Harry Potter and the Chamber of Commerce, chapter 8-13 (Patreon)

Book One: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Butterfly

Book Two: Chapters 1-7 

Chapter Eight

Sitting at the Slytherin table, Harry caught up with those acquaintances he hadn’t kept up with over summer. Parkinson tried asking about his vacation, but Harry focused more on Flint who was giving Harry and Draco very strict rules about what he expected if they made the Slytherin team.

Draco would make the team no matter what because of his father’s donation, but the more Flint talked, the more nervous Harry got. Flint definitely channeled Professor Snape in the intensity department. Harry was saved from part five of a lecture on the importance of quidditch when the main doors opened and Professor McGonagall led in the first years. They trailed after her, a long line of scared-looking witches and wizards in pointed hats. A few of the older students had put on their uniform hats, maybe in solidarity with the newcomers, but Harry had noticed that everyone forgot that bit of the official uniform as quickly as possible.

At the staff table, Professor Snape sat next to a man with curled blond hair and a wide smile and aquamarine robes. So this was their new defense teacher—Lockhart. He and Draco had already read the books, and Blaise had taken time to create an itemized list of reasons why it was impossible for him to have done what he claimed. On the good side, Harry was almost sure this defense teacher wasn’t trying to steal from the school.

Harry had asked his friends, and no one had any idea where Quirrell had gone, and Draco said that when he’d asked Professor Snape, the man had become so furious that Draco had regretted his life choices. Harry understood that. When Professor Snape was in a bad mood, avoiding him was the best strategy. While Harry trusted the man, he didn’t have any illusions about how miserable the professor could make him if he chose to.

Professor McGonagall carried the Sorting Hat out to its stool in front of the newcomers. The aged, patched, frayed and dirty hat opened its brim mouth and started to sing about the four houses. Harry tuned it out and studied Professor Dumbledore. The headmaster sat watching the ceremony, his long, silver beard and half-moon glasses shining brightly in the candlelight. Hagrid was at the end of the table, drinking deeply from his goblet.

Harry didn’t pay attention to many of the students called forward. Elias Harper, Bertram Urquhart, and Zachary Vaisey sorted Slytherin on the boys’ side while Emily Baddock, Cassandra Rosier, Alexandra Bole, and Wilma Pucey joined on the girls’ side. It was a fairly small year for Slytherin, and as the hat called out the names of the other three houses, Harry wondered how many of those students would have chosen his house if they hadn’t been frightened away by prejudice. Having ambitions and wanting to change the world was a good thing.

There was another Weasley, the girl who went to Gryffindor in record time. She took her place to the sound of thunderous applause. The small blonde Harry had knocked over on the street was there—Luna Lovegood. The hat took so long that she was almost a hat stall, but then she went to Ravenclaw, a smattering of applause following her. Last year Harry had been too nervous to notice, but sorting was a sort of popularity contest with applause marking winners and losers. At least the twins had stopped booing the Slytherins, that was a small improvement.

As far as Harry was concerned, sorting was one more reason to hate the whole system. They invited scared eleven-year-old muggle-borns to Hogwarts and then, day one, showed them how much more popular and accepted everyone else was. At least Gryffindor clapped wildly for every student sorted to them, even when the name was so muggle that the student was clearly either muggle-born or half-blood.

Slytherin and Ravenclaw were not as kind. Within seconds of the hat announcing a hat, Harry could tell which students had longstanding friendships with other wixen and which were knew to this world. It was cruel. Hufflepuff was kind, but not as loud. For anyone. But at least their new members were quickly swept up into conversations at their table.

Dumbledore gave a welcoming speech that sounded exactly like the previous year’s, including introducing a new defense teacher. Professor Lockhart waved to each table and smiled broadly. Harry was embarrassed for him, and turned away, only to find the youngest Weasley staring at him, her chin in her hand.

Harry quickly turned his back. When the food arrived, he focused on that, and not all the reasons he had to be uncomfortable with how the year had started.

The first week seemed to prove Harry’s fears true. Potions was normal. Professor Snape threatened everyone, took points from Gryffindor and largely ignored Harry and Blaise as they worked on their potion. Neville still took charge in Herbology where they moved to Greenhouse 3 and the more dangerous flora, and Hermione had done twice the required length on her homework in both Charms and Transfiguration. And she could transform her beetle into a button on her first try. Harry only managed to give it a shiny metal shell as it ran around on his desk. However, Defense Against the Dark Arts was shaping up to be just as much of a nightmare as the previous year, although with less garlic smell.

Professor Lockhart cornered him after lunch. “Harry! I’ve been wanting a word.”

Completely nonplussed, Harry said nothing.

“Professor, we should get to class,” Blaise said.

“Nonsense. Since your next class is mine, I know you can’t be late. But I had to talk to Harry.” Lockhart draped his arm over Harry’s shoulders. “I understand. It’s natural to want a bit of attention, a taste of the adoration the public can endow on their favorites. Who would understand that better than I?”

“Huh?” It wasn’t the more articulate answer, but Harry couldn’t figure out what he was talking about.

“The articles about the Muggle protection Act. Working with Rita Skeeter—that is playing with fire, my boy.” Lockhart laughed. “I know what you’re thinking. Any publicity is good publicity. When I was twelve and even more of a nobody than you, I would have thought the same. But take it from someone who has won Witch Weekly’s Most-Charming-Smile Award five times in a row,” he smiled wider, “not all publicity is created equal.”

Draco puffed up. “I’m sure my father can advice Harry on such matters.”

Lockhart’s smile grew wider. “Yes, yes. Lucius Malfoy is a powerful force. Very powerful. But Harry has the capacity to outshine him the way the sun outshines the moon, but not if he wastes his influence on politics. Politics, Harry, is where shining reputations are tarnished. Where the light of fame is dimmed by discord. You should avoid it at all costs. Look at me. I haven’t had a political thought in decades.”

Blaise snorted.

“Um, I’ll keep that in mind, sir,” Harry said.

“You do that.” He swept away in a swirl of lavender robes. Swooping looked way more dramatic when Professor Snape did it.

Hermione and Neville wandered over from the Gryffindor table. “What was that?” Hermione asked.

“Lockhart being a prat,” Draco said.

“Professor Lockhart,” Hermione corrected him. “He’s a very brave man. He faced off against a werewolf.”

“Doubt it,” Blaise said.

Hermione sniffed. “You’re just jealous. Personally, I’m excited to learn from someone with so much experience fighting dark creatures.”

“Don’t believe everything you’ve read,” Blaise countered. “I showed you my list. There’s no way he’s telling the truth. The timeline doesn’t line up.”

“There are time turners, you know,” Hermione said sharply. “He might have used one during his adventure, or maybe he’s changing the details to protect someone’s identity. Face it, the Ministry personnel are fairly useless in his books, so maybe he changes the time of when he faced the creatures so the Ministry employees aren’t called out for their incompetence. Or.. I don’t know. There are lots of reasons why his books might not be one hundred percent factual.” Hermione pressed her lips together into an angry line.

“Can we get to class?” Harry asked. He knew Hermione wouldn’t change her mind any more than Parkinson or Greengrass had. It seemed like most of the girls had gone silly over Lockhart with the exception of Millicent. She had looked at Blaise’s list of inconsistencies and declared the man a fraud. “Where is Millicent?” he asked.

“She’ll catch up,” Draco said. “You shouldn’t ask about her unless you want people to think you’re courting her.”

“Sexist much?” Hermione muttered. Ever since Harry had pointed out all the ways the Wizarding world looked like the muggle world of the 1950s, she’d been on a campaign to call out all the sexism she found. Draco wisely ignored the taunt. Harry had made it clear that if Draco resurrected the Draco-Ron feud of 1991 with a new victim that Harry would die his hair Gryffindor red and practice hexes on him. After a bit of dramatic flailing, Draco had agreed.

Usually the Slytherins settled in the front of any classroom, eager to impress the teacher and earn top scores, but not this year. Dragging Neville with him, Harry slunk to the very back of the class, where he busied himself with piling all seven of Lockhart’s books in front of him so that he could avoid looking at the real thing. Neville sat next to him and when Millicent came in, she look the third seat at their table.

Draco, Blaise, Vincent and Gregory sat closer to the windows in the last row, but Hermione was right up front with Lavender Brown, Parvati Patil, and Kellah Igwe. None of their friend group wanted to be that close to Lockhart; however, Lockhart’s fame meant students pressed to get up close. Because he came in almost late, Ron and his two friends ended up right in front of Harry near the back.

When the whole class was seated, Lockhart cleared his throat loudly and silence fell. He reached forward, picked up Parkinson’s copy of Travels with Trolls, and held it up to show his own winking portrait on the front.

