It did not take long for everyone to get used to the measures put in place around Hogwarts, so much so that most students simply ceased consciously thinking about any 'unknown dangers'. The fact that the corridor in which Filch had been petrified had been cleaned up and re-opened certainly helped quickly restore the pre-Halloween climate around the school. Besides, the absence of Filch was most probably welcomed by certain predictable groups of students, even if they did not voice it explicitly.
Harry, though, was unfortunately not in any position to stop thinking about that subject – not least due to a lack of communication from Dumbledore about the development of the situation. Despite this, he, too, soon grew accustomed to living with the knowledge of the threat. It was not as if he had never experienced such a situation, after all – and in any case, the dangers which he had to endure last year had been far more explicitly severe than this.
Their research into the Chamber of Secrets had not yielded any concrete results, even with exploitation of Harry's access to the Restricted Section by means of the Invisibility Cloak. Only two or three of the possibly relevant books even mentioned the term, and even then, the mention was only in passing, and was associated each time with tall tales of evils from a bygone era, which had long since been debunked and disproven.
'Maybe whoever petrified Filch was just trying to use the Chamber of Secrets name to scare people,' Hermione had proposed based on this information. 'It could make sense. Just petrifying people might not get enough people terrified. Associating the petrification with some mythical horror, though… I mean, in the muggle world, we have people preaching that one bad thing happening means that doomsday is coming or something crazy like that. It could be the same here, just…you know…deliberate.'
'The Chamber isn't exactly well-known, though,' Neville had objected. 'Do you think that'd really work?'
'Maybe the attacker wanted to appear mysterious to most people and only frighten the ones who knew what the Chamber was?' Hermione had responded after a few seconds of thought.
Hermione's hypothesis sounded somewhat logical to Harry, and it was, conveniently, rather comforting to think that the Chamber was simply something fabricated by Filch's attacker for the sake of a crude form of psychological warfare. Neville still seemed to have his doubts about the theory, but in the absence of any better ones, it was the one that he had to, for now, accept.
Neither had their research into petrification led to any breakthroughs. Not many books – not even books about medicine – discussed the subject, and none which did seemed too bothered to elaborate on its causes. The one book on the Dark Arts which mentioned the subject was slightly more informative, though only barely. It had told them that petrification could be caused by several different, extremely old, exceptionally dark spells – though none were named, much to their disappointment – as well as creatures such as, for example, basilisks, gorgons, cockatrices, and svartálfar.
'I doubt it could've been any of those,' Neville said dismissively of the creatures. 'Gorgons haven't been seen for centuries, maybe even millennia. I don't know what svartálfar are exactly, but the book says they're from really far north, so I doubt they'd be in Britain. Basilisks and cockatrices are enormous. If one had been in Hogwarts, everyone in the school – never mind, the whole country – would know about it.'
'A spell seems the most likely,' Hermione agreed. 'I just wish the book told us which spells…'
Outside their research and despite the petrification, Hogwarts marched on. There was to be an Exploratory that Friday, something that the teachers had reminded them to the point of annoyance the entire week before. Apparently, Professor Kettleburn, the Care of Magical Creatures professor, was going to be doing a presentation about her elective. Harry, to be perfectly honest, had never been much of an animal person – not since the incident when Marge's dog had chased him up the tree – and so did not share the excitement of some of the others at the prospect of working with magical creatures. Nonetheless, he figured that he should still at least go in with an open mind. Magical creatures were indeed interesting to look at, as evidenced by his visit to the zoo on his birthday, and perhaps there was a chance he would find them interesting to work with, too.
The title of 'Professor of Care of Magical Creatures' had elicited in Harry a certain expectation of who Professor Kettleburn would be, but when Harry actually met him, he seemed completely different to those said expectations. He had imagined him as some sort of cowboy character out of an Italian movie about the American West – imposing, tough, and perhaps a little unrefined – but the real person was the antithesis to that. Professor Kettleburn was, by all reasonable measures, short – just about a head above them and a far cry to the likes of Dumbledore, Snape, or McGonagall. He was aged and balding, the only thing remaining of his hair being two strips of short white fuzz on either side of his head. There was an eye-patch over his left eye, he walked with a limp on his left leg, and his left arm was also missing, replaced by a wood and metal contraption which returned to him four 'fingers'. Harry was uncertain how much excitement and confidence about the future outlook of the elective Professor Kettleburn's appearance instilled in him.
There was, however, still the pleasant surprise of a handful of creatures which Professor Kettleburn had brought into the Great Hall for exhibition. After a short presentation in which he gave the students an overview of what was to be studied – one which was not particularly effective at swinging Harry one way or the other towards the class – Professor Kettleburn allowed the students to walk around and look. Likely as a result of space constraints in the Great Hall, he had not brought anything large or, Harry assumed, particularly dangerous. Nonetheless, there were still some interesting creatures on display. There was a kneazle, which Harry had seen before at the 'zoo' – a creature which resembled a cat, though with longer ears, front legs, and paws which resembled hands; a fire crab, which Harry could only describe as a crab with a large, bejewelled, snail-like shell; and a murlap, which looked like some kind of beaver with tendrils growing out of its back.
After looking at the murlap, he walked towards an enclosure containing an ashwinder. According to Professor Kettleburn, these serpents were born from the embers of dying fires, and had several rare abilities – though he did not go into detail what they were. Upon a first, cursory glance, the serpent itself did not seem extremely impressive – it would not have looked too out-of-place in an exhibition of regular, non-magical snakes. Its scales were a dark red colour, interspersed with spots of orange and black. It behaved lethargically, uninterested in the students walking around to gawk at it and seeming positively bored.
