Chapter 42 - Questions

Harry threw a worried glance across the library aisle at Iris. She was still reading her book. But also, she kind of looked half-asleep. Had she stayed up the whole night again training? He was a bit concerned about her lately. Yes, she seemed to have grown a lot, actually, rapidly so. He was pretty sure she could probably take on their whole year at this point. But also, he couldn't help but worry. With how deep she had thrown herself into her studies and training, he worried for her health. And also, although he didn't like to admit it, but the more she had grown, the more annoying she had gotten about him staying safe, even insisting on accompanying him to the most pointless of tasks. He loved her to bits, but sometimes, it was a bit suffocating.

But that wasn't the main thing on his mind right now. Rather, it had been today's revelation at Hagrid's hut. How on earth had the heir managed to petrify the roosters? He supposed it made sense that whoever it was had originally killed them, but... How did he get the basilisk all the way out there without being seen? And also, how did he get the basilisk close enough to them? Didn't Lockhart say that a basilisk would avoid roosters at all costs? It just wasn't making any sense.

He guessed that was probably what Iris was looking up right now. Or, who knew, maybe she had found yet another way to make a laughing-stock of her dueling partners.

Speaking of, he wondered what had happened with Malfoy. He had seen him at lunch today, so he wasn't expelled apparently, but he also hadn't quite seemed the epitomy of happiness, either.

"Hiya, Harry!"

Harry looked to his side and noticed that a wild Tracey had appeared. He gave a warm smile back. "Hi, Tracey."

"Wanna go and do something fun while Miss Future-Dark-Lord over there is busy?"

Harry shot her a flat look in reply. "That's my sister you're talking about."

"Hey, I blame Theo. You can only hear a nickname so many times before it sticks," Tracey replied with a grin.

"...Sure, anything fun in particular?"

"You ever heard of a little something called Truth or Dare?"

Harry blinked. That was about the last thing he had expected. He knew about the game from TV, but he had never played it.

"Don't you kind of need... more people to play that?"

"Not necessarily!" chirped Tracey, as she plopped herself down across from him.

"Alright then, Harry. Truth or Dare?"

"Uhm... Dare?" Harry began reluctantly.

Tracey pouted. "You're no fun."

Harry just gave a sheepish shrug.

"Alright, fine. I dare you to... go up to Madam Pince's desk, and if she's not there, transfigure her book index to look like one of her quills."

Harry's eyes widened. What? But also, that sounded... kind of hilarious. He shot Tracey a dubious look.

"What? Scared?" Tracey gave an infuriating smirk.

Fine. He'd wipe that smirk off her face. Harry drew his wand, and began to make his way towards the desk. And as luck would have it, Madam Pince was indeed absent. So, with a glance around to check if the coast was clear, he approached, aimed his wand, and—hesitated.

What on earth was he doing? What if someone- no. That challenging grin from Tracey once again flashed in his mind, and drowned out the voice of reason, that was usually reserved for Iris' antics.

He took a look at the assortment of quills on her desk, then pictured one of them within his mind, swished his wand, and spoke the words.

Only once the sheet of parchment had completely assumed quill-shape, he relented. Bolting back through the aisles, he collapsed opposite Tracey, and gave a victorious grin. "Done. You next. Truth or Dare?"

"I suppose it's only fair. Dare," declared Tracey.

Harry gave her a gleeful grin. "Go up to Madam Pince's desk, and if she's back, ask her for a quill."

Tracey gasped. Harry just raised an eyebrow, but was unrelenting. Finally, Tracey pouted. "Fine. I got this."

And she did indeed. Only one minute later Tracey returned back to their spot victoriously clutching a quill—but sadly not the one Harry had transfigured.

"Was that it?" she asked.

"Nope. That's a different one."

"Phew!" Tracey sagged in relief. "Alright, Harry. Truth or Dare?"

Harry gave her a determined grin and confidently replied, "Truth!"

Tracey didn't even hesitate for a second. "Have you ever kissed a girl?"

Luckily, before he could even start to get flustered, his mind had come up with a way out. With a fond glance across the aisle, he replied "Of course."

Tracey followed his gaze and facepalmed as she spotted Iris. "Fine. Well played, Harry."

In reply, he just grinned back. "Truth or Dare, Tracey?"

