'You've agreed to do it?' Andriy asked, surprised, as Anna stepped across the door's threshold. She held it open for a few moments longer than she normally would, allowing Lockhart to slip through.

'I…yes, I'll do it,' Anna replied, unable to help but feel a strong sense of guilt at the imminent double-cross. Andriy had not betrayed her to the Protectors, even though he could have easily done so, no doubt in exchange for a healthy reward. He did not deserve to be betrayed now.

Yet, as much as she had tried, she was unable to stop Lockhart from going ahead with his plan – and she knew that she had no chance of stopping him by force, either. In the end, she had grudgingly agreed to 'help', hoping that with her presence, Andriy might be spared the worst of Lockhart's brutality.

Andriy nodded gratefully, something that twisted Anna's insides further. 'Thank you,' he said. 'Allow me a few moments to gather my things.'

He reached under the counter and pulled out an old, worn bag, and began to fill it. 'So, how is it that you ended up supplying herbs to the Protectors?' she asked as he packed. 'And how is it that they are actually paying you for your services, instead of just taking what they want from you and then burning your house down like they're doing everywhere else?'

Andriy shrugged. 'I'm more useful to them alive – and cooperative – than dead,' he answered. 'The Protector soldiers sent to this dump are the worst of the dregs, see? Twelve of them can't put together half a brain between them. None of them know how to harvest herbs, make potions, do anything besides cast a handful of combat spells and blindly swing a sword around. They need my service, and they're willing to leave me alone, not loot anything, and pay me a liveable sum on top for it.'

'Same couldn't be said for the other people in town,' Anna remarked. 'Or the people from some other towns.'

Andriy shrugged. 'Sure, I feel sorry for them, but I really can't be too concerned, can I?'

'Don't care about the lives of your neighbours?'

'I need to feed myself, don't I?' Andriy asked. 'Or would you rather me starve, or get killed? Leave the village with no herbalist at all? Everyone else would do it in my place. You would do what I did, too, to survive.'

He tied his bag shut, then turned to the sword behind his counter. He removed the sheath from its mount and set it down, before carefully lifting the blade off the wall and sliding it into the sheath. Finally, he grabbed a belt out of a drawer, slid the sword and scabbard into it, then put it on around his waist.

'The craftsmanship of that is impressive,' Anna commented.

'Oh, the sword,' Andriy said. 'Yes, it is. Forged by the dwarves of the Caucasus from meteorite steel. Finest material in the world, they say.'

'How did you manage to get that?' Anna asked out of curiosity. 'If that's true, I'm sure that it doesn't come cheap.'

'No, of course it did not,' Andriy answered. 'I did not buy it, of course – all the money I've made in my life probably wouldn't add up to be a hundredth of the price of that. No, it is a family heirloom.'

'Your father's?'

'And before him, his father's.'

Somehow, Anna expected him to say that with pride in his voice, pointing out with pleasure that his father and grandfather had both wielded it in battle – it was what she would have expected someone like Lockhart to say. Instead, however, there was a detectable tone of sorrow in his voice, like the sword was connected to something upsetting, tragic, even.

Andriy disappeared behind the counter and reappeared with the jar of Breaking Grass in his hand. In a split-second decision, she held up her hand, trying to stop Lockhart's imminent attack. 'How did your grandfather get it?' she asked, her curiosity piqued by this object that was so out of place.

To Anna's surprise, Lockhart seemed to stay his hand, and Andriy sighed. 'We – by that, I mean grandfather – was originally from Lviv,' he explained softly. 'The official name now is Lemberg, of course – ever since it was given to Austria after the Great Continental War. Grandfather was an officer in the army when Austria invaded, and he was immediately sent to the front. Before he left, his wife – she was a noblewoman – commissioned for him this sword. Told him that if he had it, she could be assured that he would return safely.'

'Did he?'

Andriy shook his head sadly. 'He never returned. A friend of his in the army brought the sword back to his wife, told her that her husband had been killed by a single spell – apparently didn't even feel it. My father was only eight then. He says his mother became a completely different person after her husband died. She withdrew, became cold, depressed. She started drinking, started becoming delusional, aggressive. She tried to take her own life but couldn't carry through with it. In the end, she was stripped of her noble title and exiled from the city. We landed here.'

'Father said his mother was neglectful – no surprises there,' Andriy continued, and Anna, sensing that he seemed to be wanting to vent his story, did not interrupt. 'She died at a young age, before father had even finished school, and he was left with a choice – go to the tsar's army or beg on the streets. Obviously, he chose the army. For some time, he did well. He rose through the ranks as high as his…status…allowed. He got married, had me… Then, of course, the civil war came.'

'He was stationed in Riga at the time. When the Hwjerikwunists laid siege to the city for the second time…well, he had to defend the city. That was the last we heard from him. Nobody knows how he died, but once again, a friend of his who had evacuated from the city at the last minute came to our door to present us with the news…and the sword. This must have been…ten years ago now…'

Andriy's story ended in a long silence. 'I'm sorry for your loss,' Anna told him quietly. She wanted to add something, but any broader statement seemed quite meaningless to her.

