Chapter Text
The morning air was crisp and cool. Clouds of steam puffed above the hurried masses, pervading the crowded platform with the scent of engine exhaust. Harry wished they’d just cut the muggle fuel entirely and use magic instead, tradition be damned.
“Harry!” called a familiar voice. He turned, spotting Draco’s small form struggling to advance through the crowd, shoving disgruntled witches and wizards aside as he went. Harry laughed, ducking around huddled families to meet him halfway.
When they reached each other, Draco excitedly started babbling something that Harry couldn’t make out a word of. “Come on,” he shouted above the clamor, “we’ll talk on the train.” Draco nodded and they pushed their way onto the Hogwarts Express.
“I got your postcard,” Draco said as they moved down the aisle. “As soon as I saw it, I told Father I wanted to go. I’ve never been before, only to France and Italy— you should have told me, we could’ve gone together! And weren’t you going to meet me at Diagon Alley? I was there with Father for hours, but I didn’t see you at all.”
Harry slid open the door of an empty compartment and beckoned Draco inside. The boy’s exuberance took him a bit aback after two months of quiet. “I went on the same day as you,” he replied, settling into the window seat. “But I didn’t see you either. We might’ve just missed each other.”
Harry had technically been with him at Diagon. Just... without his knowledge.
“That’s too bad,” Draco lamented. “We could have gotten our school things together. I’ve been meaning to introduce you to Father anyway—”
Oh, lord no. Absolutely not.
Just as he was about to regretfully inform Draco that he had plans next summer as well and unfortunately couldn’t meet Lucius Malfoy, the door to their compartment slid open again.
“Hello, Harry,” Blaise said, taking the seat across from him. “From the postcard you sent me, I assume you had a good summer? You certainly took your time replying.”
Harry chuckled. “Hello, Blaise. Yes, my summer was… eventful. And how was yours? I think I remember your letter mentioned your family’s summer home in Italy?”
Blaise nodded. “My mother and I travel back to Italy every summer. To be honest, I far prefer it there. I’ll never understand why Mother decided to move to Britain at all.”
The compartment door jerked open. Out in the aisle, a quickly flushing Ron stood with his hand still on the knob.
“Need something, Weasley?” Draco sneered at him.
Ron glowered back. “Wrong compartment,” he gritted out. “I was looking for an empty one, not a slimy Slytherin one.”
Harry sighed, already reaching out to pull Draco back into his seat, when Ron was abruptly shunted aside. “Do you mind, Weasley?” Pansy said disdainfully, shoving past him and into the compartment. “You’re contaminating the air with the stench of poverty.”
Millicent followed, and Crabbe and Goyle shuffled inside after them, leveling menacing glares at Ron. Ron looked thoroughly cowed. (Harry remembered being similarly frightened as a child, but now he found Vincent and Gregory’s beady-eyed glares rather adorable.)
He toed the compartment door closed behind them, wanting to avoid any further confrontations. Poor Ron was just looking for somewhere to sit.
“How was your summer, Harry?” Pansy asked him once they’d all taken their seats.
They made conversation for a bit until the train began to pull out of the station. The trolley lady came and went, and Harry began making his way through a handful of chocolate frogs. After a while, the topic of discussion shifted to Lockhart.
“Can you believe he’s going to be teaching? At Hogwarts?” Millicent gushed. She’d pulled out her signed copy of Break With A Banshee and was clutching it almost reverently to her chest.
“I wonder how long he’ll last,” Blaise smirked. “The last one barely managed a day.”
The last one left of his own accord, Harry thought pensively. This one will be escorted out.
“Don’t say that,” Millicent told him. “Lockhart is a very capable wizard. I’m sure he’ll be able to evade the curse.”
But can he evade me?
“I don’t see what’s so great about him,” Draco declared. “I’ve seen him in person six times and he doesn’t look like anything special. He’s just some boring middle-aged man with a fan club. Besides, I’m fairly sure he’s not even a natural blond.”
Harry’s chocolate frog went down the wrong tube and he coughed hard into his arm.
Millicent gave a loud, offended gasp. “You take that back!” she demanded. “Gilderoy Lockhart is the most renowned, accomplished wizard of the age! And his hair used to be strawberry blond when he was younger, so he only dyed it back to its natural color!”
“Natural—” Harry wheezed.
Millicent turned to him sharply. “You agree with me, Harry,” she said expectantly.
...Are you in the right headspace to receive information that could possibly hurt you?
“Er... sure.”
His tone was so bland that even Millicent picked up on it. “Really? You too?” she huffed. “What do you boys have against Lockhart? Is it jealousy?”
Harry’s coughing fit redoubled, despite his cleared airway. Draco bristled visibly beside him.
“Come on, Millie,” Pansy said, “don’t get swept up in the fame. I’ve read Lockhart’s books, and he’s a boasting blowhard. I don’t think he did half the things he says he did.”
Now, that was a surprise. Harry had been under the impression that all the girls at Hogwarts had been enamored with Lockhart, at least until they’d had a chance to see him up close. Even Hermione, one of the most rational and intelligent people Harry knew, had fallen for Lockhart’s image.
“He’s not a blowhard,” Millicent protested. “He’s very humble, he said so himself in his interview with Witch Weekly.”
Blaise snorted.
The train sped on, and their overcrowded compartment made the time pass unexpectedly quickly. In the midst of a heated group debate about the pros and cons of nominating The Easter Bunny for Minister, Harry hardly noticed when they pulled into the station.
“Firs’ years, firs’ years over ‘ere!” Hagrid’s voice bellowed from somewhere within the crowd.
“Come on,” Draco said, excitedly pushing his way through the flock of students. “We get to ride the carriages this year!”
Harry smiled at the boy’s enthusiasm, letting himself be tugged along to the long line of stagecoaches waiting by the track. His smile swiftly disappeared as it occurred to him what taking the stagecoaches meant.
Hundreds of leathery, skeletal heads turned as he approached. Instantly, countless pairs of glowing white eyes were trained directly on his face.
Uh oh.
Draco glanced back at him, confused at his sudden halt. “What’s the matter, Harry? Don’t you want to pick out a carriage?”
Harry smiled weakly, avoiding looking around. “Sure. Which one do you want?”
Draco pulled him down the row, chattering about some specially high-class stagecoach that his father had ridden as a student. Harry kept his eyes on the dirt ground, pulling all traces of his magic close to his body so as to make his presence as small as possible.
Don’t notice me, don’t notice me, he prayed, fighting the urge to look up. He hadn’t considered having to travel in carts drawn by thestrals, which had been known to act unpredictably around him. There was no telling how the creatures might react to the Master of Death in their midst.
And that herd he’d gathered for Halloween last year... some of these thestrals knew him, and he couldn’t tell which ones.
