Hey there,

for a little change, this is once again a chapter written from Elliott's POV ;)

I hope you'll like it!

I don't know what to do. In a way, I just want to hug her, on the hand, that might make her cry even more.

Rouvenia can see it in my eyes. I think about the best way to console Harper, but I'm ... overwhelmed.

Developing proper intuition for girls isn't that easy. I'm getting the hang of it with Leonora, I think, but Harper ... She's just as secretive as Tom himself at times, and I can't tell for the life of me whether she wants to save him or rather kill him herself by now. (Ever since he's left her in the corridors yesterday, she's been wavering between these two options every five minutes ... Right now, she's crying again.)

"It's all fine," Rouvenia tries to assure her and pats her shoulder while Leonora holds Harper in her arms.

"You don't know what to say either, do you?" I whisper to Rouvenia, grateful for that finding in a sense. "I'm really bad at comforting people, I think –"

"Bryant," Rouvenia sighs, "just shut up, will you? We're here. We don't always have to say much. Even if it's hard for you of all people to remain silent for once …"

She winks at Leonora, and my girl just smiles at me.

"It's alright, Ell," she assures me, "maybe you could get us something to eat? I'm sure we'll be fine when you get back."

"It'll never be fine," Harper sobs a protest before burying her face into Leo's knitted jacket again.

"I'm sure it'll be," Leonora whispers my way, nodding for me to do as I'm told.

Crying women break my heart, but they also overwhelm me. So looking for some food seems ideal ...

"Hagrid!" I greet the nicest bloke of Gryffindor as I pass him by with loads of greasy and sweet options in my arms on my way back. The kitchen is in the same corridor as Hufflepuff's common room – crystal clear that the yellow folks are always in a good mood. "How are you doing?"

"Good, thank you," he immediately replies, smiling kindly and soon glancing at the food. "Have you planned a picnic with Leonora?"

"Sort of, but inside – Rouvenia and Harper are there, too," I admit. "Do you like to join us?"

Oh no. No …
That just slipped out. Inviting him when we actually want to discuss how we can save Tom from ending himself is perhaps a little inconvenient and –

"I'd love to!"

He's beaming so merrily that I can't possibly take it back. So I just smile in all my awkwardness and nod out of necessity. "Nice! Well then …"

"Can I help you carry some of that?" he politely offers.

"Uh, maybe … the chocolate frogs," I think aloud, but I'm so loaded that I can't possibly hand them to him myself. So he grabs the bag from my arm and even takes another one of biscuits from me. "Thanks, Hagrid. Best Gryffindor to exist. Next to Eric. He's friendly, too. But I'm somewhat jealous of him to be quite frank."

"All the girls in the common room keep saying he's really handsome." Hagrid shrugs, obviously understanding where I'm coming from. "But they say that about Tom, too."

I chuckle while exhaling. "Yeah, looks like it's exactly the same conversations across all the houses – same for Slytherin …"

"Although everyone's been wondering what he's up to lately."

"Who, Tom?" I look up at Hagrid with slight concern as we make our way back to the Hufflepuff common room. Hagrid's about to enter there for the first time, and I can only hope the girls will welcome him with open arms – and not scold me for my guest.

Or demand that I vouch for him ...

"He's going crazy," I blurt out, thinking about Tom and his recent madness. "And experimenting. In a bad way …"

"Experimenting?" Hagrid gulps. "On ... himself? You mean like that Dark Wizard the Daily Prophet is always writing about? Do you think that's why he has those dark circles under his eyes and looks like he hasn't been out in the sun for weeks?"

I sigh. "I honestly wish I knew, Hagrid. But there must be a reason why he's been looking like the walking dead lately."

"Yes, yes." Hagrid tries to keep up with my pace. "But, uhm … where are we going now?"

We turn into a corner in the corridor, to a small anteroom just to come to a halt in front of a pile of large barrels.

"Can you tap the second barrel from the bottom in the centre of the pile to the rhythm of Helga Hufflepuff?"

He looks at me with wide eyes, but I just nod encouragingly. "I've got my hands full, you know …" I add. "But concentrate – otherwise one of the upper barrels will burst open and bathe us in vinegar."

