It was the next day as we were once again in the library studying for end of year exams when the trio found us. Yeah, we had finished this material months ago, but it didn’t mean we wanted to be unprepared.
The trio actually swooped in and, when we apparently didn’t move fast enough, nearly resorted to physically pulling us into a secret room on the fourth floor. Apparently their desire to talk to, AKA interrogate, us on everything we knew wasn’t going to wait any longer.
At least they had set up the chairs to be a rough circle instead of two rows of chairs facing each other, so it wasn’t quite as confrontational as it could have been. That might have been because Ginny knew and respected Luna or because we had just saved their lives yesterday.
Yet, it was pretty clear they wanted answers, badly, as the trio sat down facing us and narrowed their eyes a little. I still didn’t want to be that confrontational though, so I sighed and actually sat down in between Taylor and Amy right next to them instead of across the circle from them with Ahri, in her cat body, joining me on my shoulders.
That left Dinah, Luna, and Sabah to sit in the remaining third of the circle with Luna leaning against Ginny’s shoulder before sliding her head down into Ginny’s lap. Then a moment later, she put her feet up on Dinah’s knees. It was a little amusing to watch her use her chair and two girls on either side of her as an impromptu bed, but I didn’t let it distract me. Plus, I wasn’t about to try to stop her. Controlling or even understanding Luna was an exercise in futility and I was pretty sure everyone except perhaps Hermione knew that here. Ginny didn’t even seem to question what was going on.
Luna’s alternate sitting arrangements also didn’t distract Holly and Hermione for very long, even if they still looked a little confused. Holly started out, “Ok, what do you know?”
Trying not to sigh in their faces, I put on a smile and nodded at the trio in greeting. “Yes, it is good to talk to you again, I am glad you are well after yesterday. We are looking forward to working together, so I promise to explain what we can.”
I sighed at her darkening scowl. “Look, I understand you want answers, but we can’t tell you everything.” I winced as I remembered that this Dumbledore, if he behaved like the books, avoided answering questions.
Facing Holly directly, I thought for a second before I changed my mind. “How about this? I will answer any question you ask, anything at all. The only exceptions are our family’s secrets or things I think we shouldn’t talk about yet. In those cases, I will tell you that it is personal or try to explain why we don’t want to tell you. If you don’t agree, we will tell you as much as we feel is safe for us to say.”
Holly blinked before she slowly nodded, obviously thinking hard, probably trying to test me. “Why is Voldemort so obsessed with me?”
I sighed and rubbed my face. “Damn it, you don’t start with the small questions, do you?” I glanced up at the ceiling and considered for a moment. “Ok, so it started with a prophecy from Professor Trelawney…”
Before I could say anything else, Hermione cut in. “The fraud?”
I sighed again. In this world Hermione wasn’t allowed to drop Divination until next year regardless of what she thought about the subject. At least she didn’t seem to think of all divination as useless. Then again, we had tentatively demonstrated skills she couldn’t explain, so she might have become a little more willing to believe.
Focusing back on the conversation, I considered how to respond about Trelawney. “Ok, so she doesn’t actually have any skill in normal divination and is just teaching from the book… badly… but she is what you might call an oracle or prophet.” Seeing the confusion, but interest from the trio I continued. “This is our own research and theories, but the textbooks here seem to agree with us.”
Trying to think of how to phrase this, I started slowly. “As an oracle, prophecies from her behave a little differently. Wherever she gets her prophecies from, they always come true, but rarely in the way you think. These Oracles or Prophets are different from Seers like Dinah and Luna.” Once again, I gestured towards the two of them, which made the girls look over to see Dinah’s little wave and Luna’s finger wiggle as she seemed to stare into space.
Ignoring that, I turned back to the trio and started explaining again. “Seers can see potential futures and possibilities, but they are still only possibilities. Prophecies ALWAYS come true… or at least eventually come true, even if it isn’t the way we were expecting. Which is the problem here.”
The trio once again nodded, so I licked my lips and considered for another moment before continuing. “Short story is, Tom Riddle, AKA, Voldeshorts was told part of a new prophecy, a prophecy about a child about to be born that would have the power to defeat him. Like the psychopath he is, he decided he just needed to kill any child fitting the description and then he would become invincible.”
Hermione’s brow furrowed and I smiled and pointed towards her. “Ah, you already see the problem. If it was a true prophecy then there is absolutely nothing he could do to stop it and if it wasn’t then it didn’t matter. This is actually just like those old Greek prophecies. Especially as part of the prophecy required him to ‘mark them as his equal’ and with Holly’s scar well…” I said trailing off.
Hermione again nodded like this all made sense to her but Ginny interrupted. “What Greek myths are you talking about?”
Hermione turned towards her with her tutoring face already on and proceeded to explain. “One of the near constants of the Greek mythos, even in Muggle stories, was that trying to avoid or stop a prophecy doesn’t change it at all. It is mentioned in quite a few stories, but the most famous is the story of Oedipus. The king of Thebes heard a prophecy that his son would kill him and marry his mother, so he abandoned Oedipus on a mountainside. Oedipus was then found and grew up as the prince of another country. When he heard the prophecy, he left his home with his adopted family as he didn’t want to end up hurting them and traveled back towards Thebes. He met a traveler and ended up killing him, not knowing the man was his biological father. Arriving in Thebes, he then eventually married the widowed queen, who was of course his mother… again not knowing who she was. In the end, the prophecy was fulfilled and everyone pretty much killed themselves. It is often described as a classic example of the inevitability of the gods’ will and the futility of man to truly change his destiny.”
As Hermione finished, obviously both proud of herself and excited about the chance to discuss philosophy, she finally seemed to see the uncomfortable faces me and my girls were making along with the outright disgust from Holly and especially Ginny.
I tried to break the awkwardness and spoke up. “So, yeah… that is pretty gross, but it does demonstrate the moral of how you deal with prophecies. You mostly just ignore them.” At the trio’s slight confusion, I continued. “Knowing what I do about prophecies, I kind of doubt that the prophecy in question actually named Oedipus by name, so he could have escaped his fate and left it for another. Especially since he would have lost his original name when he was abandoned as a baby, and so he would have ignored it when he heard it as an adult if the prophecy called him out by name. The prophecy probably said the king’s child… which meant it didn’t have to apply to him even if both his parents were royalty. The best thing he could have done was to ignore the prophecy and live at either home peacefully, then refuse to marry anyone, or at least anyone older than him. Instead, he tried to deny fate and walked into fulfilling it instead.”
Turning towards Holly, I asked directly, “Are you sure you want to know? It won’t change anything, and apparently Tom cares enough that he might find someone to break into your mind to find out.” I looked at their wide eyes and nodded sadly. “It is called legilimency and while it is illegal to do, especially against a minor, you probably wouldn’t even feel the intrusion unless you are trained to resist via the discipline of occlumency. You would just feel a slight headache.” I wasn’t going to mention their connection until I had a way to break it. Or at least cut it off.
Holly slowly bit her lip before she looked up and took a deep breath. “Still I… I want to know. I need to know.”
