Because I like to discuss stuff I created a Forum for this story. You can ask me questions there.
Excuses.
I believe things will pick up again and I'll be back to a faster update schedule. Perhaps weekly or biweekly.
I intend to incorporate various psychic abilities into this story which I rarely see. If ever. The magical world should never be tame.
Man, did some rereading of my work. Wow. Mistakes. Gotta go back and edit.
Some readers don't like my Daphne. They tell me she isn't canon. Go find passages about Daphne's character in the original and argue it with me. And even if you do remember that I am god and your characters belong to me, when written here and here alone.
I do not own Harry Potter.
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"Force and mind are opposites; morality ends where a gun begins." Ayn Rand
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It was a stampede to exit Hogwarts when Holidays finally arrived, and Harry's friends left with the mass of students. As a result, Harry found himself alone in the school in the days leading up to Christmas. People would stand stock still if he passed them in the halls, or turn the other direction if they crossed his path.
They fear me for all the wrong reasons.
He found a quiet place to himself where he could focus more on making a new spell. He began with the seize and pull charm as the basis. It had similar properties, even if it wasn't an exact match. His spell was supposed to pull objects towards a particular target, so in a duel it could cause rubble or debris to fly at his opponent. But the seize and pull charm started with an object and pulled it rather than start with a target then pull objects.
The difference was substantial enough that he gave up with that line of thinking and began from scratch.
Of course, new spells weren't the only things he found himself researching in his spare time. His discussion with the Headmaster ignited a newfound interest in magical creatures. He found himself fascinated with some of their properties and desired to imitate some of them, if possible.
The aerokinesis of American Thunderbirds was particularly fascinating, and he took careful notes on the hide of dragons and basilisks. He pondered the nature of a basilisk's stare and wondered if it was by some form of legilimency that it was possible.
Phoenix tears and their properties were far beyond him. He had read that their astounding healing properties had their basis in soul magic, of which he knew little. He didn't bother to research something so abstract, at least for now, what with his other studies. The mind was difficult enough to crack, the soul could come later.
However, the flame travel afforded by the creatures was less metaphysical, and he made note of several attempts to imitate the ability from accounts within the library. Then he found references to similar abilities used by ancient wizards. A man known to modern scholars only as Agni was said to have mastered the ability to flame travel like a Phoenix and was an adept natural Pyrokinetic beyond any wizard or witch before or since.
He discovered several other so-called 'God-mages' not dissimilar to Agni who had developed similar abilities, known collectively as the 'Apauruseya'. The magic used in the east at the time did not require wands, instead these warlocks had focused their magic through their bodies, channelling their intent to astounding effect, and performing magics still unfathomable to modern wizards.
His notebook was soon filled with references to them and their abilities, even to comparisons of modern magic and research performed by scholars. He resolved to enchant the journal into organized sections based on his different interests. It was a spell book and a grimoire, but it was also more; especially to him.
He sealed the book with his blood. It had to stay safe and private.
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Christmas day he spent alone, developing his spell. He snapped his wand at a desk and several books shot towards it in a flurry of papers. Several other desks screeched forward a little. He frowned, having wanted a stronger effect; one that would be useful in a duel.
He made a note in his book. His wand movement needed to be changed for a greater effect. He made another note about a new spell he wanted to develop. Perhaps a longer one that would supply more power.
He looked down at his Christmas gift from Daphne. It was a mirror and he suspected that it should allow her to communicate with him, however, it seems some error was made. Daphne had been overzealous, and sent it to him prematurely.
Perhaps distance is interfering too much. The protean charm would have served her well here.
To be fair, it was an advanced charm. One he had far from mastered himself.
He looked down at his notebook and sighed. He was no master enchanter, that was certain. Sometimes the pages in the book would move around, become out of order or get lost for a few hours after he had attempted to enchant it to organize itself.
He had also never tested the protections on it. Only someone with his blood should be able to bypass them, and he had considered adding a curse or hex or two to anyone who attempted to access his secrets.
He sat down and wrote out his ideas as well as a legilimency technique he had practiced. He suspected that most legilimency techniques used pain and emotions to lead a probe around to access the mind. He believed that pleasure could also be used. A carrot and a stick approach might benefit him best.
His time tormenting Ernie Macmillan was enlightening in this regard, and he found he could now enter a mind and explore it almost freely. However, forming connections, manipulating, and attacking the mind of an Occlumens would still require greater skill.
His touch was subtle enough that he could reach deep into the minds of his peers without detection, breathe their emotions in, and even catch memories and thoughts without causing pain. But he could push for more; longer memories, and deeper, older, or more buried thoughts required more push on his end, causing discomfort to those he targetted. Of course, he had yet to improve on his ability to extract longer memories or control which ones he saw, nor could he subtly manipulate emotions or thoughts to more than a mediocre degree.
He packed his books and up and departed to the Great Hall. Before he arrived, he ran into a platinum haired girl in the corridors. Her eyes were large, dreamy and blue and her face was pale. There were dark circles under her eyes and she seemed lost.
He didn't recognize her.
"You will never be an elementalist." She said with calm certainty, a dreamy note to her tone.
What?
That was unexpected. Was she spying on him? How did she know about his research? She simply stood there under his scrutiny, smiling softly and wiggling her toes against the flagstones. She had no shoes on, and her voice was full of air, like her words might drift away.
He felt outrage, had she been through his book? He reared back to pierce her mind and tear it to pieces for violating his privacy.
"They say you're dangerous, you know?"
He hesitated and looked at her confused.
"Who are you?" He looked through her. Ready to rip and rend at her.
He found her mind already flayed.
Her mind was dense and full of magic, but not like an Occlumens. It was as though her brain had been put through some kind of magical blender. Some of the properties seemed as if someone had repeatedly torn into her mind with Legilimency. Similar, but not quite.
He touched at what appeared to be a memory and felt the instant pain that came with it. Swirling colors not unlike those he had seen when he first began his voyage into the mind arts danced before his metaphorical eyes.
Inside the bubble was pure knowledge.
He grasped it, agony lanced through his mind, and he knew that he would never match the power of the God-mages of India.
