"Neville wouldn't."
His friends exchanged looks.
Harry bristled. "He wouldn't."
"Of course not," said Tracey before biting her lip. "Not voluntarily. But you have to admit something is going on there."
"Tracey's right. Longbottom is in possession of a book that used to belong to the Dark Lord the same year petrifications start to happen? That's not a coincidence," agreed Theo.
The boy was tapping his fingers against the floor in a nervous gesture. He was sitting cross-legged, his gaze focused on the enchanted ceiling of their temporary dorm. It was empty save for the five of them, and Harry almost wished the upper-year students were there to provide some input into the situation. But Gemma hadn't told him if she had talked to her friends about Voldemort's return and he didn't think he should be the one to break it to them. Daphne and Tracey's reactions when they had been told earlier showed that the subject was even more sensitive than he thought among British wixen, and he and Blaise didn't have the cultural knowledge to handle it with the appropriate caution.
"I'm gonna talk to him," decided Harry, propping his elbows to raise himself up.
Blaise shook his head.
"No, you're not. Not alone, at least," he amended after seeing Harry's scowl. "What? It's common sense. It's almost past curfew, and you don't go after a possessed person by yourself."
"So now you all believe Finch-Fletchley's theories? You thought it was nonsense not so long ago."
"We thought it was nonsense when nobody was sure what was causing the petrifications and the only argument he had was that Longbottom's a parselmouth. Now the whole school knows the monster's a basilisk —all the unpetrified students' eyewitness accounts made sure of that, even if nobody can tell where it's coming from—, we know it's probably commanded by the same person who broke Snape's wards to destroy the Restorative Draughts and an artifact belonging to bloody You-Know-Who is in the castle at the same time all of this is happening!" enumerated Tracey.
Harry slumped. He sighed and took off his glasses to rub his eyes.
"I know. But I was with Nev' when Gemma was petrified. It can't be him."
Daphne slapped her hands against the floor and rose up daintily, brushing the dust off her skirt.
"There's only one way to find out. All of us go. You ask him to bring you that book and see what happens. And in the meantime, maybe you boys can explain to us why you didn't think to tell us about You-Know-Who before now," she added with a cold stare.
They all stood up and made their way out of their private dorm by the Astronomy Tower exit. They had grown so used to this room it seemed unimaginable to stop using it by now. It was so much more peaceful than sharing a dorm with Malfoy, though the limited bathroom space did prove to be a challenge. Harry thought they would probably try to repurpose it into a quiet space for all of them next year.
"You weren't planning to say anything at all?" asked Tracey as they were walking.
"Er. We would have eventually. It wasn't a conscious decision. It's just. Blaise asked me what happened with Nev' last year, so I told him right after. Theo noticed we were talking about Volde—," he bit his lip as he saw the girls and Theo flinch. While professor Dumbledore's advice to Neville about the fear of a name increasing the fear of the person made sense, he didn't think it was worth it since it made his friends uncomfortable. "He noticed we were talking about You-Know-Who in the present tense so I explained. I told Gemma when it came up too."
"So you would have told us if we'd asked."
Daphne looked unimpressed.
"I wouldn't have lied to you. But knowing is a burden. We're young, we shouldn't have to think about whether or not we'll fight in a war that might not happen until we're adults."
"But you already decided you will," deduced Tracey. Harry thumbed his heir ring absently, nodding. She turned to Blaise and Theo. "What about you?"
"I will too," declared the Italian prince, his eyes on Harry. "If there is a war, you'll be on the front lines to protect your godbrother. I'm not letting you fight alone."
Harry stared at his best friend. They hadn't talked about it. Last year, when the only knowledge they had was of the existence of Voldemort's wraith, it had seemed insignificant. A nebulous threat, more directed at Neville than anyone else. But Theo's reaction when they had told him, the quiet evenings he had spent with Gemma telling him of Marian Fawley, cousin Philip''s deceased twin sister, his visits to his parents, the many letters exchanged with Remus —who hadn't come back to Britain except to visit Harry's parents since the end of the war— had given him a more tangible taste of the after-effects of the last war. The petrifications coupled with Malfoy's increasingly blatant prejudice both seemed to indicate that trouble was brewing again. It was an omen of worse days to come, where schoolyard fights would soon turn into something more terrible.