'It has been a long time since,' Andriy said. 'We have managed – '

Suddenly, the door of the apothecary flew open with an enormous crash. 'What the – '

When Anna turned, she saw four men walk through the door. It took only an instant for her to identify them as Protector soldiers – the double-headed eagle emblazoned prominently on their otherwise tattered uniforms made it self-evident.

They strode into the hut. As the lead soldier passed Anna, he violently grabbed the front of her robes and threw her aside, causing her to nearly crash into the wall. His three fellows completely ignored Anna, following their leader across the room and forming a semi-circle around Andriy.

One of the soldiers gestured at the packed bag. 'Where're you pissing off to?'

'N-Nowhere,' Andriy replied, his voice shaking as his eyes moved frantically, like that of a cornered beast.

'Horse shite,' another one of the soldiers said. 'You're obviously fucking off to somewhere. What're you bloody playing at, then? Going to suck the enemy's prick now?'

'Vadim, cut the shit,' yet another one of the soldiers snapped. 'They told us all we needed to do to get our rations was to get the leaf. Nobody told us we also had to fucking question a spy. It's clear as day he's trying to go over, and he'll get death for it, whether we question him or not. Let's just off him and get out of here. It's fun like that, anyway.'

The other soldier, Vadim, thought for a moment – or tried his best at doing so. 'You've got a point,' he drawled. He drew his wand and raised it towards Andriy. 'Any last – '

Anna's hand plunged into her pocket to draw her own wand, but at that very moment, a red arc of light flashed across the room. Vadim's face suddenly twisted in terror and agony. His wand dropped out of his right hand, and with his left, he clutched his neck as his blood began to pour, staining the man's skin and uniform crimson. He opened his mouth, as if about to let out a scream, but no sound came out – none except a pained, dying rattle.

The other Protectors quickly reacted as Vadim's bloodied, limp corpse crashed onto the floor. 'There's someone here!' one of the surviving soldiers shouted, pointing at the corner of the room from where Lockhart's spell had come. 'Invisible – argh!'

Lockhart had let fly another spell from a new position, one which had cut open the man's stomach. He looked down in horror as his blood and guts spilled out of the gash, the terrible sight of which made Anna feel suddenly light-headed. The man's horror was not to last long, however, for in less than a second, he, like his compatriot, had died.

'Finite incantatem!' one of the last two survivors screamed wildly, pointing his wand in Lockhart's general direction. Luck seemed to be on his side, for his spell somehow managed to catch Lockhart, cancelling his Disillusionment Charm and rendering him visible. The man roared a laugh in triumph and cast a second spell at Lockhart, but his celebration was short-lived. In one smooth motion, Lockhart dove under the spell and rolled towards him, closing the distance, before thrusting with the sword held in his right hand and burying it up to the hilt in the man's chest. The soldier did not even have a chance to realise what had happened to him before Lockhart knocked him back off his sword with a spell. His corpse crashed into the wall behind him and crumpled in a twisted heap.

'Spy! Reinforcements!' the last man standing roared, turning momentarily to shout out of the open door at what Anna presumed to be one of his comrades waiting outside. In that fateful split-second of distraction, Lockhart advanced on him like a flash of lightning. With a swing of his sword, the final soldier's head flew into the air before head and body crashed to the floor with a loud thump. Anna felt several drops of a warm liquid land on her forehead.

'Follow me, now!' Lockhart commanded. 'Wands and swords out! Let's go! Get the herbalist, he has the Breaking Grass!'

Despite everything, Anna knew that now was the time to follow Lockhart without question. She drew her wand before turning and beckoning to Andriy, intending to relay to her Lockhart's instructions. The herbalist, however, had already understood the meaning without needing to understand Lockhart, his Rose of Spring and his wand already held firmly in his hands. The three of them dashed out of the door and onto the street.

Their eyes had barely adjusted to the sun when a chain of cracks, reminiscent of firecrackers, rent the air. Anna did not need to see to know that the reinforcements the soldier had called had arrived. Yet when her vision snapped towards the direction from which she had perceived the highest concentration of apparting reinforcements, she was shocked to see just how many soldiers had actually arrived. There had to be at least twenty, if not thirty. Not all of them were the poorly equipped bandits who had just died in the shop, either. Among them stood out a handful who wore the uniforms and swords of troops from the tsar's garrison.

'We need to go, now!' Anna shouted. 'Use the Portkeys!'

'Can't!' Lockhart roared back. 'They've put down enchantments against Portkeys!'

'How the fuck do you know?'

'I bloody felt it!' Lockhart shot back simply.

In front of them, three of the tsar's soldiers turned on the spot, disapparating, only to appear a split-second later behind them, trapping them and preventing them from retreating back into the shop or running to the fields. Immediately, spells were flying in every direction, filling the air like a swarm of locusts. Survival instincts kicking in, Anna looked desperately for cover, finding it in the form of a low stone wall marking the fence of a house across the road. With a cry, she leapt over the fence, hitting the ground hard on her stomach – but at least she had made it.

