Chapter 12
January passed quietly in Hogwarts. Students still avoided Jasmine. Sakura, Jasmine, and Ron still searched for the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. Sakura reduced the amount of wandless practice she did by herself to accommodate new practice time with Flitwick twice a week so she could focus on learning more advanced wanded spells.
She also had to deal with trying to teach Ron and Jasmine occlumency. Ron was, surprisingly, a natural at getting into a meditative state. His problem was falling asleep after relaxing too much. Jasmine would fidget and shift, but she was also more dedicated than Ron and practiced more on her own.
Unfortunately, Sakura had no way of testing any of their shields without knowing legilimency herself. She'd have to wait and see if she felt a mind probe the next time the headmaster wanted to access her thoughts.
The quiet came to an end on the last day of February.
Sakura had been getting ready for her morning exercise when she noticed Jasmine's bed was empty. Now that she thought about it, she didn't remember waking up when Jasmine returned last night. Sakura wasn't the biggest fan of Jasmine going out at night under the cloak of invisibility by herself, but she couldn't protest without being a hypocrite. Plus, Jasmine was almost fourteen, as Sakura Haruno she'd done a lot riskier things at thirteen.
After checking the bathroom and common room, Sakura went down to the infirmary. Perhaps Jasmine wasn't feeling well or got hurt in her midnight jaunt.
As she opened the door, however, she heard arguing.
"We need to close the school, Albus!" Madam Pomfrey demanded.
"We need to call the aurors," added Professor McGonagall.
"You know the first person they will arrest, Minerva. As it is I fear they will take him after this last attack. The ministry must be seen doing something after Miss Potter's petrification," Dumbledore solemnly said.
Sakura stopped eavesdropping at the door, threw it open, and walked inside hurriedly. There, at the end of the hall, frozen with one arm outstretched, lay Jasmine. Around her stood the three adults.
"Ah, Miss Granger, I was wondering how long it would take for you to make your way here. Earlier than I expected," said McGonagall.
Sakura calmly walked to Jasmine's bedside and laid her hand on her friend's. "Can she hear us?" Sakura asked.
"Fortunately, time does not pass for them while petrified. I imagine being frozen in place for an extended period would be quite disconcerting," Madam Pomfrey answered.
Internally, Sakura was berating herself for ever letting Jasmine wander alone at night. They had both thought the cloak was enough protection. Sakura had forgotten that when she was doing more dangerous activities at thirteen she'd had a team and sensei to fall back on. She felt like trash, worse than trash.
How could she be so short-sighted? So irresponsible?
A spark of rage was also growing in her stomach. How dare they attack one of her precious people! Jasmine was the one to reach out to Hermione the most, the one to decide to come after her despite the troll, the one Sakura had spent the most time with.
Whoever was responsible for this would not be getting away. She swore it.
o0o
News of Jasmine's petrification spread like fiendfyre. By breakfast, everyone knew and was asking Sakura and Ron questions and showing concern.
Eventually, Sakura got fed up and scolded the Gryffindor table, telling them off for not believing in Jasmine's innocence in the first place, before storming out of the shocked silent Great Hall to eat in the kitchen.
The next day the Daily Prophet somehow got hold of the news and ran an article on the petrifications, with Jasmine the main talking point. Although the author, Rita Skeeter, took time to lambast Dumbledore and his failure to capture a culprit. That night a few Hufflepuffs saw Hagrid being carted off by aurors.
March, April, and May passed by without incident, causing a few to believe Hagrid was the culprit. A few of the truly dense claimed Jasmine accidentally petrified herself and thus couldn't target anyone else.
Sakura and Ron made no progress in finding the Chamber. Many a night Sakura wandered the halls by herself using the cloak that had been found on Jasmine, hoping to find trouble, but she returned empty-handed every time.
One day, shortly before finals, on a whim, she looked up the girl who died the last time the chamber opened. Myrtle Warren was her name. Sakura racked her brain for why that name sounded familiar. Deciding to try using occlumency to help herself remember, she meditated.
Slowly she felt herself calm, her thoughts blank. Myrtle. Myrtle Warren.
A small tendril of mental energy connected to her core and her magic raced back up it, to her head.
