#I wonder if people would be upset if he’d gone with just norris | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

halothenthehorns · 5 years ago

Text

THE VERY SECRET DIARY

To a comment made by a reader regarding that Remus figured it out and seems a little pompous for not really thinking he was wrong, Harry did confirm not moments after he said it that Remus

was right, so he has no reason to think he's wrong.

HPHPHPHP

"Well that chapter wasn't so awful," Sirius said happily, "poor Hermione, but they did learn some new stuff."

"Let's hope that's all Harry learns this year," Lily sighed, "because the last time he figured everything out, he went after it."

"Look on the bright side," Remus shrugged, "if I'm right, then Harry won't be in too much danger from a giant snake."

"What about who's controlling the snake? Or the death eyes!" She exclaimed.

Remus opened, then closed his mouth before saying, "okay, yeah. No snake chasing this year."

"This year?" James asked, but Sirius was no longer listening.

Hermione was stuck in the hospital even after break ended, leading several people to jump to the conclusion she'd been attacked as well.

"Which I would hope would make them all realize how ridiculous Harry being the heir is," Remus huffed. "He hangs around with a Muggle Born! Why would he go around attacking them again?"

"Oh I don't know," Sirius shrugged, "I'm sure if three muggles in particular came around he just might set a basilisk on them."

Harry pursed his lips, humour in his eyes at Sirius' joke, but not confirming either way what he would do. Probably not, he mentally reasoned.

Lily wanted to change the subject, so instead asked, "what did Hermione even tell her happened? They didn't use the bit by a dog excuse again did they?"

Harry laughed, but said, "she blamed it on Ron, he was practicing some transfiguration and a spell went wrong with that broken wand. Madam Pomfrey didn't turn him in, thankfully."

"She's usually pretty good about that," Remus chuckled.

So many kids tried to peek in that Madam Pomfrey put the curtains up around Hermione's bed to save the girl from being seen with fur.

"Well that was sweet," James grinned.

"I thought that was my line," Lily smirked at him.

"Hey, I'm not heartless," James defended, "no one wants to be gawked at in the hospital wing."

Ron and Harry visited her every day after class, to bring her homework.

"Why am I not surprised?" Sirius chuckled. "Most kids would take turning into a cat an excuse to skip homework. She requested it!"

"Hermione could have probably taken a break for the rest of the year and still been good to go," James snickered.

Harry frowned at his dad, wondering why that joke felt off to him.

Ron voiced that if he'd grown a tail he would have taken a break,

Sirius opened, then closed his mouth, ignoring the others who were giggling at him mimicking Ron, again. Then he shrugged, feeling rather amused himself.

but Hermione said she had to keep up of course. She was in a much better mood now that her eyes were going back to normal and most of the hair had left her face.

"Did she still have the tail?" James asked curiously.

"No, that was one of the first things to go," Harry said, pretending to be upset by the fact.

While there Harry noticed a card stuffed under Hermione's pillow, and when he asked what it was, Hermione tried to push it farther out of sight.

"Aw, does Hermione have another friend around we don't know about?" Lily asked.

"No," Harry smirked, wondering why he had an annoyed feeling about this card.

Ron was too fast though, and pulled it out and began reading a get well card from Lockhart.

"Well that was, nice," James began hesitantly.

"Wait for it," Sirius muttered before reading.

The rest of his card was his signature listing all of his achievements.

Remus wrinkled up his nose in disgust as he said, "so, of the forty or so words that were in that letter, I would say only five of those were actual genuine concern about Hermione. The rest was simply his own big-headed signature."

"Niceness gone," James agreed.

"And she slept with that thing?" Lily asked in disgust. "I can't believe she still hasn't wised up to him."

"She didn't sleep with it," Harry said, "I think she got it just before we came in, and she was trying to keep it out of our sight, because she knew we'd mock her for it."

"Are you guessing that," Sirius asked, "or did you ask her that?"

"I asked her that when Ron wasn't around," Harry shrugged, at this point even he hadn't quite understood how Hermione could still be so dense about Lockhart. His friend still wouldn't admit the new teacher was a fraud, but she wasn't going around making note of when his classes were either.

Ron was clearly disgusted as he demanded that Hermione slept with this?