'An ashwinder, Draco!' Pansy exclaimed as she and Draco suddenly pushed their way to the edge of the enclosure, nearly knocking over Ernie MacMillan in the process. 'Your…uncle kept these, didn't they?'
'Great-uncle on my father's side,' Draco corrected proudly. 'He was world-renowned at raising serpents.'
Draco bent down in front of the ashwinder's enclosure. 'You're a big one,' he commented quietly.
The ashwinder did not move. 'Do you hear me?' Draco asked. 'Are you asleep?'
There was still no motion. 'Ashwinder, wake up,' he hissed, impatiently reaching a hand out towards it.
'Mister, do not touch the ashwinder!' Professor Kettleburn shouted, alarmed. 'It could – '
Kettleburn did not manage to finish, though, for his sentence was suddenly interrupted by a flash of flame shooting from the ashwinder's enclosure right at Malfoy's face. Malfoy let out a terrified cry as he tried to jump back, but if not for Pansy pulling him out of the way just in time, he would not have been fast enough to escape the blast of fire straight to the face. Despite escaping the flames, Draco crashed right into Pansy, who lost her balance and fell flat on her rear, Draco piling on top of her.
The students witnessing this scene wasted no time to begin laughing at Draco's misfortune. After a moment's pause to make sure that both were okay, the Slytherin students also joined in the humiliation. Draco, grunting, stood up, red in the face. His angry gaze flickered between the ashwinder, which was now fully alert, and his House. There was nothing he could say to better his situation, though, for even Pansy was attempting to back away from him slowly and discreetly in an attempt to save face.
Professor Kettleburn rushed over as fast as his limp allowed, his wand out and ready to assist. 'Are you all right, mister?' he asked, concerned.
Draco was unable to form words for a long moment, perhaps out of his embarrassment. 'I'm fine,' he finally muttered, dusting off his robe and trudging unceremoniously into the ranks of his friends, his eyes fixed on his feet as he tried to melt back into the crowd.
'Remember, children, you are to look, not to touch!' Kettleburn barked. He knelt down in front of the ashwinder's enclosure and slowly held out a hand. For a moment, Harry was afraid that the ashwinder might lash out again, but on the contrary, it allowed Kettleburn to slowly stroke its head. The serpent slowly calmed, lowering itself back into a relaxed coil, though Draco had disturbed it enough that it was now evidently unable to return to its earlier rest.
The laughter soon died down, and the students' attention shifted back to the creatures being showcased. Harry, who had been distracted from the ashwinder by Draco's 'accident', stepped up to the enclosure to take a closer look. It was evident that he had been quite wrong to judge it as unextraordinary based on its appearance alone. It conjuring a blast of flame in its attempt to chase away Draco had not only been impressive, it was also rather scary to watch now that he thought about it.
'Are you a Speaker?' suddenly came a raspy and eerily unhuman voice from right in front and below him. At the same time, he felt a strange well of transcendental energy within him, a feeling somewhat like that which he felt preparing to cast a spell, yet different somehow.
Harry turned his glance towards the source of the sound, and to his surprise, he found himself looking right at the ashwinder. The serpent looked somehow excited, its head raised high and its tongue flicking in and out of its mouth. Its eyes stared right at Harry, and Harry seemed to know without knowing that they held some kind of eerily knowing glance.
'Speaker?' the voice repeated again. The ashwinder raised its head even higher and flicked its tongue again.
Ashwinders can talk? Harry thought to himself. Immediately, he knew that was a ridiculous thought. Snakes could not talk, after all, but upon a second thought, he realised that the ashwinder speaking to him was perhaps not so outlandish in the context of everything else the magical world and its creatures were capable of.
As comical as it felt, Harry decided to try to respond. 'A Speaker?' he asked.
Harry somehow seemed to understand that the ashwinder was pleased. 'You are a Speaker, then,' it responded.
He must have gone crazy, Harry thought to himself, for him to be imagining to be talking to a snake. Yet at the same time, he knew for some reason that it was in fact not crazy at all. 'I'm a Speaker?' he enquired. 'What's a Speaker?'
The serpent rolled its eyes – or at least Harry's mind seemed to think that it did. 'Someone who could speak to us, of course,' it replied, sounding like it thought that Harry was playing with it.
'With…ashwinders?'
'With serpents,' the ashwinder answered. 'A Speaker is a biped who can speak with serpents. Why are you acting like you don't know this, Speaker?'
'Because…I don't?' Harry replied, hoping that his reply did not sound rude to the ashwinder. 'I've never…uh…spoken to a snake before.' He suddenly narrowed his eyes in doubt. 'Am I really speaking with you?'
'Who else would you be speaking to, the biped who feeds me?' the ashwinder asked drolly. 'Kettleburn is what you call him, I think?'
'I…uh…I just didn't know wizards can talk to snakes,' Harry said sheepishly.
'Wizards cannot talk to snakes,' the ashwinder said. 'Only some wizards – Speakers – can. That's what I've been told, at least. I've never met a Speaker myself. Until now, that is.'
'Really? Not one?'
The serpent seemed to give a small shake of its head. 'Not one,' it replied. 'Speakers are extremely rare – that's well known amongst serpents. Most live their whole lives without meeting a single Speaker, and those who do are said to be blessed. To have met you, Speaker, I must say, is an incredible fortune and miracle.'
