Chapter Twenty-Nine of 'Casualties of Politics'- The Light of Burning Bridges

[lomonaaeren]

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Twenty-Nine—The Light of Burning Bridges

Harry walked back to Gryffindor Tower with his mind glittering like a faceted diamond.

He hadn’t expected things to turn out like this, for Riddle to be able to possess Ginny and maybe George, but he hadn’t expected to have a familiar, either. Things had changed. He had to act with what he had.

Now that he knew he could, he felt as though he’d been carrying around a heavy pile of chains that had fallen away from him all at once. Now he had to work with what he had, move ahead in the world as it was.

First step: not letting anyone hush this up, or the professors get into the mindset where they were seriously convincing themselves that they had to close the school while Aurors or someone else came in to deal with the threat.

He stepped into the common room. People turned around and stared at him. Harry wondered for a moment why. It wasn’t like he was letting his magic spread around him the way that a Lord would.

But it was convenient all the same.

“George Weasley has been taken into the Chamber of Secrets,” he said. “There’s a message written in blood on the wall about how his skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever. And I think the Heir’s trying to do Dark magic on the grounds.”

“How could you possibly know that, Potter?’

Harry smiled a little. Semandra had physically left him, but their connection was certainly close enough for him to know that she was ready. “Look out the window and tell me what you think that towering fire is all about.”

People piled towards the nearest window. Felix gave Harry an uncertain look. Harry just nodded to him and tried to seem as reassuring as he knew how. Other Gryffindors were still watching him, and they would wonder what was going on if he smiled.

“Holy hell! That’s Fiendfyre!”

It wasn’t, actually, but Semandra knew exactly how to create a fire that would imitate it. Harry heard people start gasping, and someone yelled, “We have to get out of the school—we have to warn the professors—”

“The wards are holding it back!”

“Do you think they don’t know already?”

“I want my mum!”

“No, we have to stop it!”

It was a stampede to get out of the common room, chaos, exactly as Harry had wanted. At the very least, the professors would probably try to herd the students out of the way, but they wouldn’t want to confine them to their dormitories, not if they thought the “Fiendfyre” had a chance of spreading. And there were a lot of students, especially older ones who knew what Fiendfyre could do, who wouldn’t go, anyway.

Felix elbowed his way to Harry’s side, ignoring the screams that had arisen. “You promise that this is going to be all right?”

Harry caught Felix’s eye and winked, and then turned and let the tide carry him out of the common room. He had to meet up with Theo to set the next part of the plan into motion.

You’re glorious, he told Semandra on his way out.

Her smug response came back. Well I know it.

*

Felix followed Harry, wondering, as he did so, exactly what was going on and whether he was going to like it when Harry told him the truth. But Harry didn’t seem panicked or upset in the way that Felix would have thought he would be by Fiendfyre or George being taken into the Chamber.

Or rather, he didn’t seem panicked in the way that would have meant he didn’t know how to handle those things.

Felix caught Harry’s elbow when they were far enough down the corridor from the Tower that no one else could overhear them. “You know what that fire is, don’t you?”

“Yeah. It’s Semandra.”

“Huh?”

“She can divide herself,” Harry said. His eyes had gone cool and distant, as if he were thinking about something else. Calculating odds, Felix thought, with no evidence, but sure that he was right. “She can be here with me, and somewhere else at the same time. When I need all of her, she’ll call the fire to my side, and no one will know exactly what happened with the Fiendfyre attack.”

“Except me.”

“Except you, and me. And Semandra, and Theo.”

“A select group.”

Harry nodded, his eyes already aimed over Felix’s head at the wall. “And I think we should start moving. Semandra has a flicker of flame near the professors’ quarters, and they’re arguing, but they should be leaving soon.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Harry.”

His brother paused and turned to him. Felix recoiled in spite of himself at the hardness in Harry’s eyes, as if they had turned to gemstones in an iron mask.

“This is my best chance of showing people what I can do in a situation where Dumbledore and the Potters can’t just suppress it or convince other people I’m dangerous enough to be put down. I have to take it.”