I paused for a moment before I sighed. “I don’t know the prophecy word for word, since we saw it in a possible future, not this specific one. It might be different in reality here, but in general it goes like this. The one with the power to vanquish the dark lord approaches…. Born to those who thrice defied him, as the seventh month dies, marked as an equal, with a power he knows not, and neither can live while the other survives.”
At that moment we all watched as Holly stood up, knocking her chair to the floor before leaving the circle to start pacing back and forth cursing under her breath. “Bloody wanker who does… Stupid, self-centered… Asshole murderer who can’t… Buggering inbred idiotic wizarding public…”
All of us watched, wide-eyed as Holly’s pacing started to pick up in intensity as she started to throw her hands up in frustration, not looking at any of us. The entire group of us jumped as one of the chairs across the room suddenly splintered. Then we jumped again when one of her footsteps made the floor shake like an earthquake. A few seconds later, a glass window shattered. I had to admit that the bouts of accidental magic were both impressive and terrifying, as everything in this castle was supposed to be magically resistant. That was some incredible power.
It was only then when Ginny started to get up to perhaps try to calm her down that Holly slumped like the wind had been suddenly cut from her sails. Or perhaps having her puppet strings cut was a better description, as she paused before slowly leaning down and picking her chair back up and slowly sitting down, staring at the ground in the center of all of us.
Quietly, she asked, “Did he really murder my parents because of some vague warning about a child?”
I paused before a moment, then simply nodded. Holly slumped even further. “And now we are locked into this prophecy where one of us is going to have to kill the other.”
That is where I shook my head. “No, you are missing the point of our discussion on prophecies. We aren’t even sure that prophecy is actually talking about you. It might be the next dark lord. The ‘power he knows not’ might be the power of friendship, and one of us or even someone you meet next year might kill him for you. Your mother might have already fulfilled the prophecy of defeating him by surprising him with her blood magic self-sacrifice, and we are just waiting for him to finally croak.”
My rant seemed to have surprised her, but I tried to smile reassuringly. “The important parts are, don’t give up and keep fighting. Prophecies will always work out somehow but predicting how is almost certainly futile, even with actual Seers on our side.” I hesitated but continued, “Additionally, I would say to ignore anyone or anything that tells you that the prophecy can only be interpreted one way. As we explained, prophecies don’t work like that.”
There was a moment of silence as everyone thought about that. Then Hermione, trying to distract Holly, turned and gave Holly’s shoulder a tentative squeeze. She paused there before she turned back to ask us, “So, why are you calling, he-must-not-be-named, Tom Riddle? You have been avoiding saying Voldemort, but it is pretty obvious you aren’t scared of him.”
I cleared my throat softly before I smiled at Hermione and explained. “Holly, you probably would have found out about it this year, but Voldeshort’s real name was Tom Marvolo Riddle… which is an anagram for I am Lord Voldemort. Which is a bastardization of the French phrase meaning to run from death…”
I sighed, realizing I needed to take a step back for a bit. “Ok, wait… let's clarify some things, three things. One, immortality isn’t the problem. It is something my girls and I are working on.” I waved my hand, dismissing the questions I could see, and simply continued. “Oh, don’t get me wrong, eventually everything ends, but we have made significant progress at making sure it won’t be anytime soon.”
Hermione spoke up, “Then why did you look so disgusted just now?”
I winced and considered how I wanted to answer. I didn’t want to lie, but I also didn’t want Tom to be able to find out we knew about his Horcruxes too soon.
Deciding I would talk about the sacrifice aspect for now, I started to explain. “Tommy boy went straight for the nuclear option. He performed dark rituals we don’t understand using murder and human sacrifice, probably newborns, to try to make himself immortal.”
Before the trio could ask additional questions, I held up my hand to wait before speaking. “I won’t tell you more unless you really make us. We have our suspicions of some things he might have tried, but we don’t want to let it leak until your minds are protected.”
The trio nodded, so I continued. “The second reason we avoid saying Voldemort is that Tom might have put a curse on his name. You were told that anyone who spoke his name, even alone, would have a death eater show up to attack them, right?” A hesitant nod from Holly made me smile sadly. “Tom probably set up a country wide taboo on his name. It is a spell that allows people to find you if you say the taboo word. It was originally set up to monitor for anyone using the unforgivables like the killing curse, but this corrupt country apparently stopped monitoring those spells at the same time Tom set up his own Taboo on the word Voldemort.”
Holly looked confused. “So why does Dumbledore encourage everyone to say it, then?”
I smiled. “Good question. I can’t say for sure, but he is probably right to encourage its use for two reasons. One, if everyone uses it, then the fear of the name and thus fear of the dark tosser will diminish. But the other reason is that if everyone uses his name often then the taboo, if reactivated, is basically useless since no one can identify any single case of the name being said. It is why you can’t set up a taboo for the word magic to protect the statue of secrecy. It is being said nearly constantly by someone in this country somewhere.”
Holly slowly nodded, so I shrugged as I said. “I just think it is more effective to just mock his name by calling him Moldymort, the dark tosser, or Voldeshorts, etc, etc…”
I smirked a little. “That brings us to the final reason we call him Tom. It is his actual name and he hates it. He was named Tom by his squib mother because it was the name of his Muggle father that she was obsessed with. The same father that abandoned her once she stopped dosing him with love potions.” I paused for effect, “Plus, the ‘dark lord Tom’ isn’t nearly as intimidating. ”
The revelations that Tom was a half-blood seemed to rock the trio almost as strongly as the prophecy, so we simply waited in silence as they considered this. To my surprise, it was Ginny that spoke up after considering me for a few more seconds. “No one else seems to know anything about who… the dark tosser is. What proof do you have?”
That actually made me pause for a moment before I sighed. “Ok, I can show you the dark lord’s diary, but I am not going to let you write in it as it will start trying to take over and control you… probably slowly killing you in the process. I am only going to write a simple ‘Hello’ to see if I can get it to react.”
The trio waited in silence as I slowly opened a portal to where I had the containment box before pulling out the diary and wrote ‘Hello’ in the book. We all watched as the ink slowly disappeared, but nothing replied immediately, maybe sensing there were too many people around. I checked my soul sight, but it didn’t seem to be attacking me. Shaking my head, I slowly let out my breath. Turning to the trio, I carefully handed them Tom’s diary. The three of them touched it gingerly while looking at it from every angle for several minutes while Hermione ran as many detection spells over the book as they could before she nodded, looking at the name ‘Tom M Riddle’ embossed on the cover. “I believe you.”
I raised my eyebrows, and she glanced at me before snorting. “I couldn’t detect anything. Not only did it not return as anything dark or sinister, but it didn’t even return as magical in the first place. Yet it is so obviously magical that it is hard to believe it isn’t malicious in some way. I mean, if it was benign, why would someone go so far to disguise what it was?”
Smiling, I nodded at her while Holly spoke up. “Ok, ignoring that… well that Tom is one of the biggest hypocrites I have ever heard of, how and why did he open the chamber? Plus, who is doing it now?”
I sighed. “We don’t actually know who is attacking students right now. We have been watching the chamber of secret’s entrance for nearly the entire year, especially since New Years.”
