Chapter 3: Rise of a Dark Lord
Up," said Harry.
The mat under him shuttered, a ripple rolling down its length, but didn't rise.
It was actually a tapestry taken from a wall nearby, but Harry chose to call it a mat anyway, since that was easier than trying to find a real mat.
Since he fully intended to put it back once he was finished with it, and he had no intention of carting a proper carpet from somewhere else when there were perfectly good ones already hanging around doing nothing important, he didn't see a problem with borrowing it for his experiments.
"Hmm. Up," he repeated forcefully, then he had to grab for the edges as it jerkily rose about two feet off the floor.
"Sweet," he laughed, once the panic passed.
All the time he spent reading about brooms before mutilating the old second-hand one to attach to Dudley's bike was really coming in handy, and Harry loved it when a single effort paid off more than once.
"Go," he ordered.
Obediently the enchanted tapestry began moving forward, picking up speed until it was travelling at a fast walk.
"Ha! Take that Gravity," said Harry, grinning as he flew down the long hallway he had selected for his first ride.
Brooms were cool and loads of fun, but the size of the mat meant it could be used to move around large loads, much like his garden wheelbarrow at the Dursleys, or hopefully, in place of it (eventually). It also gave him the option of lying down, which was always a bonus if a long trip was involved.
Plus, nobody told him he couldn't ride flying carpets around the castle, yet.
"Stop," he said, well please at having flown about two thirds of the hallway without incident – a very successful first test.
Predictably, the mat kept moving, and increased its speed.
"Oh, bollocks," said Harry. "Stop!"
The mat ignored him, of course, except to speed up more. Maybe he should have spent more time on the brakes of the bike after all.
With only a few metres of his flight path left, Harry threw himself off the mat, which promptly gave a sudden lurch of speed as his weight left it.
He tumbled to a halt and looked up just in time to see his former ride crash into the wall at the end of the hallway, crumpling and folding quickly and softly like the cloth it was.
"Curse you, Gravity," he swore quietly.
Picking up the tapestry, he used a sticking charm to hang it back up on the closest wall, which was not where it came from but was good enough. Harry watched the dizzy and battered inhabitants stagger off while swearing at him, and suddenly wondered if the reason Larry kept falling off the mat, even with sticking charms, had something to do with the high likelihood of crashing.
Nah.
The worst part of Astronomy was having to stay up at night.
"Mr Potter, that is possibly the most damaged telescope I have ever seen. Are you sure you can view anything with it?" asked Professor Sinistra, who Harry privately referred to as Lefty.
"It works perfectly, Professor. Better than perfect in fact," he answered.
"But there are several holes along its length and it looks like it is bent in the middle," she said.
"Oh those. Yeah, I'll get around to patching them, one day," answered Harry. "They don't actually let any light in – they're more cosmetic than anything now that I sealed the inside with some charms."
"And the bend?"
"It's more of a dent really, and it doesn't make that much of a difference."
"Mr Potter, if you cannot afford a replacement telescope, the school-"
"No! I mean, thank you very much, but there really isn't any problem. Here, take a look for yourself," invited Harry, moving out of the way so that the teacher could use it.
Although doubtful, Professor Sinistra moved behind the scope and peered through. There was a moment before her eyes adjusted, and then her breath caught in her throat.
"My word, Mr Potter. What have you done? This is incredible."
The image was fantastic, much better than the small telescope should have been able to produce.
"Professor Flitwick help me with the charms a lot, but it has a sort of expanding charm on the big end to make the big lens-"
"The objective lens," interrupted the Professor, her eye still glued to the scope as she marvelled at the clarity and magnification.
"-yeah, that. Anyway, it basically makes it a lot bigger than it really is. It also has some charms on it to keep it perfectly clean and clear all the time, and there's some adjustable shrinking Runes a few sixth years helped me with on the tube to make it a lot longer on the inside than the outside. The little lens-"
"The eyepiece lens," she automatically corrected.
"-the eyepiece lens, has the same clean and clear charms plus a few others to flip the image and stuff like that, oh and I've also got a cushioning charm on that end, since the rubber bit is pretty worn out. The legs are a little bent because they've been transfigured to absorb vibration and movement, and I put weak sticking charms on the feet to help keep it in place."
"Well," said the Professor, reluctantly pulling away. "That is excellent work and your results make this old thing perform like a much larger and significantly more expensive scope. Why did you make these changes to such an old device to begin with, rather than the telescope you had last year?"
"It was all a bit experimental," explained Harry. "I didn't want to risk my good one, just in case something went wrong, so I used this second hand one I bought during the holidays."
Since it worked, he wasn't going to go to all the trouble of enchanting the better looking one now, but he figured it was best not to mention that to Lefty.
"Ah – that was probably very wise. I must say, even though it is not a standard school telescope, I cannot see any reason why you can't continue to use it. Well done, and five points to Hufflepuff, for an excellent understanding of how your telescopes work."
Smiling gratefully, Harry waited until the Professor walked away before utilising one of the features he knew would have gotten it banned.
"Point me Cygnus," whispered Harry.
Obediently the scope slowly swung around to aim directly towards the last object on the list he needed tonight. He had a good idea where to find it anyway, but this made things a lot easier, and faster, which meant he would be back in bed sooner.
Finally finished, he tried one more thing that had been bugging him ever since he got the seeking feature working.
"Point me Luna"
The scope moved, but instead of going where he expected, it once again pointed straight at one of Hogwarts many towers. It was always the same tower, when he tried it at night. During the day, it was apparently random.
"That's just so weird," he sighed, quite willing to have to find the moon on his own rather than try to figure out what was going wrong with the Point Me charm.
"Harry? What is this unholy contraption you've left sitting on the table?" asked the seventh year Hufflepuff assigned to help the lower years with their study if they needed it. It wasn't unusual for Potter to get help with anything and everything, but this new thing was strange, even for him.
It looked like a glass jar was trying to mate with a ceramic pot, using several knife blades, and it had a hand crank. There were items in Filch's notorious 'student discipline' collection that looked less threatening, and a great deal more understandable.
"Well you asked if I had anything else that might help with potions, right?" asked Harry. "This is meant to be a 'hand powered blender' and it is going to make your life a load easier when it comes to mashing up things like Flobberworms. Not to mention it's also awesome for making milkshakes and stuff, although you want to clean it out thoroughly before swapping from worms to ice-cream, if you know what I mean."
"Did you make it?" asked the prefect, eyeing the glass jar a bit warily.
Those knife blades looked sharp, and although the construction was not typically 'Potter' – that is to say, slapdash - there was a lot of spellotape holding it together. It looked like it may have exploded or ripped itself apart once or twice, or more.
"Yeah, sort of. Anyway, all you have to do is help me figure out how to use magic instead of hand cranking, and we are good to go!" smiled Harry.
It took them a good hour to get the details worked out, mostly because of a half a dozen or so other people trying to be helpful with suggestions and ideas, but eventually they had a functioning model. It immediately went to work churning out milkshakes from various ingredients purloined from the nearby castle kitchens by excited Muggleborns.
"Where do you get ideas for this kind of stuff from?" a fifth year asked Harry.
Harry hesitated, only recently having being made aware by Ron of a whole Ministry Department dedicated to making sure nobody 'mis-used' Muggle artefacts by enchanting them.
Trying to explain why there was a catalogue full of non-electrical devices to a modern Muggle was hard enough. Explaining it to a wizard would be an exercise in futility. Harry was just glad he had found the Lehman's Hardware guide his uncle had thrown out.