"How do you know –"

"I'm afraid I just know," I reply with a wink. "Believe me, you can't get rid of the smell for ages …"

Hagrid eventually overcomes his reluctance and acts exactly as I've asked to him. In a flash, a barrel lid opens, revealing a sweeping view of the corridor behind it. It leads us a little way into the interior of the cellar, like a real badger's lair, then up a short way, where we soon arrive back in the cosy common room of the Hufflepuffs.

"Oh, well, Hagrid," I call over my shoulder, apparently startling him so badly he jumps up and promptly bumps his head in the corridor. "Sorry, mate …"

"It's pretty narrow in here," he finds.

"Yeah, it is. Listen up, Ruby, I just want to give you a heads up – once we go in there, you might find yourself confronted with tears."

We exchange glances, he bites his lip in hesitation.

"Yeah, I know," I sigh, "it's not easy for me, too, but sometimes we have to be brave ... you know. Just do what I do. Don't say much and just nod with concern. Like that. Exactly, that ... You do that well! Nothing can go wrong. Alright?"

He nods, again with concern, and makes all the more effort to look uneasy when I let him go first. (Which is probably mean of me, but who cares. I send him ahead so that I'm not the first one to get into trouble because I've brought him along …)

But I'm quite surprised when we finally enter and nobody's even crying.

Especially not Harper.
Her eyes are still a bit red, but she and Rouvenia are standing in front of runes glowing in the air, as well as seven Latin words that they must have recently sketched into the room with their wands.

"Hello, Hagrid," Harper greets him absently as she stares at the symbols.

This is going well! Nobody's scolding me, nobody's crying!

Leonora is about to check what I've brought for snacks when I plop down on one of the yellow armchairs right next to her.

Meanwhile, Rouvenia ruffles her hair, brooding. "It's all rather confusing, isn't it?"

"Very much so," Leonora agrees, grabbing two sandwiches straight away. "Harper, eat something, you must be hungry."

She doesn't have to be told twice. She gratefully accepts the sandwich and takes a bite.
Heavens. If only I could ever convince Tom so easily that he's starving ...

"Just feel at home," Leonora invites Hagrid, standing in our midst, a little bit lost.

"Thanks, but … where is everyone else?"

"We're all alone," Rouvenia informs him, at least as apathetic as Harper. She doesn't take her eyes off the runes either, but adds, "It's so nice outside that everyone's at the Black Lake …"

The sunlight on this sultry day of May is indeed glowing through the small, round windows of the attic common room. I love the dungeons, but I have to admit that this really provides a cosy charm ...

"What are you even doing?" I dare to ask at some point, after Harper and Rouvenia have each placed the meanings of the five runes, as assumed by Leonora, directly below the symbols.

Dagaz – Light
Hagalaz – Transformation
Eiwaz – Magic
Berkana – Birth
Nauthiz – Shadows

"Are those the runes Tom mentioned to Leo?" I ask on when no one pays attention to me.

"What do you think?" Rouvenia grumbles with typical impatience as she grabs the very sandwich I was about to take a bite of.

"Five runes," Harper mumbles. "What's beginning in light and ending in shadows?"

We're silent for a while, meditating over that question.

"The moon?" Hagrid eventually says all shy, looking a little overwhelmed as everyone turns to him in awe. He shrugs his shoulders and explains, "The full moon is complete light, but there's nothing left of it when new moon comes."

Harper nods. "The moon ... Nice one, Hagrid. But the five must also have a meaning."

"What's this all about anyway?" Hagrid asks.

"You don't even want to know, trust me," Rouvenia claims, giving a dismissive wave of her hand before grabbing another sandwich.

"The moon is round, obviously, but what comes with five corners?"

"A pentagram," Leonora says. "And it's often depicted in a circle."

"A circle that might symbolize the moon." Harper quickly looks up at us. "Could one divide a moon phase into five stages, perhaps?"

"Yes," I agree right away. "My grams, half-blood and talented as hell, you know – she always went by the five phases of the moon to brew her potions. She thought it made them more powerful … The phases are new moon, the last quarter, then the waning crescent moon, then the third quarter and finally full moon."

"So a moon phase would actually begin with a new moon?" Harper asks.

"Usually, yes."

"But obviously not here," Rouvenia thinks alout. "It's the other way round. We start with light, so with a full moon. And end in darkness, at new moon." She swallows. "Harper's birthday."