It was predictable, but Hermione turned to me next and asked. “You don’t seem to have talked with Headmaster Dumbledore… why not?”
To be fair, that was a lot more civil than a 12 or 13 year old Hermione might have been, but it was clear this Hermione hadn’t quite removed all of her authority deference of her younger counterpart. That or this particular version of Hermione wasn’t quite as much of a rule follower as in canon. Still, regardless, she did have a good question.
Considering how I wanted to approach this, I frowned slightly, which the trio all caught. Shaking my head I tried to dismiss their unasked questions. “I don’t actually hate the man or anything. The problem is all the things he has done wrong. And when you know everything he has done, you will agree that he has made many, many mistakes in his life. That would be fine normally for someone at the end of their life, but at one point he believed in making sacrifices for the ‘greater good’ and I have always wondered if I could trust someone like that.”
As I watched the three stiffened before looking at each other, I wondered if they would keep our secrets now that they knew we didn’t exactly stand with Dumbledore. Then again, the three didn’t seem to be as worried about us as their younger counterparts probably would have been.
Suddenly I realized what I was doing. Swooping down to help them while tearing down all of their established connections. Literally pointing out all the mistakes their leaders were making while making it seem like we were the only ones who could help, the only ones that cared… it was the textbook example of how cults were formed… how toxic relationships were made.
I tried to remind myself that Hermione and Ginny were already 16 with Holly only a few months behind. They would need to be making decisions for themselves soon, especially if we failed and Tom returned. They needed to know what was going on for that. Explaining things was what Dumbledore should have been doing so they could make the right decision.
Yet, that was my dilemma. Dumbledore in canon had guided Harry to let himself die like a lamb to the slaughter. The idea Dumbledore set everything up around Harry to guarantee that Harry would survive was ludicrous, it was a Hail-Mary at best. Dumbledore moved everyone around like pawns by controlling the information they had. Yeah, he did it for informational security and to not worry people with what they couldn’t change, but it didn’t change the result. He was literally controlling their lives.
Was I controlling the trio to become my wives? Was I letting them know only the information I wanted them to know to drive them into my arms… into my bed? Was I another Dumbledore?
It was then that I noticed that everyone had gone quiet, while Luna was now standing directly in front of me. I didn’t even have time to blink as the silvery eyed girl leaned down and flipped my nose before she turned around and sat her butt down on my lap. “If you are going to worry about silly things, then you have time to be a chair.” Then twisting, she laid down her head in Amy’s lap while extending her legs across Taylor's knees.
I blinked again and glanced around the room. My girls all looked at me a little worried, but the trio now looked a little confused.
I cleared my throat. “I, uh… sorry… did you ask something?”
Holly glanced at her friends again before she smiled a little tentatively. “I was asking you all what you plan on doing when I noticed you going a little pale. You didn’t respond when I asked if you were alright. Amy and Taylor tried to get your attention before Luna flicked your nose.”
I sighed. “Let's talk about this later. It is just some of my own insecurities.” Glancing at my girls, I smiled. “I really do think they are too good to me most of the time.”
I blinked before I realized that we might have already given the game away. Internally I started cursing myself before I sighed looking at the confused faces of the trio. “Damn it… Ok, last thing before we focus back on the attacks.” I opened my mouth to explain again, but shaking my head I gestured to Amy. “Actually, I think I am just going to let Amy explain.”
Amy rolled her eyes, but actually looked a little worried at me. Smiling a little tiredly back at her she huffed before she started explaining. “Ok, short story that we REALLY don’t want to get out.” Rolling her eyes again, she continued. “Well, first, we are actually a couple of years older than we look. Don’t ask how. We did that so we could get into Hogwarts, as we didn’t have the chance to attend before.”
Amy then sighed. “Second, we aren’t actually related. Not any of us, including our caretaker, Ahri.” Amy probably saw the trio making the realizations I did as their eyes snapped back and forth between Amy, Taylor, and Sabah before she snapped out. “And third! There are no secrets within the family… and no one in the family does anything to anyone else before they are fully ready.” Hermione and Ginny seemed to instantly understand the implications and were already blushing up a storm. However, as was probably not all that surprising, Holly didn’t seem to understand for several more seconds as Amy let the silence stretch.
Her eyes turned a little considering, before she smirked. “That and we are always looking for new girls to add to our little family. Our rules are they must be Strong, Kind, and Smart, get along with everyone in the Family and be 100% committed to Family in loyalty and… love.” At this point even Holly seemed to understand the implications as all three were cherry red while Hermione seemed to be trying to figure out how to splutter something out. Not one of the three seemed to know what to think when Amy openly checked each of them out with a smirk.
I tried to interrupt, but Amy barreled through my interruption. “Max here worries about us, he really does, and is often concerned he is controlling us somehow, but we are happier now.” She paused for a moment but continued. “We came from some pretty shitty situations, and we don’t want to leave him… or each other.”
I sighed. “Ok, well… Amy, you aren’t in charge of explaining our relationship anymore.”
Amy rolled her eyes and waved her hand. “Are you saying anything I said was untrue?”
I paused but found myself sighing again. Damn, I needed to stop doing that. “No, but they aren’t on such a tight time limit like we had in BB. We can talk about letting them join when we aren’t worried about someone or something attacking students.”
That finally seemed to break the awkwardness, even if the trio didn’t know how to move on. It was Holly that asked the big question. “What do you know so far?”
I sighed. “Short story version of this year, then.”
The trio listened carefully as I described how Tom’s diary would possess a student. Said student would then attack Muggleborns while Holly was blamed by many because of her parselmouth abilities. As the year passed, a lot of students would be petrified, ending with Hermione. Yet before Hermione was petrified, she would figure out the culprit is a basilisk moving through the pipes. It was why Holly could hear talking in the walls on Halloween. Holly, Ginny, and Lockhart would head down to investigate but Lockhart would try to abandon the other two. Holly, finally left alone, confronts the shade of Tom before fighting the basilisk, getting bitten, destroying the diary, and being healed by Fawkes, Dumbledore’s phoenix.
Holly looked pale and Hermione gave her a little hug, not looking too much better.
I rubbed my face, “I am sorry, that was probably too much, too fast, but I didn’t want to make you think I was leaving anything out even with my rough summary. It is, however, why we tried to stop this all from happening in the first place.”
Ginny followed the train of thought. “But now we don’t have any idea of who is attacking the students anymore.”
I shook my head. “We have been watching that bathroom just in case. In fact, we had Ahri watching the bathroom door via a portal since New Years. She can’t be there 24/7, but none of us has ever seen anything suspicious from the chamber of secrets besides that Halloween… well other than the three of you brewing polyjuice potion in the last stall before Christmas.”
The three of them blushed a bit at that before they jumped. Holly blurted out, “The chamber of secrets is in a girl's bathroom?”
All of us actually started laughing at that, so I continued on. “Yeah… it really is hilarious, even if I am not sure if it was originally a bathroom. Also, to give credit where credit is due, it was Hermione who figured it out, we just saw her or a possible future of her actually put it together.”
