As wary as Lucy is of Dumbledore, she can't keep from feeling awed and almost giddy as she works alongside him. After their tiresome meeting, he put the school on lockdown and called for Professor Flitwick as backup. Lucy took the opportunity to change out of her pinafore and tights and into something more appropriate for climbing through ancient plumbing, a prospect that nearly had her crying at the thought alone. Between Lucy, Dumbledore, Flitwick, and the Black brothers, they manage to break into the Chamber of Secrets in just under three hours.
"Oh, parselmagic is everywhere. Any snake you see, whether it's a window latch or in the background of a portrait. It's fascinating," Lucy tells Regulus as the sink lowers into the bathroom floor.
Regulus hums thoughtfully. He's stripped down to his shirtsleeves for the expedition. Sirius had merely thrown his school robes onto the floor and demanded a hair tie.
"Slytherin must have been very well informed," Regulus says.
"I've always said he was a competent mix of Hagrid and Lucius. It was meant as a compliment, but Lucius never took it as such."
"He's always had a broom up his-"
"Sirius," Dumbledore protests, but it's half-hearted. He's too busy peering down into the massive sewer pipe to care much.
Lucy shudders. Five Hagrids could fit down that horrid thing.
"Do you think it's a tight fit? Or it has to room to wiggle around?"
Flitwick presses his lips together. "I suppose we'll find out. Albus, will you be going first?"
"If you could bring up the rear, I'll take point, Filius."
"Can't you do something about it?" Lucy asks nervously.
Dumbledore pauses, his right foot already resting on the ledge. She likes his boots. They're charcoal grey with a slight silver pattern swirling in the dim light. "Pardon?"
"It's just so...gross looking."
"That's what you're worried about?!" Sirius demands.
"It looks like snake goop!"
"Like that's anything new for you. I bet you lot bathe in it down in your dungeons."
"Like you aren't wallowing around in fur up in your cat tower."
Dumbledore suddenly vaults into the gaping pipe, his chortles echoing up long after his bright yellow wizard's hat disappears from view. They wait in tense silence until a silvery phoenix flies up above them, silently chirping before vanishing through the ceiling.
"Show off," Lucy mutters.
"Is your patronus corporeal?" Regulus asks curiously, raising his voice over Sirius's echoing whoops and laughter.
"Hardly ever and it takes a lot out of me. Is yours?"
"It depends on the day."
Lucy nods in understanding. She's much the same. Dark magic has consequences. Voldemort may be an extreme example, but he isn't an exaggeration. It takes something out of a person, changes something deep in one's soul. It's addicting. Empowering. Thankfully, Lucy has Ted to bring her back down from the high, to remind her of why she shouldn't give herself over. The first time she nearly lost herself, she couldn't stop thinking about Severus Snape. He didn't have anyone. He had no one and yet he still managed to pull himself out of the darkness.
"Lucy?" a soft voice asks.
She startles, glancing up to see that only her and Flitwick remain. It's odd having him here instead of towering Professor Snape. Disheartening. Even as a teen, he's more competent than half of the professors.
"Sorry, Professor."
It's too short of a walk to the sewer. She blanches at the unidentifiable liquids reflecting in her wandlight. Is there any point in killing a basilisk if she'll die soon after from a bacterial infection?
"Best to not think about it, Lucy."
Lucy sucks in a breath, nods, and hurls herself down into the shadows before she can hesitate any longer. It's the single worst experience of her life as Lucille Tonks. She'd rather face the magical python again. At this she could kill that. She can't do anything about the dizzying speed, the nauseating smell, or the wetness soaking through her jeans.
After eons of falling, she finally lands in a cradle of magic. She accepts Dumbledore's offered hand, then hurries to cast cleansing charms over her body as soon as he lifts her to her feet.
"Er, Professor?" She asks quietly.
"Hmm?"
"Would you mind getting my back? I'd ask Sirius, but..."
"Ah! Of course, of course. Turn around, my dear."
Lucy tries not to think about her past life. She never saw the point in it. When it does happen, its hardly ever wistful. It's more perplexing. Before, she'd been brunette and slender. Pretty, but not stunning like she is now. This time around, she's a Tonks. It wasn't just Ted's kind heart that caught Andromeda's eye. Beauty, Lucy has learned, is more of curse than anything else. It isn't just the students that watch when she walks past, that peer down her shirt when they get a chance. It's grown men, too. Wizards and muggles alike never seemed to care that she was only fourteen or fifteen or sixteen. She was there and that was enough. She's learned to be careful in how she acts and what she wears and asking an seventeen year old Sirius Black to charm her ass clean is a sure way of getting ogled.