While Vernon thought the hand turned drills were a good laugh, Harry found some of the devices and tools in it inspiring. He had never heard of the Amish before, but he owed them one now.
"Er, it's a long story," deflected Harry to the fifth year. "Here, have another milkshake."
"Tell me again why I am going to an extra class," asked Harry, as Sue and Han dragged him towards the great hall.
Everybody was being a lot more accepting of him this year for some reason. Barely anybody bugged him about sleeping whenever he could, or about any of his slovenly ways, but the two girls were on a mission, and their insistence overrode Harry's resistance.
"It's not an extra class," explained Sue. "It's a duelling club. It'll be loads of fun."
"Hey, you know what else would be loads of fun? Sleeping. Sleeping is great fun. Let's go back to the dorm and I can show you," said Harry.
"Shush," said Han. "You sleep too much as it is."
"Don't worry, Harry," Sue added. "Nothing bad is going to happen. Professor Lockhart is just going to show us some basic duelling."
"It's not like anything can go wrong."
A cold shiver ran down Harry's spine that had nothing to do with the drafts in the castle.
"So being a Parsleytongue is bad then?" asked Harry.
They were back in the Hufflepuff common rooms after the disastrous duelling club, where Harry's sudden exposure as a Parselmouth became the hot topic of conversation in the castle.
"That's Parselmouth, unless you can talk to herbs, that is," said Han.
"Parcelmouth?"
"No, that's the magical language of the postal system," said Han. "Parselmouth."
Sue giggled, but Harry didn't have a suitable come-back ready and so ignored them both.
"Whatever," he said dismissively. "And there is nobody out there who would pay me to translate for them or something?"
A career translating snake talk could be cool, so long as it paid well, which it should if the ability was as rare as everybody seemed to think it was. He could see that as an easy meal ticket for sure.
"No, Harry," said Ern. "It's the sign of a Dark Wizard. Slytherin himself was one and was called Serpent-tongue -"
"Not to his face, I bet," mumbled Harry.
"-but don't worry, Harry. Anybody who has ever met you couldn't think you Dark, mate."
"I just don't get why being able to talk to snakes is bad." he said.
"Because they are the symbol of evil," explained Ern.
"A snake? Evil? You have to be kidding me. I've only ever talked to two; one was a lazy bastard living a life of luxury in the zoo, and other thought Justin was a tree and wanted to climb him. How's that evil?"
"They just are," insisted J. "Even Muggles know that."
"Fine," said Harry, giving in.
Logic was never one of his strong points, and Wizard Logic defied most everybody anyway.
"So can I cast strange and powerful Parsleytongue magic then?" he asked. "Parsleymagic?"
"That's Parseltongue, and no. They're snakes. What makes you think there would be some sort of powerful magic in speaking Snake?"
"Well, it is a magical language…"
"No," said Sue. "Being able to speak it is magical. It's just a language, and doesn't give speakers any special powers any more than any other language. Otherwise we'd all be welcoming our Snake Overlords who'd rule over us with their super powerful snake spells."
"Well that's just silly," said Ern. "I mean they can't hold a wand, so of course they can't cast spells, can they?"
Half the room stopped to look at Ernie.
Wizard Logic indeed.
"Harry, you aren't using the House-elves as slave labour again, are you?" asked Hermione after Herbology one day.
Harry was pretty sure she had tried to ask him about it a few times during class, but he had refused to remove his earmuffs even after having successfully re-potted his baby Mandrake root without ever lifting it out of the soil, thus managing to basically ignore her, and everybody else, including the teacher.
He still wasn't sure why they were meant to go to all that trouble of pulling the ugly things out of their nice warm dirt beds in order to move them to a bigger pot when all they really had to do was cast the expanding charm on the existing pot and stuff more soil into it.
Of course, his charm still needed a lot more work. It left him with an odd shaped pot, but it did the job, even if it didn't get him the extra points Nev got for doing it right.
"No," he answered, deciding to ignore her inflammatory wording. "Why?"
"I overheard one of the professors mentioning that the elves seem to be missing some of their normal duties," she answered.
"And you automatically assumed it was because I was forcing them to do something for me?" said Harry, managing to sound rather put-out.
"Sorry," said Hermione bashfully.
"I should think so," said Harry. "You know I was only trying to help them out when they didn't have enough work on. Besides, I promised you I wasn't going make them do any 'income-generating' work anymore, and I gave them a share of the money I made. They didn't have a clue what to do with it mind you, so I had to make a few suggestions."
( Miles away, in a dingy little arcade, the proprietors were suddenly overwhelmed by an influx of customers; customers that didn't set off the door chimes and had appalling dress sense.
"Stupid modern fashion," grumbled one of the ancient 18 year olds manning the counter. "Looks like they raided a charity bin or a lost and found box for their kit."
"Yeah," agreed the second one. "And boy, are these kids ugly or what?"
"Harry Potter is being the greatest wizard ever!" exclaimed one elf excitedly as he shoved more of the coins Harry had given him into the machine.
Never ending quests collecting obscure artefacts from strange, impossible landscapes, and then using them to defeat evil things and rescue the princess or save the world - this was almost as good as work! )
"They are probably just taking some time off to do their own thing, or have found a really dirty room filled with hundreds of years worth of rubbish to clean up or something," said Harry.
"I guess so," said Hermione, not completely convinced.
One of the elves did mention Ron's sister was giving them a lot of extra work this year, although what she was doing with all that chicken blood and feathers he really didn't want to know, and he was not going to try to explain it to Hermione.
"So have you found out anything about Parsleytongue yet?" he asked.
Harry often found it easier to ask somebody to tell him what he needed to know rather than find it out himself, but Hermione made it so ridiculously easy he sometimes wondered if he was in real risk of losing the ability to research anything himself. In this case, he knew that he didn't even have to ask her to look, she would have automatically gone and done it.
"Yes," she answered, taking out a massive book from her enchanted bag.
He had given it to her as a present after once again feeling sick seeing the weight she used to carry around in her old non-magical one. It was a miracle the girl didn't have one arm that resembled a gorilla's heavy lifter.
"There is no mention of any such thing as Parselmagic," she said, opening up the book to one of several bookmarks in it.
The others probably indicated pages for him to read. Well, pages she probably vainly hoped he might read.
"Bugger. What about being able to speak to other animals? Can I talk to Dragons?"
"Dragon? Why would you think that?" she asked, looking rather surprised at the question.
"Wishful thinking? I mean, they're a kind of a snake, aren't they?"
"I wouldn't go saying that aloud around anybody - you'll get laughed at."
"Potter, where are your shoes?" asked the prefect on breakfast duty.
He was really only there to help the first years, but Potter's often blatant disregard for the House spirit was something they all paid attention to, if only for the laughs.
"I think something took them," said Harry. "My trunk keeps spewing everything out all over the place and today my shoes aren't in the pile."
"Nobody is going to believe your shoes have been stolen," said the prefect.
"Hey, it's not like I am the only one it's happening to," said Harry. "You go ask the Ravenclaw prefects about Moongirl, I mean Luna, I think that's her name – yeah Luna, anyway, you go ask them about Luna. Not only do her shoes go missing, but so do her books and clothes."
The prefect suspected Potter was up to something, but he knew his inner Hufflepuff would force him to investigate before reporting to Professor Sprout about Potter's latest 'quirk'.
