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Chapter Twenty-Eight—Rising

Albus looks up from his breakfast, and from shaking his head at a Prophet article that attempts to spin one of more Cornelius's foolish decisions in a positive light. There's a murmur running through his students that he hasn't heard before.

When he sees who is striding through the Hall on her way to the professors' table, Albus folds his paper in haste.

"Albus," Aradia Zabini says to him, with a slight tilt of her head. "If you have a moment so I could speak to you, please?"

Albus nods and follows her out of the Great Hall. It would be much worse speaking to her in front of all those staring, gaping faces than in the privacy of his office.

However, there are two children waiting for them just beyond the Great Hall. Albus sighs at the sight of Mr. Zabini and Mr. Potter, both. "Boys, if you would excuse me? I'm sure that Mrs. Zabini will tell you everything we discuss later."

If either boy understands the import of his sarcasm, they don't indicate it. Mr. Potter only watches him with glittering eyes, while Mr. Zabini only says, "But I was the one who summoned my mother, sir, so I should be there with her when she starts talking to you about it."

Albus closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Then he nods. It's obvious that he won't be getting rid of them easily, especially since Aradia seems to only care for their physical safety instead of their mental health. "Very well. If you will accompany me back to my office, Mr. Zabini, Mr. Potter, Mrs. Zabini?" He makes sure to incline his head to all three of them, as if bowing.

They don't seem to grasp that level of sarcasm, either. They follow him to his office, with Mrs. Zabini walking at Albus's side and staring around at the walls with a sort of restrained disapproval.

At least the journey is not entirely wasted, because Albus can observe how Mr. Potter acts in the company of the Zabinis. And he sees a boy who is far too used to slinking along at Blaise Zabini's side, who laughs softly and shakes his head at what seems to be a constant stream of chatter from Mr. Zabini, but never offers an opinion of his own.

He is entirely under their influence, and does not even realize it. It is time to give up on assuming he will behave like a normal child.

That is not a happy insight, but it is a valuable one.

"You have a basilisk in your school."

Aradia will give Albus credit for this much: he starts and stares at her with a decidedly pale face. He does not disbelieve her. He does not try to make some argument about how the basilisk is only a student's misunderstood pet.

He does swallow and say, after a moment, in an entirely colorless tone, "May I ask how you came to that conclusion?"

Aradia nods to Blaise, who leans forwards a little in his chair. Even though she knows he is perfectly well, Aradia cannot help studying him. He so nearly died, in a confrontation that was not something she anticipated.

She will have to plan better.

"I was walking back to the library yesterday evening, and I saw a serpentine shadow ahead of me," Blaise says. "I was carrying magical protection that a dear family member gifted to me, or I would have died. It was supposed to deflect death from me once. Given that I would have died and the size of the shadow, what could it be but a basilisk?"

Albus clears his throat and blinks rapidly. "But—the basilisk's gaze kills. It does not Petrify."

Aradia nods. "But all the Petrification victims had something reflective beside them, did they not? A mirror, water, glass, something similar? That would explain why the gaze did not kill. They only saw its reflection."

Albus clasps his hands on the desk. "That would make sense."

Aradia waits a moment, but he offers her nothing further. Very well. "Since your attempts to find the beast and the Chamber of Secrets have proven singularly ineffective so far, I will be taking over the hunt."

There is a long silence. Albus's emotions are only visible in the way that his nostrils flare. Then he does say, "You presume a great deal when you come into my school in this fashion, madam."

"You presume a great deal if you think that my sons will continue attending the school if you do not let me do this," Aradia says. She speaks quietly, with a smile. Albus will understand the greater threat buried in that than there would be in shouting. "And I will tell other parents what Blaise encountered. Do you think you can withstand that outcry?"

In particular, she thinks that Augusta Longbottom will remove the Boy-Who-Lived. From what Harry and Blaise have told her, Mrs. Longbottom is paranoid enough about the boy's safety as it is.

Albus does catch on. His eyes narrow. "And if you go to face the basilisk by yourself, you would leave me with the reputation of someone having died in Hogwarts."

"You nearly had that yesterday evening when Blaise encountered the snake. At least this way, you know that I am going of my own free will, and I am a fully trained adult witch who is willing to do anything she must to eliminate the creature. Far better than what would have happened if Blaise had died."

