"Noodle says Lockheart is using some form of Amortentia to fascinate all the girls, and not a few of the staff members. He's using it as a perfume, so we need to make a counter agent." Hermione said firmly.
Milicent, whose own Slytherin first year girl kit had a unicorn horn on a charm bracelet to casually test every glass of pumpkin juice and water she was offered for the presence of the wizard love drug nodded firmly, but offered the caution.
"We don't know what version he is using, the stronger it is, the less useful the standard counter agents are." Milicent offered, as the arms race between creepy date rape wizards and witches defense against same had been raging since Merlin and Morgana.
Neville offered quietly. "You know, you were saying we should stretch ourselves, use our elemental affinities together to make something that normal magic can't do. What if we made the ultimate Amortenia, then based our counter agent after that. Even dispersed really widely, like a Weasley dung bomb type thing in the great hall, it would still be strong enough to turn Lockhearts weaker Amortenia charm into a repulsion."
Harry snapped his head around and looked at Neville. "Merlin's beard, that is brilliant Neville. It's the nuclear option!"
While the wizard raised failed to understand the reference, Hermione did and offered a very UnHermione cheer.
"Death to perverts, we are at war!" Hermione cheered, causing all the Hufflepuff table, and some from the other nearby dinner tables to look over.
A series of glances was exchanged between the Griffindor Quidditch team, before the Weasley twins led the three Griffindor chasers Katie Bell, Alicia Spinnet and Angelina Johnson came over to the Hufflepuff table with their dinner plates in hand.
"Did you mention," Said Fred
"Perverts?" Finished George, sliding a row of squeaking Hufflepuffs down along their own common room bench to make room with a very smooth bit of chantless levitation.
Milicent rolled her eyes and pointed her fork at the Ginger menaces who slid on one side of the bench while the three female Griffindor chasers slid on the other.
"Oi you Ginger abominations, we were trying to get rid of perverts, not summon two more!" Milicent offered with her best Slytherin glare.
"We are innocent as newborn," Started Fred
"Not newborn precisely," Corrected George
"Toddlers?" Offered Fred
"Deeply disturbed but non perverted toddlers!" Agreed George.
"Innocent as deeply disturbed but non pervert toddlers!" Finished Fred piously.
"We're just here," Said George
"For introductions." Concluded Fred.
"Girls, Hufflepuffs, Hufflepuff, Girls." Offered George tactfully.
"And Slytherin, although she only bites" Offered Fred
"If you ask nicely." Finished George, batting his eyelashes outrageously at Milicent who broke into laughter behind her pumpkin juice, not at all offended by the outrageous pair.
Katie Bell leaned forward. "Look we asked the Ginger gits to introduce us because you are all beater mad and seemed friendly, and we, at least four of us, are all Quidditch girls, and share the same problem even if you don't know it yet."
Hermione who had perverts on her mind at the moment, noted the gender of the last part of the remark and did the arithmancy to see the way the ward was forming and spoke the quiet part out loud.
"You have a pervert problem." She spoke firmly.
Alicia shook her head, and pointed to the three Griffindor girls and Milicent. "No, we have a pervert problem."
Angelina started, waving a croissant so angrily Neville and Fred both had to dodge.
"It started with Quidditch practice, when we got back, our underwear would be gone. We assumed Fred and George obviously, but they swore a magical oath they not only didn't do it, but would help find out who did." Angelina said.
"Started?" Said Harry.
"Sometimes the underwear got returned…..icky." Said Katie Bell, driving her table knife into the actual table, drawing glares from the Hufflepuff prefects.
Hermione and Milicent both pushed their food away, to nauseated to eat anymore. "Gross." Hermione said for both of them.
Angelina was still in her rant. "Now its like we can tell someone is watching us when we shower, but the shower room is warded against scrying by Professor Babbige herself, so you know no one can be spying from outside.
Harry, who was very familiar with the wards on the female areas of Hogwarts because runes were one of his magical obsessions (as is true of most goblins). Spoke up next.
"Hang on. No man could be peeking, the wards on those buildings mean that the only man that could bypass the wards to get in the female area would be Dumbledore himself, and I am pretty sure he fly's for the other team, and is honestly a bit far along to fly at all." Harry offered in the bluntness of the young.
Neville stared thoughtfully. "I could."