'How did you know I was a…Speaker? And why don't more people just…learn…to speak with snakes?'
'I just knew,' the ashwinder replied. 'As for your second question, Speaker, only those who were born with the ability to speak to us serpents will ever be able to speak to us. No wizard who is not a Speaker can learn, imitate, or understand the language of the serpents.'
'Nobody else understands what we're saying?'
'No. Non-Speakers will in fact not even be able to hear us, for they lack the ability to interact with this magic.'
'Mister, are you okay? What's going on here?'
Harry jumped in surprise and spun his head to see Professor Kettleburn standing next to him, wand out and looking nervous. 'Mister…you were just staring at the ashwinder,' he said, voice tense. 'Is everything okay? Did it hurt you?'
'I would never attack anyone who didn't provoke me first,' the ashwinder said, and Harry could sense a feeling of indignation despite the flat tone of the serpent's voice. 'Even the most learned non-Speakers are often ignorant of serpents.'
'Well, it's not like they can hear you when you speak, right?' Harry replied. 'Or me, for that matter.'
'Mister, are you speaking to the ashwinder?' Professor Kettleburn gasped, sounding suddenly awed.
Harry hesitated a moment before answering. 'I think so.'
'Blimey…are you sure?' Kettleburn breathed. 'That would mean…that would mean you could speak…you could speak Parseltongue…'
'Parseltongue?' a voice Harry recognised as belonging to Blaise Zabini said. 'What's going on? Is…Potter…talking to the ashwinder?'
'I think he was…' Kettleburn whispered, before pausing to think for a long moment. 'No…I don't think it could be anything else… The Creators…Harry Potter, a Parselmouth…'
Students were beginning to gather around him, now, whispers coursing through the crowd. Many bore confused looks on their faces, including Hermione and Tracey. Surprised and seemingly awed looks grew on the faces of some – Neville, for instance – as the whispering reached them. Yet others started to look for some reason terrified, while Draco's face was still glowing red, perhaps in lingering anger or humiliation – or possibly a mix of both. 'What about being able to speak to snakes?' Harry asked, perplexed by all that was happening and the others' reactions. 'Is it supposed to be…good? Bad?'
Another lengthy pause. 'No, neither. It is simply an exceedingly rare ability,' Kettleburn answered. 'That is all.'
His answer did not seem convincing somehow to Harry, but he did not know how he could tell him that he was not convinced without sounding rude. 'Everyone, get back to what you were doing before,' Kettleburn said – or perhaps, commanded. 'You have thirty more minutes. Make good use of them rather than hounding your fellow students!'
Kettleburn shooed the students away, but before Harry could ask him more about what Parseltongue was, he walked away, going back to patrolling the enclosures and telling interested students about the creatures. Harry, still curious about Parseltongue, shadowed him around the Great Hall, looking for a chance to ask him if he knew anything more. He finally got an opportunity at the murlap enclosure, but when he asked, Professor Kettleburn did not provide him with any new knowledge in response.
'That was all I know,' he answered. 'Parselmouths have the ability to speak to snakes. I don't know anything else about that magic.'
Harry did not attempt to question Kettleburn again, and wishing to avoid more staring and attention from his classmates, he did not try to talk to the ashwinder again, either. It was clear, however, that everyone else, too, were still thinking about Harry's display. Other students were constantly shooting covert glances at him, whispering behind his back, or otherwise making pointed gestures which made it quite apparent to Harry that they were talking about him.
The attention died down a little during Elementary Studies, but Harry's Parselmouth abilities were no doubt still on everyone's minds. Harry realised while half-listening to Professor Katic talk about algebra, however, that perhaps Neville would know a thing or two about Parseltongue. He had always known things about the magical world that they did not, but more revealingly, the look that had been on his face when he had found out Harry was a Parselmouth was not that of someone who had no idea of what was going on.
The moment they returned to the common room, Harry dragged him and Hermione to one of the tables in the corner which had long been the site of their discrete conversations. 'What happened back there?' he asked them.
'You were speaking Parseltongue,' Neville answered. 'I didn't know you could speak Parseltongue.'
'I didn't, either,' Harry said. 'What even is Parseltongue?'
'Well, Professor Kettleburn said it's the language of snakes. I mean…it's pretty simple.'
'Is that really it?' Harry questioned. 'Why did Ron look scared that I could speak it?'
Neville shrugged. 'I don't know.' He paused. 'Well…'
'Well what?'
'Well…apparently there's a lot of legends about Parselmouths,' Neville said. 'I don't know anything specific about them…I just know they exist. Well…a lot of famous wizards were supposed to have been Parselmouths. Salazar Slytherin was one – that's why Slytherin's symbol is a serpent. Merlin might have been one according to legend. But also many dark wizards… Emeric the Evil, apparently…and You-Know-Who.'
'Voldemort could speak to snakes?' Harry asked, shocked.
Neville nodded. 'A lot of people know he was a Parselmouth,' he affirmed. 'Maybe that could've been why Ron and some others were scared…'
Harry gasped. 'They think I'm a dark wizard?'
Neville shrugged again. 'Well, I don't know if they really think that. Maybe it just made them remember You-Know-Who or something like that. I mean, a lot of good wizards were Parselmouths, too. It's not like someone being a Parselmouth has to mean they're dark or anything like that.'