"What would have happened if that had come to pass?"

Aradia leans forwards a little. "I would have taken the school apart in my search for the creature and the Heir who is releasing it. Stone. By. Stone."

Albus stares at her in silence once more. Aradia keeps her patience, keeps her smile. It did not happen, and that means that they can handle this more gently and slowly, with less chance that they will warn the Heir she is coming for them.

But it is as well for Albus to know that it could have happened.

Albus finally swallows, not looking away from her, and asks, "Do you even know where you will begin the hunt? It is my understanding that several children as well as the professors have been hunting the beast and the Chamber, without success." His eyes flicker to Blaise and Harry, a move so open it must be deliberate.

Does he think I did not know? Aradia tilts her head winsomely, and smiles. "They have, but I am used to hunting in a way that I do not think the castle's other inhabitants are."

Albus's eyes open wide as he stares at her. "Did you just admit—"

"I often hunt Potions ingredients in wild forests where not many others would dare to venture. And of course I must defend myself from magical creatures when I do so. What did you think I was referring to?"

Albus looks supremely frustrated. He would love to prove that she had murdered people, Aradia knows. But that will not happen, any more than the complete destruction of Hogwarts will.

"You have my permission," Albus says at last, with as much ungraciousness as he is probably capable of.

Aradia simply nods and stands. "Then I will begin the hunt as soon as possible."

"How?"

"I will keep the knowledge from you, so that you can preserve your own moral purity without worrying over the spells."

Albus closes his eyes. Aradia turns and leaves the office, aware that his eyes linger on her back with enmity.

Aradia respects the Headmaster's magical power, but she is not truly afraid of him. She will give him no handle he can turn to put pressure on her, no secrets she would be unwilling to have exposed. And without those things, he cannot threaten her.

He might threaten the boys, but Aradia does not believe so, or she would not have let them attend Hogwarts in the first place. No, Albus will consider them non-combatants and leave them out of it as much as possible.

It is so pleasant when one's foes have moral principles.

"Was that the wisest thing to do?"

Harry feels a bit naïve asking the question, because Aradia is wise, and she wouldn't have handled Dumbledore in a way that could backfire. But Blaise says that he should feel free to ask any questions he wants, so Harry does his best to maintain his own smile when Aradia turns around with one.

"What do you mean, Harry?"

"I mean, you insulted him and you let him know that you don't think much of him. And you taunted him. Shouldn't you have pretended to agree with him and then just gone off and done whatever you wanted while he thought you agreed?"

Aradia gives a small laugh. They're in a corridor a few floors away from the Headmaster's office, and there aren't portraits around them, but Aradia raises a Privacy Bubble anyway. Harry flushes.

"If I had pretended to agree with him, I would have had a hard time explaining my defeat of the basilisk," Aradia murmurs. "He would have known that the results could come from Dark Arts. This way, he knows that I might be using them and making no apologies for them. But he also gets to preserve the cleanliness of his own hands. We both receive something from the bargain."

"I just didn't know you would be so—open, instead of subtle."

"I am surprised at that, Harry."

Harry hesitates, trying to think of why. Had he missed some lesson during the summer or when he visited her over the holidays? "What do you mean?"

"Your own actions of late have been so lacking in subtlety that I thought it was the way you preferred to live."

Harry flushes again, harder. Aradia turns her eyes on Blaise, and he clenches his hands in front of him. "I assume you mean the way that Theo and I are going after Longbottom."

"Why, yes. That would be one reason to call you less than clever."

"Why, though, Mother? You know what happened—"

"Yes, and I expected you to handle it subtly. Longbottom has many eyes on him because of his fame. There are people who will figure your plans out and develop an animosity to you that they need never have developed otherwise. Why did you not tend in the direction of humiliating punishments, long-lasting ones? Ones that would inflict damage on his friendships, the way that he damaged his with Harry?"

Harry, skin crawling with the heat of his flush and his blood tingling with shame, watches Blaise open his mouth. Shut it again.

"I was too angry," Blaise whispers at last. "And Theo followed my lead."

Aradia nods, once, her face calm, her hair stirring about her in some wind that Harry can't feel. "I expect you to be smarter in the future, Blaise. And I expect you to go up and apologize to the Longbottom boy."

