Chapter 10: Confrontations With Madmen
"Professor Quirrel. I'd say I'm surprised, but I'm really not."
Quirrel just smiled at Harry speaking calmly, not a hint of the fear that normally covered his face "I wondered if I'd be meeting you here tonight, Potter. Though I must say I would have thought you would suspect Snape and not p-p-poor, st-stuttering P-Professor Quirrel."
Harry looked at the man he knew was about to die with a mocking grin plastered on his face "Well you see, if I were an idiot I might have suspected Snape, but if you think about it he was far to obvious a choice. The man was a Slytherin, if he was up to something nefarious he would be bright enough not to engage in such petty acts of viciousness. You on the other hand, well your acting skills are about even with your teaching skill, that is to say they suck."
Quirrel glared at Harry "It doesn't matter, I'm going to kill you tonight." He snapped his fingers and Harry was suddenly bound tightly by conjured ropes. "You're to nosy to live, Potter. Scurrying around the school on Halloween like that, for all I knew you'd seen me coming to look at what was guarding the stone."
"So you did let the troll in." It wasn't a question, but that seemed to escape Quirrel.
"Certainly. I have a gift with trolls- you must have seen what I did to the one in the chamber back there? Unfortunately, while everyone else was scurrying around looking for it, Snape, who already suspected me, went straight to the third floor to head me off."
Harry looked as though he was thinking for a moment before he replied "I'm guessing that gift with trolls comes from having a similar level of cognitive ability. Why even bother letting a real troll in, it took a pair of first years five minutes to find and eliminate it. With only a theoretical troll every teacher would have spent hours searching the castle without finding it. And if anyone was suspicious you just say you must have over-reacted to a Halloween prank."
"Silence, Potter. I need to examine this interesting mirror." Quirrel turned his back on Harry to examine the Mirror of Erised "This mirror is the key to finding the stone, trust Dumbledore to come up with something like this... but he's in London... I'll be far away by the time I get back... I see the Stone... I'm presenting it to my master..."
"Ah your master, I knew you weren't bright enough to come up with this on your own. Let me guess it's Voldemort, isn't it. Hell, with my luck who else could it be. How did he win you over? Did he give you a speech about how morality is just some societal construct designed to control you, that all that really mattered was power?" Harry could see Quirrel's grimace reflected in the mirror. "He did didn't he. Well even if that were true, you still got screwed. From where I'm standing all I can see is just another dumb-ass sucker who fell for the honeyed words of a half-dead psychopath. Oh and Voldy, why don't you say hello, I can feel you're there."
A raspy voice answered from under Quirrel's turban "Hello... Harry Potter."
"It really is funny that you fell for it Quirrel, he promised you power, but just having him here is literally killing you, isn't it. You've been killing unicorns just to push off death by a few more days, but in the end you are still going to die tonight, either by my hand or by the hand of your precious master, because once he has the stone- you are nothing but a loose end."
Quirrel was quickly losing his temper "What does this mirror do? How does it work? Help me, Master!"
And once again the raspy voice spoke "Use the boy... Use the boy..."
Quirrel clapped his hands and the ropes binding Harry disappeared "Come here, look in the mirror and tell me what you see"
Harry walked in front of the mirror, slipping his hands into his pockets. He looked into the mirror and saw himself holding the stone and putting it in his pocket, and when the reflection did that he felt the stone materialize in his real pocket. He immediately touched the iron rod to the stone and pushed a little power through it to activate the stone... and nothing happened, just as Virgil had suspected, the Philosopher's Stone at Hogwarts had been a fake.
"Well," Quirrel demanded impatiently "What do you see?"
"I see me kicking your ugly ass Quirrel." As Quirrel was about to respond Harry cut him off "Quirrel you just don't get it, you aren't in charge here, so why don't you just shut up and let me talk to your boss."
"Let me speak to him... face-to-face..."
"Master, you are not strong enough!"
"I have strength enough... for this..."
Quirrel undid his turban and turned around, the hideous face of Voldemort looking straight at Harry "Harry Potter... See what I have become?" the face said. "Mere shadow and vapor... I have form only when I can share another's body... but there have always been those willing to let me into their hearts and minds... Unicorn blood has strengthened me, these past weeks... and once I have the Elixir of Life, I will be able to create a body of my own... Now... why don't you give me that Stone in your pocket?"
Harry just stared at him defiance etched into every line of his face.
"Don't be a fool," snarled the face. "Better save your own life and join me... or you'll meet the same end as your parents... They died begging me for mercy..."
"You're lying."
"How touching..." it hissed. "I always value bravery... Yes, boy, your parents were brave... I killed your father first; and he put up a courageous fight... but your mother needn't have died... she was trying to protect you... Now give me the Stone, unless you want her to have died in vain."
Harry stared Voldemort right in the eyes and asked "What is it about me, that scares you so much? First you make the biggest mistake of your life trying to kill me as a baby, and now you push the hard sell on me while I'm the one with all the cards. You couldn't kill me ten years ago when you were at the height of your power, what makes you think you'll do any better now as nothing more than an ugly ghost?" And with that he reached out and grabbed Quirrel's head with both hands. Quirrel and Voldemort screamed in agony, but the pain Harry expected didn't come. He had been expecting a burning pain in his forehead, like he knew he had experienced when he had done this before, but instead he just felt a tingling sensation and it felt like Quirrel's head was coated with some kind of Slime. He could still sense the presence of Voldemort, but it was no longer painful. Maybe Virgil had been right that kissing Hermione would destroy any traces of Voldemort that remained. The shadow of Voldemort fled the dying body of Quirrel and on its way out it took the opportunity to steal as much energy from Harry as it could. Exhaustion overwhelmed Harry, and soon he collapsed into darkness. The last thing Harry saw before the darkness consumed him was the stone falling out of his pocket and shattering upon the ground.
Harry awoke in the Hospital Wing to the smiling face of Albus Dumbledore "Good afternoon, Harry."
"Professor, what happened, the stone... and Quirrel..."
"The stone is gone, and Quirrel is dead Harry. You did a good job stopping Voldemort from getting the stone." Dumbledore told Harry in a calm tone.
"Yes, I suppose I did, of course it isn't like it really mattered, the stone wasn't real." Harry said while reaching into his pocket and withdrawing the iron rod he had been carrying since he had grabbed his invisibility cloak. "And don't try to deny it sir, I brought this along because I thought that you might have placed fake stones so that any thief wouldn't know which one they really wanted, and I might have needed to test the stones to find the real one. When the stone appeared right next to it, I decided to test it, after all why turn down a free pound of gold. Imagine my surprise when it didn't work. It raises a question though of why you set all that up..."
"Now Harry," Dumbledore began in his best soothing, grandfatherly voice "surely you can't be suggesting..."
"That it was a set-up, sir? That is exactly what I am suggesting. The only thing I want to know is why?"
"Harry there are some things you simply are not ready to understand. Perhaps when you are older..."
