o say public opinion turned on Harry, Hermione, Neville and Milicent is to say that a rampaging bull is not often invited into China shops for a spot of tea. Roughly a quarter of the school thought they were guilty and drew wands if they got close. Another quarter thought they were guilty and ran when they came close. A third quarter either didn't believe it because they knew and liked the quartet (mostly Hufflepuffs, but a smattering of other houses).
It was the last quarter that disturbed them. The ones that bowed, smirked, or gave thumbs up signs of approval, as they did indeed believe the quartet was guilty, but approved of their measures to purge Hogwarts of its impure elements. How exactly a goblin, Halfblood, muggleborn, and former virtual squib and blood traitor were chosen for this dubious honour made no sense to the quartet themselves at all. Yet, it was this quarter, the one that believed they were guilty and loved them for it that nearly broke Neville's and Hermione's heart. Milicent's sneer was being less and less faked, as humanity raced downward towards her opinion as if it desired her to be right as much as she desired to be wrong, and Harry was goblin raised, with a very jaundiced view of wizardkind on his best day. These were not, for the record, good days.
Hermione and Milicent were ready to make their Amortentia antagonist potion, but needed a place they could brew that would not be disturbed by students or teachers. Honestly, given that sixth and seventh year students had discovered hormones and broom closets, unused classrooms and secret passages at roughly the same time, finding a place that was not randomly occupied and/or raided was difficult.
"There is no help for it. We are going to have to use Moaning Myrtle." Milicent sighed in some dejection.
"Who is Moaning Myrtle?" Harry asked in confusion.
"Youngest of the Hogwarts ghosts, died in 1950. She was a Ravenclaw, her causes of death are not in Hogwarts a History and the newspaper sources at the time are all in the Restricted Section for some reason. There is no reason to hide the records of public events from future generations. We cannot learn from history if they keep hiding it from us." Hermione said, warming to her "They are censoring the Library!" rant.
"That is why they hide it of course. How can you escape blame from your past mistakes if you keep allowing everyone who needs to trust and obey you gets to read about how terribly you mucked up the last time." Said Neville grimly.
"Four days though. Four days since we got the censorship rant last. That's got to be a record!" Chortled Harry happily, packing up his potions gear for their move.
Milicent rolled her eyes. Her boys were not as bad as the Weasley's but they were far from helpful at staying on topic. "We need Moaning Myrtle to be friendly, because her toilet is the only place no one would be caught dead in, except Myrtle, who of course, is."
Harry looked up. "Hogwarts has a haunted toilet?"
Neville looked up. "Whole womens lavatory on the second floor. it was supposed to be the main bathroom when the place was built, but after Myrtle died and started haunting it people would rather hike across the whole castle rather than chance Myrtle in a mood. It made the listing of Most Haunted Bathrooms of Europe." Neville said absently.
When everyone looked at him he blushed and stammered. "It's a bathroom book. Gran has it in the main bathroom for when you get stuck on the loo and need something interesting to read."
Hermione patted him on the shoulder, bonding over all book related trauma, before agreeing with Milicent. "I have heard of the haunted toilet. All the girls know to avoid it, and its not exactly like anyone is going to try dating when an angsty ghost with issues about popular kids could flood the room if she felt a tad jealous. It is perfect for our work though."
Turning to Noodle who was buried deep in Harry's bedcovers she tried to coax him out.
"$Are you coming Noodle? $" She asked softly.
"$ Do not go Mouse Giver. The King of Snakes is hunting. It is not safe. Not even I dare face the King's gaze.$" Noodle hissed from under the covers.
Harry looked concerned. "I have never seen Noodle afraid of anything. There are things he knows his venom isn't strong against and he avoids them, but he has never actually been scared of any of them. He wasn't even scared of Voldemort. "
Hermione shrugged. "King of Snakes refers to the Basilisk, but the voice we heard was coming from inside the walls. Some of those corridors the walls are only a foot thick, there is no way a basilisk is fitting inside them. I think it is a ghost. That makes sense, the ghost of Slytherin's monster. I mean, basilisk live for about a century, and Slytherin sealed his chamber a thousand years ago. Any actual snake would be bones and dust by now."
Milicent shook her head. "The thing was clearly following orders, orders of another Parselmouth, so if its not us, and its not Slytherin, then somebody out there is using it for a power play. We just keep making ourselves more of an obvious power in the school and they will have to come after us. If we act like we are the true heirs and he is the pretender, or she I suppose, then in order to prove us wrong they will have to challenge us directly."
Neville shuddered. "I don't like being bait. Why can't we just track them down and stop them."