"What? But that's going to confirm that I did it, and I could be put in detention—"

"Then you will be put in detention. A fitting punishment for your brashness." Aradia lifts her wand and traces a shape that Harry doesn't recognize in the air. He definitely wants to take Ancient Runes next year. "In the meantime, I will teach you a curse that will plague Longbottom with subtle, increasing bad luck for years."

"But—if it blinded him or made him fall down stairs, wouldn't he still suspect me?"

"Oh, no, it would not do something like that." Aradia's smile is bright and chilling, and Harry is reminded of all the reasons he adores her. "Its harm is psychological. I told you, it will inflict damage on his friendships. That is fitting, is it not?"

Harry nods. He should have thought of that before, even though he didn't know this specific curse existed. Punishing Neville physically isn't really appropriate, and killing him would have been—bad.

Not just because it would have drawn attention to Blaise and Theo, although of course Harry agrees with Aradia, now that he's thinking about it. Because it would have—

Harry doesn't want Neville dead. He wants him to pay, and he's upset, and he sort of wants his friendship back, and he largely doesn't know what he wants.

But this particular curse, which he watches Aradia teaching Blaise with deep contentment, is probably going to make everything fine. And Blaise doesn't seem to resent apologizing to Neville because of pride or whatever. It's only because it would reveal his and Theo's involvement.

Is Theo going to apologize?

Harry snorts, utterly unable to picture that. No, he already knows that Blaise will tell Neville Theo was influenced by him, and paint Theo as just wanting some excitement and pranks without thinking about what the end result will be.

"What will happen with the basilisk?"

Artemis is winding up Harry's arm towards his shoulder. Harry withdraws with her to one end of the corridor so that he won't interrupt the spell Aradia is teaching Blaise. "Aradia is going to be hunting it," he tells her quietly. "She'll make sure that it's destroyed and the Heir is captured."

"I am sorry that we could not capture them."

Harry nods. It does feel a little like wasted effort. But—"At least this way we don't need to worry about being in danger from the beast or the Heir anymore."

"No," Artemis says, and hisses out in a long sigh that Harry hasn't heard from her since the day his friendship with Neville broke apart. "Well. I will wish her good luck and success on her hunt, before she goes."

"Be careful, Mother."

Blaise can't help the heaviness in his chest as he watches Mother smile at him and then touch her wand to her face. He knows that she's skilled at human Transfiguration, that she uses it to hunt the men she feeds to the Suns, but it's different from what she's proposing to do here.

It's disturbing to watch his mother's smooth dark skin flow like water under the track of her wand, more disturbing still to watch her reshape her nose into one that can detect slight currents of scent, and her bone structure into one that can accommodate her new scent organs better. She crouches and stares in front of her for a moment, one hand tracing over the floor.

Then she nods, and Transfigures her fingernails into claws. Blaise recognizes those. Sometimes she just uses ordinary claws that are sharp like a cat's, but these are actually made of steel.

She expects to have to perhaps tear through tough snake hide, make an impact on stone.

After a long moment when Mother turns her head back and forth to catch the smells she needs, she whispers to them, "Be careful," her voice sounding strange because of her new nasal passage and cheekbones, and strides away. Blaise watches her until she passes around the corner and out of sight.

"Are we going to go apologize to Neville?"

Harry's voice jolts him. Blaise turns and looks at him. Harry's eyes are wide and clear, but as Blaise watches, Harry flushes and drops them a little.

"I just thought—I know you don't want to, but Aradia said we should…"

"I am going to apologize to him," Blaise says firmly. "I'll make it clear it was my idea and I dragged Theo along with me. You don't have anything to apologize for. He was the one who thought you were the Heir of Slytherin and broke up his friendship with you over that."

Blaise does have to admit he's looking forwards, with petty satisfaction, to Mother finding the Heir of Slytherin and Longbottom being proven wrong over that. It's one reason he should offer his apology first, so he won't be tempted to gloat to Longbottom's face.

Like Mother said, we should keep our gloating subtle.

"Oh, all right. So you don't want me there?"

Blaise smiles at him. "No. But you told me yesterday that Goldstein and Patil invited you to study with them in the library, right?"