"And how many times will you have maneuvered me into a confrontation with a murdering psychopath before you tell me?" Dumbledore didn't respond "Very well, let's move on to other topics then. I know you sent me my dad's cloak, is there anything else that you have been holding onto that should have been given to me before now?" Harry gave him a couple moments to respond before moving on "I guess I'll just have to make inquiries at Gringotts about my parents' wills. Is that why you sent Hagrid to take me to get my stuff? Any other teacher would have known that I had no knowledge about any inheritance I might have and would have suggested I ask the very same questions I intend to ask the next time I am at Gringotts. Sir if you have nothing else to add, could you please leave, I would really like to be able to speak with my friends, I'm sure they've been worried." Having politely dismissed the Headmaster he lay back to look at the ceiling. After a few moments Dumbledore left.
Harry managed to convince Madam Pomfrey that he was well enough for his friends to come visit him. The moment Hermione saw him she ran up to him and kissed him before giving him a tight hug "Oh Harry, I was so worried."
"Dammit" said George pulling a couple of sickles out of his pocket and handing them to Fred.
"What was that about?" Harry asked the twins.
"Just a friendly wager about whether you would end up with Hermione or Susan, though I must admit, I didn't think you would move this fast." Fred explained.
Susan giggled a little at the thought "That was a sucker's bet George. I never had a chance against Hermione."
"So what happened down there?" George asked "There are rumors flying around but half of them are just ridiculous."
Harry explained what had happened down in the chamber, being careful not to give away anything that he couldn't just explain away. "So in the end Quirrel died because he backed the wrong horse, and the stone was a fake, it was only there as bait to draw me into a confrontation with Voldemort. It makes sense I guess, Voldy can't be the first idiot on an immortality kick to get it in his head to steal Flamel's stone, but no one else has succeeded. Why move the stone at all, whatever was protecting it before has worked perfectly so far."
"We should tell someone about this." Susan said "He put a lot of people in danger for his little game. He's acting like the school is his own little world. Someone needs to stop him."
"No Susan. We need to let him play his games. He has to much power to be easily stopped, and if we try anything there's no knowing what he'll do. For now we just watch and wait, at least when he's here we can keep an eye on him." Harry said and everyone nodded their agreement.
Harry got out of the Hospital Wing the next morning. He packed his trunk and spent the afternoon with Hermione sitting and talking by the lake.
"So what are we going to tell your parents?" Harry asked Hermione
"About the stone and Voldemort? We should tell them the truth, they'll understand, and I don't think they'll over-react." Hermione said
"I meant about us. We're together, and I'll be living with you and your parents now." Harry had received a letter from Amelia while he had been unconscious informing him that his guardianship had been transferred to the Grangers. Unfortunately the Dursleys hadn't been convicted by the Wizengamot because Dumbledore had stepped in, however that didn't save them from facing criminal charges in the muggle courts and their chances didn't look good.
Hermione thought about it for a bit "The answer is the same. They'll understand, and we are a bit young for them to be worrying about us doing anything."
With that settled they lay back and looked up at the sky. I love you, Hermione Harry thought to himself.
"I love you too, Harry."
Harry was startled by this Hermione can you hear me he thought.
"Of course I can, why wouldn't I be able to hear you?"
Because I'm not talking.
"Oh I knew I had forgotten something." Virgil suddenly said "When you kissed for the first time down in the potion chamber it strengthened your connection. Now you can hear each others thoughts, unless you consciously decide to keep them a secret. You shouldn't have to worry about the connection changing again for a few years now."
"Virgil, I think you need to explain what else will happen with this connection. You have been avoiding giving us details since you first brought it up." Hermione said.
"Alright I'll tell you what I can. There are two more levels to the connection, the next sage will happen if you two ever have sex with each other, and the last will occur if you got married. I can't tell you what will happen with those two stages because if you know what will happen it could corrupt the whole process if you do things for the wrong reasons." Hermione was a little upset at the lack of details but accepted the reason given.
Before the End of Year Feast Dumbledore took Harry aside and tried to convince him that he should return to the Dursleys for the summer. After listening to Dumbledore spend five minutes explaining how it was the best thing for his safety Harry simply pointed out that he couldn't legally return to the Dursleys as they were currently on trial for abusing him for ten years, and that even if there were a way for him to go back there he would use every resource at his disposal, including his apparent fame, to avoid returning. He didn't give Dumbledore a chance to respond before leaving his office.
Due to Harry and Hermione's stellar performance in class, and Snape's inability to blatantly favor Slytherin, Hufflepuff won the House Cup by a wide margin. As a result Dumbledore couldn't swoop in and hand them a last minute victory by giving points to Harry and his friends. Dumbledore was furious, not only had he been unable to convince Harry to return to his relatives, the boy had somehow begun to unravel the beginnings of his plans, and now he was clearly in a relationship with the muggleborn Granger. This wouldn't do at all, the Weasley girl wasn't really an option now, but perhaps the Bones girl could be convinced to help, after all it was for 'the greater good'. While he was at it he decided that there was no point in continuing to pay Ronald for his attempts to befriend Harry, it clearly wasn't worth the investment.
Harry enjoyed the train ride back to London with Hermione, Susan, and the Twins, they talked and joked, played a few muggle card games Hermione showed them, Harry Hermione and Susan practiced their transformations. The Twins were impressed and asked to borrow Harry's book on becoming an animagus, Harry gladly lent them the book, after all there wasn't much the book could tell them about the last step that they didn't already know. All to soon they were pulling in to Platform 9 ¾.
"Come on Harry, let's go home" Hermione said giving Harry a quick kiss before pulling him off the train.
The Grangers saw Harry and Hermione exiting the barrier holding hands and David surreptitiously handed Jean a five pound note. "Hey kids" said Jean hugging them both in turn "How was your year?"
"Well" said Harry.
"It's a long story." finished Hermione. And it was, the story lasted all through the car ride to the Granger home.
A/N: And there we have the end of the first year. I hope you all enjoyed. The next two years will probably be just as short, but starting with fourth year they should be getting a little longer.
Chapter 11: Goblins and Elves
It had only been a week but Harry was already having the best summer of his life. He and Hermione had spent the entire ride to the Granger house from King's Cross telling David and Jean about their year at Hogwarts, the only thing they didn't mention was that Harry had access to memories from his future. David and Jean had been concerned about how safe it would be for the kids to return to Hogwarts, but Harry told them that he and Hermione would be fine, because they had each other and their friends watching their backs, and Hermione convinced them, in true Hufflepuff style, that they couldn't just abandon their friends if Hogwarts really was as dangerous as it seemed from their experience that year. After that discussion it was significantly easier to tell Hermione's parents about the change in their relationship.
Harry and Hermione were currently walking hand-in-hand down Diagon Alley toward Gringotts accompanied by David. Harry had mentioned that he wanted to inquire at the bank about anything his parents had left behind and David had immediately volunteered to take Harry to meet with the Goblins. When they entered the bank Harry walked up to the nearest open counter, glanced at the name plate in front of the goblin and said "Greetings, Teller Crushfang, I hope you are having a profitable day. I would like to make an inquiry about the estates of the late James and Lily Potter."
The goblin, who's name was apparently Crushfang, looked up to see who had addressed him. He was shocked to see that the person who had addressed him so formally and respectfully was nothing more than a small boy. "May I ask your name? If you have a legitimate claim to access I will be more than willing to assist you." Crushfang said with a small smile.
"Of course, my name is Harry James Potter." Harry answered returning the smile, being sure to not show his teeth.