Lily made a choking sort of noise, while Sirius gave her a superior look saying, "so what's it say about us that we both mimicked the same kid."

Lily gave him a disgusted look, causing the other three boys to laugh all the harder.

Hermione was saved from answering by Madam Pomfrey shooing them out. Ron was grumbling about how he'd forgotten to ask Hermione how many rat tails went into a Hair Raising Potion.

"Don't answer that Lily, no one cares," Sirius said without looking up.

Lily leaned back, huffing a bit.

Then they heard someone shouting a floor up, and Harry recognized it as Filch. The two boys went up to see what was going on, staying behind the corner to listen.

"At least you stayed out of sight," Remus grinned.

"I don't get why you went to go see what he was shouting about at all?" Lily asked.

"Curiosity," James shrugged.

Ron's first thought was that someone else had been attacked.

"I would hope not," Sirius shivered, "at least I would hope Filch wouldn't be shouting about it like that. Surely the man would go and get a teacher instead of standing around."

"Well you tell us," James snapped.

Instead what they heard was the caretaker screaming about all the work he'd have to do,

"Okay, a student just made a mess," Remus said, relaxing back at once.

whining that he'd be moping all night, and that he was going to Dumbledore.

"I almost feel bad for Dumbledore," Sirius said, shaking his head in disbelief, "how often does Filch go to him complaining about having to do his job?"

The two boys poked their head around the corner to find him storming off, and realized they were in the spot Mrs. Norris had been attacked again.

"Because that's done you so much good before," Remus sighed, rolling his eyes, thinking back to the other two times Harry had been caught there.

Lily suddenly froze, and went wide eyed as something new occurred to her. The others noticed this, and before she could deny it Sirius snapped, "nope, we saw that. Tell us what you noticed. What about that gave you a clue as to who's doing this?"

"Not that," Lily shook her head, looking frustrated. "I've just realized that Moaning Myrtle might not have been exaggerating to you guys!"

Harry jolted slightly before he settled and gave his mum a brilliant smile, saying, "you're absolutely right." That was indeed a settling feeling of a memory returning.

The others went quite, before James said slowly, "she said she was killed by looking someone in the eye. You think she meant..."

"A basilisk killed her fifty years ago?" Remus breathed.

"Wow, kind of feel like an arse now for making fun of her," Sirius said.

"That still doesn't help us much though," James sighed, "since she obviously doesn't know who set the snake on her. Good on ya Lil, I didn't put that together at all."

Lily smirked at them, saying, "see, I pay attention to you jerks."

"Wow, sincerely thank you," Sirius laughed, rolling his eyes.

Now that Filch had stopped screaming, they could also hear sobbing coming from Myrtle's bathroom.

"Surprised she's only done that twice this year," Lily rolled her eyes.

"She might have done it more, and Harry just hasn't come around to see it," Remus suggested.

They went inside and asked her what her problem was this time, and Myrtle mumbled that they had come back to throw something else at her.

"Who would throw something at her?" Lily asked, annoyed at once. "As if she doesn't already have enough issues."

Harry asked why he would do that, and Myrtle rose out of her toilet with a wave of water.

"How can she move the water around like that?" Harry asked in surprise.

"Ghosts can minorly control inanimate objects around them," Sirius shrugged. "Normally not enough to do anything more than say, move water around a few feet."

"She's been doing this for years to," Lily added on, "so perhaps she can do this better than most other ghosts."

"That's kind of cool," Harry grinned, though he still understood their earlier reasons why it would kind of be boring to be a ghost.

Wailing about how she'd been doing her own thing when someone decided it would be funny to throw a book at her.

"Why would that be funny?" James asked. "It would just pass right through her, and make her cry some more?"

The other three all shrugged, having no idea what so ever. Harry however was feeling rather upset again. Not for Myrtle, but for the book. What could be so important about a book though that he

would have a feeling about it?

Harry pointed out that it wouldn't hurt, and this only upset Myrtle all the more as she screamed that didn't make it okay to make of game of it.

"For some reason we never thought of that," Sirius said, grinning.

"Because it's mean," Lily snapped, "who would torment the ghosts like that?"

"He said we never did it," Remus said in defence of his friend, causing Lily to back down at once.