Suddenly, Sakura found herself in the Konoha library. Looking down, she saw the same body as Hermione…except with pink tresses. Imagining a mirror conjured a full-length one right in front of her. There she was met with the unsettling image of Sakura Haruno's facial features and hair colour with the rest of her body looking like Hermione Granger. This must be her mindscape.
The amalgamation of her two selves freaked her out a bit, so she turned to the disorganized shelves around her. Unlike in real life, the shelves appeared endless.
Plucking a scroll in front of her, Sakura immediately and vividly remembered Iruka-sensei teaching her how to throw a kunai. She put the scroll back and the feeling faded. Touching a book resulted in the memory of her throwing senbon into the troll's eyes at the end of last semester.
Looking at a few other scrolls and books on the shelf, Sakura noticed it was at least all weapons-related. The scrolls contained memories of Sakura Haruno and the books contained memories from this life. There seemed to be no further ordering, unfortunately, or at least none readily apparent.
She needed to find where she heard the name Myrtle Warren. As she concentrated, she began to find a faint tugging sensation. She took one step and it was like space warped with her and that one step covered an untold amount of distance.
Grabbing onto a shelf to steady herself, she brushed a finger across one of the books and recalled Nearly-Headless-Nick welcoming her and Jasmine to his deathday party. He was going on and on about the attendees. Until he had finally mentioned her. "Oh, we have all the Hogwarts ghosts in attendance, except for Moaning Myrtle, she never accepts any invitations, poor girl."
Myrtle was a ghost! Now Sakura remembered hearing about the young ghost that haunts the second-floor girls' lavatory. If she had any clues, Sakura needed to speak with her.
Exiting her mindscape, Sakura set off with a mission in mind. Marching down to Myrtle's bathroom, Sakura walked in to the sound of sobbing.
Perched on a windowsill high up on a wall, sat Myrtle. Sakura lightly coughed to get the ghost's attention.
"Come to call me names and laugh at me?" She whined before sobbing again.
"No, I'm sorry if someone was mean to you. I was actually hoping to ask you a few questions," Sakura replied soothingly.
"No one ever cares what I want!" Myrtle moaned loudly.
Sakura was beginning to understand why Myrtle got her nickname. "How about we make a deal then? A trade?"
Myrtle floated down, closer. "A trade? What could you give me?'
"How about I prank the next person who's mean to you? I won't hurt anyone, but I can help humiliate them a little," Sakura offered.
Myrtle hummed. "What do you want to ask me?"
"I'm sorry if this is upsetting but I'd like to hear how you died. The Chamber of Secrets is open again and I'd like to make sure no one else gets hurt. But to do that I need more information," Sakura urged.
"Oh alright," Myrtle said with a sniffle. "I was crying on the toilet when I heard somebody come in. I told them to go away. They didn't respond but I heard hissing and grinding stone. So I left my stall and looked towards the sinks. I saw a great, big, yellow-slitted eye. Then I died," she finished with a hiccup.
Well, Sakura was pretty sure she knew what the monster was. There's only one kind of snake that kills with its gaze. Now that she thought about it, Colin Creevey had been found looking through his camera, Justin Finch-Fletchley likely saw the basilisk through Nearly-Headless-Nick, and Jasmine was looking through the invisibility cloak. They all indirectly looked at the snake's eyes.
"You've been a great help, Myrtle. Let me know when you need someone pranked," Sakura replied.
To confirm her suspicions about the entrance, Sakura inspected the sinks that Myrtle mentioned were where the grinding noise came from. Sure enough, a snake motif was carved into one of the faucets.
She thought about trying to open it now but wasn't sure if the basilisk would come out or if there were wards to alert the heir.
Deciding not to dawdle, Sakura first went to Hagrid's hut. She snuck around to the chicken coop and transfigured a rooster into a button. From there she made her way to Flitwick's office.
Actually, now that she thought about it, the entire castle has been strangely empty. She had woken up early as normal, but there should be students around by now. The door opened and a harried Professor Flitwick stepped out. "Miss Granger, what are you doing out of your common room? Didn't you hear? A student has been taken into the chamber."
