's a secret. Because… of some other things."
"So, what are we doing now?" asked Hermione.
"Putting all the scrolls in the space expanded bag." said Daphne.
"But they're priceless historical treasures." complained Hermione.
"A large part is what is technically termed family magic, under the aegis of the Family Magics Act, and therefore the property of Harry Potter, and Voldemort. Who, as you're all probably aware, is a parselmouth, and a distant relation of Harry's – and according to future me, on both his father and mothers side. His mother was the next oldest member of the family till Voldemort killed her." said Daphne. "So, this is all Harry's – or Voldemort's. Given it was already raided, Voldemort was already here and took what he wanted."
"If he's already taken what he wanted, surely all the good stuff is gone?" asked Harry.
"There are two medical spells in here somewhere" said Daphne "One will cure my sister – and repaired a lot of the damage you got from the Basilisk, and the other will, um, well it treats period pain, and older me said it was an absolute godsend."
Harry went red in the face, and Ron grimaced. "ick" said Ron.
"Hang on?" said Harry "You told yourself about these spells but didn't write it down?"
"Course not. Violating the Family Magics act could get my wand snapped." said Daphne. "You'll have to check all the scrolls for the healing spell. It's written in parsel-writing, so nobody but you can read it, and the rest are possibly family magic, so technically you could sue us for reading them. Older me was married to you, so she was within her rights."
"Nobody here at Hogwarts has ever mentioned the family magics act," said Hermione.
"Well, we learn free magic. The family secrets don't get shared around." said Daphne.
"We've got some apple-tree and cider related ones that don't work that well," said Ron, "We used to make cider commercially, but then Codlin moth destroyed our orchard, and we kinda went broke."
"It's been mentioned." said Daphne. "I'm from just outside Appleby."
"Everyone in the reeve makes cider" said Tracey. "But my dad doesn't know how, so he gets Daphne's dad to handle it."
"And daddy is terrible at making cider" said Daphne. "Mummy is good at potions, so she sort of … fixes it up."
"This one's really short" said Tracey, holding a small scroll. "And it's not in Latin, but I think it's Scottish."
Daphne took it and sighed "Old scots – basically celtic."
"Why can she recognise Celtic?" asked Hermione
"Because she has a load of really boring old great-aunts" said Tracey.
"Some are just annoying," said Daphne, "Great Aunt Serafina's mother was in an arranged marriage, and Great Aunt Serafina goes on and on about how people these days don't respect traditions."
"So, she was in an arranged marriage too? "asked Harry.
"She never married," said Daphne, "but collects boring books in obscure languages, and makes one read paragraphs aloud."
"Could be worse, there's her Great aunt Excrutia" said Tracey "Weird old dingbat that taught Daphne deportment."
"Excrutia?" asked Harry.
"Her mother was in labour for three days." said Daphne. "Fortunately daddy married mummy, and I didn't get the skinny Greengrass hips."
"Nope, she got the child-bearing hips instead" said Tracey, slapping Daphne on the hip. "Check out the room on there – Potter, your kids'll slide right out."
"TRACE!" shouted Daphne, in a grimace.
"Ah, you love me" said Tracey.
"Don't humiliate me in front if HIM!"
"I've got to" said Tracey "I'm your potty-mouthed bestie. It's in the job description."
"We used to think they were gay," said Lilith conversationally, "But they're just sad gits."
"Just because we're not… prepared to stoop to dating the boys in our year doesn't makes us sad gits" said Daphne.
"Well, not the Slytherin ones anyway" said Tracey. "Of course she's been terribly excited since she came back and told herself she was going to be Mrs Potter."
"Mrs Black" said Daphne.
"Excited?" I'd be enraged" said Hermione.
Harry sighed.
"Well, you see, it could be so much worse" said Lilith "They could both have had each other's names appear on their wrists one night."
"What?" asked Hermione, her nose crinkling.
"It's a genre" said Daphne Greengrass, with a faint blush on her cheeks.
"Its romance stories for sad gits" said Tracey.