When she gathered her senses, she peeked over the top of the wall. Lockhart was a blur of motion, casting spells, rolling, and occasionally swinging his sword to attack a target, parry a blow, or deflect a spell. His movements were perfect – never once did he miss an attack, and never once were his opponents able to even come close to hitting him. Andriy, meanwhile, was running towards the wall behind which she was taking cover, not even trying to dodge or block. Before Anna was able to shout a warning, before he was able to even cross the narrow dirt road, he was hit simultaneously by what must have been at least three spells. Instantly, he was set ablaze. Anna screamed in horror, but Andriy did not do likewise. A moment later, it became clear: the dinner plate-sized hole in his chest was numbing his pain.

'The Breaking Grass!' Lockhart shouted between his movements. 'Put out the fire!'

Andriy's body collapsed onto the dirt, kicking up a small cloud of dust. The fire began to consume him. His clothes were quickly burning away, revealing rapidly charring skin underneath. His flesh was beginning to bubble, emitting a terrible smell that made Anna's stomach contents rise to her throat and threaten to break out.

'Put out the fucking fire!' Lockhart roared. 'Do you hear me?'

An explosion and a shower of red mist where one of the Protector soldiers had stood a moment ago jolted Anna into dazed focus. Slowly and clumsily, she raised her wand and aimed it at Andriy's burning body. 'Aguamenti,' she said, and a stream of water arced from the wand's end, dousing the flames consuming his flesh in a cloud of foul-smelling steam.

When Anna's eyes found Lockhart, she saw to her surprise that the battle was nearly over. Four Protector corpses – or the puddles of unrecognisable flesh which were all that remained of humans who had been living and breathing just minutes ago – were strewn across the dirt. As Anna watched, Lockhart blocked a blow from the final surviving soldier with an almost inhumanly fast shield charm before he counterattacked. The Protector soldier was not fast enough to parry Lockhart's sword, and he paid for it with the end of his life, his head severed in one stroke, his body collapsing like a rag doll.

'We need to get out of here,' Lockhart said with barely a moment to catch his breath. He gestured at Andriy's form. 'Take his bag and his sword. Let's go.'

'But – '

'Stop arguing with me for once,' Lockhart snapped. 'Take the bag with the herb. And his sword.'

Anna crouched down in front of Andriy's body. With a shaking hand, she reached out and tugged on the backpack, trying to free it. The man's form was limp – creepily so – and his arms bent into terrifying angles with little resistance. As she peeled the bag away from Andriy's back, she saw, to her horror, bits of clothing and skin, burnt onto the fabric of the bag, sticking to it. Hastily, she tried to clean off the residue with magic, but was only partially successful, removing only some of the bigger chunks. Knowing that she did not have time for a more thorough cleaning, she threw the bag over her back, grimacing as she did so and trying not to picture the charred flesh touching her back.

Next, she flipped his body around to undo the belt holding his sword. Andriy's face was still intact, but blood was pouring out of every orifice. She tried not to stare at the gaping hole in what had been the man's chest, but morbidly, the knowledge that he had died like that, in an instant, and not by bleeding or burning slowly to death, was somehow comforting.

'Don't draw it unless you have to,' Lockhart said as Anna fastened the belt and sword around her own waist. 'Stay behind me. Let's go.'

Without hesitation, Lockhart started off, and Anna followed closely behind him without question, shaken by what she had just witnessed. She had seen murder and death many times in her life. Once or twice, she herself had even come frighteningly close to becoming a victim. She had often thought of revenge, to kill some Protectors, to kill some Hwjerikwunists, to avenge what they had done to her. Yet, when the battle had broken out and her chance had come, she could do nothing except cower behind a low wall in fear, nothing except stare at a corpse in shock.

Smoke was rising. 'They're burning the town,' Anna gasped. 'We have to help them!'

'No, it's not happening,' Lockhart replied decisively, quickening his pace. 'What we have to do is get out of here, now.'

'We can't just abandon the village – '

Suddenly, several cracks sounded around them, and several people wearing worn, filthy uniforms appeared around them. 'There they are!' a voice shouted. 'Get them!'

Immediately, Lockhart sprang into action. Two curses, cast with barely milliseconds between them, tore two of the soldiers – or perhaps more accurately in their case, common hired thugs – apart limb by limb. Entrails and fragments of flesh flew into the sky like morbid fireworks, and Anna barely contained the vomit that shot up to her throat.

One of the Protectors shot a spell in her direction, and fortunately, she had just enough mental capacity remaining to jump out of the way before sluggishly casting a Stunning Spell in reply, which was easily sidestepped. She knew far more powerful spells and she knew how to cast them with far greater fluidity – she had always done well in her Combat and Duelling lessons back at school – but she could not bring herself to use them now, could not muster up the courage to cast decisively. Casting a spell knowing that she was going to take a life…she could not even think about doing it. It was easy to fantasise about killing in revenge, but it was nearly impossible to actually do it.