Blaise had the option of sitting it out. In fact, Harry wished he would. He wished he would have the guarantee that his best friend was safe in Mezzogiorno when the conflict would start again, whenever that may be. But Blaise's greatest virtue was his loyalty, and he would have none of it.
"Are you sure?" he asked anyway.
"Of course. It could be decades from now but I doubt your Dark Lord is going to wait that long. And even if he didn't, we've all noticed how comfortable Malfoy's clique is getting. That kind of confidence from Death Eater kids…"
Daphne finished his train of thought.
"Their parents are tired of pretending. They had to tone it down after the war but their agenda can't wait for You-Know-Who's return." She paused. "House Greengrass relocated to Ireland when it got really bad. Mother didn't want us to be targeted. And since we're the leaders of our faction, most of the Alliance followed our lead. Some stayed in Britain and fought anyway, but aside from the Prewetts and the Shacklebolts, nobody in our faction declared Enmity against the Death Eaters as the Longbottom Alliance did."
"It was called the Bones Alliance at the time," recalled Tracey. They had finally reached the bottom of Gryffindor Tower. "Edgar Bones was leading it. Then he died and they wanted to name Dumbledore in his place, but he's not from a noble House so they had to choose someone else. The leading Houses were all systematically killed until the end of the war, where Augusta Longbottom took the reins."
"Mhm. That actually made Mother more sure of her choice, and Mom agreed. What you have to understand Harry, is that You-Know-Who was winning by a large margin. That's why everyone admires your godbrother so much. Knowing that the war might start again… it's terrifying, even for those who didn't lose family to it. I understand my mothers' choices." Her gaze turned hard."But that doesn't mean I'll make the same one."
She turned her clear blue eyes to him and Blaise then.
"If what Malfoy is doing is even a fraction of what it's like to live under You-Know-Who's regime, I refuse to let our country live through that."
"Me neither," agreed Tracey. "Like Blaise, I could just leave the country. But ambition is a Slytherin trait and what I want is to make a difference. So I'll fight. And that starts with kicking Malfoy's ass. No more hiding. When we're done with Longbottom's business, we're going to meet with the sixth years and make sure Slytherin is ours again. Right?"
Harry smiled.
"Right."
"You've been quiet," murmured Blaise as they watched Harry ask a Gryffindor first year to get Longbottom for him. The girl —Morgan Cadwallader, he recalled, one of the muggle-borns they had met on the train— looked at them a little nervously, no doubt anxious about what her upperclassmen would think of Slytherins waiting outside of their common room.
"That's not new," said Theo.
Tracey poked him on the shoulder. "True, but you usually say something in serious conversations."
"What is there to tell? My father was a Death Eater who publicly deserted the purists' faction. Whether I fight or not isn't really up to me. We've made ourselves targets deliberately."
There was a pause before Daphne blinked.
"You told Lord Nott about the wraith last year."
"I did. We'd always suspected he would be back. All his followers know since the Mark is faded but not gone. It was his first appearance in Britain though, so now was the perfect time to make a statement."
"Isn't that reckless, though?"
Theo hummed. Longbottom stepped through the portrait entrance, followed by Granger, Weasley, and his sister. He talked to Harry briefly, and seemed surprised at his request before squinting suspiciously.
"We had two choices: declaring our intent or going to professor Dumbledore and offering my father as a spy of professor Snape's calibre. Father made the choice that would preserve our House's reputation."
The Dark Lord thought of Bertram Nott as his possession, but in a different way than his later followers. Theo's father had been his lieutenant at Hogwarts; like Abraxas Malfoy and a few others, he served as a reminder of his beginnings as Tom Riddle. He reveled in seeing them call him a Lord and kneel at his feet when they knew of his humble beginnings. Bertram theorised it was the reason why the Dark Lord had preferred killing his wife instead of him. He had wanted to keep him and his devotion.
"Why did your father change factions?" asked Blaise cautiously.
Theo snorted.
"I'm surprised you're only asking now."