Milicent started counting off on her fingers. "Colin Creevy, Justin Finch-Fletchly, Tracy Davis, are all currently paralyzed, and the Bloody Baron ghost is, well, whatever you call a non moving but not moving on ghost. Every time we have either just stopped the damned thing from killing, and ended up with another petrified student, or they got lucky and saw them through a ghost and ended up petrified with a side of frozen ghost. We are not going to be lucky forever. Someone is going to die." Milicent said firmly.
"So our plan is to full Griffindor, take over the school by force, or at least scare the poop out of everyone openly to make the Heir think no one is paying them any attention at all and dare them to come after us openly." Harry said, trying to make sure he had it straight.
Milicent worked her forehead. "Yes Harry. Whoever the Heir is, they need recognition like plants need sunlight. Take its light. Take all the glory. Be the attention seeking prat everyone expected when you got here, be Gildroy Lockheart, but with normal pants and for sure please wear underwear."
Hermione sighed. "I feel kind of sad for Ravenclaw."
Neville stopped packing his herb kit for the potion making and looked up. "Why sad for Ravenclaw? "he asked.
"We are Hufflepuffs following a Slytherin plan to be fake Griffindors to defeat the Heir of Slytherin. They are literally the only house left out." Hermione said softly.
Milicent grinned. "Lockheart is a Ravenclaw."
Hermione frowned. "Right, well, operation pervert will rid Ravenclaw of its shame, so at least they will get something out of the deal. Onward troops, to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom to make potions!"
Harry, Hermione and Milicent were busy working on antidote potions, while Neville was ghost sitting.
"I used to get picked on when I got here. I was nearly a squib, not enough magic to light a candle. I stuttered and had a bit of a weight issue. I don't really like confrontation, I just wanted to be left alone, and I guess that made me an easy target.' Said Neville, strong enough now in his own power to not hide the fear and pain of his beginning.
"I know just what you mean. I need glasses. You can't get your eyes fixed until you stop growing so until I graduate I have to wear them, and the girls all called me four eyes. Then when I got acne, they started calling me spotty. They used to tease me until i cried and then laugh at me for crying. I was in here one day hiding from them when I heard a boy hissing in my bathroom. I went out to give him a piece of my mind, then i saw it. Two great yellow eyes, and I died." Myrtle said firmly.
Neville looked up at her. "Two eyes, like a basilisk. I mean, like snake eyes. Vertical slit pupil not round. You are a Ravenclaw, and they are all smarter than us Hufflepuffs, so you would have noticed something like that, even dying."
Myrtle tried to hug Neville, and he tried to pat her head, and they mostly gave up as impossible with one being basically fog and memory and the other a growing slab of badger boy.
"You are only the second boy to notice that I was smart. You and Tom. Yes the pupils were vertically slit, like a snake. A very large snake. It could have eaten me in a single bite, although it didn't. My body was found just out there, on the floor. Dead. It was horrible!" Myrtle said almost proudly.
Neville wanted to keep her away from her death, lest she flood the toilets and ruin the potions, so he tried to get her to talk about happy memories from the past.
"So Tom was your friend? I stopped getting bullied when I made my three friends out there. Two are Hufflepuff's like me, but one is a Slytherin. You are my first Ravenclaw friend." Neville said softly, trying to steer the emotional ghost back to happy topics.
"Oh, Tom was a Slytherin too. He was a Prefect when we met, and Head Boy the last year. He was ever so worried that they would shut the school down and he would have to leave early." Myrtle gushed happily.
"Why would they shut Hogwarts down?" Neville asked, knowing the school even stayed open during Grindelwald's war and Voldemort's Blood War.
Myrtle gushed. "Oh it was horrible!" The ghost cheered happily at the ancient and horrible gossip made fresh by a new, captive, and living audience.
"Students were being paralyzed, or petrified or something. You needed mandrake to make a potion to unfreeze them, and that takes ever so long to brew. There were a dozen that got petrified, and Headmaster Dippet had warned Tom that if it didn't stop, they would close the school. THEN I DIED!" Myrtle said almost happily.
"Did everyone get sent home?" Neville asked, sure he would have heard something about that.
"No! Tom saved the day. Tom Marvolo Riddle, hero of Hogwarts, caught that nasty Griffindor giant Hagrid and got him expelled. I was dead, but Tom made sure they broke his wand and sent him to Azkaban for it. Dumbledor brought him back, hairy thug. Still with his nasty spiders. I'm still angry. After I died, Tom never came back to visit me. I shouldn't have minded dying so much if I didn't lose my only friend."
Myrtle began to sob, but Neville leaned into the ghost and murmured.