Harry asked who had thrown it at her, and she said she didn't see since she was hanging around in the u-bend of the toilet.

"Oh, so no one threw it at her," James reasoned, "they were trying to flush the book."

"Why would someone flush a book?" Remus asked.

"Probably a Lockhart book," Sirius muttered, "that I would understand."

Then Harry saw the little black book over in the corner and went to pick it up, but Ron stopped him and said it could be dangerous!

"He's got a point," Lily nodded at once.

"A book?" Harry scoffed.

"Well, since you're in Hogwarts, it shouldn't be," Remus said uneasily, "but then again, that's not a book I recognize. So it could be dangerous on principle."

"A book!" Harry demanded again.

"Well yeah," Sirius smiled, "books are the reason no one ever wants to learn. Who sits around staring at words all day?"

James opened his mouth to both point out why Sirius was being an idiot right now, and explain more thoroughly to Harry what Ron meant, but Sirius was no longer listening, and read on anyway.

Harry laughed, but Ron told Harry a few stories about books his dad had come across.

"I kind of wanted him to keep going," Sirius said a little disappointed, "I could have used those as excuses next time someone asked me to read another book."

"My excuse for this book is it's the most entertaining, and depressing thing ever," James said, smiling at Harry.

"A book that causes an emotional roller coaster," Remus nodded. "Yeah, I'll agree with that."

Harry then said he wanted to find out anyways, and picked up the book.

Lily huffed, wishing Harry would have taken his friend more serious, but there was nothing for it now.

Harry noticed that it was a diary, and the print said it was fifty years old.

"Convenient," James said at once, drawing the word far past its normal syllable count.

"I don't like that book," Lily agreed at once.

"Why not?" Harry asked, not disagreeing, just curious if they were thinking the same thing as him.

"What are the odd's you would find a book someone tried to flush away, that marks the same time frame as when the last attack happened?" Remus demanded. "No, they're right. I don't want you

anywhere near that book."

"Now I really want to know who tried to get rid of it," Sirius said, brow crinkling, "and why?"

Harry was twitching something awful. This book was very important, but he had no more idea than any of them, something he would never not be frustrated about.

Then he cracked open to the front page and found the name T. M. Riddle.

Harry shivered in disgust, knowing there was a significance to that name.

Sirius' eyes went vacant for a moment, then he shrugged and asked, "anyone we might know?"

James asked, pondering it, "I feel like I know that name for some stupid reason, but not personally. Like I read it somewhere..."

Sirius decided to just keep reading, hoping someone like Hermione might know it.

Ron had leaned over Harry's shoulder and spotted the name as well, saying that was the name of a kid who'd gotten special awards to services for the school fifty years ago.

"That was it," James popped his head.

"We had to polish that stupid trophy all the time," Sirius agreed.

"Then you know who it is?" Lilly asked excitedly.

"Nope," Remus said, popping the P. "Just his name. Same as we know who Uric the Oddball is without actually knowing who he is. Just a name we were forced to learn all those years ago."

"I think you guys are missing the point," Harry said, looking like he was going to start rubbing his temple again. He stayed his hand, but only just as he continued, "what if Riddle got that award for getting rid of the heir of Slytherin?" The moment he let those words escape his mouth he knew they were wrong...but what else could it be?

Remus rolled that idea around for a moment before saying, "I suppose, but I still can't believe something like this isn't more publicly known. I've never heard of anyone being murdered at the school at all, let alone a student figuring out who did it."

"I'm still saying someone was payed to hush the whole thing up," Sirius huffed.

"What kind of special services though?" James asked, he'd never really looked into the idea.

"I'm sure Harry will go looking into this, since he was the one who brought it up," Sirius shrugged.

Lily deflated, hoping very much this wasn't going to turn into anything to awful.

Harry asked how he knew that, and Ron said that was the trophy he'd vomited on the night of his detention, and was forced to clean it fifty more times.

"Only fifty?" Sirius scoffed, "he got off easy then."

Harry began looking at the other pages, and found them all blank.

"That doesn't mean the book's empty," Lily said grimly.

"Invisible ink?" Harry asked.

"Or something worse," Remus sighed, "I still don't like that someone tried to throw it away."