Daphne started packing the scrolls into the space expanded bag and Harry had an idea. A fantastic idea.
He swirled his wand in a sideways figure eight. Visualising the effect he wanted ,and said sharply "Pack!"
All the scrolls piled up on the table floated up into the air and slid into the mouth of the space-expanded bag.
"Did you just cast a spell in English?" asked Hermione "Is that even possible?" She was staring at him and her eyebrows were batting together.
"Who taught you that" asked Daphne Greengrass sharply.
"Oh Professor Lupin" said Harry casually. He couldn't help a faint smirk.
"You could have taught me!" complained Ron "I could'a saved ages packing my trunk."
Hermione's face scrunched up as she was quite clearly holding in a judgemental retort.
"What's the wand movement?" asked Tracey "just for interest?"
"Oh it's sideways figure eights" said Harry.
Lilith rolled her eyes, and started moving handfuls of scrolls from the scroll rack to the space-expanded bag. Perks helped.
Eventually all the scrolls were in the bag, and Harry left the room. Ron followed.
There was a bit of a shoving match as the Slytherin girls came though the door, and Hermione closed it behind them.
"Why'd you close the door?" asked Tracey.
"So the furniture won't get damaged" said Hermione. "They're priceless antiques."
"They're kinda old," said Harry. "But don't mind me, sure, I'll bleed on the door to open it again."
"Well it's not like I could just bleed on it to open it" said Ron.
"Well, what if you could"? Asked Daphne "This could be a really interesting tool for finding out who's related to Potter's mother."
Hermione crooked her finger at Ron "Ron" she said softly "Come here."
"Uhuh nope. Not doing it" said Ron.
"Ron, don't be a baby. It's just a little prick."
Tracey snorted.
Hermione seized Ron's hand, cut the back with her wand and dabbed it on the section of wall that had the paint splot. The secret door opened.
"You and Harry are cousins!" said Hermione. "Um, Greengrass, can you heal that cut?"
Daphne rolled her eyes and healed the cut on the back of Ron's hand with the episky spell. Harry started to think he really wanted to know it.
"Thanks Greengrass" said Ron "And you – you cut my hand!"
"But Weasley's are related to Slytherin, and I mean really, who would have guessed that?" said Hermione.
"Well no pureblood supremacist wankers," muttered Perks.
"Greengrass?" asked Hermione "would you, um, try opening the door" she asked, and shoved the secret door shut.
"Granger, this is a horrible idea. If it turns out I'm related to someone that I married in the future. People would talk." said Daphne Greengrass indignantly.
"Well, if you're too chicken" said Hermione snidely, and she cut the back of her own hand, pressed it to the secret door, and it opened. Hermione smiled broadly, and kicked the door shut with her foot "Nothing to see here" she said.
"You're my cousin?" asked Ron, looking, to Harry surprise, a little pale and wide-eyed.
"Huh. All the Gryffindors are related to Slytherin" said Tracey. "That's got to be some kind of wrong."
Perks – what was her first name? cut the back of her hand and sort of squeezed over like – Harry was uncomfortably reminded of moving at Privet drive, trying to take up no space. But her blood opened the secret door.
"Now that's interesting" said Tracey "All the Gryffindors, and Perks, – Sally-Anne who's a muggle-born. But, therefore, probably squibs and has all these cousins."
Tracy shoved the door shut, and cut her own hand, and the secret door opened. "And me too. Do you think I should tell Professor Snape, or would he have a heart attack?"
She closed the door. "Daph, come on, you try?"
"I'm going to regret this" muttered Daphne Greengrass, and she tried – and she too could open the door with her blood.
"The question now" said Hermione thoughtfully "Is does it actually require anyone's blood in particular?"
"I know I'm not Weasley's cousin. Great Aunt Excrutia made us memorise genealogy" said Daphne.
"She sounds… awful" said Harry sympathetically, and Lilith tried opening the door. It opened for her blood too.
"What we have here" said Ron thoughtfully "Is the door to Slytherin's office, which you have to bleed on to open."