“Put down?”

“I said what I said,” Harry murmured, and then he turned and began to run.

Felix followed him, his mouth turning down in spite of himself. He trusted Harry. He did.

But the implications behind what Harry had said had shaken him.

*

Theo took a deep breath as Harry rounded the corner. They were near the entrance to the Chamber, or at least the place where the bloody message had been. And Harry was already moving with the rapid stride that Theo knew meant business.

It was a little irritating when Felix Potter turned the corner after him, but only a little. Theo was pretty sure by this point that Potter knew where his future loyalty lay, and it wasn’t with the terrible people who had raised him and abandoned Harry to the Muggle world.

“Tell me what you’re going to do, Theo.”

“Go to the professors and distract them.”

“Distract them from what?” Potter demanded.

Theo ignored him, eyes fixed on Harry’s face. A smile like winter was drifting across Harry’s lips. “Yeah. We need to be sure that they won’t remain here to search for the Chamber, in case any of them know that fire isn’t Fiendfyre.”

“Snape and Dumbledore probably do.”

Harry inclined his head. He and Theo agreed, without a word exchanged, that those two professors were the most likely to have cast the Fiendfyre spell before, or at least seen it cast. “Do whatever you have to do.”

Theo twitched a little. He was imagining some of the spells that Father had taught him, and what they might do if he unleashed them on the professors. “You mean it?” he breathed, knowing that his eyes were too bright, his breathing too fast.

“Yeah.” Harry squeezed his hand, and then turned and ran away again with Potter behind him. Potter cast one dubious look back at Theo, but his opinion wasn’t the one that mattered.

Theo closed his eyes and sank into the meditative state that had become easier and easier to achieve since he had started practicing elemental magic with Harry and the others in the kitchens. Then he turned and marched towards the staff room.

The professors were there, as he’d surmised. They also had the wards up that would keep students from entering the room. Theo drew his wand when he was still moving and aimed straight at the wards.

“Deleo!”

The wards shattered under the force of the spell that Father had taught Theo under the condition that he would never cast it in public. Well, that didn’t matter, not right now, no more than it mattered for Harry that he had spent so long hiding his magic.

Theo darted into the staff room, and professors turned to gape at him. Well, three of them weren’t gaping. McGonagall was starting up like the wrath of a goddess, and Snape’s eyes were so narrow they almost vanished into the skin of his face.

And Dumbledore looked as though he was about to draw his wand and curse Theo.

“You have to come with me,” Theo blurted. “You have to make sure that my friend’s skeleton doesn’t just get left in the Chamber forever!”

“Mr. Nott, this is not your place and not your—”

“The fire outside is just a distraction,” Theo bulled on. “You know it isn’t Fiendfyre.” He looked at Snape and Dumbledore. “You have to go find out who set it and make sure that they don’t get away! They’re probably the Heir of Slytherin, trying to make sure that George Weasley does lie in the Chamber forever!”

“The decisions we will make about such things will not concern you, Mr. Nott,” McGonagall snapped.

“You can’t let them get away!”

“Mr. Nott, you will return to your dormitory at once, and—”

“You know that won’t work. The rest of them already think it’s Fiendfyre! They’re running away! The Heir of Slytherin is probably a Slytherin! You need to stop them!” Theo danced in place, a little amazed this was working, and also enjoying himself. It was so different from anything he got to do as his father’s son. “They could slip outside and get lost in the chaos and then sneak back into the school and do something in the Chamber! You’ve got to stop them!”

“Mr. Nott, what spell was that you used to bring down the room wards?”

“I just—I just wanted to talk to you.” Theo danced back a nervous step. “No one said anything about blood on the walls.”

“What?” Snape’s voice was a whisper, and he leaned forwards as if he were going to race at the door like the greyhounds that Theo had seen once when he visited his cousins.

“No one said anything about blood on the walls! My friend said that if I used the spell, then you would pay attention, and—”

“Who is your friend, Mr. Nott?”