"I wanted to ask during the summer but Harry thought you'd tell us on your own time."
The Nott heir hummed. "It's kind of him. I probably wouldn't have said anything though. I'll tell you later. It's not a conversation for public spaces."
Blaise nodded and looked back at Harry who had seemingly broken the news to Longbottom. The Boy-Who-Lived's face was paling rapidly. His two friends looked horrified and the Weasley first year looked actually sick.
"He's not showing any sign of possession," murmured Blaise.
"Hm, but I don't think he has any good news," said Daphne as Harry and the Golden Trio walked over to them.
"The diary was stolen," explained Harry grimly.
"We need to tell Professor Dumbledore," said Hermione, already moving past them to go to the man's office.
Weasley's sister put a hand on the girl's shoulder.
"I'll go," she stuttered. "You and Neville shouldn't move around the castle right now."
"Are you sure? You're not looking so good," commented Longbottom with a concerned frown.
Unsurprisingly, the older Weasley volunteered to go with her.
"While you do that, we should talk to Hagrid," said Harry. He explained to the confused Slytherins that the Dark Lord had tried to frame the groundskeeper when Longbottom wrote into the diary.
"You wrote into it?" hissed Theo. "Has your grandmother taught you nothing?"
"Oi, don't talk to Neville like that," hollered Weasley. "It's not his bloody fault his Manor isn't full of Dark stuff like yours."
"Ron," admonished Longbottom, putting a placating hand on Harry's forearm before he snapped at the redhead. "Nott's right, what I did was stupid. I should have given it to a professor the second I found it."
While Longbottom convinced his friend to leave with his younger sister, Theo and Blaise brainstormed how to get rid of the influence the diary might have left on Longbottom.
"I know a spell but it's meant to purge demonic influence, not… whatever is possessing the diary," started Blaise, looking agitated. "What is it anyway? An imprint? I didn't know anything like this existed."
Theo shook his head.
"I don't know either. My father might, but at this point, Professor Snape would be easier to ask. It doesn't seem to be a demon though. A cleansing potion might be more effective."
"You think the diary might have affected me?" asked Longbottom.
Harry nodded. "From what you told me, it pulled your consciousness inside of its pages. If it had just talked to you, it would have been similar to the Homorphus charm and we wouldn't be worried, but it manipulated your mind."
"That means whoever has it is probably not acting voluntarily, and they probably started getting influenced when they wrote inside the diary," continued Granger. "Since you did too…"
"Okay, let's split up then. I'll take Nev' to the infirmary and another group talks to Hagrid. He needs to know what's going on," said Harry.
They decided Theo would go with Harry and Longbottom while Blaise and Granger went to the groundskeeper with Harry's invisibility cloak. Tracey and Daphne would fetch professor Snape.
The two Weasleys left first, Theo's group was next.
The walk to the infirmary was quick, and Longbottom's check-up even faster. There were faint traces of compulsion magic on him, but he hadn't written in the diary long enough for it to be truly dangerous.
"There is a small cluster here," explained Madam Pomphrey to Harry, gesturing at the schematics the diagnostic spell materialised in the air. It was incomprehensible to Theo, a combination of coloured lights and runic symbols along with written annotations that made no sense to those without an intimate knowledge of anatomy and healing magic. "If it had truly taken root, it would have started siphoning the magic out of Mister Longbottom's core."
Granger gasped.
"Do you mean that whoever is being possessed is having their magic stolen?" she asked.
Madam Pomphrey nodded gravely.
"I'm afraid so, Miss Granger. And I truly hope we find the diary's victim before it realises we know, or a student's life will be in grave danger."
Lord Voldemort didn't like when people got in the way of his plans.
The fundraiser had already been inconvenient enough; to destroy the wards, he had needed to cement his presence into Miss Weasley's mind further than he had planned and her magic was now intertwined with the diary's further than he was comfortable with at this stage of his plan. He wouldn't be able to detach himself from her before he had completely drained her of her life force. On top of that, she was constantly wrestling with his control, pathetically attempting to free herself from his grasp and tell everyone the location of his chamber. Dumbledore didn't suspect her yet, but that would only be a matter of time if he learnt of the diary's existence.