“Me,” he said, pointing at it and winking as well. “Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, third class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defense League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly’s Most-Charming-Smile Award—but I don’t talk about that. I didn’t get rid of the Brandon Banshee by smiling at her!”

He waited for them to laugh; a few people smiled weakly.

“I see you’ve all bought a complete set of my books—well done. I thought we’d start today with a little quiz. Nothing to worry about—just to check how well you’ve read them, how much you’ve taken in—“

When he had handed out the test papers he returned to the front of the class and said, “You have thirty minutes—start—now!”

Harry looked down at his paper and read:

1. What is Gilderoy Lockhart’s favorite color?

Harry exchanged concerned looks with Neville and Millicent before looking over toward the next table. Draco looked scandalized, but Blaise had a devilish smile as he wrote as fast as he could. That was trouble.

Harry remembered many things from the books. It had become a game of sorts in Slytherin. Lockhart said he used wolfsbane tipped arrows to frighten the werewolf away, so they had looked up how long wolfsbane was effective when painted on a metal surface and the effects of introducing it through the bloodstream. Lockhart claimed to have used mackled malaclaw tail to subdue a hag, so they had looked up effects of it and worked out the impossibility of that working unless he had created a potion using at least six different ingredients to enhance the properties. Indirectly, Lockhart was turning out to be a rather effective teacher because most of Slytherin had invested serious research time proving he was a fraud. They would never say it, not to someone with as much fame and popularity as Lockhart, but the house had a nice stack of evidence suggesting the man was a first-class liar.

And if twelve-year-olds could figure that out, Harry had no idea why the Witch Weekly editors and all those adults who read his books couldn’t. Harry was putting this down as one more example of witches and wizards needing to have a class in logic. Either that or the adults, like the Slytherin kids, were keeping silent until they could use the information. Illogical or manipulative, those were the two options for the wizarding world.

That said, Harry didn’t remember Lockhart’s favorite color. He didn’t even care about it.

Half an hour later, Lockhart collected the papers and rifled through them in front of the class.

“Tut, tut—hardly any of you remembered that my favorite color is lilac. I say so in Year with the Yeti. And a few of you need to read Wanderings with Werewolves more carefully—I clearly state in chapter twelve that my ideal birthday gift would be harmony between all magic and non-magic peoples—though I wouldn’t say no to a large bottle of Ogden’s Old Firewhiskey!”

He gave them another roguish wink. Half the class was now staring at Lockhart with disbelief and horror. Ron leaned closer to Finnigan. “Is he serious?” he asked in a loud whisper. Finnigan and Thomas were shaking with silent laughter.

“…but Miss Hermione Granger,” Lockhart continued, and she gave a start at her name, “knew my secret ambition is to rid the world of evil and market my own range of hair-care potions—good girl! In fact,” — he flipped her paper over—“full marks! Where is Miss Hermione Granger?”

Hermione raised a trembling hand.

“Excellent!” beamed Lockhart. “Quite excellent! Take ten points for Gryffindor! And so—to business—” He bent down behind his desk and lifted a large, covered cage onto it.

“Now—be warned! It is my job to arm you against the foulest creatures known to wizardkind! You may find yourselves facing your worst fears in this room. Know only that no harm can befall you whilst I am here. All I ask is that you remain calm.”

In spite of himself, Harry leaned around his pile of books for a better look at the cage. Lockhart placed a hand on the cover. Finnegan and Thomas stopped laughing, and Neville was sinking lower in his chair.

“I must ask you not to scream,” said Lockhart in a low voice. “It might provoke them.”

As the whole class held its breath, Lockhart whipped off the cover.

“Yes,” he said dramatically, “Freshly caught Cornish pixies.”

Finnigan let out a snort of laughter that even Lockhart couldn’t mistake for a scream of terror.

“Yes?” he smiled at Finnigan.

“Well, they’re not—they’re not very—dangerous, are they?” Finnigan pointed out.

“Don’t be so sure!” said Lockhart, waggling a finger at him. “Devilish trickle little blighters they can be!”

The pixies were electric blue and about eight inches high, with pointed faces and voices so shrill it was like listening to a lot of budgies arguing. The moment the cover had been removed, they had started jabbering and rocketing around, rattling the bars and making bizarre faces at the people nearest them.

“Right then,” Lockhart said loudly, “Let’s see what you make of them!” And he opened the cage.

It was pandemonium. Pixies shot in every direction like rockets. Two of them seized Parkinson by the ears and lifted her into the air. Harry was grateful they had chosen the annoying girl and not Hermione, who was also in the front row. Several pixies shot straight through he window, showering the back row with broken glass, and Harry had to jump out of the way. The rest proceeded to wreck the classroom more effectively than a rampaging rhino. They grabbed ink bottles and strayed the class with them, shredded books and papers, tore pictures from the walls, upended the wastebasket, grabbed bags and books and threw them out the smashed window; within minutes, half the class was sheltering under desks.

Neville stayed true to his Gryffindor roots and swung his wand like a sword, knocking pixies out of the air when they came too close. Ron fired off spell after spell, at least half of which resulted in noxious-smelling clouds of smoke, but he knocked a significant number of the pixies to the ground. Most of the Slytherins were too busy laughing to launch a defense.

“Come on now—round them up, round them up, they’re only pixies,” Lockhart shouted. He rolled up his sleeves, brandished his wand and bellowed, “Peskipiksi Pesternomi!”

It had absolutely no effect; one of the pixies seized his wand and threw it out the window, too. Lockhart dived under his own desk. The bell rang and there was a mad dash toward the exit. Since they were near the back, Harry, Neville, and Millicent made it out first, followed closely behind by Ron and his group and then Draco with the rest of their Slytherin friend group.

“That was awesome. I am definitely writing my mother about this one. She won’t believe me, but I shall enjoy writing it all down,” Blaise said with unvarnished glee. The Gryffindors gave him a dirty look before heading down the stairs as the girls finally escaped the scene of the crime.

“Well, I never,” Hermione said as she marched right up to them, her hair a tangled mess. “He asked us to put the pixies back in their cages. That is not a man who faced off against a werewolf.”

“Nope,” Millicent said, and even though she didn’t utter another world, Harry could practically hear the I-told-you-so in the tone. Luckily Hermione didn’t take offense and all of them hurried down the stairs, eager to get away before Lockhart did something equally stupid.

Chapter Nine

Professor Lockhart had decided that Harry needed coaching in how to handle his fame. He’d spotted first-year Colin Creevey trying to get a photograph and had jumped in, assuming that Harry was not only selling photographs but also autographs. He’d given Harry advice about carrying pocket-sized pictures to hand out to fans, and then immediately advised Harry to not carry them until he was older because hie fellow students might think him arrogant.

So not only was the professor annoying, but he gave contradictory advice. Harry had tried talking to Professor Snape about how to handle it, but he had suggested Harry avoid that man. That was easier said than done.

Harry spent a lot of time dodging out of sight and using the hidden parselmouth corridors. By the time the weekend came, Harry wanted to hide in bed and pretend he was back at Malfoy Manor, although the sheets weren’t soft enough, or even the Durleys’, although there was a lack of yelling about breakfast. Still, he was looking forward to sleeping and avoiding all human contact.

But then Marcus Flint pulled back his sheets. “Quidditch tryouts. Get up. Up. There is no lazing in bed when quidditch is on the line!”

Harry squeaked and sat up, not prepared to deal with Flint this early in the morning. The lake was still dark and the tiny bit of sunlight that was reaching it only served to highlight the shadows.

“It’s too early,” Harry complained.

Draco burst into the room, already wearing his Quidditch padding, although he wasn’t wearing the Slytherin uniform since technically they hadn’t made the team yet. Draco had to go through the motions and let Flint officially announce his appointment and Harry had to actually try out for seeker. “Come on. Hurry up. The sun has been up for ages,” he whined. “Professor Snape wrote a note for us to get in some extra practice because we have new players and new brooms, but we need to get down to the field now.”

“If you’re not serious about the game, I don’t want you on the team,” Flint said in a tone that was clearly meant to be a threat. Harry would prefer not making the team, but Draco’s hopeful expression inspired too much guilt for him to say that.

“I’m up. I’m up. Give me three minutes and I’ll be ready to go.”

Draco’s smile lit the room and Flint’s scowl faded a tiny bit. “You’d better be.” He left, herding Draco out in front of him, and slamming the door behind. Harry pulled off his sleep shirt and pulled on a casual shirt before getting out of bed.

“This had better not be a regular thing, Potter,” Nott said.

“I might not make the team, then he won’t have any reason to be in here,” Harry said hopefully.