She was a seer, he realized. She saw visions of the future and received pieces of knowledge like the one he had just received. She had no control over what she saw or when she saw it. The future came to her unbidden and unwelcome in her mind.
Her mind looked torn open because it was.
Magic would seize her and fill her head with truth, and it extracted a price every time.
"I'm Luna Lovegood, everyone just calls me Loony, though."
Perhaps they were right. Perhaps she was crazy. Though with her mind being ripped open daily in her sleep, it was little wonder she was a tad unstable. Her psyche was completely vulnerable.
Some people could catch glimpses of the future with divination, or expand on their own innate precognition abilities with it. But they were not the same as a true seer. It was the difference between being an animagus, which was interesting, prodigious and uncommon, and being a shapeshifter, a legendary ability.
This girl was valuable. Unbelievably so.
But she was also incredibly damaged.
"You're not crazy, or loony." He informed her. "You just need a little help."
"Are you going to help me?" It sounded almost challenging, but there was something hopeful in it. Her inflection on each word gave the question six different meanings.
The question had many layers. Did she know he wanted access to her gift? It was possible. She could see the future after all. Did she believe that he could help her? There was nothing in her mind to give him direction or answer his questions. It was as though she cared how he answered but didn't know how she wanted to answer. She was lost.
"I think that the others don't understand you," he said slowly.
"And you do?"
"Not at all." The truth from his mouth with surprising ease. He paused, searching for the right answer. "I think that I could."
She smiled. "I'd like that."
She continued to drift up towards the Ravenclaw common room.
It was possible she had manipulated everything. Used her sight and psychic knowledge of him to orchestrate a path to victory where she got something she wanted. She could have just shown him what he wanted to see.
He took a breath. If he second guessed everything then he could easily fall into solipsism with something like this. He frowned.
He should tell Dumbledore about her. She could use the help, and he believed Dumbledore could take care of her. She could be safe, and her talents given the ability to grow under the nurturing wing of an expert. Perhaps more importantly, she would receive the care she so desperately needed. While considering telling Dumbledore though, he imagined the girl by his side. He could gaze into her mind, examine the visions which flooded her head when magic took her thoughts in its grasp and left them raw.
It was a powerful, invaluable asset to have. He could do great things with something like that. He needed to learn more.
He made a note in his notebook about the girl and carried on towards dinner. It was after all, impossible not to enjoy Christmas at Hogwarts.
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When Harry's friends returned they were loyal. They believed he wasn't attacking his peers. They were wrong, depending on the precise definition of 'attacking' involved, but he found their faith comforting.
Daphne was livid over the mirror disconnecting. She was even more disappointed when he presented his own solution to their project in their room.
"It's so simple." Her face was buried in her hands. "I should have thought of it."
"Oh, you know how Harry is." Tracey comforted her friend. "He always finds a way to make things work out like this. It's not like your solution was wrong or bad. It's just a few spells. Harry knows magic, he lives and breathes the stuff, you know?"
"That's the point." Daphne wrung her hands in her lap. "How am I supposed to keep up?" She turned on Harry. "It's not like you need us to teach you things. Why do you even keep us around?"
[He's leaving me behind.]
It was… not inaccurate. For the most part his peers couldn't keep up with him. He was too talented, and grasped magic too quickly.
He almost shrugged in response and returned to his book. He didn't actually shrug, because he knew from her thoughts it would just make things worse. A dismissal was the last thing she wanted.
"What do you mean?" He asked.
[What is he thinking? What does he think about us.]
He frowned and looked down, considering. Before she could answer, he continued on "You're my friends. I don't keep you around because you're useful."
She looked stunned. "You're saying we're useless."
He narrowed his brow. "I didn't say that."
"You implied it."
"I meant only what I said. I did not say you are useless."
She sighed and turned back to Tracey. "No, I suppose you didn't." She was still wringing her hands.
Tracey interjected before Harry could pursue. "Well, what are you guys going to work on now? You finished the mirrors. Oh! Are you going to do something with your cloak? We could all walk around invisible, think about it! Ooh! What about your journal? There's a load of magic you can do with a book!"
Harry looked at his notebook. He opened his mouth to answer.
"He already enchanted his journal."
"Notebook," Harry corrected.
"Journal," Daphne repeated with a smirk. "Do you have any other ideas? You must have something."
He thought carefully. "I was considering modifying the room."
"The room?" Tracey asked.
Harry nodded. "We spend so much time here. It's practically ours."
"It's brilliant!" Daphne returned full force. "What were you planning?"
"I was going to expand it. Maybe make it hard to find."
Daphne grinned.
She is about to get her way.
"You could decorate it too." Tracey interjected. "It is rather droll in here, extend the windows, give better lighting. That sort of thing."
"Get rid of the cobwebs and dust everywhere," Daphne added.
Harry shook his head. "I'll leave that to you."
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Valentine's Day passed uneventfully for Harry. He learned that someone had bought a cupid-gram for him, but he was behind several notice-me-not charms in his room. He was trying to expand the room, but it never stayed equal and gave the room a distinctly lopsided feel.
He met with Hermione in the room and found that her spell was coming along nicely. His plan to educate her on the multi-stage intent worked well, and she was now able to whisk an inkwell to her hand from a desk.
It wasn't what she wanted, but it was a start.
The attacks stopped after Christmas and the castle settled back into a comfortable routine. Fewer people threw glances Harry's way, and they seemed to have forgotten how they attempted to shun him, and why they had done so, within just a few short weeks.
As spring approached, so too did the decision over their third-year electives. Neville received letters from his family, all with conflicting advice. Harry had caught a glance at Hermione's slip and saw she had signed up for every classe without hesitation.
Harry signed up for Care of Magical Creatures, Runes, and Arithmancy. Arithmancy and Runes were both necessary for abstract Magics and advanced enchanting. He planned to take the OWL for Muggle Studies as soon as possible, he would likely do so over the summer at the ministry. That would bring him up to eleven NEWTS if he included his core classes. More, if he studied Alchemy in his sixth and seventh years, and if he learned enough from extracurricular subjects such as Magical Theory, Advanced Arithmancy, and Ancient Studies. He could also take OWLs in Dark Arts, Enchanting, and Spell Creation, if he studied sufficiently in his spare time.