Horrifying.
“Oh, this must be it!” Draco exclaimed, dragging him towards one of the carriages. “See that little crown mounted on top? And those painted fairies— it’s just as Father said!”
Harry stepped inside the carriage after Draco, shifting on the cushioned leather seats so that he wasn’t visible from the windows. He pulled up the hood of his cloak as an extra precaution. Draco, fawning over the gold inlaid in the walls, took no notice.
Blaise, Pansy, and Millicent found them a few minutes later. After they’d all settled in, Harry heard a distant voice signaling the start of the trip to Hogwarts grounds. The stagecoach jerked into motion, and Harry breathed a quiet sigh of relief.
Apparently, he’d lowered his guard too soon.
“Uh... is it just me, or is no one else moving?” Blaise said, leaning his head out the window. Pushing back his hood, Harry surveyed the view with growing dread.
Blaise was right; their carriage was the only one rolling along the track. A low murmur was starting to rise from the other carts, students watching them pass in puzzlement. The thestrals stood motionless, pupil-less eyes following him down the path.
Harry leaned further back, trying to avoid eye contact. Whatever was happening right now, he hoped it would sort itself out when he got far enough away. He didn’t like weird chaotic events that he wasn’t the one behind.
They were approaching the front of the line. They passed one of the professors’ carriages, and Harry spotted McGonagall standing outside in urgent discussion with Kettleburn. They must be trying to figure out what was wrong with the horses, he surmised.
As soon as they passed the first in the row, he heard a steady thudding of hooves on dirt. Harry craned his neck back to see that the rest of the thestrals had all started moving, plodding along in a little procession. Their milky gazes were still fixed unerringly on him.
“It looks like everyone else has started moving now too,” Pansy said, still staring out the window behind them. “I wonder what went wrong with the carriages. Did the enchantment malfunction or something?”
“Father told me the carriages are all pulled by thestrals,” Draco said, eyes wide, “that’s why we can’t see them. Do you suppose this has something to do with what happened on Halloween?”
Harry wisely kept his mouth shut.
“What, those rumors people were spreading about a Dark creature uprising?” Blaise scoffed. “Don’t be stupid, Malfoy. The thestrals probably just got distracted, or didn’t hear the command. They’re only horses, after all.”
But it seemed the thestrals knew exactly what they were doing. Not a single carriage passed theirs, despite the relatively slow pace. When he chanced another glance out the window, the entire herd was keeping stride, all marching single file behind them.
A show of respect? Perhaps they hadn’t moved at first because they’d wanted him to lead.
When their stagecoach passed through the wrought iron gate and swayed to a stop, Harry was the first one out. He hopped down onto the grass, waiting somewhat restlessly for the others to follow, before walking quickly toward the steps up to the castle.
“Wait, Harry,” Draco huffed, jogging after him. “Why are you walking so fast?”
Because they were chasing him.
The other carriages were all starting to pull in on the grounds, and students were already spilling out in swarms. The thestrals, however, were showing no signs of leaving. They watched him still, and as he sped up a bit more, they began to follow.
The carts were still attached to their backs, and the wheels creaked as they rolled along in tow. Harry walked even faster, ignoring Draco’s winded complaints. The thestrals’ pace accelerated to match his.
Alarmed noises left the surrounding students as the seemingly self-driving carriages advanced, making a beeline for the stairs. Harry cursed under his breath, throwing all caution to the wind and making a run for the double doors. Hooves thundered against the ground, steadily growing louder.
The screaming began. Students scattered, scrambling out of the way as horse and carriage alike flew across the grounds. Yanking at the handles of the great oaken doors, Harry discovered with the utmost delight that they hadn’t been unlocked yet. By the professors who were supposed to have arrived at the castle first.
Turning slowly around, he heard the thudding of hooves slow to a halt. Gazing up at him from the bottom of the stone steps were at least a hundred bony, winged nightmares, all unblinkingly innocent.
Merlin damn it all.
“Leave,” he hissed through his teeth. There were people surrounding him, on the steps and all around. If this got pinned on him, he was screwed.
The thestrals tilted their large heads one way and then the other, staring as if into his soul. He gestured as best he could with only his eyebrows, eyes darting pointedly toward the gate and back. The thestrals didn’t move.
Kettleburn was elbowing his way to the front. “Not to worry, students,” he shouted over the panicked hum, “just a little trouble with the carts, we’ll get it sorted in a jiffy—”
Harry watched with bated breath as several of the professors helped Kettleburn turn the herd around. It seemed that no one had noticed what the thestrals had been after (his scrawny arse), so this incident would hopefully just be written off as an unexplained one-time oddity.
One-time? Hermione’s knowing voice said in the back of his mind.
Oh. Oh no.
He’d have to ride the carriages again next year, wouldn’t he?
“Harry!” Draco was running up the stairs, Blaise at his heels. “Are you okay? You didn’t get run over, did you?”
Harry plastered a wide, bland smile on his face, beyond done with the night. “The carriages stopped just short, so I’m fine,” he told them as McGonagall unlocked the front doors and started ushering students inside. “That was scary, huh? Hope it doesn’t happen again.”
It would absolutely be happening again. The situation was out of Harry’s hands now.
Once they had all taken their seats in the Great Hall, the first-years were shuffled onstage for the Sorting. Harry was ready for the evening to be over, and he tuned out the Hat’s song in favor of imagining his long-awaited reunion with Norberta. Right after the feast, he resolved, he’d head straight to the Forbidden Forest.
Every so often, a name he recognized would register; he absently heard Colin Creevey get called to the stool not long before Luna Lovegood. At the very end was Ginny, accompanied by a storm of cheering and clapping from the Gryffindor table. The feast commenced shortly afterward, and Harry tapped his foot impatiently throughout the courses.
Gilderoy Lockhart’s loud, insincere laugh rang out from up at the High Table. Harry’s eye twitched. He forcefully averted his gaze from the beaming, flamboyantly-robed wizard to stave off the temptation to set him on fire.
When the prefects stood to lead the first-years to the dorms, he squeezed his way to the doors with Draco and Blaise. All the upper years already knew the password (Slytherin was a much more organized House than Gryffindor), so they just passed right through the entrance to their dormitory.
“I’ll be writing to Father about that incident with the carriages,” Draco declared as they got ready for bed. He’d been huffy all night; the entire Slytherin table had been subject to the story of Draco Malfoy’s harrowing near-death experience.
“You do that,” Harry said, barely listening. He’d be seeing his precious dragon baby again in only a little while, and he was struggling to be patient. Just as soon as the kids fell asleep...
“Night, guys,” he called through a fabricated yawn, drawing the hangings shut around his bed. He received a chorus of replies as the others settled in for the evening.