The three Griffindor chasers looked at him and frowned.
Neville held up his hands and said softly. "I wouldn't. Gran would kill me, but I could do it. I'm an animagus, and in my badger form I can go into the female only dorms. I imagine the showers are the same."
Katie Bell smiled and patted his hand. "We would have noticed a badger, Neville, but thanks for offering that."
"$ Not a Cat is smaller, and could easily hide in a locker or under a bench. She is not the only one in this castle who doesn't smell like the skin they wear. $" Noodle offered, and Harry translated.
Angelina looked confused. "Who is Not a Cat?"
Harry shrugged. "That is what Noodle calls McGonagall. I wouldn't read too much into it, I mean he calls Ron's rat Not a Rat after all."
Katie Bell snickered. "Well, he's not much of a rat. I mean, Percy's hand me down robes look pretty threadbare, Scabbers is about as pathetic as a hand-me-down-rat can get, but he's still a rat."
"$ Not a rat. Why does no one listen to the adults? Nestlings. None of them should be allowed out without a thinking-brain-reptile of their own. $" Noodle offered uncharitably.
Hermione stroked Noodle, working some salve into his skin.
"You will have to forgive Noodle, he is molting and that always makes him grumpy." Hermione said.
Milicent sat back and thought. "You know, when I was having problems in the Slytherin girl's dorm, I used to take Noodle with me into the showers. Nothing like a ten foot Rock Viper to cut down on shower drama. If someone is sneaking in your changeroom, or spying through cracks at you, Noodle will find out pretty quickly."
The three Griffindor chasers looked with pleading eyes at Harry, who was immediately trumped by a Hermione in sisterhood mode. "The war on perverts is a just one, please let Noodle assist you."
Harry tossed his knife and fork onto his plate and offered weakly.
"Morgana's furry fundament. Neville is sleeping with whole dorm rooms of girls, Noodle is showering now with three different houses worth of girls, and I'm supposedly the celebrity in the group and my mother says I'm not even allowed to date until I come of age at 13 and then only supervised." Harry complained bitterly.
Fred and George both draped an arm over him and gave his untidy hair matching noogies with their knuckles.
"There there, baby Hufflepuff." Offered George
"Crushing rejection, heartbreak, drama, angry ex hexing!" Offered Fred
"And more, are just a few years away." Concluded George.
Angelina, Katie, and Alicia all threw bits of food at Fred and George, who caught and ate it quite without any visible shame.
When approached before Potion's class by his favorite Slytherin potioner, two reformed cauldron killers, and a decently responsible Hufflepuff about making Amortentia in class, Professor Snape was deeply suspicious.
"Why would I permit you to make such a dangerous, and legally restrictive potion in my class?" Asked Professor Snape with his trademark drawl.
"We have an interest in antidotes, and the Amortentia antidote is a key study, as only a superior grade antidote will work against any given strength of Amortentia. Antidotes that are weaker will have no effect whatsoever." Said Milicent, the picture of a student eager to undertake an advanced project out of love of learning.
"And you expect me to believe that the four of you wish to brew some sort of experimental batch of Amortentia the week before midterms because you have too much free time?" Drawled Snape as if amused to see what new lie the little snakelet would spin.
"It's to stop Lockheart, the pervert." Said Hermione.
"Could you be anymore Hufflepuff. Morgana's tits I'm embarrassed to be standing next to you. You don't just admit you want to make an illegal potion to use against a professor to a professor!" Whispered Milicent so fiercely she may as well have shouted.
"He's not a professor, he's a prat. And a pervert." Hermione said firmly, then with a look of dawning horror turned to Professor Snape, who was also looking on in horror at this whole conversation.
"Not you Professor, we have the deepest respect for your skills and integrity as a professor and potioner." Hermione said in a gush.
Neville decided to bring this conversation to an end before it got any more Hermione and offered simply.
"Noodle, that's Harry's snake familiar, figures Lockheart is using some kind of Amortentia based perfume to do some sort of creepy love mojo on all the girls, all his fans at events, and even the female teachers here for some kind of pervy reasons. That last bit is Hermione, but Noodle is firm on the Amortentia bit." Neville offered with the sort of open honesty that made Snape develop a serious headache.
"Stop." Said Snape, holding up his wand and casting a silent Lumos to light his wand tip.