'I don't think you're a dark wizard, if that's what you were worried about,' Neville said with a slight chuckle. 'And I think most of the school is smart enough to know that Parseltongue doesn't equal dark as well.'
Despite the relatively serious nature of what they were discussing, Harry could not help but allow a quip to come into his mind. 'If I really were a dark wizard, I don't think I'd be the one worrying,' he replied.
Hermione rolled her eyes.
Word of what had happened at the Exploratory quickly spread around the school. Soon, nearly everyone knew that Harry was a Parselmouth. Thankfully, most people seemed to simply have acknowledged the fact and moved on with their lives, with only a small group actively treating him any differently – mostly with a palpable kind of suspicion.
Of those, Ron was especially notable due to the extent of his fear of Harry's Parseltongue abilities, something that their unfortunate proximity certainly did not help. Perhaps, Harry thought, he could understand the source of his discomfort, given his dislike of the Slytherin House and all things connected to it, but it was still certainly not pleasant for Harry to be sleeping in the same room as someone who was obviously unnerved by his presence.
Besides Ron, Draco, too, was treating him with even more dislike than usual, though Harry did not mind that anywhere near as much. 'He's just jealous,' Tracey had told him. 'He goes on these rants about how magic made you "of all people" a Parselmouth and not him. I don't think anyone's really impressed, though… Not even Pansy…'
Another prank took place in the midst of all the talk of Harry being a Parseltongue, with Leanne Wilson of Hufflepuff falling victim. Apparently, before a Charms class with the Slytherins, her textbook had been altered so that the spell she applied to make a pre-charmed teacup sing instead made it shout obscenities. Professor Flitwick, thankfully, figured out immediately that Leanne must have been pranked, though that did not fix the embarrassment that had already been caused.
Many in the Hufflepuff House were adamant that a Slytherin had been responsible. Their accusations were not exactly groundless, Harry thought, for it would not make very much sense for someone to pull a prank without being there to witness it – and there were no witnesses other than the Slytherins, Hufflepuffs, and Flitwick. Taken together with the previous pranks, the theory made even more sense. Dean had been pranked in potions with the Slytherins, and Ron had been pranked in History of Magic, also with the Slytherins. The prank played on Justin had been during Astronomy practical, when all four Houses – including Slytherin – had been present. It seemed like quite a plausible conclusion to say that the pranker must have been someone – or some group of people – from their year in the Slytherin House.
Harry, curious for any leads into who the pranker might have been, asked Tracey if she knew anything. She disappointed him, however, with her response. 'No…I don't know anything for sure,' she told him.
Harry raised an eyebrow. 'Do you know anything else…anything not for sure?'
Tracey thought for a few moments. 'No, I don't,' she answered. 'It could've been anyone…one of Pansy's friends, maybe…'
Harry was a little miffed that he was not able to get to the bottom of this, but figured that it was, in the grand scheme of things, not a big deal, anyway. Most students seemed to perceive the pranks as just some silly entertainment, or perhaps simply an annoyance at worst. Anyway, as it turned out, both the prank and Harry's Parselmouth abilities were soon to be overshadowed by an event far greater and far more sinister.
It happened on a Sunday night, precisely when satiated students were leaving the Great Hall to head back to their dormitories for rest, homework, or some combination of both. As Harry, Hermione, and Neville walked back to the staircases which would take him back to the Gryffindor Common Room, he noticed a crowd of students gathered around what he knew to be the entrance to the Hufflepuff Common Room. The gathered students seemed agitated, nervous whispers coursing through them.
'What's going on here?' Hermione asked one of the Hufflepuffs – a first-year by the looks of it.
'T-Two students got h-hurt, I…I think,' the first-year answered, her lips trembling.
Harry's blood froze with the instant realisation of the possible implications of what she had said. 'How did they get hurt?'
Perhaps he had asked a little too harshly in his panic, for tears suddenly began to appear in the first-year's eyes. 'I…I don't know… S-Someone went for P-Professor Sprout. She'd k-know.'
Barely had the first-year said that did Dumbledore, accompanied by Professors Sprout and McGonagall as well as several Patrollers, come rushing down the corridor. The crowd opened for the teachers, and as Harry peered through the gathered students, what he had feared was realised. Leaning against the wall were Leanne and Aakshansh, their forms still and stiff. Above their forms was written in blood-red the words 'Zitis heseti tas hnes Naced. Hnes Gizsdajlet Otgadajom heseti ge kerkrites.' Harry had no doubt over what had happened here. Aakshansh and Leanne had been petrified.
'Headmaster, Leanne and – '
'We found them – '
' – they were fine in class – '
' – attacked Filch attack them?'
'All students need to return to their dormitories immediately,' Dumbledore said severely after a few seconds of inspecting the petrified forms of the two Hufflepuffs. 'Minerva, please go make the announcement for the entire school.'
Professor McGonagall rushed off. 'What happened, Headmaster?' one of the Hufflepuff students, a Prefect, asked anxiously.
'I'm afraid to say that they have been attacked,' Dumbledore answered grimly. 'Petrified.'
'Petrified?'
'Turned to stone by magic.'
Frightened shrieks echoed through the mass of gathered students. 'Will they be okay?' some shouted. 'Who attacked them?' demanded another. 'Why?' asked another simply.
'They will be okay,' Dumbledore assured, though that did not seem to do all that much to calm the immediate mood. 'There is a potion that will return them to normal.'
'Do you know who did it?' a student pressed. 'Does this have anything to do with what happened to Mister Filch?'
