I can clearly see Nagini's last hopes in me fade from her features as I whisper, "Echidna, they're yours."

The Queen of Serpents immediately starts moving. She's hungry – and who could blame her. But she doesn't rush towards them like a starving beast, no, she absolutely takes her time while MacDuff frantically tries to keep his eyes closed. Krafft's probably unresponsive anyway.

"Enemies of the heir, beware," she hisses before finally baring her teeth.

She's about to wriggle past the Inferi when she abruptly freezes in place. MacDuff and we can't help but wonder, it's as though she picked up a scent of something – someone – right before we hear hurried footsteps from the tunnel system …

Barely a heartbeat later, we see Elliott rushing towards the hatch.

"Are those Inferi? Goodness, Harper, look at that!"

I groan impatiently. "You've got to be kidding me … Echidna, close your eyes!"

Harper is completely out of breath and still dripping wet from the Black Lake when she finally catches up to Elliott, and she, too, seems genuinely taken aback.

So while Echidna complies for the sake of our latest arrivals, I briskly stride past her and the dead, straight towards the massive hatch at the entrance to the chamber.

Until a pleading MacDuff gets hold of my foot, Elliott and Harper still seem to try to get an overview of the situation.

"He's dying!" MacDuff grunts as I look down on him. He gestures at his friend, desperate by now. "He's dying, don't you see?"

While Elliott lets his gaze wander from one Inferius to the other, completely baffled, Harper already hurries to climb over the hatch while shouting at me. "Tom Marvolo Riddle, what on earth! Inferi? How dare you make use of the darkest of magic yet again, and disprove my theories!"

"There must be a counter-spell – please!" MacDuff keeps whimpering.

"Of course there is," I confirm, ignoring Harper's rant for another second, "but as you can hear, I don't have time for you right now." I shake him off to walk towards Harper and square my shoulders, anticipating her sermon.

"Darling, calm down, these two –"

"You can't be let out of sight for but a second!" she whines. "You have no self-control whatsoever!"

"Only one of us wanted to go swimming at the most inopportune moment there ever was in human history!" I murmur back before she leaves me standing there to look after Krafft and MacDuff.

"You let Grindelwald fool you and you know it, Harper!" I call after her.

"Don't give me that!" she hisses, letting her temper rise. "Not now, while I have to fix the effects of your actions to make sure you won't terribly suffer during your next Samhain again!" She draws her wand, acidly commanding MacDuff to step away from Krafft.

"Ell," she then shouts, "give me cover, keep an eye on MacDuff!"

Elliott does just that, as he's told, still a bit lost for words, while Harper bends over the unconscious Krafft to examine his wounds. "What kind of curse was that, Tom?"

"A well-deserved one," I retort.

"Riddle! What kind of curse?"

I shrug in exasperation. "Ancient, it was in Salazar's notes."

"Ancient or not, it won't be anything Vivian's Beauxbatons healing spells can't fix …" Still she lifts her index finger at me before she begins, furious as ever. "I only do that for you! I don't want to watch you miserably spit up blood in October again, Tom!"

"I suggest you look away, then."

She only groans with an impatient wave of her hand.
I downright regret her motivation to act in Krafft's favour, but soon she keeps saying, "Vulnera Sanentur!"

"Tom, I believe they're watching me," Elliott eventually whispers from afar, glancing from MacDuff to the Inferi again and again. "Would you mind sending them back to the underworld?"

"They obey me, Ell –"

"I don't even doubt that, but don't you find them a bit … scary?"

I glare at the dead. Then I shrug, admitting, "Maybe a tad morbid, the way they're standing around like that."

He gulps and gives me a nervous smile. "So can you get rid of them? Now, by any chance?"

I can't help but sigh. Apparently, fun is forbidden at all times.

"Mortuos plango, vivos voco!" I chant at the two skeletons before they crumble and fade into their individual parts, most of the greenish bones magically drawn back into the moats.

"Vulnera Sanentur! Vulnera Sanentur!"

"I can feel his pulse again," MacDuff rejoices as he fiddles with Krafft's arm, nodding at Harper. "Go on, little witch, close the wounds!"

"Shut up!" she growls at him. "If it wasn't for a mortal soul, I'd let you both bleed out!"

Elliott and I exchange somewhat tired glances. This day couldn't become more bizarre.

At least until Krafft regains his consciousness. Coughing and moaning he seems to recall what got him into this hell in the first place. "Is this the chamber? Am I still alive?"