Crushfang was impressed, this boy was quite possibly the most famous wizard in Britain, and yet here he was without a touch of the arrogance that most wizards had when dealing with goblins. "Very well Mr. Potter, if you will follow me I will take you to see Senior Accountant Bloodclaw. He is in charge of estates for the more prominent families." Crushfang then led Harry, Hermione, and David through an ornately carved wooden door and down a long marble hallway. A good distance down the hallway they stopped at a door, Crushfang knocked on the door "Senior Accountant Bloodclaw, Harry Potter is here to inquire about his parents' estates."
"Send him in." a voice growled from behind the door. Crushfang opened the door and gestured for Harry and his party to enter. Inside of the room was a large ornate desk, which appeared to have been carved from a single block of solid granite, behind the desk sat a goblin, apparently Bloodclaw. The goblin looked Harry up and down before speaking "Mr. Potter, welcome. I am surprised it has taken you this long to come and have your parents wills read. I had assumed you would come last summer when you were shown to Diagon Alley."
Harry inclined his head slightly as a show of respect to the goblin "Good day to you Senior Accountant Bloodclaw. I was not aware at the time that my parents had left anything behind other than the money in my vault. The events of the last year have led me to believe otherwise, it would seem that those individuals whose duty it was to inform me have either neglected their duties, or have purposefully attempted to deceive me."
Bloodclaw dug through his desk before finding a small scroll "Very well Mr. Potter, I have here your parents' Last Will and Testament. It is mostly legal jargon that comes down to this, aside from a few charitable donations you have been left all of the assets of the House of Potter. Your liquid assets currently total 3,762,915 galleons. Here is an itemized list of the objects and materials currently stored in the Potter vault. Feel free to look through this at your leisure, if you have any questions let me know." he handed Harry a small stack of parchments.
Harry and Hermione began to look through the inventory of Harry's new vault. David would have helped, but as most of the things on the list were magical he agreed that he would be out of his depth. After a couple minutes of browsing Harry found something of interest "This sheet seems to be enchanted weapons and armor." He said showing Hermione the parchment in question "You know with the kind of stuff that happens at school some of this armor might come in handy." he added, only half joking.
"Actually Mr. Potter, if you want armor to protect yourself at school I would recommend something more practical. Dragon hide armor can be tailored to be skintight so that it can be worn under robes, unfortunately armor quality hide can be quite expensive to obtain in sufficient quantities." Bloodclaw offered. Normally a goblin would not offer unsolicited advice to a wizard, however Bloodclaw knew from the way that Crushfang had knocked on his door that young Mr. Potter had shown, and therefore deserved, respect. Most people were unaware that the Goblins of Gringotts Bank had an entire system of nonverbal cues and signals by which they informed each other how their customers had behaved, and therefore dictating how they should be treated. In most banks tellers were the lowest level employees, but in Gringotts they were specifically chosen from amongst other positions because they were considered to be good judges of character. The result of this was that from the moment a wizard stepped up to a counter in the lobby he was being judged and only those few who were courteous to the goblins were treated with anything other than disdain.
At Bloodclaw's comments Hermione flipped back through the parchments she had already looked at "Well according to this page here, the Potter vault contains large quantities of many different kinds of dragon hides, along with other magical textiles. I'm assuming that this notation is some type of quality grade. Senior Accountant Bloodclaw, what grade of dragon hide would you recommend for the type of armor you suggested?"
Bloodclaw was impressed by this young girl, she had a good head on her shoulders, while most witches and wizards would just ask for a price here she was examining the available resources to see if they could avoid wasting gold. "I should think anything above grade four should work perfectly."
"Look Harry, according to this you have close to one thousand square yards of grade five Hungarian Horntail hide in your vault."
"Well if we have that much we should definitely put it to good use. Senior Accountant Bloodclaw, if we provided the hide do you know where we could get it made into armor, and how much it would cost to get five suits made?" Harry asked, now that he was really thinking about it armor they could wear under their robes really did sound like a good idea, it might not defend against the basilisk he knew would be roaming the school the coming year, but giant snakes weren't their only worries.
"I happen to know the perfect place to get the work done, we commonly contract them to outfit our curse-breakers. As for price I wouldn't be surprised if you could convince them to do the job for a portion of the hide, grade five hide is rather hard to come by." Bloodclaw informed Harry, he then wrote down the name of a shop in Diagon Alley and handed it to Harry.
"Harry, are you sure that is a good idea? From what I've understood this dragon hide is quite valuable, surely there must be a better use for it?" David spoke up, while he liked the idea of Harry and Hermione being better protected he really didn't want to see Harry just throwing money around.
"Actually sir, grade five dragon hide can really only be used for armor, it is only expensive because of its relative rarity. In the quantities present in Mr. Potter's vault it would flood the market, completely destroying the value. If he wanted even a reasonable return on the hide it would probably take ten years to sell of just the Horntail hide." Bloodclaw assured them. The Potter account promised to be very profitable now that it was once again active, and Bloodclaw wanted to be certain that Harry would be as safe as possible to insure the account remained active for as long as possible.
Harry and Hermione went through the rest of the list, finding nothing else of immediate interest they said their good-byes to Bloodclaw before leaving the bank. Harry checked his watch, they still had plenty of time before they needed to return home so he asked if they could go to the store Bloodclaw had recommended. Harcorn's Armor and Leather Goods was a small shop tucked into the back of the alley, between an abandoned store that had apparently sold flying carpets and a magical antique store.
Samuel Harcorn looked up from his ledger when he heard the bell above the entrance chime. He examined the three people who had entered, probably want some dragon hide shoes he thought to himself. Samuel hated making shoes, but it was the biggest source of business he got so he never complained aloud. "Welcome to my store, how may I assist you today?" he asked, fixing a smile on his face.
Samuel was surprised when it was the young boy who answered him, not the tall man who accompanied him. "Your store was recommended to me by Gringotts, I understand that you specialize in making dragon hide armor. I have recently discovered that I am in possession of a large quantity of grade five Hungarian Horntail hide, and I would like to commission some armor."
After some back and forth between Harry and Samuel a deal was worked out, in exchange for twenty square yards of hide Samuel would produce five self-fitting, self-repairing armor shirts. The work would take approximately three weeks and then the shirts would be sent to Harry. Harry wrote out an access form for his vault, granting Samuel Harcorn access for the sole purpose of taking out the required amount of dragon hide. Having completed his business Harry left the shop followed by Hermione and David.
The next three weeks passed quickly and soon Harry's twelfth birthday arrived. Harry and Hermione had already finished all their homework for the holidays and were planning a trip to Diagon Alley to buy some books on advanced magic. They had not received any letters from their friends, Hermione had been hurt that no one had written until Harry explained his suspicions. They had received the dragon hide armor that Harry had ordered, each shirt was skin-tight with a high neck and ran to right above the elbows.
Harry and the Grangers had just returned from having a nice dinner to celebrate Harry's birthday when Harry finally spotted what he had been looking for all day. There, staring at him from the hedge that marked the boundary between the Granger house and their neighbors, was a pair of big green eyes. Hello Dobby, you crazy little bastard Harry thought before mentally pointing out the eyes to Hermione. Harry and Hermione had been experimenting with their new connection when they were bored and had gotten to the point where they could have a complete conversation, including gestures and other nonverbal cues, and had started to experiment with sending each other images using the connection.