"I'm still here. I'm only a second year, and not very special. I won't be going anywhere." Neville said.
Myrtle only cried for a bit, but didn't' flood anything. After a while she offered softly.
"You are much nicer than the other boy who came here." Myrtle offered to Neville.
Neville frowned. "Is it normal to see so many boys in a girl's lavatory? I mean, this is my first one, so maybe its common."
Myrtle again entered gossip mode and her face was suddenly inches from Neville's.
"It's ever so rare. At first I thought he was coming in here to put on girl's clothing. He was ever so blond and pretty. He would have made a very convincing girl, and maybe he wouldn't sneer as much if he just came out of the closet." Myrtle gushed happily.
Neville thought of the short list of sneering blond prettyboys and came up with one name.
"Myrtle, this sneering blond boy who was ever so pretty, he wouldn't have been wearing Slytherin robes would he?" Neville asked.
Myrtle tried to grab his hands in her girlish gushing excitement.
"Do you know him, are you a couple? Do you share the love that dare not speak its name? Oh I can see him falling for you, you are so big and manly and he is so very delicate, and looks ever so high strung. You would be good for him, I think." Myrtle said, happy to offer her new friend all the support in his forbidden love.
Neville blushed bright red. "Its called gay now, so we can speak it. I don't know if Draco actually swings any way at all now, let alone that way, but I'm pretty sure he is only really into himself. I'm into girls, but they just scare me a little too much right now to, you know, do anything about it."
Myrtle sighed and sunk down beside her living friend. "If you do decide to practice the love that dare not speak its name, there are better boys for you anyway. There is a blond boy named Cedric I peek in on when he takes baths in the Prefect bathroom. He is just as pretty as Draco, but you won't find him hissing at the bathroom fixtures."
Neville was torn between horror at the mental images, deciding that Hermione was right and a war on Hogwarts perverts was long overdue, and shock that he had just accidentally found the Heir of Slytherin.
"Myrtle, when he hissed at the bathroom fixtures, did he sound a bit like this?" Neville asked then hissed in Parseltongue.
"$ The Chamber of Secrets is open $"
There were shouts from the outside.
"Bloody hell, the sink turned into a cave!" Harry shouted.
Myrtle tried to grab his hand again. "That is it. Just like that. Oh you do speak gay! Now you and Draco have to get married, or maybe you should marry Cedric, he is ever so much nicer. " Myrtle said, then looked shocked.
"You spoke gay to me, now I must be gay too. Oh no. Now I will have to start spying on the girl Prefects when they bathe, and I don't even know which pipes lead there." Myrtle seemed distressed, the change in her sexual orientation being more a matter of following the plumbing than any biology at this point post death.
Plumbing.
"Hold on, where do the pipes run, some of the walls between corridors are only a foot think and the stones are easily that big. There is no room for pipes." Neville said, a growing fear rising in him.
He heard voices from outside. "Where do you think it goes? " Said Harry sounding excited.
Hermione sounded more confused. "How can there be a cave here, we know what's on the other side of the wall and there is no room for a cave." She said, applying logic to Hogwarts and getting it entirely wrong.
Myrtle twirled happily mid air. "Oh no Neville, the walls in Hogwarts are as thick as they need to be for whatever is inside them. I can sail through all the plumbing with my arms outstretched and never touch the sides. You could fit a dragon through them. That isn't even counting all the secret passages that start on one floor, end on another and never touch the floor in between. It's magic don't you know." Myrtle said happily.
Neville held his hands over Myrtle's as if he was holding them, then said very firmly.
"If I could kiss you right now, I would. Myrtle, you were very brave, very smart, and may well have saved a lot of lives." Neville said, causing Myrtle to blush, which is odd in a ghost, and lean down to brush an ice cold kiss upon his lips.
"I must go now, and stop bad things from happening to other students." Neville said seriously. Myrtle gave him a happy wave as he came out of the bathroom and hissed at the cave opening.
" $ Close $" Neville said, and the cave irised closed to become a serpent marked sink.
Milicent turned and looked at him. "Merlin's beard Longbottom. That was ruddy amazing. You found the chamber."
Neville shook his head. "No, we made a mistake. The basilisk isn't the ghost. The ghost is the Heir. Tom Marvolo Riddle is the ghost, and he opened the chamber last time and killed Myrtle before he stopped. Draco Malfoy is somehow possessed by him. Worse, the basilisk can go anywhere in Hogwarts through the plumbing, aparantly every single pipe is big enough inside for a dragon."
Hermione blanched. "Pack up. We have what we need, and I am not ready to face a basilisk. Noodle was right. We need to flee."