Harry glanced at the back then, pointing out that the book had been bought in a muggle shop, so whoever owned this must be a muggleborn.

"Or at least a half-blood," Remus shrugged.

"I could buy something from a muggle shop if I wanted," James disagreed.

"But you wouldn't normally," Sirius disagreed.

"What's the point of this then?" Lily interrupted there squabble. None of the boys actually had an answer to that, they just enjoyed picking at each other.

Ron said that the book wasn't really worth anything to them, then he bet Harry to put it through Myrtle's nose.

James couldn't help but snort with mirth, but quailed at once at the look Lily gave him.

Harry chose to stick it in his bag instead.

All of them huffed, the group of four not happy Harry was now carrying around some strange object, Harry because he just knew there was a significance here he couldn't find.

Hermione was finally released to the public again back to normal come February.

"Wow, she was in there for a month," James said in surprise.

"Could have been worse," Remus said, mouth twitching, "she could have been stuck looking like a cat forever."

"So glad you guys find that funny," Lily sniffed.

Harry showed her the book as soon as she stepped back into the Gryffindor common room.

"Why didn't you show it to her in the hospital?" Sirius asked.

"Didn't want Madam Pomfrey seeing it," Harry shrugged.

"I keep forgetting you don't sneak around there like we did," James laughed.

Hermione was intrigued at once, saying just because they couldn't see the words didn't mean they weren't there. Harry voiced he just wanted to know how Riddle got his Special Award, and Ron cracked the joke that maybe he killed Myrtle,

Harry went bug eyed and made a choking sort of noise, but when asked why no one was surprised when he couldn't answer. They all guessed Harry just hadn't found the joke funny.

it would have made the whole school better. Hermione though pointed out that if the Chamber had been opened fifty years ago, and Ron didn't see the connection.

"You mean Ron really hadn't worked that out yet?" Lily asked in disbelief.

"Guess Ron doesn't read as much into the small details," James shrugged.

Hermione pointed the connection out to him, saying that if the diary was fifty years old, and Riddle had this diary fifty years ago and got his special award that same time, what if Riddle got his award for catching the Heir of Slytherin.

Harry nodded to himself, he supposed that's why this exact question had slipped out of his mouth earlier, though he still knew deep down that this wasn't correct.

Maybe his diary held all the secrets, like what was in the chamber and who was behind it last time. Of course they wouldn't want just anyone to find this.

"That's stretching it just a bit," Sirius disagreed, "just because the guy found out who murdered Myrtle doesn't mean he knows all the details."

"And it still doesn't explain who had the book this year, to want it gone in the first place," James nodded.

Ron agreed that wasn't a bad idea, before pointing out the diary was empty. Hermione said just because they couldn't see the words didn't mean there was nothing in it, and used the spell Aparecium.

The three old pranksters cracked smiles at this, remembering full well what a bit of parchment could do to you if you tried to reveal its secrets without the proper spell. Curious enough, they waited to hear what this little diary would do.

The book remained blank.

"That was tame," Sirius snorted.

"What's that?" Lily asked.

"Nothing Lily," James said, smiling at the pair of them. Lily was giving Sirius a loaded look, clearly knowing that wasn't nothing.

Hermione wasn't giving up, as she went and pulled out a red eraser.

"That still might not work," Remus said in a sing song voice, continuing in more normal tones, "some things are enchanted so that unless you do something very specific, it won't react."

"Know a bit about this do you?" Lily asked, her tone implying she knew the answer was yes.

Sirius didn't give his friend a chance to answer.

Telling the boys what it was, and then using it on the page. Still nothing happened, and Ron insisted the book just hadn't been used.

"Now that I doubt," James shrugged, "why would he put his name in it, and someone try and destroy it, without it being some sort of valuable."

Harry still refused to throw it away though.

"Good instincts," Sirius grinned.

He couldn't help it. Despite the fact that he knew it was blank, he would continue to randomly pick it up and start flipping the pages, like it was a half-finished book.

At this the four of them began to tense up, though stayed silent for a bit longer.

Harry also couldn't help but think he'd heard that name T. M. Riddle before, like some old friend he vaguely remembered.

"Well that's not good," Remus said, fidgeting at once.