That shocked Sakura, "What? Who? I must've left before the notice and I skipped breakfast."
"Well, you and Ginerva Weasley were the only ones missing when we took roll. We must get you back to the others," Flitwick began gesturing to her to follow him.
"Wait, Professor, I just found the Chamber of Secrets. The monster is a basilisk. It didn't kill anyone because they looked at it indirectly so they were only paralyzed. I've brought a rooster from Hagrid's transfigured as a button. We can go kill it and rescue Ginny right now," Sakura hurriedly explained while walking in the opposite direction, towards the second-floor girl's lavatory.
"While I commend your investigative skills I cannot let you accompany me. I will gather the professors and-"
But Sakura was running. "We have a rooster, I'll be fine! We don't have time to gather everyone!"
Flitwick grumbled something under his breath, cast a spell on himself, and began taking giant leaps to catch up with her. Together they raced down the corridors.
Coming to a halt inside the bathroom, Sakura walked up to the sink and said §Open§. She looked back at Flitwick and explained, "Jasmine taught Ron and me a few words."
"I still think that you should wait here, or better yet go retrieve more teachers," Flitwick grumbled as they watched the sink transform into a tunnel that sloped downwards.
Sakura turned back to look at Myrtle, who was peeking out of her stall. "Myrtle, would you get the headmaster and other professors?" Sakura asked before turning to the diminutive professor. "With the crow of the rooster, the basilisk will die. I'm more worried about whoever is releasing it. I will let you lead in confronting them but you know I can help you fight from the background."
Flitwick shook his head. "You still have a long way to go before I would feel comfortable taking you into battle. You'll stay back with the rooster and only move forward if we need to open more doors in parseltongue. Do you understand?" Flitwick demanded. This was not the cheerful man who taught her every day, this man was a warrior that demanded respect.
And she did respect him, so she nodded. She nodded but she'd been in too many combat scenarios and knew he wouldn't be able to completely protect her, she'd get her chance to repay whoever hurt Jasmine.
Without another word Flitwick jumped down the tunnel, sliding out of sight. Sakura followed.
For longer than expected Sakura slid. When she shot out of the slide she righted herself in midair and was about to land when her momentum halted a few centimeters above the ground. Looking over at Flitwick, she saw he had caught her above the ground made of bones. Setting her down, the professor scanned the area with a few flicks of his wand.
"Go ahead and bring out the rooster now. We'll silence it to keep the element of surprise but it's quicker to cast a finite than undo a transfiguration," Flitwick ordered.
Nodding at his words, Sakura did as instructed. With the button restored to a rooster, silenced, and frozen in her arms, Sakura gave her professor a thumbs up.
"Come here, I'll cast disillusionment charms on both of us," Flitwick said before swishing his wand. The feeling of an egg cracking on her skull sent shivers running down Sakura's back, but looking at Flitwick she could feel her eyes trying to slide right over him. Even when she concentrated he looked no more than a shimmer in the air and it took all her focus to see that much. As expected of a charm's master.
A hand grasped one of her own and put it on the professor's shoulder. "Let's not lose each other. Shall we go?" The professor's voice appeared out of nowhere.
Sakura nodded before remembering she couldn't be seen so she squeezed his shoulder twice and said, "Let's go."
Fortunately, there was only one major pathway. Some of the walls contained more pipes that they could see led up to somewhere. Broken bones littered the ground and to Sakura's rusty tracking skills, footsteps followed the path they took.
Five minutes later they came across a circular door lined with snakes.
Flitwick stopped. "Now Miss Granger, once you open the door I want you to wait here. The moment you start to see the basilisk or you hear it close I want you to shut your eyes and release the rooster. I have a feeling the culprit is behind this door."
"I understand, Professor," Sakura responded, before hissing §Open§ at the door. One by one the six snakes locking the large door slid back and it swung open.
The shimmer that was Flitwick moved through the door into a great room, statues of serpent heads lining the walls and the statue of a man's head at the far end where a throne would sit. Lying on the ground before the stone face was Ginny Weasley. A quiet girl whom Sakura had seen but a handful of times, most of what she knew about her came from Ron's complaints.
Above her stood a boy in Slytherin robes that Sakura had never seen before. He raised his wand towards the door. "Who goes there?" He demanded.