Among the wards he’d put up last year, there was an enchantment that alerted him when his dormmates were awake. He didn’t want to risk anyone finding out he was regularly sneaking out at night, even if his kids were (mostly) loyal enough to keep it a secret. Most likely they’d try to tail him, and he’d rather avoid that.
When the wards informed him that all three were sound asleep, he quietly opened a Dimensional Portal. The swirling void spread over his bedcovers, running the length of the mattress. He let himself sink down into it, forming a vision of Norberta’s clearing in his mind.
A moment later, his back touched down on damp, mossy earth. The Portal closed above him and he hopped to his feet, jogging over to the subtle shimmer of wardwork.
“Norberta,” he called loudly in Parseltongue as he bodily shoved his way through the enchantments. “Papa’s back! Where are you, sweetheart?”
A joyful roar filtered through the wards, and Harry pushed harder. With a grunt, he shouldered his way inside. He didn’t even have time to open his mouth again before he was slammed to the ground by a tremendous mass of black.
“Oof— who’s my little void girlie?— can’t breathe—”
“Papaaaa,” Berta rumbled ecstatically. “Jd)b*n ii foofoo!”
Harry laughed with whatever air was still in his lungs. “I know, love,” he wheezed, utterly winded. “Foofoo to you too.”
Once she let him up and he caught his breath again, they played a vigorous game of fetch. Norberta certainly hadn’t forgotten him over the summer, and she seemed just as overjoyed at their reunion as he was. He supposed she really did think of him as her Papa.
They played late into the night, rough-housing and chasing each other all over the clearing. In the wee hours of the morning when the sky hadn’t yet begun to lighten, the two of them sat together by Excalibur, Nortberta’s head resting in his lap and a rumble of contentment resounding through her chest every so often.
He stroked the creature’s smooth, scaled head, his mind filled with calm. He sat with her for hours. It was only when the darkness above began to pale that he forced himself to stand again.
“I have to go now, love, ” he apologized to the sleepy dragon. “Sweet dreams. I promise I’ll be back tomorrow with some tasty deer carcasses.”
He picked his way back through the Forest, letting its wild magic guide him back to the castle. He didn’t want to use a Portal now, not when he had fresh air in his lungs and the rising sun to watch. He walked slowly.
As he crossed the castle grounds, a dark shape near the edge of the trees snagged his eye. He changed course, curious. It looked to be some sort of lumpy object around the size of...
Around the size of a demiguise torso. Because it was a demiguise torso.
“What the actual...” Harry prodded the bloodied thing with the tip of his shoe, grimacing at the unpleasant squelch. The creature was missing its head, which seemed to have been torn off without the use of a weapon. Whatever had killed the thing hadn’t been human.
“Incendio.” The demiguise corpse burst into flames, quickly burning to ash. Harry made the sign of the cross the way he’d seen Petunia do at a funeral once. “Rest in peace, buddy,” he told the scorch mark.
Fleetingly, the memory of the severed gorgon head he’d found in the Room of Requirement flashed across his mind. What exactly is killing all these creatures? he wondered as he slipped back into his bed through a Portal. And is this my doing, or was it already happening and I just never realized?
All these mysteries.
Harry wasn’t sure it was a good sign that there were still unknowns at Hogwarts. He was a time traveler, after all; there shouldn’t be anything going on that he didn’t already know about.
(But on the other hand, Harry had always loved having a mystery to solve.)
“Should I be waiting for you, or...?”
Draco glanced up from the mirror, hands still running through his hair. “I’m almost done,” he said, squeezing more gel out of the elegant silver bottle on the vanity. “Just fixing my hair.”
“For an hour and a half?” Blaise commented snidely. “Why bother? You don’t even have that much of it.”
Draco sneered at him in the mirror. “Mind your business, Zabini. Some of us actually put effort into our appearances.”
Harry had his hand on the doorknob. “I’m just gonna...”
Draco waved him off, starting to rub the gel into his hair. “You go on ahead. I’ll be down in a minute.”
Blaise followed him out of the dorm and through the common room, mocking Draco under his breath. Harry wished he’d left earlier, because having Blaise on his heels was going to complicate things. He’d have to come up with some sort of excuse to ditch the boy.
They took their seats in the Great Hall, and Millicent dragged a sleepy Pansy over a few minutes later. Harry still hadn’t managed to find an opportunity to slip away when Draco arrived, hair shining more brilliantly than Lockhart’s up at the staff table.
Darn, he thought, pushing his porridge around with his spoon. I’m going to have to break out the bathroom excuse again, aren’t I? Nobody falls for that anymore.
“Sorry, guys,” he said, pushing away from the table, “I’ve got to go to the loo. Watch my food for me, yeah?”
He left the Great Hall at a measured pace, ignoring Blaise calling after him, “No one’s interested in your porridge!” He flicked a glance up at the staff table when he reached the doors, satisfied to see Dumbledore engaged in a lively conversation with Sprout. Snape seemed to be in the midst of a one-sided argument with Lockhart.
Harry walked briskly up to the second floor, layering on the privacy wards as he went. The girls’ toilets was a place he didn’t particularly want to be spotted entering, Chamber of Secrets notwithstanding.
He slipped around the partially ajar door, stepping over large puddles of unknown origin. Muffled sobs echoed off the tiled walls, and Harry stayed far away from the corner stall the noises emanated from. His charms would keep him hidden, but there was no need to tempt fate. (Or Myrtle.)
“Open,” he hissed to the snake tap. With a groan and a rumble, the sinks moved aside to reveal the large chute beneath.
Abruptly, Myrtle’s sobs cut off.
Shit, he thought, hurriedly swinging his legs over the edge of the pipe. “Close,” he tried, shimmying himself down a bit. The entrance began to shrink, and Harry breathed a sigh of relief. He let go of the edge.
“Ew, ew, EW FUCK— scourgify! SCOURGIFY!”
He flew out from the chute onto the crunchy ground, still cussing at the top of his lungs. He’d forgotten how utterly nasty those pipes were, and now his robes were covered in slime. He repeatedly cast the cleaning charm on himself until he no longer felt pipe goo in uncomfortable places.
“Well that was disgusting,” he said brightly, illuminating the rodent bone-strewn floor with a wandless lumos. “Thanks, Slytherin. Thank you very much for that disgusting entrance. No, really. Good job.”
With one last backward glance (how was he getting back up there?), he started crunching off down the dark tunnel. If he recalled correctly from his brief time being caved in down here, the door to the Chamber was a bit further back.
“Ah, a landmark.” He nodded politely to the enormous husk of basilisk skin as he passed.