Milicent demurred. "You need to flee, I have a Quidditch match this afternoon. We are facing Griffindor. No one is getting petrified if Draco is really the Heir because he's our Seeker, and that prat would never miss a chance to show off."
Hermione nodded. "Noodle needs to get out of the castle anyway. I did promise Katie Bell they could borrow him for anti-pervert work. I will be down there ready to spring if we catch Lockheart somehow perving on the girl's showers.
Harry asked "Have you told Noodle we need the pervert alive?"
Hermione looked puzzled. "Maybe? I know I meant to."
Harry shrugged. A boy goblin caught peeking on the women's bathing areas was fed to dragons so he was only mildly curious rather than outright concerned.
It was a great day for Quidditch, because winter in Scotland was always great for Quidditch. If you could play here, you could play in hell. Or as the Irish would have it, if you died playing there you would never notice, as Hell would seem like a slightly milder day than normal.
The sleet was driving like fangs of some god who was angered at other's using his sky, yet the sun shone bright in defiance through tears in the clouds like the sun goddess wanted a good look at the game and was going to carve her way through for a peek.
You would catch glimpses of the snitch or bludger as they passed through the beams of light, then loose then in the sheets of sleet and shadow. The quaffle was rock hard and slippery, and the bludgers were like twin orca loose among so many dolphins that the only surety was danger.
Draco sat his broom and remembered his frustrating night with his diary.
"I told the basilisk to kill, and it refused. Refused!" Malfoy wrote.
"That is Salazar Slytherin's own basilisk. Through the magic of Helga Hufflepuff, it has been kept ever young, but it was Salazar's hand raised companion. It cannot resist the command of the Heir of Slytherin." Tom reasoned.
"Those Hufflepuffs and that traitor bitch in my own house also speak the tongue, and they ordered it not to kill. Now it won't kill." Draco raged.
"You need to remove the pretenders. There can be only one Heir of Slytherin. To the strongest goes everything. To the rest, nothing. This is the way." Tom wrote back coldly.
Draco raged internally, but every time he tried something, they turned it against him. He did not even rule his own house. Slytherin was divided. Some thought Milicent, heir by conquest Lady Selwyn, parseltongue and potions genius was clearly the Heir. Some thought Malfoy the pure blood Death Eater scion. Most thought that only one of them was going to survive the year, so no sense doing anything but enjoying the show.
"How can I remove the pretenders? The basilisk will not kill them." Draco had written.
The ink sunk into the diary, then rose again in a far finer hand, with wisdom that made Draco Malfoy smile. This was the Heir's wisdom.
"Quidditch is wizard celebrity. More than one political career has been born on the Quidditch pitch, and it is a time to unite your house behind you. In this game against the hated Griffindors, you must see two things happen, glory must be yours, and the pretender must have a very public accident. There is nothing sweeter than murdering a rival in front of hundreds of witnesses who will swear under veritus serum that you are innocent."
The spells he had been forced to learn by Tom Riddle's ghost had caused him physical pain. He didn't have the magical reserves to do them himself, so he had to bring the diary with him physically under his play robes.
The spells safeguarding the bludgers were layered by experts, and the product of almost a thousand years of rune and charm evolution. They were widely accepted to be untamperable, and the very attempt would set off alarms woven into the structure of the bludger itself, to the point that a tampered bludger should not even be able to fly.
Tom Marvolo Riddle who would one day reveal himself to be Lord Voldemort, was no ordinary wizard. While Voldemort during the Blood War had been known to the public for his attrocities, he was feared by the powerful for his ability to bring down powerful defensive wards that were thought by everyone to be utterly invulnerable. The use of parselmagic to change and warp the flow of power, to weave the power flow inside an intact rune matrix to adopt a new pattern as described by his chanted parseltongue spells had opened the most fortified positions, turned the best defended strongholds into a trap, or sometimes simply collapsed the wards and the space protected inside into a superdense ball of collapsed space whose total casualties could never be known.
To turn a single bludger into a weapon to kill a school girl was literally childsplay for him. One bludger in a chaotic game with terrible visibilty was deniable enough that its killing attack would be written off as bad luck.
He prepared the second bludger as a backup. Never intending to use it, Tom Riddle simply corrupted the enchantments of both out of a sense of order that marked his early carreer, before too many Horcrux degraded his stability.