Dumbledore nodded gravely. 'I'm afraid this has everything to do with what happened to Mister Filch.'
'Is Mister Filch also – '
'Attention, all students,' Professor McGonagall's magically-amplified voice suddenly echoed through the corridors, 'there is an emergency situation at Hogwarts. All students are to return to their common rooms immediately. Prefects, in fifteen minutes, you are to perform a head-count of the students in the dormitory. Any missing students are to be reported to your Head of House immediately. Any students found knowingly contravening this order will be severely disciplined.'
'Return to your dormitories, now,' Dumbledore called to the gathered students. 'Miss Wilson and Mister Trivedi will be well taken-care of. Please return to your dormitories now for your own safety.'
Professor Sprout nodded. 'Go on! We will update you with your Housemates' situation!'
The students quickly started to disperse, and Harry, Hermione, and Neville wasted no time in heading back to the Gryffindor Tower. None of them spoke much that night as once again, the dormitories were put into lockdown. There was nothing to talk about, neither was there mood for conversation. Two students in their own year had just been attacked and petrified by the 'Heir', whoever he or she was. Unlike after the incident with Filch, it was now crystal-clear to Harry that Dobby had been right, that 'terrible things' were indeed happening at Hogwarts.
Restrictions at Hogwarts tightened even further following the twin petrification. 'Patrollers will now escort all students to and from all lessons,' Dumbledore announced the next day at breakfast. 'All clubs and activities involving less than fifteen people are suspended. Members of clubs larger than fifteen people will be escorted by Patrollers from their common rooms to their meetings, which will also be guarded. Students must obtain an escort by a Patroller or a teacher for all movement about the castle. The only exceptions to this will be between the common rooms and the Great Hall or the library, and in this case, only along marked corridors, well-guarded by Patrollers. All other corridors should be considered off-limits for students without escort, with severe sanctions for transgressions.'
'Do not attempt to use any methods of trickery to circumvent these rules,' he added, and Harry had a feeling that Dumbledore might have been specifically addressing him and his invisibility cloak. 'Doing so would be extremely irresponsible to both your personal safety and the collective safety of everyone at Hogwarts.'
Despite these new rules, it was difficult for those around Hogwarts to feel at ease. This was completely different from Filch falling victim to a nameless incident. Now, it was two students whom many knew, attacked by something to which a name could be pinned. As usual, theories over what happened began to fly around Hogwarts, but these now took a far more serious tone compared to those seen after Filch's petrification. Several students who understood Eltrys had been at the scene, and soon, talk of the 'Chamber of Secrets' were spreading like wildfire around Hogwarts. Speculation of what exactly the Chamber of Secrets was abound and varied, but the most persistent – and in the absence of any actual evidence, the most believed – rumour linked it somehow to Salazar Slytherin.
'Apparently, Slytherin built a Chamber of Secrets into the school after he and the rest of the founders parted ways,' Seamus narrated the claims in the common room to a group of Gryffindors from their year a few days after the petrification. 'He's supposed to have put something really terrible in it so that he could take his eventual revenge on the others.'
There was no evidence to corroborate those claims, however. Not even in the Restricted Section did any book give any substantive information to back up the assertion that Seamus had relayed. Again and again, the Chamber of Secrets was dismissed as a legend as old as recorded history of Britain and Hogwarts, to which there had never been any sort of evidence pointing to its possible existence, nor any sign of what could possibly be inside. The location of the Chamber of Secrets, even, could not be fixed. Some sources indeed backed up the legend's relationship to Hogwarts, but others connected it to other places, such as Gringotts or even France.
In addition to these claims, there were even rumours that the spate of pranks recently plaguing the second-year students were connected to the petrifications. The 'evidence' given was that Leanne had been pranked just days before she had been petrified, as well as the general suspicion that it had been a Slytherin who had been responsible for said pranks. Aside from a few diehard conspiracy theorists or Slytherin-haters, nearly everyone dismissed that theory out-of-hand. Childish pranks were one thing, but attacking other students with dangerous and most likely dark magic was something entirely different.
There even had been some whisperings that Harry, of all people, had been responsible for the attack, citing Harry being a Parselmouth and the supposed connection between the Chamber of Secrets and Slytherin as proof. Thankfully for Harry, only at most one or two people around all of Hogwarts even considered the theory seriously, with the vast majority dismissing the outlandish extrapolation out of hand.
Rumours also abounded about the supposedly imminent evacuation of Hogwarts. Just two days after the evacuation, some students were claiming that Dumbledore had already negotiated the transfer of the entire student body to Ysgol Hud yn Eryri in Wales, where they would spend the rest of the year until the Chamber of Secrets had been closed, and that everyone should start packing their trunks and getting ready to go at a moment's notice. Dumbledore, however, quickly torpedoed those rumours.
'Contrary to the belief of some, we have no plans at this moment to evacuate Hogwarts,' he announced. 'With the current precautions, we believe we should be able to avoid another incident like this without resorting to the disruption of an evacuation and moving.'
Despite the knowledge that Hogwarts would be staying where it was and Dumbledore's quite regular updates on the situation, an undercurrent of general hysteria still ran strong around Hogwarts. Thanks to this, a flourishing black market suddenly sprang up around the school. 'Amulets' and other items claiming to protect students from petrification were being traded for, from the perspective of students, exorbitant prices. Many students – mostly first-, second-, and third-years – fell for the scams, purchasing charms which turned out to actually just be worthless pieces of scrap. One amulet, which Hazel and Ron pooled together ten Sickles to purchase from an unscrupulous Ravenclaw, ended up being a literal plastic ring purchased from a cheap muggle shop.