A few more twists and turns later, he was stopped by a vaguely familiar damp wall that looked somewhat like all the other damp walls. The snakes carved into it, though, were rather distinctive.
He jerked his chin in their direction. Glittering emerald eyes followed the movement. “Hey. What’s up?”
The stone snakes remained still and lifeless.
“Not big talkers? That’s a shame. I was meaning to ask if you two were married or if you were just in some sort of... friends with benefits situation.”
The carvings’ gleaming gemstone eyes bored into him.
“You know. ‘Cause you’re all entwined like that. Kind of...”
The emeralds glimmered.
“...Erotic.”
The silence stretched.
“...I’m sorry. Can you let me in now please? Open sesame and whatnot?”
It might have just been Harry’s imagination, but the snakes did not seem pleased with him. Their gazes felt reproachful as they slowly began to split apart, taking the wall with them out of sight.
He stood in the entrance to the chamber he remembered from so long ago. There was an odd greenish cast to the high pillars and hollow-eyed stone serpents, a cast that reflected in the hallmark puddles of goo. The towering statue of Salazar Slytherin loomed ahead.
Harry felt movement in the breast pocket of his robes, and Lancelot’s sleepy head peeked out. The noise of the shifting wall must have woken him. “Mornin’,” he yawned, long tongue flickering in the air. “Did I miss breakfast? Wait, where are we?”
Harry lifted the serpent out of his pocket and wound him around his shoulders. The passive growth enchantment he’d cast kicked in, enlarging Lancelot to roughly the size of a ball python. “We’re in the Chamber of Secrets,” he said, shoes slapping wetly on the ground as he walked. “You missed the pipe slide, lucky man.”
“I’m sorry, we’re where?” Lance’s head whipped around to stare at him incredulously. “Did you just say we’re in that crazy dangerous, monster-infested hidey-hole no one’s found in centuries?”
“Exactly,” Harry said cheerfully. “You woke up just in time to meet the basilisk.”
Lancelot’s eyes looked about ready to pop out of their sockets. “Turn around,” he demanded, trying to slither off Harry’s shoulders. “Like hell I’m meeting Mr. Eyeball Lasers, I’m leaving—”
“Leaving where?” Harry grabbed him by the middle and held fast. “You don’t even know where we are. Besides, I already closed up the entrance. You’d be safer just staying with me.”
Lancelot glowered at him meanly, but didn’t try to fly off his shoulders again. “If that thing kills me, it’ll be all your fault,” he grumbled.
“Keep your eyes shut tight,” Harry told him, “and you’ll have nothing to worry about.”
He’d walked all the way to the end of the Chamber and now stood at the statue’s enormous gray feet. It occurred to him that the basilisk would still be in its century-long slumber, and he had no idea how to wake it up. He sat down on Slytherin’s toes in consternation.
It was quite damp. And slimy.
“Where is it?” Lancelot asked, face buried in Harry’s neck. “Is it here yet?”
“It’s asleep right now,” Harry said, poking the serpent on the head. “And you don’t have to shove your face into me like that, just close your eyes.”
“Snakes don’t have eyelids,” Lancelot snapped. “At least, I don’t have any. What am I supposed to do, roll my eyes back into my skull so I can’t see anything?”
“No eyelids, huh?” he muttered in English. “You learn something new every day.” Then, taking a deep breath, he shouted, “HEY, BIG BOY! HIBERNATION’S OVER! GET YOUR ASS UP!”
His shout rang through the chamber, amplified by the high, curving ceiling. The words echoed through the dim space, overlapping and slithering between the arching pillars. Any living creature in the Chamber certainly would have heard it.
So he waited.
“Harry,” Lance hissed into his ear. “Close your eyes! It could be coming any second now!”
Harry smiled. “You don’t have to worry about that,” he told the nervous boy. “I’m the Master of Death, remember? I can’t die, not even from a basilisk stare. It’s kind of the only perk of the job.”
He didn’t know where the creature would come from, so he wasn’t sure where to look. He kept his eyes moving and his ears attuned. Lancelot shifted uneasily against his neck.
And all of a sudden, he heard it: the faint rasp of scales over stone, the slide and scrape of a huge body squeezing through a narrow tunnel. The noise bounced and reverberated around the chamber much in the same way his shout had, so he was left to scan the room for signs of its source.
Oh, he thought, looking up as the sounds grew louder and louder. It’s in the old bastard’s mouth, isn’t it?
And if Harry was interpreting the sudden silence right, it looked like the basilisk couldn’t leave on its own. What had Riddle said to open the statue’s mouth again? Something emo and pretentious as all hell...
“Uh... speak, Slytherin, O Great and Wise Supreme One. Or whatever.”
Slytherin did not speak.
Harry didn’t know why he’d expected that to work. “On second thought— bombarda maxima!”
The entire lower half of the statue’s face exploded. As Harry danced out of the way of falling chunks of stone, he absently wondered how Riddle had known the secret passcode. Had he just spent hours trying out different word combinations until something worked?
He’d ask the diary later.
Once the dust had settled and Lancelot had finished shrieking in his ear about how he was going to kill them both, Harry squinted up at the statue’s blasted head. He could see movement from within the dark recesses of Slytherin’s stone skull. Hoping the basilisk wasn’t injured, he raised his voice to address it.
“Come on down,” he called up to it. “I have a task for you.”
Slowly, the immense girth of the ancient creature began to emerge from the opening Harry had forcefully created. He watched with a morbid sort of wonderment as over thirty feet of massive snake extended from Slytherin’s blasted face-hole to the wet chamber floor.
Lancelot was quaking. Harry stroked a hand down his back to soothe him.
As a child, Harry had averted his gaze as assiduously as his snake self was presently doing. Now, however, he kept his eyes wide open. He didn’t even blink as the green-scaled creature reached the ground and reared up to its full height. When the serpent’s vibrant golden gaze landed on his figure, he stared it dead in the eye.
Harry looked at the basilisk. The basilisk looked at Harry.
And ever so slowly, the basilisk started to keel over to the side.
Its mammoth body thudded lifelessly to the ground with a tremendous crash. The chamber shook. Harry stared into blank, dead yellow eyes.
Uh oh.
“Shit, shit— what the— what in the name of—”
Lancelot lifted his head from Harry’s neck, cautiously peeking up at the basilisk’s body. The serpent’s jolt marked the exact moment he realized the creature was dead. “You killed it,” Lancelot said, sounding stunned. “You killed the death monster.”
There was a brief pause. Lancelot turned his appalled face to Harry. “What did you do?”
“Nothing!” Harry exclaimed, starting to sweat. “All I did was look at it, I swear! I have no clue what happened—”
“Do something, dammit!” Lancelot was giving him the nastiest evil eye.
