Whispers in Her Hair

by Indygodusk


Chapter 12 : Second Year - Locker Room Pranks


"Go flying with me."

Flint's unexpected voice made Harry jump. His quill stuttered, leaving a splotch of ink on his scroll. Frustrated, Harry finished crossing out his latest disproved theory about what Hermione had meant by the words bass, notes, and lock before looking up. The scroll kept getting bigger, but he was no closer to an answer—no closer to protecting his remaining friends or avenging the attack on Hermione.

It was the first week of April, almost a month after Hermione had been petrified, and Harry still hadn't figured out Hermione's clues. Hermione hadn't moved or opened her eyes again, neither the creature nor the Chamber of Secrets had been found, and Dumbledore was still banished from Hogwarts. Everyone thought he was crazy for claiming that Hermione had spoken while petrified, even his friends.

In fact, the only person who seemed to believe him was Moaning Myrtle, though part of that seemed to be tied to Halle Harper potentially being her great-niece and Myrtle's hypothesis that if ghosts like Nearly Headless Nick could be petrified then maybe the petrified could become ghosts. Giggling and dancing with excitement, Myrtle had told Harry that when Halle and Hermione became ghosts they could turn her favorite bathroom into a ghost girls dorm room and terrorize everyone who thought making fun of ghosts was even the littlest bit funny. Harry, of course, could come and visit whenever he liked.

"If you die too, you could live in the boys bathroom next door to mine!" Myrtle had said with a dreamy smile.

Harry had winced. "Thanks, but I—I don't think I want to be a ghost." Seeing her expression start twisting into hurt and outrage, he'd quickly added, "Yet! I'm not ready yet. Obviously you're a very inspirational ghost, but who knows if I'd be as good of a ghost as you, yeah? So I want to keep living. I've still got things to do, is all. Thanks for the offer though. It was really—really nice...and sweet of you. So thanks." And then Harry remembered an urgent appointment elsewhere and fled.

Flint was still staring at Harry expectantly, waiting for an answer to his invitation, the furrow between his heavy brows an almost permanent fixture these days. His nose and cheeks looked an uncomfortable red—likely sunburned—and his lips were wind chapped with a dark scab beneath the curve from where the skin must've split. The corner of his jaw had a long red welt as if he'd run into a tree branch and his hair looked wild and windblown.

Blinking, Harry rewound what Flint had said in his mind. "What, flying? Me? Now?"

"Yes, now. I still feel jittery. I need to get out into the sky again. C'mon, Harry. Up."

Slytherin should've been playing a game against Hufflepuff today, but the Board of Governors had cancelled the season until the creature petrifying students was caught. It was a stupid and meaningless precaution. There was nothing more dangerous about gathering for a Quidditch game than gathering for meals and classes and those hadn't been cancelled. The new restrictions put into place were arbitrary, inconsistent, and frustrating.

Draco had complained to his father about it and been told that until they captured the creature at fault, the Board and the Ministry needed to give the impression to parents that they were doing something to keep students safe. It was about politics and appearances. Draco had also told them that his father had decided that the only explanation for Halle Harper's attack was that she wasn't a half-blood after all. Since her mother of record was definitely a witch, Halle must've been born to Muggles and secretly adopted or stolen, probably switched with a Squib child to hide the embarrassment.

"You can't be serious," Harry had said with disgust. "Where's the proof of that?"

Shrugging one shoulder, Draco set his chin and met his eyes belligerently. "The creature did attack Harper and it's only supposed to attack Muggleborns since they have dirty blood. Supposedly. So that proves it."

"Supposedly," Harry spat. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard! Is 'secretly stolen from Muggles' going to be your father's excuse every time someone gets attacked from now on no matter who they are? If we pretend the victims are expendable does that make it okay?"

Draco's eyes narrowed and went hard as soon as Harry mentioned his father. "Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it isn't true! I think my father knows more about how the world works than an orphan like you." He sneered.

Teeth bared, Harry got up in Draco's face. "Oh really? So what if you get attacked next? Are you going to be okay when your father goes to the press saying that being attacked proves you aren't really his son? That it must mean you were just some kid your mom stole from a Muggle's front lawn and tried to pass off as his? That it means you're dirty and deserved it, Draco?"

Needless to say, after that hexes and fists started flying and the two had to be dragged away from each other kicking and screaming. It had taken several days before Harry and Draco could talk to each other civilly again. To keep the peace they avoided talking about the subject altogether and Harry kept his progress with Hermione's clues to himself.

"C'mon, Harry, get a move on," Flint ordered sharply.

"Okay, hold on." Packing away his scroll of failed theories, quill, and ink, Harry shoved his bag onto a wall hook in the common room so it wouldn't get stepped on and followed Flint out the door, skipping a few steps to try and keep up with the taller boy's long strides. "Are we flying with anyone else? Or just you and me?"

Flint rolled his shoulders as if his skin didn't fit right. "I already went flying with Miles and Terence all morning and Dulcina and Artemis yesterday. They all need a break before I break them, so you're up next. You got a problem with that?"

The look on his face made Harry gulp and square his shoulders, bracing himself for a flight more bruising than lighthearted. "No, I'm with you, Captain."

Running a hand through his hair, Flint's lips flattened. "Good." His other hand opened and closed at his side. Sending Harry a sideways glance, Flint blew out his breath. "I need to fly or fight right now and as much as smashing my fist into Wood's smug face or brawling with the entire Hufflepuff team would feel really good right now," eyes burning, he tongued the split in his lip, bringing forth a fresh bead of bright red blood, "I can't risk detention, not when she—" his breath stuttered for a moment "—not when I might be needed in—in the common room in the evenings."