Later Harry had gone up to his room, after kissing Hermione good-night, when he closed the door he looked at his bed and there, sitting on his bed, was Dobby the house-elf. "Um, Hi. Who are you?" Harry asked, already knowing the answer.
"I is Dobby, Great Harry Potter sir, Dobby the house-elf." Dobby replied jumping to his feet and bowing to Harry.
"Nice to meet you Dobby, have a seat." Harry said gesturing to the bed where Dobby had been sitting moments earlier, while sitting at the chair he used at his desk.
At Harry's words Dobby looked to be on the verge of tears "Dobby has never been asked to h-have a seat by a wizard- like an equal"
Harry knew that the current line of conversation would become very loud so he decided to get Dobby to come to the point of his visit "Look, I've had a long day, and I really just want to get to sleep. So, could you just tell me why you are here?"
"Dobby has come to protect Harry Potter, to warn him, even if he does have to shut his ears in the oven door for going behind his master's back... Harry Potter must not go back to Hogwarts." Dobby told Harry.
"I have to go back to Hogwarts, I need to continue my education. Not to mention all my friends are there." Harry responded trying to decide how best to get rid of Dobby without the little elf doing anything drastic.
"Friends who do not even write to Harry Potter?" Dobby asked.
"Ah, so you're the one who has been blocking my mail. Hm I thought it was Dumbledore. Speaking of which, whatever your concerns are I'm sure Dumbledore will keep me safe. After all, that man has an unhealthy obsession with my life, and my death would probably leave him quite put out."
"Dumbledore is a great wizard, but even he cannot protect Harry Potter from the danger he will be in if he returns to Hogwarts. Harry Potter must promise he will not return to Hogwarts." Dobby implored Harry.
"Dobby I can't do that, if I don't continue my education I will be in more danger. Voldemort is still out there, and for whatever reason he wants me dead. If I want to live my life for very long I'll need to learn as much magic as possible, and that means returning to Hogwarts. I will promise to be careful, I will do everything I can to make sure nothing happens to me, but I have to go back." Harry informed the elf.
"Very well Harry Potter, if you insist on going back Dobby will have to stop you." Dobby said.
"Dobby, I don't want to get you in trouble, but if you try anything to stop me from going back to Hogwarts, I will report you to the Ministry. Now give me my letters, please." Harry warned Dobby before the elf could decide on a course of action. Dobby just nodded before he disappeared leaving behind the letters he had kept from Harry.
The next morning Harry and Hermione had immediately sent off letters with Hedwig to everyone who had sent them a letter so they wouldn't be left wondering why they hadn't received a reply. They were glad they had the moment they read the most recent letter from the Twins, in their letter they said they would take their dad's flying car to come see why Harry and Hermione hadn't replied within a week. The first few letters from Susan were friendly and discussed nothing of importance, but a letter she had sent two weeks into the summer had them concerned. The letter said that Dumbledore had approached Susan about Harry and Hermione, and had tried to make suggestions that had disturbed Susan, she didn't go into details but she said they needed to talk about it in person. Her letters after that were written in an increasingly worried fashion as she received no reply to her letters. They had also received letters from most of their Hufflepuff year mates though they had mostly been friendly greetings and thanks for their assistance on exams.
Harry and Hermione spent most of August corresponding with Susan and the Twins. Susan informed Harry and Hermione of her progress with practicing her transformation, while the Twins had apparently started meditating in order to join Harry, Hermione, and Susan as animagi. Harry was getting better with his transformation, he could make black feathers appear all over his body with no effort and had begun to actually change the structure of some of his body parts. Hermione was able to grow fur with ease, and had even managed to grow a tail, though she was only able to hold it for a few moments before her body reverted to its natural shape. Harry and Hermione went to Diagon Alley two days after their Hogwarts letters arrived, along with their letter had been a short note from Professor Sprout congratulating them on being the top two students in their year. Hermione had been concerned that Lucius Malfoy would give the diary to someone other than Ginny, but Harry had assured her that the Twins would mention if Malfoy picked a fight with the Weasleys, and that the background reasons for choosing Ginny hadn't changed.
Harry and Hermione arrived at King's Cross an hour and a half before the train was due to arrive, Harry figured that Dobby wouldn't be able to keep them out of the station for very long if other students needed to get through. Apparently Dobby had come to the same conclusion, or if Harry was uncharacteristically optimistic, maybe he had given up on keeping Harry from going to Hogwarts. They had no problem getting onto the platform after saying good-bye to the Grangers. They boarded the train and changed into their robes, making sure to put on their new armor first, then sat down to wait for their friends to arrive. They didn't have to wait long, Susan arrived twenty minutes after they did.
"Hey Harry, Hermione. How have you two been." Susan asked a smile on her face.
"We've been great Susan. We got you something, Give me a second to get it out for you." Harry told her while digging through his trunk to get another of the armor shirts. "I made some inquiries at Gringotts, and it turned out that among other things I am the proud owner of vast quantities of armor quality dragon hide. Here we go. So I got a few armor shirts made out of it, after all I wasn't doing anything with it and it would be a waste to sell it. So here is yours." Harry handed the shirt to Susan, it seemed a bit large at first look.
"It is self-fitting and self-repairing, so they use a lot more material than necessary so that it has plenty of room to grow, and extra in case of damage that can't simply be spelled closed." Hermione explained "You should probably put it on now and get changed into your robes while there are plenty of empty compartments."
"I-I can't accept this... it must be worth a small fortune." Susan managed to stammer through her obvious amazement.
"Susan you are one of my best friends, and if last year is any indication, that may not be a very safe thing to be. I protect my friends as best I can. If it makes you feel better then think of it as being property of House Potter gifted to you for the duration of your friendship with the next Lord Potter." Harry told her with a sly smile.
Susan couldn't help but smile "You read the book I gave you for Christmas."
"Of course, and if it works to present a bribe as a gift..." Harry told her.
"Then there is no reason why you can't present a gift as a bribe." Susan finished "You will be a force to be reckoned with if you go into politics. Before I put this on I should tell you, when Dumbledore talked to me earlier in the summer... the things he said, they essentially came down to the idea that... that some of the old families would be unhappy if 'The Boy-Who-Lived' was with a muggleborn witch instead of a respectable pureblood witch, and that if I were to separate you two that I could be that witch."
Harry was only mildly shocked at the old man's attempts at manipulating his life "Don't worry Susan, I know you wouldn't do something like that."
"You would think Dumbledore would know better than to look for someone that devious and disloyal in Hufflepuff. We watch out for our own, we trust you Susan but you won't be the last person Dumbledore will try to use. At least now we know what to look out for." Hermione reassured the redheaded witch.
Susan nodded her thanks before exiting the compartment to get changed. When she got back they settled in and waited for the Twins to get there. Five minutes before the train was scheduled to depart the platform was assaulted by the redheaded horde of Weasleys. A couple of minutes later the Twins made their way into the compartment.
"Hell hello, and how are our favorite 'Puffs doing on this fine day?" the Twins asked in stereo.