“Uh.” Theo made a pretense of hesitating too long, looking back and forth nervously between Snape and Dumbledore. “He said his name was Tom?”

Snape’s eyes narrowed as if he didn’t know what Theo was talking about, but Dumbledore’s flared wide and furious. Then he snapped his wand towards Theo and fired a spell that Theo didn’t know at him.

Amid the yells from the other professors, most of them actually directed at Dumbledore, Theo dived out of the way and then ran down the corridor. He could hear rapid footsteps behind him, and he turned and ran towards the doors from the entrance hall.

He certainly hoped this distraction would be enough, and that one of the spells wouldn’t manage to actually hit him. One look into his eyes, and Dumbledore would know that Theo had been lying. Theo knew enough Occlumency to tell a convincing lie, not enough to fool a Legilimens’s direct gaze.

It occurred to Theo that it was a little strange he was worried about that instead of about what would happen to him when a spell hit him. His loyalty to Harry—

Then he had to dodge another spell, and had to stop worrying about it.

*

You’re certain this will work?

You know why I think it will.

Semandra gave a long, low hiss as a flicker of her fire manifested above Harry’s shoulder. I know what you think. I could wish you had come up with a better plan than using yourself as bait.

Well, I planned to, but then Felix insisted on coming along.

Lock him in a cupboard.

Harry felt a bitter amusement travel through him like the sparks of fireworks. Only he and Semandra—and maybe Theo or Felix, if Harry chose to tell them one day—would ever know why that was so funny.

“Harry?”

Harry turned to face Felix, with a smile as reassuring as he could make it. “This is where we part ways.”

“What?” Felix’s voice was so loud, so echoing in the corridor outside Myrtle’s bathroom, that Harry flinched reflexively. Semandra made the dancing spark of herself bigger and hissed at Felix. Harry stroked the air near her. Calm down.

He is being stubborn. He does not have the magic to face what comes!

I know. But let me talk to him about it.

Harry caught Felix’s eye, and something about the way he looked, maybe, or the tone in his voice when he spoke, made Felix shut up and listen. “I have to draw the basilisk out,” Harry said. “I need to make sure that she leaves the school and doesn’t hurt anyone. And I have to make sure that people see me defeat her. It’s the only hope I have of establishing a—a persona, if you will, that the Potters and Dumbledore can’t harm.”

“I don’t see why anything will go wrong if you let me come with you.”

“Do you think you could dodge a basilisk? Fight her blind? Use fire against her?”

Felix paused for a long moment. Harry stilled his impatience as best he could. This would ultimately do more for the relationship between him and Felix, if he let Felix come to the decision on his own, then pressing him not to come.

Since when do I care that much for the relationship between Felix and me?

Because he did, that was all. Harry put the useless thought aside as Felix cleared his throat.

“All right. I would be in the way, and I would slow you down.”

Felix sounded a little bitter about it, but Harry didn’t have the time to soothe all his brother’s feelings. He reached out and clasped a hand on Felix’s shoulder. “You’ve helped me so much since I came into the magical world, and you’re the only member of our blood family I trust. Now, let me defend you.”

“I feel like that’s all I’ve been doing for the last two years, though.”

Harry shook his head. “We can discuss it later. In the meantime, who knows what they’re doing to George down there?”

“As if you care that much about George.”

Harry gave a pause of his own, despite Semandra’s hissing impatience, then shrugged. “I care somewhat about him,” he said. “Not as much as about you and Semandra and Theo.”

“High praise.” Felix’s voice was light, his eyes bright with worry. “Be as careful as you can.”

“I intend to come back, you know.”

Felix stared at him long enough that Harry wondered if his brother disbelieved him. Then he nodded. “I know,” he said quietly.

And he lunged forwards and hugged Harry before Harry could say anything or think about whether he expected that, before he turned and ran down the corridor.

Harry took a deep breath and shook his head a little. Then he turned to face Myrtle’s bathroom. Are you ready, Semandra?

For this was I made.