Sharing Draco's body, he was perfectly willing to use the child's amazing reflexes. Honestly, Tom had to admit, the Malfoy chit had better reflexes that Tom Riddle held in life. What he lacked was courage, ruthlessness, and any scrap of critical thinking. Honestly, this is how Tom rose to power inside Slytherin the first time. Overbred, overprivileged pampered little lap dog heirs crying the world was mean to them were quick to become his lackies, quick to break any law, betray any trust, slaughter even their own kin, as long as Tom could deliver to them a world that cowered before them as they felt it ought to. It didn't matter they were his slaves long before that happened, as long as everyone else was worse off, they were happy.
Again Tom Riddle marveled that he had failed when he rose the first time. The child Malfoy's memories made so little sense. How could Lord Voldemort, his ascended form, be defeated by a baby, and then again by an eleven year old?
Harry Potter was a capable twelve-year-old, and his three friends were easily that as well, but Voldemort had carved through the Auror corps like a goblin silver sword through flesh, and had shattered Ancient and Noble Houses, burning the manors down around the sitting lords and all their ancient magic. Getting killed twice by a child defied all reason.
It starts today. Milicent Bulstrode, murderer of his boyhood follower Selwyn, died today, and his puppet Draco Malfoy took unquestioned leadership of Slytherin. The purge of Hogwarts started today.
One death, one snitch, and unquestioned rulership was Draco's. Tom settled back into the recesses of Draco's mind. His energy was low, he had spent too much, and had not yet been able to feed enough on Draco to get his full strength. Soon. Soon Malfoy would be nothing but a glove worn by the Dark Lord, his soul a forgotten snack of the true Heir of Slytherin.
Harry looked up at the sky and smirked. "She must be loving this"
Harry had the wind move the sleet to pass him by and kept a nice warm layer of air against and under his robes.
Hermione wrapped herself in blue fire, extending it to Neville who took it with thanks, his shivering stopped with the flame wrapping.
"I don't see why she would be loving this. Her team doesn't practice as much as Wood's maniacs from Griffindor, too many Pure Bloods don't like the cold and wet." Hermione said, just the faint trace of class angst sneaking in.
Harry answered Hermione's question honestly. "Look the reason that I'm a better beater than Neville isn't skill, strength, or speed. I feel the bludgers in the air. I feel everything in the air. It doesn't matter where I look, if anything moves in the air I know where it is."
Hermione held up her hand, watching the driving icy rain and sleet sizzle as it burned in her fire. "So Milicent sees everything that is disturbing the sleet. Anything that breaks the fall of rain she can feel or see."
Harry grinned happily. Fred and George better watch out. While Griffindor is pretty close to unbeatable in this crap, Milicent is completely unbeatable in this."
The game went pear shaped from the beginning. As the quaffle went up and the snitch bolted for the sky, one of the bludgers tore across the playing field at speeds almost too hard to see and dove at Milicent Bulstrode just as she made contact with the second bludger that one of the Weasley's had blasted at Adrien Pucey to stop his diving after Alicia Spinnet with the quaffle.
The crowd screamed as the bludger shot towards the back of the beaters head at killing speed only to see her casually roll her broom and tear off in pursuit of the bludger than nearly decapitated her.
As the bludger slowed to reverse its course and resume attacking Milicent, she hit it at full speed and pounded it straight down at Katie Bell who was forced to pull up short and miss the goal mouth pass from Spinnet who had drawn the Slytherin keeper out of position.
Ten minutes of Milicent leading the bludger by the nose and using it as her personal weapon had left Draco fuming. He had needed it to look like an accident, but instead, she was becoming the focus of play. Even if he caught the snitch, no one would notice or care.
No, it was time to activate the second bludger. Slipping his wand into his hand and covering it with his robes, he cast the second activation incantation and the second bludger tripled its speed and dodged around Fred Weasley to arrow after Milicent Bulstrode like a muggle air to air missile.
Draco decided that it was time to set up his epic game winning moment, and made a production of shieling his eyes with his glove as if straining to see something. With an unnecessarily loud cry of "THE SNITCH" Draco powered into a strong dive almost straight down.
This was called a Wronsky feint, faking finding the snitch and diving at the ground to trick an enemy seeker into following you down. Of course it wasn't Draco's fault his Nimbus 2000 was quite a bit better at quick turns than McClaggan's Clean Sweep 7. McClaggan was quite a bit heavier than Draco, so he was able to build up matching speed in the dive by putting everything into it.
When Draco pulled up and left as hard as he could, he could not, legally, be blamed for cutting in front of the diving McClaggan. That he occupied the space McClaggan would need to pull through to get out of the dive was not Malfoy's fault.
It only cost McClaggan a second after all. A second of power dive on the less responsive broom by the heavier player pointed straight down at the ground at terminal velocity.