"We're doing just fine." Susan answered.
"Here I got you something" Harry told them throwing them the last two dragon hide shirts
"Harry, we can't accept these, they must be worth more than everything else we own combined." George said while gazing at the shirt in his hand.
"Look, with the amount of trouble you two get us in I want to make sure nothing happens to you. I would be very upset if you two got killed pulling one of your hare-brained schemes, because then I wouldn't get to hex you into oblivion for getting us into whatever mess you created. So don't accept them for yourselves, accept them for me." Harry said, barely able to contain his laughter at the indignant looks on the Twins faces.
"Well if you're going to insist..." Fred said shrugging before he and George left the compartment to put on their new armor.
Fred and George returned a little later along with Lee Jordan. Lee fit right in with the group even though he didn't usually hang out with them during the year and soon all six of them were engaged in a very entertaining conversation. From snippets of what the Twins had to say about their trip to Diagon Alley Harry and Hermione mentally agreed that Ginny certainly had the diary. All too soon the train arrived at Hogsmead Station. When they exited the train and joined the throng of students waiting to board one of the carriages, Harry finally got an answer to a question he had been slightly curious about ever since he had gotten his future memories over a year ago, apparently a memory of seeing someone die was enough to be able to see thestrals, because he could see the great, reptilian horses pulling the carriages. Harry, Hermione, and Susan boarded a carriage and headed up to the castle to start their second year at Hogwarts.
Chapter 12: Why Idiots Shouldn't Play With Pixies
Harry, Hermione, and Susan entered the Great Hall and took their seats at the Hufflepuff table. While they waited for the new first years they greeted their fellow Hufflepuffs, sharing brief stories about their summers and discussing the upcoming year.
"I can't believe they got Gilderoy Lockhart to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts." Hannah Abbot said with a tone of admiration.
Harry couldn't help but snort at the obvious reverence Hannah had for the fraud. Hannah shot a brief glare at Harry. "Sorry, I will admit the man can write a good story, but if you take all his books as a whole he did all of those things within two years. His first book came out three weeks after he supposedly finished dealing with those vampires, but taking the books as a time-line he didn't have more than a week off between any of his alleged adventures. When the hell did he have time to write the damn thing. Also he apparently got from the Scottish Highlands to the Himalayas in one day." Harry explained.
"Not to mention the fact that most of the details he gives in the books are related to how he takes care of his hair, not how he dealt with the assorted dangers he is supposed to have faced. But I guess we'll see how good of a teacher he is soon enough." Hermione added.
Before anyone else could respond Professor McGonagall led the first years into the Great Hall for the Sorting. The Hat began to sing its usual drabble of loose rhymes and questionable rhythm all done in a voice that would have gotten the Hat fired from a silent movie. The Sorting proceeded and as far as Harry could tell the Sorting went the way it did in the original time-line, he had been slightly worried that Collin Creevey would have followed him into Hufflepuff, but that fear proved to be completely unfounded. Ginny Weasley still ended up in Gryfindor and Luna still went to Ravenclaw. After the Sorting Dumbledore introduced Lockhart, gave the usual warning about the Forbidden Forest, and gave his usual random comments, which now that Harry really thought about it may have been fueled by the old man's ever increasing senility, before starting the feast.
As everyone began to serve themselves food the conversation turned to Quidditch "We really need some new talent this year." Cedric Diggory pointed out "Most of the team graduated last year, we need a beater, two chasers, and if we don't get a good enough seeker I'll probably have to take that position and get a new keeper."
"Well I'll probably try out for seeker Cedric so hopefully you can keep playing keeper." Harry told him "At least the team won't change much since it'll be four years until anyone from the team graduates."
The conversation continued on as people discussed who would most likely try out for the team. When Harry looked around the Great Hall he caught sight of Ron Weasley, Ron was glaring daggers at Harry and his friends. Harry wasn't sure if Ron's menacing glare was hurt or helped by the fact that he was currently stuffing his face with every bit of food within reach.
After the feast Harry, Hermione, and Susan joined the rest of the Hufflepuffs heading down to the basement common room. They spent a few minutes talking in the common room before Susan went up to her dorm, just as Harry and Hermione were kissing good-night Susan came back down into the common room.
"Guys we need to talk, right now." Susan panted, she had apparently run all the way back down. "When I opened my trunk I found this, it's a note from Dumbledore, he wants to speak with me tomorrow after dinner." She showed them the note before collapsing into a chair "He probably wants me to help split you two up, and I don't... I don't..." She sputtered quickly becoming hysterical.
"Shh it's okay Susan. Harry and I both know you would never do that." Hermione reassured her friend.
"Susan, I want to ask you to do something. I want you to go to that meeting and agree to help Dumbledore, find out what kind of methods he is willing to resort to, and then I want you to stall him as long as you can before he does anything drastic." Harry said the gears clearly turning in his head "Meanwhile we use the time we have to come up with some way to keep him out of mine and Hermione's relationship."
"Actually Harry, when Dumbledore came and talked to me during the summer, I told my Aunt what he said and she agreed with my assessment. She came to the same conclusion as you Harry, we need to find a way to keep him out of your personal life. She had an idea, but we can't implement it until next summer, it would probably be best if you let her explain it to you, maybe over Christmas. Just be warned, you might not like her plan, and Hermione's parents would have to agree to it as well." Susan told them as she regained her composure. After Susan took a few more minutes to calm down they all went up to bed.
The next morning Harry was sitting next to Hermione at breakfast when Professor Sprout came around with schedules. "Damn! We have Potions with the Slytherins, and just about every other class with Gryfindor. How the hell am I supposed to avoid Weasley and Malfoy with this schedule. How can we not have a single class with the 'Claws?" Harry ranted after looking at his new schedule.
Hermione put a comforting hand on Harry's shoulder. It'll be okay. Look we have Defense with Gryfindor this afternoon. Maybe the pixies will do something to Ron, and after a class with Lockhart hopefully some people will realize just how much of a fraud he is.
Harry mentally snorted at this Hermione even you didn't believe he was a fraud after eight months of classes. I love you, but you are far to naïve when it comes to how blinded people can be by a pretty smile and slick hair. I will bet you anything that no one other than Susan and the Twins will believe us about Lockhart at the end of the week.
Fine Harry, if I'm right you owe me ten foot massages. Hermione thought with a mental smirk.
Alright, but if I'm right you have to try out for the Quidditch team with me. Harry countered.
Harry! I can't play Quidditch, I'm no good on a broom, what position would I even play?
Hermione you are much better on a broom than you were our first flying lesson, all the work Susan and I did helping you on a broom really paid off, And with your hand-eye coordination you could be a great Chaser.
Fine I'll try out if you win the bet.
And if you make the team you can't back out.
Alright, alright. We should probably get to class. Hermione looked at the schedule for the first time "We have Herbology with Gryfindor in ten minutes." All of the second year Hufflepuffs took this as their cue to stand up and head outside to the greenhouses.