'This is actually revolting,' Hermione said of the peddlers. 'They're taking advantage of fear to scam scared students who don't know any better.'
Harry agreed completely with this sentiment. Fortunately, just a few days after this disreputable shadow economy sprang up, the teachers cracked down upon it – and hard. Students caught selling these wares were sometimes given a week or more of detention and forced to return all their ill-gotten gains. Fred, George, and Lee were further made an example of by Professor McGonagall, who forced them to publicly apologise to all the Gryffindors for their misdeeds, something which no doubt caused their egos to take a major hit.
Teachers, Harry noticed, were going absent at a far higher frequency than before. Anna became a universal substitute of sorts, covering for the classes of the missing professors. Snape, for instance, went out for an entire week just days after the dual petrification – something that Harry did not have too many complaints about, thanks to the dual boon of having potions with someone he actually liked and not needing to attend his three Mind Arts lessons. Professor McGonagall was gone for two days the week after, followed by Professor Flitwick for another two days. Nobody had any good idea what they were doing, and the teachers were not exactly forthcoming, but it was not exactly difficult to guess that the reason for their absence had everything to do with the petrifications.
Other less-noticeable changes happened around Hogwarts, too. It seemed that a lot more people were suddenly taking Lockhart's Defence Against the Dark Arts classes more seriously. In addition to what they were already learning and the exercises they were already doing, Lockhart also began to teach them the basics of duelling. As usual, his focus was not on spells, instead concentrating on skills completely unrelated to magic such as physical movement, reading one's opponent, or situational awareness, just to name a few. Regularly, he called students up to duel with him – Harry being one of his favourite 'volunteers' – and despite restricting himself to only the spells he had taught them, Lockhart would wipe the floor with every student, every single time.
'Memorising spells is useless!' was his constant refrain. 'Knowing all the spells in the world will not make you a worthy match for any opponent if you do not learn the full art of personal combat! A master duellist using only first-year spells can easily defeat another wizard who knows not how to fight and is arrogant enough to lean only on knowing all the magic in the world!'
Nonetheless, sometimes, spells – many of them variations on ones which they had already learned before – were sometimes important as well. 'The Fast Levitation Charm is relatively simple but extremely crucial. It would not even be a stretch to call it life-saving,' he said in a lecture to the class the second week following the petrifications. 'Some wizards who like to call themselves "advanced" often look down upon the Fast Levitation Charm, believing that their egos are best served by the more advanced Shield Charm. Tell me why this is idiotic. Macmillan.'
'The Shield Charm can't block all spells, but a levitated object will stop anything dead.'
'Correct. Some spells – especially very dark ones – can punch right through a Shield Charm. Why else?'
'Does the Shield Charm take more energy to cast?' Neville asked.
'Generally, this is correct,' Lockhart confirmed. 'The amount of energy the Fast Levitation Charm requires depends on the object being levitated. If you are levitating a small object to block a spell, the Fast Levitation Charm can consume a lot less energy than a Shield Charm will require for the same purpose. Larger objects require more energy, obviously, but in an actual fight, chances are good that you will not be needing to levitate any unreasonably large objects to shield yourself.'
'Shield Charms have their purpose,' Lockhart continued. 'Fast Levitation Charms do very well against single or a few incoming spells and should absolutely be preferred, but a Shield Charm is much more viable against a volley of spells – unless, of course, you are facing an enemy using spells you know Shield Charms are useless against, in which case you should run for cover.'
For the next half an hour, Lockhart guided the class through casting the Fast Levitation Charm – a process that was only slightly different from the basic Levitation Charm – and allowed them to practise a little before, as usual, he called for students to come up to practice against him. Hermione was the first to be called up, and despite her best efforts to levitate logs from a pre-prepared pile to block Lockhart's string of Jelly-Legs Jinxes, she caught one right to the chest after just two attempts.
After Hermione had gone, it was Justin Finch-Fletchley's turn. He did marginally better, surviving four of Lockhart's spells before being hit. 'Potter, you're next,' Lockhart called.
Harry had expected Lockhart to summon him up – he had done so nearly every single duelling lesson, something Harry was not actually annoyed about, for it gave him extra opportunity to practice – so he stood up from his desk and made his way up to the front of the room, his wand out. 'Ready?' Lockhart asked.
Without waiting for Harry to reply, Lockhart sent a ball of orange light shooting across the room, trying to catch him off guard. Harry, however, was prepared – this was a trick that Lockhart regularly pulled, after all – and with a quick cast, Harry levitated a log from the ground into the air into the path of the jinx. Barely had the log absorbed Lockhart's first spell did Harry spot another shooting his way. He levitated another log into the air, blocking the second curse as well.
Lockhart sent another two Jelly-Legs Jinxes his way in quick succession. Harry successfully blocked the first one, but realised that he was not going to have time to block the second one even with the best cast. Thinking fast, he jumped aside, allowing the jinx to fly harmlessly past his left shoulder.
'Good – ' another jinx, ' – Potter.' Harry, not fooled by his distraction, blocked the jinx. 'Remember, don't – ' yet another spell, ' – ever forget – ' and another, just as Harry jumped clear of the one before, ' – your basic movements!'