The girl smiled back and all but chirped "Truth!"

"Are you the Heir of Slytherin?"

Tracey blinked. "What?"

Harry just raised an eyebrow.

The girl quickly caught herself, and replied, "Hate to disappoint, Harry. Nope. Your turn."

It was worth a shot. Iris had told him that Tracey was the only one who knew about the thing she had discovered, but he hadn't really believed it anyway.

"Truth again," Harry replied.

"How on earth did you not go insane or run away growing up with Iris?"

Harry managed a chuckle, but in reality his mind had taken a dark turn. It was probably a valid question, had their circumstances been different. But in face of their relatives, he couldn't really find it in him to appreciate the joke. Of course that wasn't fair to Tracey, she wouldn't know anything about that. He had never told anyone about his relatives, and he didn't think Iris would, either.

"Because despite all the times she does something harebrained or outright impossible that makes me question what's left of my sanity, when it really counts, she always somehow comes through," he said, with a fond smile. "Also, at least, it never gets boring."

Tracey giggled. "Too true. Although there might be such a thing as too exciting."

"Try telling Iris that," Harry replied with a smirk.

"Try telling Iris what?" came a slightly too sweet voice from his side, that made him freeze in place.

Luckily, Tracey managed to come to his rescue. "Iris! Your turn! Truth or Dare?"

Iris blinked at the question, and Harry suppressed a chuckle. It hadn't even been Tracey's turn, but he'd be stupid to point that out right now.

"Oooh, I've heard of that game, that sounds fun!" Iris gushed in reply.

"You know how the game works?" asked Tracey.

"Uh, I think so?" Iris replied hesitantly.

Tracey grinned back. "Great! Truth or Dare?"

"Truth," chirped Iris with an excited nod of her head.

"Do you think Harry has a girlfriend?"

You could literally hear a pin drop in the wake of that question. Harry hadn't known it was possible to feel the exact color of his skin until this very moment. Why would she ask that?! And why ask Iris? His eyes were darting about, unsure where to look, because it wasn't like he could look at either of them right now. His gaze escaped to a portrait of what looked like an elderly tailor, who was currently picking said pin back up.

"Hmm... I don't think so?" replied Iris finally. "Or do you, Harry?" she continued with a grin

"Hey, she asked you!" replied Harry indignantly. The moment stretched a bit more and Harry just hoped they would finally move on with this question. "I guess so. Well, I don't know then. So... Harry."

Harry swallowed. Iris stepped closer to him with a gleam in her eyes. "Truth or Dare?"

Damn it all to hell. He knew he was going to pay for talking about Iris behind her back. Would she ask about what he was talking about? Or would she try for another embarrassing question just like Tracey? Maybe to get back at them both? There was no way he was walking into that bear trap.

"Dare," he replied quickly.

The glint in her eyes redoubled and he couldn't help but feel like he had just made a giant mistake. The girl stepped up to him with a grin, crossed her arms, and pushed up imaginary glasses.

"Very well, Harry," she purred, stretching out his name. "I dare you to..."

His eyes were entrapped by the pointed finger spelling out his certain doom. What kind of crazy dare would she come up with? Jump off the astronomy tower with a parachute? Cast a prank spell at Snape? Deliver pizza to Dumbledore's office?

"...go and kiss Tracey."

He swore to God that tailor was doing it on purpose. Also. What.

No. There was no way she had said that, was there? Iris didn't even care about stuff like that, why would she...

His red-faced gaze found her victorious one and it dawned on him. This was payback. She didn't actually want them to kiss; she was convinced that he wouldn't do it. She just wanted to embarrass him even more as he tried to find a way out of this.

He slowly turned to meet Tracey's expression, but instead of the gleeful grin from before, he found her similar to how he assumed his own face was looking like right now.

Well played, Iris. But he wouldn't give up that easily. No. Instead, he was going to turn it around on her. He was going to do the one thing she would expect the least—exactly what she had asked.

Steeling his resolve, he slowly got to his feet, causing a gasp from Iris and Tracey's eyes to widen. He took a step, then another, until he was finally standing right before Tracey, who was looking at him like a deer caught in the headlights. Harry suppressed a grin, while also trying to keep the blush off his face. This was payback.

