"ᴀɴᴅ, ꜰᴏʀ ᴛʜᴏᴜ ᴡᴀꜱᴛ ᴀ ꜱᴘɪʀɪᴛ ᴛᴏᴏ ᴅᴇʟɪᴄᴀᴛᴇ
ᴛᴏ ᴀᴄᴛ ʜᴇʀ ᴇᴀʀᴛʜʏ ᴀɴᴅ ᴀʙʜᴏʀʀᴇᴅ ᴄᴏᴍᴍᴀɴᴅꜱ,
ʀᴇꜰᴜꜱɪɴɢ ʜᴇʀ ɢʀᴀɴᴅ ʜᴇꜱᴛꜱ, ꜱʜᴇ ᴅɪᴅ ᴄᴏɴꜰɪɴᴇ ᴛʜᴇᴇ,
ʙʏ ʜᴇʟᴘ ᴏꜰ ʜᴇʀ ᴍᴏʀᴇ ᴘᴏᴛᴇɴᴛ ᴍɪɴɪꜱᴛᴇʀꜱ
ᴀɴᴅ ɪɴ ʜᴇʀ ᴍᴏꜱᴛ ᴜɴᴍɪᴛɪɢᴀʙʟᴇ ʀᴀɢᴇ,
ɪɴᴛᴏ ᴀ ᴄʟᴏᴠᴇɴ ᴘɪɴᴇ, ᴡɪᴛʜɪɴ ᴡʜɪᴄʜ ʀɪꜰᴛ
ɪᴍᴘʀɪꜱᴏɴᴇᴅ ᴛʜᴏᴜ ᴅɪᴅꜱᴛ ᴘᴀɪɴꜰᴜʟʟʏ ʀᴇᴍᴀɪɴ
ᴀ ᴅᴏᴢᴇɴ ʏᴇᴀʀꜱ; ᴡɪᴛʜɪɴ ᴡʜɪᴄʜ ꜱᴘᴀᴄᴇ ꜱʜᴇ ᴅɪᴇᴅ
ᴀɴᴅ ʟᴇꜰᴛ ᴛʜᴇᴇ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ, ᴡʜᴇʀᴇ ᴛʜᴏᴜ ᴅɪᴅꜱᴛ ᴠᴇɴᴛ ᴛʜʏ ɢʀᴏᴀɴꜱ."
— ꜱʜᴀᴋᴇꜱᴘᴇᴀʀᴇ, ᴛʜᴇ ᴛᴇᴍᴘᴇꜱᴛ
Chapter Sixteen: The Abyss Stares Into You
The first sensation in fifty years was one of excruciating pain.
He welcomed it.
It felt like being born again.
The first breath of air was infinitely painful. It felt like a thousand knives slicing into his lungs and throat. He tried to hold his breath but couldn't. The pounding in his head was unbearable, but with every forced breath he drew, his mind felt clearer.
As his sanity returned and the pain receded, he began to cry. Laying in the fetal position in an inch of filthy water, bawling. But unlike the crying that he had been doing for the last fifty years, these were tears of absolute joy and relief at every breath he took. His right hand scrabbled at the solid stone floor underneath him as he was overcome with a sense of overwhelming gratitude.
He was alive.
He was outside of the diary.
He was in his body again.
This realization made him cry even harder.
He gasped as he cried and nearly choked on the snot running down his face and the filthy water in his mouth. He sniffed.
He didn't remember his breathing or his heartbeat being so loud. They were nearly deafening after an eternity of silence.
His skin itched and ached.
And the shock... the sudden shock of seeing something else but endless white.
The light was thankfully dim; soft and colourful, so unlike the searing white that felt etched inside his eyeballs. Seeing felt strange, and he closed his eyes reflexively to shut it out completely.
He pulled himself up into a sitting position. It felt awkward.
He opened his eyes slightly, so that he could peek out under his eyelashes, since he disliked the darkness of having his eyes closed. Something dripped down his face, and he put a hand to his head. His fingers came away stained red and slightly sticky.
Blood. He must have hit his head on something, or maybe cut himself on the rubble.
Blood. There was blood everywhere.
I'm in the Chamber. He did not know where the thought came from. The Chamber of Secrets. At Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
The sound of speech made him turn before he could finish attempting to understand this.