Harry decided he would ask her later about what that statement meant, and in the meantime, he stepped into the bathroom and called the entrance open, then got ready to slither down the slimy pipe. Fire accompanied him on the way, burning away the slime and the dust.

Semandra danced above his shoulder, and the tunnel filled with brilliance, and they went on their way, down and down and down.

*

Felix ran towards the entrance hall, leaping over trick stairs and waiting impatiently for moving staircases to shift into position, his eyes blurred with tears.

He wished he could have gone with Harry—how he wished it—but he could see Harry’s point about which dangers he was ready to confront. He probably wouldn’t do very well in a fight against a basilisk when he couldn’t fight blind and even his defensive spells weren’t very good yet.

I should have been studying battle magic all along.

Then again, who could have anticipated that he might have to fight a basilisk at twelve?

Felix turned the last corner before the great doors out of the school, and almost slammed into Professor McGonagall. She adjusted her pointy hat even before she glanced down and saw him. Her eyes widened with shock. “Mr. Potter! What are you still doing inside?”

“I didn’t know—some people were saying that the wards would hold back the Fiendfyre, and other people were leaving, and I didn’t know—”

“It’s not Fiendfyre,” Professor McGonagall said, her mouth tightening. “It vanished, and we fear that someone might have used the distraction to sneak into the school. Regardless, it’s decided that the students will be safer outside Hogwarts, where we can establish a warded area to defend you.”

Felix nodded obediently and let Professor McGonagall tug him along. But she halted before they got outside, staring down into his face. Felix blinked and stared back, not knowing what she was looking for.

“You might need to use your magic to calm people,” McGonagall whispered. “Make them more interested in doing what you want than running around in fear. Can you do that, Mr. Potter? Are you ready to take your place as a Lord?”

Felix gaped at her. The question was so unexpected that the professor made an impatient little sound and started to herd him outside again. Felix went, feeling the blast of unexpectedly cool night air on his face and gasping a little, even as his brain continued to whirl.

“Am I ready to do what?” he finally blurted, when they were almost to the bubble of wards and shields that held some of his Housemates.

“Be a Lord. Meet the destiny that marked you on the night of Halloween, 1981.”

Professor McGonagall sounded as though she thought that the words should make sense. Felix just shook his head again. “I don’t want to order anybody around!”

McGonagall abruptly stopped walking and turned around to bend down in front of him. Felix stared at her. He had never seen her do that with a student, even with poor Neville when he was having trouble with Transfigurations in class.

“Mr. Potter,” she said quietly. “I know that Professor Dumbledore has spoken with you about your destiny.”

“He never called it my destiny!”

McGonagall went on speaking as though she didn’t care what he said. “It is to lead people into a new age where, hopefully, we will not need Lords and Ladies anymore,” she said. “But the steps to get there are bound to be painful. Will you take them?”

Felix stared at her with his mouth open. Then he shut it and swallowed a little.

If he could help calm down people and make them prepared for Harry’s big moment when he herded the basilisk out of the castle…

That had to be a good thing, right? It would count as helping his brother, even though he couldn’t go into the Chamber.

“All right,” he whispered, barely aware that his voice was shaking. “I’ll do it.”

McGonagall smiled at him and stepped back. “Good. Have you ever tried to make a large group of people listen to you before?”

“Er. Once or twice? At the kinds of events where people wanted to listen to the Boy-Who-Lived. Not otherwise.”

“They will want to listen to someone who promises them safety and guidance.” McGonagall gave him a little push towards the warded bubble. “Go on, Mr. Potter. I will be here if you have questions.”

Felix swallowed and walked slowly towards the other students. A few of them turned to look at him, then more and more. It wasn’t everybody, since they were still discussing the fire in low, worried voices, but it was enough that he wanted to run and hide.

Was it going to interfere with Harry’s plan if he calmed people down?

Surely not, though. Calm people could still react with the awe and wonder that Harry’s plan demanded.