Flitwick must've moved while she wasn't looking because he shot a stunner from the side of the room. The red light shot across the distance faster than any spell she'd seen move. Seems like the half-goblin was still holding back on her. Amazingly, however, the spell passed harmlessly through the boy like he was a ghost.
A ghost would not be able to turn to the space from where Flitwick launched the spell to fire a barrage of their own. At least one of which was a blasting spell, causing chunks of stone to rain down.
Suddenly, Flitwick appeared in the middle of the room, visible once again. "Who are you? You are no Hogwarts student I have taught. You are also not human, but more than a ghost."
The teenager sneered. "The half-goblin, a parseltongue? Impossible. Tell me how you opened the chamber, creature and your death will be swift. As for who I am, you can consider me a memory, preserved in a diary for fifty years."
Sakura finally noticed the diary lying on the floor next to Ginny. She remembered that black diary, she saw Jasmine write in it for one night before it was stolen. Jasmine had said it wrote back to her and that she wanted to introduce Sakura to Tom. Ginny must've been the one to steal it from Jasmine.
Flitwick's wand tip began to glow. "What have you done to Miss Weasley?"
"Ah, nothing more than an exchange. You see, Ginny was a lonely girl. The only girl in a family of boys, the youngest, the forgotten. She poured her heart and soul into her diary and I simply…accepted. Now, as she grows weaker I grow stronger. So you see, I cannot let you save her," the teenager articulated.
"You've been possessing her. Forcing her to open the chamber," Flitwick stated.
The teenager smiled. "You catch on quick. Yesss, and who would've guessed, poor, sweet Ginny from such a good, light family would do something so dark."
Something had been itching the back of Sakura's skull. The name Tom. Jasmine said the diary's initials said T.M.R. The teen said he was a memory from fifty years ago. The last time the chamber had been opened was fifty years ago….Hagrid had said he was blamed by Tom Riddle. She'd bet her wand arm that Tom's middle name started with a 'm'.
During her distraction, Flitwick said something to Tom before launching more spells at the teen. Who simply stood there, not defending at all. It only took a moment for Flitwick to start targeting the book next to Ginny, however. Seeing this, Tom began hissing and the stone face's jaw began to open and a great hissing could be heard.
Sakura quickly shut her eyes. Immediately she unfroze and canceled the silencing spell on the rooster. It began struggling to free itself, squawking and cawing at the top of its lungs. After one painful peck, Sakura dropped the thing, it had done its job.
Except, she heard laughter coming from inside the great room and still a large amount of hissing. "You know, I thought of having Ginny kill all the roosters, but Salazar found a way to make his basilisk immune to their crows. So why not give my enemies a bit of false hope. It only enrages the basilisk," shouted Tom.
Standing up, Sakura cast finite on herself and blindly stepped through the door. Internally she was screaming at herself for being an overconfident idiot. Now they had no backup plan for the basilisk.
"Tom. Tom Riddle, that is your name, correct? Hagrid told us about you," Sakura bluffed while trying to come up with a plan.
"Ah, the mudblood appears. I suppose Jasmine taught you a few words in parseltongue, such as §open§? Don't worry, I'll make sure to finish her off after taking care of you two," Tom taunted. Then he began hissing and the basilisk began rapidly slithering forward.
"Run Hermione!" Flitwick yelled before it sounded like he was tossed to the side.
Sakura had no intention of blindly running over an uneven cave floor with a basilisk trailing her, it'll catch up to her in seconds. Instead, she aimed her wand at where she remembered a snake statue being and cast bombarda before shielding herself from the blast. Then, with her back to the rapidly approaching snake, she opened her eyes long enough to see the rubble and cast wingardium leviosa five times, each spell on a different piece of rubble and coming out of a different finger of her off-hand. She floated them towards the basilisk, making a rough wall floating in midair a few meters from her.
Moments later she felt the feedback of the spell from floating debris being moved aside. Using that feedback she settled one rock on the tip of the basilisk's snout, one on top of the jaw, one underneath, and one on each side of its head. She now knew roughly where the head of the snake was at all times.