All she could do was dodge, shield, and occasionally send back a weak spell in reply. She was angry at herself – she knew that with her incompetence, she was condemning innocents to death – but at the same time, she physically could not do anything more. Her mind would not allow it, and even if she pushed, her body would refuse to comply.

She was at least providing some distraction to Lockhart's aid – perhaps. Even outnumbered five or six to one, Lockhart was cutting the Protectors apart. Against him, these poorly trained – or perhaps even more possibly, completely untrained – men and women were essentially being sent to their deaths. Despite their crimes, Anna could not help but feel a little sorry at their fate as Lockhart set one on fire with a spell with such speed that the victim had no chance to defend himself, and while he screamed his pained death throes, mutilated another into three pieces with his sword.

'Reinforcements!' a voice shouted from somewhere down the street. 'Capture the spies! Or kill them!'

'Don't fucking stand there!' Lockhart bellowed as the last of the group of Protectors died. 'Run!'

Lockhart broke into a full sprint, and Anna, less athletic than him and carrying a heavy pack and sword, tried and struggled to keep up. Occasionally, he fired a spell hastily at some target that only he saw, but he did not stop to fight or see if he had hit anything. Anna's throat and lungs burned, her heart thumped like loud, rapid drumbeats, as she laboured to keep up with him, but she knew that she could not stop to catch her breath. If she did, it would no doubt be the end.

'Can we…can we disapparate now?' Anna wheezed as they reached the edge of the town. 'Or Portkey?'

'Not yet!'

'When?'

'I'll tell you when!' Lockhart answered, sounding barely out of breath.

At the edge of town were fields, growing completely mundane sunflowers – wizards had to eat, too, and magical plants with magical effects were hardly suited for the everyday table. Lockhart ran headlong into them, Anna following closely behind. As the tall stalks closed behind them, concealing them, Lockhart slowed down to a brisk walk, allowing Anna to catch her breath.

'I'll bet we'll be good after we cross this field,' Lockhart said. 'Move it.'

They fought their way through the thick vegetation. In the distance behind them, Anna could hear shouts, crackles of a blaze, and even the sound of laughter. The village was being obliterated. She knew it. Yet, there was nothing she could do to stop it, and that wounded her to the soul, for she knew how it was to be helplessly waiting for what she thought would be her inevitable death and hoping for a saviour who would never come. But as much as she wanted to blame Lockhart in her mind for refusing to help, even to add it to the list of things she hated him for, she knew that he was right to force her to leave. Their ultimate mission, after all, lay with helping the students of Hogwarts. They could hardly complete it if they were killed here.

They were nearing the edge of the sunflower field, for Anna could now see the countryside beyond between the sunflower stalks. 'The Portkey-blocking enchantment is weakening,' Lockhart breathed as he stepped through the last row of sunflowers back into the open. 'I can feel – '

'Expelliarmus!' a voice suddenly shouted. 'Incarcerous!'

Lockhart, caught by surprise, had a look of shock on his face as his wand flew from his hand. A moment later, his arms and legs were bound to his sides, and he fell back, stiff as a plank. Anna, frightened, barely held in a gasp. She peered through the planks to see a man – an actual Protector soldier – standing over what Anna presumed to be Lockhart's tied-up figure.

'I was told there'll be three,' the man growled. 'You're the foreigner. Where's the spy and the whore?'

Lockhart did not respond. After a few moments, the man tried to question him again, despite it being very obvious that no matter how loudly he screamed, Lockhart was not going to understand him thanks to the language barrier. 'The fucking spy and the filthy whore!' he shouted. 'They were with you! Where the fuck are they?'

'What are you saying?' Lockhart demanded.

The soldier pondered for a moment before seemingly deducing that Lockhart had said something along the lines of 'in the sunflowers'. With his wand raised, the Protector soldier brushed the first stalks aside and began to move slowly into the field, mere steps away from Anna.

Anna raised her wand, intending to curse him, but as she aimed and focused to cast the curse that would take his life, she knew that she could not do it. The man's eyes were grey, like her mother's. They were filled with malice and hatred, unlike her mother's, but they were grey, nonetheless. She could not let the curse fly, even as he slowly approached. He was still a few steps to the right of her, and several rows of sunflowers stood between them, concealing her from the man's gaze, currently focused directly in front of him, but any movement, and he would be on her like a wolf…

She could not cast the spell, could not deal the blow. She lowered her wand ever so slightly.

Suddenly, the man turned, right towards her. Anna froze. He had found her. She knew he had to have. She had but a fraction of a second to react. Make the right choice, and she would live. Make the wrong choice, and…

She did nothing, could do nothing.

'Expelliarmus!' he shouted, and Anna's wand flew from her hand.

The sight of her wand disappearing in the sunflowers broke whatever force had been holding her frozen, and acting out of a practised reflex, she ducked and jumped to the side just in time for the man's conjured ropes to soar over her head. She landed and crumpled with no grace on the ground, hitting her knee painfully in the process, but at least she had escaped.