Felix forced his chapped lips to bend into a smile and tried to radiate the confidence and power that people would expect of the Boy-Who-Lived. “Thank you for listening to me,” he said. “I hope that everyone made it out safely.”

“Yeah, but we want to know what’s going on!” someone yelled from the back of the crowd.

“It has something to do with the Chamber of Secrets,” Felix said, seeing no need to conceal that much. He heard McGonagall make a huffing noise from behind him, but he didn’t turn to face her. He knew he had to seem independent of her to make a good impression on the other students.

“Was there another Petrification?”

“No, a student was apparently taken down into the Chamber by the Heir. George Weasley.”

Fred let out a cry of anguish and forced his way to the front of the students. “Then why is everyone just standing out here with their thumbs up their arses?” he demanded, completely ignoring the way that McGonagall reprimanded him for his language. “Why isn’t someone in there helping him?”

“I think the professors were going to help him,” Felix said, and tried to concentrate on Fred as much as he could. He tried to spread his magic out the way McGonagall had said he could, to soothe and help. “They wanted us out of the school because they thought the fire was just a distraction for someone to sneak in. And they didn’t want to mistake one of us for the Heir of Slytherin.”

Fred spun around and stared back and forth as though the culprit who had taken George into the Chamber was going to step forwards and declare themselves. “Well, who’s missing?” he demanded. “That has to be the Heir, doesn’t it?”

“Not necessarily. It could just have been someone who got parted from the crowd.” Felix pressed down with his magic again, until Fred’s face went a little slack. Felix felt bad about doing it, but he didn’t want Fred—or anyone else—to notice that his brother was missing and start thinking Harry was the Heir of Slytherin. “We just need to remain calm and outside the school, and try to stay out of the professors’ way.”

“Who’s the Heir, then?”

“What are they going to do if they can’t find the Chamber?”

“What if someone else is trapped in there?”

McGonagall took over answering some of the questions, thankfully. The crowd did seem a little less frantic than they’d been, which Felix thought was all to the good.

He did wonder what was going to happen when Harry finally herded the basilisk out of the Chamber, but he noticed that some people started looking a little more alert and panicked when he thought that. So he focused on his magic and calming them down, and hoped for the best.

Come on, Harry.

*

They finally got him with a Stunner when Theo had made it all the way to the entrance hall.

The Stunner didn’t strike directly, so Theo was a bit dazed as he rolled to his feet, but not unconscious on the floor. He found himself staring directly down Snape’s wand, while Dumbledore stood behind him. Theo couldn’t see the look on the Headmaster’s face, but he would bet it was furious.

Good.

“What do you think are you doing, boy?” Snape snarled. “You come to disturb us and then you run? Is this Potter’s doing?”

There was only one Potter that Snape would be thinking of at the moment, so Theo didn’t bother with the obvious retort. He straightened his back and looked at Snape with disdain in a way that wouldn’t involve directly meeting the man’s eyes. Then he didn’t answer.

A vein throbbed to life in Snape’s forehead, but before the man could speak again, Dumbledore said, “We must know about Tom, Mr. Nott. Can you tell us?”

Dumbledore’s voice was as warm as sunlight, as sweet as pudding. Theo had heard him use that voice at other events, mostly public ones in Diagon Alley and the like, and it had always calmed down his opponents and made them talk.

It was Dumbledore using the magic that made him powerful enough to be a Lord, Theo knew. He had feared it, although he hadn’t explained that to Harry, and he had feared that he would obey.

But to his shock, there wasn’t the smallest impulse to obey. Theo just shook his head, not turning around to face Dumbledore. “No, sir. Sorry.”

There was a long, shocked pause, and then Dumbledore said softly, “Mr. Nott,” at the same time as Snape said, “Boy.”

“I came to get you for a specific reason,” Theo said steadily. “And I’ll tell you what that reason is. But I’m not going to be tricked or cajoled into it. I want your word that you’ll listen to what I have to say instead of manipulating me into saying it or reading my mind.”

“Reading your mind?”