That would place him at eighteen OWLs/NEWTs. He never told Hermione about his ambitions seeing as how she would attempt to compete with him or scold him for taking too many classes. The hypocrisy would have likely sailed right over her head. He did at least tell Daphne, who smirked in an almost proud way at him. He had yet to decide what he had felt in her mind.
There was also Quidditch to consider, and Harry felt ready for an upcoming game against Slytherin. It was when Harry was leaving the Great Hall one evening, Lisa and Neville in tow, that he heard the voice again.
"Kill this time...let me rip...tear…"
He looked about, startled. He heard it, but no one else seemed to have reacted. He was the only one who could hear it. It must be…
He looked frantically towards Dumbledore. It hit him. The monster was a snake. He thought of his notebook and the only thing that made sense; a Basilisk.
Despite what many authors wrote about the Nundu and its toxic breath, the Basilisk could kill its enemies from miles away. A glance was all it took, making it, in his opinion, the most dangerous creature in the world.
He looked at Dumbledore frantically, but was slowly being pushed out by the crowd.
Someone was going to die.
He slammed the thought into Dumbledore's head with all he could muster.
It's a Basilisk. A snake. I heard-
He lost eye contact with his guardian, who was looking surprised. The man stood quickly and moved into the greater castle after excusing himself from the staff table.
The Quidditch game was called off when Penelope Clearwater and Hermione's petrified bodies were found by the Headmaster.
Hermione lay utterly still with glassy eyes. Harry found himself visiting her alongside Neville and Lisa.
"They were found near the library." Professor McGonagall informed them. "I don't suppose either of you can explain this? It was on the floor next to them..."
She was holding up a small, circular mirror.
Harry nodded. He pulled an identical mirror from his robes and spoke aloud. "Hermione." There was no response from Hermione's mirror until it shuddered and cracked. The enchantments sparking.
Professor McGonagall dropped it quickly and looked at him.
"Sorry, Professor. We designed the mirrors to allow us to contact one another."
"You designed them." Lisa corrected.
Harry shrugged. "Whatever happened must have broken the enchantments," he said turning back to the Professor.
"That's fairly advanced magic Mr. Potter." She looked surprised. He shrugged again, looking down at his friend. Her gaze was blank. The mirror had likely saved her life, if his speculations were correct.
The Headmaster paced into the room at that moment, stealing the Professor's attention away from whatever she had been about to say.
"Minerva, would you escort Mrs. Turpin and Mr. Longbottom back to their houses and make the announcement."
Professor McGonagall sighed. "Very well, I shall inform the students that the school is to be closed."
"Closed?" Harry started. "What-"
The Headmaster held up a silencing and calming hand. "Harry, if you are correct about the identity of Slytherin's monster, there is little we can do."
Professor McGonagall gave a start.
"You could set up rooster nests in the corridors, you could-"
"Roosters?" Neville looked lost.
"Are you suggesting I allow students to remain within a building infested with a Basilisk? No. I will endeavor to kill the beast, I intended to use a manner similar to that which you just described, however, I cannot place the students in my charge at such risk, including you, Harry." Harry gritted his teeth but stayed silent. He had no decent counter-argument. "If you would, Minerva."
She swept his friends from the room without preamble.
"How did you come to learn about the beast, Harry?"
He looked down and gathered himself. "I could hear it when no one else could, meaning my Legilimency is more powerful than I realized, or-"
"Or it was speaking parseltongue." The headmaster nodded. "In the future, should you need to warn me about something, however," Harry winced, preparing for a reprimand for his use of his talents, "I expect it to be done with more grace."
The old man still found ways to put him off-balance.
Dumbledore gave a twinkling smile. "Fifty points are due, I believe, to Ravenclaw, for your efforts at identifying the beast and saving your peers."
Harry nodded feeling stunned.
"Thank you, Sir."
Dumbledore looked down at Hermione for the first time. "You will be leaving with the other students by Sunday, bound once more for Longbottom Manor. I suggest you acquire any reading materials you believe will allow you to continue to continue your education. Professor Flitwick informed me of your choices to pursue so many classes. Ambitious of you, Harry, but very possible I should think."
Harry nodded again.
"Now, if you would join your housemates in Ravenclaw tower?"
"Thank you, Headmaster." Harry recognized the dismissal and left, wondering if he would get his NEWTs after all.
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The Ravenclaw tower was exceedingly quiet with one of its prefects petrified. It had been one thing for first year Colin Creevey to be taken by the beast, but Penelope had been a talented witch. It was unlikely that anyone else, regardless of year, would be able to defend themselves from the monster if she had been taken. This logic had taken root deep in the minds of the Ravenclaw students.
Professor Flitwick had also announced that a teacher or prefect escort would take each class to and from their lessons to ensure their safety. This received much less compliant than one would think, given Penelope's current condition.
The knowledge that Harry's friend had been taken and that he was publicly in the Great Hall meant to all but the most illogical that he couldn't have been the perpetrator. His main proponents for his guilt, like Terry Boot, weren't the sort to apologize to him. Not that he wanted an apology, or indeed wanted to talk to most his peers.
His main concerns were on moving out of the school, away from his home. Hogwarts was beyond dear to him. He decided to catch the Heir of Slytherin and stop them… this was a great thought, of course, but he had little in the way of actual leads as to the heir's identity. It was likely, then, that one of the senior students was the heir, someone who he hadn't been around often. If that was the case, there were also likely his seniors in magic as well.
When he sat down in the Ravenclaw common room, he opened his magical creatures book to a section on the Wampus Cat, which was said to have the power of both hypnosis and legilimency; he wasn't sure that it was true. Lisa joined him shortly.
"I'm sorry about what happened to Hermione."
Harry resisted the urge to shrug. "She isn't dead, and she can be revived. I just need to make her a new mirror. Does yours work okay?"
She nodded but gave him a concerned look.