The man spun towards her. 'I'll get you, bitch!'

Instinctively, Anna rolled away, escaping another tangle of conjured ropes. The man roared in fury and sent another spell, this one missing her by some distance.

'I'll make sure they torture you for as long as they can before you die!' the Protector cried before casting again. Once more, Anna, grimly practised at escaping would-be murderers, dodged it.

The man cast again, but this spell was noticeably weaker than his previous ones. He paused. Anna heard him pant. He was already exhausted – the Protectors did not seem to invest much in training even their actual soldiers.

In his temporary fatigue, there was a chance, and Anna's brain and body acted on it independently without her mind. Her hands drew her – Andriy's – sword and gripped it firmly. From her throat emanated a distressed cry, and her legs carried her forward, her arms holding the sword stiffly out in front of her. Her eyes caught the sight of the man's pupils widening just before her eyelids slammed shut. Not even her body acting in her stead was willing to let her see what was going to happen next.

She felt the sword's tip tear through the man's leather-reinforced clothing with barely any effort, and the next thing Anna knew, the sword was buried up to its cross guard. Anna opened her eyes to see a pair of grey eyes in horrified shock. The light in them disappeared as drops of liquid fell onto Anna's shoes. A quiet sound signalled the man's wand dropping to the ground.

Slowly, Anna backed away, pulling the sword out of the man's stomach. She made the mistake of looking down. The blade was coated in deep ochre blood, and the front of the man's uniform was quickly staining red, too. She had killed him. She had taken another life. It was disgusting, vile. She was disgusting, vile. She was a murderer.

Anna could not hold it in any longer, and out came the entire contents of her stomach, spewed over the man's corpse. When the vomiting ended, she collapsed to her knees, her legs unable to support her and causing her knees to sink in puce and blood. She gasped as her head fell backwards, and she stared at the sky, as if she were praying to some deity to save her. Perhaps, she thought, she had ought to.


The first notable snowstorm of the term marked the beginning of December, forcing the rescheduling of a particularly anticipated Quidditch match between Hufflepuff, who was now back at full form with the recovery of their Chasers, and Slytherin. It was not that the match was forecasted to be extraordinarily thrilling or even close that had people excited – in fact, just the opposite. After the events of the Gryffindor-Slytherin match, much of the rest of the school wanted to see them utterly humiliated. Hufflepuff, the previous year's champion, seemed the perfect side to deliver on that wish.

When asked about the popular sentiment, Tracey seemed indifferent to it. 'I mean, I'd rather Hufflepuff didn't crush us and put us in last place by a long shot, of course,' she said, 'but I can't say that the team – especially some people on it – doesn't deserve a beating.'

'An actual beating, or just in Quidditch?'

Tracey shrugged.

When Hufflepuff and Slytherin finally faced off the following Friday, the match went about as everyone expected. Malfoy had improved somewhat, but he was still much more of a hinderance to the Slytherin side than an aid. At the very least, he was not scoring own-goals, but even Harry, who was not in any way well-versed in Quidditch, could tell that he was still constantly disrupting his teammates' attacks and defences. Several times, he even flew right into the Beater's line of sight, and the Beater was forced to miss a shot so as to avoid hitting him right in the face. Hufflepuff, meanwhile, was like a well-oiled machine, and quickly built up such a commanding lead over Slytherin that the Golden Snitch was released barely halfway into the first half. The more Hufflepuff dominated, the faster Slytherin collapsed: when Cedric finally put Slytherin out of their misery by catching the Snitch just past halfway into the second half, Hufflepuff's total stood at four-hundred forty points, while Slytherin had only managed to score a measly seventy.

Like Quidditch, classes went on resiliently despite everything and anything. Perhaps it was just because he had gotten used to magic and the magical world, but things seemed easier now compared to how it had been at the same point last year. Classes like Transfiguration, Potions, and Charms followed the logical progression of the textbook. In his Mind Arts lessons with Snape, Harry felt like he was beginning to make some progress at last – it was now becoming easier to 'feel' for his energy, and could even begin to redirect it – albeit in a very rudimentary way – without immediately becoming distracted. As Snape kept reminding him, however, he still had a long way to go before he could even begin to become adept at the goal of inward redirection.

History of Magic, meanwhile, took an interesting turn away from magical history entirely. 'For the next few weeks, we will be talking about muggle history,' Professor Ross told the class in that first week of December. 'Specifically, we'll be talking about the past century in the muggle world and the lessons it holds for all of us. Yes, Mister Noriega?'

'Why muggle history?' Raul asked. 'I mean, they live in a completely different world from us, don't they? It's not like muggle history affects us much.'