Nott snorted. “I’ve seen you fly. You’re making the team, so set your wand to wake you up. You don’t want to see how cranky I can get when I’m woken up early on the weekend.”

“Sure thing,” Harry agreed. Since school had started again, Nott had been crankier than usual, and Harry didn’t want to make his dorm mate annoyed. Well, more annoyed. After using the bathroom, Harry sped through dressing and made it to the common room just as the Flint was heading for the stairs.

“The big one is loud and aggressive this morning, speaker,” one of the snakes advised him.

“Thank you for telling me,” Harry answered. “He hopes to impress potential mates and rivals with his physical prowess, and he is frustrated that I am moving so slowly that his ability to practice these skills will be limited.” For not the first time, Harry was surprised by the translation that came out of his mouth when he spoke parseltongue. Then again, snakes wouldn’t have a word for quidditch, and the sport was a way to impress girls and rivals. It made sense in a snake-sort of way.

“Do not interfere with others’ attempts to impress mates. It is foolish,” the largest snake said as he coiled tighter.

“Whoa,” a first-year whispered, his eyes wide.

Flint pointed a finger in the boy’s direction. “Slytherin secrets stay in Slytherin. You breathe one word of his parselmouth to a friend, a family member… anyone, and both Professor Snape and I will make your time at school a living hell. Understood?” he asked.

The boy’s eyes grew larger and he nodded.

Flint sighed. “If you’re done talking to the furniture, maybe we can get to the field, Potter.”

“Absolutely,” Harry agreed. He and Draco were not the only second-years trying out. Gregory and Vincent were both there, as were Millicent and several third years that Harry didn’t know well, in addition to the Slytherin team members in their official uniforms. they all trooped out toward the pitch with their brooms over their shoulders. Harry and Draco had Nimbus 2001s to match the team, but the other second and third-years had a wide range of brooms and a couple didn’t have any at all. Harry wondered if they would have to try out on school brooms or if the team members would share the brooms Mr. Malfoy had bought.

The team was in the air, and Flint was finishing the tryout for beaters when the Gryffindor locker room opened and the team spilled out, dressed in red and clearly ready to play.

“Flint!” Wood bellowed. “This is our practice time! We got up specially! You can clear off now!”

Marcus Flint was larger than Wood and Harry had never seen him back down to anyone. He had a look of trollish cunning on his face as he replied, “Plenty of room for all of us, Wood.” Harry didn’t believe for a minute that Flint was offering to share out of the goodness of his heart. Wood and Flint were famous for their quidditch rivalry, and Harry suspected that Flint wanted a preview of what the Gryffindor team had to offer this year. If Gryffindor had found a good seeker, Flint would want advance warning.

Draco had explained that the twins were great beaters and Angela Johnson was probably the best flyer at Hogwarts up until Harry, but without a competent seeker, Gryffindor had no hope of ever winning the cup. That had just made Harry more nervous about trying out for Slytherin seeker against Higgs.

“But I booked the field!” said Wood, positively spitting with rage. “I booked it! And we were here first. We’ve been in the locker room going over plays.”

“Ah,” said Flint. “But I’ve got a specially signed note here from Professor Snape. ‘I, Professor S Snape, give the Slytherin team permission to practice today on the Quidditch field owing to the need to train on their new brooms.’”

“New brooms?” Wood looked around, apparently noticing the large number of Nimbus 2001s on the field.

“Isn’t this a generous gift Mr. Malfoy has made to the Slytherin team?” He held out his broomstick with its polished handle and gold lettering. It gleamed in the early morning sun. “Very latest model. Only came out last month,” said Flint carelessly, flicking a speck of dust from the end. “I believe it outstrips the 2000 series by a considerable amount. As for the old Cleansweeps—” he smiled nastily at the twins who both held Cleansweep 5s. “It sweeps the board with them.”

One of the twins stepped forward while Wood was still sputtering with rage. “One professor can’t just override all the others. This is our practice time.”

“I didn’t say Professor Snape can override McGonagall,” Flint said, his trollish smile wider. “We’re more than willing to share the field. Maybe we can give your seeker a few pointers.”

Harry winced. That was unkind. He wished he had the right words to stop this fight, but most of the players seemed more than happy to take their ire out on each other.

Ron crossed the grass from the stands where he must have been watching. “What’s happening? Why are they here?” He looked at the Slytherins with disgust.

“We have permission to be here, pipsqueak,” Flint said. “It’s dangerous to play on new brooms without practice.”

Draco jumped in. “Perhaps the Gryffindor team could raise some money for new brooms by raffling off your old ones. I expect a museum would bid for those Cleansweep 5s.” The Slytherin team howled with laughter.

“At least no one had to bribe their way onto the Gryffindor team. It doesn’t look like Slytherin can say the same,” Angela Johnson said sharply.

Draco’s ears turned red. “No one asked for your opinion. Go back to the women’s parlor,” Draco spat. Angela bunched her fists, but it was Millicent who punched Draco in the shoulder hard enough for him to stumble to one side. She was the only girl trying out for Slytherin, so Harry completely sided with her on sexism built into the system. And with Hermione pointing out sexism at least six times a day, Millicent was primed to take offense.

The Gryffindor team howled with laughter, and now both Draco and Millicent were blushing.

“Hey, Draco, it looks like you got put in your place,” one of the twins said.

Millicent had broken the most sacred of all Slytherin tenants. She had to do something, so Harry wasn’t surprised when she stepped in front of Draco and raised her wand. “The only one I’m going to put in my place is the red-headed blood traitor in front of me.” In the space of a heartbeat, a dozen wands were out, all pointed at the opposing team.

Wood stepped between, holding his hands out. “Enough, all of you. We’ll all be in detention for a month if spells start flying out here. Gryffindor team, we’re going to fly the lake for warmups. We’ll be back in an hour or two, and if Slytherin isn’t done by then, we’ll have to sit in the stands and watch them finish practice.” He gave Flint a smile just as nasty as the one Flint had given him earlier.

“Fine,” Flint said as he holstered his wand. “The team doesn’t need more time than that to get used to the superior speed and handling of the new brooms.”

Wood led his team off, and they mounted their brooms and started flying toward the lake. After giving the Slytherins one last glare, Ron and the few Gryffindor spectators who had come out of the stands once wands had been pulled started walking back toward the castle.

“Good riddance,” Draco said before he rounded on Millicent. “And what the hell was that?”

“I’m sorry! It just happened.”

“You just happened to punch me?”

“You did imply that girls had no business being on the quidditch field,” Harry said in her defense. Most of the team glared at him. Yeah, yeah. Slytherins don’t turn on each other in public.

Millicent stood straighter. “I apologize, Draco. I let my emotions get ahead of my common sense.”

Harry, eager to change the subject, asked Millicent, “What does it mean that you called them blood traitors?”

“You don’t know the term?” She looked at Draco as if educating Harry was his obligation.

“No, so what’s it mean?”

“It means they’ve turned their back on wizarding customs,” Draco said. “They’ve broken marriage contracts or sided with muggles over wizards or done something to hurt the community.”

“Um, I’m thinking marriage contracts should be broken, so I hope you’re not suggesting that parents should have the right to tell kids who to marry,” Harry said. Most of Slytherin looked at him like slugs had spontaneously started falling out of his mouth. Maybe Hermione’s sexism rants were rubbing off on him, too.

“He doesn’t get it,” Draco said to them before he turned to Harry. “Marriage contracts demand that two people spend time together to see if their goals and magic is compatible. Contracts don’t have to end in marriage, but ending without one requires some formal communication and niceties. That said, it’s not legal to force a marriage.”

“Not anymore, anyway,” Millicent said, “although a girl can face a lot of pressure if she decides against a contract her parents wrote.”

“Yes, yes, that’s terrible, but not very common,” Draco said.

“That you know of.” Millicent’s tone made it clear that it was more common that the boys of Slytherin wanted to admit, and seeing as how the Wizarding world seemed to have a fair amount of sexism in it, Harry was more willing to believe Millicent than Draco.

“Why did you call the Weasleys that?” he asked her.

“Some people will call any witch or wizard who stood against the Dark Lord that,” she said almost apologetically, probably thinking about the fact that Harry’s parents had been firmly anti-Voldemort. “But the Weasleys get that more than most because they’re hypocrites. They talk about being kind to muggles and people with no magic, like squibs, but they’re known for putting squibs out of their family like any other member of the sacred 28. There’s a rumor that the current Weasley patriarch has a brother or a nephew who they threw out of the family. He became a muggle accountant. Mr. Weasley works for the Ministry investigating witches and wizards who create magical items that look too muggle, but the rumor is that he has the biggest collection of illegally modified items in the UK.” Harry didn’t say anything, but Ron had described his father’s collection, and it did sound suspiciously illegal.