'And don't ever let your opponent distract you!' Lockhart shouted, before letting loose three Jelly-Legs Jinxes in quick succession. With a Fast Levitation Charm, Harry blocked the second spell before sidestepping the first, before casting again to stop the third Jelly-Legs Jinx.
Lockhart lowered his wand. 'Good, Potter. You may go back to your seat.'
Harry nodded and turned to go back to his desk. Then, unexpectedly, out of the corner of his eye, he saw another orange ball of light flying towards him. Instantly, he realised that Lockhart had tricked him into letting his guard down by telling him he was done. Desperately, he tried to aim at one of the logs to defend himself, but caught unprepared, he had no chance. The Jelly-Legs Jinx hit him in the thigh, and at once, he lost all strength in his legs, and wobbled and fell to the ground.
'A fight is never over until you've removed your opponent's weapons from their hands – all of them!' Lockhart proclaimed as Harry struggled to get back up. 'In the real world, nobody will be anywhere near as honourable as they are in the duelling tournaments.'
It was truly incredible how alchemy was, in some way, a part of everything, Anna thought – and sometimes, in ways and for reasons which seemed to make no sense. Using a base elixir as a starting point for the petrification reversal potion would achieve the same result, but allowed five or six steps and two difficult-to-obtain ingredients to be skipped entirely. Somehow, even though Severus knew so much about Potions, he had completely missed the connection. If Anna ever visited her old school in Berlin again – something that seemed unfortunately unlikely given the political reality today – she would need to thank her mentor Erwin Leßmann for making the class memorise all the patterns of potion to base elixir conversions.
Anna knocked on the door of Albus's study and was let in, taking a seat. 'A huge thank-you for recognising the conversion,' Albus said as she did so. 'That's at least two long trips and a few hundred Galleons saved. If I recall correctly, you were once Erwin Leßmann's student?'
'Yes. He was my alchemy mentor at the Gymnasium.'
Albus nodded approvingly. 'He was truly one of the finest alchemists of our age. It is very unfortunate that he's no longer with us. You have my condolences.'
Anna gasped, surprised. 'Wait, what?'
'Herr Leßmann passed away last week at the age of 117,' Albus said. 'I only heard about his loss through Olympe Maxime of Beauxbatons a few days ago. A sad piece of tiding. Erwin was a most knowledgeable and passionate colleague with whom I was fortunate enough to work on several occasions.'
Albus walked over to one of his cabinets and opened it, revealing several shelves of bottles. 'May I offer you a glass of Negroni in his memory? I cannot claim to be able to make it as he knows how to, but perhaps if he were still here, he would appreciate my attempt.'
Anna smiled. 'Certainly.'
Albus took out two glasses from another cabinet, then conjured some water, which he froze into cubes of ice in mid-air. He took a few minutes to pour the drinks, then conjured two wooden stirrers, which he then enchanted to automatically stir the drinks before levitating the two glasses over to his desk.
'I apologise in advance if it is not up to your expectations,' Albus said.
Anna took a sip. It tasted noticeably different than the ones Erwin used to make – a little more bitter than she remembered – but that did not mean it was by any means bad. 'Not at all, Albus,' she replied. 'Thank you for the thought.'
'I'm glad you approve,' Albus said. 'By the way, I've submitted your proposal to start an alchemy class to the Board of Governors.'
'Thank you,' Anna replied with a smile. 'I appreciate your help.'
'You're most welcome. Now, if I may change the topic to what I need to discuss with you?'
'Of course.'
'Well, let me perhaps first update you,' Albus began. 'Severus, as you know, successfully managed to acquire the two herbs we needed from the Sultan of Timbuktu. Filius has managed to get the goblins of Gringotts to sell a quantity of Graniteberries. Minerva has acquired the ingredient we needed for the next step from the French, and we have placed orders to our contacts in Istanbul to purchase from merchants there the other six items on the list we had drawn up. There is only one problem left before we have all the rare ingredients for the petrification reversal potion. We couldn't find any source to acquire Breaking Grass.'
Anna raised an eyebrow. 'Breaking Grass? I've heard of it. It grows in the wild in…in northern Ukraine, southern Byelorussia, no? It's supposed to be rare, yes, but it's not so rare that you can't find it at all, can it?'
'I am aware of all this,' Albus said. 'There used to be a supply of it on the market – I've seen it being sold a few times myself in Lemberg – but probably because of the civil war, none of our contacts are able to find it anywhere – not in Lemberg, not in Istanbul, not in Belgrade or anywhere else.'
Anna nodded slowly. 'It would make sense… It's used to cure a number of local diseases, I think. Perhaps the armies wanted to secure the entire supply for themselves…'
'Or perhaps the trade routes out of the Russian Empire have been completely disrupted by the war,' Albus suggested. 'Either could be possible. We know painfully little about what is happening on the ground, unfortunately.'
'So what do you intend to do about this Breaking Grass problem?'
Albus stared silently at Anna for a long moment before sighing. Instantly, Anna realised what he wanted her to do, and her heart stopped at the thought. 'You don't mean…'
Albus nodded slowly. 'I'm afraid that you will need to go personally there and acquire the plant…somehow. There must still be merchants selling the herb to the local population. In the, in my opinion, unlikely case that there aren't, you know enough about the land to have a reasonable chance of finding the herb in the wild and gathering it yourself.'
Anna blinked, floored by the shock of what Albus was asking her to do. 'You're telling me, you want me to go into a war zone and find an herb?' she asked incredulously. 'I'm sorry, but that sounds like suicide.'