"Ginny?"
Lord Voldemort relaxed his grip on the girl's mind and let her answer her dull brother, though he brought forth to her memories the threat he had made to her family if she dared to betray him. He hadn't managed to force her into a Vow of Silence, her mind was too compromised for that, so he had to make do with stimulating her imagination of what he was capable of.
Confident that she wouldn't speak, the Dark Lord pondered over what to do. Entering the old fool's office was unwise, but hiding the existence of the diary would only hold up to scrutiny if he could have silenced the other foolish children. While he didn't doubt in his ability to kill them, wiping their memories or compelling them was trickier. The subtle skim of their minds he had attempted and the information he had gleaned from his foray into Longbottom's subconscious taught him that three of them had varying degrees of talent in Occlumency and another was a Greengrass, a House which was in the habit of freezing their own memories at least once a day, preserving them from any sort of tampering. Lord Voldemort was the greatest wizard alive, but even he couldn't force his way into a protected mind without breaking it beyond repair.
The Imperius curse would have been an option if he had his own body and his core intact, but his current dependence on the idiotic Weasley girl prevented him from using it on multiple targets. She would surely die from the strain of using so much Dark magic with an untrained Light core and he would be back where he started.
He swore to himself he would find a way to siphon ambient magic once Longbottom's corpse lay at his feet. But for now, it looked like he would have to accommodate the unexpected.
He cursed the son of Bertram who had revealed his identity and wondered how far his foolish lieutenant had fallen to allow himself to sire a blood traitor. As he did so, the Weasley girl and her brother found themselves crossing paths with what looked to be unexpected help.
"Father said Dumbledore would be dismissed tonight, and he'll be taking the oaf with him," boasted the Malfoy heir before he spotted the two redheads. "What are you looking at, Weaslette?"
"Would you care to repeat that, Malfoy?"
Ginevra Weasley's eyes flashed red as the Dark Lord took possession of her fully, and Lord Voldemort reveled in the boy's expression as he realised who exactly he was talking to.
Abraxas' grandson glanced at the Weasley brother before his face split into a mean grin.
"The Board of Governors is firing him since he's been so useless at catching the basilisk. The Minister is already on his way to arrest the groundskeeper, and he'll be booting Dumbledore out of the castle next."
The Dark Lord turned the girl's face away from her brother's and indulged himself in an exultant smirk. It seemed like Fate was in his favour after all.
Lord Voldemort would rise again, no matter the cost. And he would make a statement of his rebirth by killing the boy who had been the demise of his older self.
"Are you going somewhere?" said Harry.
"Er, well, yes," said Lockhart, ripping a life-size poster of himself from the back of the door as he spoke and starting to roll it up. "Urgent call — unavoidable — got to go —"
"What about Ron and Ginny?" asked Neville, outraged.
"Well, as to that — most unfortunate —" said Lockhart, avoiding their eyes as he wrenched open a drawer and started emptying the contents into a bag. "No one regrets more than I —"
"You mean you're running away?" said Neville disbelievingly. "After all that stuff you did in your books —"
"Books can be misleading," said Lockhart delicately.
"You wrote them," Harry deadpanned, an eyebrow raised. He didn't think this man could sink lower than he had, but here they were. He was really despicable, thought the Potter Heir.
"My dear boys," said Lockhart, straightening up and frowning at them. "Do use your common sense. My books wouldn't have sold half as well if people didn't think I'd done all of that."
"So you've just been taking credit for what a load of other people have done?" said Neville incredulously.
"Neville, Neville," said Lockhart, shaking his head impatiently, "it's not nearly as simple as that. There was work involved. I had to track these people down. Ask them exactly how they managed to do what they did. Then I had to put a Memory Charm on them so they wouldn't remember doing it. If there's one thing I pride myself on, it's my Memory Charms. No, it's been a lot of work, Neville. It's not all book signings and publicity photos, you know. You want fame, you have to be prepared for a long hard slog."
Harry's expression twisted in disgust.
"I told you that man was a fraud. Let's go find an actual competent teacher."
"We don't have time."
The Potter heir bit his lip. It was true, they might get there too late if they doubled back.