“Some people call anyone who marries outside a pure-blood family a blood traitor,” one of the older team members said. Harry thought it was Warrington. “Those people bring mud into our bloodlines.”

“That’s crap,” Harry said firmly. “I’m a half-blood, and I can do magic as well as anyone in my year, assuming you don’t count Hermione who is definitely the top of the class. And she has muggle parents. More than that, there are tons of powerful half-bloods. Dumbledore is a half-blood, and even if you disagree with his politics, you have to admit that the man has crazy amounts of power. The Black family magic only showed up in me and my half-blood cousin, Tonks. The full-blood Blacks like Sirius and Narcissa never had the ability to change forms. And lots of people say that Grindelwald himself was a half-blood. I dare you to say he had mud in his blood,” Harry said firmly. He looked at the team in anger, willing to walk away if the team was going to preach blood purity. He wouldn’t stand for it. His head tingled, so he knew his hair had changed color, showing off that Black family trait.

One of the older Slytherins spoke up. “They’re so strange. They act like purebloods, marrying in the old lines and keeping to old rituals. They have to. The older kids were absent on every high-holiday when we don’t dare celebrate every high day on the wheel calendar without getting labeled Dark.”

“And the number of kids they’ve had. That suggests rituals,” another said, “yet the father argues to ban rituals as Dark.”

“It suggests successful rituals,” Flint corrected them. “However that is not a discussion for today. Potter, don’t call people blood-traitors.”

“Got it,” Harry agreed, especially since much of Slytherin probably would have applied the term to him, at least before it turned out that being a parselmouth trumped all other considerations inside the house. He also wouldn’t use it because it sounded like some of the old traditions needed to be broken. Marriage contracts. Harry shuddered. And the blood purity shite was even worse.

But if the team was willing to stop pushing their weird beliefs, he was willing to try out for the team.

Gregory made beater; Vincent didn’t. Draco made chaser, and Harry easily beat out Terrence Higgs. The older boys didn’t even pretend to give Millicent a chance, although Harry didn’t know whether that was because she was the only girl or because she had targeted Draco in front of a bunch of Gryffindors. The rest of the team remained the same from the previous year, making Draco and Harry the two smallest by far. With the current Slytherin team, even Gregory looked tiny when put up against Graham Montague and Cassius Warrington and the others. On the good side, Harry trusted that a team with this much muscle would keep the bludgers away from him.

On the bad side, if Harry screwed up, the team was large enough to pound him into dust. He was just going to have to make sure to catch the snitch. With a new determination to practice as hard as possible, Harry headed to lunch. Draco might have been right about them trying out for the team, though. Flying was glorious.

Chapter Ten

Later that night, Harry heading to the dungeons after an evening in the library with Blaise and Hermione when a voice made him stop.

“Come… come to me… Let me rip you… Let me tear you… Let me kill you…”

Harry jumped and pulled his wand. “Who’s there?” Harry was even more surprised when his words came out in parselmouth. He could feel the way the sound slithered through his throat. Harry cleared his throat. “Who is it?” He said in English this time. No answer.

Unwilling to take a risk in an empty corridor with a potential murderer, Harry ran for Professor Snape’s quarters.

Professor Snape answered with his wand drawn. Maybe that was because Harry had his out. “What is it?”

“I heard someone.”

“Someone?” Professor Snape stepped into the corridor, his wand sweeping both ends before he ordered Harry into his office. Harry hurried inside, relaxing enough to put his wand away only once Professor Snape had closed and warded the door. “Explain,” he snapped. Despite the rescue Professor Snape had provided over the summer, the man was just as cranky, short-tempered and scary now that school had started.

Harry explained how he heard someone clear as day, the voice going past him as if someone was walking down the corridor. But no one was there.

“Could you have heard a ghost?” the professor asked. He walked over to his potions and brought back a small bottle, offering it to Harry.

Harry drank it and his scalp tingled as he relaxed. He had to go back to meditating every night because his hair color was getting out of control. “I didn’t feel the chill of a ghost, and something in the voice wasn’t exactly human,” Harry said.

Professor Snape settled behind the desk. “There are multiple possibilities, but the most likely one is a prank. Someone could have set a trigger so the first person to walk the hallway would hear an eerie message. It would not be the first prank put in place in the dungeons, although usually I find them before any harm is done.”

“But who would want to scare me like that? The voice was very clear about wanting to kill and tear.”

Professor Snape sighed. “Potter, I know you see how other houses target Slytherins. We are not popular. With anyone. I understand the Slytherin team had a conflict on the quidditch pitch today, so I’m not even particularly surprised to find a prank set up down here, not considering who the beaters are for the Gryffindor team.”

Harry wondered if the twins would have really done that. They had booed Slytherins during the first sorting, but on the train they had seemed sincere. He didn’t know.

“Is there anything else?” Professor Snape asked, clearly wanting to end this conversation. Harry debated running for his dormitory, but he could always trust Professor Snape to tell him the truth, even if it wasn’t what Harry wanted to hear. Especially if it wasn’t what Harry wanted to hear.

“The twins said their mother wanted them to be friends with me. They warned me that they had been ‘tasked’ with being my new best friends because Mrs. Weasley thinks I have too many Slytherins around me. Why would they pull a prank if they’re supposed to be nice to me?”

“They said this to you?” Professor Snape’s voice had a quiet sharpness to it that made Harry suddenly afraid.

“Yes, sir.”

Professor Snape sighed. “They may not have meant for you to trigger the prank, so I would not take it personally, Mr. Potter. I will patrol the corridor tonight to make sure there are not any further surprises, but I am sure you will be safe in your room.”

“Yes, sir,” Harry said. He suddenly felt foolish. What Professor Snape said made sense. All the Slytherins knew to be wary of the twins. Their pranks were legendary, and not in a good way. Lots of students targeted Slytherins, but the twins were devious enough to be a real danger, even to the upperclassmen. That made them infamous.

But Harry still felt betrayed. On the train they had acted like they felt some sort of kinship with him, so for them to pull a prank like that… even if it wasn’t aimed at him, the fact that he’d embarrassed himself by running to Professor Snape made him angry.

The next morning, Harry was out of bed before the others were stirring. He strode past Millicent who tried to talk to him and charged up to the main hall. The twins were usually up early. Apparently dawn was a good time to set pranks because they were often the first Gryffindors in the room. Today was no exception.

A couple of Hufflepuff and a single Ravenclaw were eating together under the blue and yellow banner and a half-dozen Slytherins read papers and ate their breakfast, but the twins were alone at the Gryffindor table. Harry marched straight over to them.

“That wasn’t nice,” he said.

The twins blinked at him, and then looked at each other before the one on the right asked, “What’s not nice?”

“Often we aren’t,” the other said, “but I can’t think of anything particularly not-nice we’ve done in at least… oh…”

“A week,” the other finished. “That’s when we put itching potion in Percy’s lotion.” They shared a look of devilish glee.

“You set up that prank in the dungeons.”

Both twins gave him blank looks.

“I’m not buying it,” Harry said. “Gryffindors and Slytherins have a conflict on the pitch, and the next thing I know, I get hit with a prank and I embarrass myself in front of of Professor Snape. That has Weasley twins written all over it.”

“It does kinda,” one admitted.

“But we didn’t do anything.”

“And if we were going to do something, we would have targeted the Malfoy prat.”

“But then he got punched by a girl from his own house, so that revenge sort of took care of itself.” The twins high-fived each other.

Harry narrowed his eyes. He couldn’t tell if they were lying or not. “You didn’t set up a voice to play in the dungeons?”

“Nope.”

“But it’s a good idea. We could do all sorts of things with disembodied voices.”

“We really could.” The twin smiled, but then his expression turned more serious. “Harry, we didn’t do anything last night. We’ve been called blood-traitors so much it doesn’t matter anymore. Most of Slytherin would call you a blood traitor because you don’t support You-Know-Who.”

“Maybe not,” the other said. “There’s a definite reduction in the use of terms like blood-traitor and mudblood last year and this year, particularly in the younger Slytherins.”

Both twins studied Harry for a long minute before one of them said, “You’re a good influence on them.”

“Which is ironic because our mother fears they’ll be a bad influence on you.”

Harry looked from one to the other. “But you didn’t set any pranks?”

“They didn’t,” a girl said. Harry turned to see Luna Lovegood standing behind him, her gaze unfocused, but targeted somewhere near Harry’s left ear. It occurred to him that it would be hard for anyone to read her mind because she never met anyone’s eyes. “They often generate Blibbering humdingers, but they haven’t in the last few days.”