Harry should've left that comment well alone, but he was concentrating on going fast enough to keep up with Flint without tripping over his feet and his brain to mouth filter failed him. "Valeria's still avoiding you? Maybe I could talk to her? Or I could go back and ask her to go flying with me and not say you're coming too?"

If the hand shooting towards him had aimed for his face instead of his chest, Harry probably would have a broken nose. As it was, Flint grabbed the front of Harry's robe before he could flinch back, lifted him onto his toes, and shook him hard enough to make him bite his tongue. "No! Leave her alone. If she wants to talk to me, she'll talk to me." He glared to make his point.

Harry was intimidated by the look but wasn't about to cower away. The throbbing of his bit tongue made him mad. He ripped Flint's hand away and scowled, resentful at the manhandling. "I'm only trying to help you out. You don't have to be a git about it."

Flint grimaced and dropped his eyes, anger turning to heartbreak as he spoke in a wavering tone, "Not today. She cut her hair again this morning."

"Oh." Harry used the excuse of straightening his robe to look away from the pain in Flint's face and hide his own. Was that the third time this month she'd shaved her head? Or the fourth? It made him feel helpless, like he was failing Valeria somehow too. His mood—already unsteady from the cancelled game and lack of progress with Hermione's clues—sank even further.

"Well—maybe—maybe on another day—a better day? I—I could pretend to need her help with something and we could accidentally run into you or—or maybe I could accidentally lock you two in the broom shed until you worked it out? I know she'd be happier if you two could work things out," Harry said in a rush. "Even though she won't say it, I can tell she misses you." Valeria had been so much happier after she and Flint had gotten together. Harry wanted that back for her. He wanted to be able to fix something for someone he cared about, even if he couldn't fix things for himself.

Flinching, Flint grabbed Harry's arm and started towing him up the stairs. "For Merlin's sake, Harry, how stupid are you? Ambushing Valeria is a horrible idea. The only things said would be the shrieking of curses and then my funeral rights, followed shortly thereafter by yours." His tone went low and gruff. "You can't force a girl like Valeria to do anything, you have to coax her." He cleared his throat. "Haven't you ever gone hunting for food or ridden a hippogriff? It takes patience."

"Hunting and riding?" Harry scoffed, trying to catch his breath at the rapid pace and think of something to do to help that wasn't stupid. "I'm from the muggle suburbs, not some manor house. Growing up my food came from tins and we rode cars, not hippos."

"Hippogriffs."

"Whatever," Harry huffed as they finally readed the landing and moved towards the nearest door leading outside. Keeping his eyes forward, he opened and closed his mouth, carefully picking and choosing what to say next. As much as he disliked being manhandled by Flint, he very much respected and cared about the intimidating older boy and wanted to help fix his relationship with Valeria. "You know… even with the Quidditch season cancelled, Valeria still interrogates me after every practice. She thinks she's being sneaky, but she always drops her eyes before casually asking about how you're doing."

Lips quirking sadly, Flint pushed out into the sunshine, squinting at the light bouncing off the pale clouds. "I'd rather she just asked me."

Harry didn't know what to say to that.

The air was cool but not cold as they made their way around the corner of the castle, taking a shortcut outside towards the wing of the castle housing the Quidditch locker rooms. Flint pulled in a deep breath and released it as a sigh. "I worry about her," he flicked a glance at Harry and something went strange and hard in his eyes—jealousy or suspicion, it was hard to tell. "What else do you talk about—exactly? Besides Quidditch." His tone was strangely light and didn't fit his body language. It made Harry's stomach swoop uneasily. "You seem to be the only one she allows close lately. What does she say? What secrets does she tell you?"

Harry's lips went flat and he stopped walking, crossing his arms. A cool breeze ruffled his hair but did nothing to cool his temper. There were lines. Just because they were friends and Harry was a subordinate on the team didn't mean he would roll over and let himself be manipulated or forced.

Flint turned and looked back at Harry, eyebrows rising in a silent demand for answers. The older boy shifted, putting his hands on his hips and leaning forward to make himself bigger and more commanding. "Well?" he demanded in a voice used to obedience. "Start talking."

Breathing in hard through his nose, Harry looked up and met Flint's eyes with challenge. "If you keep disrespecting me I'm going to stop respecting you. I am not so poor a friend as to betray secrets just for the asking, even for you. I know you like her. I know you care. That does not entitle you to anything and if you think it does... you don't deserve her." Harry pressed his lips flat to stop himself from saying more.

"Are you trying to get me mad?" Brows lowering, Flint looked Harry up and down with darkening eyes. "I just want information, but I'm okay with skipping flying in favor of fighting." He stepped forward and kept trying to stare Harry down, the muscles in his arms and jaw jumping threateningly as he loomed over Harry, knuckles cracking as his hands fisted, as formidable-seeming in that moment as the troll in the bathroom from first year, but much less stupid. "We both know I'll win."

Despite the voice gibbering in the back of his mind, Harry didn't have it in him to drop his eyes. His cheeks felt on fire as anger sizzled beneath his skin. "Do we?" He slid his wand into his hand and lifted his chin higher, refusing to back down. Refusing to concede. "You might bloody my body or hex me stupid. Maybe you'll even go so far as to make me scream with pain, but you know what you won't win? The answers you want." He bared his teeth and leaned forward. "I'd bite my tongue off before giving you the satisfaction, so piss off."