One of the shadows in front of him, some object blocking light from reaching his eyes. He squinted at it, watching the silhouette turn into a small person in black robes.
"Who are you?" demanded the person.
He cleared his throat. His tongue felt like a lump of lead in his mouth, and his mind felt hollow. He struggled to speak.
I am... I am a wizard... My name is... I don't know what it is...
He'd never imagined talking could require so much effort. The words fell into place in his mind, but his muscles had forgotten how to form syllables and his tongue and lips were heavy and disobedient.
His voice felt alien. The way it rattled in his ribcage when he spoke was unnerving.
"I... I..."
The breath caught in his throat, lodged like a stone, and he choked.
What time is it? she asked, in the aftermath of the strange surge of magic that had ripped through her, and seemingly, through the corpse before her.
At least Hephaestus seemed unhurt, although he was glaring at her as he groomed himself, his fur standing on end as if he'd just stuck his paw into a socket.
Just past three. Witching hour.
The boy breathed. His chest strained under the weight of his newborn lungs as he sobbed to the heavens; full, bloodless lips parting, eyes bright.
Consumed by the ancestral fear of all that is lovely beyond usual human possibility, Ruby drew back.
He had not been quite so nice to look at when he was dead. And now he was not dead, though Ruby wasn't sure if he was alive, iether.
She glanced at him again, just to be sure that he had no sealskin nor silver necklace nor seaweed in his hair. Hagrid had frightened them all with his stories of water-dwelling creatures. Ron, in particular, was convinced he'd seen something large and dark in the Black Lake that was not the Giant Squid.
Though dark-haired, pale, and seal-eyed, he was no sea-selkie nor kelpie to be afraid of.
And besides, she always told herself that she was not the kind of girl to get shy and giggly, even around older boys. After all, she was a witch, and witches themselves were creatures to be afraid of, so she stepped closer.
"Hello," she said, haltingly, and not sure whether it would mean anything to him. "My name's Ruby Potter."
He looked at her with unfocused, watery eyes, still struggling for breath.
"Who are you?" she demanded.
He coughed and stammered; it was seemingly impossible for him to speak.
Suddenly, he cupped a hand to his mouth, as if to hold something back, then leaned forward, spewing brackish, almost inky water.
Ruby jumped back, but it still splashed her shoes. She frowned at him, wriggling her toes uncomfortably in her cold, wet socks.
How was he supposed to help the situation when he could barely even breathe? She had gone into this shady alchemical ritual expecting the help of someone capable, not this sobbing, incoherent boy who didn't even know his name.
Tee must have lied to her out of sheer desperation, if nothing else. Furious, Ruby clutched at the sodden diary as if it, instead, might hold the answer to her woes; but she could tell it was an ordinary book again; the fact that the pages were soaked was proof of it.
She opened it, but the ancient pages ripped. Any information in it was useless; the ink had reappeared and had all ran together.
He'd died already, so he must be a ghost. Or something undead. Perhaps a vampire? Lavender might know.
Ruby let go of the diary, and it fell to the floor with a quiet thunk. Useless. Just like him.
"You're not a very talkative ghost," said Ruby, to fill the silence. "Not like Myrtle — d'you know Moaning Myrtle? Haunts the second-floor girls' bathroom. Very sensitive, cries all the time — but don't tell her I said that, it'll make her upset."
She uttered a shriek as a warm hand suddenly placed itself on her shoulder, and the boy got to his feet, towering above her by easily a foot.
For the first time, he looked down at her with focused eyes, and spoke as he gripped her shoulder for balance, in a quiet voice that was both higher and softer than she was expecting.
"Fascinating..."
His chest seemed to rise and fall more evenly now. The blood had returned to his face, staining his cheeks and lips pink.
So he was very much alive. But how...
"What?" asked Ruby as imperiously as she could, feeling very off-kilter and in fact slightly light-headed as well. "What's fascinating?"
And what are you?
Tee smiled. Or, at least, he pulled his lips away to bare his teeth in a creaky, unnatural grimace, and gave her a long, steady, piercing look with his unnerving, still glassy eyes. His breath stunk of acid and hunger.
Yes, he was wrong. Definitely wrong. But Ruby had the funniest idea that it was him and not the effect of being pulled back into this world through the Veil.
Mad, probably. Driven insane by the years of isolation.
Wouldn't you be?