Hermione blushed at everyone’s encouraging looks before she changed the subject. “We really should go through a list of all the possible suspects… if only we had a way of tracking the students in the castle.”
I nodded and then froze. Beside me I noticed Taylor freeze at nearly the exact same time. Looking over at her she turned to me and asked, “The map?”
I nodded slowly. “It would work great, plus we could get Holly a little piece of her parents.”
That got everyone’s attention, and I sighed before I started to explain, this time about the Marauder’s map and who currently owned it and what it could be used for.
Ginny spoke up with a mischievous smile. “I will have it by tonight. The twins know better than to mess with me.”
I blinked before I snorted, followed closely by Luna, Holly, and Amy.
I smiled. “We can make a list of all the possible targets and watch them. The attacks happen in the evenings when the castle is emptying out or on the weekends when most people are in Hogsmeade.”
The girls all nodded, so I continued. “If that doesn’t work, we can check the chamber to see if we missed something down there. There should be the inner chamber and the outer chamber, which we can search to see if anyone else has been there recently. As long as we bring a lot of roosters, we should be safe, since a rooster’s crow should kill a Basilisk.”
As we all left the room, I gestured towards Amy and Taylor to follow me for a second while the Ravenclaws in our group headed back to the library and the golden trio headed towards their dorm.
I was glad to see that the trio seemed a little less wary of us, even if Holly and Hermione didn’t seem to want to meet Amy’s or my eyes directly… probably thinking about our offer to join them.
Letting that go and instead focusing on what we needed to do, I waited until we were out of hearing range before putting up some new anti-listening charms. “Ok, I am going to open up a portal to Hogsmeade this afternoon. I want you to practice trying to incapacitate some of the drunks, stuck up, or belligerent wizards out there. Your two abilities are just too useful not to utilize, as long as the damage you do in testing is reversible. As for students, well, Draco and his two bookends are about as guilt free of a target as we are probably going to get with all their ‘Mudblood’ talk this year.” Then, looking at Ahri in her cat form on my shoulders, I continued. “I want you to practice confusing their senses to see if we can get Taylor’s bugs close to the wizards without the wizards exterminating them. It isn’t useful here in Hogwarts but will be useful elsewhere.”
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Amy winced and Taylor frowned while Ahri tilted her head in thought, but the three of them nodded before we began to once again talk shop as we headed to the library, following the rest of our group.
Unfortunately, all our preparations ended up being useless as Dinah came up to us during dinner with Luna and Sabah trailing her and whispered. “The trio is going to find the culprit and the victims will end up in the chamber of secrets. I still can’t tell who it is, but Luna says we need to get there to help.”
Face pale, I turned towards Taylor and Amy who had stayed with me as we had been practicing on the surrounding students. It had been a little funny to see them temporarily fall asleep only to have them wake up a few seconds later, obviously feeling better. It was our little game to find the ones who were the most affected by cramming for end of year exams and poke them asleep through a portal, then heal them, before letting them wake up as they started to fall over. But with the warning, the light amusement we had been feeling was completely gone, replaced with a feeling of dread.
Getting up as covertly as we could, we exited the great hall and headed towards the staircase before talking.
“Where are they?”
Dinah bit her lip and shook her head. “I can’t tell. I was only able to tell the trio would be attacked because my plans to talk to them after dinner suddenly seemed impossible.”
Groaning, I glanced at Ahri who was still riding my shoulders. “Dinah, Luna, do you think that we need to get Ahri back in her body?”
Luna paused for a moment but shook her head. “I don’t think we have time.”
I nodded, turning to Taylor. “Do you think we can figure out where they are?”
Taylor scoffed. “I put a ladybug on the hems of each of their robes after the forbidden forest fiasco.”
I paused before I smiled. “And that is why I said you are one of the best tactical thinkers in our Family.”
Taylor smiled at me and turned towards the stairs. “Follow me, the trio are headed towards the second floor but I don’t have enough bugs around to tell what is being said.”
Following her up the stairs, I turned and asked. “Do you think they are headed for the chamber right now?”
Taylor hummed for a moment before she nodded. “Yes.”
I frowned. “We had best hurry. We aren’t prepared to fight the snake if they get inside.”
As we arrived at the bathroom door, we paused as we heard talking inside. Holly seemed to be saying something I couldn’t quite hear but she seemed agitated. It was then that we heard a clear, annoying voice through the bathroom door.
“Excellent, girls. Well done, indeed.” The voice was obviously Lockhart and I paused, eyes wide, while I heard what had to be the opening of the mirror leading down into the chamber proper. Gesturing to my girls to get ready, I then prepared to start a count-down to storm the bathroom, but before we could move we heard him talk over whatever Hermione had been trying to say.
“You have done incredibly well. I will write about all of you fondly in my next book. It was just a shame that none of you will be able to remember any of it.”
Rolling my eyes at the obvious villainous monologue, I counted down from three, but as we hit zero and started to move forward we heard a large explosion which made us stumble a step. Wide eyes, I turned towards my girls and yelled “Go, go, go!” before jumping in as well.
The problem was, by the time the three of us entered, Ginny was already unconscious and Hermione and Holly were gone. From inside the slide we heard a scream and I glanced at my girls before grimacing. “Dinah, Luna, stay here with Ginny. Try to get her healed and awake if you can then, Dinah, go for help. Taylor, Sabah, Ahri, Luna, follow me. Holly and Hermione don’t have our protections and I don’t know if we are immune to memory spells, so if we can’t take Lockhart alive, just kill him.”
As I turned and threw myself down the slide, I couldn’t help but wince at the slime, smell, and darkness. It was absolutely both disgusting and terrifying. It felt like minutes of terror as I slid into the darkness, but was probably only 20 or 30 seconds. Finally, I found the bottom by shooting out and rolling across the bones of small animals scattered across the floor, landing in a heap.
Popping up, I started looking around frantically. Fairly quickly I noticed Holly and Lockhart’s duel down the hall from the flashes of offensive spells being sent back and forth.
It was hard to see clearly, but I was surprised to note that Lockhart was actually managing to not only hold his own, but actually push Holly back. Yeah, she was still only a second year, but Holly had been well above her year mates in dueling skill.
Internally I grimaced. Really? Did Lockhart somehow being a semi-competent duelist really have to be one of the changes in this universe? I paused and then growled slightly. And if he was not a complete idiot, why did he have to be such a shit teacher.
It was then that I saw the body on the floor, and I felt my stomach drop and my blood boil. Hermione was crumbled in a bloody heap on the stone floor and for a moment I wondered if she was dead. Yet as Taylor crawled over trying to avoid notice from the dueling pair using a very faint lumos spell, I saw Hermione’s chest slowly, shallowly rise and fall.
Yet as I scurried over to her now surrounded by the rest of my girls I grimaced at the sight. Her arm was bent backwards and she had over a dozen bruises across her face and arms. I suspected that she had gone down the slide while physically fighting Lockhart for some reason. Maybe she was trying to get his wand, after he had attacked Ginny in the bathroom. However, as a small teenager, the trade had obviously been in Lockhart’s favor.