"Yeah, but…well, they know I'm never there on Saturdays. They would be more than surprised to see me show up now."

"But they should know that you're not friends with Longbottom anymore, so not that surprised."

Harry hesitates, then nods. "Just be careful," he murmurs. "What with the basilisk and everything."

Blaise nods back, but honestly, he thinks he'll need more courage to apologize to Longbottom. It's something he's rarely done before.

But it will still take less courage than it would to face Mother if I didn't apologize, so there's that.

With her nose enhanced by Transfiguration, Aradia is aware of a great, thick scent draped along the walls and floors. It's dark and heady and dusted with traces of stone. Magical creatures always smell more strongly than non-magical ones, but in truth, she's startled by how easily she can follow the trail. She supposes the basilisk must have been roaming about the school many times at night without encountering people it could Petrify.

All the more reason for her to kill it and stop the Heir of Slytherin as soon as possible. Luckily, while killing a basilisk if taken by surprise is not easy, the cry of a rooster should slay this one.

She follows the scent trail to a stone wall, which at first seems solid. But when Aradia leans towards it and Transfigures her ear to pick up slight sounds, she can hear the gurgle of water through pipes. Of course.

Not so strange that the pipes would be built big enough to contain a basilisk, either, if Slytherin left the damn thing here for centuries.

Aradia turns her ear back to a human one, so that she will not be overwhelmed by the noise she's about to create, and cracks the stone open with a single, precise spell. Slivers and splinters patter to the floor. Aradia smiles a little and conjures a barrier that will block off the corridor from either end.

One would hope that Dumbledore would warn his professors and students and keep them away from the area, but since he would not want to panic them by mentioning the existence of a basilisk, it's unlikely. Besides, doing so would warn off the Heir of Slytherin.

Aradia leans into the space behind the wall. Yes, it's much larger than one would think, and she will easily be able to join the pipes. She steps lightly inside and then pauses a moment to Transfigure her eyes to adapt to low light as much as possible, which is more delicate work than altering nose or ears.

She studied Transfiguration for a decade to become this comfortable with the discipline, and that was mostly so she could pursue her prey. She wonders idly, as she sets out in pursuit of the thick scent, what tricks and disciplines Blaise will focus on when it is his turn to safeguard the Suns.

Neville sighs and rubs his scar. He knows it's his imagination that it's hurting more than usual. After all, he's not near the Heir of Slytherin at the moment. He and Ron and Hermione are sitting outside, on one of the first sunny Saturdays of the term, with a group of first-year Gryffindors giggling not far away, and—

"Longbottom?"

Ron surges to his feet with a shout, his wand in his hand. Hermione shrieks. Neville is the one who turns around, with a sense of dull inevitability, to see Zabini standing behind him with his hands in his robe pockets.

"Can I speak to you, please?"

Neville hesitates, but there's the fact that Zabini's voice is almost painfully polite. He would never sound like this normally. Most of the time, he was obviously humoring Harry when he and Neville were in the same room, and when he thought Neville was doing something stupid, he would have the tone of delayed anger in his voice.

Neville should know what that sounds like, living with his Gran.

"Okay," he says, and stands up.

"Neville! You're not going to go with him, are you?"

Neville smiles back at Ron and Hermione. They both look poised to stand up and charge to his side. He can't believe that it took him and Ron so long to make friends with Hermione, honestly. She's great.

"I'm not going to go out of sight," he says, and glances at Zabini, who just nods. Good, then whatever he's planning isn't going to involve an ambush. "I just want to know what he's saying, and we'll stay right here." He walks over to a place about ten meters distant from his friends and turns to face Zabini. "You can put up sound-blocking spells if you want."

"Thank you."

Neville studies Zabini's wand intently as he takes it out and flicks it around, but it seems that he is only casting sound-blocking spells, since the sounds of the lake and the wind vanish. He casts them silently. Neville is envious, but he reminds himself that he'll be able to do that someday; he'll be strong enough.

"What did you want to talk to me about, Zabini?"

Zabini stares at him for a long moment, his eyes wide. Neville looks back. He can't place the expression on Zabini's face. He looks…worried? Guilty?

"I wanted to apologize for making your potion blow up like I did. And for casting the spell that tripped you down the stairs."