'True, they do live in a different layer of the world than us,' Professor Ross answered, 'and true, their past, present, and future have not influenced ours for centuries, but that doesn't make their history not worth learning about. I believe I've said something to the effect at the beginning of the year, but muggles have created weapons capable of wiping out numbers of people equivalent to the entire population of the continent in our world in a single second – weapons which have no other purpose than to do just this. More importantly, though, you'll see how people's unchecked hatred of one another ended in the slaughter of millions and millions of innocents, and how discoveries and inventions which were supposed to aid humanity ended up becoming responsible for those deaths. One doesn't need to have magic – or not have magic – to be evil. In fact, perhaps the most terrifying thing about evil is how every one of us, no matter who we are, are capable of it.'

'You might still not see why we should learn about muggle history, and I wouldn't blame you, but rest assured, you will understand in just a short moment,' she continued. 'We'll start by taking a look at two men muggles commonly consider the most evil people to ever have walked the Earth: Adolf Hitler, the leader of a former country called Nazi Germany which once ruled an area spanning from France to Russia, and Josef Stalin, another tyrant who headed another former country, occupying much of what is the Russian Empire to us, called the Soviet Union. The reason behind what I have just said will soon become horrendously obvious.'

The following lesson proved how disturbingly right she was.

December also saw, finally, Lockhart's return to Hogwarts, ending several weeks of suffering in Defence Against the Dark Arts under Snape's instruction. With Lockhart's return also came Anna's, who then immediately took over Herbology for several days as Professor Sprout left the castle. Harry was quite curious about what she had gone to do, but unusually, she was extremely reticent to talk about it beyond the fact that she had gone to the Russian Empire to collect herbs to help the petrified students, changing the subject whenever it was brought up. Her behaviour also struck Harry as unusual. Whereas before, she was a common sight in the library, she now seemed to be spending all her time in her quarters, avoiding everyone else. When asked whether something had happened between her and Lockhart, she looked not angry, but strangely uncomfortable.

'Stop asking me about it,' she eventually snapped angrily following repeated questions from them. 'You have to see I don't feel like talking about it. Will you stop? Please. Just let it be.'

That was the end of their questioning. Briefly, Harry considered asking after Lockhart to hear what had happened from his perspective, but decided against it. Lockhart was obviously not thrilled about interacting with the students any more than he needed to – even academically. There was little chance he would have the desire to sit down and spend hours telling them the story. Unlike Anna, however, he did not seem particularly affected by whatever it was that they had experienced, his curt and coldly professional demeanour the same as ever.

Despite all the seeming normality, Harry was still constantly reminded of the Chamber of Secrets, perhaps more than anyone else at Hogwarts. The voices which he had first heard at that Games Club meeting were growing more frequent – nearly once a day now – and worryingly, stronger – though Harry could still not figure out what it was saying, for he could never detect any coherent thoughts or phrases in them. Another visit to Madam Pomfrey had again confirmed that he was neither ill nor poisoned by anything short of a highly skilled assassin's toxins, and Hermione, Neville, and Tracey all continued to deny that they had heard anything at all.

'Are you completely sure that you haven't heard a thing?' Harry asked Hermione and Neville for what must have been the millionth time after an Elementary Studies lesson, during which he thought he had heard the voice say something relating to 'thirst'.

'I haven't heard anything,' Hermione replied somewhat impatiently. 'You know we've not been hearing these voices, Harry. I doubt this time would be any different. I'm not saying that you're hallucinating, but – '

'Wait,' Neville suddenly interrupted with a gasp. 'Harry being able to hear something that nobody else can. That's happened before.'

There was a pause, and then Hermione's eyes lit up in realisation. 'You don't mean…you think whatever's behind those voices…it's a snake?'

'Exactly!' Neville confirmed excitedly. 'That would explain a lot! If it's a serpent, then obviously, it speaks in Parseltongue. We know Harry can hear and understand Parseltongue, but none of us can…'

'So only Harry would be able to hear those voices, but the rest of us wouldn't hear a thing.'

'Precisely!'

'What do you think, Harry?' Hermione asked.

Harry thought about the theory for a moment. 'It sounds reasonable,' he replied slowly. 'That doesn't narrow it down a lot, though…I mean, there're probably many dozens of snakes crawling around in the school and on the grounds. It could be any one of them – or many different ones – who've been talking.'

'Hmm…' Hermione murmured, thinking. 'You said that you were having a conversation with the ashwinder, which means that it wasn't just making…random voices, like you've been hearing. You also told us that the ashwinder said that very few serpents ever meet a Speaker. That should imply that the ashwinder had spoken to a lot of snakes before.'

Harry nodded. 'What about it?'

'Well, I'd assume that most snakes would be having coherent conversations when speaking to one another,' she reasoned. 'Otherwise, it'd be quite difficult to communicate, don't you think? This serpent…why doesn't it speak like the ashwinder – clearly? There has to be something about it that's making it make these incoherent voices…which should be a sign that it's likely not many random snakes that have been speaking to you, but rather one specific serpent, or maybe a few at most.'