[Does he care about Hermione? He is technically right, and... I guess madam Sprout does have her mandrakes nearing maturity. So…]
He felt her concern for… him? Herself? Their situation overall? Something. His seeming apathy seemed to have disturbed her.
She thinks I should be more upset; like I was for Neville when he was attacked by Malfoy.
"I just wish I knew who the heir was," he followed up, to reassure her. "Aside from that, there's nothing I can do. What's that?"
He caught something in her book, something light blue.
"Oh this?" She took it out from her book and thumbed the page it had been on. "My mother sent it to me. It's an Occamy feather. She works for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. I plan to study magical creatures next year too, you know? I think you signed up for it as well." She hesitated a moment. "Do you want to find the heir of Slytherin, or are you searching for them, Harry? There's a large difference."
"It's not like I even know where to start to look, so I'm not hunting for them if that's what you're suggesting."
No, just the beast's death would be sufficient to ensure Hogwarts' safety. He could transfigure a pheasant from some things and a rooster wasn't so different. Bigger, but about as complex.
Still, his ability to kill the monster aside, he had no leads on the heir and no means to acquire them, except perhaps… He looked across the Ravenclaw common room at a certain platinum-haired girl.
It was likely that of everyone in the school, Luna Lovegood would have the answers, despite the fact that she would be completely ignorant of said knowledge. It was unlikely there was a more powerful seer in the school, at least, that he would have access to. A powerful medium, a psychometric, a telesthetic, a retrocognitive, or any manner of clairaesthetic, be they clairvoyant or clairaudient, would also be able to find the answers he sought with relative ease. If they were powerful enough with their given talent.
But there were no signs of such talents, and Harry would like to believe that even though Luna had escaped his notice, few others who had such powerful abilities would. Indeed, there may even be a clairsentient in the castle, but it was unlikely they were powerful enough to discover what he needed to know before the end of the week.
Luna was unequivocally his best chance to remain in the school.
"Harry why are you staring at Loony Lovegood?" Lisa whispered.
"Well, she has a very interesting set of glasses." Harry excused himself.
Lisa seemed to accept that, given that Luna was wearing a pair of bright red glasses with wings on the edges. It gave her a very owlish appearance as she looked around, twisting her neck wildly. She looked at him for a bare moment and he drifted into her mind.
It was as much of a mess as before. There were the usual white wisps of memory but there were also… strains, and strands of glowing string with bright globules of light across them. The touch of magic on her mind.
Snake…
He whispered into her mind and followed the connections it produced. He touched the first glowing light, and saw a snake strike a red-haired man who collapsed into a growing pool of blood in a dark corridor. This was a vision, and it produced a headache in himself. An echo of what Luna had suffered to gain the knowledge.
He also saw one of her own memories of chasing a snake in her childhood which gave him some respite.
He needed to narrow his search, he considered. Hogwarts was likely too broad for all her memories, and it assumed she would recognize the places in her visions.
Hidden...Snake…
He saw… a dark room and himself… from… above? Below? His position in the memory had elements of these things but was neither. The thing he touched and experienced was knowledge, not memory. He knew that he ran his thumb over a faucet depicting a snake. He hissed open, and before him the sink did just that, revealing a secret passage way, or perhaps a hidden passageway.
He withdrew and the time it had taken to retrieve what he needed was a bare few moments. Luna swayed on her feet and groaned. He winced. He could have been gentler, it was likely his rummaging had caused her pain… or his attempts to find the answer had summoned a vision and she was now paying for it with her discomfort.
He looked down, apologizing mentally, and began to consider what he had seen. It was a bathroom… One he did not recognize. This meant it was a girls' bathroom.
The pipes.
The plumbing to the school was extensive, designed for a much larger population than currently inhabited it. Rooms had been closed for centuries, ever since the magical birth rate had declined so much. It must be how the creature got around, and a bathroom was likely one of the best points of entry or exit. He would have to search each girls' bathroom to find it.
Or, at least the ones with the sinks like that. He frowned; something seemed off about this, but he just couldn't put his finger on it.
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Sneaking away to explore female lavatories was more difficult than one might think and, when stated as a sentence, was much creepier than what was actually happening.
His opportunity arose after defense with the Slytherins, while Lockhart was escorting them to their next class. The man had assured them that the danger had passed, and now seemed to be growing sickly and pale after he had been proven wrong and the danger was in fact growing.
"Frankly," the boisterous man began, " I'm astounded Professor McGonagall thinks all these security measures are necessary."
"I agree, sir," said Harry. Daphne turned to him in shock and Tracey almost dropped her books.
"Thank you, Harry," said Lockhart graciously while they waited for a long line of Hufflepuffs to pass. "I mean, we teachers have quite enough to be getting on with without walking students to classes, and standing guard all night..."
Harry breathed and felt his wand against his chest; it was warm, and he used that comfort to shore himself up. "Why don't you return to your next class. I'm sure that we can find our way to the Great Hall for lunch, wouldn't you agree?" As Harry said it, he slipped into the man's mind to discover a complete lack of awareness regarding mind magic. He rolled the fingers on his hand as he pushed magic into his words. This, he had read, was the origins of the Imperius curse. A shortcut in mind magic derived from legilimency. He curled his fingers and focused.
"Yes...I...think you are correct. Try not to get hurt on your journey to Madam Sprout!" The man laughed at his joke and his voice was airy at first and unfocused. He was also wrong about where they were going.
Harry turned back to Daphne. She was watching with interest. She had seen his hand movement, and she knew that something had happened.
"What was that?" He ignored her question for a moment, rubbing his jaw.
"I know where the Chamber is. Or at least, I have an idea. I also know what the beast is. I can kill it, and then school won't have to be cancelled."
She sighed. "You really are a Ravenclaw. Well-"
Tracey interrupted "Where is it? How did you find it? How do you know what the beast is? Are you going to kill it? Do you have a plan? Where-"
"Tracey." Harry hissed. Looking at his fellow peers. "It's in a girls' lavatory. The beast is a Basilisk. It uses the pipes to get around. I don't know which lavatory though-"
"Wait how can you-" Daphne tried.