'You won't be going alone. You will be going with Gilderoy.'
Anna's jaw dropped. 'Gilderoy?' she demanded, her anger and hatred towards Lockhart flaring. 'You want me to go – to Russia – with Lockhart? You want me to go with Lockhart knowing how much I despise him? Knowing what he's done?'
'I know, Anna,' Albus said calmly, attempting to placate her. 'I know what you think of him. I am aware of who he is. I am aware, Anna.'
'So why in the world do you still want me to go with him?' Anna snapped. 'I would rather go by myself and take my chances, then!'
'Because I want you to be successful, and more importantly, to come back alive,' Albus said, discarding his gentler tone for one of total seriousness. 'However he got his knowledge, you cannot deny that he knows the best of all of us what is happening today in Russia. He knows the warring sides better than even you – you must admit that as the truth – he knows how they operate, how they act, how to get past any stops or checkpoints, and a lot more. In him, you have possibly the best chance of getting across the country undetected and unharmed.'
'Then he can go himself,' Anna spat. 'I'm sure he'd love to go back and inspect the results of his handiwork, anyway, maybe drink some shots with his old mates. I don't need to be involved.'
'Yes, you do,' Albus replied. 'How is Gilderoy to acquire the Breaking Grass on his own? I have my doubts he even knows what Breaking Grass looks like, and even if he did, how would he purchase it? He clearly doesn't know the local languages.'
'He'll probably just burn down the shop, kill the owner, and take what he wants,' Anna suggested venomously.
'And is that not precisely what you – and I – do not want?'
Anna huffed. She looked for a way around Albus's argument, but found none. Albus was right, and she hated it, hated even more that his point had taken some of the steam out of her anger. 'Can you not just show him a picture of the Breaking Grass, and tell him to just show it to…whoever he needs to get it from?'
'And tell me, how would that look?' Albus questioned. 'How would someone in a rural town, who had perhaps until then never met anyone from more than a few towns away, react when, out of nowhere, a foreigner who doesn't even speak their language shows up and asks them for an herb?'
'They would be suspicious,' Anna groused, forced to agree against her will to Albus's logic for Lockhart. 'Very suspicious. Probably scared. They might call someone from one of the armies to investigate.'
'Exactly, and what would happen then?' Albus asked. 'What if he is attacked? He will defend himself, and we both know what that might entail.'
Anna nodded grimly. 'That's clear,' she agreed, unable to help but feel another wave of disgust towards Lockhart boil inside of her.
'And that's why I need you,' Albus finished. 'People would be far less likely to suspect you than someone like Lockhart. With you, we have the best chance of doing this without causing anyone harm, which is what we all want, but at the same time, you need Lockhart to ensure that you can get to where you need to go with the least risk of attracting attention from any of the warring factions. This is the best chance of success. We need the Breaking Grass, and we need it before the middle of next month, or the entire potion will go to waste. We would then need to start this long process over again – and the need for Breaking Grass would not simply go away.'
'And you know as well as I that there will be more petrifications sooner or later. The Board of Governors is blocking any discussion of evacuating Hogwarts. They think this is barely a noteworthy threat, even though we know it is anything but that. We don't know what is causing these attacks, or what the Chamber of Secrets even is. We need to be able to at least reverse these petrifications and any new ones, if and when they come. What if Harry or another one of the students you care most about were attacked tomorrow and petrified? The chance of that occurring is most certainly not zero.'
Anna looked at him. She still felt deeply convicted that she did not want anything to do with Lockhart. She hated him, hated what he had done, hated what he stood for. She did not know how she should feel about going back to the Russian Empire, so many years after fleeing from the brutality that had taken so many people close to her. At the same time, she was a teacher. Albus had stepped up for her, a complete stranger, when she needed help – he had given her shelter from Gringotts, a job, even his blessing to research Nicholas Flamel's archives. She had to step up for the school and its students when they now needed help, no matter how unpleasant it was for her personally.
'I'll do it.'
Albus looked at her, his expression commending and even thankful. 'Thank you, Anna. I realise this is not easy for you to go back there. Especially with Gilderoy of all people. I'm sincerely sorry that I have to put you in such a situation. I wish there were any other way, but…'
Anna shrugged, trying to play off her anxiety. 'I'll manage.'
'Maybe…maybe it'll be good for me,' she added, attempting to sound a little optimistic and see the situation in some positive light, even if she did not exactly feel that way. 'It's been so long since I've been back to where I grew up. Maybe…it'll be good to see Ukraine again.'
Albus nodded slowly. 'If anything happens, please contact me immediately. A Patronus message will be fully secure and the quickest way to reach me. Pack lightly. I will have camping and survival supplies that you might need sent to your office tonight. You will depart tomorrow, early in the morning. You will go to the Ministry in London by Floo from my study, then use a Portkey to Lemberg. From there, you should decide on your own how you should get to where you need to go. You could set out from Lemberg through the magical world and try to look for porous border crossings from Austria-Hungary into the Protector-controlled areas, though that may be difficult, even with Gilderoy's help. You may want to try travelling through muggle Ukraine or Byelorussia and enter directly into the Russian Empire. Any entrances in cities significant to the magical world like Kiev or Minsk or Odessa will likely be too well-watched, but entrances through smaller towns may be easier to slip through. I will provide you with the most updated maps I have access to, so you might be able to work out the best plan of action yourself.'
'Best of luck, Anna.'