"That's not a real lock though, is it" said Sally-Anne "If anyone can do it, it's not a lock."
"Well, a parseltounge is needed to open the toilet door, and the front lock" said Hermione hurriedly, "And then the secret words for the statue mouth, also in parseltongue. It's sort of locked."
"What are the passwords anyway – in english?" asked Hermione, "so, Slytherin's office is here, Harry, but the mouth on the statue opens using a longer password."
"Yeah" said Harry, and he fidgeted.
"What's the password for the sink?" asked Daphne.
"Well, it's jusst open" said Harry.
"Mate, you hissed a bit" said Ron.
"And the password for the door to the chamber of secrets?" asked Hermione.
"Well that's open too." admitted Harry.
"But the mouth password is longer?"
"Well yeah, that's Speak to me, Slytherin, the greatest of the Hogwarts four" said Harry.
"How on earth would you guess that?" asked Tracey.
"I didn't, Voldemort used it to bring out the basilisk." said Harry.
"What was-you-know-who doing at Hogwarts?"
"Like I said, possessing a first-year" said Harry. "His real name's Tom Marvolo Riddle. He got a special award for services to the school for framing Hagrid for being the one that brought in a dangerous animal that killed Myrtle."
"Hagrid was at school with Voldemort?" croaked Lilith.
"Well yeah" said Harry "Hagrid's pet, um, man-eating giant spider wasn't to blame, but he went to Azkaban. I think he was like a third year, they snapped his wand."
"Bloody spiders." said Ron bitterly.
"What happened to the spider?"
"Hagrid hid it in the forest, and it's bred" said Ron "Never, and I mean never go in there." Ron shook his head emphatically.
"Doesn't it take two to tango, even if they're spiders?" asked Tracey.
"Well yeah" said Harry "But later on, Aragog was lonely, Hagrid got out of Azkaban, and well, Aragog can talk, so he said how lonely he was."
"Oh god" said Daphne, looking very pale. "He's a menace."
"They don't bother him" said Hermione. "Probably because he's half-giant, and their grandfather was Hagrid's pet, then friend. But I agree that the giant spiders probably need to be relocated."
"Into holes in the ground." said Ron.
"But they can talk" said Hermione.
"They only want to eat us" admitted Harry.
"Why on earth would anyone go see man eating spiders?" asked Daphne.
"It's a long story, and the punchline is, it's Harry's fault" said Ron.
Harry felt really picked on.
Harry led the way out of the round room, and slid down his sieze-and-pull charm to the floor of The Chamber of Secrets.
"Are there more secret doors here?" asked Hermione, landing on her feet.
Once everyone had got down, Harry stared at one of the nearby snake statues, then hissed out "$close$" and with shuddering, the mouth of Salazar Slytherin closed.
Daphne Greengrass waited a moment then said theatrically "Speak to me, Slytherin, Greatest of the Hogwarts four!"
And the statue's mouth grated open.
"You did it in english," said Ron, looking confused.
"Salazar Slytherin was…" said Daphne.
"A tosser" said Tracey "No offence Potter."
"So his bally office is behind two secret doors, and you have to call him great to open one more." said Daphne, "I can see that the myths about the founders are… probably." she paused.
"Myths," interjected Harry snidely. "Um, Moon, could you detect ssecret doors?"
"Harry, you're hissing again" said Ron.
"Sorry mate – it's just there are a lot of snake sstatues here." said Harry apologetically.
"Imagine if the professors all had offices hidden like this" said Sally-Anne "It'd be torture trying to get an extension, or ask questions in office hours."
"Well, McGonagall couldn't be more intimidating," said Tracey, "Nobody'd voluntarily go see her."
"She's not as scary as she looks," said Ron ,"We've been carpeted loads, so have all my brothers, all she does if dock points, the odd detention, she's not going to cut you up for potions ingredients like Snape."
"Snape's a special case" said Tracey "Nobody would go see him."
"So he's not nicer to you lot?" asked Ron.