"It has a central column with several sinks, and it has faucets with snakes carved into them."
She glared at him for interrupting. "I don't know about the snakes, but it sounds like Moaning Myrtle's bathroom on the-."
"Second floor!" Tracey bounced. Daphne stamped a food in frustration. "How-"
Harry was already off.
"Harry, wait!" Daphne pursued him. "You can't just charge in there."
"I'm not charging anywhere," Harry replied evenly. "I know where to go, how to get there and how to kill the beast." He kept walking at a fast pace.
"Is this like the Stone? Do you just like saving things? You don't need to be a hero, Harry!"
Hero?
He shook his head. "Come on. We can still-"
Professor McGonagall's voice boomed into the corridors, "All students are to return to their house dormitories at once. All teachers return to the staffroom. Immediately, please."
"We've been discovered," Daphne began.
We?
"Or there was another attack." Tracey gave her two knuts.
"Then we should move quickly," Harry affirmed. They climbed the steps to where Filch's cat was found petrified and there, beneath the previous writing from the Heir of Slytherin, which had resisted all attempts to be removed, was a new message.
Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever
"'Her?'" Daphne eyed the message.
Harry shrugged.
She turned towards him. "I thought you knew all the details. This isn't safe. You should tell a teacher."
Harry shook his head. "I suspect that only a parselmouth can enter."
He stepped into the bathroom. Myrtle was stepped through a toilet stall. The wall of a stall that is.
"What do you want?" She pressed.
"To ask you how you died," said Harry, pieces beginning to fit together in his head.
Myrtle's demeanor changed in a heartbeat, actually looking flattered by the question. He found himself wondering if he should take Ghoul Studies. Ghosts were at the very least, different… They seemed to have their own culture.
"Oh, it was dreadful," she grinned, thoroughly relishing the tale of her demise and being able to share it. "It happened right in here. I died in this very stall. I remember it so well. I'd hidden because Olive Hornby was teasing me about my glasses. The door was locked, and I was crying, and then I heard somebody come in. They said something funny. A different language-"
Parseltongue.
"-I think it must have been. Anyway, what really got me was that it was a boy speaking. So, I unlocked the door, to tell him to go and use his own toilet, and then-" Myrtle swelled importantly, her face shining like the moon as she gave the moment pause for emphasis. "-I died."
"How?" said Harry.
"No idea," Myrtle said, shrugging. "I just remember seeing a pair of great, big, yellow eyes. My body seized up, and then I was floating away..." She looked dreamily at Harry. "And then I came back again. I was determined to haunt Olive Hornby, you see. Oh, she was sorry she'd ever laughed at my glasses."
"Where exactly did you see the eyes?" said Harry.
"Somewhere there," said Myrtle, pointing vaguely toward the sink in front of her toilet.
Harry paced over to the sink, now recognizing it from Luna's visions. Daphne stepped forward too, but Tracey seemed ready to flee in her terror. Harry drew his wand and pulled out his mirror, just in case. It looked like an ordinary sink. Harry examined every inch of it, inside and out, including the pipes below. And then Harry saw what he was looking for. Etched into the side of one of the copper taps was a tiny snake. He ran his thumb against it.
"That tap's never worked," said Myrtle brightly as he tried to turn it.
He transfigured a rooster after a moment.
"Avis."
Harry stepped back, holding the mirror in one hand, with the rooster under the arm that held his wand.
"Open," he ordered. The sink glowed and sank into the floor, revealing an enormous dark pipe.
"You actually did it," Daphne whispered, eyes wide.
"Stairs," he demanded. A soft glow produced stairs out of the sides of the pipe. The space was likely arithmantically expanded, so however fair down the pipe ran there wouldn't be many steps.
"Harry, wait. We should get Dumbledore. Or, somebody. You can't-"
"This is what Dumbledore would do himself." He shifted the rooster in his arms and it gave a squawk.
"Harry." She stepped forward. "I'll go with you." She was afraid. He didn't need to read her mind to tell.
"Can you?" He stepped down to the next step and she stepped forward. She encountered resistance. A shimmering wall that prevented her from stepping closer.
"As I said, only a parseltongue can enter," he told her. "I'll be right back. The Rooster crows, the Basilisk dies, and the school stays open."
"What a hopelessly vague set of objectives." She sighed. "I can't stop you but-"
Harry turned. "I'll be back soon, although, I would appreciate it if you would notify Dumbledore."
She nodded, tears percolating in her eyes. She wiped them away, and the moment Harry was out of sight, he stepped down into the chamber. Harry stepped over a pile of bones at the bottom of the tunnel and passed the snake skin, running his hand along it in awe. The Basilisk had to be fifty, if not seventy feet long! He entered the chamber proper, stepping past the ornate stone effigies of snakes, and steeled himself.
He craned his neck upwards to look at the giant carved face at the end of the hall. The wizard was perhaps good looking when he was younger, but now he looked to possess all the wisdom of Merlin, with a sweeping beard and handsome robes. Salazar Slytherin, Harry presumed.
Face down before a pool, at the feet of the long-dead sorcerer, was a robed redheaded girl, lying face down on the cold, damp floor.
Ginny Weasley?
Harry felt fairly shocked at her presence. He approached her slowly, holding the mirror up before him.
"Wise of you." A voice from Ginny's direction echoed through the cavernous chamber. "Carrying the mirror with you."
A tall, black-haired boy was leaning against a nearby effigy, looking for all the world relaxed and comfortable. The boy pushed off the pillar and slid over towards Harry. Harry took the boy's appearance in. He was slightly translucent and had no mind of his own to brush against. Although his vision may be deceiving him, Harry could have sworn the boy was growing more solid by the minute.
"Thank you." Harry set the rooster down. "You must be… Tom Riddle."
"You know me?"
"I know you opened the chamber fifty years ago."
Harry scanned the boy and found no wand on him, Harry didn't relax but he did turn to take in Ginny Weasley's appearance. She was as white as a sheet and looked deathly cold. Her eyes were closed, but seemed to flutter as though having a terrible nightmare. She didn't twitch as though she was deeply dreaming, though, she was as still as the stone she laid on.