And so did Harry.
"Harry. Hey, Harry. Come on, I know you aren't asleep. Everybody knows you can't sleep with a ghost in the same room. Harry! I want to hear you speak snake again. That was cool. I thought you were egging it on, at first, but when it looked like it was laughing I figured you were trying to stop it."
Slowly the messy black haired head rotated around 180 degrees to look at the person calling him.
"Mother of Morgana!" yelped Justin, seeing the expressionless face of Larry staring at him. "Er, sorry - I thought you were Harry."
The mannequin's head returned to the front of the class where professor Binns droned on, and Justin resolved to try to never disturb the freaky and quite unnatural looking thing ever again.
"How about other reptiles then? Like lizards? Can I speak to them?"
"Nope," said Hermione.
"Goanna's?"
"I'm afraid not."
"Worms?"
"Even if you could, would you want to?"
"Hmm. Well is there anything else I can talk to?"
"No. Wait - yes. Axolotls."
"Axolotls?"
"Axolotls."
"Cool. Er, what the hell is an Axolotl?"
"It's sort of an amphibious cross between a lizard and a fish. A type of salamander that lives in water but can breathe air, I think. Here is a picture of a white one," she explained, holding open the large book and pointing to a colour drawing.
"Yuck. Damn that's ugly. Does it do anything special?" he asked hopefully.
"Nope," she said, smiling.
"Oh, this sucks!"
The second attempt at making a flying carpet went significantly better than the first.
"Incoming!" screamed Harry as his out of control ride shot through the corridors of the school.
Students of all ages yelped and leapt aside, allowing Harry to barrel past them.
In this case, 'better' mostly meant he was having more fun, not that the brakes were working or anything important like that, despite the extra weight included on this trial.
"Eeeeeeeep," screamed Sue, holding on tightly behind him.
And fun just needed to be shared with unsuspecting study partners, didn't it?
"So this Pensieve thing, it will let you watch another person's memory, like a movie?" asked Harry.
He still didn't think it was fair he got detention while Sue only got a warning, but then he knew he deserved it a lot more than she did - except at the end. No way should she have gotten away with that kind of swearing, no matter who her aunty was.
He should have taken Moongirl. She wouldn't have gotten angry. Catatonic maybe, but not angry.
"Oh it's much better than a picture theatre," explained Lockhart. "You actually get to move around inside the memory, viewing it from any angle you want. I've seen some pretty, er, interesting memories in one a good friend had, I can tell you!"
"Wicked," said Harry, bundling up the last of this week's letters as his detention came to a close.
"And you can use anybody's memories?" he asked.
"Yes, even a Muggle, but it takes a master Legilimencer to extract the memory intact."
"If I say, had somebody sit down and read a book, you could take lots of copies of the memory and sell them for people to watch over and over?"
"A charming idea, and one not without merit. Unfortunately, Pensieves are very rare and you would not have much of a market," said Lockhart, almost to himself. "Usually only the very rich have them, and they rather different memories they'd much prefer to view."
He paused for a moment, and appeared to be deep in thought.
"Bugger," said Harry.
"Of course, there are Prophecy Orbs," said Lockhart thoughtfully.
"The what now?" asked Harry.
"Wake up, Harry," said Sue, dropping a heavy pile of books onto the table next to where his head was resting on his arms. "The assignment report on the fifth Goblin rebellion won't write itself you know."
She refused to study with him alone anymore now, just in case he somehow again managed to convince her to take part in one of his experiments.
"Finn," said grunted Harry groggily, as he dropped his head back down.
"What do you mean you finished it?" asked Hermione, taking a seat directly across from him, her own stack of books far too high to be balancing without the liberal use of magic. "You hadn't even started it fifteen minutes ago."
Nobody bothered to ask how she could possibly have understood his mumbling. After all, she did spend more time with him than just about anybody, plus, her parents where dentists.
"Mout," said Harry, clumsily pushing a piece of parchment out from under his arm.
"Wore you out? In fifteen minutes? Let me see," she said, grabbing the page and holding it up to read.
"Well?" asked Sue when Hermione lowered the page, a mixed look of astonishment and disbelief on her face.
"It's just two words," she answered. "'We won'."
"Grruuffm," snored Harry happily.
"Okay, Hermione, what about being a Dark Lord? Since I can speak to snakes, maybe I can be a Dark Lord. I'd call myself Dark Lord Harry, or maybe Darry for short. Will I get access to special, wicked Dark powers or something if I do go over to the dark side?"
"No."
"How about an undead army of sycophants waiting for their master's call?"
"No, but I think making an army like that is part of a Dark Lord's job."
"Make them? Bugger that, but hang on, could the fear that I might just do that sort of thing make governments give me land and money to keep away?"
"Not unless you can actually threaten them with something, and you don't know how to raise an undead army, do you?"
"No, well, not yet. I don't suppose anybody is scared of an army of Axolotls?"
"Possibly people suffering from Scoliodentosaurophobia, but no."
"Damn. I'm just scared of the name. Well do I get automatic membership into a secret, sinister council who want to rule over everyone?"
"No."
"Hmm. How about something more mundane then, like a seat in the house of Lords, because I would be a Lord too?"
"That's the same as your last question."
"This still sucks."
Harry's second Halloween feast at Hogwarts was going splendidly.
The food was even more spectacular than the normal meals, the Great hall was decorated every bit as well as the previous year, and so far nobody had burst through the door to announce the presence of a monster in the dungeon.
Just then, the doors flew open and an out of breath seventh year burst into the room to yell excitedly about a monster being loose in the castle killing cats.
Harry sighed.
"Enemies of the heir beware," read Harry looking at the bloody writing on the wall.
It had been discovered a few weeks before, but Harry hadn't bothered to go out of his way to see it. He had in fact stubbornly refused to leave the feast on the night it was discovered until ordered back to his common rooms by the Headmaster.
Of course, he won five house points for not immediately running off to look at the scene of the crime, the way everybody else did, but that didn't take the sting of another ruined Halloween away.
Mr Filch had apparently wanted to clean the words off, but Professor Dumbledore insisted it stay in case it helped provide a clue somewhere further down the track.
Despite being there for weeks, People still stopped to read and gossip about it, and speculation about heir's identity was still rife too.
"It's not good form to be seen reviewing your handiwork, Potter," laughed Slick when he saw Harry reading the wall.
"Are you the heir?" asked another person Harry didn't know, or couldn't be bothered to remember more likely. "Is that why you can speak Parseltongue?"
"Don't be stupid," said an older Slytherin disgustedly. "The heir of Slytherin would never be in Hufflepuff."
"Hey!" objected one of J's mates. "He could be. It would be a hell of a lot sneakier than being in Slytherin."
Several people murmured apparent agreement.
"I could see him being a Ravenclaw, but not a 'Puff," said a different Slytherin Harry vaguely recognised from Quidditch. "He would more likely be a Gryfindork than a 'Puff. Slytherin would turn in his grave."
Before long, a full-blown argument was underway, with everybody trying to convince the others the heir was more likely to be in their house. Harry left before anybody tried to drag him further into the pointless debate.
The last thing he heard, as he walked away, was a fifth year 'Puff shout, "We can TOO murder in cold blood!"
"So, would the heir of Slytherin get special privileges or something?" asked Harry hopefully. "You, know, because he'd be like a founder of the school's last relative?"