There was a sharp flash in Snape’s eyes, the kind that people had when they’d been found out, even though he was trying to sound contemptuous of the very idea that he was a Legilimens. Theo gave him a grim little smile. “Yes, sir. Your reading my mind. I know that you can both do it. I won’t tell you if you try it.”

Snape and Dumbledore looked at each other over his head, and Theo couldn’t decipher the messages that flashed back and forth between them. But Snape finally gave an irritable jerk of his head and moved out of the way. “Then you may tell Professor Dumbledore,” he said. “I for one am tired of your nonsense.”

Theo was as sure as though they’d told him that Snape was going to hunt for Harry. Well, soon that wouldn’t matter.

Theo shuffled around to face Dumbledore, putting on a show of reluctance, and sighed a little when Dumbledore tried to bend down low enough to hold his eyes. “I told you, sir, I’m not going to allow you to use Legilimency on me.”

“You think I would do that, Mr. Nott?”

“You just tried to manipulate me with vocal magic, Headmaster. Yes, I do think that.”

A long pause. Had they thought he was kidding about that? Or perhaps Dumbledore didn’t know why it hadn’t worked.

In the end, the Headmaster straightened up with a deep, disappointed sigh, as though Theo were the most irritating person in the world. “Very well, Mr. Nott. Perhaps you could tell us your news now?”

“A diary was brought into this school that contained a spirit calling itself Tom Riddle. Someone could write in the diary and hear from him.”

“You had this book?”

Theo shook his head. “No, but I heard about it. I think Ginny Weasley had it at first, but lately, it was George Weasley. I don’t think someone just took him into the Chamber. I think he went himself, because he was possessed by Riddle.”

“How do you know this, Mr. Nott?”

“Are you going to interrogate me, or are you going to save George?”

“How do you know him, Mr. Nott?”

“He’s Harry’s friend, so he’s my friend. And at the moment, he seems to be a student that you don’t care about at all!”

Theo knew better than to think his words would really strike Dumbledore, but after a long moment when the man simply stared at him, his face carved like stone, he spun around and strode up the corridor, shouting.

Theo sighed and moved towards the entrance hall doors. If Snape was still there—which Theo didn’t think he was—he let him go.

Theo so wished he could help with the next part of the plan, but he knew that whatever Harry faced in the Chamber of Secrets, it had been his wish to face it alone with Semandra. Theo wouldn’t disrespect his friend’s wishes.

*

The Chamber wasn’t as forsaken this time. The minute Harry stepped through the snake-ornamented doors, he heard a soft chuckle. It sounded like the chuckle that Tom had given in his head more than once, so that part wasn’t a surprise.

Harry’s eyes locked on George, sprawled on the floor beside a puddle and a small black diary that he of course recognized.

“No words for me, Harry Potter?”

“Not for you,” Harry said, although he watched from the corner of his eye as Tom’s form wavered like a ghost and then solidified. He could use the progress of his solidity to keep a clock on how much time George had left. “For others.”

“What?”

Tom looked honestly shocked. Harry laughed and sent Semandra forth with a flicker of his fingers. He knew better than to think that she could destroy the shade, but she would occupy him.

Tom shouted in more shock and apparently started fighting the snake, although he couldn’t do a very good job of it when he wasn’t solid enough to grip George’s wand yet. Harry hurried over to kneel beside George and the diary.

The diary was pulsing when Harry looked at, a slow, black shimmer winding around its pages, getting deeper and deeper as Harry watched. Harry grimaced. He didn’t know exactly what that meant, but he didn’t think it could be good. And he also didn’t think that it was echoing George’s heartbeat.

He took one moment to look at George and mutter under his breath, “You stupid wanker,” before he stood. He didn’t know how to destroy the diary, not yet, or sever its connection with George. He could probably only do that when he’d destroyed Tom’s shade.

And in the meantime, he had a basilisk to lure.

“Come forth, shameless worm!” he called, facing the statue that he knew led to the basilisk’s lair. “Come out and face the enemies you fled from, predator of helpless children! Will you dance with someone who can destroy you?”

