Hey everyone,
I just want to let you all know that I am working on the stories that you guys voted on. But unfortunately, my muse doesn't always cooperate with this.
So for the time being, I am going to go back to my monthly update schedule. HOWEVER, I won't give every story a new chapter every month. I'm just going to go with my muse, write what it wants and post the chapters I write that month on the last day of the month.
For now - and probably for April - that's Darkened Light - though I have a strong, confident feeling that May will be a different story. Might even be Master Yen Sid or A Soul's Future.
We clear? Good,

Venquine1990

Chapter 12
The Plan Executed

24th of June 1995
Antechamber, Hogwarts
Bill's POV

Lea watches me at work on healing his mate for a few moments before he asks me to step aside. I feel curious, yet I comply, mostly out of respect for his brilliant way of helping me earlier.

Lea summons his incredible blade, of which the hilt looks like one of Axel's Chakrams and the rest of the blade looks like a burst of flame that is aimed upwards to the sky. The flame closest to the hilt is bright yellow, yet it turns more and more red and orange the closer to the end.

Lea stretches his arm so that his blade is parallel with his still-moaning mate and proclaims: "Curaga!"

The flame of his blade lights up a greenish white and leaves, small bright stars and flower petals fall from the blade. They fall down on Harry and as they seep into his skin, his moaning recedes and he even sighs in painless relief.

My eyes widen as I can barely believe that this one single spell has the same effect as all of the spells that I normally need to cast to help someone heal from the treatment I just treated Harry to.

Lea dismisses his weapon and seems to search his pockets as he moves over to sit near Harry's shoulder. And as he pulls a small, bright blue cube from his pocket, he gently advices Harry to swallow it in one gulp.

And with the same intrigue and awe that Lea watched me with earlier, I now watch as Lea tells Harry that this item – called an ether – will help him recover his exhausted magic.

And as Harry swallows the item, my eyes widen as I actually notice a spark of magic appear and disappear in his eyes.

Yet again, just like a few other times over the course of the reading, I decide for myself that I will, definitely, see if I can request one of these new guests to show me how their magic works and to continue Aqua's earlier demonstration.

My need to learn about new, old and lost or forgotten forms of magic, one of the reasons I chose to work as a Curse Breaker in Egypt, has been tickled like it hasn't been in almost 2 years now and is at an all-time high.

Harry actually sits up, something I haven't ever seen any other patient do before and I can't help but ask how he feels. Just like I can't help but feel utterly amazed when Harry answers:

"I'm still a little fatigued, Bill, but otherwise, I'm fine."

Lea shrugs and mutters that Harry's body might not be used to the full effects of the Curaga spell as it normally fully heals a person. I swiftly decide that I will figure out a way to study this phenomenon responsibly later.

Instead I decide to move onto the next job that needs to be done before the Third Task takes place later today.

I tell Harry to just stay in the bed and recover and that I'll be getting to work with my plan to take out Voldemort. "Or at least, force him out of that disgusting body that he created for himself." I think to myself as my hand clutches itself around the ball with the flat side.

Yet as I turn around, Harry calls out to me and asks: "You're going to need a letter or something, aren't you? In Junior's handwriting to explain to Voldemort why only the bottle showed up with the Port Key instead of me, right?"

I cringe as I hadn't even thought of that. Harry smiles at me and says: "Just try to find Dean. He's incredible at forging someone else's handwriting. Just let him write the letter and then get its handwriting checked with someone like McGonagall or Madam Bones."

Only then I realize that, while we were busy, the woman herself seems to have arrived through the Floo as she steps away from the stairway up to the Great Hall.

"Mr. Potter, can you assure me that this Mr. Dean won't use his forging ability to deceive my Department or the Ministry or something?"

Harry nods and tells me that Dean is named Thomas for his last name, that he is Harry's dorm mate and that he usually just uses his skills to help his peers get some extra time to finish their homework if they're having trouble with it or something of the sort.

"I assure you, Madam Bones, Malfoy and goons like him have been trying to – ehem – persuade Dean to forge papers that would get them much more unfair benefits for the last two years and he's been denying them over and over. He ends up in the Hospital Wing each time, but he keeps saying nope. He's not that kind of person."

Madam Bones nods and I suggest to her: "Madam Bones, while you get that letter, I'll head down to the Chamber of Secrets to get the Basilisk Poison that I need."

The woman nods and the two of us head out of the Antechamber. Yet at the doorway, she wants to turn around and say something. Yet Sirius interrupts her and tells her:

"Later, Madam Bones.

Later, not now."

The tone of his voice, full of repressed pain and anger, worries me. Madam Bones grimaces, yet she nods and follows me out of the room.

As we leave the Great Hall, I silently tell her that it wouldn't be wise to declare Sirius innocent just yet, that we want to keep Pettigrew in the dark for the time being.

Madam Bones nods, tells me that Minister Fudge already told her about this and that's not what she wanted to say.