“Er...” Harry got down on his knees. “Hail Mary, may the souls of the faithful departed—”
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”
“I DON’T KNOW, WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME—”
Lancelot chomped down on his arm, hard.
“Ow!” Harry pried the snake off of him, holding him up in midair so Lancelot couldn’t bite him again. Harry scowled down at the puncture marks in his arm as his snake self continued to hiss and spit heated accusations.
“I don’t know what you want me to do, kid,” he groused, stretching his neck over to lick at the throbbing bite marks. “I’m telling you, it just keeled over for no reason! I didn’t do a thing to it, and that’s the truth.”
Lancelot let out a long, gusty snake sigh. “Just… just do something, will you? You’re the Master of Death, can’t you— I don’t know, revive it or something?”
Harry paused. He’d never tried to bring anyone back to life before. Even for him, necromancy had seemed a little... much.
But then again, “I guess there’s only one way to find out.”
He approached the fallen basilisk and knelt down by its colossal head. Dubiously, he placed his hand on the crown of its skull. “Er... revive. Heed Death’s call. Arise!”
“You have no idea what you’re doing, do you?”
“Not a one.”
Lancelot let out another loud snake sigh. “So much for being the Master of Death. What a useless—”
The corpse twitched. They both froze.
Neither of them made a sound. They each silently ogled the basilisk’s form for any further indication of life. Harry had nearly begun to doubt his own eyes by the time he saw the great serpent’s tongue spasm.
“JESUS! Holy— Merlin, it’s actually working!” Harry could hardly believe what he was seeing. Especially since he hadn’t actually done anything, again.
(He killed without trying, he resurrected the dead without trying... clearly, he didn’t understand what it meant to be the Master of Death as well as he thought he did.)
“I... was not expecting that to work,” Lancelot said faintly. “Holy hell. You can resurrect the dead, Harry?”
“Apparently. I’ll be honest, I’m more shocked than you.”
A great shifting and scraping echoed through the chamber as the basilisk’s enormous body began to rise off the floor. Harry stared in a dumbfounded sort of amazement, one hand raising to cover Lancelot’s eyes. He dropped his own gaze to a spot near the creature’s snout, unwilling to find out if his resurrection powers would work twice.
Finally the basilisk was once more coiled above him at full height. There was a long, ringing silence.
Does it— does it know it was dead? Can it even speak anymore?
The creature’s mouth opened, and a long, sinuous hiss wound through the chamber. “MASSSTER…”
Question answered.
The green mass of a head dipped slightly, swaying closer to where he stood. Harry sweated harder, half-expecting the creature to start accusing him of murder and witchcraft. “MASSSTER…” the basilisk repeated vacantly.
Oh, alright, it’s just going to pretend it didn’t see its snake ancestors in Valhalla before getting dragged back down to Earth. That’s fine.
“MASSSTER? YOU ARE THE HEIR?”
The real Heir of Slytherin had been locked in his trunk for the past month. “Uh… yes?” he lied convincingly.
The basilisk swayed closer still, thick forked tongue scenting the air around him. Harry leaned back, head firmly turned in the opposite direction.
“I have a task for you,” he hissed commandingly to Slytherin’s kneecaps. “I know you just woke up and all... hope that’s not a problem...”
In his peripheral vision, the creature’s large blunt head cocked to the right.
“Could you... could you close your eyes?” he tried, still looking at the statue’s slimy feet.
“Harry,” Lancelot hissed in his ear, voice pitched high enough to shatter glass. “Snakes don’t have eyelids!”
Crap.
“Membranes,” Lancelot practically squeaked at him with his snout shoved directly in Harry’s ear. “We’ve got, like, clear contact lenses over the eyes— look it up!”
“Contacts!” he blurted. “I mean, membranes! Close your membranes. Please— for your own safety.”
He waited, sweating, trying not to look in the basilisk’s direction. He couldn’t tell if it was doing anything, and he still wasn’t sure it wouldn’t try to attack him. If that happened, he’d have to pull the Uno reverse card on its death glare again.
His days of fighting with swords were behind him. He was entering his Medusa era.
“Er... all good?” he called cautiously. “Got your eyes covered yet?”
The basilisk emitted a strange, sibilant hiss that vibrated through the air. There was no further response.
“If you die again, I’m not reviving you,” he muttered as he turned his head slowly around. His eyes landed on the basilisk’s maw, and he slowly dragged his gaze upwards until they met with gold.
He waited warily, half expecting the creature to keel over again. But as the moment stretched and the basilisk showed no signs of falling down dead, he began to notice how much duller the eyes were; the bright, bulbous yellow that had used to glow from the serpent’s skull had dimmed to a light amber. It was as if a clear film had been laid in front of the irises.
“Okay,” he puffed out a breath. “Okay, we’re good. Everything’s fine. You can look now, Lance.”
He felt the snake shift slightly against his neck. “I’m fine where I am, thanks,” came the muffled hiss.
The basilisk was watching them. Its head was still tilted slightly to the right, like a curious bird gone horribly wrong. Harry wondered if it really didn’t remember being dead, or if it was closer to a zombie than an animal right now.
“Basilisk,” he said in as commanding a tone of voice as he could summon while cradling a three-foot long snake. “Listen carefully. I have a very important task for you, and I need your full cooperation.”
The creature’s tongue quivered in the air, and another long hiss rolled from its maw. “TASSSK? KILL THE UNWORTHY?”
“No— no, haha,” Harry grimaced, patting a shuddering Lancelot on the back, “not quite. No killing, please.”
“NO RIP TEAR KILL?”
“Very— very sweet of you to offer,” he called with slightly strained cheer, “but that won’t be necessary. You can just keep your delightful murder orbs covered, alright?”
All the enthusiasm seemed to leach out of the basilisk’s bearing. The cant of its head informed Harry that it wasn’t angry, just disappointed.
Lancelot gave another shudder. Harry absently soothed him with gentle pets on the head. “I don’t want to hear about some unfortunate child getting petrified,” he warned. “You keep those peepers closed, got it? I’m serious.”
The basilisk’s hissing sounded notably disgruntled. “YESSS, MASSSTER. I SHALL NOT KILL UNLESSS THE HEIR PERMITSSS IT.”
Ah yes, the Heir. The Heir that Harry most definitely was. The only reason this fifty-foot long giant snake was listening to him.
Riddle, you little bastard, he thought, you better stay in that goddamn trunk if you know what’s good for you.
“Your task,” Harry commanded, “is to escape this castle. I want you to live in the Forbidden Forest from now on.”
Lancelot jerked against his chest. “The Forbidden Forest?” he hissed. “Are you mad? Norberta’s in there!”