"You're a non-being. A shade, or perhaps a wraith."
Tom Riddle seemed to be examining him with rich, dark eyes. "It would be more accurate to refer to me as a memory. Preserved within the diary Ginny carried."
The boy gestured towards the girl, next to whom an innocuous black book lay. Harry turned his wand towards the boy. Tom chuckled and raised transparent hands in faux surrender.
Harry incanted and levitated Ginny. Still glancing around warily.
"Oh? Leaving so soon, Harry?"
"It's fair to assume that you control the chamber and the Basilisk. The only question then is if I can save her before she dies, or before you can stop me. That, or the rooster crows and the Basilisk dies. It seems to me that you can't stop me Tom."
"You're not curious?"
"You possessed the girl with your diary, forced her to do those deeds. I could do it too, with time."
"Perhaps," Riddle fell into step beside Harry, feet making no sound on the wet floor. "She poured her soul into my diary, and eventually, I was able to pour my soul into her."
Something in that struck him.
"I grew stronger from her emotions. And now, I have the privilege of meeting you." That was eerie to Harry. It felt… familiar.
Moving past how he grew stronger, he ignored how Tom was attempting to draw Harry somewhere in this conversation.
"Your soul? Not your mind? You said you were a memory, but memories have no role in soul magic."
Harry's progress was slow. He had to keep checking his corners for the Basilisk and encouraging the rooster to crow with some manipulations of the creatures mind.
Tom stiffened. "You're well-read Harry. I wanted to meet you, you see, I had to know more about the boy who would destroy the greatest sorcerer in the world, when he was nothing but a baby."
"You're referring to Voldemort."
You see?" he whispered. "It was a name I was already using at Hogwarts, to my most intimate friends only, of course. You think I was going to use my filthy Muggle father's name forever? I, in whose veins runs the blood of Salazar Slytherin himself, through my mother's side? I, keep the name of a foul, common Muggle, who abandoned me even before I was born, just because he found out his wife was a witch? No, Harry - I fashioned myself a new name, a name I knew wizards everywhere would one day fear to speak, when I had become the greatest sorcerer in the world!"
"You didn't."
Tom gave him a look at that. "You believe that you have surpassed me?" Harry shook his head. His progress remained too slow, only halfway to the chamber exit. He looked down at Ginny.
She wouldn't make it.
"My understanding is that Albus Dumbledore defeated you in several duels, with several great magical discoveries under his belt. Furthermore, Nicholas Flamel is alive and I have never heard anything about Tom Riddle producing any incredible magical discoveries."
Before Tom could reply, a voice spoke from Harry's mirror. It was Dumbledore.
"Harry? Are you alright? Tell me everything." There was more urgency in Dumbledore's voice than Harry had ever heard. He set Ginny down and turned some attention to the mirror, glancing back at the diary. In the past few minutes he had accomplished little at all.
"Professor, you should avert your eyes from the mirror so I can use it to look around."
Harry didn't look to make sure that Dumbledore had done so.
"Tom Riddle is here, Sir, he has some sort of diary, some sort of artifact. It possessed Ginny Weasley and is giving him some form. I don't understand the specifics, Sir."
"Tom Riddle? Harry have you stunned him? You must-"
"He has no real form, Sir."
There was a pause as Harry checked a corner with the mirror.
"Harry, can you bring me the diary? I believe we can save Ms. Weasley if I-"
Tom decided that he couldn't tolerate any such thing. "Speak to me Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts four."
Harry spun towards the statue and saw its mouth slowly opening with a grinding noise. Harry scrambled for cover behind an effigy, averting his gaze from what he knew to be the most dangerous eyes in the world. Harry dropped his mirror in his scramble to hide.
"Harry? Harry are you there?!"
Tom picked up the mirror and gazed into it. Before throwing it across the chamber where it shattered.
Something huge scraped across the stone floor of the Chamber, and Harry realized he had left the rooster behind. He heard it squawk pitifully, then nothing. He looked around wildly. He had to find something to transfigure, and the effigies were steeped in magic so thick he couldn't hope to overcome it.
He took his shoe off and transfigured it into another rooster. He urged it to crow and he heard another loud thump, followed by the lap of disturbed water. He guessed that the snake fell into the pool at the base of the statue.
"No!" Tom roared.
Harry emerged from behind the snake statue slowly, and turned towards where the snake fell. He hadn't considered that it might be a ploy to convince him it was dead until it was too late he had already-
But the snake was dead, and its yellow eyes had faded to a pale green in death. It was massive, twenty-five meters long, perhaps, and much of it lay in the pool. Harry walked back towards it.
"You're too late, Potter, I shall regain form, you won't make it to Dumbledore in time. Your mudblood mother bought you twelve years, but Voldemort always gets his due." Harry looked down at the poor girl and felt… something inside him, it was cold. Something wrenched at the sight of her body.
Harry tore across the chamber towards the diary.
"Praefigo!" The piercing hex had no effect.
"Lacero! Incendio! Compungo!" The lacerating curse, fire conjuration and piercing curse left no marks upon the diary.
"Such dark magic, Harry, but nothing but the most potent of magical spells will affect my diary. You cannot stop me."
Potent magical spells?
Harry's eyes drifted to the Basilisk.
The most destructive magical venom in the world. A few drops could dissolve my arm.
Harry used the cutting curse and ripped a tooth free from the maw of the monster, used Carpe Retractum to pull it towards him.
"No! Stop!"
Too late Tom. Maybe try for four?
Harry caught it with the skill of a seeker and stabbed the tooth deep into the diary, leaving jagged cuts. The book bled ink all across the floor of the chamber and released an ear-rending scream. Riddle fell to floor convulsing, the shredding of the diary leaving duplicate wounds across the transparent flesh of the shade. Then, there was silence.
Harry picked himself up and put his wand away, breathing heavily. He held the Basilisk fang in his hand and placed the diary in his robe pocket. He stood and walked towards the surviving rooster in the chamber. It was still puttering around, while the other had been violently strangled by Riddle. He reversed the transfiguration and was grateful to slip his shoe back on. His sock was wet inside, but he shoved it uncomfortably in with a warming charm.