Pointing it at his head, he said loudly "Oblivate!" Pretending to cast the charm for wiping out memory.
"I have just wiped the last several tragic minutes of conversation from my memory. The loss of brain cells having already occurred, I consider this to be more destruction of evidence than brain surgery. I now remember nothing past a very interesting study of antidotes based on an attempt to improve on the standard Amortentia." Said Professor Snape.
Turning to Milicent, he nodded regally. "You may proceed." As they turned to set up a special cauldron for group work behind the rest of the class working on a much less advanced potion for unsticking spider silk.
As Milicent went to join her friends, Snape caught her arm and muttered low enough to not be heard by any but Milicent.
"Control your Hufflepuffs. When dealing with professors, remember Slytherin House first rule." Snape muttered.
"Do not get caught." Milicent nodded in total agreement.
As class progressed, Snape found himself fascinated very much against his will. The four young students formed a potion making team that was easily at the level of experienced Owl students, but that was not what fascinated him.
The magic of the Dungeon was a part of him. He had been mocked by his peers for brewing in a school when he could have had his own lab, or some corporate lab far better funded, but the subtle science of potion was only the first step upon the path. The true path to mastery lay in the art. The art beyond the recipe, beyond the method.
Magic was alive. Magic was aware, and magic was mutable. Magic had moods and currents, it changed for reasons that greater minds than his had failed horribly in attempting to map, but it was in the end a living, breathing thing.
In this place, in his dungeon, he knew the breath of magic, he knew its heartbeat, he could feel its moods and he regularly modified his potion process by instinct knowing that by moving more in tune to magic's flow, he could create a potion whose efficacy was above what was theoretically possible. That is why he never left, in this place, Severus Snape was not simply a potion master, he was a potion god.
Magic was waking as the four began to work. Snape could feel it. The slow lazy currents of magic from the deep pools and silent wells of the Hogwarts wards and their anchoring ley lines were like the ocean, slow moving tides were the most you would ever see or feel.
Yet now those tides were racing, racing to swirl around the cauldron of four second year students and a snake who gathered around a child's attempt to improve one of the most complicated and restricted of potions.
Granger wove fire without bothering to use her wand, the Potter gathered thick streams of potion fumes and wove them back into the bubbling mix, stirring without touching as if the touch of outside magic should not shatter the very effects they were trying to coax out of the blending ingredients, and yet, it didn't. Longbottom's eyes were closed, yet he worked his blade and pestle in turn, adding ingredients as he chanted at times that were spurred by something he felt but did not see.
Snape listened and found in shock that Longbottom and Bulstrode were chanting in call and response, two halves of one chant, as if between them they could control what the magic that roared into the cauldron from the whirlpool of Hogwarts power that was sinking into that potion cauldron as if it was a huge wardstone or leyline not a common iron pot, well past its prime and having suffered the use of many a less than talented student.
Strangest of all, the chanting of Neville and Bulstrode was joined by Potter and Granger, one voice that spoke in turn from four throats, sometimes singular, sometimes pairs, or all four together. The language the spoke made his forearm burn and his blood run cold, for it was the language of his Dark Lord.
The snake, Noodle, swayed in the fumes like a dark god, his black eyes staring back into Snape's own as it began to lend its own voice to the chant, before it lunged forward and two streams of venom fell into the swirling mists of Potters potion fume vortex to be stirred into the love potion, as if the venom of the second most dangerous magical snake could somehow be added to a love potion without killing whoever touched it.
Yet, Snape felt it, felt the rush of the tide as the power rushing into the potion peaked, and then rushed back in a wave of release, as the roiling storm of power and chaos in the cauldron settled into a new steady throb of potency.
Snape watched as four humans fell in a grinning, sweaty, and clearly exhausted mess, while the rune marked Rock Viper hissed contentedly above the cauldron.
The entire potion class had stopped what they should have been doing to observe a reaction powerful enough that even they could feel it, and yet somehow correct enough to keep Professor Snape frozen in fascination instead of urgently banishing whatever dangerous student nonsense was about to endanger cauldron and children in his precious dungeon.
Milicent looked up, her face a mass of sweat, her hair lank against her head as she turned to face her House Master.
"Did we do it?" She asked.