“You’re sure?” Harry asked. The girl was strange, and a little part of Harry didn’t want his Slytherin friends to see him with her because he knew what they would say about the girl. She was wearing radishes for earrings, after all. However, his gut told him that she knew things. His book on famous witches and wizards talked about how every seer was strange. Even Grindelwald who was only a good enough seer to have one or two true visions in his entire life had a reputation for being odd.

She nodded and then looked him in the eye before smiling sweetly.

Harry looked at her feet and frowned. “Where are your shoes?”

She shrugged. “I’m going to go visit the thestrals. I just needed blood.” She held up a bucket, and Harry realized she had chunks of meat floating in blood. He gagged, but she walked off with a smile, swinging the bucket back and forth in a way that made Harry dread what would happen if she tripped. Finch would kill her if she spilled that mess.

“That was strange,” one of the twins said.

“Are thestrals real? Should we worry about what she’s doing with that much blood?” Harry asked. The Slytherin common room had a book on blood rituals that listed all sorts of horrible things a person could do with that much blood. Lovegood didn’t look like the sort who would perform Dark rituals, but seers were notoriously predict, ironically enough. And she was definitely too young to channel Dark magic without horrible consequences.

“They’re skeletal winged horses that are only visible to people who’ve seen death.” The twin who said that looked concerned as he watched Lovegood leave the hall.

“And the blood?”

“Oh, thestrals are meat and blood eaters. That’s perfectly normal.”

Normal. Harry sometimes thought wizards needed someone to define that word for them because they didn’t use it the way the rest of the world did.

“Wait, but if you didn’t set up a prank, why did I hear a voice in the dungeons threatening to kill and tear me apart?” Harry asked. Both twins sat up.

“What?”

“That’s what the voice said,” Harry said.

The first twin pointed to the bench across from him. “Sit, eat, and tell us the entire story.”

“But this isn’t my table,” Harry said.

“It’s Sunday. Who cares?” the other twin asked. “But someone threatening you is worth caring about.”

Feeling a little out of place, Harry sat at the Gryffindor table and filled his plate as he told the twins what he had heard in the dungeon. The whole story took less time than eating his banana, but the twins kept brainstorming possible ways to recreate a disembodied voice and then asking Harry if that matched what had happened.

Had he felt a thread or wire across his shin? Had any of the stones shifted? Had he noticed any shimmering spots in the wall. Neville looked startled when he showed up for breakfast, but the twins gave him a brief summary and then went back to brainstorming possible ways to set up the prank. Hermione showed up a bit later and got a second summary and then nearly had to flee from everyone’s ire when she had asked if it was possible Harry had voices in his head.

She’d backed down quickly, but once the words were out there, Harry did worry a little. Maybe he was hearing voices. Sometimes he felt like he was being watched all the time. And then he’d turn around and see first year Colin Creevey and his camera, and he knew he was being watched. Maybe paranoia was catching up to him.

Chapter Eleven

October arrived, spreading a damp chill over the ground and into the castle. Madam Pomfrey, the nurse, was kept busy by a sudden spate of colds among the staff and students. Her Pepperup Potion worked instantly, though it left the drinker smoking at the ears for several hours afterward. But not even smoke kept Flint from forcing the quidditch team to practice insanely long hours. More than once Harry had regretted letting Draco talk him into playing, especially when raindrops the size of bullets thundered on them as they practiced.

The lake rose, the flower beds turned into muddy streams, and the quidditch pitch became a center of espionage. Fred and George regularly spied on the Slytherins, and Flint threw more than one fit. The problem was that seeing the twins and catching them were totally different.

And Harry was seeing more of the twins now. When he studied in the library, the only real place he could work with both his Slytherin and Gryffindor friends, the twins would show up and drape themselves over the nearest chairs.

They split their time between annoying the group and helping them with homework, but Harry got the feeling they were worried. Either that or they were trying to follow their mother’s directions, but if they were trying to force a friendship, telling Harry about it up front was a fairly poor way of starting.

“Oh, did you hear about dungeon five?” Fred asked. Harry thought that was Fred. The twins were now around enough that he was starting to get a sense of which was which.

“No, what?” Blaise asked, always ready for gossip. Draco rolled his eyes, but then he’d made his opinion of the twins very clear. He’d even protested their inclusion, but as Harry pointed out, they couldn’t meet with Hermione and Neville without being in public, and if that was the case, the twins had every right to follow.

The twins exchanged a sly look. “It seems like someone might have gotten ahold of bad frog brains.”

“They must have been spoiled.”

“Must have been. What else would make them explode?” The twins shared a conspiratorial grin.

“Explode?” Draco looked up. “If you’ve set people up with exploding potion ingredients, Professor Snape is going to pickle you for potion parts. Potions is dangerous. You have no right taking your pranks into that room.”

George held his hands up in surrender. “Did we say anything about pranks? There are plenty of ways for third-years to mess up a potion without us getting involved.”

“And lots of apothecaries sell spoiled ingredients. That’s what happens when you buy discount.”

“At least if you buy discount without knowing what to check for,” George finished.

“Whose frog brains exploded?” Harry asked, even though he was on Draco’s side this time. Even Hermione looked outraged, and when Draco and Hermione agreed on something, Harry had learned they were generally right.

“It’s just rumor, but I heard it was Marcus Belby and Marietta Edgecombe.”

Blaise pursed his lips, clearly pleased at the bit of information.

“That’s horrible for them,” Neville said weakly. He was definitely the most empathetic of them.

“They’re both prats. They probably deserved it,” Millicent said. Gregory was sitting very close to her. Harry wondered if he was copying because Millicent was way better with essays.

“I heard Finch took two hours to clean the ceiling,” George said.

“Real pity, that,” Fred added gleefully.

Draco sighed. “Great, so we get another week of the man screeching at us when we have to walk back into the castle after herbology. How does he expect us to walk to the greenhouses without getting mud on our shoes?”

“Magic,” Harry said with a smile. Draco scowled at him.

Fitch wasn’t the only one in a bad mood by the end of the month. Nott had grown surly, snapping at Harry and even refusing to talk to Draco. He would practically run out of the dorm room every morning, but Blaise had reassured Harry that he hadn’t done anything wrong. He explained that Nott’s father had been sending more owls lately, so something must be wrong at home.

Harry could understand that—not that he ever got letters from the Dursleys. But when he’d been in primary school, if he’d had a bad day at home, he often didn’t want to interact with teachers and students. So he gave Nott space.

By the time Halloween arrived, Nott was practically sleeping in the common room to avoid them. He’d even offered to switch beds with Draco so he could be in with Harry the way he wanted, but the prefects had shut that down. So Harry tried putting it out of his. mind. That was easier when he saw the Great Hall glittering with gold plates and candles and pumpkins floating in the air.

“Samhain is better,” Blaise muttered, but he followed the rest of Slytherin to the table. Most of the tables were covered in all sorts of candies and confections, but the Slytherin table was loaded with nuts, fruited breads and apples. Several large roasts dotted the table with bowls of colcannon and spiced squash between. There were still piles of chocolate and a large number of deserts including Harry’s favorite treacle tart, but the Slytherin table was definitely different than the other three.

They were in the middle of pudding, after politely clapping at the performance of the dancing skeletons when Harry heard something in the distance. “What is that?” he asked.

Blaise gave him a strange look. “What’s what?”

Abandoning his half-eaten tart, Harry hurried to the corridor that led to the dungeons, and Blaise followed. “… rip… tear… kill…”. It was the same voice, the same cold, murderous voice he had heard that night after the conflict on the quidditch pitch. He pressed his ear to the stone wall, listening with all his might, looking around, squinting up and down the dimly lit passageway.

“I’m getting the professor,” Blaise said.

Harry heard the voice farther down the corridor toward the main staircases. “So hungry… for so long… kill… time to kill…”

The voice was growing fainter, moving upward toward the floor right above the Great Hall. Harry stared at the dark ceiling. How could it be moving upward? They weren’t to the staircases yet. Was it a phantom? Harry didn’t feel the chill.

Determined to find out, Harry started running up toward the voice. The babble from the Halloween feast was echoing out of the Great Hall and through the hallway, almost drowning out another voice.

“Mr. Potter, where do you think you are going?” Harry turned to see Professor Snape striding toward him, his cloak doing a good impression of a bat’s wings.

“Sir, I can hear it.” Harry closed his eyes. “I smell blood…”

His stomach lurched as the foul odor drifted past.

“It’s going to kill someone!” Harry shouted. Ignoring Professor Snape’s alarm, he ran up the next flight of stairs three at a time, trying to listen over his own pounding footsteps—

Harry flung himself around. a corner into the last, deserted passage. And then he stopped dead. Something was shining on the wall ahead. No more than a second later, Professor Snape was there, his hand on Harry’s shoulder pulling him back. “Stay behind me, Mr. Potter,” he said. Harry was more than happy to comply, especially when Professor Snape took out his wand. There was nothing scarier than Professor Snape with his wand at the ready.