I cringe as I realize what it is that she wanted to say.

The woman had wanted to apologize, but Sirius wasn't ready to hear it.

Madam Bones sighs and mutters: "I could have seen that coming, though. Sirius had been wronged by my brother in 1975. It took until 1977 before he was willing to forgive him.

And every time Edgar tried to get Sirius to make him forgive him, Sirius told him that that just made him even angrier and that Edgar wasn't giving him the time to calm down.

To be honest, he was right as Edgar first tried that that same night. And that time his actions had only cost Sirius 20 Galleons, not 12 years of his life."

I nod and the two of us part ways. The woman heads up to the Gryffindor Common room and I head for the Second floor Girl's bathroom.

I still can't believe that the Legendary Chamber, that once housed a monster as dangerous as a Basilisk, is located in such an inconspicuous part of the school.

I enter said unremarkable room, which is actually filthier than I have ever seen a room in Hogwarts be – including the few times I found classrooms that hadn't been used in a few decades.

Yet thanks to working in all kinds of tombs and crypts, I don't really let the wetness of the floor, the smudges on the mirrors or the cracked wooden doors of the stalls bother me.

I just head for the sinks and quickly spot the tap with the snake engraved on it. I hold my wand close to the tap and silently whisper the spell to make the recording play itself.

Yet just as the magic of the tap, of the mythical chamber, reacts to the sound of hissing, something happens that I didn't expect.

"HARRY!"

Someone screams behind me. I turn around with my wand aimed at the direction of the scream and spot Moaning Myrtle coming out of one of the stalls.

The girl looks as shocked to see me as I was by her scream. She looks around and asks where Harry is. And when I tell her that he's downstairs and that she heard a recording of his voice, she starts to cry, wail, shout: "MEANIE! You tricked me!"

And jump/fly back into her stall.

The force of her ethereal form as it disappears down the drain causes for the water to flush out quite vigorously.

I cast a quick spell on my robes to keep the filth from the water off my robes and turn around. My eyes widen as I realize that, while I was distracted, the Chamber revealed itself to me.

Or better said, a huge tunnel that probably leads to the Chamber has revealed itself to me. I silently curse myself for not questioning Harry on all he could tell me before I came here, but decide to just let it be.

Though mentally I dock myself a CB point for my ignorance.

I cast a few more spells and a long rope, that's enchanted to keep going until I reverse the spell, appears out of my wand.

I tie one end around the closest bracket and the other around my waist. I gaze over the edge of the pipe, cast a few more protective spells on my cloths to keep them clean – and jump in.

Thanks to this not being the first tunnel that I encountered while doing a job, I easily land on my feet and slide down the pipe.

I cast my next spell and a special sixth sense informs me to either turn left or right, to crouch or not and when I need to jump across a side tunnel or pipe located on the floor.

Thankfully the latter never happens and I reach the end of the pipe. I make a small jump and land on top of hundreds – if not thousands – of small skeletons and bits of bone.

And yet again, had it not been for my years of working for Gringotts in Egypt, I wouldn't have been able to suppress a shudder of revulsion.

Yet not the thought: "Please let these just be animal bones, not –." I shake my head and simply move on, after checking to make sure that the rope is still lengthening itself.

After a few turns my eyes widen as I come across two things that shock and worry me. A huge, thin and long streak of snake skin – which the Basilisk seems to have shed somewhere in the last century or so – as well as a cave-in that seems to have been cleared up, but only slightly.

"What happened down here?"

I wonder to myself as I stare at all this.

But then I collect myself and I quickly make sure that the hole in the middle of the cave in is big enough for me to climb through.

As I clear this bit of the cave in, I realize that the hole itself is just big enough for someone to crawl through if they're between ages 10 and 13. Harry's and Ginny's ages.

I reach the other side of the cave in, clear its hole a little more for later and then continue on. A few more turns and I reach a huge, round door, which I open by casting the recording charm again.

The door opens and instantly I feel the need to cast a Bubblehead Charm as a horrible, utterly disgusting smell almost makes me belch and lose all of my meals of the last few days.

"I should have seen that coming. That damned beast has been dead for almost 2 years now. Good thing that Basilisk Poison is potent enough to last for 6 years after the beast itself is dead."

As I think this – and deduce myself a few more CB points – I climb down an old, metal staircase and head down through the Chamber.

And the Basilisk looks no better than it smells. Yet I ignore the rotten state of the huge beast – and try to ignore its actual size and length – and just get to work.

And as I carefully remove one of the poisonous teeth from the beast's mouth, I grimace as I notice the empty spot in its mouth; the spot where the tooth that pierced Harry's skin is supposed to be.

I turn my head away from this and pull the required fang loose. I step away, only to step into something wet.

I look down and my stomach almost disappears. Instead of a puddle or pool of water, I stepped into a small puddle of blood, even if the blood seems to have mixed with water and dissolved a little.

