The Marauders hadn't explicitly decided not to tell the school what had occurred with the basilisk and Lockhart. However, they'd gotten in late and spent most of the rest of the evening and then time before breakfast silently listening as Harry explained everything that had happened after the rest of them had left the headmaster's office. Hermione didn't really get along with her roommates, but the news would have been far and wide if she had, since they were big gossips. Harry and Ron just didn't think about mentioning it to their roommates. Fred, George, and Lee didn't even have roommates (though the legend was they'd driven at least one other boy to ask to be re-sorted to get away from them in their first year).
Consequently, the rumor mill wasn't churning by breakfast time. There was some curiosity about the new man at the staff table (looking very surly still at his new coworkers and duties), but Lockhart often slept in right up to his first class anyway so his absence wasn't unusual. And the second-floor bathroom had an out-of-order sign on it, but that also was pretty common after Myrtle had a fit and wrecked the facilities. Everyone went off to morning classes none the wiser.
By lunchtime, the gossip was starting to flow. All the first-years and the sixth-year NEWT class were discussing their new "substitute" for defense class. It seemed Dawlish had been close-lipped about why he was teaching the class instead of Lockhart. The first-years were the least likely to have been nurturing a pubescent crush on the missing professor, so weren't too upset (though the worry was spreading through the older students that had enjoyed looking at the very pretty man). The NEWT class seemed, on the whole, quietly ecstatic. They overheard both Percy and Oliver singing the praises of a class that finally had a useful practical component, and hoping that Dawlish would stick around long enough to help them with education that had been sorely lacking.
Nobody thought to ask Harry or his friends about Lockhart's absence, as it didn't seem connected.
It was dinnertime before the whispers and looks really started. While none of the living that had been present had volunteered information, it seemed like Myrtle had half-complained, half-exulted about the dead snake in her bathroom. Also, the professors had been briefed, some were inveterate gossips, and sometimes they talked to each other where students could be listening (or portraits, who were almost as bad).
"Did you really kill a giant snake, Harry?" Colin Creevey demanded, fingers caressing his camera as if anxious to take a picture of Harry, the snake, or both.
"No comment," Harry said, mostly because Colin was pretty tiresome, but then he felt like he couldn't talk about it the rest of dinner, and the others followed his lead.
After dinner, however, it was quidditch practice, and Oliver wanted answers.
"Dead snake an' Lockhart missin' hev anythin' t'do wi' each other?" he asked, in the boys' changing room as they were putting on their quidditch armor.
[Marauders: Active] Harry Potter: Anyone object to letting the quidditch team know what happened?
Hermione Granger replies: It's okay with me. We already told Ginny. She caught us in the common room after dinner and asked.
Fred and George just shook the heads, so Harry figured that was close enough to a quorum to explain, "Yeah. We got Slytherin's Monster," he gestured to indicate he was including Fred and George in that group. "It was a basilisk. Someone was planning to let it out of the Chamber of Secrets and do something terrible to the muggleborn in the school. We think." He was quiet for a moment, then remembered the rest of the question, "Oh, and, yeah, Lockhart found us first and was going to try to remove our memories so he could claim he killed it. Maybe he did that for everything he took credit for in his books. Dawlish arrested him."
Oliver just nodded consideringly and then said, "Weel, Dawlish disnae really ken how t'teach, but t'least he kens things tae teach. An' mibbe wi' this year's adventure already handled, ye'll be able t'focus on quidditch."
"Yeah, I hope so," Harry placated the sports-focused older boy, not believing it for a second with two main quests still open in his log.
"Alright, Katie!" Oliver ordered as they all assembled out on the field. "I want ye t'act as if ye're the rival seeker tonight. We're teachin' Harry t'mark an opponent."
"Mark?" Harry asked.
He explained, "The Malfoy boy's got the faster broom. If he sees the snitch afore ye, 'tis over. Unless ye're markin' 'im an' can get there faster. I want ye t'get used tae keepin' an eye on t'other seeker. Ye should be movin' as soon as she is."
"Unless it's a feint," Angelina cautioned.
"Baby steps," Oliver shook his head. "First he learns t'target the other seeker. Then he learns t'guess if tis a feint."
"Target Katie. Got it," Harry nodded. And, with that decision to choose a target, glowing green brackets appeared around her: right angle Vs describing the corners of an invisible box around her. "Really got it."
As they lifted off the ground onto their brooms, Harry experimented with the new game feature, switching his target to each of his teammates. Each of them was bounded in green as he selected them, and whoever he targeted showed up as an extra-bright dot on his map. Somewhere in the back of his head, he knew where they were, even if he looked away. It wasn't any effort at all to snap his head unerringly in the direction of his target.
"Releasin' the balls now," Oliver warned, as he opened the case that contained the practice snitch, two bludgers, and the quaffle.
"Target snitch," Harry checked. Sure enough, the targeting brackets snapped to the tiny golden ball. Instead of green for allies, it was blue-bordered for neutral targets, but nonetheless he had no trouble seeing it both in his vision and on his map. "This… this can't be legal," he muttered to himself.
When the snitch flew off to the opposite side of the pitch, and should have been invisible at that distance, he could still see it no problem. The blue brackets remained locked onto the tiny ball.
[Marauders: Active] Harry Potter: Guys. Um. I figured out I can make the snitch my target. And I can just… see it. Plain as day. Should I use this ability?