'Okay…'

'Also, you keep hearing these voices, which implies that you and the snake keep bumping into each other everywhere somehow, which seems…unlikely…in such a large castle' Hermione continued. 'I'd doubt that some random garden snake has been following you around. No offence, but I just don't think you're that interesting to snakes, and in any case, if that were the case, you'd be hearing the voice a lot more often than you're hearing it now.'

'So you think that the voices…they're most likely all made by a single snake that's somehow…interested in me?'

'Something like that,' Hermione affirmed. 'And I have a hunch it's a magical serpent, too.'

Harry nodded slowly, absorbing Hermione's reasoning. Her logic seemed to check out, and as he thought about it, another connection suddenly struck him. 'What if this serpent that's been…talking…is related to the Chamber of Secrets somehow?' he asked. 'I mean…the first petrification…it didn't happen so long after I first heard the voice, and…if it's a magical serpent we're dealing with, then what if it's responsible – or at least had some part in – the petrifications themselves?'

'I've never heard of a magical serpent that could petrify,' Neville said slowly, furrowing his brow. 'But I also haven't heard of a lot of things. We should bring this to Dumbledore. He'll definitely know more, maybe tell us if our theory is possible or not, even. At the very least, we should let him know what we've deduced.'

Elementary Studies was their final lesson of the day, and so the three of them raced up to the Headmaster's Study. When they arrived before the gargoyle, however, it occurred to Harry that he did not know the password to access the space. The previous password he knew – 'Acid Pops' – proved to be incorrect.

'We really need to talk to him,' Harry pleaded. 'It's important.'

'The Headmaster is currently in a meeting,' the gargoyle replied. 'I will let him know that he has visitors outside his study waiting to tell him "something important", but you will have to wait for his meeting to finish first.'

Harry nodded. 'We'll wait.'

Ten minutes later, the door from the Headmaster's Study opened, and a short, middle-aged man wearing an odd lime-green bowler hat stepped out, flanked by two Aurors. The man gave a small nod to Harry and the others before silently walking on, while the Aurors ignored them completely.

'The Headmaster will see you know.'

Quickly, Harry bound up the stairs, followed close behind by Hermione and Neville. The door to Dumbledore's study was already open, and perhaps a bit rudely, Harry stepped through without waiting for invitation.

Dumbledore did not mind, or perhaps decided to simply not say anything. 'Good afternoon, Harry,' he said pleasantly, though something about his visage seemed to make Harry think he was irritated by something. 'Ah, you've brought Miss Granger and Mister Longbottom along. What may I help you with?'

'Headmaster, sir, we have a theory about the Chamber of Secrets,' Hermione started.

'As does everyone in the school, students and staff,' Dumbledore responded. 'Nonetheless, please do tell me what you have come up with.'

'A serpent,' Harry began. 'We think a serpent – a magical serpent – might have something to do with the Chamber of Secrets.'

Harry did not know how he had expected Dumbledore to react – perhaps with surprise? Dumbledore, however, simply smiled. 'I will guess that you've made this deduction based on the fact that Harry has been hearing voices nobody else can,' he said. 'You found out after that Exploratory with Professor Kettleburn that Harry can speak Parseltongue, a magical language that only Speakers can hear and communicate in. Naturally, you then connected the dots. Furthermore, you must have made the assumption that the first time Harry reported hearing these voices was shortly before the Chamber of Secrets was opened, shortly before the first petrification, and therefore that the two things might be somehow related.'

All three of them gaped at the Headmaster. 'How did you…' Hermione gasped.

'Logical deduction, exactly like how you came to your own conclusion,' Dumbledore replied. 'Thanks to Harry's very wise decision to ask Madam Pomfrey to inform me of his hearing of these voices, I have been long aware of this, though at first, I did not know what exactly to make of this information. Once it transpired that you were a Parselmouth, Harry, everything became clear.'

'Actually, I can go further,' he continued. 'I have a piece of knowledge you don't, a piece of knowledge which, though it does not confirm the theory, lends heavy support to it.'

'What is it?' Harry asked, craving to know more.

'I know legends about the Chamber of Secrets. Different versions of these legends exist. Some of them have been long lost to the common corpus, and some of them are circulated today among small, closed circles. Naturally, it would not be prudent to take any one of them to be representative of the truth, but all these legends share some common characteristics, common characteristics whose occurrence I believe is no coincidence.'

Hermione tilted her head. 'Just legends?' she asked, sounding a little sceptical. 'But aren't they just…rumours?'

Dumbledore nodded. 'Do not dismiss legends out of hand, Miss Granger. As a wise woman once said, do you know when a legend becomes a prophecy? When it gains believers. The opposite is true, too. Certainly, we should not take what legends say at face value, but it would be foolish for us to ignore that they might hold something valuable.'

'As you might've heard yourself from the talk flying around the school, the legends say that one responsible for building the Chamber of Secrets was none other than Salazar Slytherin himself,' Dumbledore said. 'Slytherin, as I'm sure you're aware of, was one of the four founders of Hogwarts, and also that of the Slytherin House. As legends have it, Slytherin built the Chamber of Secrets at Hogwarts sometime after when he split with the other founders over irreconcilable differences – possibly over the question of admitting muggle-born students to the school – so that "his legacy may be preserved".'