He slowly held out a hand, his palm facing up, and shot Tracey an expectant look. He could practically hear Iris holding her breath behind him. After several seconds of hesitation, she put her hand into his, and let him pull her to shaky feet, now blushing to high heaven. "Harry?"

He smiled, then bowed down, raised up his hand, drawing hers with it, and in a pale imitation of how he had seen all the purebloods do it, brushed her knuckles against his lips.

"Aww, you two are just too cute!" came a giggle from behind him, which finally caused Harry to break out of his flimsy facade of courage and blush yet again.

Before Harry even realized that it was now his turn, Iris spoke up again. "Well, that's been great, but I gotta go. You kids have fun!"

And with that, she turned and skipped out of the aisle, her book still clutched in her hand.

~V~

Iris still thought that this room was kind of weird, but if nothing else, it was convenient. It seemed to contain all different kinds of things that she or Myrtle would need for their practice sessions, and once Myrtle had showed it to her, it somehow seemed to always be around the corner. That was a magic castle for you, she guessed. Still not as confusing as her common room, but also not far off either.

She dodged another red spell cast from one of the metal magic automatons that seemed to be designed to look like Darth Vader, grinned as she reached for the sizzling bolt of magic, and gave it a nudge. She couldn't outright bend spells like she could with regular light, there seemed to be a lot more resistance, but she had found she could slightly nudge them in certain directions. Not enough to prevent spells from hitting her directly, but sometimes, a nudge was all that was needed.

The spell continued past her and struck the second dueling Vader behind her, causing its wand to come flying and spin towards the other side of the room.

"Uuhhh! Well done!" gushed Myrtle, seemingly excited that her idea had worked.

Another Depulso took care of the first Vader on wheels as well, who tried to shield it to no avail. Iris flashed a grin at Myrtle, then turned to head for the door again.

"Come to think of it, what else could you do with your Light powers? Maybe there's another way to use bending light in combat?"

Myrtle seemed to be almost scrambling now, apparently even the ghost was running out of concrete ideas at some point. Iris had realized that especially when she'd try to leave, the ghost would often come up with another awesome idea for her to try. Perhaps she really was just that lonely. But that didn't stop Iris from doing exactly that in order to get the ghost to divulge something new again and again. Yeah, it was probably manipulative, but sue her; it was for Harry.

At least the ghost was so busy with her magic that she seemed to have finally given up on asking her annoying stuff like how she was doing all the time. Iris was getting enough of that from her friends, she didn't need the nosy girl to poke into her business as well.

"How do you mean, like for blinding people?"

"Well, either that, but I was more thinking about the aspects directly. Like, the biggest weakness to the way you cast is probably that you need to build up the aspects of the more powerful spells—especially with mono-aspect spells—to a certain level before you cast. What if you could somehow pull that aspect from somewhere else? Like an incoming spell, for example..."

Yep, she had done it again. That sounded awesome, and she had to try it now.

"But in order to do that, you'd need to disassemble the spell in mid-air. And that's easier said than done. First, you need to know the exact spell coming at you, next you need a very deep and thorough understanding of the spell, and then you'd need to pull the spell itself apart. This can be done given enough skill and practice, and it's maybe the most energy efficient method of defending a spell that you can't dodge, but it is really hard to do. But, I suspect that if you can somehow pull it off, you'd then be able to re-use the aspects contained within the spell."

Okay, maybe not as easy as she had thought at first. But maybe, she had a shortcut there.

"Hang on, maybe let's look into this later, I've got another idea."

She didn't have to disassemble a spell to get the aspect, if she could simply draw it from somewhere else entirely. And there was no need to take it from your opponent, if you could just store it beforehand yourself. And she had just the thing for that.

Iris reached into her collar and withdrew the chain, until the pendant was revealed.

"Oh, that's a neat idea! That might just work!"

Iris raised an eyebrow. Had the girl been watching her use her mirror trap before? That ghost really had no concept of privacy.

Iris held the dodecahedron in her left hand, turned it translucent, and then began filling it up with the bright blue of the Force aspect.

Once it was glowing just as bright as her orb usually was, she turned the pendant reflective and the light cut out. Then, she held out her wand, and attempted to draw blue light, but this time from the pendant.