Harry had time to see, from the corner of his eye, the way that Tom’s shade gaped at him even as Semandra shimmered and danced around him.

And then the statue’s mouth ground open.

“Who speaks?” asked a voice like the falling of stones, the opposite in every way of Semandra’s lithe and fiery form. “Who insults me? I will destroy you!”

“If you can,” Harry said, and then he raised one hand and called to dirt and rock. Given that they were in the Chamber, there was plenty of matter to answer him. Pebbles rose, and then chunks of stone broke from the columns, and dust blew in sharp clouds, accented by his wind gift, around the head of the basilisk.

She shrieked and flung her head back and forth. Harry knew that the cloud wouldn’t completely stop her sense of smell, or even her deadly gaze for long.

She lunged at him and brought her fangs down in the floor not far from him. The cloud also didn’t diminish her sense of vibrations.

“Catch me, then, worm without scales,” Harry taunted her, and began to run.

Semandra appeared beside him in a flash of fire. “I will bring the diary and try to sever the connection with distance,” she said.

Harry nodded, and then concentrated on running. The basilisk was moving more slowly because of her current blindness and because she was so huge that even the main entrance to the Chamber shuddered a little as she passed through it. Those might be the only things that had saved him so far.

But still his mind was bright and cool, flashing fire like a diamond.

He knew what he had to do, and right now, that was run.

*

Albus had never regretted more not searching for the Chamber of Secrets when Tom had been a student at Hogwarts. He had never regretted more not standing up to Armando and letting him blame and expel Hagrid. Albus had told himself at the time that Armando would not listen to him, and that was true. He had told himself that at least he’d been able to offer Hagrid some kindness after, and that was true.

What was also true was that the Heir of Slytherin was loose in the castle, Tom Riddle somehow returned, and he had no idea where or what they were.

Albus had cast seeking spell after seeking spell. There was no result. The Chamber of Secrets lay beyond powerful wards, or perhaps intent spells that would keep someone who wanted to destroy it and the beast within it from finding it. Albus had long suspected that, or someone would have ended the threat of the monster before now.

Altogether, he had no idea what—

Running footsteps plunged towards him.

Albus drew his wand. He did not think it likely that a shade, or spirit, or memory trapped in a diary could have regained a physical body, but Tom had done remarkable things and he could have possessed someone the way he had apparently possessed George Weasley to bring him into the Chamber.

Instead, Harry Potter plunged past him, with nothing more than a flickering glance in Albus’s direction. And behind him—

Albus fell back and shielded his eyes. Nonetheless, he felt the stone floors tremble beneath its weight, the way that the monster lunged after Harry with clacking fangs, and the twist of a great coil in front of him. He knew exactly what this was.

Basilisk. Basilisk!

And Harry, selfish and probably possessed by Tom as he was, was leading that serpent straight outside to where the other children were gathered.

Grieving that he might have to be the end of the boy years before he had thought Harry would die, Albus ran after them as fast as his old bones could carry them.

*

Theo was standing a little apart from the others, and he maintained ever after that he had been the first one to see the basilisk when it came out of the school.

Not that many other people would want to be the ones to claim that honor in the first place, but Theo knew he was the one.

Harry was running across the grass with fire writhing above his shoulders. And behind him came a monster of nightmares, with a cloud of something dancing around its head that Theo couldn’t really identify, but was sure immediately was Harry’s doing.

People began to scream and scatter, but they bounced off the wards and shields the professors had put up to contain them. Theo leaned forwards with his hands clenched, his whole being intent on Harry, and the way that Harry turned to face the great snake in the next instant, his hands raised.

Flame danced in the air in front of him, two columns of it. Theo knew that one column was Semandra, looking as she had when she had set the fire outside the school, and the other was Harry’s own elemental power.

People kept screaming, but others pressed forwards against the edges of the shields, staring so intently that Theo thought they might see something worth talking about in spite of themselves.