Right now? Striking at her with impossible speed. She dove to her right, unable to apply the sliding jinx while holding the five levitation spells, so she roughly scraped her way along the stone floor. Better than being dead though. She could hear spellfire being exchanged between Flitwick and Tom on the other side of the room.
Standing as fast as possible, Sakura began firing wanded piercing hexes toward where she thought the massive snake's eyes were located. She had no idea of how close or far from her targets she was hitting, nor would she be able to tell when it was safe to look.
She dove to the side again. Stood back up. Dodged again. Fired more spells.
The third time the basilisk went to strike, however, it opened its mouth instead and made a weird noise, a different type of hissing. By the time Sakura raised a protego it was too late. What felt like acid burned the side of her left temple, face, shoulder, and neck.
She almost opened her eyes, the pain was so great. Instead, she let out an ear-piercing scream. She'd dropped the levitation spells, her concentration was shot. Instinctually, she tried to activate her strength of a hundred seal only to remember she no longer had it.
As her scream died a new cry replaced it. One that carried hope and promised salvation. Sakura still felt the burn but she was able to activate her Mystical Palm Jutsu in her left hand and bring it to her face. Using the poison extraction technique, she began removing the venom from the surface of her skin.
Above she heard a bird flapping, squelching and ripping sounds, and a cry of pain from the basilisk. Looking away from the scene, Sakura opened her eyes and saw the shadows of the basilisk and bird fighting on the wall.
"No! Your bird may have blinded the basilisk, but it can still hear and smell you," Tom called out.
Sakura looked back and saw Fawks flying away from a basilisk with its eyes gouged out, bloody streaks leaking down its face. Quietly, Sakura stood up. The basilisk was inhaling through its nose. Sakura tensed, waiting for the strike. Unfortunately, while none of the venom got into her eye, it still reached close enough to her temple that even the proximity caused her left eye to sting and forced her to close it. Combined with the pain and her split concentration, Sakura was too slow to avoid the tail swipe.
She flew through the air, crashing against the stone wall. Multiple rib fractures, possible concussion, severe bruising, and possible internal bleeding, Sakura automatically began cataloging her injuries. She took one step forward. She'd locked her legs after crashing into the wall to not collapse. If she fell she wouldn't be getting back up again.
Her wand was gone. She couldn't run. She couldn't dive and dodge. Basilisk were immune to nearly all magic. She can't transfigure anything large enough to physically fight it. Flitwick was rushing her way, but he was forced to dodge spells from Tom and couldn't make it in time.
The basilisk approached. It reared up, high above her.
No one was coming to save her.
It struck.
She'd just have to save herself.
With an inner strength she didn't know this body had, she leapt to meet the striking snake, fist cocked back.
"Shannaro!" she screamed with every iota of effort and will she could muster up. She reached for her magic with all of her mental energy and remembered the feeling of punching boulders and stomping mountains as Sakura Haruno. She prayed. She pulled her mental energy laced with magic and willed it to work.
In a flash, a beautiful lattice interwove itself between her muscles and skeletal structure, blending perfectly with each bone and muscle fiber.
Sakura punched and the snake's snout crumpled, shards of bone and chunks of gore flying from the impact. The head flew back and the rest of the snake followed, jerked alone by the momentum of the skull.
Sakura fell back to the ground, smirking. Immediately she fell to one knee, then her side, and then she knew no more.
AN: We finally come to the end of the second year. Moving forward, I'm going to try slowing down events and writing in more detail, less summarization. I don't regret skimming over many cannon events instead of writing them out in full, but I don't like writing recaps/time skips as often as I have been. Also, to clarify, the main AU elements of this fic are 1) Hogwarts starts at 12 and goes for 6 years (yes, I know I wrote 7th years into early chapters, I'll fix that at some point), 2) Bellatrix is almost Voldemort's equal in skill and power, and 3) a surprise.
Getting through the first two books took ~37k words, I wouldn't be surprised if the third year alone doubles that. I also suspect that as the fic grows more AU I'll need more time to plan and sit on ideas. When planning, I write down a few major plot points but I can't meticulously plan out how every chapter will go (even though I wish I could), instead a lot of things just… write themselves is the best way I can put it.