Neville can't breathe for a moment. Then he bursts out with words he didn't even plan on. "I knew it was you! You could have killed me, you berk!"

"Yeah, I know." Zabini stares down at his hands for a second. "I was so upset about what you did to Harry that I didn't think about the consequences. But then I realized that the consequences would have been terrible, and that wasn't something Harry would have wanted me to do, either."

"Did he tell you to come and apologize to me?"

"No. He was—he was so hurt that he wasn't going to stop me. I just—wanted you to know. That I was wrong. And I'll stop."

Neville spends a moment studying Zabini. He isn't sure what to say. Well, he'll probably accept the apology, if only so that Zabini won't try to target him in the future, but…what do you say to someone who was actually trying to kill you?

Finally, he says, "You know that I have reason to believe Harry is the Heir of Slytherin?"

Something hot and furious flashes through Zabini's eyes for a moment, enough to make Neville take a step back. But all he says is, "I know."

"Then you knew about his Parseltongue?"

"Of course I knew."

Neville swallows back half the things he wants to say, but he lets a few of them spill out of his mouth. "Why did he tell you and not me? Did he not trust me? Was it just because you're a Slytherin and I'm a Gryffindor?"

Zabini spends a moment watching him in that unnerving way he has. Neville doesn't let himself shift from foot to foot, but he wants to.

"He didn't tell you because he was afraid that you would react negatively," Zabini says. "And I don't think that had much to do with your House. It had more to do with Parseltongue being a trait of the Dark Lord's, who's your mortal enemy. And look at what happened when you did find out."

Neville feels a bit of guilt, but he pushes it away. He's not going to feel that when Zabini tried to kill him and Harry was the one keeping secrets.

"He could have been the Heir of Slytherin. That's all. He could have."

"Harry is the same person he was last year—"

"Keeping secrets."

Zabini rolls his eyes. "Look, are you going to accept my apology or not? Honestly, I thought this would be more about me and what I did. Well, and Theo, I suppose, but he just went along with what I asked him to do because he didn't know the consequences would get this severe. Instead, you keep asking me about Harry."

"Harry was the one who was my friend."

"He's the same person he was last year," Zabini repeats. "If you're going to accuse him of being the Heir of Slytherin even now, and evil because he's a Parselmouth, I'll tell him that, and you can destroy any hope of recovering your friendship for good."

Neville closes his eyes. He doesn't know what to do. Nott and Harry are their two best suspects for the Heir of Slytherin.

But what if Harry's not?

Neville sighs and opens his eyes. "You don't have to tell him that. I'll—speak to him at some point."

Zabini just nods, not showing any surprise, and turns around to walk back towards the school. The sound-suppressing spells must have broken as he moved, because Neville can hear the wind and the lake again.

He turns back to sit down beside Ron and Hermione, wondering as he does if Harry would be able to explain himself to the three of them.

Blaise's stride lengthens once he gets far enough away from Longbottom. He resists the urge to smile too broadly, because that might not be subtle enough for Mother.

But he did it. He cast the sound-suppressing spell, and also the one Mother taught him, the one that will put strain on Longbottom's friendships and ultimately break them apart.

He chose Weasley and Granger over Harry? Then he can deal with the consequences of that choice.

The pipe is long and slimy, and Aradia has to cast Cleaning Charm after Cleaning Charm on herself as she comes out of it. She grimaces and then stares around the high, cold, watery room.

It seems that Salazar Slytherin designed this place to be a display for his statue and nothing else. Aradia expected more of the legendary Chamber of Secrets. Then again, since the pipe came directly into the room and was intended to let the basilisk out, but she doesn't see it now, maybe there's another room somewhere that does have more treasures and glory.

It doesn't matter.

Aradia reaches into her robe pocket. There is a shrunken trunk there, containing the rooster that she went out to buy as soon as she read Blaise's letter, then put to sleep and under a Stasis Charm. Now, she takes out the trunk and the rooster.

The bird shakes and flutters his feathers, glaring around the Chamber with a low noise in his throat.

Shadows stir on the far side of the Chamber.

Aradia smiles. She does hope the Heir is here, too, more than the faint traces of human scent she can smell. She wouldn't want them to miss any of the fun.