McClaggan made a tree. He hit the ground like a sack of wet cement dropped off a building, and his broom rammed itself a foot into the pitch, with its twigs up like a reborn tree just planted midfield. Draco snickered as he looked at the twitching, moaning, and deeply broken Grifindor seeker, and took lazily to the sky for his snitch hunt.
Glancing casually around to see where that half-blood usurping bitch had fallen when the two bludger caught her, Draco's blood ran colder than the driving sleet of Scottish winter.
Cackling like a madwoman, Milicent Bulstrone rode the hurricane with a bat in hand, and her helmet lost. Long black hair streaming backwards like a banner, the crack of lightning and the crack of her bat intermingled as she flew so close to the chasers that the bludgers following her winnowed them like wheat, then she pulled into a tight spiral and smashed one bludger into the other, to create space for her startled Slytherin chasers to steal the quaffle from the Griffindor girls and tear off down the pitch towards Wood.
Hammering left and right, spinning like a top on her broom to avoid the bludgers, Milicent chased her chasers, and dove sharply before cutting straight up, the startled bludger following her being a perfect target to her bat as she blasted the fast moving bludger right through Wood, driving him and the bludger through the goal, followed more sedately by Adrian Pucey's quaffle shot.
She was not dead. Not only was she not dead, she was so deeply the center of attention that even catching the snitch now would be hard to steal the glory. Well, it would be if she had lived of course. Just as he could accidentally cut in front of McClaggan and cause him to accidentally hit the ground, he could do the same with Bulstrode. This time he would pretend to see the snitch, and dive right in front of her. She would reflexively pull up and the bludgers would hit her like muggle cannon balls.
Not thinking further, Malfoy shouted again "THE SNITCH!" and dove.
He dove right at Bulstrode who , defying all reason, climbed right at him at full speed.
Her bat swung with a flash, and for a moment, he thought she realized he was attempting to kill her and was striking for his head. In terror he crossed his arms in front of himself and something hammered into his palm.
He heard that dolt Lee Jordan of Griffindor who did the colour comentary of the game scream out in amazement.
"Unbelievable, Bulstrode, the only surviving Slytherin beater batted the snitch right into Malfoy's hands when the silly git dove too soon and missed it. Slytherin wins!"
Bulstrode had passed so close to Malfoy as they passed that only the automatic Draco avoidance that he had programmed in saved his life. The two bludgers arced in different directions from Malfoy as Madam Hootche whistled the game closed.
When the two bludgers finished their turns and dove at Milicent again, she led them close to the ground in a high speed dive, while Fred and George converged on an intercept course and hammered them down. Given their forward speed, they drove deep enough into the ground that Madam Hootch was able to rather forcefully deactivate them before they got free for a second attempt.
The Slytherin crowd was carrying Milicent Bulstrode, half blood usurping bitch, on their shoulders to their changing room. Draco Malfoy, rightwise Heir Slytherin stood forgotten in the rain and wept. His father came down from the crowd and gripped his shoulder and offered a very reserved well done, flinching at the cold rage that shone back from his son's eyes.
Victory tasted like ashes in his mouth. They had to die. Draco no longer cared about the cost. As long as Potter, Bulstrode, Granger and Longbottom lived, Hogwarts would never kneel to Malfoy.
"How many broken bones?" Asked Neville as they assisted her to the door of the Slytherin girls change room.
"Three!" Shouted Milicent, higher than her broom had been on the thrill of beating at the very edge of human ability.
Harry said firmly, "Remember your potions. Take the bone growth and the pain potion together before the adrenaline fades, and make sure they are set properly before you do."
"Yes mom. God. You are worse than Hermione. Where is she anyway, she could help set my bones." Milicent said as Neville helped her take off her gauntlets and undo her boot buckles.
"Operation Pervert. She and Noodle are with the Griffindor seekers to see if there really is someone spying on them in the shower." Neville said softly.
Milicent shuddered and gave them a thumbs up as she went into the Slytherin girl's change room with Daphne Greengrass to assist her undressing and bone setting.
Peter Petigrew was having a good day. He had picked his side when it proved that Dumbledore for all his talk about being Light's Champion was perfectly willing to lose the war as long as he got to keep his hands clean. He sided with Voldemort and the price was giving up James and Lilly Potter.
That was fine. Peter was a rat in more than just form. He had been the extra in the Marauders. It was mostly the James and Sirius show, with Remus the werewolf there to keep them from outright atrocities. Peter was with them for protection from bullies at first, and then because it gave him a chance to play the bully by the end. I mean, pranks are always harmless when your are playing them, and a lot more fun than being the target.