"Hardly," Harper replies and steps back immediately, even moodier than before. "What were you doing down here? Huh? Hurt Echidna?"

"She wasn't a threat, still they tortured her to ensure obedience," Nagini says with a heavy heart.

"What's wrong with you?" Harper calls them out before turning to me again. "I have to want it?"

"What?" I ask, genuinely perplexed.

"Crucio!" she already proceeds, forcing MacDuff to his knees. She can barely keep it up for more than two heartbeats, but at least she tried. "No magical creature deserves such a treatment, shame on you!" she shouts. "Levi Corpus!"

At once, the two of them find themselves hanging upside down in the air, held by an invisible rope made from magic.
To my humble surprise, though, her wand suddenly points at me.

"And you! Riddle! You just couldn't stop yourself, could you? You've got to –"

A shrieking cry cuts her off, and suddenly we're all startled to watch a red phoenix fly over our heads with its echo reverting through the catacombs.
I shake my surprise off once I realise that poor excuse of a vulture heads straight for Echidna.

"Oh no, you're not aiming those filthy little claws at her eyes," I mutter, raising my wand. "Avada –"

"Tom!" Nagini shouts, hastily grabbing my arm to pull it away. "No – he doesn't even want to hurt her, look!"

The phoenix gently lands on Echidna's head, indeed coming off as if he only wanted to make friends. Absurd. Utterly ridiculous. Echidna and I look at each other for a moment there, equally irritated.

"He didn't arrive here alone, though, he brought someone along," Nagini whispers, instantly transforming to rush towards the hatch on the other side of the chamber next to Elliott and Harper.

I follow her at quite a pace until I reach Krafft and MacDuff, both still magically tied upside down.

"You're completely insane, boy," MacDuff whispers to me, torn between odd admiration and outright fear.

"Do you think so." I sigh. "Then let me recommend remaining quiet for now –"

"Help!" Krafft already shouts, but just when Echidna roars like a fury on the other side of the chamber, he quickly falls silent again.

"Who's it now, Nagini?" I ask, much too tired of this circus by now.

Next up, a woman tries her best to climb the hatch with grace, Nagini in her snake form already wrapped around her shoulders.

Once she gets up breathing heavily, the lady gives me a stern glance, trying to take in and digest the sight of a living basilisk curled up behind me. She probably also draws some conclusions from a few of the bones that remained on the platform.
Her wand is still drawn as she finally examines Elliott and Harper.

I let out a harsh breath, trying hard not to roll my eyes. "And you are?"

"Porpentina Scamander," she calls back, her eyes never leaving my face. "MACUSA."

"Oh!" Harper immediately lowers her wand smiling, as does Elliott.

It seems to encourage Tina to do the same, but I just shake my head in wary disbelief. "Queenie's Auror sister … How the hell did you find your way down here? Happened to be around? Because I must say you've picked a rather rueful time to visit …"

"Dumbledore already told me that you tend to be quite the cynic," she remarks while shaking hands with Harper and Elliott.

Then she comes closer reaching out for mine, too, despite the two acolytes hanging right next to me.

"What are you even doing?" I ask, not considering extending my hand. "Down here, at that. What does that bloody phoenix you came with want?"

Queenie would be giggling by now, but Tina seems just as stoic and serious as I am.

"Dumbledore told me what happened a few weeks ago. And what was about to happen … And he's told Fawkes to stay by my side ever since I've been in Scotland. I kept waiting."

"For better days?"

"For the opportune moment," she corrects matter-of-factly. "Grindelwald just had to be beaten for what he did to my sister and so many others."

"Details about your personal vendetta will unfortunately have to wait," I growl, "because in case you still haven't noticed, you're in the wrong place at the wrong time. The duel between Grindelwald and Dumbledore is located a few hundred meters further up there."

"Then why are you down here?" she asks, not even blinking.

I can't help but give her a mirthless laugh. "I just so happened to be busy."

"Yeah, I can see that …"

Oh, she's obviously more than used to interrogations – but I'm not having it.

"Why, Tina, aren't you watching some action where Fortuna needs you? Why aren't you keeping an eye out for your sister, one of whom will be shredded to pieces if Gellert wins?"

"He lost two minutes ago, Tom."

I do blink. A few times now.
As though those running thoughts in my ever-exploding head simply vanished all at once.

Then I hear myself ask, "Come again?"

"Yeah, and the giant squid ultimately chased the sirens away," she tells Harper over her shoulder.