Still, glancing over at Holly, I noted that she seemed to be holding her own, if barely. Even if Lockhart wasn’t a master duelist, he was still a fully matured wizard with the power inherent behind that, so we needed to move before she either tired or was overwhelmed.
It was the next statement though that made us pause. “Sod off you stupid girl. I am Gilderoy Lockhart.” A quick duck from another stunner had him cursing. “Bloody Hell! Daft slags should be begging to join me.” A surprisingly vicious cutting hex flew through the air and Lockhart ducked, then snarled. “Well, girl, since you are too daft to realize it, then I will just have to make you submit. You will learn to like it, just like the rest.”
This time the cutting curse was a little more sickly yellow and flew right past his head and he yelped before sending back a sickly purple spell that made me nauseous just looking at it.
Glancing around, I noticed we really didn’t have a good shot at him without circling around past the open entrance way. Trying to open a portal made my eyes widen.
I considered our options for a moment. Turning to Luna and Sabah I gestured to Ahri. “Portals are nearly impossible down here with these stupid ancient wards. You three use Ahri’s illusions to make sure he can’t see you flank him.”
Turning towards Taylor, I continued. “Taylor, guide us so the two of us can help Holly directly and give covering fire for the other three. I am going to open a tiny portal to call for Amy’s help with Hermione, but we will just have to leave her for now.”
Nodding, I watched as Ahri obviously started her distractions on Lockhart as the man had to jump out of multiple flashes of light coming from nowhere.
Running over towards Holly I called out. “Holly, backup has arrived. Keep firing!”
I just got a grunt in return before the three of us started peppering where Lockhart was hunkering down behind some pillars. I managed to get a message to via a pea-sized portal Amy that Hermione was hurt and needed her help. However, before I could say anything else Lockhart moved forward.
It was then that I thought we had him, but impossibly he danced out of the way of each of our spells. It was then that I heard Dinah yell out “Move!” and I watched as Lockhart aimed a blasting spell directly above us. The three of us got up and ran as fast as we could, shooting spells widely behind us. As the explosion hit, the ceiling above us suddenly rumbled as a column of rock slammed into the ground behind us, and we continued to scramble backwards.
At this point I was fully willing to admit that I was out of my league here, but somehow even while falling even further back I noticed that Holly and Taylor kept firing spells towards the asshole. Spells much more focused than my wild flailing. Yet somehow the stupid man kept dodging by the skin of his teeth.
It was then that another large stone fell, hitting me on my shoulder and causing me to cry out in pain. A cry that let Lockhart manage to locate me in the mess, and I was forced to drop and roll under a vicious cutting curse.
Damn it. We needed to do something quick. But still, how the hell was the bumbling idiot this good?
Frowning at my throbbing shoulder, I considered throwing some explosion spells back his way for the trouble, but with my girls somewhere behind him, friendly fire was the last thing we needed.
Gritting my teeth, I pulled myself up and got behind a bolder before starting to cast towards Lockhart again.
It was then that I saw the asshole lit up by a half dozen spells from behind and to the right, and yet somehow he dodged backward, missing all of the real ones.
How in the bloody hell was he doing that?
Shaking my head, I turned and started firing more and more spells towards the man as he was forced to spend more and more of his effort just dodging the volume of fire headed his way.
For a moment I saw him put up a shield, but it was nearly instantly broken under a spell from Holly, yet he was still dodging.
The dance went back and forth for what felt like hours, but was probably no more than a minute or two when suddenly, finally, Lockhart stopped moving like he was a dancer, impossibly weaving through our spells. Suddenly he stopped, jerked, then convulsed as he was hit by what appeared to be two stunners, a full body bind, a knockback jinx, and then moments later a jelly legs jinx and some sort of full body overpowered tickling charm from Luna.
His entire body twitched and convulsed again as his body seemed to fight itself before he fell forward onto his face. It looked exceptionally painful, but I had to admit that I really, really didn’t care at the moment.
Turning towards Holly, I asked. “You ok?”
Holly took a shuddering breath, looking frazzled. “What are you all doing down here?”
Looking around, I noticed Amy had just arrived to help with Hermione. With that being dealt with, I decided to break the ice and smirked a little,“Saving a damsel in distress?”
Holly raised her wand once more in mock offense, but then snorted. “Yeah, sure whatever.” Turning away from me, she smiled as she walked over to Lockhart and simply kicked him across his face. Then a malicious smile crept up, and she walked over before swinging a foot into his crotch. A small part of me winced, but considering his threats, it was completely justified. Seeing as he wasn’t going anywhere, she then turned and spotted Amy healing Hermione. “How is Hermione?”
Amy frowned and my stomach curled in dread. “I don’t know what he did, but Ginny is completely unresponsive, despite apparently being in perfect health after I healed her. Hermione was pretty banged up, but I should be able to get her up pretty soon, I just need to be careful as she took a pretty big hit to the head.”
Holly cursed before turning back towards the bound professor. “He had some sort of artifact that he held up that made Ginny freeze and miss fire her knock back jinx before Hermione tried to grab the mask looking thing and the two fell down into the chamber. He didn’t seem to have it during the fight just now or I assume he would have used it.”
I frowned. “That also again begs the question of how he was that good. He wasn’t nearly that good in class… or pretty much any time this year.”
Holly walked up to him and pulled a smoking bundle from around his neck. “He set this on fire when you joined the fight.”
I frowned, picking it up. It looked fuzzy, like an animal’s foot, but why was it burnt?
Luna reached out and sighed, absolutely serious. “Briar hare. They are from Africa, where they are called a Br'er rabbit. They are a magical rabbit that can talk a little and are exceptionally tricky. Their feet are extra lucky and can be burned for a burst of luck almost as strong as Felix Felicis.”
I blinked. “You know a lot about this, Luna.”
She shrugged. “The rabbits are nearly extinct after being hunted for their feet. My father and I have been trying to find some to study them for years.”
We all grimaced before I asked. “What other artifacts do you think he has?”
Luna frowned before casting a localized dispel at his body, then paused before reaching out and opening Lockhart’s mouth. Tilting his head back, she pulled out a ring previously stuck to the roof of his mouth. Holding it up, she blinked and then looked down at Lockhart in wonder. “I can see him again. I didn’t even realize he was missing in my visions until just now.”
I sighed. “Well, that answers one question but raises quite a few more.”
It seemed that Sabah was going to say something, but we didn’t get the chance as we all heard the click, click, click of the door behind us start to open.
I could see the blood drain from each of the girls' faces, mirrored by my own horrified face.
The door to Slytherin’s chambers was voice operated using parseltongue, something the basilisk inside the chamber could speak as well.
We were absolutely screwed in just about every way. I couldn’t make portals quick enough to get everyone out.
We didn’t have any way of hurting something as magically resistant as a bloody basilisk.
We couldn’t even look at the damn thing with its damn, instant death gaze.
It was Taylor that barked out a “Run” that got us moving to cover while Amy dragged Hermione into a corner by the slide. Carrying Hermione was impressive, but she probably modified her own body on the fly to be stronger.