"You would not be allowed to fly inside even if you were the heir of Slytherin, Mr Potter, which you are not," answered Professor Sprout, with a happy little smile.
"Oh come on! I so could be," protested Harry. "I speak Snake, you know?"
Her laughter did not bode well for his chances.
"Hey, Harry," called out a voice. "Got a moment?"
"What?" Harry said, turning around.
It was the Weasley twins, and they were wearing jumpers and beanies that had Snake patterns all over them.
"Just thought we'd say hello," said one.
"It's been ages since we talked to you," said the other.
Harry tried to reply, but all that came out was an angry sounding hiss.
"You do know he can't speak English when he is looking at a snake?" asked Han.
"Yes," agreed one twin, a huge smile on his face. "Yes we do."
Harry just hissed at them some more.
"Heya, Harry," said Ron. "Watchya up to?"
Harry grunted, not bothering to open his eyes.
Ron laughed.
"I thought so. Hey, did you know Malfoy is Slytherin's seeker? His dad bought a load of brooms to get him on the team. We reckon he's jealous of you getting on in your first year, even if it was only as a substitute."
Harry grunted again.
"Yeah, that's what I reckon. Hermione called him out on it and the git called her a mud-blood!"
Harry opened his eyes and sat up, which was a lot more reaction than Ron was expecting.
"I don't know if you know it, but that's one of the worst insults you can give someone," explained Ron quickly. "I got a bit upset and cursed the little bugger, not much mind you – just a slug belching hex, but it was really funny. So anyway, I got a detention for my trouble. Can you give me some pointers on what Lockhart makes you do?"
"Is Hermione, okay?" asked Harry.
"Er, yeah, I think. I mean I got him back for her," said Ron, starting to get a bit worried at the gleam in Harry's eyes.
"Yeah, well done. Anyway, Smiley? Don't worry about it. He'll likely just get you to read his fan mail – piece of cake."
Then Harry stood and walked off with a determined stride.
Behind him, Ron smiled.
"Hermione, Ron told me what happened with Draco," said Harry, sitting down next to where the girl was helping Nev with some of his homework.
Surprised at Harry's tone, Hermione took a moment to gather her thoughts.
"I'm okay," she said, surprisingly touched at his concern. "Thanks for coming to see me, but it was weeks ago and I am over it now."
"I know, but that's not good enough, so here," he said holding out a box. "I don't normally go for this sort of thing unless somebody really deserves it, like Greasy."
Completely caught off guard, Hermione was speechless, so instead of replying, she took the offered box and opened it up.
It was full of snitches.
"It really wasn't hard to find out when the Slytherin team was going to be using the pitch to practice," explained Harry. "All I had to do was ask Ceddy about the new Hufflepuff training schedule, which I've got no intention of showing up to anyway, and he went and on and on about how unfair it was for Slytherin to have booked the pitch at all the best times in order to train their new seeker. Slick doesn't seem to be doing too well, though, despite all the training."
Hermione started giggling and had to cover her mouth with a hand to keep it quiet.
"I don't get it," admitted Neville. "What's that got to do with the snitches?"
"He stole Draco's snitches," explained Hermione, forcing down the laughter long enough to explain. "Draco probably spends every practice searching for a snitch that isn't there because Harry captures it immediately after it is released."
Harry knew it didn't necessarily take a lot of effort to punish people, you just had to know the right place to strike. Luckily, the snitches still had a strange fascination for him and flocked to him whenever they could.
"No way is that twit going to catch a snitch while I am around," pronounced Harry with uncharacteristic determination.
"Merry Christmas, Harry. Thanks for the socks."
"Merry Christmas, and you're welcome."
"Merry Christmas, Harry. I love the socks - thanks."
"Yeah, Merry Christmas. Glad you liked them."
"Thanks for the socks, Harry. Have a Merry Christmas."
"Merry Christmas. You're welcome."
"Did you give everybody a pair of socks?" asked Sue after watching Harry accepting thanks all morning.
"I did give Hagrid a hurricane lantern I cleaned up and cast a permanent light spell on so he doesn't have to worry about it going out or stuff, but other than that, yeah, pretty much socks for everyone," laughed Harry. "It was certainly easier than trying to find individual presents."
Plus, getting 'To: you From: me' on the cards took no effort at all, thanks to the quill he had developed for Lockhart.
"Still," he said after acknowledging another thank you. "Next year I think I might give out fewer presents. This is too much like hard work!"
"Luna, did you cast a spell on Larry to make him watch Quidditch?" asked Harry.
"No," answered the seemingly ditsy girl. "I did teach him how to change his underpants though – they were getting a bit dirty."
"Cool, thanks – hang on, what?"
"Spiders, get your petrified spiders," yelled B1.
"Rock solid, guaranteed not to rot or bite," added B2.
"What this?" said Harry, stopping to examine the contents of the vendor trays hanging from around the Weasley twins' necks.
They were filled with spider statues of all shapes and sizes. Very realistic spider statues at that. The detail was nothing short of horribly fantastic.
"Spiders," said B1. "Incredibly life-like and perfect for putting in younger brother's beds, breakfasts, or other potentially devastating-to-the-psyche locations."
"Attach a chain to them and use as necklace," said B2 holding up a sparkling silver chain with a rather large and very ugly spider attached to the end.
"Encase in glass to make an attractive paper weight," said B1, lifting out an even larger specimen suspended inside a globe of clear glass that looked suspiciously like a witch's crystal ball.
"Jam a stick up its bum and poke people with 'em," said B2 swapping the necklace for a truly ugly spider-on-stick.
"A thousand and one uses, all for the low, low starting price of two knuts," they chorused together perfectly timed.
"You two are a pair of nuts," laughed Harry. "Where did you get them?"
"Been finding them all over the place," said B1, taking the money from a passing student and handing over a statue. "Only one here and one there, but all mostly near the windows for some reason."
They were doing quite a brisk trade.
"What, and you are just picking them up and selling them?" asked Harry. "Damn, that's a good plan - practically no work at all and all pure profit. Wish I had thought of it, although I bet if you asked the House-elves, they'd be able to collect them up for you."
( "Friese is feeling there is being more work at Hoggywarts, but Friese is only 33 levels from the Ultimate Challenge bonus level. Friese is sure the workies is still being there in a minutes."
)
"Hey, maybe you could leave cages of other stuff around to get petrified, like butterflies or frogs or something," suggested Harry. "They'd probably sell a bit better than these things."
B1 looked at B2 as B2 looked back, and then they both stepped forward to put a friendly arm around Harry's shoulders, gently guiding him down the hallway.
"Harry, could we interest you in a partnership?"
"Third time's the charm," thought Harry as he climbed aboard version three of his flying carpet.
This time he was using the mat from the bathroom in his dorm, since the occupants of the tapestries had learned from his previous endeavours and tended to go running and screaming whenever he got too close to them. They usually went running straight to a professor, too, damn dobbers.
Flit already had a long talk with Harry about the legalities of charming carpets to fly, as well as the spells he had devised for doing so, but Harry had pointed out he wasn't actually flying, just hovering, and he had yet to use an actual carpet.
The Professor was not moved.
Still, Harry felt he couldn't let little things like the law or house points get in the way of progress, so here he was again.
"Go," said Harry.
Immediately the mat jerked forward, but he was expecting that and made sure to hold on tight.
"Stop," he said, and the mat did, sliding to a halt in only a couple of feet.
"Wicked," he said excitedly.
And the mat obeyed as best it could.