Except, of course it wasn't working. Iris frowned, turned the pendant translucent again, and repeated her attempt. This time, things were definitely happening. A glowing wisp of blue almost seemed to flow out of the dodecahedron and into her wand, and within a second, it was glowing at full brightness.

"Depulso!"

With an excited shout, she cast her spell, which resulted in a blast of blue light that slammed the disarmed Vader against the stone wall and shattered it into hundreds of parts.

Iris turned back at Myrtle and grinned. "Who'd have thought potions could be that useful?" the ghost quipped.

Iris smirked back "Don't let Snape hear you say that; he might just find a way to kill you again."

With that, she turned towards the door, and sadly, this time, Myrtle didn't attempt to keep her with yet another awesome idea. But she guessed she still had loads to work on anyway.

She left the room and returned right back to the library, where she met back up with Harry.

"Hey, Iris, you just missed Tracey," he said with a smile.

"Oh, Tracey was-"

Iris was interrupted by a high-pitched scream the likes of which could only have been produced by a teenage girl in high distress. Yeah, she supposed she was one of those too—well, almost, —but she wouldn't be caught dead screaming like that.

Iris whirled around, and ran back down the aisles towards the source of the noise. Turning the final corner, she was met with the sight of two familiar girls. Although, she didn't think she had ever seen them together before.

Short black hair, bright blue eyes and a terrified expression on a face she had rarely seen, despite her vows to the contrary. Her old roommate Lily, who had obviously been the one to scream, was standing a small distance away from the other girl. The other girl was somehow even more familiar, even though she had only gotten to know her recently. Flaming red hair and a freckled face on a girl wearing Gryffindor robes. Her face was frozen in shock.

And Iris had a sinking feeling that that wouldn't be changing any time soon.

"G-Ginny?"

Iris turned to see Luna, who had just entered the aisle behind her, and was now staring wide-eyed.

"B-but we were just... she was just with me... not even a minute ago..."

Iris felt a shiver run down her spine. This was recent. And this meant- Without a word, Iris bolted towards the entrance and stopped in front of the librarian who had come running to see what the commotion was all about.

"Madam Pince! Has anyone entered or left within the last few minutes?"

The aged librarian blinked and looked at her. "Why, only Miss Davis, I believe..."

Iris narrowed her eyes. "That means the Heir of Slytherin could still be here."

The woman's eyes widened, but to her credit, she acted immediately. A snap of her wand, and the one and only entrance and exit to the library slammed shut with a resounding bang.

"Madam Pince, listen to me. Professor Lockhart told us that there's a very real chance that the monster is a basilisk. And if the heir is here, the monster might also be. So whatever you do, don't look directly into its eyes," Iris said and withdrew a set of reflective sunglasses that Lockhart had procured for them, and handed one of them to the librarian, while she donned the other one.

"Gilderoy... oh my. Here?" Madam Pince stuttered, seemingly completely out of her depth, but she did put on the glasses without complaint. Luckily, evoking Lockhart's name had cut through any questions or mistrust hailing from the fact she was a student from the start.

Turning, she saw Harry approach, sporting an identical pair as well already.

"Ginny... she was-"

"Can you hear it?" interrupted Iris.

"Hear what?" replied Harry, confused.

"The basilisk! Is it still here?"

Harry probably blinked behind his sunglasses. "Well, no. I'd have said something already."

"Right, you didn't even hear it during the attack?"

Harry just shook his head.

"Alright, that's... odd..." Iris pondered for a moment.

They began to move through the library, handing out sunglasses and taking stock of all the current residents.

The only other people in the library seemed to be a pair of older Hufflepuff boys, who had been with each other the whole time, and a seventh year Slytherin girl, who had been helping out Madam Pince. Apparently, most students didn't have a free period currently. Other than that, only the people who had already seen the incident had been here. So unless the heir somehow had a secret way out of the library, or managed to sneak past Madam Pince, it had to be one of them.

Lily had been there, and come to think of it, she had been there for the first attack as well. But... back then, she had managed to mostly rule her out, simply based on the direction she had come from. But then again- What if Dumbledore had been right? What if the artifact was not destroyed after all, and what if someone else now had it?