We all listened to the snake enter the chamber, cold sweat starting to drip down my spine. I noticed that Holly, Taylor and I had gone one way while Luna, Sabah, and Ahri had gone the other.
Whispering, I asked Holly, “Can you talk to it? Call it off?”
Holly closed her eyes and started hissing, but didn’t break cover.
We all paused and held our breath as the conversation went back and forth.
After an angry hiss Holly broke it off and whispered back. “He is willing to let me go, but he says he has waited long enough for food and he won’t let the rest of you go even if we let him eat Lockhart.”
Turning towards my girls, I wondered how the hell we were going to get out of this when Taylor flipped her wand around the corner of the pillar she was behind and started casting blinding spells.
I gaped open-mouthed wondering how she did that when I realized she was using her bugs to tell where the snake was. Yet her spells were obviously not enough.
It was then that the snake seemed to notice Lockhart who was laying on the side of the cavern looking vacantly outward towards the basilisk. Before I could do anything, he froze and stopped breathing. I waited to see his soul leave, but after a few moments it didn’t. He didn’t die.
How the hell did he pull that off? Did it matter that he had only one working eye as the other swollen shut? Or was it because he was partially blinded and unconscious with the curses running through him?
I didn’t know and I didn’t want to test it out, but I still passed it along. “Close one eye. It might have saved Lockhart just now and it is better than nothing.”
It was then that Ahri, still in her cat form, made her move, causing excruciatingly bright lights to bounce on the other side of the cavern.
Taylor’s eyes widened as she yelled, “MOVE!”
None of us paused as we threw ourselves further down the cavern away from the giant snake.
As we felt the ceiling once again start to crumble as the basilisk rammed the pillars and stones we were hiding behind, I realized I could still do something if I could get a second to actually open a portal.
Sprinting a little further than my girls, I whispered. “Give me a second. I will try to open a portal to Hagrid’s farm.”
Taylor seemed to realize what I was saying first as she once again stuck her hand around the pillar and started shooting anything she could at what I assumed was the snake’s eyes.
Ducking behind another pillar a little further on, I started opening a portal looking around for the stupid roosters, it felt like it took forever to get it open wide enough.
It took maybe a dozen heart pounding seconds before I spotted one of Hagrid’s roaming roosters.
Moving the portal over, I reached out and nearly strangled the rooster with how hard I yanked it down into the chamber.
Holding it up, I waited for it to crow, but the damn thing just squawked and tried to rake its claws forward across my face, making me release it.
Immediately, it flew away from me, directly around the corner. Glancing at it flying away, I noticed it suddenly shutter and fall from the sky. I nearly facepalmed. The stupid thing had looked at the damn basilisk and had died.
Now furious as I listened to my girls behind me running for their lives from another attack.
I didn’t care anymore, I was going to kill that stupid snake.
I got up and sprinted towards Amy.
I didn’t know how to cast a compulsion yet, but Amy should be able to make the damn roosters want to crow.
Diving behind the pillar protecting Hermione and Amy, I reached through and snagged another rooster before shoving it towards Amy.
Amy seemed to understand what I wanted nearly instantly because she reached forward and grabbed the rooster’s leg. After only a second or two, the rooster tilted its head back and started to crow as loud and hard as it could.
Instantly things changed, but not necessarily for the better.
The snake let out a bellow and hiss as it started to flail.
Peaking around my cover I watched as the snake shook, eyes closed in pain. It was then that I heard Taylor call out. “Bring down the roof!”
There was a momentary pause before spells from all around the room started hitting the roof directly above the basilisk.
Three hits before an exceptionally powerful hit, which must have been from Holly, struck the roof of the cavern and the roof began to fall.
I watched in morbid fascination as this time the collapse didn’t stop, with just a small section of small, loose rocks falling to the floor.
This time stones, easily 6 feet across, fell from the ceiling. The basilisk shrugged off one or two before a larger one fell directly on its skull and the snake twitched, then twitched again as it was buried. I wasn’t sure it was dead just yet, but it should suffocate under all of that stone, or at least let us get out of here before it dug itself out.
Amy let go of the rooster, but the bird continued to crow as hard as it could.
Taylor came carefully around the corner. Turning towards me, she asked. “Can you get them out? I think the collapse cut us off from them.”
I nodded, focusing first on where each of my girls were using the soul portals to their bodies. Luna and Sabah were off to one side, with Ahri on the other. Unfortunately, it was slow. Really slow. If Hogwarts made it twice or three times harder, then this was a dozen or two. I didn’t know what ancient magic Salazar had used to hide his chamber, but it was wreaking havoc with my powers.
I didn’t instantly know where Holly was, but Luna, Sabah, and Ahri seemed to be moving together. Opening a portal slowly I spotted Ahri already standing on Holly who seemed to be sitting against a pillar gasping.
Seeing Holly’s distress, Amy lunged forward, while Sabah and Luna finally reached the rest of us while stumbling towards us.
Reaching Holly, Amy went wide-eyed for a moment before she cursed. “How the hell did you get bit?” then almost frantically she yelled. “Fuck! I can’t do anything to the venom directly.”
Luna spoke up, coughing. “Move it into her hand, then just cut it off.”
Amy only hesitated a moment before we watched as the concentrated venom caused her veins to darken before starting to dissolve Holly’s right hand. Taylor didn’t hesitate as she pointed her wand out and yelled “Diffindo” cutting Holly’s hand off above the wrist.
Holly cried out for a moment, but after that and another wheezy breath, Amy obviously knocked her unconscious while continuing her work.
Meanwhile, we all grimaced as we watched the venom continue to dissolve the hand. Turning back to Amy, I gulped at what had nearly happened to the young girl in front of us.
After a moment Amy cursed. “There are still tiny remnants or something lingering in her system. I can’t seem to purge it all.”
Looking around wildly I tried to think of a solution. I could pull her soul out as fast as I could and bind her to a gem. Then just rebuild her body later. I could perhaps move her soul to another body, that might be faster. Just put one of my girls back in a gem for a while. Yet I wasn’t sure that would be fast enough.
Biting my lip, I considered for a moment longer before I tried for my own Hail-Mary. I called out. “Fawkes, FAWKES, if you can hear us, we could really, REALLY use your help right about now to save a student. A student who was trying to protect the school.”
Almost like he had been waiting for us, we heard the soft energizing song of Fawkes as he swooped down, circling us for a moment before landing in front of Holly.
I held my breath, but apparently this was just fated to be or something because Fawkes instantly cried on the large gash running across her shoulder.
Almost instantly, Holly started to relax as the residual damage that the venom had done and which Amy had been struggling to remove was healed.
It didn’t give Holly her hand back, but as we noticed Lockhart still laying over to the side I gestured towards him. “Let's get Holly her wand hand back. Lockhart wasn’t doing anything useful with his anyway.”
There were grim smiles all around as Holly got her hand back.
Not wanting to have her waking up where she had nearly died, We got everyone back through my portal and woke her up right next to the entrance and within touching distance of Hermione.
Holly stirred for a moment before her eyes shot open. “What happened?” She took several shaky breaths before she looked down at her hand before flexing it open and shut a few times.