"Mr Potter, your injuries are not anywhere significant enough to warrant an overnight stay in the infirmary, or any time out of your classes," said Flo, using her sternest voice despite the hint of a smile that kept curling the edge of her mouth. "Now be off with you."
"I bet you'd say different if it was Quidditch related," grumbled Harry, rubbing his behind that still felt sore despite the nurse's spell. "Stupid flying mat."
Privately, Madam Pomfrey wished all she had to deal with where bruised backsides and bumped heads, even if they were effectively self-inflicted.
"I must say, Harry, that little project of yours is getting you an awful lot of detentions, isn't it?" asked Smiley, as another detention drifted by.
"What, my hovering mat? Yeah, I suppose, but I'd likely end up getting them for something else anyway."
"You are a bit of a scamp, aren't you?" laughed Smiley. "Reminds me a lot of myself at your age."
"Right," said Harry, privately not able to imagine Smiley as being anything like him. He was more likely a stuck-up prig like Percy Weasley. "Anyway, how did you go finding out where we can get some Prophecy Orbs from?"
"Ah yes! Your read-out-loud book idea. Great news. The department of Mysteries gets them from several different companies both here and overseas. Apparently there is a huge market for them, so they are very cheap – only five sickles each!"
"Wow," said Harry. "I had no idea that many people made prophecies."
"Yes, supposedly so, but there is even better news. I have managed to buy a decent quantity for testing at a third of the current rate!"
"Really? Where did you get them?"
"From here, Hogwarts! Your very own Divination professor has a whole trunk full of them, completely unused for some reason, and she was willing to part with them at a much discounted rate."
"That's fantastic. So you'll be able to set up a decent selection to begin with then, and then use them to sell the idea to investors?"
"Yes, my boy, and you'll get three percent of the sales, just like I promised."
"Excellent," said Harry.
Some people might think Harry was being hopelessly taken advantage of, but he knew – three percent for doing absolutely nothing was much better than ten or even fifty percent for working on it.
Plus he would get his very own copy of every orb.
Too easy.
Despite having an idea of what was coming after Smiley kept dropping not so subtle hints all month, Harry was still caught out when he was eventually targeted.
"Oy, you! 'Arty Potter!" shouted a particularly grim-looking dwarf, elbowing people out of the way to get to Harry. "I've got a musical Valentine's day card for you. Come back here!"
Harry's Dudley-days were long behind him, but his instincts still served him well. In the blink of an eye, he was sprinting for the nearest corner, rapidly performing a by now familiar sequence of complex switching spells.
The dwarf rounded the corner in hot pursuit and grabbed a hold of his intended targeted only to reel back when it span around to face him.
"Blimming 'eck!" yelled the dwarf, falling onto his backside as he stumbled backwards.
Larry just stood there, perfectly still, blinking with unnatural regularity. Slowly the mannequin's mouth slipped open, getting wider and wider as if it was being force apart by something inside trying to get out, until it made a perfect 'O' shape.
"Sod this," said the dwarf scrambling to his feet. "'ere you go."
He threw the Valentine's day card at the floor in front of the creepy thing and bolted for the exit, tearing the fake cherub wings off his back as he ran.
Harry, several feet away and hidden under his cloak, breathed a sigh of relief.
"That was close."
Larry didn't say a thing.
Cedric and the rest of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team cornered Harry in the common room one day, and explained that they thought it was high time he paid his dues and took a turn at actually playing a game of Quidditch.
"It's important you show you really are a part of our team," said Apple.
"Once Cedric finishes seventh year, you'll be the seeker," added Ricky. "You should have at least one game before then."
"Bollocks," said Harry, his internal bullshit radar going off so loudly it was probably audible to other people. "Try again."
There was a lot of sideways glances before Cedric finally spoke up.
"Harry, we have no idea how you do it, but I've never caught the snitch as quick as you have," he admitted, looking slightly embarrassed. "None of us have ever seen anybody catch it that fast before."
Harry thought for a moment, since it was easier than waiting for them to get around to the point.
"You want to humiliate the other team by finishing really quickly?" he asked.
"No!" said Cedric, gaining a few startle glances from his teammates, who obviously felt at least a little bit felt differently. "Well, not really."
"What else then? Are you scared to be outside while this heir is running around or something?"
More sideways looks and embarrassed shuffling answered Harry. They were Hufflepuffs after all and not Gryffindors. Very few left the supposed safety of the common room for any reason other than classes and meals lately, and even then, it was usually in groups of four or more.
"Whatever," he said. "I suppose it can't be any worse than being forced to sing those bleeding songs from the stands."
"Good lad", said Cedric, patting Harry on the shoulder.
And so it was that Harry found himself nervously mounting his broom to take part in his very first Quidditch match.
No sooner did Spike let the Snitch go and blow the whistle, than Harry suddenly discovered the little golden ball's fascination with him had spread to at least one bludger.
"Blimey!" he cursed, ducking out of the way of the rogue Bludger for the third time.
He was flying like a maniac, trying to keep away from the barrelling ball of death, and very nearly crashed into the side of one of the stands. Flipping his broom vertically, he watched in muted horror as the bludger continued in a straight course towards the audience.
Panicked screams rose through the crowd as it realised what was happening, but then the bludger suddenly veered sideways and targeted an almost empty section containing only two occupants – a small redheaded girl, and boy with messy black hair and an unusual expression.
"Meep!' squealed the girl before ducking behind Larry.
Harry and the rest of crowd watched in morbid fascination as the bludger barrelled towards the apparently unaware Larry and the girl hiding behind him. As it reached them, there was a blur of movement, and then a loud 'crack' echoed out over the crowd, causing everybody to flinch.
When they looked again, Larry sat still facing forward, unmoved save for his arm fully extended out from his side, his hand clamped solidly over the crushed, weakly twitching bludger.
The nudging of the snitch against Harry's arm eventually got his attention and he reached out absently to grab it out of the air, thus ending one of the shortest and most unusual Quidditch games in Hogwarts History.
He was really going to have to have another talk with Moongirl very soon.
Chapter 4: Plot? What plot?
Short, but hopefully sweet...
"The creature is a Basilisk," said Hermione excitedly as she came around the corner of the bookshelf with a very large book open in her arms. "Spiders flee from it and it kills with a single look, but its reflection will only petrify, not kill. I bet, nobody is dead yet because nobody has looked into directly into its eyes.
"Colin looked at it through his camera, Justin saw it through Nick, who can't die again, and Mrs Norris saw the reflection in a puddle, so none of them died, they were all just petrified. Being the King of Snakes, and with Slytherin as a Parselmouth too, I'll bet that's why only you can hear and understand it, Harry.
"I think it's been moving through the pipes in the wall, and that's when you've been hearing it. It all fits perfectly, you see? Even the fact somebody killed all of Hagrid's roosters fits, because they are deadly to it. The creature is a Basilisk. There can't be any doubt."
She looked up proudly from her book, directly into the blank, unnerving stare of Larry, the mannequin.
"Harry!"
Tom Riddle's Horcrux wasn't human. It had seemingly unlimited patience and had waited for decades until it was given to a victim without once getting frustrated, but two weeks in the possession of Harry Potter was pushing its limits.
Nothing it tried, not one urge or motivation could convince the boy to pick up a quill and write a single line inside of it. It was so close to achieving its new goal and yet so far. All the work that went into getting the previous owner to slip it into Potter's bag was so far for naught.