No, actually, that made a shocking amount of sense. So far, all the other attacks could have either been explained by Pureblood dogma, or by strategy. The first had been Filches cat, and Filch was a squib, at least, that was the rumor. Also, that cat had been a nuisance par none, like it had a sixth sense of finding anything or anyone out and about breaking rules, probably including the heir. Afterwards, two Muggleborns had been attacked. Next, Lupin had been attacked. Lupin wasn't Muggleborn, but he was a werewolf. And, well, he was a werewolf. He had been able to smell the basilisk. And the heir had gotten rid of him to avoid being detected. And the same logic applied to the roosters, they were a threat to the basilisk as well.

But the same couldn't be said for Ginny. She was a pureblood, and in no way a threat to either the heir or the basilisk. That was, unless the artifact had actually been related to the heir, and the heir was afraid of Ginny divulging his secrets.

This almost confirmed the theory that it had been Ginny attacking people up until Christmas, which meant that now, it could be anyone. Well, almost anyone. If they knew what she knew, they'd recognize some artifact trying to get them to open their feelings to him, and having blackouts whenever the attacks occurred, the way Ginny had described it. So Harry was definitely out. And Tracey...

Well, she really hadn't told her all too much about what had been going on, had she? But she had been there when Ginny told them about her experience, right?

Thinking back, no, she hadn't. She had shown up right afterwards, so she might have missed Ginny explaining all that.

Other than Tracey... Lily was out because...

Actually, no. If the artifact had changed hands, the original reason why it couldn't be Lily was also invalid. Well, damn.

And finally, there was Luna. She had never even considered Luna, to be fair, and she had no idea if she had been near any of the attacks- No, again. None of that was relevant anymore. But wait, no, Luna had been there when Ginny had explained her experience, and the two were friends, she probably knew more about it than anyone. So Luna was probably safe. Not to mention, as their prime conspiracy nut, she'd probably smell a nefarious plot several kilometers upwind.

That meant, unless they were working as a team, it was very likely that it was either Lily, or... Tracey.

And technically Luna, but that was unlikely. And Harry. But there was no way it was Harry.

"When exactly did you say Tracey left?"

Harry turned to look at her with a strange expression. "Uh... just a few minutes ago, why?"

"Did you notice anything when she left?"

He didn't reply but-

His face had taken a slight tinge of red. "You think it could be her?" he exclaimed incredulously. "Well it isn't! I already asked her."

Well, that only proved that Tracey hadn't knowingly done it, with the way Harry's bullshit-detector worked. Not that there was any chance of Tracey doing something like that on purpose anyway.

But- wait. Maybe Harry's intuition could help narrow it down from the other side? The other main suspect was right here. Iris turned to look back over at Lily, who was still torn somewhere between panic and despair.

"Harry? Why don't we... have a talk with Lily? See if she's experiencing something... maybe like Ginny described?"

His eyes widened and he nodded, and together they made their way over to approach her old roommate, who seemed to have flinched when Iris mentioned her name. Since Lily seemed to still hold some animosity towards her, she let Harry take the lead.

"Uh, hello, you're Lily, right?" Harry began carefully, removing his glasses to look at the girl.

The girl sniffled, threw a glance in his direction and eeped.

"Are... you alright?"

Lilly looked like she wanted to answer, but in the end, all she managed was to further shrink into herself.

Harry took a single step closer and then stopped, giving her a gentle smile. "I'd like to ask you a few questions, so we can figure out what happened here. Is that alright with you?"

She didn't agree, but she didn't deny him either. But the way Harry worked, he didn't need a reply anyway.

"Do you remember what happened?" he asked simply, causing the girl to flinch.

It looked like they had been right on the money. There definitely was something there.

"You don't? None of it?" Lily still didn't reply, but Harry just continued on. "Does... that happen a lot to you? That you... can't remember?"

There was a stretch of silence, until finally, she nodded.

"Maybe... around the time of the attacks?"

"I... m-maybe?"

Iris looked up and saw someone else approaching. Madam Pince had returned, and this time, she was accompanied by a serious looking Lockhart, wearing identical sunglasses.

"What's going on?" he asked as he approached the group, then turned an expectant gaze upon Iris.

"There was an attack, only a few minutes ago. And the only one who entered or left according to Madam Pince was Tracey. Also, well..." Iris explained in a hushed voice, then turned to gesture towards Harry and Lily.