Snape drew out his testing kit from his special pouches in his sleeve with all drama, seeking comfort in the familiar actions. As he began his testing, he asked the question that had been bothering him.
"Miss Bulstrode, what exactly was that you just performed. Do not waste my time passing it off as simply potion making." Snape asked quietly.
"A ritual. We are an elemental quartet, balanced and trained in coven rituals." Milicent said very quietly, making sure her face was blocked by Snape's body so no one could over hear it.
"In Parseltongue?" Snape asked the dangerous question softest of all.
"$ What better tongue than Slytherin's own for working true magic? $" Noodle hissed, and Milicent translated.
Glancing at the snake hurridly, Snape hissed quietly "And the venom? A drop of his venom could drop a centaur."
Noodle laughed and bowed to Snape. "$ Tell Death Eating Crow it would take four drops of my venom to kill an adult centaur in fighting shape, but the potion called for my venom to reach perfection. They are my circle, when they call, I answer. $"
When Milicent translated, verbatum, Snape flinched but nodded. This was magic he had only seen the Dark Lord himself trifle with, and even then, alone. Dumbledore had taken steps to make sure such rituals would never be allowed again, yet his reach was not ever going to reach the Most Ancient and Noble Houses, even if it should have held inside Hogwarts.
Snape looked at the testing results, then very slowly, repeated his testing. In a voice that sounded as casual as the House Master of Slytherin could possibly make it he announced his results.
"This potion is perhaps a dozen times beyond the strongest published strength of Amortentia on record. Three times stronger than my own." Snape said with the mix of arrogance and humble that marked a true master of potions.
"I suggest you bottle all of it. Should Dumbledore find you have created such a potent potion, or one of those tiresome drones in the Ministry, I suspect you will have problems."
Snape paused and then brusquely continued. "As to your project. I suspect an antidote made from this will require a remarkably small amount to not only neutralize but antagonize any known Amortentia brew."
Turning to his snakelet, he offered a sigh. "Normally for such a potion, a relatively generous House Point reward would be expected."
Milicent Bulstrode shot both her arms forward as she pled swiftly. "No thank you sir, please. If we could just pretend nothing special at all happened….." She trailed off and the two Slytherins shared a nod of understanding.
Dumbledore was the unquestioned master of Hogwarts. Inside these walls, there were few powers that could protect you from his actual wrath.
They were trudging back from the Dungeon, exhausted, elated, and fairly hungry when they heard the voice.
"$ So hungry. Kill, rend, eat. $" The voice hissed, but so powerfully the walls and floor trembled, the very magic of the air shook with the potency of that voice.
Noodle who had been most of the way to sleep after his exertions shot bolt awake and hissed.
"$ Run, flee, quickly. The King hunts!" Noodle hissed and dropped from Harry's shoulders to race backwards towards the dungeons.
Harry took a second to process, that voice, the power in it made his eyes burn, made his mouth drool, and his blood boil. Something in it made him hunger for something denied him, something he NEEDED. He was lost in a moment of something like lust when Hermione shocked him back to reality.
"$ YOU WILL NOT KILL PEOPLE! $" Hermione hissed, chasing after the voice.
"It's in the walls!" Shouted Milicent.
"It's bloody fast!" Shouted Neville, giving chase to the voice.
"It's going to kill someone!" Shouted Hermione, chasing after the pair of beaters in better running shape than her. Harry snapped out of his daze to follow, hissing his own command with a power he didn't quite understand how he knew to infuse."
"$ Mouse Giver spoke true. You will not kill people. You will not eat people. $" Harry hissed as he ran.
"$ Kill, rend, eat. The Heir commands. I obey. $" The voice, now somehow very far ahead and moving parallel to the staircase as it shot upwards argued, still powerful enough to shake the air.
"$ You will obey me! $" Harry demanded, his vision going gold then red as rage howled up within him at being questioned, his own power beating the air with his anger.
"$ Not kill people. $" The greater voice hissed in clear anger. "$So hungry. So hungry.$" It trailed off as they ran head first into Percy Weasley who shouted at them.
"No running in the halls, and enough of that creepy hissing, you are scaring students. Five points each from Hufflepuff and Slytherin. Now, what do you think you are doing?" Percy said, puffing out his rather shallow chest in self importance and standing very firmly in the way.