When all of the Hufflepuff and Gryfindor second years had entered the proper greenhouse Professor Sprout began her lecture on mandrakes. The lecture was the same one Harry remembered and he had no trouble answering Professor Sprout's questions. When it came time to put on earmuffs Harry made sure he ended up with the pink fluffy pair that he distinctly remembered Neville using. He was hoping that it had been a faulty pair of earmuffs that had been the undoing of the otherwise expert Herbologist as this might allow him to avoid the first DADA lesson with Lockhart, but his hopes were dashed when both Ron and Neville fainted, while he, rather annoyingly, remained conscious. After the class ended all of the students made their way back up to the castle for the Defense Against the Dark Arts they shared.
Harry, Hermione, and Susan bypassed their usual seats when they entered Lockhart's classroom, instead of taking seats in the front row they elected to seat themselves at the back of the room, while every other girl in the class fought tooth and nail for seats in the front row. After Lockhart gave a short, for him, introduction about himself he passed out the same asinine pop quiz as he had originally. Harry and Hermione had had a long mental debate over the summer about how to handle Lockhart's 'classes', they eventually came to the agreement that they would take every graded assignment seriously, so as not to hurt their standing at the top of the class. Luckily for both of them this test wasn't being graded, so they decided to have some fun practicing their creative writing instead. Harry and Hermione spent the next twenty minutes trading thoughts on the best answers they could come up with to the questions on the quiz, Harry was severely tempted to answer the question about Lockhart's favorite color with 'Obliviate Blue' but Hermione pointed out that doing so would draw far to much attention, so he settled for writing down 'Shit Brown, why else would he spend so much time shoveling it on the unsuspecting public in his so called books'. The only interruption to Harry and Hermione's fun was when Ron and Neville came into class shortly before the end of the test, amateur mistake, thought Harry, they could have easily missed the entire lesson by groaning when they woke up in the Hospital Wing. When Lockhart collected the tests it was a very amused Harry that handed in a test which contained tidbits like; What is Gilderoy Lockhart's greatest achievement to date? Tying his shoes. Hermione's test on the other hand contained a myriad of responses that called into question everything from Lockhart's intelligence to his somewhat disturbing need to have a classroom full of twelve year-olds stroke his ego. Her answers would have been extremely insulting to Lockhart, if it weren't for the fact that she had used big words that were well beyond his comprehension, like 'pathological attention seeking'. When Lockhart looked through the returned tests he was apparently so hurt by the responses on Harry and Hermione's tests that he completely skipped going over the test in front of the class.
At this point Lockhart decided to move on to the next part of the lesson, and after making quite the show of announcing his little surprise revealed a cage full of pixies. After he gave a short speech about how tricky pixies could be to deal with, during which Harry had been hard pressed not to snark about how pixies might give a few problems, to a twelve year-old, Lockhart unleashed the little blue monsters upon the class. It was utter chaos in the classroom for the first ten seconds, Lockhart immediately regretted his decision of lesson plan, the moment his initial spell failed to disable even a single pixie he bolted for the door. Harry seeing Lockhart doing a runner pointed his wand at the door and intoned "Colloportus" When Lockhart reached the door he tried to open it but failed, panicking he looked around the room, spotting Harry pointing his wand at the door the blond idiot shot the raven-haired boy a frightened look.
"We can't let them escape into the rest of the castle." Harry said by way of explanation before he turned his wand on a pixie that was foolish enough to approach him.
Lockhart then spent a full minute trying to open the now locked door, failing thrice to cast the simple unlocking charm that Hermione had been able cast in her first week of school. Surrendering to the inevitable Lockhart abandoned his attempts to unlock the door and instead threw himself out of the nearest window. This may not have been the smartest thing that Gilderoy Lockhart ever did, after all the window was closed and the classroom was on the third floor, but neither of these facts entered his mind as he fled from a swarm of the most dangerous creatures he had ever faced.
While Lockhart was making a complete fool of himself Harry, Hermione and Susan sprang into action. First they backed into a corner, so as not to become surrounded, then they began firing hexes at any pixie they could get a clean shot at. Within a minute everyone in the classroom, except for Ron who was busy being smacked over the head with his entire set of Lockhart's books, had gotten behind the three Hufflepuffs. When they had dealt with every pixie but the ones that were busy 'entertaining' Ron they shared a quick glance to decide whether or not to save the foolish ginger from his plight. It was eventually decided, much to everyone's disappointment to end Ron's torture at the hand of his tiny blue adversaries. Ron shot Harry a furious glare before he muttered something that sounded like "had them right where I wanted them." Harry then unlocked the door and everyone left the classroom for lunch.
The rest of the week passed quickly, Harry and Hermione were once again competing for the top spot in every class, Binns was just as boring as ever, and Snape somehow managed to continue in a fashion that met the, what he considered to be unreasonably high, standard of acting with a shred of professionalism. True to Harry's guess no one was convinced by the obvious fact that Lockhart was an incompetent moron, and so it was that Saturday morning Hermione found herself joining Harry and Susan on the Quidditch pitch for tryouts. Susan hadn't originally planned on trying out for the team, but when Harry told her about the bet he had made with Hermione she decided she might as well join them on the off chance that they all made the team.
When everyone who wanted to try out was assembled Cedric, who was captain by virtue of the fact that he was the oldest player who hadn't graduated the year before, had everyone fly five laps of the pitch. He then had everyone who was interested trying out for Seeker step forward, normally the Seeker would be the last position filled, but because Cedric was concerned about having to take the position himself he had decided to get it out of the way first in case they needed a new Keeper. Harry and the three others who stepped forward were each given a Cleansweep 7 so that they would all be on an even footing to be judged on skill alone, Cedric then joined them in the air on his own Cleansweep 7 before telling Randy Harris, the returning Beater, to release the Snitch. After five minutes Harry spotted the Snitch and gave chase, after a full minute of chasing the abnormally wily ball Harry managed to get a hold of it. Cedric had originally planned to repeat the process a couple of times in order to see what everyone was capable of, but following Harry's display he made an executive decision and declared Harry the new Hufflepuff Seeker. The other three hopefuls didn't even complain at this as they all knew they had no chance of out-flying Harry.
Seeker trials were followed by Beater trials, in which Geoffrey Larson a fourth year was selected. These were followed by Chaser trials, Cedric put everyone through a series of passing drills and after seeing who was capable of getting the ball to a teammate they then took turns trying to score against Cedric. After these two trials the Chaser hopefuls were down to six, including Hermione and Susan, these six then took turns flying formation with James Stillman, the only remaining Chaser from the year before, to see which combination worked together best. After twenty minutes it was clear that Hermione and Susan worked together better than any other pair of hopefuls, and while some of the others worked a little better with Stillman Cedric decided to go with Hermione and Susan to round out the team.
Hermione was upset at the thought of losing so much study time for Quidditch practice, but Harry quickly pointed out that she had made a deal and couldn't back out now. However Harry assured her that they would still have plenty of time to study and keep on top of their classes, and if at the end of the season she decided she didn't want to keep playing he wouldn't hold it against her.
Chapter 13: Why Did This Take Us A Year?