A cloud passed over the sun, casting Flint's face into shadow. Harry felt ice drag down his spine and braced himself for pain.

Then the cloud moved, the sun came back out, and the threat on Flint's face disappeared with the shadows. Stepping back, the sixth-year tossed his head and snorted. "You little bastard, I should tan your hide for that." Flint turned away and ran a hand through his hair. Gripping the base of his neck, he growled. "But as satisfying as that might be in the moment, I know I'd regret it later, no matter how much on edge I am. I respect you too much not to feel guilty after," he huffed with a sardonic twist to his lips, shooting Harry a sideways look that held apology. "You've got guts and loyalty in spades."

The warmth of Harry's anger shifted into surprised pleasure. Unsure how to respond, he looked away. He felt more unsure with the praise than he'd been about the threat of fighting.

A heavy hand landed on his head, ruffling his hair and making his glasses go crooked. "Hey!" Harry cried, ducking away with a glare.

Flint chuckled and shook his head. "You and Valeria are a pair. If your skin were darker I'd think you siblings in truth. You both try my patience."

Turning on his heel, Flint took off again. "Well, come on," he called over his shoulder. "We're supposed to be flying, not fighting, remember?"

Harry rolled his eyes and followed him. "If this is you coaxing somebody, you must really suck at hunting and riding hippos."

"Hippogriffs!" Flint opened the door back into the castle and turned towards the hall leading to the Quidditch locker rooms.

"Whatever." Harry didn't bother hiding his smirk.

After over an hour of flying and dancing along the edge of death doing crazy broom stunts that would've gotten them kicked out of a normal game, Flint and Harry were both dripping with sweat and shaky with fatigue. By mutual agreement they decided to call it quits. The tip of Harry's ear throbbed from when he'd mistimed a dive and slammed it into a flagpole. Landing on the grass, they dismounted their brooms and went up the tunnel back into the locker room to return their equipment and rinse off the sweat and grime from falling off their brooms a few times and rolling over the soggy grass. It wasn't as good as playing an actual game, but the hard flight had helped Harry work off some of his frustrations and put him in a better mood.

"Hey Flint," Harry said, feeling magnanimous.

"Yeah?"

"Valeria hasn't told me any secrets. We just talk about classes and my theories on Hermione's words."

Pausing with his robes half-pulled over his arms and his sweaty back bare but for a few old bruises worn green and purple, skin pale until it reached the reddish-gold tan at his neck, Flint shot him a glare. "Seriously? Then why did you almost get in a fight with me over it?"

"Because you thought you could intimidate me into talking." Harry pursed his lips and gave Flint a hard look. "I'm not a snitch."

"No, you just catch them." Flint tore off his robes the rest of the way and hit Harry with a stray elbow—sending out a wash of rank scent into the air that made Harry cough and reel back in over-exaggerated disgust. Flint gave a crooked smirk and hung the robes on the hook inside his locker. He skimmed off the rest of his dirty clothes and tossed them inside, closed the door, and started the cleaning spells. They'd be done by the time they finished showering. "Well, come on then. Let's rinse off and you can tell me about your theories too so I'll have something to compare with Valeria when she finally talks to me again."

Harry could tell he was being humored. Flint didn't believe him about Hermione either, but he desperately wanted to talk about it so he went along with it, tossing his clothing into his locker, grabbing a towel off the shelf, and following Flint into the shower room. As they each went into a curtained off stall and the water spurted on, Harry raised his voice to make sure he could be heard as he explained all of his failed theories for figuring out the meaning of bass, notes, and lock. It had taken him two and a half weeks to break into Lockhart's office and rooms wearing his invisibility cloak and search them from top to bottom for notes in Hermione's handwriting, lockets, or any carvings of fish or musical instruments—all to no avail. Despite his best efforts he'd still found nothing.

Turning off the shower, Harry grabbed his towel and roughly dried his face to stop the sting of frustrated tears from escaping. When he got himself back under control, he finished drying off, wrapped a towel around his waist, and went back to his locker to get dressed. "So that's where I'm at now," Harry said. "Pretty much the same place where I started," he added bitterly.

"What about her bedroom, bookbag, or trunk? Could her notes be there? Those seem the most logical places," Flint said, dropping his towel without a care and turning away to step into fresh pants. He moved with unselfconscious grace—completely confident that he was bigger, stronger, and tougher than everyone else.

Shrugging, Harry looked away and tried not to feel self-conscious of his own scrawny build as he pulled on underwear beneath the towel and then used his towel to rub the still-dripping ends of his hair before pulling on the rest of his clothes. Not for the first time he hoped that puberty would treat him kindly and give him the height and muscles he'd always hoped for. "I got Blaise to sweet talk Hermione's roommates into looking, but they claim nothing was there except school notes. I didn't have any luck getting them to agree to let me come and search personally, though I've heard that boys can't get up the stairs into the girls tower in Gryffindor anyway. When I asked they got angry and tried to attack me and started some new rumors about me being a pervert so now all of the Gryffindor girls are watching me like I'm trying to steal their panties or something." Harry could feel himself turning red as Flint laughed at him loudly.

"Anyway, I retraced her steps from what I remember of that day, going from the door of the Gryffindor common room to the Great Hall to the library—though I stupidly can't remember what book she was looking at or even if she reshelved it or put it in her bag, back down to the hallway outside the locker rooms, and returning to the library after the game for an unknown reason before getting petrified on her way out just a couple of corridors over, but she doesn't seem to have dropped or hidden any notes for me to find."