"Guess he'll do then," he sighed. "Expelliarmus."
The wand shot from Lockhart's hand.
"I don't trust you not to Obliviate us while our back is turned. You'll get it back when we get to the Chamber. Come on."
They marched the fraudulent teacher down the nearest stairs, along the corridor Mrs Norris had been petrified in, and into what Neville explained was Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Harry let his godbrother talk to the ghost while he kept an eye on Lockhart. They watched as Neville spoke to the carved image of a snake on the sink. The hissing seemed to have worked since it sank down into the floor, revealing a wide pipe.
"You're not planning on jumping down, are you?" asked Harry.
"Er."
"Do you think Salazar Slytherin jumped?"
Neville chuckled, rubbing his neck sheepishly.
"Right." He hissed again, and a deep rumbling sound resonated. Steep stairs climbed up into the pipe, leading the way to the Chamber. "That's better."
He started walking down, gesturing at Harry to follow. The Slytherin poked Lockhart with his wand.
"You first."
The man advanced and pretended to stumble before snatching his own wand out of Harry's second hand. Startled, the boy only barely avoided the first spell the man sent. They circled each other. The Slytherin felt his heart thundering in his chest and his magic light up at his fingertips, responding to the danger he was feeling. As Harry had his back to the entrance of the Chamber, Lockhart started speaking.
"The adventure ends here, boys!" he said. "I'll tell the school I was too late to save the redheads, and that you two tragically lost your minds at the sight of their mangled bodies — say good-bye to your memories! Obli—"
"Somnus," incanted Harry, ducking to avoid the spell. "Has no one ever told you it was stupid to monologue?"
He cursed in his breath as an orange light shot from Lockhart's wand, an unintended consequence of his unfinished incantation. The spell made contact with the stone. Harry heard a crack and turned around. The stairs were collapsing on themselves.
"Nev'!" he shouted, terror gripping at his throat.
"I'm okay!" he heard from a distance.
Harry breathed out in relief.
"What happened?"
"Lockhart attacked me. I put him to sleep."
"Merlin."
He chuckled at his friend's obvious disbelief.
"I know, what a wanker." After a pause, he continued. "What do we do?" he asked.
"I—" Neville hesitated. "I'll keep going. Go get a professor."
"I don't like that. It's Voldemort down there, you shouldn't — you shouldn't have to face him alone." Not again, he didn't say, but his godbrother heard it all the same.
There was a silence, then a low whisper.
"I have to."
"Gryffindors," murmured Harry fondly. "I'll get you help," he said louder. "Hang in there, yeah?"
"Always. Thanks, Harry."
"Follow the spiders, he says," grumbled Blaise. "Completely mad."
"Well, are you coming?" asked Granger, gesturing toward the forest.
The Italian prince stared.
"Absolutely not."
"But there might be a clue!"
"A clue?" he repeated, aghast. "There's no clue to find out there but a nest of Acromentula. Their mortal enemies are snakes, and particularly basilisks. Hagrid lives so isolated from the rest of the castle he's apparently not aware that the whole bloody student body knows what Slytherin's monster is. That's no reason to go traipsing into the woods."
Granger crossed her arms. "How do you know that?"
"Theo told me. Magical creatures are his new obsession," he said, walking back toward the castle while cursing the idiocy of Gryffindors. "If you want to go die in the woods, be my guest but there's no way I'm following you out there."
He heard a huff and determined footsteps in the opposite direction.
"Granger? Granger! I wasn't actually serious, I'm not leaving a muggle-born alone while a monster's targeting them in the castle. Come back here. Granger! Circe, for all of her brains, she is an idiot."
An hour later, they were back out of the forest.
"I—" Granger gulped. "I understand why Ron's scared of spiders now."
Blaise cast a spell to vanish the dust off his clothes and readjusted his tie before throwing the girl a venomous look.
"I hate you."
When they returned to the castle pointedly not looking at each other, there was a commotion in the corridors. Blaise spotted Theo, Tracey, and Daphne, though there was no trace of Harry and Longbottom. He and his Gryffindor tag-along sidled up to his court.
"What is happening?" he asked Daphne.