'This much, I believe, we can have a degree of confidence in the veracity thereof. Beyond this, the legends begin to diverge greatly, and I ascertain we would be starting to delve into the of realm folk tales and speculation.'

'Wait, the symbol of the Slytherin House is a…'

Dumbledore nodded. 'Yes, Miss Granger, you have caught on to my theory. Even during his lifetime, Slytherin was known to be fond of serpents. There is documented evidence that he was, like you, Harry, a Speaker. Indeed, his fondness of serpents was so that he made one the symbol of his House. Tying it all together, I believe we have a solid theory – at least relatively, for still, much of it is built on conjecture. The Chamber of Secrets is possibly in or near Hogwarts, it is connected to Salazar Slytherin, and a magical serpent of some sort has made its nest there – likely placed there deliberately by Slytherin himself to "protect his legacy".'

'Do you know what kind of serpent it is?' Harry asked.

'Alas, that, unfortunately, I do not know,' Dumbledore said. 'Petrification is an exceedingly rare condition, and no known serpent species are able to induce it. I would assume that Slytherin would have chosen his guardian to be a large and magically powerful serpent, but that, I am afraid, is pure guesswork on my part. For all we know, it could be some completely new species of serpent, replete with terrible powers, which has until now completely eluded wizard-kind, or perhaps some type of crossbreed which Slytherin himself created. We don't know.'

Harry shuddered at the thought of an enormous, monstrous, and entirely unknown serpent hiding in the bowels of Hogwarts. 'What do we do about it, then? How can we…get rid of this serpent, or whatever it is?'

'We – I mean by that pronoun strictly myself and the staff, Harry – must first find out where the serpent resides, which, I'm sure, will entail finding the location of the Chamber of Secrets,' Dumbledore answered. 'We will then need to find out what exactly this serpent is, and then find the appropriate means to render it harmless. You, on the other hand, should remain quiet about what you have learned and deduced. Keep this only between yourselves, and do not spread the word to the rest of the school.'

Harry blinked, surprised. 'Professor, but if the serpent has been petrifying people, shouldn't people know about it?' he protested. 'I mean, you said that it could be a dangerous creature, and people should – '

'Should do what, exactly?' Dumbledore interrupted. 'Harry, I understand that you come from a place of concern, but think of the consequences of you telling the entire school about our conversation. We have no idea of the location of either the serpent, or the Chamber of Secrets, or the perpetrator of these events. There is no immediate course of action available to neither us, you, nor them. All that will occur is that panic will be sown, which, I will wager, is exactly what whoever is behind this whole series of events is after. The only thing you will accomplish is feeding into their goals.'

'But sir, shouldn't people know what's been causing the petrifications?' Hermione asked. 'If you hush this up, there'll only be more victims!'

'There will be more victims unless either the serpent – or whatever is causing the petrifications – is rendered harmless, or Hogwarts is evacuated,' Dumbledore replied seriously. 'We have already discussed the first course of action, and as much as I would like to, I am prevented from pursuing the second by Minister Fudge. You must have seen him leave my study as you came up here – he believes that lime bowler hats are the pinnacle of fashion. And you are mistaken, Miss Granger. I am not attempting to hush up anything. If I were doing that, I would never have acknowledged the petrifications in the first place. If the students must stay here, in danger, Miss Granger, the far better option is for them to do so without panic. You have seen the frenzy caused just by the knowledge that petrifications have occurred. If the student body finds out a mysterious beast connected to Salazar Slytherin has been causing them, a beast that we are, as of yet, completely unable to do anything against, the hysteria that will ensue will be worse than anything you have seen yet. The school must be kept calm in spite of everything, for when in a panic, humans tend not to think, but act on their basest impulses.'

There was a long silence. 'So…you're saying that we should just do…nothing?' Neville finally asked. 'Even after finding out all this?'

'Not at all,' Dumbledore replied. 'You must focus harder than ever on your studies. The greatest defence against darkness and danger is, as has been always, knowledge and ability.'


'You did what you had to do,' Lockhart said. 'If you hadn't done what you had, we'd both now be lying dead in that field.'

The inn was nearly empty, even its most devoted patrons having long returned home. Anna stared out the window at the narrow Lemberg street, dimly illuminated in the night. She had thought the city beautiful when they had first arrived here, but she was unable to see any beauty now. She lifted the tankard to her lips and emptied the rest of its contents, feeling the drink burn as it went down.

She waved the innkeeper over. 'Another,' she said curtly, pointing at the empty tankard.

'Miss, you've already finished five in less than an – '

'Give me another bloody drink,' Anna snapped irritably through gritted teeth. She shoved her hand into her pocket, grabbed a fistful of coins, and slammed them down on the table. 'Take all of it. Just bring me another damn drink.'

The innkeeper looked scared, but quickly nodded nervously. 'Of course, miss.'