"Your birthday is on the new moon?" I ask. "On the 22nd of May?"

Harper nods, downright indifferently.

"Full moon – light – was on May 8, a Monday," she hums, crossing her arms as she starts muttering mental calculations and pacing around our chairs. "Tom disappeared for two days after that, didn't he?"

"Indeed," Leonora confirms, "and when he crawled back into the Great Hall, he seemed like he'd been through hell and back."

"But he looked even worse the next day, wasn't that the Slug Club?" I ask the girls.

"Yeah right, on Friday, May 12," Harper confirms. "That's when I first noticed red irides on him. Leo, do you have a lunar calendar here, maybe?"

"Accio," my badger says, handing it to Harper.

"Elliott, look," she then mumbles as she flicks to May, "that should have been around the third quarter – transformation – right?"

I nod. "Yes, looks like it. And the day after that, he was completely done in Herbology with the Mandrakes …"

"I feared he'd jump through the panes in the greenhouse at any given moment," Leonora agrees.

"Eric and him right next to each other was quite a nice sight, though," Rouvenia admits and then shrugs her shoulders, caught off guard. "What, they're both conventionally beautiful people, what can I say?"

"See, Hagrid?" I roll my eyes in amusement. "The same conversations everywhere …"

"The waning crescent moon representing magic," Rouvenia continues, glaring at the lunar calendar, "was about the day before yesterday, on Monday, May 15. That's when we had the boggart lesson with Dumbledore and celebrated my birthday in the dungeons at night. When we brought you to our common room, Harp."

"Sure." She nods, sighing from the bottom of her heart. "He hardly had a pulse …"

"And then yesterday, he took it all out on Black in the Room of Requirement," I chuckle. "Well deserved, though …"

"Elliott!" Leonora hisses. "It was black magic!"

"I know," I reply mischievously. "Mighty stuff ... Last night, though, he wasn't in the dormitory once again, after your argument in the corridors. Gone without a trace."

"Yesterday was the last quarter," Harper says with a strained look at the calendar. "The rune for birth …"

"Alright, we've matched four out of five dates," Leonora summarises, "and we now suspect that Tom is planning something somewhere for the fifth time on Harper's birthday, during the new moon and the rune for shadows. But we're still missing those two pieces of the puzzle. What is he doing? And where?"

I look at Harper at these words.
And I can see it.
She knows. She knows both these details.

How do I get her to admit it? How do I get her to talk? Tom would hate me if I left her alone with all of this. But how do I speak to her about it without pressuring her?

"Well, if it helps – all those days you've mentioned now, I've brought him …" Hagrid pauses. "Well … Oh, not that important …"

"What?" Leonora looks at him intently. "Hagrid, what did you bring him all these days? Tell us!"

"I should not have said that …"

"Meat?" Harper asks, glancing at him uneasily.

"Meat?" I hear myself repeat in surprise.

Hagrid, however, cautiously nods. "Well," he begins again, "yeah … Do you know more about it?"

Harper sighs, massaging her temples. "I have an idea. Tom hinted at something like that at the beginning of the holidays, I had the keeper of keys and grounds in mind at first, but –"

"In mind for what?" Rouvenia asks. "For meat? What the hell are you talking about?"

"Tom was blackmailing Hagrid, wasn't he?" I ask, smiling at the huge Gryffindor who couldn't hurt a fly. "Tell me, Hagrid. I know him. If he has the slightest opportunity to put pressure on someone for his advantage, he usually does just that …"

"A little bit, perhaps?" he nervously confirms. "Well, kind of …"

"Wait, wait." Leonora is quick to shake her head. "What did he blackmail you with? And for what?"

Hagrid seems quite unsure whether he can trust us. But then he looks to Rouvenia for help and shrugs. "You also like fantastic beasts, don't you?"

"I love them, yes," she confirms without hesitation. "Why?"

"Because I'm ... I'm hiding a young Acromantula in the castle and I need to protect him. Aragog is his name."

Leonora's eyes widen. "My goodness ... Tom's threatening to expose you?"

"A classic," I hear myself chuckle. "But how did he learn about it?"

Hagrid shrugs his shoulders. "I haven't got a clue. He just knows things …"

"She smelt him, your Aragog," Harper whispers as if she's lost in reveries, it's barely audible. But then, somewhat afraid, she adds, "Hagrid, what was the purpose of your meetings? Just to hand over meat? When did you meet?"