"The two Weasleys never made it to Dumbledore's office. Instead, we found this." She pointed at the wall, where 'their skeletons will lie in the Chamber forever' was written in blood.
"It must have been Ginny," murmured Granger, looking horrified. "She's been feeling peaky all year, we thought she was just stressed because of the attack. I can't believe we didn't notice sooner. Oh, Ron!"
She started sobbing.
"Where's Harry?"
"Longbottom said something about pipes and took off," said Tracey. "Harry went after him."
"Pipes," repeated Granger, wiping her cheeks. Her eyes widened. "Myrtle's bathroom. The first attack was there and the floor was flooded! That's how Mrs. Norris was petrified. The entrance has to be there!"
"Don't even think about going there Granger," hissed Blaise. "Weren't the spiders enough?"
Granger scowled.
"Let's tell a teacher," said Theo, "before they ask us to go back to our dorms."
They barely had the time to tell professor Flitwick before Harry came back with Lockhart on a conjured stretcher. His eyes looked a little wild, and sparks were running along his shoulders. His eyes were terrifyingly blank like he had been Occluding too hard. Still, Blaise sighed in relief at seeing his best friend in one piece.
"Mister Potter," exclaimed Professor McGonagall. "What happened?"
"This idiot," spat Harry while pointing at Lockhart's unconscious form, "tried to obliviate me. Nev' asked him of all people to accompany him to the Chamber and I tried to dissuade him— it doesn't matter. Here's his wand if you don't believe me." He handed the wand to their transfiguration professor and continued while she cast the Priori Incantatem. Sure enough, the last spell was a memory charm. "I had to put him under a sleeping spell to stop him from attacking us. The entrance to the Chamber collapsed because of his botched spell and Nev's stuck on the other side," he added, looking at Professor Snape. The Head of Slytherin House nodded sharply and took off, Flitwick at his heels. "I came to get help."
"You did well, mister Potter," said the Head of Gryffindor. "Pomona, would you bring him to the infirmary? I'll owl our Headmaster. And the Aurors," she mumbled, looking at Lockhart in disgust. Louder, she added. "Everyone else, go back to bed."
Blaise and the others got very little sleep that night.
The next day, Harry met them in the Great Hall. His best friend looked as exhausted as Blaise felt.
"Neville got to the infirmary a few hours after me," he told them while sitting down for breakfast. "Professors Flitwick and Snape got there too late. Nev' killed the basilisk and used its fang to destroy the diary. He couldn't wake Ginny and Ron, though, so professor Snape had to do it." He paused, his gaze turning haunted. "The basilisk bit him." Before they could react with the appropriate horror, he held up a hand. "Dumbledore has a phoenix, their tears heal anything physical. Nev's fine. Ginny, though… her magic was corrupted. The diary dug too deep into her core."
"Is she going to be okay?" asked Tracey, a piece of toast in hand.
Harry shook his head.
"They're transferring her to St Mungo's. They have better treatments there for this kind of damage. She should be back in about a month."
"What about Lockhart?"
This time he smirked.
"He was dragged out by Aurors this morning. I think we'll be reading about his predilection for memory charms in the paper."
"And the other Weasley?"
"He was just stunned and got a concussion. He's okay." Harry paused. "He did say something interesting when he woke up."
He stared at Malfoy then, who was looking a little nervous.
"Malfoy saw them before Ginny attacked him. Ron can't prove it but he thinks he knew."
Blaise drew a sharp intake of breath. He could tell their friends were just as shocked. It was one thing to know Malfoy was a bully and bigot, and another to realise he was perfectly happy to let Voldemort roam the castle. They should have known, really. The Malfoy heir was horrid to muggle-borns.
They exchanged glances between each other, then looked at the sixth and first years on either side of them. Their group had managed until now by distancing themselves from the rest of Slytherin, but it was clear that this matter went beyond a simple question of having freedom in the common room.
Malfoy felt comfortable harming those he felt were inferior to him. They had to remind him it wasn't blood or status that made people great.