Flint hummed and tossed his wet towel across the room into the dirty hamper. "Well, assuming what you heard was real—"

"Yes, we are assuming," Harry interrupted with irritation. It had to be real because if it wasn't that meant she hadn't said she forgave him either and just—no. It had been real. He had to trust in that.

"—she couldn't have known she was going to get attacked, right?"

"I don't know. I guess? Unless she somehow tipped off the creature that she'd figured something out."

Nodding slowly, Flint tilted his head to the side, eyes unfocused. "But if not… let's say she started to figure something out but she had to run to the game and she had the notes on her that day. Bass could be the start of a word instead of a complete word or it could mean base, like the bottom of something." He snapped his finger and turned to Harry with a grin. "What if she left the notes in the bottom of her Quidditch locker? Have you searched there?"

"No, that's brilliant!" Harry shoved on his shoes and bounced to his feet. "But how do we get into the Gryffindor locker room?"

"We?"

"If you help me get into her locker I'll help you prank the place."

"If we're going to prank it we need supplies and a plan. And Terence. If we leave him out, he'll never forgive me."

"I thought he didn't approve of trickery in Quidditch?"

"Terence doesn't like cheating to win because he doesn't find it satisfying or honorable or some crap like that." Flint rolled his eyes and flicked his fingers, obviously baffled by the idea. "However, psychologically terrorizing the enemy is more of a moral gray zone for him, especially since we aren't even competing right now so it won't have a bearing on the outcome of a match. He hates being left out and enjoys a good joke. Pranking the Gryffindor locker room is right up his alley. We should definitely bring him."

Which was all well and good, but even after bringing in Terence and then the rest of the team and devising a series of tricks to leave in the Gryffindor locker room, they still had to figure out how to get past the password on the portrait door.

Over the next two weeks they tried multiple ways to get in—all without success.

The most recent had Harry in his invisibility cloak waiting earlier in the day to hear the password right when they changed it to a new one, then coming back with the rest of the team to let everyone in. The only problem was that as soon as the Slytherin team got up to the portrait and tried to say the password to the second Chaser, the Gryffindor players in the portrait all started shouting about treachery and the Chaser in question hid behind the keeper so no one could give him the password. Miles had gotten impatient and tried shouting the password when the second Chaser had peeked out, only to have the entire hallway start cheering as another player claimed Miles had been talking to him and the defenses activated and started attacking the interlopers.

"That's right, run for ye lives ye churlish wand-wipers!" cried the Seeker from the Gryffindor portrait with a cackle as broken Snitches and crusty socks pelted Harry and his friends in the backs as they ran down the hall and skidded around the corner to safety.

"All right, I'm done with this! New plan," Draco spat, ripping off a sports bra growing disgusting greenish-yellow fuzz off his head and tossing it to the side with a shudder. Scrubbing his fingers off in his robes, he darted a look around the empty hallway. "We can't figure out how to trick the portrait, so one of the players has to be our weak link instead. Who's the most dim-witted and easiest to trick? Let's target them. Harry can follow them inside in his cloak and then let the rest of us in later on once the coast is clear."

"Wood is too suspicious."

"And the Weasley twins are probably too difficult to manipulate."

"What about Skipper?"

They exchanged wicked smirks. Not even his own house liked Skipper anymore. Being injured out and shown up by the reserve Seeker two games in a row had made him foul tempered. He'd become a social pariah.

Harry was forced to let the others take the lead on figuring out how to get Skipper to go to the locker room alone. His part was to sit and wait. He hated waiting.

It took a week to manipulate Skipper to where they wanted him. Flint, Dulcina, and Terence were in charge of getting Skipper alone to the locker room, with Miles, Artemis, and Draco acting as lookouts and distractions for the rest of the Gryffindor team as needed.

Hood of his cloak down, Harry impatiently paced the hallway, probably looking like a floating head to anyone who wandered past. Draco was watching for Artemis's signal to warn Harry to put his hood up and get ready to follow Skipper inside. It was taking forever. Both Draco and Harry were getting bored and frustrated, making them irritable. It was a dangerous state for the two of them recently.

"Hey Draco?" Harry said.

"What?"

"Look behind you."

Draco twisted around. "Why—YAH!" Jumping, he scurried backwards from the line of at least fifteen spiders trooping across the hall, up the wall, and behind the portrait of the broom racer. "I hate you. And I hate spiders! They're so weird and creepy with all the legs and eyes and gah." He shook out his robes jerkily, making sure nothing was climbing on him.

"Everything this year is weird and creepy," Harry grumbled, amusement falling away as he remembered that unlike the rest of them, this wasn't just a prank for him, it was a way to hopefully find Hermione's notes about what creature had attacked her. "Do you see Dulcina signalling yet?"

Draco rolled his eyes and huffed. "Obviously not or I would've said something. I'm watching so lighten up and stop nagging."

"How am I supposed to lighten up when there's a creature out there attacking people indiscriminately?" Harry snapped, crumbling handfuls of invisibility cloak in his fists.

"Not indiscriminately," Draco huffed under his breath, turning away to watch around the corner.

It made Harry mad. "Yes indiscriminately, Draco. Just look at the victims! Sure, a few are Muggleborn, but Halle wasn't. You know that she wasn't—you told me that—no matter what is being said now after the fact."