"Did you encounter... an artifact, anything or anyone that was somehow communicating with you, talking with you, trying to get you to expose your feelings to him?"

Lily was shooting him a helpless look. "Not... not like, I... Well-" Somehow, she didn't manage an answer to that, seeming increasingly distressed by this particular line of questioning. Harry decided not to push.

"But you said... You can't remember some things, what did you mean exactly?" Harry asked with concern.

"I... I-" Lily stammered, but just shot a fearful look at her, then at Lockhart, but didn't reply.

Lockhart stepped up to her, removed his glasses as well, and flashed her a warm smile. "Miss Moon. We are here to figure out what's wrong, to help you. But we can only do that, if you tell us everything that's going on. I swear to you that it shall not become public knowledge."

The girl swallowed, but finally began to talk. "First it was... just waking up in strange places, or ending up somewhere and I couldn't remember how I got there, but then I kept... I kept losing entire days... I'd wake up and it was suddenly Wednesday, when I was sure it should be Tuesday, and apparently, I had even been to class the day before but I can't remember anything about it..."

"When did that start?" Harry asked, concerned.

The girl looked like she was attempting to sink into the floor.

"...About... a year ago?" was the meek reply.

Harry turned to look at Iris, and his expression mirrored her own. What? Everything had lined up with what Ginny had said, but then-

"It started happening more and more, especially this year, and maybe I think also every time there was an attack, and I... and I... I wanted to tell someone, to... I don't know, but whenever I wanted to go and tell someone about it, I'd just—"

The girl was breathing deeply, unable to finish her sentence, and when she finally looked back up, something... something was-

Her tear-filled deep blue eyes shimmered in the light of the oil-lamps and she took a deep breath. "I... I don't know. Please! It wasn't me! I'd never do something like this! You have to believe me!"

That caused Harry to frown, which in turn caused Iris' eyes to widen. Something was off. Harry wasn't buying it for some reason. Also, something was different... somehow.

But... the one thing that had stuck in her mind was the fact that she had claimed that it had been happening for a year now. If the artifact that Ginny used to have was the cause, that couldn't be true. Ginny hadn't even been at Hogwarts back then.

Suddenly, Lockhart gasped next to her. "No! That... that couldn't possibly..."

Iris and Harry both turned to shoot him a nervous look, but he was already gathering himself. "Mister and Miss Potter, both of you, come with me, now."

Iris' eyes met Harry who looked just as baffled as her. What on earth had he just realized? Was it something he only wanted to tell them? Why? But she knew better than to protest. If this was about the heir, every second counted.

She nodded, and Harry nodded back, and with that they were off, past a befuddled Madam Pince who reluctantly opened the door for them. Lockhart kept setting a brisk pace, Harry and Iris running after him, turning corridor after corridor.

"Where are we going? What's going on, Professor?"

"No time to explain, come on!" he simply replied.

Iris exchanged a glance with Harry, and kept going. Instead, she decided to ask Harry what had just happened.

"What was that about? The last thing she said? You reacted as if-"

"I don't know," he replied, frowning. "Something was off. One of the things she said definitely was a lie. But I'm not sure what, or why."

"What about the part where she said it has been happening for over a year?"

"No, I believe that part," Harry replied confidently.

"But then... then it couldn't have been her, right? The only reason to attack Ginny now would be for the heir to cover his tracks," Iris explained.

"I don't know. Something is definitely off about her. But she might not have been the one attacking people. I'm not sure."

It really said something about how messed up the situation was when Harry wasn't even sure about his gut feelings.

Lockhart turned another corner, then slowly came to a stop, looking confused.

"Sir? Where are we going?" asked Iris again.

"I... I just needed to..." Lockhart replied hesitantly.

"Just needed to what?" echoed Harry.

Lockhart returned a sheepish smile and ruffled his hair.

"Well... that's embarrassing. I've completely forgotten! Silly me."

A/N: And the mystery is on. Place your bets now.

Lockhart: *stops smiling and adopts serious expression* Don't worry. We will make sure that this heir…

Lockhart: *puts his sunglasses back on* …inherits a cell in Azkaban.

*Won't Get Fooled Again starts playing*