"Thank you, Professor."
"Certainly. Ah, Filius, what a marvelous display."
Lucy spins around, but she only manages to catch Sirius's rowdy applause and Regulus's polite praise. Professor Flitwick takes the time to bow before he swishes his wand in broad circle. Bright light fills the dreary chamber, illuminating the innumerable skeletons on the floor. Regulus picks up a skull in the shape of a house elf's head.
"Oh dear," Dumbledore murmurs.
Sirius grunts noncommittally. "Shame it wasn't Kreacher.
Regulus's face darkens. "Brother-"
"A very brave man said something that's stuck with me for a long time," Lucy cuts in, shooting Sirius a stern look. "I don't remember the exact words, but the gist of it was that you can tell a man's character by how he treats his inferiors, not his equals. You, Sirius Black, are not very kind to those you consider beneath you."
Dumbledore eyes her appraisingly as Sirius drops his gaze to the smooth stone walls.
"Wise words, Miss Tonks," the headmaster says.
She nods almost absentmindedly, peering down the darkness. "He had his moments."
"Then I'm sorry for your loss, Lucy," Flitwick says as passes her to traverse deeper into the passage. The witchlight follows him, casting strange shadows on the piles of bones.
"He's not dead yet. Not if I have anything to say about it."
Their trek seems to last an eternity. Lucy grips her wand tight, trying to ignore the fearful sloshing around in her stomach. She isn't a Gryffindor. She isn't made for these haphazard adventures. She's a Slytherin. She wants plans for her plans and escape routes for her escape routes. The Chamber of Secrets only has one way in and one way out and a deadly creature at the heart of it all.
Eventually, Flitwick pulls up short. Dumbledore casts another spell, this light smaller and brighter. It hovers above the two professors, zipping this way and that as they look up and up and up at the shedded snakeskin.
"Jesus fucking Christ," Lucy curses. She knew it was big, but, "Jeeeesus fucking Christ!"
Sirius shoves past her to join the others, his handsome features glowing with wonder and zeal. Lucy lingers against the wall with her lips pressed into a thin line.
"You wanted to come kill that?"
Regulus stands close enough to press his arm against hers in a subtle show of comfort.
"It's asleep," she reminds him weakly.
"Let's hope it can die in its sleep."
Lucy sighs and forces herself to step forward. Regulus follows close on her heels, a warm presence at her back. The basilisk skin is dry and smooth against her palm and crumbles like thin parchment under her severing charm.
"What the fuck?!"
She shrugs as she passes it to Regulus, who banishes it somewhere. Knowing him, straight into Severus's lap.
"You could always give some to Lily," she reasons. "Or Potter. His father's a potioneer, isn't he?"
Sirius grumbles, but quickly cuts out his own large portions of molt. Dumbledore soon follows their example, casually chatting about Nicolas Flamel as though he were a friendly neighbor.
(Miles above, James Potter shrieks as a slimy piece of green snakeskin plasters itself to his face. Remus Lupin sniffs it, shudders, and opens the door to call for Lily, only to find her bounding up the boy's stairs, proclaiming her love for Sirius Black and sounding all too happy about a basilisk.)
(In the dungeons, a first year slowly backs away from a gleeful Severus Snape.)
They continue on after Flitwick collects a sample for his goblin relatives. Lucy asks him about goblin alchemy and magic in an attempt to soothe her nerves. It doesn't work. It only reminds her of Hufflepuff's goblet waiting in the heart of Gringotts. She fears stealing from the goblins more than she does breaking into Malfoy Manor.
One step at a time, Luce. One step at a time.
The entrance to the Chamber is simple enough to break through. It's compromised entirely of parselmagic wards. Her years of study have finally come to fruition, a fact not lost on Albus Dumbledore. He watches her with cold calculation, even as he helps untangle the weave of protective enchantments. Sirius, god bless him, does his best to defuse the tension by arguing with his little brother. Or at him, rather. Lucy always thought of Regulus's equanimity as a part of his unbalanced psyche. Now she wonders if it's only a result of growing up alongside Sirius Black.
Flitwick gives a little cheer as one of the stone snakes slithers away, allowing the door to creak open. The headmaster pushes through first, casting several spells before waving the rest of them through.