Taylor gestured towards Amy. “Amy healed you, you probably don’t want to know the details though.” She looked up at the slide. “We should get out of here though.”
I looked at the slide down before sighing. “Give me a second, I will make us a portal back to the bathroom as long as no one is up there.”
After a quick check to ensure that no one was in the bathroom, I started opening another portal to the bathroom. Apparently Dinah was still gone and out looking for help.
We lifted Hermione up via a Leviosa spell, while I simply prepared to drag Lockhart by his ankle.
Yet, before we could leave, Hermione started to stir. Lowering her to the ground, Taylor let her slowly stand up before Hermione winced and cradled her previously broken arm. “Ouch, wow… huh, Holly, where are we exactly?”
Holly nearly tackled the older girl before shuddering out. “Oh, Hermione, I am so glad you are alright.”
I smiled, it was good to see the friendship between these two was just as strong in this universe despite all the differences.
After looking around Hermione finally seemed to actually notice us with Taylor casting a third lumos along with Sabah and Holly. I obviously couldn’t since I resumed dragging the bound Lockhart behind me through the portal to the bathroom.
Ignoring Hermione’s rambling on how we would need to come back and explore the chamber to learn more about the founders, I gestured to the others to follow me through the portal.
Once we piled into the bathroom, we found that Ginny was still collapsed against the wall which finally got Hermione to forget about the chamber for a while as they rushed to check on her.
Luna frowned, staring at Ginny. “I can see a little better already. Madam Pomfrey should be able to fix her in a day or two.”
At that, Hermione and Holly slumped in relief.
After a minute or two of decompressing while the five of us, plus Ahri, tried to avoid staring at their private moment as they ensured Ginny was indeed alright with their own spells, I cleared my throat.
It was then that they seemed to remember that Lockhart was right behind them. Narrowing their eyes it was Holly, unsurprisingly, that pulled out her wand first to curse the man. Holding up my hand, I said. “Wait, let's talk about his punishment.”
The duo paused and looked at me confused, so I continued. “Anything we know how to do is probably reversible by Madam Pomfrey or St. Mungos, so let’s let Amy take a crack at him first before the teachers arrive. What she can do might still be reversible, but I doubt it. Then you can just curse him with whatever else you want.”
As everyone gave their assent, Amy got to work. She started to explain what she was doing and I had to admit it was kind of terrifying. She started by removing his ability to wake up. He was going to be in a coma for the foreseeable future. Then she removed his ability to recognize faces. Then his vocal cords. Then she shrunk his manhood to be nearly nonexistent. Then she nearly removed his magical control organ outright. As she did that, I did the same to his soul tap. Amy finally finished her modifications off by shrinking the pleasure centers of the brain to make everything he did unsatisfying.
It was a little terrifying and internally I reminded myself to always treat my girls right, but I couldn’t say he didn’t deserve it. He had been causing nothing but suffering including probable rapes of students here at school. I was probably going to rip his soul out and rip it up for a jump once we weren’t prime suspects. In order to accomplish that I spent a few minutes pulling a small corner of his soul through a portal into one of my remaining shot glasses.
In the end, even if he woke up, everything we could change here that he loved was gone. He had loved his face, his voice, sex, and his magical abilities more than anything. All of those were hopefully permanently removed. Then, even if magic could fix those, I was pretty sure no one would be able to fix my direct soul modification to make him a squib.
As we pulled back, Holly simply went with the direct route and, remembering the bone vanishing spell he used on her, proceeded to remove his bones from both legs.
Hermione was the most surprising, by cursing the man for nearly a full minute. When Holly asked what she had done, the terrifying muggleborn just smirked.
I was not too proud to admit that I was both intimidated and a little bit turned on by that. Amy seemed to agree with me if the slight flush on her cheeks was any judge.
The man’s life was ruined, just like he had done to the people who had their deeds stolen. Plus, he was metaphorically screwed, like he not so metaphorically probably did to some of the students in this castle.
It was that moment that Madam Pomfrey arrived and after some minimal explanations where in she grimaced and ushered us towards the hospital wing. She levitated Ginny while I dragged Lockhart along across the floor. While she didn’t look happy, per se, at my treatment of Lockhart she didn’t say anything and I think I even saw a small smile as we went down a flight of stairs.
It was as we arrived in the hospital wing that we found Dumbledore walking back into the castle as if nothing had ever happened. As we all blinked, the golden trio (obviously minus Ginny) rushed forward to congratulate him on his return. However, as we moved past him and into the hospital wing proper I noticed something that nearly made my blood run cold. Dumbledore as he heard that we had come to the trio’s aid turned towards us and smiled and winked in a grandfatherly way, yet below that I thought I saw a narrowed, judging gaze for half a second.
I didn’t know what he had seen. I didn’t know what he knew. I didn’t even know what he wanted. I didn’t know and it honestly terrified me at that moment.
It had been something we had been dancing around for months because Dinah and Luna couldn’t give us definitive answers on how he would behave.
In some stories, Dumbledore was a saint. Sometimes he was a naive fool. Sometimes he was an evil so dark even Tom looked tame in comparison.
However, regardless of story and therefore world in the multiverse, he was always a titan of magic and influence.
Even finding out that, in this universe, his positions were mostly ceremonial didn’t lessen his power at that moment. Caught in his gaze I considered just picking up my girls and popping away, but even then I wondered if we would actually manage to escape.
Then as suddenly as the pressure had arrived, it was gone and he was just a grandfather once again. He even looked at us proudly and bowed his head in thanks. Still, I wasn’t really paying attention to what exactly he said to Holly and Hermione, still overwhelmed with what had just happened.
As I kind of expected, Dumbledore brought Holly with him to his office to talk a little more while the rest of us still standing were examined and then dismissed. That left Ginny who Madam Pomfrey promised would be up and well by tomorrow morning.
It was as we were headed across the halls towards our dorms that I spotted Lucius Malfoy.
I blinked. Turning towards my girls, I noticed they were as surprised as I was. Was everything really going to follow the same pattern as before?
However, after a moment I realized it couldn’t. Holly didn’t have Tom’s journal, so she wouldn’t be able to give it back to Malfoy and thus trick him to free Dobby. She might not even realize that it was him that gave the diary to Ron since the diary had apparently not been given to him in the bookstore over the summer.
I paused for a moment and thought through my options as quickly as I could.
I winced as I watched Dobby be kicked as he carried some of Malfoy’s papers. The two seemed to be headed towards the headmaster’s office, so I tried to think of my options.
Deciding that I needed to do something about this, I pulled a sock from my foot. Turning to Hermione, who had been following us I asked. “Can you use one of your notebooks or something to make a copy of Riddle’s diary, except make it disgustingly dirty.”
Hermione blinked but decided not to ask questions despite the confusions and horror of seeing Dobby’s treatment and my strange request.
A few moments later I had a copy of the diary, albeit almost unrecognizable and definitely unpleasant to touch. I even ripped the book a little more to exaggerate the damage before putting my sock in it.
The plan was simple, what could go wrong?