"You," he murmured, still short of breath as he leaned on her for support. "You're odd. You remind me of someone... I wasn't sure what to expect. It's all broken..." His expression twisted into confusion.
"I just can't... can't remember," Tee finished feebly.
Odd. Ruby almost frowned, but it wouldn't do any good. She was odd, and Lily Evans had been odd, and if not for Lily Evans being odd, Harry would be dead by now many times over.
If only she could figure out what to make of this odd boy.
"What are you? Are you a ghost? Are you dead?" she demanded, just to be sure.
Tee did not answer, only turning, stumbling on his newborn legs to retrieve the rook-head-shaped stone. Her gaze followed his, to the strange substance now settled in his trembling, long-fingered palm.
The blackness of it made charcoal and obsidian look pale and bland; it seemed to draw all light and heat into its uniform depth, appearing flat, as it could reflect no light. It almost seemed to pull everything towards it, like a magnet.
A strangled gasp almost escaped her, and she bit her tongue to stop it.
Nigredo. But of course. He had kept his promise.
Ruby held her hands out for it, and when Tee handed the stone to her, she cradled it as if it were the most precious thing in existence, because, at that very moment it was. She blinked, and realised that her eyes were wet with tears.
But now was the time for pragmatism. She shoved the precious stone in her pocket, along with the diary, and took out her wand.
"You know how to use it?"
He let out another rattling breath, his cloudy eyes fixed for a brief moment on hers.
"Yes," said Tee. He swallowed. "It was on the other page... the chapter before the one I forgot about... funny I don't remember what trapped me here." He paused, seemingly having run out of breath.
"What?" asked Ruby, staring at his outstretched palm.
"We're going up, aren't we... out... out of the Chamber?"
"But how did you know that?" she asked. "You don't even know your name."
Tee sighed. "I told you before. I-I- felt drawn to this place."
For the time being, she did not question it, and extended her hand to him.
"You can put your arm around my shoulder — like that — and we'll go up the stairs. Can you walk?"
He swallowed. "Adequately. I hope."
Tee cried out once they got to the top of the staircase; in pain, she realised. His eyes were not used to light.
"Here," she said, holding out an enormous handkerchief borrowed from Hagrid quite a while ago.
No one, she hoped, would notice her leading a blindfolded student, who had one hand firmly pressed against the wall for balance and the other resting heavily on her shoulder, to the Hospital Wing.
Strangely, his helplessness was comforting; yet, she could not relieve herself of the memory of him inside her head and moving her limbs around.
He seemed too weak for that now; nevertheless, soon, he would be someone else's problem. This was a school, after all; some sensible adult, perhaps McGonagall, would take him off her hands by tomorrow.
"Take off your prefect badge," hissed Ruby. "People will notice you."
If only she'd had a moment's forethought to bring the Invisibility Cloak with her. At least it was early in the morning; surely no one would be up at just past three.
But if only her companion wasn't so... conspicuous.
"Wait!" she said, grabbing Tee by the back of his robes, tensing at the sight of a large, lamp-eyed cat regarding them from a dark alcove.
It was too late; Tee had all but stepped on her. The cat's tail swished from side-to-side in annoyance.
Ruby tensed as Mrs. Norris gave them both a second look, then continued on her way.
"Look, we'd better be quick. She'll get Filch, and it'll all be over."
"What's a Filch?" rasped Tee.
"The caretaker, no time to explain. Come on!"
They pressed on.
"Here's the Hospital Wing," she explained as they got to the door. "Look, I'll just put my head in and see if Madam Pomfrey's in. You wait here."
Her heart in her throat, she very quietly turned the handle, and stepped into the moonlit room. It was silent.
The crescent-shaped moon hung low in the sky, and the light cast slanted shapes across the beds, stripes of dark and light descending onto the two unmoving inhabitants.
"Make sure he's fully in the dark," a voice rasped in her ear. Ruby nearly leapt out of her skin.
Nodding, she went to the bed and drew the curtains shut around him.
"A light. Not Lumos."
At first, Ruby thought of the candles in the storeroom, but she put her hand in the pocket of her robes, and realised that she still had the marble Professor Babbling had given her as the warm, smooth glass brushed against her fingertips.
Gingerly, she placed it on the table beside the bed, the flames licking and spurting inside the hermetically-sealed container.