“She’ll be fine,” Harry muttered, glancing up at the basilisk. It didn’t appear to be paying attention. “She’s got her wards, remember? Besides, I don’t plan on letting those death eyes open again at all. Too risky.”
No need to have Fawkes peck them out this time; he’d just glue those membranes down tight with magic. As far as he could tell, the creature could still see with its eyes covered.
“Right then,” he called up to the basilisk. “Lead the way.”
The Hogwarts pipes were some of the nastiest Harry had ever stepped foot in. To be fair, he hadn’t stepped foot in many sewage systems— but he couldn’t imagine the London sewers got much worse than this. Forget rats, crocodiles could live down here.
He jogged along, noises of disgust involuntarily leaving his mouth with every squelching step. Lancelot was wrapped tightly around his torso, clinging on for dear life.
“Where are we going?” he whined in Harry’s ear. “Why aren’t we leaving? I don’t like it here. It’s smelly and icky.”
“You think I’m enjoying this?” Harry said, splashing through a green, goopy puddle. His skin crawled as he felt it soak through his robes. He was going to need one hell of a bath after this. “The pipes may be revolting, but we unfortunately need to use them for a bit longer. Can’t get spotted in the hallways, after all.”
According to Lancelot, closed membranes rendered snakes rather short-sighted. For the basilisk to escape safely without harming any of the students, Harry would need to guide it through the castle. Obviously, running after it in the halls was out of the question; he’d get spotted immediately.
Hence, the nasty pipes.
He was currently running inside the wall parallel to the dungeons, and the basilisk was keeping pace in the hall alongside him. He’d cast a Sight spell on his eyes so he could direct the enormous serpent around corners. With his improved vision, he was able to look right through the metal and stone and keep an eye on the halls.
“RIGHT,” he shouted through the wall. “TURN RIGHT! THERE’S A BEND—”
CRACK!
The entire corridor shook as the basilisk face-planted into the stone wall. Harry stumbled slightly, narrowly avoiding pitching over into a shallow pool of murky liquid. “MERLIN DAMN IT ALL, I SAID TURN!”
Guiding a half-blind serpent monster through narrow little human-sized hallways was proving to be more than he’d bargained for. Harry took a short moment to question his life choices. “I regret... everything.”
CRASH!
“LEFT! I SAID— THAT’S NOT LEFT!! YOUR LEFT!! YOUR LEFT!!”
WHAM!
“GOD, HOW IS YOUR FACE NOT BROKEN? JUST KEEP STRAIGHT, DAMMIT—”
“Uh, Harry?” Lancelot said nervously. “I think there are people down the hall.”
He was right. They had reached the main floor and were steadily growing closer to the Great Hall. As he jogged along in the pipes with the basilisk in tow, he heard the sounds of hundreds of footfalls against stone. Robed figures milled around the hallways, not yet taking notice of the quickly approaching serpent.
“Looks like breakfast is over,” Harry grinned. “Perfect timing.”
He wanted the basilisk out of the castle, but what fun would the escape be without any witnesses?
“FORWARD,” he shouted through the wall of the pipe. “FORWARD HO! MARCH ON, SOLDIER!”
“Harry!” Lancelot screeched.
“Watch, watch, this is gonna be so good—!”
The basilisk burst out of the hallway and into the antechamber off the Great Hall, to utter pandemonium. Screams rent the air. At least fifty students scurried around the room like little black ants, shrieks of terror bouncing off the flagstones.
Harry’s inappropriate laughter was lost in the cacophony.
The basilisk reared, swaying slightly in confusion. It must be disoriented by all the noise. “CAREFUL,” Harry shouted at it. “DON’T HURT ANY STUDENTS! JUST MAKE IT TO THOSE DOORS AT THE END OF THE HALL!”
The basilisk released a low hiss and slowly began to weave its way across the antechamber. Students scrambled out of its way, screaming bloody murder. As Harry watched, gleeful, a lone figure fought against the tide of people towards the serpent.
“Hang on. Is that...?”
It was.
“STOP RIGHT THERE, FOUL BEAST!” Lockhart shouted, brandishing his wand in the basilisk’s direction.
“You moron,” Harry said incredulously, watching the turquoise-robed professor position himself directly in the basilisk’s path. “Get out of the way, you absolute buffoon. You’re going to get yourself killed.”
The basilisk didn’t seem to register Lockhart’s presence. It continued to slither forward, making no signs of slowing or stopping. “HEY!” Harry yelled. “PAY ATTENTION! YOU’RE GONNA RUN HIM OVER!”
The creature tilted its enormous head in confusion. It did not slow down.
“NOT TO WORRY, STUDENTS,” Lockhart cried. “I, GILDEROY LOCKHART, SHALL PROTECT YOU ALL!”
“STOP, STOP! FUCKING WATCH OUT—”
Too late.
CRUNCH.
The basilisk rolled right over Lockhart’s body and onward without pause. The loud crunch rang through the hall, reverberating through the stone floor. Harry’s entire body cringed at the impact.
...Oops?
The screaming renewed. Lockhart’s turquoise form remained crumpled on the floor, unmoving. The serpent slithered on, nearly at the front doors.
“GO!” Harry called after it, forced to stop where the wall ended and the pipe curved downwards again. “KEEP GOING! RUN TO THE FOREST!”
The basilisk put on a burst of speed, slamming full-tilt into the doors. Half the wall burst outward upon collision, sending tremors through the entire room. Harry watched from the pipes as the massive serpent started off across the grounds in the direction of the Forest treeline.
He breathed a sigh of relief as he watched its girth disappear into the cover of the foliage. “Success,” he said merrily, brushing dust rubble off his robes. “Now we just have to find our way out of here and rejoin the group.”
“What part of that,” Lancelot hissed, still clinging onto his shoulders in frozen horror, “seemed like success to you, Harry?”
Harry chortled, patting the snake’s head somewhat patronizingly. “Why, the part where everything went according to my plans, of course,” he said contentedly. “Right up to and including Lockhart getting pancaked.”
Lancelot shot a look up at him, evidently still recovering from the shock. “So that blond guy was Professor Lockhart? What do you even have against him?”
Immediately, “Everything.”
Ten minutes later, Harry slipped out of the pipes in a bathroom down the hall to inconspicuously join the crush of panicked students. The first floor hallways were incredibly chaotic, which allowed him to disappear seamlessly into the crowd.
McGonagall’s voice thundered through the hallway via Sonorous charm, commanding everyone back to their dormitories. Prefects fought to be heard above the din. Harry spotted Gemma Farley off to the side attempting to corral the Slytherins into a single file line, and dodged his way through to join the procession.
Halfway to the stairwell, a weight collided with his back. Harry grunted, stumbling forward a bit with the impact. From the way arms wrapped around his waist with all the gripping force of an octopus on steroids, he assumed his assailant was Draco.