Lips pressing tight, Draco crossed his arms, obviously trying not to get dragged back into the argument for the hundredth time. Well too bad. Harry was in the mood to argue. "Okay, so what about this? Let's say I agree with you that the monster is so talented and precise that it can somehow sense when someone is muggleborn, even though there's no known way to figure out blood status outside of genealogy charts. Let's even say that it is following Salazar Slytherin's supposed wishes to eliminate only muggleborns from the school. If those things are really true, it should mean that half-bloods and pure-bloods and everything and everyone else who isn't a muggleborn is safe, right?" Harry stared a hole in the side of Draco's head. "Right?"

Huffing, Draco glared over his shoulder at Harry. "Right, yes, that is how it works. I've said that already. My father says that the creature only targets those with dirty blood, leaving the rest of us safe. What's your point?"

"My point?" Harry arched his brow and gave a slow, toothy smile. "If all that is true and the creature is so precise, how do you explain away the petrified cat and ghost?"

Draco opened his mouth, paused, and slowly closed his lips with a curdled milk expression.

"You can't, can you, because it doesn't make sense." Harry leaned forward to press his point. "There is no dirty blood. The reality we are facing is that the attacks aren't justified and no one is safe. Blood is just an excuse. The monster could hurt any of us at any time. That's how monsters work. They hurt people—not out of fairness or justice, but because they like the way it makes them feel."

Draco grimaced and looked away, scrunching his robes in his hands. "So what, Harry? Why does it matter? It's not like we can do anything about it. If Dumbledore couldn't figure it out, how do you think you're supposed to? If Granger had actually known anything useful she wouldn't have gotten herself petrified in the first place. You're not going to find anything in her locker and you probably hallucinated the entire conversation because you're obsessed with her forgiving you and you think you don't deserve it."

"I didn't hallucinate anything!" Harry snapped, turning on his heel and stalking away from Draco so he didn't give into the urge to hit him. The sharp prick of his nails breaking the skin of his palms sharpened his thoughts. "And of course I don't deserve forgiveness—no one ever does. True forgiveness isn't something you can force. I don't think it's even something you can earn, not really. There's no formula to perfectly balance a wrong with a right, not that I've discovered. Forgiveness is always a gift." Exhaling slowly, he rubbed a hand across his face and tried to explain his epiphany. "Forgiveness is a gift. All you can do is acknowledge your wrong and try to change yourself so you are worthy of receiving it and worthy of the gifter."

Draco paused and stared at Harry for a moment, brow furrowed in thought and grey eyes clear, so close to understanding... before shaking away the buzzing in his head and ignoring Harry's words to return to their former argument, something worn familiar with frequent handling. "Look, no one knows anything more about the Chamber of Secrets or the creature, Harry, especially not Granger. The Chamber has been open for months and if there were any secrets to be discovered, the authorities would've already found them," he told him condescendingly.

"Maybe they did find something and we just haven't heard about it."

Draco kicked his foot back against the wall and looked around the corner, chin setting stubbornly. "My father would've told me if they had."

Harry scoffed. "Like he told you about the Chamber being opened fifty years ago? Get a clue, Draco! Your father didn't tell you anything until we asked him to confirm what Tom had already told us in his diary and he didn't have a choice."

Pounding his fist in his palm, Harry turned and continued his pacing. "I bet Tom would've told us more about what happened if you hadn't stolen the diary from me and shipped it off to your father." He sent Draco a scowl, expecting more justifications, only to see Draco going completely still at his words, like a mouse under the shadow of a hawk.

"That's water under the bridge," Draco said after a moment, rolling his shoulders and keeping an eye on the distant hallway. His light tone of voice didn't match his uneasy body language.

Harry paused in his pacing, trying to figure Draco out. "Your father does still have it, right?" he asked, knowing it was a stupid question but not wanting to give Draco the space to distract him with another topic.

"Of course." Draco looked Harry straight in the eye and sent him a sweet smile.

Thoughts stuttering, Harry looked Draco up and down twice. What was going on? That smile was so fake he wondered if Draco had copied it from Lockhart.

"Well then, why don't we write to him after this and ask him to talk to the diary and see if he can find out more about the creature?" Harry suggested, watching Draco carefully.

"He's unlikely to listen. My father's more smug than worried about a monster who hurts mudbloods—" seeing Harry's mouth pop open he rolled his eyes with a flash of satisfaction, almost as if he'd purposely been trying to distract Harry with temper, "—yes, yes, Muggleborns. I know."

Unfortunately, even knowing Draco was doing it on purpose wasn't enough to keep it from working. "If you know then stop saying it! You know that's just empty prejudice talking! Besides which, the creature isn't just hurting Muggleborns anymore. It's hurting everyone and there are a lot more students here who aren't Muggleborns than those who are. The number of victims in each attack is also increasing."

"Hagrid was arrested and his pets scattered to the wind. We're probably fine." Draco waved his hand dismissively.

Harry ground his teeth, feeling the ache in his jaw at the action. "No, we're probably not. Hagrid wouldn't hurt people and if it was a pet of his petrifying students then he would've told at least Dumbledore about it by now if not half of Hogsmeade—you know Hagrid can't keep a secret to save his life—which means that Hagrid's arrest did nothing to stop the monster and we're all still at risk. In fact, we're at more risk because Dumbledore is gone now too."

Draco's expression was unmoved. He didn't seem to even be listening, most of his attention focused around the corner, making Harry want to shake the other boy and scream in his face. Maybe if Harry made it more personal. "That means you're still at risk, Draco."