"And I didn't like this book before," James shook his head. "I'm really going to hate it if it has some kind of enchantment on you now."

Harry sighed, he had the same feeling about Riddle's name now, without the friend part.

But this was absurd. He'd never had friends before Hogwarts, Dudley had made sure of that.

"And we're right back to the depressing," Sirius muttered in disgust as he flipped the page.

Harry was still determined to find out more about Riddle, so he dragged Ron and a curious Hermione down to the trophy room.

"Gotta agree with him there," James laughed, "if you get detention in a place, you hardly ever hurry back."

The trophy only said as much as Ron had, and even when they went to look him up in the school archives, all they found were a list of his achievements, which Ron said only made him sound like a Percy. Hermione seemed rather upset by the comparison.

"To be fair, Sirius did just then to," Lily snickered.

"I think Harry found the same kind of best friend I did," James beamed, "so I'm not saying a word."

On a lighter side, Hogwarts was almost getting back to normal. With such a long period of time happening since the last attack, and Madam Pomfrey telling how the mandrakes were weaning out of childhood,

"Good," Lily sighed, "and I'm going to make a vague suggestion to the school they should carry that at all times now."

"How often do you plan on the kids in that school getting petrified?" Remus demanded.

"I'd still be happier with it on hand," Lily shrugged.

the plants would soon be ready for the potion. Harry wondered if the Heir of Slytherin had perhaps just grown wary of attacking, and was probably burrowed back into the Chamber for another fifty year long rest.

"Possible," Remus shrugged, "in fact I wouldn't be too surprised at this point. Whoever's been doing this has got to be getting paranoid. Since all of the victims have had miraculous slips from death, they may be getting paranoid that someone's on to them."

"I don't disagree," James nodded, "but I'm still hoping someone figures this crap out before the year's up. I really don't want this cropping up again."

"I'll agree to that," Lily nodded, while privately adding she still hoped it wasn't Harry who would be doing the figuring out.

Ernie still wasn't convinced, saying Harry had shown himself at the Duelling club,

"Yes, because the amount of stupid that is makes all the since in the world," Sirius grumbled.

and Peeves was as helpful as ever, still enjoying singing his made up tune about Harry now with a dance.

"I still hate that Poltergeist," Lily hissed.

"I'll admit, as of right now I'm not his biggest fan," James shrugged. He liked a good joke at the expense of someone else, but this continued picking on his son wasn't what he had in mind.

Gilderoy Lockhart seemed to think he himself had made the attacks stop.

All five of them groaned in disgust, no one looking forward to hearing more of his prattling again. They had been quite enjoying his absences thus far.

He was overheard telling some of the teachers how he was positive there shouldn't be any more trouble about the school, and the person behind all of this was lucky he hadn't decided to crack down on them.

"I'm not even going to start on that stupidity," Remus huffed, "I'll be here for an hour."

"Thanks, I genuinely appreciate it," Sirius grinned, "I think he talks about himself more than enough, we don't need to add on by talking about him as well."

Then he added that the school needed a little pick me up, and he had the perfect idea.

"I'm scared," Lily said honestly. "I am truly terrified what that glorified idiot is planning."

"You won't have long to find out," Harry guessed, just as grumpy as his mother on this one.

They found out what he meant when they walked into the Great Hall on February fourteenth, and at first Harry thought he was in the wrong room.

James covered up his face in trepidation of what this could mean, nothing good he was sure.

The walls had been doused with pastel flowers,

Sirius' nose began crinkling up in disgust the moment he read that,

and somehow there was heart-shaped confetti pouring down from the ceiling,

and by the time he was done with the colourful sentences he looked likely to vomit.

"The worst part is you're not kidding," Remus moaned.

"It's not a bad idea actually," Lily giggled, "I think the school should indulge in Valentine's Day more often."

"You're endorsing his idea!" James spluttered.

Lily shrugged, simply saying, "it's not that bad honestly. We celebrate most other holidays."

"Yes, but this is just torture," Sirius groaned, "can you imagine yet another holiday we would have felt obligated to buy gifts for the girls in that school."

"Leave it to you to turn a holiday about love into some money grubbing bit," Lily grumbled.

