Disclaimer: Harry Potter, sleep tight, J.K. Rowling has the copyright.
About formatting:
For direct quotes I use italicized font.
Instead of footnotes I use double bold parentheses: (-( footnote text )-)
CHAPTER 2
Make Everything Right
Place: Chamber of Secrets.
Time: End of Harry's 2nd year.
Ghost-like Tom Riddle was looking at Harry, twirling Harry's wand in his hand.
And suddenly...
Music was coming from somewhere.
It was eerie, spine-tingling, unearthly; it lifted the hair on Harry's scalp and made his heart feel as though it was swelling to twice its normal size.
A crimson bird the size of a swan had appeared, piping its weird music to the vaulted ceiling.
Then its song grew softer and simpler, after a while becoming just one reverberating note.
The bird smoothly landed on the floor and stopped singing.
A second later the bird was no more and on its place stood an old woman with a homely face.
The woman spoke and her voice, although kind and quiet, projected the sense of knowledge and authority,
- What do I see here?
- Two of my descendants had become enemies?
- Look at me, you both!
It seemed Harry's head turned of its own accord towards the woman.
Then something soft and pleasantly cool brushed inside his head.
The same voice, now with warm tenderness, spoke inside his head,
- Harry James Potter, calm down, you are not in any trouble.
- And don't worry about that abomination of a wizard over there; I will deal with him in a moment.
Woman's glance shifted to Tom.
Tom gritted his teeth and grunted, apparently uncomfortable.
The same voice now sounded with indignation,
- Tom Marvolo Riddle, how dare you raise your hand on your seventeenth and a half cousin?
"Seventeenth and a half?" Harry and Tom dumbly asked together.
"You are related in multiple ways through many bloodlines with different levels of remoteness", explained the woman, "I've just used the average."
Tom spoke through gritted teeth,
- Look here, you may be my great-great-great many times ancestor, but...
Woman interrupted him; now she spoke with affection and sorrow,
- Oh, Tom, I see now. You father abandoned your mother.
- And your mother did not find strength to stay with you.
- Poor Tom...
"Do not call me poor!" shouted Tom, "I don't need your sympathy."
- Everybody needs sympathy, even if he tries to deny it.
- Tom, your mother is waiting for you; she is so sorry.
- Come my child; let's make everything right.
- I will show you the way.
Tom swallowed several times.
The woman began singing soothingly,
- Sleep little one, go to sleep,
- So peaceful the birds and the sheep...
(-( from a famous lullaby to music by Mozart )-)
Then the woman disappeared but the song was going on.
The phoenix materialized on Tom's shoulder and rubbed its head against his.
And Tom automatically raised his hand and stroked it.
Together they rose into the air and flew away… to the next great adventure….
===o===o===o===o===o===
Later in Headmaster's office.
Dumbledore explained with a smile,
- There is a room in the Department of Mysteries that is kept locked at all times.
- It contains a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than the forces of nature.
It is the Power of Angered Mother.
THE END
There is also a room in the Department of Mysteries where they study the Power of Fanfiction Review...
But no pressure.