Arching one pale brow as he turned, eyes like ice, Draco lifted his pointed chin into the air. "I'm not at risk, I'm a pureblood. I'll be fine."

Harry scoffed. "Can you honestly tell me that you actually feel safe at Hogwarts right now?"

Lips thinning, Draco brushed his fingers down his robes. "My father would never put me at risk. He knows more about what's going on than we do since he's on the board of governors. If there was even a chance of me getting hurt, he'd pull me out and have me tutored at home."

Grinding his teeth, Harry barely resisted the urge to start pulling out his hair by the roots. "Yeah, you keep saying that, but it's becoming less and less believable with each repetition." Draco's hands fisted and his eyes flashed. There was a wand in his hand. When had that happened? Harry took a quick step back, recognizing suddenly that Draco wasn't as unaffected as he'd been pretending. Harry didn't want things to break into a fistfight or make Draco lose his temper and hex him and ruin their plans. They were supposed to be working together right now to trick Skipper and get into the locker room.

However, Harry wasn't quite willing to lose the argument either. He circled back. "Okay look, if your father cares so much about you then he must be willing to talk to the diary again to find out more about the creature to try and keep you safe. It's not like it would be hard for him to do, right?"

"I'm done talking about this. Just drop it, Harry," Draco said curtly.

"No, I won't drop it. You're being weird. What aren't you telling me, Draco? What's got you so wound up about this? It's a simple request. Just ask your father. If he cares, he'll help. What's the big deal?"

Hands tense and arms stiff and straight at his sides, Draco glared down at his feet and muttered something too soft to catch.

"What?"

"It's gone."

Blinking rapidly, Harry opened and closed his suddenly dry mouth. "Wait, what? What do you mean the diary's gone? Why didn't you tell me before now? Did someone steal it?" He stomped closer.

Pinching his nose, Draco looked away and gave a humorless laugh. "No, he...he didn't want it back."

Harry felt the back of his neck go cold as a sudden suspicion bloomed in his mind. "Draco, where is the diary now?"

"It doesn't matter."

Grabbing Draco's arm when the other boy wouldn't meet his eye, Harry shook him hard and demanded, "Where is it, Draco?"

Head still turned away, Draco's throat bobbed as he swallowed hard. His voice was thin when he spoke. "I thought he'd thank me… thought he'd be proud and happy… but instead, he sent me a blistering note enumerating all of my faults and interrogating me on whether I'd written in the diary myself, to which I was grateful to be able to answer no so as to avoid further punishment. His next letter was wrapped around the diary itself, which he'd returned to me with orders to make sure it got lost at school again."

"You didn't," Harry breathed in outrage.

Draco's shoulders went tight. His voice became cold and even. "I immediately went to the library, placed the diary on a table when no one was looking, and walked away, since that was the plan with least risk to myself. The diary was gone when I walked by fifteen minutes later."

"What?!" Seething, Harry let go of Draco's arm and stomped his foot. "We need answers from Tom! Why would you do that? You could've at least given it back to me!"

Draco shook his head curtly. "If me writing in it is bad then obviously you writing in it would be bad too."

"I already wrote in it and I'm fine! What does your father know about the diary that we don't?" Harry wanted to strangle both Draco and his father.

"I don't know, alright!" Draco snapped, throwing up his arms. "He won't tell me! Just—just forget about the diary. It's probably illegal or something and he doesn't want to be caught with it by the Ministry. Your Tom was probably a liar anyway and if not, he already told you everything he knew. It doesn't matter. Hagrid is gone and whatever creature he'd fooled himself into thinking was sweet and harmless has stopped attacking people. Without Hagrid here to feed it, the creature probably wandered off into the forest where something bigger and meaner will take care of it for us. It's probably over."

"Probably isn't good enough." Harry gritted his teeth and clenched his fists and barely stopped himself from attacking as blood pounded like a drum beneath his lightning bolt scar and anger hazed the edge of his vision. "I am so frustrated with you right now." He stomped his foot again, the harsh thud reverberating through his bones painfully.

A jet of yellow light hit Draco in the arm, making both of them jump. "The signal! Shut up and go get ready," Draco hissed. Reaching out, he roughly yanked the fabric of the invisibility cloak's hood over Harry's head and turned on his heel to sprint away in the opposite direction, fleeing the conversation just as much as trying to get out of sight before Skipper got close.

At first, Harry had been worried about the other portraits ratting them out, but they'd been having too much fun watching the break in attempts and had mentioned that warning the Gryffindors would be unsportsmanlike.

Shoving the fate of the diary out of his mind for now—along with the urge to hex Draco in the back—Harry made sure he was completely covered by the cloak and ran over to wait by the Gryffindor portrait door.

A few seconds later, Skipper finally came around the corner. Artemis was by his side. Confused, Harry tried not to panic. That hadn't been part of the plan.

"You can still back out you know," Artemis said in a flirtatious tone of voice. Then she bumped shoulders with Skipper and winked at him.

What? Had Artemis betrayed them?

Skipper's face went bright red as he scowled and jerked away from her touch, keeping his head down and not even glancing in Harry's direction, much less over at the loud flap of Draco's robe as he disappeared in the distance. "Don't make me laugh. I know I can beat you in a race. I'm the fastest flyer in Gryffindor!"

If true, that might explain how he'd ever even made the team. Unfortunately for Gryffindor and fortunately for Slytherin, being fast was only one part of being a good Quidditch player. Skipper was obviously missing all of the other requirements.