They started in other Houses. A word to Padma, and they had Parvati and Lavender's cooperation. Parkinson and Perks prided themselves in their talent for weaponising gossip but those two had nothing on the range of the Gryffindors. They began by rehashing old discussions about Malfoy's bribe to get into the quidditch team, his liberal uses of slurs, and the reminder of how gleeful he had been when the Chamber had been opened. Rumours about how exactly Lucius Malfoy lost his position on the board of Governors went next, this time fuelled by adults' gossiping circles. Neville inadvertently added fuel to the fire by telling Hannah and Susan how he had ended up freeing the Malfoys' house elf and hiring him as a land elf, which offered him both credit among the Progressives and Traditionalists but also had the Purists frowning in disapproval.
Cedric Diggory was next, remarking upon how, for all of their bragging about wealth, it had never occurred to the Malfoys to donate to the fundraiser.
"Perhaps buying all of those Nimbuses 2001 wasn't wise," he mused to an assorted group of quidditch team players invited by Harry for a friendly game.
More and more rumours came out until Malfoy received an innocuous letter from home that had him blanching. He was later heard whispering to Flint that they needed to regain control of the situation because Minister Fudge was eyeing his father suspiciously since his friendship with the man had the voters worried.
The next day, an article about Gilderoy Lockhart's multiple frauds came out and even Rita Skeeter couldn't resist throwing a snarky line about the former governor Malfoy's initial endorsement of the former DADA professor who would spend thirty years in Azkaban.
Next, they started talking to their Housemates. They never set foot in the common room, of course, but first years could be seen approaching the students members of the Greengrass and Longbottom Alliances and leaving them notes that burst into flames if they were grabbed by anyone but their intended recipient. Rowle's Argentum court could tell there was a plan in motion, but they couldn't tell what it was.
Then Malfoy won the quidditch match against Ravenclaw. When he came back to celebrate, he and his team were confronted with a half-empty common room, a glacial dungeon and no preparation made. The Avery siblings who were in charge of social events were nowhere to be seen. They later found out that the Weasley twins had targetted them and their helpers with a particularly inventive prank that left them stuck feet first to the ceiling of an abandoned corridor for hours on end until Penelope Clearwater thought to look up and saw them. It took another hour to get them down.
(The twins were later told about what exactly happened to Ginny, and Malfoy found himself the target of a few delightful pranks as well. One of them had him waking up tied to his bed with a dozen screeching mandrake plushies in another part of the castle. Adrian might or might not have assisted them. In any case, no one could prove it.)
Flint retaliated by getting professor Snape's permission to summon Harry when the duellists were in need of a healer. The boy showed up without fail and did as he was asked. But before they could do anything to him, he disappeared without a trace. If they tried to torment him before he healed the quarreling students, he blew into a whistle connected to another —courtesy of the Weasley twins— and one of his court soon arrived accompanied by a looming professor Snape, whose free time had been significantly augmented by the lack of basilisk roaming the corridors. The man didn't appreciate being disturbed anyway. Flint only tried it once, instead redoubling his efforts to catch Harry before he managed to vanish. The Potters' invisibility cloak sure came in handy.
Rowle court's second attempt at fighting back consisted in targeting the white-trimmed robed students in the corridors but the other Houses watched them like hawks, encouraged by public figures like Cedric Diggory, Zaida Sayyid, Roger Davies, and Neville Longbottom who, while not privy to the intricate politics of Slytherin, understood all too well that something was going on that was the direct result of Gemma Fawley's petrification. Even the most vehement Slytherin detractors like Cormac McLaggen made an exception for Harry's group, unwilling to be seen averting their eyes while those who protested their House's bigotry were attacked.
Aditya Sandhu and Tristan Harper still ended up at the infirmary, but the suspension the Avery boy was threatened with as a result made it a lot less worth it. (Being caught by the Auror who had been hired as a temporary replacement to Gilderoy Lockhart certainly didn't help.)
The only one who hadn't yet been targeted was Rowle, but the Argentum Rex knew it was only a matter of time. Safaa and her friends had taken to staring at him contemplatively in the corridors, and he was constantly terrified of what she would do in revenge.
This silent warfare went on until halfway through March when the Argentum court was offered a modicum of respite because of the unprecedented argument between Harry Potter and his best friend Blaise Zabini.