Prongs was a stag. Padfoot a Grim. Mooney a Werewolf and Peter was a rat. Well look at them now. Prongs was dead and buried, Padfoot was Dementor food in Azkaban (for Peter's murder, wasn't that fun!), and Mooney was hiding out in the Muggle world living poorer than some homeless people.
Peter was living his best school boy life. Sure he had to hide out as a rat, but rats can get everywhere. Oh the girls. Girls girls girls. Peter giggled. Sure Sirius got all the girls chasing him, James got his precious Lilly and Mooney, well that git could make winning the lottery depressing, so he got a lot of quality solo reading time. Peter got careful about hiding his, tastes. James was an Auror, and Sirius a hit wizard. Finding out Peter was a lolicon, a pervert with a taste for younger girls might have got him a little bit dead resisting arrest.
Now he was trapped living as a rat, that was true. With the poorest, and probably stupidest wizard alive. Honestly, given an entire family of magical prodigies, I get given to Ronald, can't be arsed to try, Weasley. Good at, well, nothing at all except playing chess by himself. Another Mooney that one, only Mooney at least got good marks.
Trapped as a rat forever in Hogwarts, where all the tasty tasty girls forever frolicked in the sure and certain knowledge no man could spy on them. No man, but a rat of course. Ah it was like a buffet. What with his marauder knowledge of the castle and his own professional skills. He hadn't been an Auror or a Hitwizard. No, no. Peter had been an Oblivator. Like Professor Lockheart, he had worked modifying memories as clean up crew for the Underage Magic branch or the Aurors. Boring work, but rather handy skills. After all, the only one that remembered Peters little hunting trips was Peter after all. Love those memory charms.
Peter wiggled into the hollow of the wall in the Griffindor shower room. The mortar between the tiles had tasted awful, but his enchantment to replace it with a charmed mirror gave him an unobstructed view of three beauties in the shower together, consoling each other with lots of hugs.
Honestly, Muggles pay for this on that little box thing they watch. Idiots. If they learned a little magic, they could watch the real thing in person. Oh it was good to be a rat! Thought Peter Petigrew, Marauder, Oblivator, Death Eater, and Pervert.
"$ Not a Rat $" Came the hissing from behind him. Behind him in the tunnel in the wall! That sounded like the Dark Lord or his damned...SNAKE!
Noodle struck, his bite delivered the full dose of poison. Noodle was not sure what Not a Rat was, but since Not a Cat turned out to be a professor, and one of the most dangerous witches in the castle, he made sure he gave enough. Mouse Giver thought this one was the Stinky Purple Pervert, but to Noodle they smelled different. Soon they will know.
Scabbers the rat felt the fangs bite deep into his flesh, and the poison begin to still his organs. He squealed and tore through the chink in the tiles, no longer his hope of spying on naked girls, but his only hope for escape.
Three girls screamed as a rat tore through the shower wall and landed on the shower floor. Hermione charged in with her camera, avoiding the naked girls to snap the first picture of the rat falling out the hole in the wall.
Three girls screamed again as the rat transformed into a small, very ugly man with ratlike features and a terrified expresion on his face.
"$ Not a Rat! $" Hissed Noodle proudly, slithering from the hole in the wall.
Hermione continued to snap photos. Finally Katie Bell ran to grab her wand. Running back to the shower room, she witnessed Peter Petigrew breathe his last, in obvious torment, his last clawing at his own flesh had revealed the prominent Dark Mark of a Death Eater on his left forearm.
"Bugger." Said Hermione.
"Oh my god he's dead." Screamed Alicia Spinnet.
"How about oh my god, a Death Eater has been spying on us naked?" Offered Angelina Johnson looking like she might sick up at any moment.
Hermione frowned. "This is bad."
"$ Mouse Giver, do not fear. You hunted a pervert, we caught a pervert. He was a bad man, do not regret killing him $" Noodle offered, afraid his Mouse Giver might have mamal moral issues with his killing the pervert.
" $ No not that. He's a Death Eater and we can't exactly fight fair with one. He would most likely simply have killed us all and fled. No I am sorry its the wrong pervert. I might have to apologize to Professor Lockheart. $" Hermione hissed.
Katie Bell cast her best Patronus charm and a bunny rabbit stood attentively before her.
"To professor McGonagall. Death Eater caught in girl's shower peeking at us. Death Eater now dead. Please send help." Katie Bell said and then the Griffindor chasers set about getting dressed.
Noodle coiled about Hermione on the change room bench and consoled her. She was disappointed in her hunt, but prey was prey. He was sure even monkey's wouldn't be that unreasonable about things.
Dumbledore was sitting with Alastor Moody in his office and trying to use whatever influence he still had over the man to convince him to keep Aurors out of the school.