"He's terrifying" squeaked Sally-Anne. "He took me aside and told me I should keep my head down in first year."
"He really is a terrible teacher" said Hermione.
"McGonagall did send us to detention in the forbidden forest at night," said Harry thoughtfully, "And we nearly got killed by Voldemort."
"Potter, never offer comforting advice" said Daphne Greengrass.
Harry glanced over at – supposedly his future wife – and she was looking a bit paler than usual, and her pupils were looking a bit small. Like Ron confronted with spiders, really. Harry suspected she was afraid of giant spiders or Voldemort. Basically a sissy really.
"Um ,Moon, could you cast a that spell?" asked Harry.
Lilith cast the detecting-secret-doors spell and nothing glowed purple.
"Well" said Harry "That was a long-shot."
They trooped out of the chamber of secrets, and Harry cast 'nox' to put the lights out.
"Potter, just going out on a limb here" said Daphne Greengrass "Slytherin made a chamber of secrets, with a blood-locked door, to make it harder to interrupt him."
"Yeah probably" said Harry. "But the round room would have had a basilisk in it, so getting to the secret door would have required serious guts."
"Basically" said Tracey "He made Snape look like Professor Sprout?"
Harry shrugged and went down the tunnel towards the rockfall. He wasn't going to think about it.
Once everyone had squeezed through the rockfall, Harry got his broom "Right, the way out is up the pipe. It'll take a few trips, Moon and I will do the flying, because they're our brooms."
"Daph, you' should go with Potter, it'd be romantic" said Tracey. Harry suspected she was teasing.
Harry gave Ron a lift up first. Moon took Davis.
Then he flew back down and was about to give Hermione a lift, when Greengrass insisted he take a Slytherin.
"You can't leave us all down here. What if Lil's get stuck or has an accident!"
Harry sighed "fine. Get on."
And awkwardly, there was a girl in the front of his broom sitting sideways, between his arms. She smelt of slime and dust. Her hair was well, it was gross with gunge. He flew carefully, uncomfortably aware of her presence. She got off onto the floor of Mytle's bathroom and eyed her reflection in one of the spotty old mirrors. "Oh god. I look like a hag" she said.
"Quick colour-change charm and you'd be the spitting image" said Ron. Harry flew swiftly into the pipe tunnel before he got hit by the hexes that crack would probably cause.
He passed Perks and Moon coming up the pipe on Moon's broom.
He landed at the bottom, Hermione got on, riding pillion, and they flew up.
Greengrass had cleaned her hair off, and the Slytherin girls were charming the slime off –
Hermione's feet had barely touched the floor before she cast a 'scourgify' on her own hair.
"Oh god Granger no wonder your hair goes wild!" exclaimed Greengrass "you can't scourgify hair you need to – "
And that was when Hermione scourgify'ed her hair.
It was, thought Harry, like a waterbomb fight, only everyone ended up clean. Greengrass's hair was sitting flat like, he thought, a wet rat. She looked a lot smaller all of a sudden. Hermione's on the other hand, was in full blown frizzy blob mode. Harry checked his reflection for dirt – his hair was, as usual, a black untidy mess.
"Potter, shouldn't you close the tunnel entrance?" asked Moon. "It's just people could easily get stuck down there without a broom."
Harry knelt by the sink and concentrated – '$close$' he hissed, and the sink slid back up, covering the hole.
"Mate" said Ron "We had an adventure, and nobody even got maimed. This is top tier."
"We're not done yet" said Daphne Greengrass "Potter needs to check all the scrolls for the right two spells."
"I'll never fit them in my trunk" said Harry.
"You'll need another trunk." said Daphne Greengrass.
"How would I get that?" asked Harry "I didn't see a trunk shop sort of hiding on the second floor?"
"You could um, owl order one" said Daphne Greengrass.
"How on earth would I pay?" asked Harry.
"Well your… guardians would" said Daphne Greengrass. Harry picked up his broom, pulled the invisibility cloak over it and left the toilets without saying anything.