They approached the spot slowly, squinting through the darkness until the professor issued a quick lumos to supplement the low torches. It illuminated foot-high words that had been daubed on the wall between two windows, shimmering in the light cast by flaming torches and Professor Snape’s wand.

THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED.

ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE.

“What’s that?” Harry asked, pointing to something hanging on the wall. Professor Snape stepped forward, his footsteps squelching in the wet hall.

“I believe it is Mrs. Norris,” the professor said. The caretaker’s cat was hanging by her tail from the torch bracket. She was stiff as a board, her eyes wide and staring.

“What could do that?” Harry asked. He inched closer to the professor, who swept the corridor with his wand, searching for an enemy. A rumble, as though of distant thunder, told them that the feast had just ended. From either end of the corridor where they stood came the sound of hundreds of feet climbing the stairs, and the loud, happy talk of well-fed people; next moment, students were crashing into the passage from both ends.

The chatter, the bustle, the noise died suddenly as the people in front spotted the hanging cat. Harry stood next to Professor Snape, wishing he could disappear into the man’s robes as silence fell among the mass of students pressing forward to see the grisly sight.

Before anyone could speak, Professor Snape ordered everyone to head to their dorms. The prefects were as immobilized as everyone else, but after the professor yelled at a few by name—Gemma and Percy and Cedric in particular—they started herding the students away from the horrible sight. Blaise, Draco and Hermione all argued that they should stay, but Snape had ordered them away, threatening them with detentions and point deductions if they didn’t clear the corridor. Harry would have followed, but Professor Snape caught him by the shoulder and held him as the students, now quietly whispering, retreated and the teachers pressed forward.

“What’s going on here? What’s going on?” Argus Filch shouldered his way through the students. then he saw Mrs. Norris and fell back, clutching his face in horror. Harry had never felt sorry for the foul man, but he had a little pity at the grief in his face. “My cat! My cat! What’s happened to Mrs. Norris?” His popping eyes fell on Harry.

“You!” He screeched. “You! You’ve murdered my cat! You’ve killed her!”

“Control yourself!” Professor Snape snapped in a voice so sharp that Harry flinched. “The boy was with me, and neither of us had anything to do with this.”

Headmaster Dumbledore moved to detach Mrs. Norris from the torch bracket. “Come with me, Argus,” he said to Filch. “You, too, Mr. Potter, and Severus, if you would accompany us.”

Lockhart stepped forward eagerly.

“My office is nearest, Headmaster—just upstairs—please feel free—“

“Thank you, Gilderoy,” said Dumbledore. Most of the professors stared, horrified, but Dumbledore strode past them. Lockhart, looking excited and important, hurried after Dumbledore; so did Professor McGonagall. Professor Snape kept his hand on Harry’s shoulder, the whole way, which was the main reason Harry wasn’t running for his room.

As they entered Lockhart’s darkened office there was a flurry of movement across the walls; Harry saw several of the Lockhart’s in the pictures dodging out of sight, their hair in rollers. The real Lockhart lit the candles on his desk and stood back.

Dumbledore laid Mrs. Norris on the polished surface and began to examine her. Harry watched for a moment before he took a step back and sank into one of the chairs outside teh poor of candlelight. He didn’t know what the voice had to do with Mr. Filch’s cat, but he trusted Professor Snape to speak for him.

The tip of Dumbledore’s long, crooked nose was barely an inch from Mrs. Norris’s fur. He was looking at her closely through his half-moon spectacles, his long fingers gently prodding and poking. Professor McGonagall was bent almost as close, her eyes narrowed. Snape stood in front of Harry, half in shadow, wearing a most peculiar expression. It was as though he was trying to avoid looking at Harry, keeping his back to him no matter how he shifted. And Lockhart was hovering around all of them, making suggestions.

“It was definitely a curse that killed her—probably the Transmogrifian Torture—I’ve seen it used many times, so unlucky I wasn’t there, I know the very countercurse that would have saved her…”

Lockhart’s comments were punctuated by Filch’s dry, racking sobs. He was slumped in a chair by the desk, unable to look at Mrs. Norris, his face in his hands. Harry couldn’t help feeling a bit sorry for him, even if Filch had accused him for absolutely no reason.

Dumbledore was now muttering strange words under his breath and tapping Mrs. Norris with his wand, but nothing happened. She continued to look as though she had been recently stuffed.

“… I remember something very similar happening in Ouagadogou,” said Lockhart, “a series of attacks, the full story’s in my autobiography. I was able to provide the townsfolk with various amulets, which cleared the matter up at once…”

The photographs of Lockhart ont he walls were all nodding in agreement as he talked. One of them had forgotten to remove his hair net.

At last Dumbledore straightened up. “She’s not dead, Argus,” he said softly.

Lockhart stopped abruptly in the middle of counting the number of murders he had prevented.

“Not dead?” choked Filch, looking through his fingers at Mrs. Norris. “But why’s she all—all stiff and frozen?”

“She has been petrified,” said Dumbledore (“Ah! I thought so!” said Lockhart). “But how, I cannot say….”

“Ask him!” shrieked Filch, turning his blotched and tear stained face to Harry.

“I will not have my student maligned or my word called into question. The boy was with me,” Snape said firmly.

“No second year could have done this,” said Dumbledore firmly. “It would take Dark Magic of the most advanced nature.” Despite his words, Dumbledore did study Harry intensely. Harry summoned thoughts of his mental firestorm and avoided making eye contact.

“Mr. Zabini sought me out because Mr. Potter was not feeling well. At no time was Mr. Potter alone, so his inability to preform the magic and his ignorance of Dark Arts are both moot points. The boy and I found the animal. We did not raise a wand,” Professor Snape said, glaring fiercely at Mr. Filch. Apparently Snape’s power to intimidate transcended age before Filch wilted in the face of Snape’s anger.

The whole time, Dumbledore was giving Harry a searching look. His twinkling light-blue gaze made Harry feel as though he were being X-rayed.

“My cat has been petrified,” Filch shrieked, his eyes popping. “I want to see some punishment!”

“We will be able to cure her, Argus,” said Dumbledore patiently. “Professor Sprout recently managed to procure some Mandrakes. As soon as they have reached their full size, I will have a potion made that will revive Mrs. Norris.”

“I’ll make it,” Lockhart putted in. “I must have done it a hundred times. I could whip up a Mandrake Restorative Draught in my sleep—“

“Excuse me,” said Snape icily. “But I believe I am the Potions master at this school.”

There was a very awkward pause.

“You may go,” Dumbledore said to Harry. With a last look at Professor Snape, Harry went as quickly as he could without actually running. When he was one floor down from Lockhart’s office, he did run all the way to the dungeons.

Chapter Twelve

After Albus had dismissed the others, he asked Severus to accompany him to his office. Severus followed, uneasy at how Albus had reacted to Harry’s presence at the scene.

Albus had clearly attempted legilimency, but he didn’t seem pleased at the result. Hopefully Harry had managed to hide the existence of the voice. The firestorm he had developed as a result of his occlumency studies was incomplete and gaps in the storm allowed thoughts to surface for a few seconds at a time, but it was far better than last year. Albus would have to work to get anything coherent from behind Harry’s shields, and Severus did not believe he’d had the time to do that sort of nuanced work.

However, Severus did not know how to play this without seeing more of Albus’s reaction. So far the man was controlling all displays of emotion. Once in the office, Albus sank into his chair and steepled his fingers in front of him. So he was plotting. Something about this situation was not of Albus’s making, and he was having to alter his schemes.

Severus stood on the other side of the desk and waited, ignoring how similar the situation was to when he had been summoned to the Dark Lord and then forced to wait until the madman had collected his thoughts.

“Severus, this is a serious issue.”

“I have no doubt, Albus, but I am not sure what you expect me to say.” Tests at the scene suggested the blood was fowl blood, so no person had been bled and prefects said all students were accounted for.

Albus’s gaze grew sharp. “How did you come to be in that corridor?”

Severus strengthened his occlumency. “As I said, Mr. Zabini came to tell me that Mr. Potter was feeling ill. Given the boy’s inability to stay out of trouble, I found it wise to supervise whatever foolishness he had chosen to get into.” Severus had no real reason to hide the information that the boy had heard a voice… twice. However, he felt uncomfortable sharing it with Albus when he did not understand why Albus acted the way he did around Harry.

“And you chose to go up a floor rather than down to the dungeons?”