Fred Weasley replies: Yes, absolutely.
George Weasley replies: 150 to zero!
Ron Weasley replies: See if it can dodge enough to break your targeting. But, yeah, wicked.
Hermione Granger replies: It's an unfair game anyway. If Draco can buy his whole team better brooms, you can use your gift.
Following Ron's advice, Harry let the snitch move around the pitch, and he never lost it. He found out that if he switched his target back to another player, he did lose it, and couldn't immediately reacquire it. So that, at least, seemed a little fair. But, as soon as he glanced back to where he'd last seen it and caught the glint of gold, he was able to snap the box back onto it.
"Ye're on fire tonight, Harry!" Oliver approved, after Harry's third catch in a quarter of an hour. He was honestly taking it slower than he had to. "How're ye findin' the snitch so fast?"
Harry shrugged, "Guess I just figured it out. That flash of gold is hard to miss?"
"Keep it up! Those snakes aren't going t'know what hit 'em," the older boy grinned, visions of the quidditch cup dancing in his head.
After practice, Hermione, Ron, and Lee waved Harry and the twins over to a corner they'd claimed in the Gryffindor common room. "We had a thought," Hermione began, once there was a bit of privacy. "What if the heir… had another heir?"
"Eww, dark wizard sex," George held his nose.
"Eeeeevil baby," Fred added.
"He was supposed to be quite popular among that crowd, though," George considered.
"So many proper pureblood wives ready to have their dark lord's demon spawn," Fred allowed.
Harry sighed and massaged his scar. It didn't hurt. It just felt like it should. "So basically any of the kids of Voldemort's followers could actually be his kid? And that's who the Heir is now?"
"Well. Not any of them, probably," Ron said. "Probably not Malfoy. He looks too much like his dad. Oh, and they could only be first years or older, because of when you… sorta destroyed him as a baby."
"Technically, they could be a year younger than that," Hermione corrected. "On the off chance that he… did stuff… with someone right before Harry dispersed him when Harry was fifteen months old. That would be nine more months. So they could be up to two years younger than Harry."
"They can't be though," Ron corrected her correction. "Because we'd know if there was a ten-year-old in the castle running around letting the basilisk out. So it has to be a first-year or older. Because they're here."
"Yes, but you didn't think of that. You just forgot to add time for gestation," Hermione said, triumphantly.
Honestly, Harry figured things couldn't be that bad if his best friends were back to arguing over trivialities. They seemed to be having a good time. But before it got too out of hand, he said, "So it could be a first year or older. Maybe Mr. Malfoy told them about it over the summer? They could have not known their dad wasn't their real dad. But… none of the Slytherins that are actually here have a Death Eater guild tag. I've been checking. So… it's a good idea, but I'm not sure it helps us figure out who it is."
"And as much as we love bagging on the snakes…" Fred began.
"Could be someone in another house, too." George finished.
Lee nodded, "Pettigrew was in Gryffindor and turned. Could have been other non-snakes that were secretly… dating You-Know-Who?"
"We can at least eliminate the muggleborn?" Hermione tried, flummoxed that her theory didn't seem to have much predictive ability even if true.
"Not even all of them," Ron realized. "Dean doesn't know who his actual dad is. Could be other kids that think their dad is a muggle, but…"
"You-Know-Who was secretly having an affair with a muggle woman?" George asked.
"Dear Witch Weekly…" Fred grinned, implying a salacious letter to the editor.
Seeing that Hermione looked sad about all the holes that had been poked in her idea, Harry said, "At least it gives us a place to start. If it's another kid at school that's Voldemort's heir, at least we don't have to worry about his wraith floating around. And it might be easier to fight a kid if we have to."
"Right," Hermione nodded. "And I bet we can find out what Tom Riddle looked like. Maybe in the yearbooks. We might not be able to eliminate anyone except people that look exactly like their fathers, but we can probably mark people that don't look anything like Tom as 'probably not.'"
"Sad that means the only one we can rule out is Malfoy," Harry frowned. "It would be simplest if it was him."
Lee shook his head. "If that kid was the Heir of Slytherin, he'd work it into every conversation."
Ron grinned and mimicked Draco's voice. "Wait until my ancestor hears of this! I need to go find a portrait. I'm sure there's a large one around here of him. He was a founder, after all."
Everyone laughed, but Hermione clearly had a realization and asked, "Are there any founders' portraits? I haven't seen any." A round of shrugs greeted the question. If anyone would know, it should have been her. "I'll look it up," she decided.
They chatted for a bit longer and headed off to bed. Just as he was laying down to sleep, Harry thought he saw a red dot appear nearby on his map (which he was leaving open as often as possible after the Lockhart debacle). But before he could zoom in to see who and where it was, it was gone. He stayed up for another half an hour, waiting to see if it would show back up, eventually getting tired enough to decide that if it was something he should worry about, he'd get another chance.
In the first-year girls' dorm, Tom Riddle's echo seethed within his diary. It had only been his phenomenal instinct for self preservation that had kept him from following through with his momentary plan to march Ginny Weasley right over to Harry Potter's dorm and attempt to murder him in his bed. Even the second of possession had sent her right to sleep when he relinquished control.
He'd learned from the girl that Harry Potter had slain his basilisk. He needed a new plan to make the boy pay.