"Merlin's left droopy nut," rasped Neville "didn't you hear that great ruddy voice hissing in the walls that it was going to kill and eat someone? It terrified Noodle into bolting for the dungeons, and that snake charged at trolls!" Argued Neville.
"I only heard you lot hissing, and there is nothing in the walls. The Prefects would have been told." Percy sniffed haughtily.
Just then a scream sounded from upstairs. Not a student scream, a very broken, very adult scream. The scream of a man who has just lost his everything.
Running upstairs, they found Filch the caretaker kneeling in a pool of water by Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, he was staring brokenly at the hanging figure of his cat, Mrs Norris. She was hanging from the torch sconce, utterly unmoving. There was writing in blood on the wall behind her.
Draco Malfoy, his cronies Crabbe and Goyle like bookends behind him, read the writing in blood and sneered down at them as the quartet raced up the stairs.
"Enemies of the Heir beware. The Chamber of Secrets is open." Malfoy read. He laughed.
"Did you hear that mudbloods? That is the Heir of Slytherin, he has opened the chamber of secrets and he's finally going to cleanse Hogwarts of all the filth." Draco sneered, clearly preening in the reflected glory of this promised future.
Filch looked up at the quartet of known Parletongue speakers and did what passed for arithmancy for the paranoid squib, and got a wrong answer.
"You killed my cat. You are the Heirs of Slytherin, and you killed my cat because you knew I was a squib. You didn't even kill me, but my cat!" Filch hit Harry like a thin, rather bony version of the Hogwarts express.
His punch was nothing special but it caused Harry to see stars briefly. Being a beater, he was used to bludgers to the head, so he got a hand in the way of the next few, but Filch was inconsolable and uncontrollable.
"Mrs Norris never done nothing to you. She's all I have in this whole world, you aint got no reason to kill her just because I'm a squib. I aint got no place to go, and the only reason I stay here is so I can afford to keep her, and you dirty brats gone and MURDERED HER." Filch said, finally dissolving into tears and collapsing limp in Neville and Milicent's arms as they pulled him off Harry.
By this time McGonagall and Dumbledore had already arrived from two different directions. McGonagall was reading the writing in blood and going very pale, while Dumbledore was poking Mrs Norris with his wand.
Gildroy Lockheart arrived then and struck a pose before speaking.
"Killed by black magic. It's a shame I wasn't here. I dealt with a nasty bit of this a few years back in Borneo as covered in my Black Death in Borneo book, only ten sickles in Flourish and Blots, twelve for a signed copy. I have the perfect counter curse, but of course it's too late now."
Dumbledore looked up sharply, less than amused.
"You may relax, Mr Filch. Mrs Norris is not dead. She will in fact be entirely fine in a few weeks when I have had a chance to prepare the proper counter." Dumbledore said softly.
"Not dead?" Shouted Draco, sounding almost offended.
Dumbledore nodded. "Not dead Mr Malfoy. Petrified; just as happened the last time the chamber opened. There was only the one death, before it closed on its own, even then."
Draco's face was a study of disgust, even as the assembled students were a mix of the more expected fear and horror.
"Professor, these students were hissing something in that serpent language as they were running up here. Perhaps they should be questioned about being this Heir of Slytherin." Percy Weasley said, pointing an accusatory finger directly at Harry Potter.
Draco broke his Slytherin calm then and shouted.
"Potter? Potter? You think a half blood goblin could be the Heir of Slytherin? You must be out of what passes for a Griffindor mind!" Draco shouted.
"Be quiet Malfoy, you aren't even the Heir of Weasley, there are a fair few of us older than you after all. No one cares what you think." Percy Weasley said in perhaps his least diplomatic offering ever.
Luckily, Crabbe and Goyle caught Draco before he could attack a Griffindor prefect in front of both the head of Griffindor House and the Headmaster, but it was a near run thing.
Dumbledore made a calming gesture.
"Peace, Mr Malfoy. Peace." Dumbledore offered.
"If you will note, this blood is dry, which indicates that the petrification and writing happened some dozens of minutes ago, at least, while Mr Potter and his friends were observed by Prefect Weasley as coming from the potions dungeons, floors away from here at that time."
"I will ask students to now proceed to your next class, and leave this matter in the hands of your professors." Dumbledore concluded, but his eyes were troubled, giving lie to the relaxed expression on his face.