"All those days just before midnight, in the Forbidden Forest. But I really don't know what he did with the food after that, if that's your next question. Lately, he wanted to …" Hagrid swallows.

"Tell me," Harper encourages him.

"He wanted animals. Alive."

"Alive?" Rouvenia's jaw drops for good. "As food? What kind of animals?"

"Goats, sheep, deer – whatever I could find …"

"What the blazes for," Rouvenia breathes in horror. "What kind of creature could feed on full-grown deer and –" She gasps as though she suddenly has an intuition. A scary one ... She raises her eyes to Harper, quite shaken. "No …" she murmurs, staring at her. "Sully, that ... that can't be true ... can it? Those are ... legends! Nothing more than folklore ... It would be –" She thinks for a moment, then shrugs. "It would be centuries old!"

"A millennium," Harper quietly says, circling one of the armchairs next to Hagrid.

"What are you talking about?" Leonora anxiously asks.

"A basilisk," Rouvenia whispers, looking at Harper. "Only a snake of that size would want and need such animals alive for food ... Huh? Tom found Slytherin's chamber and his basilisk. Am I right?"

"The Chamber of Secrets?" I repeat incredulously. "Come on, it's a place right out of children's stories!"

"No, it's not." Harper shakes her head. "And neither is Echidna …"

"Echidna?" Rouvenia asks, her eyes wide as if a shiver is running down her spine. At the same time, though, she also seems enormously interested in this sensational survival of such a rare beast.

"Did you …" I swallow. "Have you seen it, Harper?"

She shakes her head and looks back at the sketches in the air, tears in her eyes. "No, but the catacombs are ideal …"

"Ideal for what?" Rouvenia urges. "Sully! Tell us! Don't you understand? You're not betraying him, on the contrary! You have to help us help him – you've seen him! He's getting more insane by the day!"

"You've been hiding things from us for a while, haven't you?" Leonora asks. "Haven't you? You know more than you're letting on. Stop it, Harper, talk to us! What's he up to?"

She collects herself for a moment, then she just says it out loud. "He wants … He wants to create a Horcrux. And I don't know what to do about it."

Now she cries again. And to be honest, I have to wipe away a tear as well, it's suddenly so emotional.

But I don't even know what a Horcrux is ...

"And what's that?" Hagrid asks, luckily I don't have to embarrass myself. (The others also look a bit relieved, so apparently no one really knows the term).

"Black magic of the worst kind, occult and dangerous," Harper soon answers, sniffling. "You rip your soul in two, literally, and bind it to an object to keep an immortal part of yourself safe. But if you've loved before, according to the books I've been able to find, it's supposed to be pure agony and any attempt at the ritual is highly dangerous and possibly fatal. Because the soul doesn't want to let go."

"Is that why you argued during the holidays?" Leonora asks after a moment of thoughtful silence.

"No, I didn't realise that he was even thinking about trying this again."

"Then why were you fighting?" Hagrid asks, soon smiling in coyness at his curiosity.

"Why we argued?" Harper groans, resigned to her fate. "It's complicated, but the matter of the fact is ... we don't have the key to all of this. We have to know his motive, otherwise we can't possibly change his mind. He's hell-bent on splitting his soul."

"His motive?" Rouvenia asks. "Why can't his motive just be immortality?"

"It can't be that alone," Harper thinks aloud and gulps. "He's too upset ever since he's back. He would've stopped already if that was his only reason – I'm almost certain, since his control of magic isn't what it used to be. He hates that. So there has to be more to it."

"How do we even have to picture that?" Rouvenia asks. "He's standing in the legendary catacombs of Salazar Slytherin next to a basilisk, which for ... whatever reason ... hasn't eaten him yet and ... then what? What happens during these five phases of the moon? And what about the seven deadly sins?"

"They surely must be fulfilled," Harper guesses. "The ritual certainly requires the seven."

"Pride is fulfilled, for sure," Rouvenia begins to go over the sketches in the air. "Greed ... Well, perhaps related to his thirst for knowledge and desire for immortality?"

Harper nods.

"Wrath is self-explanatory," Leonora continues.