It was like Potter was an inhuman fortress of stability – immune to all compulsions.
Harry wasn't of course. He was just bone-lazy.
"Wake up, Harry. You're going to be late," said Ernie, pulling the bed covers off Harry in a much-practiced move.
"Merlin's crystal balls!" he yelled, stumbling backwards as Harry's head was exposed.
Strangely staring eyes peered at him over a wide open 'O' shaped mouth.
"Take it easy, Ern," said the real Harry, coming up behind the still shocked boy. "It's just Larry."
"What the hell is that thing doing in your bed?" asked Ernie, in a slightly panicked voice. "I thought you'd been turned to stone just like Justin."
"It's those damn roosters," said Harry wearily. "Ever since Hermione made her discovery and they put the blasted things all over the place, I just can't get a decent sleep. It's killing me."
"I know," agreed a very bleary eyed Zac, coming over to join them. "I hope they find and kill the bloody Basilisk soon. I've tried sleeping with my earmuffs on, but that's so damn uncomfortable I might as well just keep waking up."
From the distance, the sound of a rooster crowing echoed, just to emphasise the point. All night and all day the roosters crowed, constantly filling the school up with their deadly-to-Basilisks cries.
"But what's that got to do with this thing?" asked Ernie, nodding towards the mannequin in Harry's bed.
"I've been sneaking out trying to find a place to get a good kip," explained Harry. "Larry here is in case anybody does a head count or something. Everybody is so damn paranoid this year."
"Any luck?" asked Zac, rubbing his eyes and yawning loudly. "Finding a quiet place, that is?"
"Nothing so far, but I suspect the Professor's staff room might have some sort of sound proofing around it but I can't figure out a way to get in to check. Oh, and I have managed to find a deafness curse that we might be able to get put onto a necklace pendant or something so you can take it off when you want to hear again. I reckon it's not going to be too hard to convince an older year to help me get it working either."
"That sounds brilliant," said Zac. "Count me in for one."
It naturally went unsaid that Harry's idea wouldn't be had for free.
"Me too," said Ern, nodding in agreement. "But can you please stop leaving this thing around the place? It really gives me the willies, especially when you pull that swap trick and make it take your place in History."
"Freaks you out? I'm sure it did it all by itself the other day," said Harry.
A shiver ran down all three of their spines.
Finally, the piece of Riddle's soul thought as it felt the tip of a quill press down onto one of its pages.
"My name is Harry Potter," came the unusually untidy scrawl, but the diary already knew that.
With all of its magical might, it reached out and tried to compel the boy to write more, to start the long process of stealing the victim's soul by slowly leaching it out, one question at a time.
"Hello, Harry Potter. My name is Tom Riddle." It wrote back. "Are we still at Hogwarts?"
There was a hesitation - a moment where the balance of the scales teetered - and then the quill pressed down again.
"My name is Harry Potter."
Momentary confusion. The Horcrux tried again.
"Yes, I know. I can read anything you write. Are you a student?"
More hesitation, and the Horcrux pressed harder, exerting itself like it had never before.
"My name is Harry Potter."
The diary roared in silent frustration and anger.
"My name is Harry Potter" wrote Larry again, getting neater with each pass.
"That thing gets creepier every time I see it," said Fred upon spying the mannequin sitting in Harry's usual spot in the library. "Harry had it holding an old wand the other day."
"I kind of like it," said George looking up from his library book. "But not as much as that Colin kid did before he got petrified, mind you. Now he was a creepy character."
They both shuddered at the memory.
"My name is Harry Potter," wrote Larry yet again, completely ignoring the abuse scrawling itself over the page under his artificial hand.
Checking both ways to make sure nobody was watching, Harry ducked into the classroom he secretly commandeered as a hidey-hole just recently. It was his little safe-haven. A place away from the other students and professors, where he could do nothing and not bother even pretending to be busy.
It looked like an enraged troll had been set loose in it.
Books and parchment lay scattered all over the floor as if carelessly dropped or thrown there. The accumulated contents of one of his pockets sat in a pile, obviously just tipped out with no regard to neatness. The few desks left in the room were pushed untidily against one wall, and his trunk sat on its side spilling its contents out onto the ground.
Yep, it was pretty much exactly how he had left it, except the trunk, which somehow always managed to tip itself over and dump stuff out.
"Hmm," said Harry. "The elves must be really busy. I can't believe those coins I gave them are still going"
( "Twisty be getting another free games!" yelled one of the ugliest 'kids' still filling the video arcade.
"Yay!" cheered a group of similarly dressed 'kids'. )
"Ah well," shrugged Harry. "I guess it serves me right for making a mess. Suppose I should pick it all up. Nah. I'm sure they'll get to it one day, and I wouldn't want to deprive them of the fun they get cleaning up."
So he left, not noticing until much later that somebody else had been into the room, and had taken away that mysterious little black diary that always gave him an uncomfortable mental itch whenever it was close.
Although Harry normally chose to be fairly ignorant of the moods and feelings of the other students, even he couldn't ignore the terror permeating the ancient halls of Hogwarts.
Students, ghosts, pets and even portraits had previously being attacked; petrified by an unknown entity that the professors could not catch. Multiple rumours of the return of Slytherin's monster ran rampant through the school, some of them accurate, some completely fallacious.
Now a new message appeared on the wall, promising a student would be taken and never seen again.
One thing was sure, the school was in trouble.
"Excuse me, Professor? It is true, the rumour that the school might close? Because of the attacks, I mean?" asked Harry, finally getting worried enough to do something more than just listen to everybody gossip.
He could not understand why so many people put so much effort into whispers and guesses when the truth was often just a question away.
"Unfortunately, yes," answered Professor Sprout, Flowers, with a sad sniff.
"And we would all be sent home, right?" asked Harry, wanting to make completely sure of his facts.
"If the attacks continue, or until we can be sure the school is safe, it would be best for everybody to return to their homes."
"So I'd be stuck back at the Dursley's? Possibly for a long time?"
"As I explained last year, Harry, the headmaster believes it is the safest place for you."
"Right, that's what I thought, thanks," he said with a resigned sigh.
"Where are you going, Harry? Your dorms are back that way."
"Me? I'm off to find Sally's Secret Chamber, of course. I mean, I'm already looking for a quieter place to slee-um, to study, So I might as well search for the Chamber too. I figure either I'll find it and the school won't have to close, or the pet will find me and I'll get to spend a bit of quality time experiencing the existence of a statue.
"Trust me, Professor. When it comes to staying at the Dursleys, I think we'd all be much happier if I did it as an oversized garden ornament."
"Is there some reason you are brewing up a potion in the abandoned girl's toilet?" Harry asked. "No, stop. On second thoughts, I don't want to know why."
"You're not going to tell anybody, are you?" asked Hermione timidly.
"What? Lord no – then I'd be getting asked all sorts of questions."
"Thank you," she said, obviously relieved.
"So what is it you are brewing?"
"It's called Polyjuice Potion and it's very advanced. When it's done, one sip will turn you into anybody you can get a hair sample from, for one hour."
"Cool," said Harry.
"Unfortunately we still need bicorn horn and the boomslang skin to finish it," she added wistfully. "That's going to be tricky to get, but we have a plan."
"Oh, well, I think I can get some," said Harry. "For a price."
"What? Really? How much?" she asked excitedly, and then frowned.
"And where from?" she added in a suspicious tone.