“I was following Mr. Potter.” And Severus dearly hoped Harry used this time to come up with some plausible story. He assumed his friends would coach him even if Harry was not Slytherin enough to do it on his own.

“Have you seen any odd behavior in him lately?”

Severus frowned, unsure about what Albus might be referencing. “No, and I have been watching closely. The Weasley twins have taken an interest in him, and I have no intention of allowing them to infiltrate my house with their inane pranks using a naive second-year.”

Albus leaned back and tapped his index fingers together. “I find it reassuring that Harry seems to have taking a liking to the twins.”

Severus had seen them studying together, and Harry was cautious around the twins, so he wouldn’t have characterized the relationship in those terms, especially when the twins had revealed that Molly had sent them to befriend him. Molly and her two brothers had always been some of Albus’s staunchest supporters. If she was moving, then Albus was the voice motivating her.

Motivating or manipulating. Molly’s sympathetic nature would make the second easy enough given that Harry was small for his size and a war orphan. Severus feared that his own hatred of James Potter might have made him equally as vulnerable to manipulation in different circumstances.

“Has there been any change in his personality?”

“None.” Severus said both firmly and honestly.

“And your mark? Is it the same?”

This was concerning. While Severus did not know the connection between these two topics, he trusted there was one. He pushed his sleeve up to show the faded skull and snake that branded him as Dark Lord’s property. “Exactly the same since the day the Dark Lord was banished.”

Albus grabbed a lemon candy and popped it in his mouth. “I find myself suspicious of the timing. Tom has the Philosopher’s stone, and now the Chamber is open.”

Shocked, Severus stared at Albus. Why would he immediately assume the Chamber—the mythical secret passages left by Slytherin’s founder—would be open? “You can’t possibly believe a bit of stray graffiti left on a wall on Halloween. If you want suspects for this madness, I would look to the Weasley twins.”

“Now Severus, they’re good boys. They wouldn’t do something like this, not with blood. Too many Dark rituals start with blood writing.” As always, Albus dismissed any source of trouble outside the dungeons. The twins should have been suspended for some of their pranks. Their first year they had caused expensive damage to an antique mirror and stained two paintings. Unforgivable. But Albus defined the world by those who did Dark magic and those that did not. Ironically, Severus had found the stain of Dark magic in this very office more than once, but the great sainted Albus Dumbledore was not limited the way mere mortals were.

Severus took a deep breath and calmed himself before something of his aggravation slipped free of his control. He could take his revenge on the twins during their next potions lesson. “Dark rituals. Why do I have the feeling you are about to ask me if any of my Slytherins have been acting suspicious lately?”

“Have they?”

“No,” Severus said firmly, hiding any stray thoughts of Theo Nott who had grown almost desperate to remove himself from Harry Potter’s dorm room. Severus suspected he would not buy a Yule gift for his dorm mate this year, but young Mr. Nott had been in the Great Hall enjoying the feast when the message had been left.

Albus stroked his beard. “You cannot blame me for asking.”

“I once again remind you that many of the Death Eaters came from other houses. Sirius Black and Barty Crouch Jr. are certainly proof of that.”

“Yes, yes. But you must admit the majority came from Slytherin.”

“The majority of the ones who were caught. Even outside of these hallowed halls, people do look to Slytherins first when there is trouble, and that means we are more likely to get noticed.”

“So you have said in the past,” Albus said in a dismissive voice.

Severus crossed his arms. “And I maintain the same now. If you suspect a student, call in the heads of all four houses and ask them if any of their students have been acting strange. Ask Filius if any of his claws have been reading about blood writing. After all, they are the ones most likely to search out old magics. Ask Minerva if any of her lions were missing from the feast. Vandalism this brash does have the mark of her house. In fact, ask her where the twins were tonight.”

“No need for such dramatics, Severus,” Albus chided him.

“It is late.” They had each magically investigated the graffiti, the entire corridor and the cat. They had checked on the location of all students and walked the ward lines. It was almost midnight and Severus wanted to go back to his quarters. The other heads had been dismissed, and he resented Albus’s habit of targeting him and his house.

“It is,” Albus said softly, his tone suggesting that the words carried far more meaning than was immediately obvious.

Since he was not going to be dismissed soon, Severus sank into one of the guest chairs, the very one where he’d been sitting when Albus had told him that the Dark Lord had been parasitically attached to Quirrell during the previous year. “You need to do something about Lockhart.”

Albus’s twinkle returned. “Whatever do you mean?”

“You know what I mean,” Severus said darkly. The man’s ignorance was glaringly obvious and having him claim he should brew a potion for the school… Severus had not been so offended in many, many years. And he taught obnoxious children who disobeyed for their own amusement.

“He is quite popular. When I hired him, I received hundreds of owls from witches and wizards congratulating me for managing such a coup.”

Severus snorted. Either Albus was exaggerating or the Wizarding world was even more naive than he had assumed, and Severus had a rather low opinion of the average wizard.

Albus took out his watch and tapped the glass before pinning Severus with an expectant expression. Severus’s aggravation was reaching all-time highs when a burning pain engulfed his arm for one second before it dulled into an all-too familiar throbbing ache. Severus clutched his arm and stared at Albus in alarm.

Albus nodded. “I had wondered. This is one of the high holy holidays, so it made sense for Tom to return to life today. Given the time—one minute after midnight—and the use of the Elixir of Life—I can make a reasonable guess as to which spell he used. Hopefully that will reveal some vulnerability we can exploit.” Albus said it all so calmly, as if he wasn’t describing Severus’s worst nightmare.

The Dark Lord was back. He was back, and Harry was in his crosshairs. Severus’s mind whited with terror for a moment as he realized he now had to stand between Harry and two powerful men. He was not a Gryffindor. Self-sacrifice was not a move he would ever make, but he did not know how to manage this new horror without resorting to the unthinkable. In fact, his Vow would allow nothing else.

“Is he calling you?” Albus asked as if he were asking for the color of the sky.

Severus shook his head, still unable to speak. He pulled up his arm to find his tattoo as dark and stark against his pale skin as it had been the first day the Dark Lord had put it there.

“I suppose we shall simply have to wait and see what move Tom intends to make next. I do hope the Chamber was a warning meant to throw us off-guard and not a genuine warning. The last time the Chamber opened, Tom used it to destroy a good man. I will not have him repeat that same trick again.” In that second, all the grandfatherly affectations vanished, and the man sitting behind the desk revealed himself as a powerful wizard, perhaps the most powerful alive. His aura made Severus draw back, and then in a blink, it was gone.

The facade was back. “You really should go to bed, Severus. You don’t look well at all.” He smiled his dismissal, and Severus stumbled out of the office. He should go to the dormitory. He should check on his students who were now in the crossfire of a war they didn’t even know had begun. He should do many things. Instead, he hurried to his room, curled under his covers and shivered. Tomorrow would have to be soon enough because tonight he had to, once again, adjust to the feeling of the Dark Lord’s magic crawling under his skin.

Chapter Thirteen

Harry rushed through the opening and closed it behind him. He should feel safe in his dormitory, but it seemed like all the Slytherins were in the common room, watching him, studying him like he was a bug pinned to a board.

“Well?” Draco demanded.

“The cat is petrified, not dead, and the professors don’t know what’s going on.”

“The Heir is back,” Warrington said. “Now the blood-traitors and mudbloods will have something to fear.” He sounded gleeful at the idea of other students being petrified or even worse.

“Don’t start that blood purity shite,” Harry warned.

Warrington stood and stalked closer. “Don’t assume you’re on the top of the hierarchy anymore, little boy.” He loomed over Harry, his smile vicious.

“I’ve never assumed I’m on the top,” Harry said. Warrington looked shocked, and even the students who had been whispering fell silent. Since the students were being weird, Harry walked over to the fireplace and asked the snake, “What is the chamber and who is the heir?”

“You are the heir, speaker. You are. You are,” returned a chorus of voices. That was confusing because Harry was only the Black heir. The Potters weren’t established enough as a family to have an official heirship, and the Blacks had nothing to do with Slytherin except for getting sorted into his house.

“What is the Chamber?” Harry asked.

The largest snake uncoiled and slid forward, the wood swelling to allow him limited movement. “The founder created the Chamber and the passages. He saw how two-leggers were. How they burned witches and wizards and hated magic. Salazar Slytherin feared the persecution and wished to separate from the outside world. He believed students born to non-magical two-leggers would reveal us to muggles and then the school would be vulnerable. The passages and the Chamber had protections against non-magicals—powerful ones that would kill any who tried to walk in their shadow.”

“And the queen, tell him of the queen!” A smaller snake called. The others echoed its words.