Her first thought is of the Lord of the Rings. The first movie, when they're in the underground city and the the drums begin a sinister rhythm. It looks just like that, only damp and tinged with green. Magic is heavy in the air. Not necessarily dark, just powerful and thick, like a humid summer day in the Deep South. Thick columns line the walls, wooden serpents both magical and mundane coiled threateningly around the stone. At the very end, a statue of an ugly wizard scowls out at the room with austere disdain.
Sirius is the first one to break the silence with a heartfelt, "What a git."
"It is an acquired taste," says Dumbledore, who is dressed in revolting yellow robes.
"Do your dungeons look like this?" Sirius asks incredulously.
"No," Regulus and Lucy answer as one.
"It's impressive magic for a wizard," Flitwick reasons, though he too is eyeing the statue with incredulity. "There's not a trace of goblin here."
"But why?!"
"Well, I'm sure controlling a basilisk did wonders for his ego," Lucy points out.
"I don't think I'd want to a basilisk," Regulus says thoughtfully, as he wanders over to examine one of the carved snakes.
"Bullshit."
"No, they're much too cumbersome. If I were a parselmouth, I'd bond with a black mamba. Quick, lethal, and on brand."
Flitwick regards Regulus with raised brows.
"Put some thought into it, have you?" Sirius spits.
"Silence, gentlemen," Dumbledore intones.
He waves his wand at the statue, revealing a nest of emerald wards blooming from Slytherin's mouth.
"If I conjure a broom, I may be able to fly up and transfigure his beard into a ledge of sorts. From there, Lucy can dismantle the wards while I retrieve the roosters. I suspect one crow will wake the basilisk from its slumber and the next will prove fatal."
"No need to conjure a broom, Professor," Lucy says, already digging in her bag.
"Is that from Vivienne Westwood's latest collection?"
"Yes, Regulus, it is."
"How exceedingly lovely. I've always admired her designs."
"Wait, didn't you tell me she's a muggle?" Sirius asks.
"Sure is," Lucy confirms.
She taps the broom to unshrink it, a Nimbus bought secondhand for situations just like this one, then passes it over to Dumbledore, who accepts it with a nod before kicking off and soaring into the air. Its an odd sight, Dumbledore on a broom. Not the first thing that comes to mind when his name is mentioned.
"How do you know who she is, then?!"
Regulus shoots Lucy a sly grin and a wink. "I'm a man of mystery."
"Don't you flirt with her."
"Why not? She's only our cousin."
Lucy bites back a groan. She glances over at Professor Flitwick. He has his back turned to them, his head tilted back to watch Dumbledore at work, but his shoulders are shaking suspiciously. The pronouncement, embarrassing though it is, leaves Sirius confounded into blessed silence.
"The landing is secure for whoever would like to summon the broom first," Dumbledore's voice suddenly calls.
Lucy goes first, seeing as it's her broom and fake vision. Dumbledore has merged several strands of Slytherin's hair to his bottom lip. Although fairly insulting and absolutely ridiculous, it's sturdy and wide enough for them all. She sends the broom back down with a flick of her wand before settling in to work on Slytherin's parselmagic.
Her nerves worsen with each thread she snaps. There's a basilisk, a real fucking basilisk, on the other side of the wall. So many things could go wrong. They could wake it up too soon, the roosters might not wake it up at all. Lucy could die. Sirius could die. Dumbledore could die, which would basically mean the end of Britain as she's ever known it.
"Lucille," a soft voice says, "your hands are shaking."
Lucy looks up to find Dumbledore peering over his spectacles with a grandfatherly gaze.
"My father always said shaking hands make for shoddy spellwork," he jests, his blue eyes twinkling.
Lucy chokes out a sob. She lowers her wand to wipe at her forehead, loose wisps of hair catching on her watch.
"Doesn't work on me, old man," she wheezes, struggling to breath past the pain in her chest.
"Fucking bleeding heart Gryffindors," a deep voice grumbles and then her vision is overtaken by a pristine white shirt.
Regulus Black casts a stinging hex, the sound of her startled cry ringing throughout the chamber. He grips her chin tightly and forces her to meet his icy gaze. She blinks rapidly, trying to make sense of the world through the sudden pain. Distantly, she's aware of Professor Flitwick struggling to ward off the others.
"Get yourself together, Tonks."
Indignant rage begins stir beneath all of the fear and despair, cocking it's head to better hear. Regulus squeezes her jaw. All of her wild thoughts narrows on to him.
"You're better than this. Since when is the great Lucy Tonks a blubbering fool?"