"But gluttony?" I sceptically ask. "I keep wondering how he manages not to starve to death …"

"Hunger for power," Rouvenia says. "That counts, too, I'd wager."

"What about envy and sloth?" Leonora asks. "Envy of a ... normal life, perhaps? As an orphan?"

"Tom's an orphan?" Rouvenia is completely taken aback. "How come I know so little about him, I've lived in the same house for six years!"

"He doesn't talk about it much, I don't know much more either," I explain to her with a tired smile. "That's just the way he is. Doesn't like to spill the beans."

"But you've mentioned his mum in the corridor the other day," Rouvenia says to Harper. "And didn't he say to Black that his family was ... cruel and ... insane? So he does know his roots!"

"Yeah, we found them, his family," Harper gloomily confirms. "After weeks of research. Envy of ... normal circumstances ... should be more than a given and therefore ticked off, just believe me …"

"But sloth?" Hagrid repeats. "Tom is the most ambitious person I know."

"But he's infinitely ignorant," Harper murmurs. "He thinks he knows everything and quite often he can't see the wood for the trees … Mental sloth in a way. Ticked off."

"That would make six deadly sins," I count. "But lust is missing. We all know the context this sin is aimed at. A sensual, purely physical desire that requires active behaviour –"

"It's all right, Ell," Leonora giggles, "we get it."

"Good, but then you'll agree with me that Tom only touches books and that Harper would be far too sacred to him for any kind of –"

"Not quite," Harper meekly corrects.

It's quiet for a moment until we realise what that means.

She shrugs her shoulders blushing as we're all completely flustered.

"You mean –" Leonora hesitates.

Harper nods in exasperation. "Yeah, we did."

"Harper, why didn't you ever tell us about that?" Rouvenia whispers as though it was still a secret.

"Because I knew that's exactly how you'd react," she admits, "because everyone thinks it's … a sin." She sniffs. "And obviously it was, because if I hadn't ... It's my fault that this one is also ticked off …"

This time I hug her in my arms, I can barely watch her cry.

"It's fine, Harper," I say. "It's absolutely not your fault at all! But then I'm afraid … that he really might die if he carries on. Right?"

"What can I do, Elliott?" Her lips quiver. "How do I make him realise that he has to stop?"

"You said it earlier." Rouvenia now also gives her a comforting hug. "We just need arguments. And to find some, we need to know his motivation." She takes Harper by the shoulders and says, "He's not well. Legilimency worked once yesterday. How much did you see?"

"Not enough," Harper says.

"Then you'll have to try again. And see more. And understand what drives him and then talk him out of it."

"He'll be mad as hell if she tries Legilimency again –"

"So what, Ell?" Rouvenia shrugs her shoulders. "Then he'll just throw polemics around, and if he does ... Harper knows full well that he doesn't really mean any of it."

"He'll call you a dirty mudblood," I wanly predict. "Just to get rid of you. I'd bet on it."

"I know," she sighs. "He almost did so yesterday, but I'm not sentimental either …"

"In any case, we have enough work to distract you afterwards," Rouvenia announces. "You'll hardly change his mind tomorrow. So we definitely need to know where the Chamber of Secrets is. And how to get in."

"I know where it is," Harper almost whispers. "Elliott might find the entrance. He's good at finding things."

"We'll find it somehow," I confirm.

"Probably the only chance we have of changing his mind is the moment just before he finishes the ritual and literally dies." Harper looks at us wearily. "Don't you think?"

"I suppose so." Rouvenia rolls her eyes. "How can one be so stubborn? He must have long realised that this can't work! He loves you, otherwise it wouldn't almost kill him ... So clever and yet so stupid."

"He's detached from his emotions," Harper mumbles.

"But can't we make that clear to him up here?" Leonora anxiously asks. "I mean, do we really have to go down to the Chamber of Secrets to do that?"

"I'm afraid so." Harper shrugs. "I'm scared of the basilisk, too, otherwise I would've followed him already."

"We'll be fine if we stay together," Rouvenia decides. "I've never had trouble getting along with any magical creature, Harper is practising persuasion, Elliott finds the entrance and Leonora calms us down when we lose our mind."

"I will do that, too!" We all turn to Hagrid, who literally smiles at us after Leonora can't hold her laughter back.

"There you go. Sounds like a plan!"