Harry hissed. He must have cast a Sonorus Charm on himself—or, no, wait, of course he had bent the air around him. Sometimes, Theo still forgot that Harry’s magic was all wandless.

People did truly fall silent then, staring, and so they saw Harry Potter’s battle against the basilisk of Salazar Slytherin.

*

It was a brutal fight. Harry had known it would be.

What he had not known was that he would feel so much joy.

Semandra’s joy came down the bond between them. She had been summoned to fight the Enemy, and now her fire was everywhere, darting tendrils of it working beneath the basilisk’s scales. She raised her head, shaped like a basilisk herself at the moment, and dived into the cracks and burns she was opening.

We fight.

We do, Harry sent back to her, and then had to dodge the sweep of the enormous green tail coming towards him.

He roasted the basilisk with fire, and kept the cloud whirling around her head so that she couldn’t use her eyes on him. He cracked the earth beneath her and half-swallowed her when it seemed as if one of her lunges might reach him. He hammered her with hard winds that he imagined shaped like fists.

He was bright, and incredible, and he enjoyed hurting her.

Perhaps he might not have, if she hadn’t been his enemy and the instrument of Tom Riddle, who had taken one of his friends into the Chamber and hurt him and tried to control him. But she was, and she had been, and he did.

The basilisk gave a long, thin hiss that sounded like a scream, at last, and then a long strip of her scales peeled off and fell to the grass, burning savagely. Harry closed in, Semandra dancing beside him.

The basilisk twisted her head and champed her fangs at them.

Harry dodged, but only because Semandra swept a fiery coil around him and lifted him out of the way just in time.

Honestly.

I didn’t know she was going to do that!

You should have anticipated.

Harry tried to snarl something, but Semandra just wound about him and then deposited him near the basilisk. We are winning, but I must make sure that you are out of harm’s way before I try to truly destroy her.

If you must.

I must.

Harry stood back from the battle after that, although he continued to send flames and hard gusts of air and currents of water after the basilisk. She hadn’t yet managed to shake free of the cloud that obscured her deadly eyes, and Harry didn’t think she would, now. The trembling of her neck and her body was slower and slower, and at last she slumped to the ground and moved no longer.

Harry stood where he was, panting. Semandra appeared for a moment in front of him, flicking out a tongue to touch him that felt like a faint burn.

We won.

Harry nodded to her, and then he turned to face the fascinated, enthralled, terrified audience.

Harry lifted his chin at their accusing stares. He had the story ready to go, and he also knew that Dumbledore would probably be more interested in entering the Chamber and destroying the diary than trying to destroy him. At least at first.

“You’re a Parselmouth?”

“You’re an elemental wizard?”

The two kids who said that stopped and glared at each other, as if they thought that they should have had the privilege of unique exclamations. Theo was stepping forwards from the side, with his eyes gleaming. His gaze met Harry’s in silent approval that made Harry’s shoulders relax from their tense posture.

His best friend approved. That was really all he needed to know.

Well, maybe not, given that a few seconds later Felix broke forth from the shields and wards that still encircled most of the students and ran over to throw his arms around Harry. “You did it!” he yelled. “Harry, you don’t know how proud I am!”

Some of the crowd started to calm down then, maybe because their beloved Boy-Who-Lived thought he’d done well. Harry wrapped an arm around his brother’s shoulders and studied the people who were still looking at him with wariness.

Some of the upper-level Slytherins and Ravenclaws. They would know the extent of power it took to do this, and maybe also legends of elemental wizards and witches that had made them so feared.

McGonagall. She looked as though she might explode, honestly. Harry just looked back at her with no apology. She never would have been one of the people he’d trusted.

Dumbledore was glaring, but that was usual.

Ron and Hermione looked absolutely betrayed, and might prove to be a problem in the future.

Ginny turned away when Harry caught her eye.

Harry turned and nodded again to Theo, and then he prepared to explain things to people, because obviously, they would demand explanations. But defiance still burned deep down in his soul.

I defended the lot of you even though I hated you. Even though you left me to rot most of my childhood.

I owe you nothing.