"I'm not a-"
"Then prove it," he hisses, shoving his face into hers. "You're supposed be the nastiest Slytherin to come to Hogwarts since the fucking Dark Lord. Get your shit together and act like it. He would laugh at you if he could see you know. Have you heard him laugh, Lucy? So high and cruel?"
"Fuck off, Regulus!" She pushes him off with a surge of hateful energy.
He staggers back with a wicked grin nearly splitting his face in two. Her heart speeds with every word he whispers until she's afraid it'll burst straight through her chest. She closes her eyes, taking deep breaths, trying to center herself around his deep voice.
"Hone it, Lucy. Think of him. Think of Violet. Think of Severus. Think of that sharp kind of his, that delicious power he works so hard to hide. Think of what he could do with. Think of all that he's capable of and think of what he will never be. Think of what they'll make him into, Lucy. Hone it. Sink it into your bones. Breathe it into your lungs. Hone it, Lucy, and we can make them bleed."
She opens her eyes. The air is cleaner. Her visions is sharper, the colors stark and bright. The magic isn't as suffocating and damp as it was before. Instead, it weighs down on her skin in the embrace a lover heavy with exhaustion and covered in sweat.
"There you are," he breathes.
Lucy doesn't pay him a bit of attention. He isn't important. None of them are. All that matters is the green threads of magic glowing in the dim light. Her wand is steady as she plucks them methodically, severing them one by one viciously. Something substantial grows in her chest with each flick of her wrist, a blacksmith folding steel in on itself over and over until a blade is formed.
Hone it.
The gate slides down in an ominous silence. Lucy holds out her other hand expectantly. When nothing happens, she looks over her shoulder.
"A rooster, gentlemen."
"Miss Tonks," Dumbledore says in the careful voice she's so used to (There you are.). "I will be going first. You may accompany me-"
"Headmaster, I don't think you understand. I am not a Gryffindor; I am a Slytherin. There are quite a few things I desperately want out of this life and I won't be able to have any of it if I'm dead. Believe me when I say that I will run out of here with my tail between my legs at the first sign of trouble. This is my kill. I've earned it."
Dumbledore holds her gaze with a frightening intensity. Soft tendrils brush against her mind. She grits her teeth, strengthening her shields against the oncoming attack. It never comes. Instead, Dumbledore waves his wand, conjuring of the roosters from the nearby crate into his empty arm. He offers it to her, a feathery, clucking olive branch.
"Thank you."
She cradles it to her chest and stalks off into the corridor.
All in all, it's rather anti-climatic. Nothing like the intense, heady rush she got from clearing the Gaunt shack. It's a simple as hexing a rooster and tossing it into a gaping well. The walls and floor shudder as something massive begins to move, but she's already thrown in the next bird Dumbledore spells through. It screeches indignantly, almost comically, before it's rancorous crow echoes off the round enclosure. The shuddering comes to an abrupt halt.
Flames appear from nowhere. At first, she assumes someone cast a spell, but then another bird materializes from the fire. Fawkes trills softly before plunging down in a scarlet blur. As though summoned, Dumbledore enters with the others quick on his heels. Everyone holds their breath until the phoenix flies back up to assure them that beast truly is dead.
She knows she shouldn't do it. She knows it's a stupid idea as soon as it comes to mind, but she's always been too curious for her own good.
Lucy sidles over to the lip and peers over the edge. A monolithic snake is curled in on itself, vivid green coils never-ending. It is impossibly, frighteningly, imperceptibly large.
A twelve year old fought that, she thinks. A twelve year old fought that and killed it.
After she's hurled and charmed her vomit away, Lucy sits down and wraps her arms around her legs. She watches the others as they work what comes next. The goblins will be called in to harvest the corpse and work out the finances. All very discreetly, of course.
"If the Dark Lord learns what has transpired here, all of our lives will be forfeit," Regulus says.
Sirius jolts to attention. "Right, then I'm flying down to get a fang."
Oh, Sirius, you wonderful, clever man.
"What?!"
"There's not much he can do against a basilisk fang, is there?"
"How do you plan on stabbing the Dark Lord with a basilisk fang?!"
"I don't," Sirius shrugs, "but it would still be..."
He trails off as Fawkes appears once more, this time clutching something in his talons. He drops the ratty brown bundle over Sirius's head, who catches it on instinct alone. Lucy jumps to her feet.
"Reach inside," she orders.
Sirius gapes down at the worn fabric in his hands. "What?!"
"That's the Sorting Hat. Reach inside!"