"The giant … the giant squid," I even stutter, incredulous by the very idea of it. "No. Come on. Do you bloody expect me to believe –"

"Yes, it is over," she reassures. "The duel. Everything, Tom. Albus Dumbledore has won. It's the end of an era, Gellert Grindelwald will never be up to mischief again. I really don't know what your friends and you were trying to do to the Grindylows in the water next to him, but it doesn't matter who was swimming when. No, see – I followed you as quickly as I could when I noticed that you were flying to the castle. How do you actually do that, by the way?"

"Huh?" I'm still too perplexed for my own liking.

"The flying without a broom whatsoever," she specifies.

"Ms Goldstein," I growl, ignoring her annoyed eye-rolling, "Dumbledore won? Are you being serious?"

"Yes." She nods again. "Am I speaking Spanish? He did. But I'd heard rumours of a basilisk, the acolytes I kept shadowing spoke of it. Mostly the merfolk had spread stories after joining Grindelwald – but who would have thought it to be true?"

"No one," I confirm. "As it should be. But you know about it now, therefore I lamentably need to make sure you join Krafft and MacDuff in passing away –"

"Tom!" I shrug while Harper can hardly breathe due to her indignation. "That's Queenie's sister you're talking to!"

"I don't mind it," Tina assures her, then she raises a brow nodding at me. "But I do mind the Dark Arts that were used down here, including, but not limited to, an Unforgivable Curse –"

"Oh, ma'am, Ms Sullivan didn't wholeheartedly mean to torture anyone," I assure and wink at Harper, knowing full well that she's about to explode with rage.

"Sure," Tina sighs, ever forwning, "but frankly, Tom, I'm even more concerned about you attempting to murder two people, and –"

"He would never actually kill someone," Harper is quick to vow, despite a bitter sideways glance. "He's just very passionate about protecting Slytherin's misunderstood basilisk …"

"These two gentlemen hanging in the air, with their heads already turning dark red – they look rather traumatised to me," Tina remarks, examining Krafft and MacDuff with more sympathy than they deserve. "So he wasn't about to kill them?"

"Yes, I was, very much so," I immediately clear that up. "Ms Goldstein –"

"Scamander!" she corrects – I just groan.

"I don't care about your name. Do you even have the slightest idea what they would've done to your sister if –"

"Yes, I'm aware," she cuts that short while nodding. "That's one of several reasons they're wanted by the authorities. They'll be punished, trust me. You don't have to get your hands dirty."

"People tell me that all the time, but I really don't mind dirt –"

"That basilisk keeps its eyes closed on command?" Tina suddenly asks, yet again leaving me puzzled for a second there.

"Do you think she just feels like sleeping?"

"Fascinating," Tina says under her breath. "Newt will hardly believe me …"

"Indeed, because you won't walk out of here if you say but a single word to your book-writing husband!"

"It's all right, yes!" She even steps back a bit. "I will never speak of it, that's what Dumbledore insisted on and I will keep my word. But let's get these two lunatics back on their feet gently and –"

"And what?" I bark. How absurdly dutiful they all act … "You let them run? Get a Ministry approval to investigate the catacombs and put an infamous monster to sleep?" I slowly shake my head. "Forget about it."

"Come on," Nagini hisses, still wrapped around Tina's neck and shoulders. "She means no harm –"

"Just like the scum you led here?"

"Really fascinating," Tina says in awe, "I've never heard Parsel before. But I must insist, Tom. You can talk to Nagini later …"

"Too kind of you, but I realise I'll have to be more specific." I smile at her, and she knows it's not genuine. "I won't let any of you leave just like that."

"Oh, Tom!" Harper groans, her impatience well audible. "Must you always be so dramatic!"

Tina shrugs, taking a deep breath to finally wink at me. "You know what? I'm going to talk to Ms. Harper now," she announces, "she seems more cooperative." With that, she turns to said dripping wet idealist beside her. "Dumbledore said he swore Tom not to ever mention the Chamber. He's just won against the most dangerous wizard of our time, so the authorities will … let's say … return him a favour or two. We accept his pact with Tom, and we've also been in contact with the British, they won't be asking further questions as well. And whatever Grindelwald's men may say, without him, it'll all be dismissed as fairytales anyway. No one can prove that the chamber exists. Or the basilisk. The MACUSA will punish MacDuff and Krafft as they see fit – that was the agreement. So please don't ruin it now. I'd like to finally hold my sister again, after all these years."

"So after all these years you're suddenly in a rush," I grumble.

"Riddle!" Harper frowns.

"Be reasonable," Nagini whispers, wriggling off Tina's shoulders. "Do leave them to the authorities …"