Artemis gave a skeptical hum. "So you say. I'd like to see it for myself. I'll meet you on the pitch in ten minutes?" she asked with a forced smile, pausing by the Slytherin portrait door to lean against the wall and cross her arms, which coincidentally made her chest seem bigger. Harry didn't know if it was on purpose or not but he quickly averted his eyes, feeling uncomfortable either way.

"Uh, yeah—I mean, yes." Skipper's voice went high pitched as he almost ran into the wall, his eyes glued to her chest. "Yes, in ten minutes." Clearing his throat, he shook his head and frowned at her. "Though don't go blubbering to your friends in tears when you lose." He looked her up and down and sneered. "A girl built like you is only good for one thing and everyone knows it isn't speed. Maybe I'll let you show me after I win."

Artemis straightened from the wall, fake smile dropping as her hands tightened into fists.

Curling his lip with satisfaction at her reaction, Skipper turned away and cupped a hand next to his mouth to hide his lips as he leaned close to the Gryffindor portrait and whispered the password to the Keeper. Harry wanted to stick a leg out and trip Skipper so he slammed his face into the wall and bloodied his nose in punishment for talking to Artemis like that, but he restrained himself. Artemis was obviously only challenging Skipper in the first place so Harry could sneak into the locker room. If he ruined that chance, he'd be the one bleeding. Besides, Artemis could tie Skipper into a pretzel if she wanted. Maybe after this was all over he'd offer to hold her cloak for her while she did it.

"Now that's no way to speak to a fiery colleen, lad," said one of the Gryffindor chasers in a strong Irish accent as the portrait started to open.

Skipper snorted with derision as he pushed the portrait wide. "Who cares?"

"Really, you brought this on yourself," another player tsked disapprovingly.

Holding his breath to avoid detection, Harry hurried in after Skipper before the portrait closed. The door hit him in the back, almost making him topple. His arm jerked free of his cloak as he caught himself against the wall, but luckily Skipper was too busy muttering under his breath to notice the disembodied arm appearing behind him. Not wanting to push his luck, Harry slid it back into his cloak and moved into the corner of the room, standing still until Skipper had grabbed his broom and flying leathers and exited up the tunnel towards the pitch for his race against Artemis.

Harry didn't have the patience to wait longer. As soon as he was sure Skipper was gone he raced over to Hermione's locker and tried to open it. Unfortunately, he'd forgotten that Hermione was an over-achieving genius with a mind like a steel trap when it came to remembering spells, never mind using them. There were four different locking spells on her locker. Four. Harry only recognized two of them and only knew the counter to one. He did what he could and then tried to force the door open. It gave him a nasty shock that flung him into the bank of lockers at his back and left a burn blister on the back of his thumb. Gingerly licking across his burn and blowing to cool it, he frowned and forced himself to step back over to the wall and wait for reinforcements.

About fifteen minutes later, Skipper came storming back into the locker room. Huffing and puffing, he threw his broom and leathers back into his locker and slammed the door shut, not even bothering to lock it before stomping back out of the room. Obviously Artemis had won their race. Good.

Twenty minutes—and several more unsuccessful attempts to unlock Hermione's locker—later, someone knocked on the portrait door in the pre-agreed pattern. Keeping his invisibility cloak covering his face, just in case, Harry opened the door and pushed it open, allowing Flint, Terence, and Artemis to slip inside, each carrying a bulging bag of supplies.

As soon as the door shut again, Harry pulled off his invisibility cloak and stuffed it into his robe pocket. "Any problems?" Harry asked as they unloaded their bag of pranks onto the nearest bench.

"Nope, not this time." Terence said. "Dulcina, Draco, and Miles are making sure the rest of the Gryffindor team is too busy to go flying until we're done here, but even so, we shouldn't get complacent." Terence rubbed his hands together and looked around the scarlet and gold locker room with a wide grin.

"That's great," Harry said, "but I can't get Hermione's locker open." He looked around for help, but everyone was distracted exploring the Gryffindor locker room. Huffing, he raised his voice. "I need help unlocking Hermione's locker."

"Pranks first, then the locker," Flint said firmly, asserting his dominance. Raising his voice to address everyone, he called, "Remember, nothing too obviously Slytherin. We still need plausible deniability." He ignored Harry's impatient glare to stalk over to the Gryffindor lion rampant on the only open wall and pull out his wand, transfiguring the lion into a grumpy-looking lionfish trapped inside a fishbowl. He cast several wards on the image and then pulled a can of transparent paint out of one of the bags. He painted it over the image and transfigured it into a translucent blue that looked like water so that anyone trying to dispel what he'd done to the lion would get tripped up messing with the paint layer on top until they figured out that the transparent paint was there. He cast more wards on top of that too.

While Flint was busy with that, Terence pulled out a contraption that looked like a bike pump with a corked bottle attached to the bottom end and had Artemis climb up onto his shoulders. She scraped a fleck of red paint off the upper third of the wall with a knife, opened the corked bottle, and tapped the paint inside. Replacing the cork, Artemis shook it up, causing Terence to wobble on his feet and clutch more tightly to her legs where they wrapped around his chest and under his arms. The inside of the bottle filled with pink foam and white blobs. Artemis then pressed the end of the black tube that would normally blow air on a bike pump against the spot on the wall where she'd scraped away the paint. As she depressed the plunger, the scarlet paint rippled as if under a stiff breeze and bled away, turning the walls bright pink and the trim from gold to a dull orange. It was a very ugly combination that made both Terence and Artemis giggle.