"I bought all seven years potion supplies," answered Harry, "and it will only cost you an equal share of the completed potion."
There were many people Harry would prefer to be, even if it was only for a little while.
"Deal," said Hermione happily.
Then her insatiable curiosity obviously got her thinking.
"So what were you doing in the girl's–"
"Don't ask," said Harry, cutting her off.
The memory of Moaner offering to help him sleep still sent shivers down his back.
"So Hagrid, if Hermione's right and it's a Basilisk, does that prove it wasn't you that let the monster out all those years ago?"
"No 'ow did you 'ear about that?" asked Hagrid.
Hagrid was pretty sure he hadn't ever gotten drunk enough in front of a student to tell them that story, but he could never really be certain, not after that time he woke up naked on the shore of the great lake. Thank Merlin that Dumbledore, great man that he is, took pity and didn't fire him, although the way he kept smiling at Hagrid's nakedness was a bit unnerving.
"Ron was telling me about this bunch of huge spiders in the forest you had to rescue him from. He said something about his sister disappearing and he went looking for her and got lost or mislead or something, and you saved him from them because you were their friends but got you expelled in your second year?"
"Oh yeah, that. Strange girl, that Ginny. Always running off and getting into some sort of trouble or another. Found her locked in the broom shed once. Said some'ing had locked her in there. Anyway, Ministry's not likely to want to admit they were wrong on my account, Harry. Bleeding bunch of good for nothing bureaucrats."
"You shouldn't let them get away with it," said Harry, taking another sip from one of the buckets Hagrid called teacups.
"Not much I can do really," said Hagrid.
Harry knew lazy. He knew the kinds of people in bureaucracies like the Muggle school administration, and the kind of lazy they were. It was different to his lazy, and usually pretty stupid.
"Well," he said after taking a moment to think about it. "You start by writing a letter to the place that deals with animal control."
"You mean the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures? Why would I do that?"
"To license the Basilisk as your pet," said Harry. "When they demand proof of ownership, you won't be able to give them what they want because you can't open the Chamber. They'll deny you, and you can use that to argue with the other department, the one that locked you up, as proof that you had nothing to do with opening the Chamber all those years ago."
"You reckon that'll work?"
"Can't see why not. If anybody asks, you can point them towards the bureaucrats to get their answers. The way those places work, nobody will ever get a straight answer out of them, and Beardy is pretty sure to back you up, right?"
"Great man, Dumbledore," confirmed Hagrid solemnly.
"I'll take your word for it. Anyway, just make sure to go get a new wand, because it's no good trying to fix a broken one – trust me, I've tried a few and none of them worked out well at all."
Hagrid frowned in concentration, the stirrings of hope in his heart as another idea sprung to mind.
"And if they do let me register, I'll be allowed to keep it!" he said excitedly.
Harry managed not to slap a hand to his forehead.
Harry's searching finally found him the perfect place to take a nap where the constant crowing of roosters would not keep him on the verge of consciousness, but the effort to be there was a bit more than he would normally go for.
He always assumed the Professor's Staff room had the best couches, and he suspected they would have special silencing charms that prevented noise from getting in, but it had taken until Hermione finished brewing some Polyjuice potion to prove, and now he was finally taking advantage of it.
He had just sunk into a deep snooze in one of the luxurious armchairs when the rest of the professors entering the room, which they should not have been doing at this time of the night.
"-the girl, Ginny Weasley," said Professor Mac entering the room. "Ah, Gilderoy. Just the man I wanted to see."
Harry looked around trying to spot the other professor when he suddenly remembered who it was he was Polyjuiced as.
"So sorry - dozed off for a bit- what have I missed?" he asked, hoping to cover up his near-blunder.
He tried hard to pretend not to notice that the other teachers were looking at him with something remarkably like hatred, and then Greasy stepped forward. Harry was sure his cover was blown.
"Just the man," he said. "The very man. A girl has been snatched by the monster, Lockhart. Taken into the Chamber of Secrets itself. Your moment has come at last."
Harry felt himself blanche, the blood running from his face so fast it left him light headed.
"That's right, Gilderoy," chipped in Professor Sprout. "Weren't you saying just last night that you've known all along where the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets is?"
"I - well, I -"sputtered Harry.
"Yes, didn't you tell me you were sure you knew what was inside it even before miss Granger's theory came out?" piped up Professor Flitwick.
"D-did I?"
"I certainly remember you saying you were sorry you hadn't had a crack at the monster before the roosters were brought in," said Greasy. "Didn't you say that the whole affair had been bungled, and that you should have been given a free rein from the first?"
Harry stared around at the stony-faced professors.
"We'll leave it to you, then, Gilderoy," said Professor McGonagall. "Tonight will be an excellent time to do it. We'll make sure everyone's out of your way. You'll be able to tackle the monster all by all by yourself. A free rein at last."
"V-very well," he said. "I'll - I'll be in my office, getting, er getting ready."
He left the room as fast as he could without sprinting.
His first instinct was to bolt for his dorm, but then he realised Smiley wouldn't be looking for the missing girl unless he was told, so Harry veered off and ran to the defence professor's office instead.
When he got there, it was to discover a scared looking Ron Weasley standing in an otherwise empty office.
"Professor," Ron said, seeing Harry. "You've got to help. It's taken my sister!"
"Ah crap," said Harry. "Ron, it's me, Harry. I am using some of Hermione's Polyjuice. Where's Smiley?"
"Harry? What the hell? Oh crud, he really has gone, hasn't he? I thought so, when I saw his office was empty, but then you came in-"
"Gone? Gone where? Don't tell me he saw the writing on the wall and did 'a runner'? Damn!"
"What are we going to do?" asked Ron. "It's got my baby sister."
Harry swore again, this time using longer, more heart-felt words.
"Listen, you've got to tell the professors that Smiley has nicked off," said Harry. "They're expecting him to go rescue her. Once they know he has gone they'll start looking, but Smiley apparently knew where the entrance is and they don't, so don't waste any time. I've got to go hide and wait for the Polyjuice to wear off or I'll be in it deep."
"Okay," said Ron, rushing out of the room.
Harry pulled his invisibility cloak over his head and headed towards the second floor bathroom where Hermione had hidden to brew the potion. He really should have looked where he was going, but the last thing he expected to stumble into was a dirty great hole where the sinks used to be.
"Speak to me Slytherin," shouted Tom, and the mouth of the giant statue opened.
"Hey, he kind of looks like Larry now!"Harry giggled to himself, feeling a bit hysterical.
Maybe the bumps on his head from the tumble he took getting down here was affecting him a bit more than he originally thought. His hands were pretty torn up and he was covered in bruises too.
He hadn't even noticed anybody aside from Ron's sister (Scotch? No, that was Smiley's favourite. Margaritas? Tequila? Grog? No, Gin, that was it, Gin) lying on the middle of the chamber when he first staggered in looking for a way out.
Riddle's monologue had almost put Harry to sleep. It was like one of Binn's lectures, but without anybody else around to share the boredom or Larry to take his place in class.
Actually, that gave him an idea.
"Come forth, my pet! Come and obey your master, the true heir of Slytherin," ranted Riddle, working himself up into a nice little frenzy.
The sounds of something enormous moving up the dark tunnel behind the mouth echoed through the chamber, getting louder and louder until a mammoth snake's head pushed its way out of the gaping mouth.
"Kill him," yelled the semi-solid ghost of Voldemort, turning to point at Harry.