"Now Alastor, you know I can't have Aurors running around my school, it would scare the children and set the wrong tone about their safety." Said Dumbledore softly.
"Six people and one cat are petrified. If Professor Sprout didn't routinely ignore you and grow the Mandrakes you keep trying to ban, they would bloody stay petrified too. I can only keep the out for so long Albus. But there are limits. The second someone dies, I will lead the teams in myself." Mad Eye Moody said, poking a sausage like finger at the leader of the Order of the Phoenix, which to his enduring shame, he was once proud to join.
"No one is going to die, old friend. Trust me." Dumbledore smiled, his eyes twinkling gently as he coaxed his old friend once more into serving the Greater Good.
Just then a cat patronus popped through his door and the voice of his deputy Headmaster, Minerva McGonagall sounded sharply.
"Albus, summon the Aurors. There was an intruder in the girls showers after the Quidditch game. It was a Death Eater Albus. A Death Eater stalking my Griffindor girls! Now he's dead, and I don't want any of your nonsense about non-violence. This was a marked Death Eater, and them caught naked too!" The patronis winked out, and Albus felt a headache coming on.
He called out for House Elves to secure the Griffindor girls changeroom in on the Quidditch pitch, but by the time that was done, he turned to see that Mad Eye had already opened a Floo connection to Amelia Bones of the DMLE and made a report.
"Alastor, you will go there now. I want statements from everyone. I want to know how a marked Death Eater gets past the Hogwarts wards, and into a girls changing room. For Merlin's sake Alastor, my niece is there! Who is the Death Eater, how did he get there, and what does it have to do with the petrifications. No more Dumbledore nonesense. This is an official investigation!" Amelia Bones said firmly before breaking the connection.
"Is that really necessary, old friend." Albus asked softly.
Mad Eye Moody sneered and stomped from the room. An old soldier, offered the chance to take up the fight one last time. It was all the answer Albus was going to get.
Hermione frowned as the one eyed, one legged Auror whose face looked like a tracery of old scars stitched together with even older scars looked down at the dead man and laughed softly.
"I don't see what is funny about this." Hermione said uncomfortably.
Moody looked over and smiled, which looked faintly disturbing on that face.
"You wouldn't lass." Moody said softly. "But I do."
Moody grinned and collected the pictures Hermione had offered. Moody handed them to the Auror department raven and whispered. "Director's office. Eyes Only" and sent them off before Albus Bloody Dumbledore could see them.
"You see lass, I have investigated Peter Petigrew's murder before." Moody said with a laugh.
Hermione blinked, and said softly. "Wait, I know that name.'
Moody nodded, and stomped over to sit beside her and pat her knee with his mace like hand.
"Everyone knows the name, and the story. Sirius Black the secret keeper for the Potter family was secretly a Death Eater and betrayed them to Voldemort. Voldemort kills Lilly and James, but blows himself up trying to kill wee Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived.
Now poor innocent Peter Petigrew was being chased by notorious Death Eater and traitor Sirius Black, who caught him in the middle of Muggle London, and blew up Peter Petigrew, leaving only one finger behind to identify the body, and killing a dozen muggles."
Hermione looked at Peter Petigrew, the dead rat Animagus. He was indeed, missing one finger as Scabbers the rat had always been missing one finger.
"How is that possible?" Hermione asked.
Moody looked grim. "It was the end of the war. We were tired, terrified, and a lot of very highly placed people wanted to just make it all go away. I arrested Sirius Black on the site, but while I was out rounding up other identified Death Eaters, Sirius was sent to Azkaban for life for the murder of that git right there."
Moody leaned forward, and his face right in hers, he whispered something softly.
"You want to know what was funny? Every supposed Death Eater I arrested had that bloody Dark Mark, even Severus Snape, Barty Crouch Junior, and Lucius bribe my way out Malfoy had the Dark Mark on them. You know who didn't? Sirius Black. You know who does? Peter, look I've been hiding as a rat for a dozen years, nothing suspicious here, Pettigrew."
Hermione perked up. "Then they have to release Sirius. Harry has to know, if Peter was the Death Eater than he must have betrayed Harry's parents and an innocent man is in Azkaban."
Moody patted her leg again. "You really do belong in Hufflepuff. Nothing wrong with that. I was Hufflepuff myself. You are right, that is what should happen. What is going to happen is I am going to do my best to keep you from getting killed or sent to Azkaban without a trial to keep several very important people from facing some very had questions about why the rightful Lord of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black is rotting for the last decade in Azkaban for the murder of a Death Eater who was alive until a few minutes ago."