Harry was... somehow worse than he had been mere hours ago. The purple-black bruises extended over his swollen-shut eyelids and to his cheeks. Every vein was coal-black and visible through his almost-transparent skin. His fingers had sharpened to cruel, black shards.
It's poisoning him, she thought, horror-struck.
A weasel who had survived the basilisk's scourge crept under the floor.
"He's not dead," said Tee, his trembling palm hovering over Harry's chest. "Not yet."
He was whispering something under his breath as he snapped the beak off of the rook's head, in languages that Ruby didn't understand; first Parseltongue, soft and sibilant, and then, probably Latin.
"...Fervere et exurere, procella et ira, mutare et transmutare. Permittite quod resolutum et putrefactum expurgetur et veniat in lucem. Hanc vitam tamquam fontem et sacrificium admitte, ut hunc puerum denuo sui corporis dominum esse permittas..."
The shard of nigredo, hovering above Tee's palms, began to burn, blindingly white. The weasel uttered a pained cry as its body blackened and burned, turning into dark ash.
He whispered to it, something too quiet for Ruby to hear, and the snake came to life, fanged mouth sliding against silver skin, and silver skin growing at exact same amount.
The blackening growths began to recede; Harry's fingers grew less jagged and shadowy, and more substantial. Where he had been fading into outlines and absence of light slowly became real, solid flesh, flush with blood from a beating, living heart.
Tee, seemingly exhausted, clutched at the curtains for balance.
Ruby swept the remains of the weasel under the bed.
"Ah!"
Harry sat up faster than he had been expecting, unused to being substantial and unfamiliar with the force solid limbs were capable of exerting.
Someone put something plastic into his hands; he realized that it was his glasses. With trembling hands, he lifted them to his face, hooking the stems over his very-much-solid ears, and rubbed his eyes to clear them.
The mysterious boy again, wearing a bloodied Hogwarts uniform and a prefect badge. And yet, bizarrely, next to Ruby, wearing a similarly-bloodied uniform under her school robes, a red ribbon sticking out of her haphazard-as-usual plait.
"You!" said Harry suddenly, his eyes widening. "Who are you? Why are you here again?"
"Your— your eyes," said the boy, in a hollow voice. "I've seen them before."
"Of course, but..." Harry trailed off. "Ruby, you can see him too? I thought..."
She shook her head. "Obviously. Why wouldn't I? And what do you mean, again? Because I saw him before, too... Reflected in a puddle, exactly a year ago. Lav thinks I might have scryed him, but..."
"I definitely didn't scry him. I didn't think he was even real." Harry turned to the boy, who, unlike the last time he'd seen him, had both of his eyes in their sockets. "Who are you? Why do we keep seeing you?"
The off-putting stranger cleared his throat, regarding Harry with an infinitely-wary expression.
"I don't know who I am."
"Hang on a second," said Harry, his eyes focusing on a familiar, fluffy silhouette moving in the shadows. "Isn't that Scabbers?"
At that very moment, Hephaestus leapt down from his perch on the window seat, silent as a shadow, and for a brief moment, Harry saw Scabbers struggling beneath the cat's paws as the predator turned its head to deliver the killing bite—
"Heph, no!" shouted Ruby.
The cat, distracted for a second by his mistress's voice, turned his head, but did not lose his grip on Scabbers. His jaws opened, the moonlight glinting on his white, sharp teeth as he slowly turned back, canines aligned to the rat's head. Harry knew it would take just a single savage shake, and Scabbers's blood would be spilling out on the floor.
Then, something nearly unexplainable happened — Hephaestus sprang back from his prey, growling and snarling, and Scabbers seemed to stretch until the shadow of a rat became the shadow of a man — a man who pointed his wand at Ruby—
Harry, despite his exhaustion and before he even realised what he was doing, grabbed her by the shoulder, and the spell crashed harmlessly into the wall.
"Lumos!" he whispered, searching the bedside table for his wand, and held it aloft so that all three of them could see the face of the man who had been Scabbers.
He reminded Harry, somewhat fittingly, of a rat, with red-rimmed, watery eyes, mousy hair, and remarkably small stature. The strange boy would have towered over him had they stood side-by-side; as it were, Harry thought he might have been barely taller than Harry himself.
He's an Animagus, like McGonagall... Scabbers was human, all this time? he thought dimly. No wonder he lived so long.