The pitchy whimpers from behind confirmed this.
Harry wrapped an arm around the agitated boy’s shoulders and started leading him down the stairs. He patted Draco’s back as the boy rambled away at him in a voice steadily climbing octaves. He couldn’t make out much of the words, but the traumatized ferret noises came across loud and clear.
In all fairness, traumatizing Draco Malfoy really didn’t take much.
Blaise and Theo located him almost immediately afterward, and they walked silently together the rest of the way to the dorm. The entire House piled into the common room, filling the room near to bursting. Harry snagged the last available cluster of armchairs for the four of them.
Blaise gusted out a long breath, staring somewhat blankly into the fireplace. “You guys saw that thing too, right?” he asked faintly. “I wasn’t hallucinating or something?”
“You mean the giant snake monster,” Theo said flatly. “The one that smashed through the front doors? Must have been a mass hallucination.” The boy’s tone remained impassive, but his face was several shades paler than normal.
A high, squeaky sound emanated from Draco’s direction.
Damn, Harry thought, glancing around at the herd of frenzied, shouting students. It sure is loud in here. Wonder what they’re all so worked up over.
Suddenly, it struck him that he’d meant to ask Riddle some things about the Chamber. Casting a quick glance around the room, he subtly stuck his hand behind his back and summoned his Dimensional Pocket. The diary had just fallen into his palm when Pansy and Millicent came running over to join them.
“Did you guys see—” Pansy squawked.
“The thing! The thing!” Draco squawked back. “My father will be hearing about this!”
Harry ignored them both in favor of flipping the diary open. He pulled out the pink highlighter he’d stashed in his robe pocket earlier and cheerfully flicked the cap off. ‘Hey Tom,’ he scribbled in large letters across the page. ‘What’s the passcode to open Slytherin’s mouth in the Chamber of Secrets?’
The diary’s magic spiked in something resembling shock. The highlighter sunk into the page and an answering message appeared seconds later. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve desecrated the Chamber too. Is nothing sacred anymore?’
Harry smiled with his teeth. ‘Sewer slides are sacred to you? I didn’t take you for the type to enjoy getting covered in slime.’
The diary paused a bit. ‘Did you... slide down the chute?’
‘Obviously. How else would I get down there?’
There was another pause. ‘...You know you could have just called for the stairs instead, right?’
Harry’s smile froze. ‘You’re lying.’
‘I’m not.’
‘You’re LYING.’
“Everyone,” Farley shouted above the noise, “please calm down! The aurors have arrived and everything is being taken care of—”
“Is it true that there was a giant snake monster in the castle?” someone yelled. The clamor surged again. Draco competed with the rest of the room to screech his account of exactly what had happened twenty minutes earlier, face bright red from the excitement.
Harry wasn’t listening. He was too occupied with the fact that he could’ve taken the goddamn stairs?! And nobody told him?!
‘So you mean to tell me,’ he wrote with a shaking hand, ‘that I bathed in sewer goo this morning for nothing?’
‘Forget the sewers,’ the diary demanded. ‘Tell me what business you have with the Chamber of Secrets. You’re not even the Heir— how did you open the entrance?’
Harry tapped his finger against the arm of his chair, still frowning. He just couldn’t get over the fact that there had been stairs the whole time. ‘And who says I’m not the Heir? Bold of you to assume, when you don’t know anything about me.’
The diary’s magic frothed testily. ‘You can’t be the Heir, because I’m the Heir. I know you know that, so stop playing dumb. Answer the question.’
Cheeky brat.
‘You know, Tom,’ he said, ‘there’s no rule that you have to be an Heir to open the Chamber. You just have to be a Parselmouth.’
The horcrux seemed to startle. ‘But that’s not possible. How can you be a Parselmouth? I’m the last one in Britain, so how—?’
‘Oh, didn’t I mention?’ Harry wrote meanly, dotting the ‘i’s with cute little hearts. ‘We’re related. I’m actually your son.’
Riddle’s irritation was like a wave of prickles over his hand. ‘Now I know for certain you’re lying to me,’ the diary hissed. ‘I would never have a child.’
‘Who knows?’ Harry told him, lips twitching somewhat immaturely. ‘You’ve been trapped in here for quite a while. Anything could have changed in the time you were gone.’
‘Not this,’ Riddle insisted. ‘Whatever else might have happened, this could never.’
Did Riddle really hate kids that much? To the point of not even entertaining the thought of fathering an heir?
Well, Harry supposed, that’s really none of my business.
“—GIANT HUMONGOUS ELDRITCH CREATURE—”
Harry absentmindedly ducked as Draco’s arm went soaring through the air. The movement jostled a half-empty cup of tea sitting on the coffee table, and he hurriedly leaned forward to steady it. A few drops of lukewarm liquid splashed onto the pages of the diary.
‘Sorry about that,’ Harry scribbled, blotting at the stains with his sleeve. ‘Knocked over a cup. It’s a bit chaotic in here right now.’
‘Chaotic? Why?’
Harry made to answer, but his eyes caught on the stains from the tea. His highlighter paused above the page. Something about the way the drops were smudged didn’t look quite right... it was almost like...
No.
Surely not?
Slowly, ever so slowly, he lifted the highlighter above the open diary. He held it there, motionless, for a few moments.
And then he let it drop.
With his jaw on the floor, Harry watched the horcrux suck in the entire marker from cap to bottom. In the span of a single second, both the tea droplets and his highlighter had disappeared into the pages.
He sat frozen for a long minute.
‘What are you doing?’ Riddle’s suspicious words appeared, formed of dark tea drops. ‘Why did you just send me your pen?’
...Merlin’s saggy—
Harry seized the teacup off the coffee table and shoved it against the paper. It sank right in just as easily as if he had pushed it through water.
“—NEARLY KILLED ME! MY FATHER—”
He groped blindly, eyes fixed mindlessly on the diary. His hand closed on a magazine and he hastily crumpled it up, pressing it forcefully into the parchment. He watched it disappear with rising elation.
‘Hey,’ Riddle called, sounding irritated, ‘I asked you what you’re doing. How are you even sending me physical objects? You’re only supposed to use ink, you idio—’
Harry cut him off with the barrel end of a Spanish musket. He didn’t pause for even a second, summoning object after object: a fork and knife, a cardboard box, a roll of toilet paper, a— live worm?
Doesn’t matter, shove it in—
‘HEY!’ Riddle shouted. ‘I’M TALKING TO YOU, LUNATIC!’
A banana vanished into the diary, followed shortly by a bicycle helmet and a bag of gobstones. He ignored the horcrux’s increasingly vexed complaints, so beside himself with enthusiasm that he didn’t even register the conversation happening around him.