September and October passed quickly, Harry later found out that Lockhart had only spent a few minutes lying broken and bloodied on the ground before Lavender Brown made her way down to him immediately after Harry released everyone from class. Lockhart's classes were never again as exciting as his first class, most days he simply reenacted scenes from his book. He used Harry for the first one of these reenactments, but after seeing the look on Harry's face at being forced to participate in the farce he wisely decided to avoid using Harry in future reenactments. Quidditch practice with Cedric was much easier on their schedules than it had been with Oliver Wood, in fact as much as Harry hated to admit it Wood's style of leadership, while effective, was completely wrong for a school sport. Cedric on the other hand managed to get the most out of his team without becoming their enemy, where Oliver would yell at his teammates for making mistakes Cedric would just say he was disappointed. The result of this was that Wood had to enforce discipline constantly while Cedric only had to tell his team what he expected and they would do their best to make their friend and leader proud.
When Halloween came Harry was ready to collect the first piece of evidence he needed to deal with the Chamber of Secrets without arousing undue suspicion. Harry had asked the Twins if he could borrow the Marauder's Map for the evening, when they had asked why he had simply mentioned that every Halloween he had been in the Wizarding World for something bad had happened. So it was that Harry was sitting at the Hufflepuff table for the Halloween Feast taking an occasional glance at the Map under the table. He knew immediately when Ginny entered the Chamber and he was glad that everyone else was still in the Great Hall. Harry had wanted to steal the Diary from Ginny before she could cause any harm, but Virgil had insisted that at least one attack had to occur or it could seriously damage their plans. Luckily the first attack would almost certainly be against Mrs. Norris so Harry was only mildly worried about what was to come.
At the end of the feast Harry dawdled in the Entrance Hall talking with Hermione, Susan, and the Twins while the Gryfindors and Ravenclaws headed upstairs to where he knew they would find the petrified body of the caretakers cat. He didn't have to wait long before screams announced the inevitable discovery. Harry immediately ran to the stairs, followed closely by his friends, when he got to the source of the screams he immediately looked around to make sure nothing had changed in the presentation of the first attack. There was the same message in silver paint on the wall next to the same cat hanging from a torch, even the same inch deep puddle of water coming out from under the bathroom door.
"Enemies of the Heir beware, you'll be next mudbloods" Malfoy drawled, earning him a cluster of five stinging hexes from Harry and his associates.
Having seen all he needed he beckoned for his four friends to follow him as he disappeared into a secret passageway that ended near an empty classroom that they frequently used when they needed privacy. Upon entering the classroom Harry gestured for his friends to take a seat while he cast a few simple privacy charms.
"Fred, George, thanks for letting me borrow the map. Guess I was right about Halloween huh?" Harry said taking a seat between Hermione and Susan. "I was watching the map during the feast, but the only person I saw anywhere near that corridor, was Ginny Weasley."
"Why would Ginny do something to Mrs. Norris?" Fred asked.
"Granted Filch is an insufferable git, but Ginny hasn't been here long enough to hate him enough to do something like this." George added.
"I don't know why she would do it, but we need to figure out whether this is an isolated incident or not. That message seemed to suggest that this was just the beginning. Hermione you've read Hogwarts: a History more times than I have, do you remember anything about the Chamber of Secrets?" Harry continued.
Hermione took her cue to go into full lecture mode "The Chamber of Secrets, according to legend the Chamber was built by Salazar Slytherin shortly before he left Hogwarts due to a disagreement about allowing muggleborn students admission to Hogwarts. Salazar is reported to have put a beast of some sort in the Chamber and when his heir returned to Hogwarts he would release the beast and it would 'purge Hogwarts of all those unworthy to learn magic'. No one has ever been able to find the Chamber or figure out what the beast is supposed to be."
Harry looked as though he were deep in thought for a few moments before declaring "It's probably some kind of giant snake, and Ginny is probably being forced to release it against her will."
"How do you figure that?" Susan asked looking puzzled at Harry's declaration.
"Well the first part is just thematically correct, Slytherin was the most famous parselmouth until Voldemort and myself" this statement was met by looks of surprise from Susan and the Twins, thankfully they chose not to interrupt "So obviously he would choose a snake of some kind and to work on the scale he wanted it would need to be freaking huge. As for Ginny being forced to do it against her will, well using a patsy is the most Slytherin way of going about it."
"If it is a giant snake it is most likely a basilisk, in which case all we need to beat it is a rooster." Hermione supplied helpfully.
"A rooster?" Susan asked incredulously.
"Yes the crow of a rooster is lethal to the basilisk." Hermione explained.
"Fred George I assume that your ingenious minds can come up with some method by which we could obtain a live rooster to accompany us into the legendary Chamber of Secrets." They both nodded in response to Harry's question. "Good, now as for Ginny, have either of you noticed if her behavior has been different lately?"
"Now that you mention it she has been a little off since we went to Diagon Alley." George said after considering his sisters behavior over the past few months.
"That lends some credence to the theory that she is acting against her will. Hopefully we can resolve this issue before she suffers any lasting mental trauma." Harry reassured the Twins.
"Normally I would say that we should go to a teacher, but all we could give them is speculation, and we couldn't even give them that much without losing the Map." Susan said.
Harry nodded in agreement, glad that Susan had saved him the trouble of coming up with an excuse to avoid informing the faculty until after the threat had been dealt with. With everything hashed out they all agreed to confront Ginny as soon as the Twins had managed to obtain a rooster just in case there was some sort of attack trigger in whatever spells might be controlling Ginny.
Unfortunately while the Twins may have been experts at smuggling firewhiskey and other contraband into the school, getting a live rooster was slightly more difficult. The result of this was that they had not been able to completely eliminate the threat before Lockhart's farce of a dueling club. The dueling club went almost identically to the one Harry remembered, except that when Malfoy summoned a serpent to attack him Harry used a series of well placed blasting hexes to corral the serpentine simulacrum back at Malfoy, at which point the Slytherin ran screaming from the room before Snape could vanish the snake.
Two weeks after the dueling club Fred informed Harry that they had in fact managed to finally obtain a rooster. Harry told Fred to bring George and Ginny to meet him in twenty minutes, Harry then found Hermione and Susan, made sure Susan had his invisibility cloak and the Map, in case Ginny made a run for the Chamber. He then led Hermione, and an invisible Susan to the empty classroom where they would confront Ginny. Two minutes later Ginny was led into the room by Fred and George.
"Ginny," Fred started "We know about what you did on Halloween. Harry thinks you didn't do it of your own free will, and if you just tell us what is going on we will do everything we can to try and help you."
As Fred was speaking the small piece of the soul of Tom Marvolo Riddle that had managed to worm its way into the body of Ginny Weasley began to assert control of the foolish girl who had poured her heart into an enchanted diary. Riddle had planned to wait until the end of the year to move on to the final step of his plan, but now the Potter boy was in the room he couldn't afford to take any risks. Having taken control Riddle raised the girls wand and cast a spell that would temporarily blind anyone in the room with a bright flash of light, before he ran for the one place where he could once again take physical form without being disturbed. After all no one else knew where the Chamber was, or how to open it.
Unfortunately for Tom Riddle Harry Potter knew exactly where the Chamber of Secrets was, and Susan wasn't looking at Ginny when the spell went of and was therefore able to watch her progress on the Map.
"Um, we have a problem" Susan said not taking her eyes off the Map "Ginny went into Moaning Myrtle's bathroom and then she just disappeared off the map."