There was a small moan as Ginny Weasley began to stir. Harry held his wand on her just in case some lingering influences remained as she slowly regained her awareness. Her eyes trailed from the hulking form of the dead snake to Harry and his ink soaked robes. She drew in a great breath and began to sob.
Harry caught her eye.
There were traces of Tom within her. They might never leave but she seemed to be the master of herself right now. Perhaps for the first time since summer.
"Harry, I-"
"Stupefy."
Just to be safe.
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When Harry crested the stairs with Ginny in tow, he found himself face to face with a foot-long knotted wand, and the hard eyes of Albus Dumbledore. The man seemed to sag with relief and Harry could see Myrtle floating behind him.
"Can you prove, that you aren't acting under the imperius curse, Harry?"
Harry frowned and looked down stroking his jaw. After a moment he asked the headmaster "Can you?"
The headmaster lowered the wand, seemingly satisfied with Harry's answer.
"You didn't die," Myrtle said with a sigh.
"Sorry," Harry said, brow creased. "Perhaps next year?"
Dumbledore winced, but Myrtle flushed silver. "Oh, well… I'd just been thinking… if you had died, you'd have been welcome to share my toilet."
"Generous of you," Harry replied diplomatically.
"Harry, where is the diary? Is Ms. Weasley still alive?"
Harry extracted the diary from his robes, corroded and damaged as it was, and handed it to the Headmaster. "She is alright, I stunned her in case any trace of Tom remained. I… checked, but..."
"It's alright, Harry, to take precautions, especially around such things as this. When the mirror broke I feared the worst, however, it seems you managed to defeat Tom once again. Come now, I am sure Ms. Weasley's family would be delighted to hear of her condition, and a trip to the hospital wing might do you both well." The Headmaster gazed down at the diary. "Brilliant of course, absolutely brilliant, Tom Riddle may have been the second greatest student to grace the school with his presence."
"After you, of course," Harry surmised.
"Oh," The headmaster gave a strange smile, "I think not."
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Harry was released from the hospital wing the next morning, and was immediately set upon by his friends. He told them the story of his confrontation.
"I shouldn't make a habit of checking into the hospital wing so often. Madam Pomfrey threatened to label the bed with my name," he finished.
"You. Could. Have. Been. Killed." Daphne hit him, punctuating each word with a strike to his arm.
"Everything went according to my plan."
"You had a list of statements. That isn't a plan."
"It worked though," Neville defended, immediately shrinking under her sudden scrutiny.
"That doesn't make it a good idea," Lisa stole in.
"Ginny would have died and Voldemort would have a body if he didn't do what he did. Besides, Dumbledore approved. He gave Harry, like, a hundred points and an award for special services to the school-"
Harry frowned at the reminder. He was… similar to Tom Riddle. Halfbloods, talented, orphans, raised by muggles, both with special awards to the school for finding and catching the heir of slytherin. They even looked somewhat alike.
"-Could you imagine You-Know-Who lose inside the school? How many people would have died? If he had a body he would have just killed Harry anyway-"
Lisa winced at that.
"-Sorry" Tracey apologized, "but it is true."
"You're making a habit of this Harry, twice is coincidence. And of course you charge in to save the Weasley girl."
Harry winced, "I can't stop opposing Voldemort, Daphne."
"You didn't know you were opposing You-Know-Who when you went in. You're twisting history to support you!"
She seemed to notice his hesitation. "What? What is it? Is it about Weasley? I-"
"She had Voldemort in her head for almost a year." Harry said softly. He looked up and met her eyes. "Can you imagine?"
Daphne sucked in a breath, along with whatever she was about to say.
"I think," Lisa began, "we should cut her a break."
Daphne nodded in agreement.
'That doesn't explain how you knew were the chamber was." Tracey prompted after another moment of horrified silence.
"Lovegood." Harry replied, thinking fast. He had to give a satisfactory explanation.
"Lovegood? The batty girl from Ravenclaw?" Tracey asked.
"How could she have known?" Lisa asked.
"It is fairly odd." Neville supported.
They looked at him expectantly. "She's a seer. She told me where to find it. She saw me opening the entrance. From there, I knew what to do."
There was a moment of stunned silence.
"She's an actual seer?" Daphne asked slowly, almost warily.
"It would explain a lot about her, most seers go completely bonkers," Tracey supported.
It was true, the ancient greek seer Asimina was precognizant. She could see the future days ahead of time, except totally devoid of people, just objects moving and their effect on the world. A North American seer who could note Arithmetic probabilities with prescient accuracy hung himself just a few years ago. The French diviner Nostradamus resorted to drugs from his apothecary, and another, Rasputin, turned to drinking and hedonism to deal with the truth he saw. It was also suspected that the potions Nostradamus invented, he stole from his future self or others.
In fact, the oracle Cassandra in Hellenistic Greece was rarely believed regarding her visions because she was sane. The people at the time argued she was too sane to be able to divine the future.
Only the mad could be trusted with the future.
"Wait, so she saw you go there, but you wouldn't have gone there unless she said she saw you go there…" Tracey trailed off.
"That's actually been bothering me," Harry muttered. He resolved to research what was known about time to know for certain. "I believe she sees a single path in the future which will happen. Other seers often report a kaleidoscope of events which could change on a dime."
"It's a paradox, isn't it?" Neville said.
"More like recursion, you know? He wouldn't have gone if he wouldn't have gone and then he wouldn't have gone and so on," Lisa tried.
"We're off topic," Daphne mediated.
"The original topic is a moot point. If you could have gotten into the chamber, which you couldn't, then you couldn't have helped me be any more successful." Harry stated firmly.
"That's kind of arrogant, Harry," Neville said softly.
"But not inaccurate," Lisa returned, content to play devil's advocate in this case.
"Can we just go to the celebration feast?" Harry asked with finality. "We're all just going to have to agree to disagree."
Harry stood to leave just as Hermione stepped in. "You solved it! You have to tell me everything!"