Tom barely registered the strange expression and wide open 'O' shaped mouth before the Basilisk dived forward to swallow the mannequin whole.
Spotting the real Harry dragging Ginny towards the chamber door, his invisibility cloak failing to keep them both covered, Tom was about to order the monster to attack again when the great beast suddenly began making a strange barking sound.
"What's going on?" demanded Tom. "What are you doing?"
The coughing grew worse and the huge snake started thrashing from side to side, banging its head on the ground and the walls in an apparent attempt to dislodge Larry from its throat.
"Stop it!" screamed Tom, jumping hurriedly out of the way as the Basilisk's thrashing became more desperate. "Stop that this instant!"
The snake was fairly writhing now, smashing everything in its path as it struggled to breath.
"They're getting away!" yelled Tom, completely ignoring the fact the monster had much bigger problems to deal with. "Kill them!"
Finally, the Basilisk gave an almighty heave, flinging its entire length into the air in an attempt to clear its airway. The massive coils of its body toppled pillars and destroyed the base of Slytherin's ego-sized statue.
The gargantuan bust leaned over, and then snapped completely. It toppled to the ground, landing on top of the choking snake with a crunching crash. Blood and snake guts burst out, spraying the room.
"No!" yelled Tom in anger and disbelief.
Then he spotted a wand, dropped by the fake Potter before it was eaten.
Harry, who had lost his slippery grip on Ginny while trying to keep his footing as the snake died, had a sudden flash of insight and memory. Something Beardy had said to him after trapping Voldemort in a glass jar last year. Something about his blood been poison to the Dark Lord.
Grabbing the diary from Ginny's hands, Harry opened it.
'BITE ME' , he wrote, using his blood as ink and his finger as a quill.
Tom, who was stalking towards them with murder in his eyes, suddenly gave out a huge shriek of pain. With each touch of blood, he screamed and twisted, his once handsome face disintegrating as if flames where eating away at it from the inside.
Realising he didn't need to actually write anything, Harry started using his hand as a stamp, covering page after page with smudgy palm prints, and finger painting random designs with any excess.
Riddle staggered with each mark, as if a physical blow was striking him.
Running low on blood from his damaged fingers, Harry grabbed the book in both hands and pressed his face against it, smearing the trickle of blood, that was leaking from a cut somewhere on his forehead, all over the middle two-page spread.
He made sure to put on a disgusted expression as he did it, just to make it as insulting as possible.
Harry started considering if he should swap to other body fluids – his bladder was quite full, and it would be even more insulting.
Fighting against the pain, Voldemort-the-younger raised the wand he had taken from the mannequin and pointed it at Harry in one final, desperate attempt to stop him.
It was unfortunate he hadn't noticed the wand was of the second hand ones Harry had picked up before the start of the year. It had a long crack running down its length and was barely holding together despite a significant amount of different glues Harry had tried fixing it with.
"Avada Kedavra!" screamed Tom.
The resulting green-flamed explosion shook the foundations of the school and brought down a ton of dust and rock from the roof of the cavern.
When the dust cleared, Harry sat up coughing for a few minutes and was very grateful to see Ron's sister, also sitting up and clearing her lungs.
"Meep!" she coughed while ducking down once she noticed he was looking at her.
"Oh good," he said. "You're awake. I really wasn't looking forward to having to carry you all the way back."
She did not look impressed.
Harry looked at the strange elf, the one that had stolen his mail and delivered the less than useful warning at the beginning of the year - Dobber or something.
It was perched on the end of his hospital bed, apologising profusely about not being able to stop the diary from possessing Ginny, or to stop her from doing all of the horrible things she had unknowingly been involved in, like killing roosters, enchanting the bludger to try to kill Harry, and petrifying people.
"I don't get it," Harry said. "Why don't you just leave? If you hate Malfoy so much, just disappear. He can't stop you, can he?"
Harry noticed people often came up with strange elaborate ways to stop from doing the easy things. It was quite baffling sometimes.
"Oh no, Mister Harry Potter sir," said the elf "Elves are bound-"
"Yeah, yeah, I know that," interrupted Harry, "but you've already managed to do stuff he wouldn't have wanted you to do, so just go that bit further and leave. Pretend he has given you a sock or something and go."
"Pretend?" asked the elf.
"Yeah, pretend. I pretend all the time. I pretend I care, I pretend I am working, hell, I'll even pretend I like you if it will make you go away and stop bugging me.
"Look, go home, find a an old pair of grungies or something that Mal has dropped, pick it up and pretend he gave it to you, which he sort of has done since he obviously left it there for you to find."
It was like a light bulb had gone off behind the elf's eyes - a maniacal, high voltage light bulb.
"Yes, yes! Thank you Harry potter. Dobby will not forget!"
With that, he disappeared in a puff of smoke. Leaving a grumbling Harry Potter determine to get more a decent sleep before the evening meal – a task made infinitely easier now that the roosters were finally gone from the halls.
"He could have at least offered to help me over summer," Harry murmured as he made his way to the land of nod.
"Potter," called Draco, catching up to Harry after the feast. "I guess you nearly got one of them but missed out at the last second, eh? Can't help bad luck, can you?"
"Eh?" said Harry, not at all close to understanding.
"Never mind, Harry," said Slick, more amicably than anything he had ever said to Harry before. "There's plenty more Weasleys to try for next year. See you in a few months then."
Eventually all of the petrified were revived, thanks to the Mandrakes grown by the students.
Harry found the shape his unevenly expanded pot forced his to grow into quite amusing, and was actually a bit sad to see the overly busty plant decapitated and stewed. It would have made an awesome addition to Petunia's garden.
"Right," said Harry, preparing himself for the train trip back to London.
"Enchanted stuff to make chores at the Dursley's easier – check.
"Stuff to keep Duderkins away – check.
"Stuff to play with to keep from getting too bored – check.
"Dirty great award thing for saving the school – check."
Hedwig crash-landed on his trunk. Her inactivity and unlimited food supply was taking its toll on the once svelte bird. He might need to get a bigger cage next year, if she kept on at this rate.
"Owl – check.
"Prewritten form letters for pen friends – check.
"Trunk full of prepared food that won't go off – check.
"Enchanted hovering bathmat that hopefully nobody will miss – check.
"What have I forgotten?"
After several minutes of concentration, Harry could come up with nothing more, so he made his way downstairs and headed towards the carriages that would take him to the train station and his 'home'.
"Guess if I've left anything behind I'll get it back next year," he thought, satisfied that he had covered his bases as much as could be expected. "Besides, the elves should be able to bring me anything I need."
He was really looking forward to having the elves around this year, now that he knew they would be hanging around.
( Deep in the bowels of the castle, a previously secret cavern echoed to the sound of almost a hundred elves suddenly popping into existence inside of it.
"Oh," they all moaned in ecstasy at the sight of a labyrinth that hadn't been cleaned for a thousand years.
"Look!" exclaimed one pointing to where the massive statue of Slytherin had fallen, crushing the enormous Basilisk, spreading much filth, gore, and grime everywhere.
"Harry Potter told us he left a messes to be cleaned up, but be never said how big its was!"
"This will takes us all summer," it panted excitedly "There's will be no need to leave Hoggywarts at all this year!"
"Yay!" cheered the rest.
Further in, hidden by large pieces of the fallen statue, a section of the crushed snake bulged outwards, stretching impossibly far before bursting open to allow a badly damaged artificial hand to emerge.