"That must be where the entrance to the Chamber is. Actually it makes sense, putting the entrance in a bathroom would give the basilisk easy access to the pipes that run through the entire school and from those it could get literally anywhere." Harry said rubbing his eyes to clear his vision.
"But Harry when the school was built there was no indoor plumbing, so Slytherin wouldn't have been able to give the basilisk access to the pipes." Hermione told him pulling him to his feet.
"Actually wizards have had indoor plumbing since the Romans invented it, they didn't lose it in the Dark Ages like the rest of Europe. Unfortunately they never quite understood water pressure so all the plumbing is gravity based, which means that the pipes would definitely be big enough for the basilisk to use." Harry explained while heading out the door.
As Harry led them all through the corridors George suddenly came to a realization "Harry you're heading the wrong way."
"No I'm not. I realized that it would be highly irresponsible to go chasing after a basilisk without a teacher, so we are going to get the teacher with the most experience dealing with dangerous creatures." Harry explained as he came to a stop in front of Lockhart's office door. Without so much as knocking he entered the room "Professor we know where the Chamber of Secrets is, there is a basilisk inside it and Ginny Weasley was forced to go down there, we need your help."
Lockhart was stunned, he had no idea what to do, the only thing he knew for certain was that he couldn't go face a basilisk, it could kill him, or worse mess up his hair. "Harry I'm sorry but I can't help you. I have an important appointment in... London, yes that's it London." I'm sure that everything will be fine."
"But sir what about all the things you did in your books, surely someone brave enough to do that wouldn't leave a poor innocent girl to die." Hermione asked, hoping to force a confession out of Lockhart.
"Ah... well you see, my books... you shouldn't believe everything you read. I... well I never actually did any of those things. I just researched the people who did do them and then erased their memories so I could take the credit" Lockhart admitted.
"Kinda figured, did you get all that Hermione?" Harry asked Hermione, who had gotten out a piece of parchment and was busy writing Lockhart's confession.
"Sure did Harry, here you go." She said handing Harry a copy of the confession.
"Alright then, I'm going to give you a choice here Gilderoy, you either sign this confession, admitting to everything you just told us, or you come with us into the Chamber of Secrets." Harry told Lockhart. The moment Harry finished his ultimatum Lockhart reached for his wand, unfortunately he had forgotten to take into account the presence of the Weasley Twins and Susan. Susan saw exactly what Lockhart was up to and disarmed him without a second thought.
"Alright, alright I'll sign the confession." Lockhart said, and with a grace and speed born from years of autographing pictures for gullible fans he signed the confession. Harry immediately stunned and bound him before casting a simple duplication charm on the parchment. He took the three copies of Lockhart's confession, rolled them up and handed them to Susan.
"Take these up to the Owlry, send one to your Aunt, one to the editor of the Daily Prophet, and one to Dumbledore." Harry told Susan, when Susan looked like she was about to argue Harry looked her right in the eye "Don't worry about us, if it is a basilisk we have the rooster, and if it isn't the four of us can easily handle it, but we can't let Lockhart get away with what he has done." With that Susan nodded before heading off to the Owlry.
Without another word Harry led Hermione and the Twins to the second floor bathroom. The moment he entered the room he immediately hissed out §Open§ in parseltounge as loud as he could, the sink that hid the Chamber immediately began to move. "I guess that is our way in." Harry said before jumping down the exposed tube. He was quickly followed by Hermione, Fred, and George.
When they had all reached the bottom they cleaned themselves off quickly before they started following the tunnel they found themselves in. When they finally reached the door at the end Harry looked at his friends "This probably leads into the main chamber, if the basilisk shows up I'll probably be able to hear it coming before we see it, so when I tell you close your eyes and unsilence the rooster." Harry told them gesturing to George's bag where he knew the silenced rooster was hidden. He then turned, commanded the door to open and walked into the Chamber of Secrets.
There standing before them was a tall dark haired boy and next to him was the body of Ginny Weasley. Fred and George immediately ran to pick up their sister, George leaving his bag next to Harry in his rush to get to his sister. "Fred, George, get her out of here." Harry told them and without arguing they immediately complied. The moment Fred and George were through the doorway Harry commanded it to close. "So, we meet at last Tom Riddle."
"How do you know my name?" Riddle demanded
"Oh, I know all about you Tom. Tom Marvolo Riddle, bastard son of a muggle and a squib. Raised in an orphanage where you were unloved and unwanted. The funny thing is Tom, you weren't unloved because of your magic, but because you were a fucking psychopath. Tom Riddle so brilliant, yet so foolish in your arrogance. You were so ashamed, so afraid of your heritage that you crafted a new identity for yourself, that of Lord Voldemort. It is pathetic really, how easily fooled your followers were. And what is really sad is that in your short-sighted fear you associated with the only people in the world who would have shunned you for your heritage. If you had applied yourself you could have accomplished so much, you could have outshone even Dumbledore, but in your fear of death you assured your destruction.
"You created your horcruxes so that you would never truly die, but in your arrogance did you ever wonder why no one before you had made more than one. You are a second rate psychopathic megalomaniac on an immortality kick, the only difference between you and every other idiot who made a horcrux in the last five thousand years is that you are the only one who didn't bother to do all the research. You see the way a horcrux works is by maintaining a connection between your soul and the fragment you sealed away, when you split your soul again that connection is maintained with both parts. The result of this is that if you pump enough energy into one horcrux it bleeds off into the other horcruxes, allowing you to destroy all of them without having to find more than one." Having explained to the shadow of the former head boy exactly what his mistake had been Harry couldn't help but laugh.
This was to much for Riddle it was bad enough that he had been insulted, but then this insolent child had gone on to point out the flaws in his plan as if it was so obvious. Riddle immediately called for the basilisk to destroy this boy and his friend, they would realize how wrong they had been to insult the greatest wizard to ever live!
The moment Harry heard the basilisk coming out of the mouth of the statue of Slytherin he shut his eyes and opened Georges bag. With a simple finite the rooster, which had been crowing in absolute terror for the past hour could finally be heard. Hermione had realized immediately what was happening and also shut her eyes hoping that the rooster would work quickly. Riddle realized that he had been outplayed and before he could do anything he heard the basilisk shriek in agony before it fell silent forever. Harry opened his eyes, walked over to the giant snake and carefully removed a fang. Holding the fang he walked to where the little black diary lay on the ground and casually stabbed it with the fang.
"Goodbye Tom." Harry said and with that he took Hermione's hand, picked up the screaming diary and walked out of the Chamber, leaving the shadow of Tom Riddle to die in agony.
When they made it back up to the bathroom Harry immediately led the way up to the Headmaster's office. It took them nearly an hour to tell Dumbledore about what had happened, carefully avoiding revealing information that they all agreed Dumbledore didn't need. In the end Dumbledore let them go giving Harry, Hermione, Susan, and the Twins 100 points each.
Latter that day Harry wrote a long letter to Lucius Malfoy. In it he explained that he knew Lucius was responsible for Ginny getting the diary, and more importantly he had the evidence, connections, and most importantly resources, to make sure Lucius Malfoy died in prison. He went on to explain that he would be willing to keep his silence in exchange for the Malfoy house-elf Dobby. Three days later a very excited Dobby greeted his new master, he was overjoyed to be working for the great Harry Potter.