Dumbledore's eyes widen behind his half-moon spectacles. "Yes, Sirius! Quickly!"
"What the blithering fuck is going on?!" He cries, even as he shakes the Hat out and reaches in. He makes an aborted, shocked noise when his hand brushes against something inside. Sure enough, a gleaming silver sword is pulled out of the Hat.
Lucy hastily summons the broom and shoves it at Sirius. "Goblin-made silver absorbs whatever it touches. Stab the basilisk and it will imbibe itself-"
"With the venom! You're a genius, Lucy!"
He throws his leg over the broom and dives without a second thought.
Dumbledore turns to Lucy with a pensive expression. "Have you Seen that happen before?"
Lucy chews on her lip. "After, technically."
"Ah...You mentioned a twelve year old. Could you possibly tell us what was meant to happen?"
She sighs and looks up at the ceiling for some sort of sign. She hadn't meant to say that aloud. She's too tired and amped up to think it all through. Surely just knowing this one part wouldn't hurt. It might even make him trust her. He does love his Potters and his Gryffindors.
"In around twenty years, Lord Voldemort possesses a first year named Ginny Weasley to open the Chamber of Secrets. Eventually, she's taken down here and left to die. James Potters' son, Harry, comes down here with a professor and Ginny's brother to try and save her. They all get separated and twelve year old Harry Potter is forced to fight off a basilisk with only Fawkes and the Sorting Hat to help."
"And he killed it with the sword?!" Regulus asks incredulously.
"Stabbed it right through the roof of its mouth."
Dumbledore seems to have stopped functioning. He stares at Lucy with his mouth hanging open the slightest bit. I've killed a basilisk and broken Dumbledore, she thinks. I'm on a fucking roll tonight. Someone call for Voldemort while I'm at it.
"Does he live?" Flitwick asks gently.
"Fawkes cried for him," she shrugs.
Regulus shakes his head. "Cheeky little bugger, then."
A tired smile curves at Lucy's lips.
"Wanna hear something funny? The Hat wanted to put him in Slytherin, but he met Malfoy's son on the train and begged to go anywhere else."
Slowly, all four of them dissolve into laughter. When Sirius reemerges with bulging pockets and a bloodied sword, his grin dies into a petulant frown.
"What did I miss?"
Dumbledore makes them go to the Hospital Wing. In the dead of the night, Regulus sneaks past Lucy's partitions and lowers himself into the bedside chair.
"Do you think anyone will buy it?" He wonders.
The official story is that a cluster of acromantulas wandered onto the castle grounds. Sirius and Lucy were dueling, as they can often be caught doing, when the creatures attacked. Sirius was gravely injured in the fighting and Regulus was called in for a blood transfusion to flush out the venom. The castle was on lockdown while Dumbledore and Flitwick scoured the grounds to ensure that no other creatures had escaped the Forest.
"It's just unbelievable enough to be true."
"More believable than the truth."
They sit in a companionable silence, listening to Sirius's breathing two beds over.
"Thank you for earlier," she says softly.
He waves his hand dismissively. "It's my job as the King."
"You're good at it."
"Not as good as you could be, I imagine. The mantle should have passed to you."
"King Lucy," she muses. The words don't taste right. It's never been about power for her. "I'd be terrible. I don't have the patience to care for the children."
"Neither do I. I send them to Slughorn."
Lucy huffs a laugh. Regulus may be half mad, but he's clever and capable and so strong...
"Regulus..."
She rolls around in the bed to peer up at him. The moonlight illuminates his pale skin and darkness his hair and the shadows in his face. He looks like a painting.
"I don't know if I like that tone," he says, eyeing her just as baldly.
"If you needed information about muggle London, how would go about getting it?"
He furrows his manicured brows. "I would probably ask Severus."
"No, I mean something specific. Too specific for magic to find."
"Then I would definitely ask Severus."
"And if it was a secret? Something you didn't trust Severus with?"
"Then I'd hire a muggle to do it for me and obliviate them after."
"You'd..." Lucy trails off, her jaw dropping. "You'd just hire someone?!"
"Why ever not?"
"You rich Tory bastard," she whispers in awe.
One side of his mouth pulls up in a smirk. "It's a good thing you just came into a basilisk of a fortune, isn't it?"
Lucy smirks back. "Do you think they can make basilisk boots?"
"I'll arrange it if I get my own."
"Done," she says, holding out her hand.
"Done," he agrees, shaking it.
And because he's a Slytherin, because he's a Black, he pushes a little power through his skin to seal it in magic.