“Someone must have smuggled it in,” Pansy was saying from somewhere to the side. “There’s no way it just wandered in from the Forest, it’s too big. Someone would have seen it.”
“But why smuggle in a creature that enormous just to have it leave without killing anyone? Wouldn’t that defeat the whole purpose?”
“But I heard someone did die! Some of the girls have already set up a makeshift memorial, right over there—”
“Who, Lockhart?” Blaise scoffed. “Good riddance. He had it coming.”
“What did you just say?” a sobbing Millicent shrieked.
Their voices filtered through Harry’s ears as unintelligible background noise. He was much too focused on stuffing an entire charcuterie board into the diary to join the discussion.
“D’you think maybe this whole thing was just a distraction?” Crabbe asked nervously. “What if someone used that monster as a diversion so they could break into Hogwarts?”
“It would never work,” Pansy said. “Hogwarts has too many enchantments in place for someone to just break in. Even with the creature attack—”
“But someone broke in last year too! Didn’t Grindelwald—”
“That was just a rumor,” Blaise dismissed. “Just some circumstantial evidence blown out of proportion by conspiracy theorists like her—”
“You watch your tongue, Zabini, we’re an unofficial organization now!”
In a sudden bout of reckless enthusiasm, Harry summoned a live chicken into his hands.
“—you’re all idiots, you know that?”
“Oh, and you have all the answers? Then tell us, I beg you, what was a giant snake monster doing taking a dainty saunter through the hallway?”
“How should I know?” Blaise spat. “It’s the Headmaster’s job to keep the school safe, so why don’t you ask him instead? Oh, right, he sucks at the only job he has.”
Grinning from ear to ear, Harry grasped the unfortunate chicken’s feathered sides and lowered it slowly towards the pages of the diary.
‘Wait,’ Riddle said hurriedly, letters blotching, ‘what are you planning? I don’t like this, you’ve been quiet for too long—’
“—do you think, Harry? ...Harry?”
Harry paused halfway through shoving the squawking chicken into the pages, looking up to meet a half-dozen or so pairs of eyes. His maniacal grin immediately dropped.
“Er... what was the question?”
For a long moment, no one said anything. The rest of the common room was still at top volume, but somehow the fact that the conversation had ended so abruptly made it feel like an awkward silence. Harry’s hands were still wrapped around the chicken’s torso.
Draco was goggling at him so hard his eyes were in danger of falling out. “Oh my lord,” Pansy choked, gaping at him as if he had three heads. “It was you, wasn’t it?”
“What was me?” Harry asked, unobtrusively forcing the chicken down a little further. Its feathers were getting stuck and he was having trouble pushing it in.
“That snake,” Blaise said, similarly gawking at him. “You set it loose.”
“Whaaaat?” Harry protested weakly, giving his best smile. “No way! Why would you even think that?”
“You’re literally a Parselmouth,” Pansy stated flatly.
“The only Parselmouth in Britain,” Millicent informed him.
Ah. That.
“Come on, guys,” Harry chuckled. “You know me. Do I seem like the kind of person who’d do something like that?”
“Yes,” was the immediate, simultaneous response. Even Theo nodded, dark eyes wide as saucers.
“You kids are so mean,” Harry complained. “How could you suspect me, your own friend? You know I’d never—”
“You are holding a live chicken,” Blaise remarked. “You are smiling like a psychopath while holding a live chicken.”
Harry glanced down at the incriminating evidence. He quickly shoved the chicken the rest of the way into the diary. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Blaise dropped his face into his hand. Harry heard him mutter, “It’s like he’s trying to act suspicious.”
“Look, guys,” Harry said, raising his hands in a placating gesture, “I know you’re all a little stressed right now, but let’s not start pointing fingers. Who’s to say this wasn’t just a freak accident?”
Blaise groaned. Pansy shook her head disbelievingly. “Well, now we know it was him,” Millicent said. “That was the sketchiest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Oh, come on!” Where did I go wrong?
“S-so, about all those things I said,” Draco stuttered, hands wringing nervously. “About— about telling my father and all... I didn’t really mean it, Harry. I swear I’ll keep this a secret—”
“Great,” Harry said desperately, “but why are you telling me? You know I didn’t have anything to do with this.”
“Right,” Draco nodded so vigorously he resembled a bobblehead. “Of course. My lips are sealed.”
“There's nothing to seal them for!”
“So.” Blaise leaned forward and looked him dead in the eye. “Got any more of those things? I’ll pay you—”
“No! Merlin, I said it wasn’t me! Why would I have more!?”
“Right, right,” Blaise said. “But hypothetically, if you did, how much would it cost to borrow one?”
Harry rubbed at his temples. “Blaise, I swear to Morgana herself...”
“Hypothetically...!”
The entrance hall was in disarray. Aurors and Healers hurried to and fro, overlapping voices echoing together in a dissonance of noise. Kingsley stepped out of the Floo, shaking the soot off his robes as he looked around the mess of a room.
He spotted Albus Dumbledore’s tall figure in the center of the hall and quickly made his way over. “What’s the situation?” he asked urgently as he neared. “The Department received an emergency request for auror dispatch. Was there an attack?”
Surely it couldn’t have been Grindelwald...
“Kingsley,” Albus greeted. He looked drained. “There’s been a creature attack. Thankfully there was only minimal damage, but it’s escaped into the Forbidden Forest. The students have been confined to their dormitories.”
A creature attack? What on earth was happening? “Was it something that escaped from the Forest? An acromantula, or— perhaps a stray werewolf?”
“No, no, nothing of the sort,” Albus sighed. “I’m afraid I’m not precisely sure of the species or class. I was absent at the time of the attack. All I know for certain is that the creature was a giant-type serpent.”
Kingsley’s brows lifted. “A giant-type? And a serpent, at that? This is... highly unusual.”
He spotted Minerva McGonagall hurrying over from across the crowded hall. “Albus,” she said, slightly out of breath and pointed hat askew. “The students have all been accounted for. What should we do?”
“Don’t let them leave the common rooms. The school will be on lockdown for the rest of the day.”
Two wizards wearing St. Mungo’s uniforms hustled past, bearing a blond figure on a stretcher. Kingsley was relieved it didn’t seem to be a student.
“I’ll start the search,” he said, already moving in the direction of his auror team. “You said it fled to the Forest, right? We’ll find it.”
“Be careful,” Albus called after him. “And take a creature specialist with you. We’ve already contacted the Department for the Regulation of Magical Creatures.”
Kingsley nodded, signaling to his aurors. The front of the castle was swarming with personnel; yellow tape had already been set up around the rubble. Kingsley would have to leave the inspection to them.
He had a creature to catch.