Harry groaned.
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The feast which celebrated the safety of the school lasted all day, and into no small portion of the night. The castle's inhabitants were ecstatic that they were safe, or that their friends had returned.
Daphne finally cornered him alone in the room they used. It was magically expanded now, and the small windows had been stretched to cover a large part of the far wall. They had a great view over the lake and surrounding countryside. A single long table sat towards the end, and Daphne had been attempting to change the room's colors and light fixtures. The room looked haphazard now, perhaps even more so than when it had only been slightly expanded, and Harry understood little about what Daphne had in mind.
"This is the part where you tell me about what you did to Professor Lockhart," she said, closing the door and striding past the table towards him. "The mind magic you did."
Harry knew he couldn't obliviate her; well, he could, but it would be a shoddy attempt and it would likely fail or cause damage to her mind. He looked at his notebook. It was more than it was before, in light of Riddle's diary. Inside was the culmination of his ideas and dreams. He had outlined a section for his spells and the notes he took on spell creation. His very heart and soul were in the book.
He turned away from his journal and out over the black lake. More so he didn't want her to forget. Well, he wanted her not to know, but he didn't want to abuse her in such a way. It made his heart tug in a similar fashion to when he hurt Luna.
He considered what he felt; it was guilt. He himself had felt it rarely in his life but he recognized it from when Daphne challenged Draco Malfoy to a duel in his stead and had been shifting about.
He remembered looking down on poor Ginny Weasley and feeling… pity? Empathy? Despair? Remorse? It had elements of all those things, and had tugged at his heart, spurring him to action. What did it mean though? What drove him now? He took a deep breath.
"You know I've been practicing the Mind Arts," he started, feeling that if he looked at her no he might lose his bottle.
"I knew you were practicing occlumency, and maybe some others, you never mentioned legilimency."
This was a fair point. "And?" He prompted. "You already seem to have come to the answer. Why are you asking me?"
"You said you could learn occlumency by having someone attack your mind. You can do it now." He could do it then too, but he let her make her own assumptions.
"Then I want to learn occlumency."
There it was, and he didn't know how to feel about it. It was in effect an open invitation to raid her mind. To practice against someone consciously resisting; something he had long desired. But it would also hurt her, and that, it would seem, softened something in his chest. He would also lose access to her mind, in the long run. He had learned a great deal from her thoughts, and he was unsure their relationship could survive if he didn't already know what she wanted by reading them.
He turned, looking up at her. "You don't know what you are asking." He fingered his wand with both hands, running his fingers against it calmingly.
"Then tell me." She didn't back down, wasn't going to. She knew that she wanted this. It would make her a greater witch, expand on her talents and let her grow. She had been feeling like he was leaving her behind for a while. It was a fair assessment.
"You would have no secrets from me. Your every thought and memory would be mine to access. It would be painful. Agonizing, even."
"You didn't hurt Lockhart when you did that to him. You didn't even need a wand." Daphne stepped back. "Are you in my head right now?"
"Lockhart is weak-willed and he didn't detect the breach or fight it, it would have hurt him to do so. I didn't need a wand because I didn't need to do much to convince him. He already wanted to abandon his charges." He paused. "No, I'm not in your head."
"But someone else could be, someone else might attack me, and I want the benefits that come with being an Occlumens. The more focused casting, the greater control; all of it." She stepped more directly in front of him. "Harry, please, I want to know this stuff. I need to know it."
Harry waivered. He could say no. He should say no. But she was asking him. Trusting him. It was hard to say no to that.
"Alright." She grinned. "I'll teach you." There was a pause.
"Well?" She asked.
Harry laughed. "You want me to breach your mind, now? Do you know how to detect a breach? Do you know how to repel one?"
"W-Well no, so tell me how."
Harry shook his head. "After summer break. Listen," he said when she opened her mouth. "I'll do it, but only after you've practiced and mastered basic occlumency exercises. You have your father's book, it's a good start. I'll put together a list of exercise for you to do as well, and loan you my books. When you've read them and I'm confident that it won't be an exercise in futility, thenI will attempt to breach your mind, and you will attempt to repel me. Not before."
She pouted slightly, before giving in. There was no point arguing when she had already technically won. "Well, then you better get started with my list." She tried to remain calm, but he could feel her glee.
He sighed. She had no idea what she was getting into.
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The last weeks of school went by in a blur. In Defense Against the Dark Arts, Professor Lockhart had up and disappeared. Summoned away or, in Harry's opinion, fled the night Ginny Weasley was taken into the Chamber. Harry didn't particularly care either way. He still took first in the class, with Daphne taking second this time. She was ecstatic that she hadn't lost to Hermione, but she still struggled with how she felt about losing again to Harry, despite knowing she would.
The biggest change for Harry, was that he no longer perused Daphne's thoughts at leisure. Instead, he struggled to tell what she was thinking and tried to respond accordingly. There were no hang-ups yet, but he firmly believed that it would happen eventually.
Naturally, Hermione finished her spell. She wanted to try it in a duel, but Harry and Daphne were the only ones who could duel her in any sort of competitive manner. She perhaps realized that, regardless of how she worked her magic, it would be ineffectual against Harry, and Harry had been determined to prevent any sort of fighting between Daphne and her.
Then it was time to go home. Harry packed his things up and returned the books he had taken from the library. Neville's toad had been found in Snape's office, hiding amongst jars of his pickled brethren. When they boarded the train, the countryside blurred by and the time flew by far too fast for Harry's liking.
"Do you think your family would be proud, if they knew what you did this year?" Hermione asked him.
Harry laughed. "My family would be furious I didn't die," he informed her with a maudlin smile. "Think about it, I could have been killed several times and I just didn't quite manage it."
Hermione looked aghast at that, as Harry stood to leave the compartment and step out onto the platform.
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"'Help me, Cassius, or I sink!'" Cassius, from Julius Caesar by Shakespeare
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I'm Looking for a Beta-reader, so message me if you are interested.
Because I like to discuss stuff I created a Forum for this story. You can ask me questions there.
WG
Edited 1/31/18