The rat-like man raised his wand again, and this time, he did not miss his target. Harry heard Ruby gasp in surprise, but she seemed unhurt.
A tangle of blood-coloured strings flickered into existence around them.
Scabbers's eyes widened as he finally seemed to take in the stranger; for a second, he looked as confused as Harry felt.
It had been Walpurgis Night, too, Harry realised, when Dumbledore had made them appear. Was that why the strange boy was visible to Ruby tonight? Because the separation between this world and the other was not so substantial?
Harry had seen the string linking him and Ruby before, but what of the stranger? Why was he connected to both of them when he probably didn't even exist fully in their world?
"He's got the Dark Mark," he heard Ruby whisper into his ear. "Right there — the bit of ink below his sleeve, where it's ripped — can you see it?"
The man, blinking in the wandlight, turned tail and ran out of the Hospital Wing.
Harry, keeping ahold of his wand, shifted the bedsheets and shuffled to the end of the bed.
"Help me stand," he ordered. "We're going after him."
"We?" asked Ruby weakly.
"You, me," He gestured with his shoulder, "and him. If there's a Death Eater loose in the castle, we're going after him. Let's go!"
She gave him a worried look as he pulled himself to his feet, his head swimming more than he would ever admit out loud. His legs felt awkward from disuse; if only he had his broom, this would be much easier.
The stranger didn't seem that much stronger than him as they all stumbled out of the Hospital Wing, anyway.
"He went the other way," came a sibilant whisper, just as Harry glanced down the left corridor. For some odd reason, the strange boy looked startled, as if he'd heard a snake, too.
"Where's he going, then?" asked Ruby when he relayed the information back to her. "This leads up to the second floor. Not out. Out's down the other corridor."
"He's up there," the boy said creakily. "On the stairs."
They all rushed over, but the Death Eater had disappeared. Up they went; but halfway up the stairs, Harry could go no further. His legs buckled under him.
When was the last time he'd slept properly, and without fear?
"Go on without me," he ordered. "You need to find him before he hurts anyone. All we know, he's the one who's been opening the Chamber and attacking people all this time."
He waited. He felt close to fainting, but yet, he waited, hanging onto the bannister, and onto consciousness with nothing but stubbornness to aid him.
Suddenly, Harry felt a cold breeze, one that could only mean the presence of a ghost.
"Nick?" he asked, being the most familiar with the Gryffindor ghost, and desperately hoping it wasn't Peeves.
"It is not he, but I," came the answer.
Harry nearly groaned out loud. He'd never met the ghost of Slytherin House, but he'd heard enough stories to avoid him whenever possible.
Just his bloody luck.
"Hello, er... sir?"
"Your Lordship is the proper address," amended the Bloody Baron, "but as mine eyes perceive that you are dolefully wounded and but a child, I shall forgive your rudeness for the time being. Who hath dealt you this grievous blow, strange youth? What coward would deal so harshly with a child? Why, if I was alive, I wouldst run my sword through his lily-livered body."
Harry grimaced.
"No one in particular... look, could you help me get down, please?"
The Bloody Baron raised a silvery eyebrow.
"I mean, could you help me get down, please, Your Lordship?"
"It depends," said the Baron. "Have you the strength to stand? I shall tell you where to step. Keep both hands on the bannister."
Nodding, he got to his feet, and the ghost guided him back down the stairs and into the hospital wing.
When Harry got there, Fawkes was waiting for him.
"Did Dumbledore send you?" he asked the phoenix. As always, he got the feeling that Fawkes understood him perfectly, but did not consider Harry's intelligence sufficient to bother to respond.
He wondered... if Fawkes needed to sense despair to cry, would a sample of nigredo do the trick? No one would have thought of it, because even Dumbledore believed it was impossible for Flamel to replicate his work.
But clearly, he had done it. it was surprising that Flamel hadn't been in, actually.
Harry picked up the stone, and presented it to Fawkes.
"Go on," he whispered to Fawkes, who seemed to be transfixed as he was by the stone's strange aura. "Cry."
The phoenix's eyes shimmered.
The Bloody Baron let out a very undignified gasp.
The phoenix opened his beak in a shaky fashion.
A single, crystalline tear fell from his eyes, and rolled slowly, slowly down Fawkes's golden beak, and onto the blackening wound. Where the Anthony's flesh had been dead and rotting, it became living and whole again, healing into a smooth stump.