“He put the queen in the Chamber, a great lady who would be the final line of defense, and put her in a Chamber so large that all the students could hide inside. She would kills all the two-leggers.”

“So that’s the Chamber of Secrets?”

All the snakes echoed with yeses.

“Secrets, yes. Many secrets. When the other three founders would not listen to the warnings about the danger of the two-leggers, Salazar sealed the Chamber and passages and told them that if they trusted those without magic they could live without the protections he had constructed. He hid his most powerful magic in his Chamber. Secret magic. Secret to all but the heir, guarded by a little one. A little one who does not show himself to us.”

A little one—that was the snake’s name for the tiny carvings that functioned as locks on the passages. They’d told Harry where to find them, small curved snakes hidden in the stones or beams that would only open the passage if Harry asked in parselmouth. If those passages were meant to evacuate students to the Chamber, then they should lead there. But Harry had never seen anything like a giant chamber. The parselmouth passages just led from floor to floor, and were far faster to use than the stairs.

“But I’m not the heir,” Harry said. “I didn’t write any warning.”

“You are the heir; you speak our language,” the large snake insisted. “You are the only heir since Tom.”

“Who is Tom?” Harry asked.

“The last heir. He was here when two-leggers were having a great war. He asked the one in Godric’s office to stay here to avoid the two-leggers weapons that would destroy entire nests without coming close enough to strike.” All the snakes hissed in anger at such a thing happening. An enemy should fight his own battles, not send weapons from afar and not destroy nests that he didn’t need for himself.

Most of the students scrambled away from the snakes’ anger, but Blaise took the opportunity to move to Harry’s side, and Millicent was not far away, her face devoid of any emotion.

“Tom wished to find the Chamber so he would have a safe place to stay in summer. The old one in Godric’s office conspired with the one who held Godric’s office before him to say that no magicals could hide in the castle. He sent Tom to a nest in danger of being destroyed. Tom found the Chamber, but he didn’t tell us where and he didn’t stay in summer.”

“Tom changed.” The smaller snakes took up an anguished chorus about not being able to protect the heir and how they would bite Dumbledore to death for putting their heir in danger.

“That’s terrible,” Harry said. They had to be talking about World War II. That’s when the bombs were dropping. But if some parselmouth had been in a dangerous area, why wouldn’t Dumbledore and the headmaster before him allow him to stay? That didn’t make sense. Harry knew he didn’t have it as bad at the Dursleys as this Tom had with Nazi bombs dropping, but he felt come camaraderie with him. They shared more than the ability to speak to snakes.

Blaise put a hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Harry?” he asked.

Harry dropped into the chair closest to the fire. “There is a Chamber that only a parselmouth can open. Salazar Slytherin created it in case muggles invaded the castle and tried to burn the witches and wizards at the stake.”

“They wouldn’t have the chance,” Warrington said coldly.

Flint crossed his arms. “I’d like to see muggles even try.”

Before Harry could come up with a response, Millicent answered. “Back then, they would have been outnumbered. Every one witch or wizard could kill twenty or thirty muggles, but the muggles would have sent an army. And today… we all heard those stories from Nott’s book on muggle technology. Today they could kill us all by pushing a button.”

Most of the students paled as they remembered.

Harry said quietly, “Salazar charmed the parselmouth passages. If a muggle steps into them, they’ll die. It’s part of the school’s defenses.”

The crowd of students stirred, and Warrington said, “Good,” in a vicious tone. The sad thing was that Harry couldn’t disagree. If muggles were invading, the students would need the protection. After all, students couldn’t defend themselves until they were in their fifth or sixth year, so most would be essentially defenseless. Harry had an image of Ron or Neville rushing forward, raising wands to hold against a line of invading soldiers. Both would do it, but they’d get shot down in seconds. Hermione would be more likely to try to talk them out of an attack, but Harry doubted that would work if a mob decided to attack. Yeah, Harry wasn’t sorry the passages were deadly.

“So, did you put the words there?” Draco asked slowly.

Harry glared at him. “No. And I don’t understand what’s going on because the snakes say there hasn’t been another heir here since World War II. Someone named Tom wanted to find the Chamber because Dumbledore and the headmaster before him wouldn’t let him stay in the castle during summer and he lived in an area that was being bombed.”

“So, probably London,” Blaise said. “Why wouldn’t the headmaster let a child take refuge during the war?”

Harry shrugged. “The snakes don’t know and they’re upset that they couldn’t protect their heir. But if he was here in the war, he must be in his sixties. I don’t think a sixty year old man would sneak into a school to paint graffiti in blood.”

“And you didn’t write it?” Warrington asked.

Harry glared at him. Despite Warrington’s earlier aggression, he was back to looking cautious.

“Who wrote it, then?” Millicent asked.

Harry looked at her blankly. He had no idea. “I’ll tell you one thing, it wasn’t someone who knew parselmouth,” Harry said firmly. “The snakes remember Salazar Slytherin, and they say that the only enemies of the heir are muggles. No one else. He didn’t hate muggleborns,” Harry said while pinning Warrington with a dark glare. That wasn’t exactly true since he hated that muggleborns had muggle families attached to them, but that wasn’t the same as the ridiculous blood purity the old families preached.

“He feared muggle families would come around with torches and pitchforks and start tying witches to stakes because that’s what muggles did back then. The passages are set to kill invading muggles, not half-bloods or blood traitors or muggleborns or whatever other craziness people have added onto his legend later. So if someone wants to target the enemies of the heirs, they wouldn’t find any in the school.”

“That’s not true,” Nott said. He pushed someone out of the way and stood in front of Harry radiating fury. “Slytherin’s monster was left to cleanse the school—to make sure that only those from all-magical families are left. The monster will kill the half-bloods and mudbloods so that the magical community can return to its roots and stop pandering to the feelings of mudbloods and their ridiculous religion.” He was breathing fast like he had just run. Harry had never seen Nott like this, even if he had been extra strange lately.

“I tend to believe the magical enchantments that existed at the time of the founders over some legends and rumors that have been repeated for hundreds of years.”

“Right,” Nott said, his voice full of derision. “And we’re all supposed to believe you when you translate for the snakes. We are supposed to believe the Boy-Who-Lived, who has been under the guardianship of Albus Bumblebore his whole life and who doesn’t know anything about our community—the son of a mudblood.” He spat the last word.

Harry shot to his feet and pulled his wand. He would not have his mother insulted. The whole of Slytherin pulled back, a few wands coming out in the audience, although Harry didn’t know which of them the older students planned to back. Maybe they didn’t know, either. “Has it occurred to you that the Potters are not related to Slytherin?” Harry demanded. “If I’m related to him, then it’s on my mudblood mother’s side.”

“How dare you say that!” Nott lifted his wand.

“The wizarding world doesn’t care about squibs and rarely even tracks the linage of the daughters that marry out of the family. Fathers and sons, that’s what they obsess over. Fathers and sons and passing on the family name and magics. Who knows what Slytherin daughter or squib dropped off the family tree, but that is literally the only way I could be a descendent of Slytherin, so maybe you should think about that when you start insulting muggleborns. What long-vanished magical line could they be carrying?”

Nott threw his hands up and turned his back, so Harry tentatively lowered his wand.

“Why do you all believe what he says?” Nott demanded of the crowd.

Harry understood their hesitancy. “If I could find Tom and bring him here so he could tell you—”

“STOP SAYING HIS NAME!” Nott bellowed.

“Who? Tom?” Harry asked, confused.

“STOP IT!”

Harry looked around, and suddenly Draco slapped a hand over his mouth. “What?” Harry asked. One after another, students’ eyes grew wide and a couple dropped into chairs. “What?” Harry demanded louder.

Blaise cleared his throat. “The last heir was the Dark Lord.”

Harry blinked. The Dark Lord had been a boy during the war, a boy afraid of bombs who had asked for protection. A boy the snakes mourned their inability to protect. A boy they had said changed after he found the Chamber. The Dark Lord was named Tom.

Harry couldn’t reconcile that and the man who had led massacres and slaughtered innocent people for sport, the man who had murdered his parents.

Warrington stepped into the middle of the room between Harry and Nott. “I think we all need to get to bed. If Professor Snape comes in and we’re still arguing, he’s going to have all our guts for garters.”

Students started to wander away. Nott went up to a third year and announced, “I’m sleeping in your room tonight.” Then with one last hate-filled looked at Harry, he followed them to their dorm.

“Oh Harry,” Blaise said softly, “you do keep it interesting.”

“Doesn’t he,” Millicent added.

“He was named Tom?” Draco asked in a horrified voice so soft it was barely more than a breath.

Gregory caught him by one arm. “Come on. Let’s get to bed.”

Harry followed Blaise up to his own bed. God he hated Halloween.