I refuse to wonder if this is either Harry or Ginny's blood and focus on what needs to be done. After I take a deep breath, I realize that this can actually work in my favor.

And while I work as carefully as possible, while I cast spells to extract all of the magic out of the watery blood, I add one drop of the watery liquid and three to four drops of Basilisk poison to the thin flask with the dried tomato sauce smeared across the outside of the flask, one at a time.

I fill the flask about one quarter of the way and then stopper it as I think: "That ought to do it. That should be enough to convince Voldemort that it was all his loyal servant was able to gather."

I make sure that the stopper is properly closing off the flask, that the flask is deeply secured within my tool-bag and that the blood I was standing in is vanished.

Then I head back to the entrance of the Chamber and through the slightly-widened cave in. Once I'm on the other side, I pull my side of the rope.

The spell I had cast before jumping down activates, the rope starts to shrink down on itself and I am pulled through the air, through the tunnel I was sliding down just earlier and back up, into the Girl's bathroom that is still very, very, very wet.

I shake my head, yet then notice that some kind of magic is keeping the water from seeping down the tunnel, right as the Chamber starts to close in on itself again.

I shrug and decide that I will probably come back to this later as it just didn't look like I had truly seen all there was to see within the Legendary Chamber.

The way that there were tunnels between each statue-head of all those dozens of snakes with their wide-open mouths gave me the impression that there was much, much more to the Chamber and the actual secrets it might still hold within.

"But that's not important right now. I need to focus. I need to get that letter, get this vial to the Port Key and get Voldemort to think that his spy got caught, but managed to fulfil his role right as he got found out."

As I think this, I head back downstairs to the Clocktower courtyard and the grounds of Hogwarts. At the exit to the Courtyard, I meet Professor McGonagall.

"I'm really not happy to know that Mr. Thomas is able to forge documents like he is, but I won't deny the usefulness of his skill. Thankfully, he was willing to both do as Amelia asked and promise that he will be honest if the staff catches one of his clients."

I smile as the woman hands me the document, which, while rolled up, actually looks a little ruffled and has smears of mud on it. Her words prove what Harry said earlier about his dorm-mate and I tell her about this.

The woman nods and then follows me as I head over to the huge hedges that are growing out of the ground where the Quidditch stadium used to be.

"What do you think, William? Do you agree with Albus? Do you think that the way that people like Fudge and Albus have been arguing and fighting with each other is what will set us on this path? That it will lead us down to the Darkened Light?"

I sigh, shake my head and say: "No. Dumbledore knew what was in Harry's scar and he did nothing. He seems to have only studied the stuff enough to come to the wrong conclusions and, because we've always believed that he always knows what's best, he has come to believe it too.

I don't think the arguing or the differences will lead us down that path, I think his arrogance and our reliance on him will. I think that's what Harry realized and what these books will show us."

The woman grimaces more as I speak, yet the look in her eyes and her silence speak for themselves. The woman already believed this herself; she just needed someone else to say it.

I really can't blame her. Minerva McGonagall is, after all, the one woman who has worked with Dumbledore the longest out of everyone, both at Hogwarts and in his other roles. Her loyalty to him is as well known as Hagrid's, which reminds me of the half-giant's speech during the last chapter of the book we read earlier.

This memory brings a smile to my face and I remind Minerva about it. My words have their desired results; McGonagall shows a small smile of gratitude as we reach the stadium.

Dumbledore and Fudge are already there and waiting for me with the Tri-Wizard Cup in between them.

Yet I grimace at the sight.

I draw my wand and cast several spells to shoot clumps of dirt and strips of grass at the cup. A sticking charm on each clump and strip makes sure that they stick, while the two officials shout at me.

I roll my eyes and say: "It needs to look like Junior only barely got the Port Key to activate, as if it got knocked over and out of his reach several times.

It needs to look like a fight took place, as if it took Junior everything he had just to get the blood to his master. It needs to look realistic, not like the Cup just got taken out of a trophy room or something."

And with that, while the two men cringe, show signs that they feel silly for reprimanding me and while Fudge rubs the back of his neck, I throw the vial towards the cup and count down.

At the final count, right as the vial touches the cup, the Port Key spell activates.

The cup disappears.

The plan – is in motion.

Well done, Bill.
And a quick warning to all of you right here and now. I am going to drag out punishing those who do wrong.
Dumbledore, Malfoy, Snape (when he's earned it) and others.
Why? Because otherwise I will be making the same mistake as with Preventing Trouble and will be making the whole "Reading the Books to discover the Nasty Side of people" a little redundant.
Though dragging out the punishment ISN'T the same as those who do wrong NOT being reprimanded and receiving small punishments. The punishment of the mayor antagonists will simply build up as the story progresses.
Also, we won't be covering the Third Task next chapter. Heck, we won't even start the next chapter at Hogwarts
Or on earth,

Venquine1990