"What good fortune is this?" the Baron whispered, seemingly star-struck. "I have seen a phoenix cry but once before this in all my years of death and life."
"What do I give him to wake him up?" asked Harry. Though his wound was healed, staying in the coma was not doing Anthony any benefits.
"Wiggenweld Potion. Madam Pomfrey will likely keep it in the very back in a small bottle."
Harry, using the bedframes to lean on, made his way into the small storeroom of medicinal potions and salves, treading quietly as not to wake Madam Pomfrey, whose room was adjoining, then began his search.
As the Baron said, Harry found it at the back of the bottom shelf, in a small bottle labelled: Wiggenweld Potion, S. Snape , replace 12/1993.
"Got it!" he whispered to the Baron as he came around to the other side of the bed and uncorked the bottle, hands trembling.
"You ought not to tip it into his mouth," the Baron chided Harry, as he was about to do exactly that. "The boy will surely choke to death on that draught, and all your fussing will be for naught. Wet a handkerchief with the potion first; what do they teach children these days? Certainly not how to survive."
Stifling a retort, Harry obeyed the Baron.
"You had best imbibe some of that draught yourself," he added. "I cannot watch you stumbling around like a yearling deer any longer. And after that, partake of a good night's sleep and sufficient nourishment."
He had not expected the Baron, despite his pretentiousness, to supply useful information. The potion made his head stop spinning and the sense of weakness lifted; Harry felt more awake than he had in months.
A shocked gasp emanated from the bed's occupant; who, for the first time in months, sat up straight, staring and gaping at Harry, Fawkes, and the Baron.
For a long moment, the three stared at the one, and the one stared at the three. Harry thought that a ghost, a phoenix, and his swollen and bruised face were perhaps not the most comforting thing to wake up to. For a second, he thought Anthony might faint.
Discreetness was not Harry's strong suit; Anthony followed his gaze to the healed stump, calmly placed his hand on it, and let out a sudden scream of utter shock and terror.
"My arm, Harry... my arm." He was hyperventilating; Harry was worried that the sudden overexertion might put him in a coma all over again. "Where'd it go — who's got my arm — I want my arm back!"
"I'm sorry," said Harry, and strangely, he wasn't quite sure if he was hugging his sobbing friend to comfort him or to stifle the sound of his tears by pressing his face into Harry's shoulder. "We couldn't save it. Fawkes did all he could. But you're fine."
He gave a hard look at the Baron to chime in, but the ghost merely floated away.
"Harry," said Anthony in a halting, clear voice as he looked up, "your hair's grown."
"Oh." Harry put a hand to his hair automatically. "Has it?"
"It's grown a lot." Anthony's voice wobbled, and Harry could hear the fear in it as the other boy stared back at him. "It's been more than a few weeks, Harry. How long has it been? How old am I—"
"Calm down," Harry interrupted. "It hasn't been even a year yet. It's April. April 1993." He blinked. "Happy thirteenth birthday, sorry it's a couple months late."
"I guess I missed my bar mitzvah," he said quietly, as if trying to return the situation to normalcy. "And a lot of Quidditch games. And a lot of school. And a lot of everyone. Everything."
"It's okay," said Harry, sitting down beside him. "I've been... in and out of the Hospital Wing this year."
"Yeah? You alright now?"
"Mostly, I think." Harry paused. "Do you remember how you lost your arm?"
Anthony's hand clawed at the blanket as his face contorted with rage; an expression Harry had never seen on him before. Two red spots appeared on his cheeks as he turned to Harry, the anger seemed to roll off of him as he began to remember the attack. Relive it.
"I could kill him, Harry." His voice shook. "When I saw him egging on the snake."
But of course, Anthony must have seen the Heir of Slytherin! He was the only person alive who had seen him in action.
"Who? What was their name? Who hurt you?"
Anthony turned his head, looked Harry dead in the eyes, and said: "Lockhart, of course. Who'd you think I was talking about?"
"I..." The breath caught in Harry's throat, and he felt his eyes start to pop out of their sockets. He opened his mouth, and shut it again, like a guppy. He couldn't think of anything coherent to say.
That smarmy bastard told us he killed the basilisk!
Then, taking in Harry's shocked expression, Anthony added:
"Dumbledore has sacked him, hasn't he? Don't tell me he's still here."