Accepting that no one was going to help him until all of the pranks were deployed, Harry grabbed a toolbox and went into the locker room, unscrewing the grate in the wall to get to the pipes and setting it up so that random showerheads spewed ice cold water. Cutting open a different pipe, inserting a pouch full of magical root cuttings, and sealing it up again, he set it up so that anyone showering with water from that pipe would erupt into what looked like pimples six to eight hours later that would turn into what looked like ladybugs two hours after that, complete with fluttering wings that tickled the skin like crazy, according to the pamphlet. It wore off five hours after that, but was so rare that most people probably didn't know that and would take a bunch of gross potions first to try and get rid of it. Draco had ordered the prank roots from a small shop in Knockturn Alley that catered to wizards from Southeast Asia and insisted they use them once he learned he'd have to stay outside and serve as a distraction instead of getting to come inside and have fun. Harry was just glad he'd decided to use it on the Gryffindors instead of on his roommates.

Hopping down from Terence's shoulders, Artemis went over to personally prank Skipper's locker while Terence started in on any other locker that could be opened without too much trouble. Flint and Harry joined them, layering spells and powers and potions on almost everything, only leaving the occasional item untouched to really mess with their opponent's minds and make them think that nothing was safe but that they were just too stupid to figure out what they were missing.

Finally they finished and turned to helping Harry open Hermione's locker. It was in the reserve team area on the side of the room farthest from the showers and exit tunnel.

"Haven't you even tried unlocking it yet?" Flint asked with a frown, casting a diagnostic spell on the door that Harry hadn't learned yet. "And why does a second year need so many locking spells?"

Harry huffed. "I found four spells but was only able to get rid of one of them. When I tried opening it anyway I ended up blistering my hand." He held out the burn.

Grunting, Flint went down on one knee to examine the bottom corner of the locker door. "I still count four, so you either failed to dispel that one for good or there were originally five." He stood up again, cracked his back, and tucked away his wand.

"What are you doing?" Harry asked impatiently.

The corner of Flint's lip twitched as he shrugged. "I can identify the spells, but I don't actually know how to remove any of them. None of them were really taught in my classes. At least not on days I actually paid attention."

Blowing out a hard breath, Harry ran a hand over his head, tugging hard at the strands at the back of his head before turning to Artemis and Terence. "What about you guys? Can you get through?" The look they exchanged did not fill Harry with confidence.

Artemis cast a few spells on the locker door, sat down cross-legged on the floor, and then cast a few more. The locker rattled and gave off sparks of yellow and purple light along with a sickly-sweet smell. "That's two down," she squinted. "I might be able to get the third on the latch, but that last spell—the one on the hinges—is probably beyond me." She growled and shot another spell at the locker door. It ricocheted off and would've singed her hair if she hadn't flung herself sideways. "Why can't your girl be just a little more dumb?" She growled at Harry and shook her skinned knuckles, which had scraped into the edge of the bench and were now beading with blood.

"We're running out of time," Flint frowned over at the clock on the wall.

Harry sat down on the bench and put his head in his hands, fisting his hair painfully and then covering his face. Hermione was counting on him to figure out the clues. He couldn't let her down again. He was too close! But he didn't know what else to do. Kicking the locker wouldn't help. He'd already tried that before the rest of them had shown up and still had the bruised toes and singed socks to prove it. His pinky toe was probably black and blue.

"The whole point of sneaking in here was so I could get into Hermione's locker," he said into his hands, making his face prickle hot and damp as his breath became trapped by his clenching fingers.

"Right, we need reinforcements," Terence announced, jumping to his feet with a clatter as he knocked over a pile of empty boxers and potion bottles. "Hold the fort until I get back!" He ran for the door.

"Wair, what are you doing? We shouldn't hang around and risk getting caught!" Flint tried to grab Terence as he slid by. He missed, the former Seeker too agile for the impromptu snatch.

"I'll be quick!" Terence promised over his shoulder with a reckless grin before opening the portrait door a crack, peeking out, and then sliding out into the hall.

Glaring at the closed door, Flint clenched his hands until his knuckles cracked and cursed under his breath. "Alright. Artemis, you keep trying to break those spells on the locker while Harry and I clean up. If Terence isn't back in ten minutes, we're leaving no matter what."

"But—!" Harry started to protest until Flint gave him a sharp look, cutting him off.

"This was always a calculated risk. Getting caught won't do you any good. Or us. For all we know that locker is empty. Come on, clean up while we wait."

Bowing beneath the weight of Flint's authority, no matter how much he didn't like it, Harry stomped over to the pile of empty boxes of itching powder and mysterious potion bottles Terence had knocked over and began shoving them into the nearest bag, making sure he didn't miss any hiding under a bench. He tried to focus on cleaning but his chest hurt. Sure, pranking the Gryffindor common room was a triumph, but it hadn't been his main goal. It was hard to find much pleasure in that thought right now when he was feeling like such a failure. Relying on other people was hard. He just hoped that Terence could get back with someone in ten minutes who could break Hermione's final locking spell, because if he didn't, Harry didn't know what he was going to do next.


AN: Thank you so much for all of your patience and wonderfully supportive comments. I really appreciate them a lot! Thank you also to my wonderful Beta readers! I love seeing your ideas on what's going to happen next or thoughts on what you just read. Cheers!