Surprisingly, the plan worked flawlessly, except for one thing. Apparently it wasn’t the Malfoys that gave Ron the diary because when I handed the diary to Lucius he didn’t even seem to recognize it. “What is this… Child?”
I simply shook my head. “I am sorry, I thought you dropped it.”
I watched as he still handed it to his elf before Dobby opened it and saw the sock. “Dobby is Free!”
Lucius looked shocked and then furious, whipping out his wand he pointed it at me and yelled. “You cost me my servant, BOY!”,
It was then that my six girls, plus Hermione, stepped forward, wands already out.
That was apparently enough to make him pause. After a moment longer he sneered and turned tail and left, but not before muttering, “Best watch your back, Boy. If you were smart, you and your little girlfriends would leave before someone gets around to… dealing with you.”
I scoffed, but he didn’t seem overly concerned about our wands. In fact, I suspected he was more worried about the fact we were within a hundred meters of the headmaster’s office.
Outwardly, I sneered back but didn’t respond. Internally I winced. We might have to remove all the death eaters if they are that terrible to the wizards around them, let alone muggles and elves.
Wait, was I really considering a purge? No, get lost in thoughts later!
As we watched him walk off, we all breathed a sigh of relief. It was then that we got to finally meet the excitable elf, Dobby.
“Dobby is finally free thanks to strange kind Mr. Wizard and his Misses.”
I shook my head. I was not going to even deal with this for now. I even wondered if I could somehow get him language lessons.
Narrowing my eyes, I got an idea. “Do you want to help Holly Potter, Dobby?”
Nodding his head so fast, I worried it might fall off, I watched as the poor elf nearly begged me to let him help. “Yes, Mr Wizard, Sir. I would like nothing more than to help the great Miss Potter, Ma’am.”
I had to cut off my chuckles at that and simply smirked. “Well, as long as you can use your magic without alerting the ministry, I think Holly could use help with her chores and meals. I don’t think her family likes her much and she could use your help as long as you are discreet. We are more than happy to pay you for the service.”
Slapping his forehead in his eagerness to salute, I watched as Dobby nearly bounced in excitement. “Dobby would love to be doing that, Mr Wizard, Sir”
I waved him off. “Just call me Max, we will call you and figure out your wages and the details later. Thank you.”
Dobby teared up at that and I got a bad feeling as he responded. “Mister Max, sir, is a wonderful wizard as well.” He lunged forward and hugged me, getting some snot on my robes. It was almost cute, but he was a lot to handle.
I let out a relieved sigh as he popped away. I hoped he calmed down first if he ended up coming with us in our world hopping travels.
The remaining two weeks of the semester passed uneventfully. Hagrid was returned the day after Lockhart was arrested and the entire castle actually seemed to relax, despite exams.
The house cup was actually won by Ravenclaw this year. Apparently Dumbledore hadn’t felt the need to give Holly and company a ton of points to play favorites.
That actually made me feel better. It really was a dick move to constantly be ripping it away from the Slytherins, even if I was pretty sure they were only ahead in the books due to Snape’s favoritism.
As we wrapped up the year and got back on the train to head back to London we found ourselves sitting in a cabin waiting for the trio to stop by like they promised.
This ride was honestly a little ridiculous for us now, but it was a nice change to meet Hermione and Ginny’s family.
From Ahri’s work all year selling stuff we had found in the room of requirement, finding more jewelry, and going around fixing cars, she had finally gained enough money to purchase a small house. The entire lump sum had been nearly 100 thousand British pounds and was just enough to purchase a cottage at the edge of Hogsmeade.
So ironically, after the long train ride to London, we were going to take the floo directly back to Hogsmeade where we started before walking to our new home.
The fact the house was a tiny two bedroom thing didn’t matter to us since we still had our pocket home. The reason we purchased the home was, after asking a few Slytherin and Ravenclaw sixth years, we learned that in such a high magic neighborhood like Hogsmeade we could cast magic without triggering the underage trace. The sixth years tried to claim that it wasn’t discriminatory since the adult wizards could make sure we were practicing safely.
While I wasn’t sure if this loophole was true in the original Harry Potter world, even their system seemed inconsistent. Hermione got away with practicing spells before first year and Harry only got in trouble for the Patronus the night of the dementor attack, not the Lumos he cast after. Really, the entire system seemed problematic at best and outright maliciously discriminatory at worst.
As I was considering that, We noticed the golden trio looking at us through the window. As they entered and then sat down in the now very cramped cabin, I smiled. “Well, Lockhart is now in Saint Mungos.”
Hermione huffed. “Headmaster Dumbledore also promised to open an investigation into his crimes as well.” Then she scowled. “The problem is he was superb at hiding his tracks. That and the Wizengamot isn’t going to convict a pure-blood like him, since apparently his crimes were all against muggleborns”
I frowned and then looked carefully at the trio. “We… might know a way of making sure he is punished.”
Hermione looked the most uncomfortable, but even she paused for a moment and then nodded.
The remaining time was spent with promises to write and maybe even stop by for a visit. I promised Holly a ‘manic gift’ which made Ginny and Holly confused while Hermione just rolled her eyes, but she didn’t ruin the surprise.
The trio left us to find another cabin where they could have a little more room and we spent the remainder of the ride trying to relax.
When we arrived in London, we were able to briefly meet the Grangers and the rest of the Weasleys.
I frowned as the Weasleys mentioned their planned trip to Egypt, but decided I shouldn’t bring it up as I looked at Scabbers in Ron’s hands.
We even saw the Dursleys from afar as we walked with the Grangers towards their car.
As we were leaving, Luna spoke up. “Can we see that newspaper, Hermione?”
Hermione looked down at the paper her father had let her read as he asked about our family. Hermione blinked in surprise for a moment before smiling. As she handed it over, she pointed towards the bottom. “My neighbor is actually on that expedition. The entire thing is very exciting.”
I caught the headline and my eyes bugged out and my heart dropped.
‘Expedition sets out to search for the mythical Yamatai island’
Interlude Dumbledore:
Dumbledore sat back in his chair and thought about everything that had happened this year.
He sighed as he thought about what young Gilderoy had done. He would never have thought the shy man he had watched 15 years ago would have become so lost.
Maybe if the ICW hadn’t called him away so often, he would have found the attacker before Gilderoy had gone too far.
Now it was too late.
He had ordered Pomfrey to investigate if any of the victims had been assaulted. If they had been then… well he would have to cross that bridge when they got to it.
Picking up a lemon drop he popped it in his mouth and let the scowl form on his lips.
He was sure it had been Tom at the beginning of the year, but his efforts to find out more had been fruitless. Then Gilderoy had showed up to prove him wrong and they couldn’t even question him while he was unconscious.
Thinking about what young Holly and Hermione had been forced to confront below the school was horrifying.
It was very fortunate indeed that the young Hebert and Alcott families had been around to help.
He sighed again as he narrowed his eyes at his ceiling.
He had never heard of those families, and his cursory search had led nowhere. The question was, what were their motives and whose side were they on?
He would have to keep a very close eye on them in the coming year. Especially if they continued to be close to Holly and her friends.