Harry went to his table in a daze, to find a giggling Hermione. Harry asked what had happened, while dusting confetti off of his bacon,

"More horror," James muttered.

and Ron could only gesture at the head table, clearly too repulsed to put into words. Lockhart was on his feet, wearing bright pink robes and the only one smiling. The other teachers looked more like they were being tortured, Snape in particular looking like he'd just drank a bottle of Skele-Gro.

"Now there's an idea," Sirius said, going bright eyed at that description.

"Enough Sirius," Lily said, her good mood still lingering enough her voice wasn't nearly as snappy as usual.

Lockhart called for attention, and at first thanked the students for his own received valentines, then he waved to the side door and on cue, dwarfs came marching in.

"Wow," Remus said in surprise, "I can't believe Lockhart would have doled out the money for this."

"I heard Professor Flitwick mention it later," Harry shrugged, "apparently they were paid by someone else, and sent to Lockhart beforehand. Flitwick had no idea who though, just that

Dumbledore had cleared this idea."

"Dumbledore just lost some points in my book," James grumbled.

The worst part was that they were dressed as cupids.

"You know I might actually pay just to see that," Sirius snickered.

Lockhart was encouraging the students to indulge in the holiday as his cupid dwarves patrolled the hallways to handout valentines. Then he said it was a good idea to wrangle in the other teachers, suggesting they should all ask Snape for a Love Potion,

"Now there's a death wish," Remus laughed.

or Flitwick, who knew a thing or two about Entrancing Enchantments.

Lily huffed, "yes, but why would you say it like that. He would never teach a student for these kinds of purposes."

"Just his fat mouth running as usual," James shrugged.

Flitwick was red with embarrassment, while Snape looked more likely to force feed someone poison at the idea.

Remus nodded, that had been about what he was picturing as well.

Ron begged Hermione to tell him she wasn't one of those that had sent Lockhart a valentine, and Hermione chose not to answer.

"Ugh," Sirius groaned, "I don't care how advanced in Potions she is, I still say she's being an idiot this year."

"Agreed," Lily nodded.

Sirius gave her a look of surprise, and she shrugged saying, "what? Even idiots have to be right sometimes."

"You really know how to dish out the compliments," he snorted.

The dwarfs turned out to be a menace, barging into classrooms all day and disrupting the teachers,

"Okay, I can see why the teachers wouldn't like that," Lily nodded.

"I can see why the students would like that," James grinned.

and to Harry's horror, he found himself receiving his own.

"Uh-oh," Remus said, lips twitching.

"Can't imagine why a student in the school would send Harry something like that," James said with a grin.

"I can," Sirius cackled.

"You are all awful," Lily told them primly.

The dwarf was hardly subtle either, as it bellowed at Harry from the top of the stairs.

Sirius was unable to control his voice, it kept breaking off so that he could chuckle. Ignoring Harry's dirty looks being sent his way, he continued in the same manner.

Harry dearly wanted to avoid this, not just because Ginny was standing witness in the crowd.

"Ouch," Remus said, grin still firmly in place, "I'm sure when Ginny sent that she didn't intend to be around to see it. Kind of made it all the more obvious."

"You think Ginny sent that?" Lily asked, "I can picture any number of girls in that school sending a letter to the famous Harry Potter."

"Can we please change the subject," Harry groaned, face now in his hands. It was quickly growing as red as it was back then.

"Can't, sorry Harry," Sirius said without any kind of remorse.

He tried to make a run for it, but the dwarf wasn't having that as it ran forward and blocked off his escape, repeating he had a singing valentine for Harry while twanging his harp in a threatening sort of way.

James finally lost it, leaning back into the couch and clutching his sides in pain as he ran out of air. Between gasping breaths he brokenly said, "threatening-harp!" at least that's as much as the others made out.

"I am so glad you're enjoying this, really I am," Harry said waspishly, though the effect was ruined since he still had his face in his hands.

Lily patted him on the shoulder in sympathy saying, "he's probably laughing at all of his failed attempts to ask me out, and projecting them on you."

His two friends began laughing anew at this, while James finally settled down into sensible sentences again; now pouting at Lily as he said, "that was just cold."

Lily just smirked at him, then turned on Sirius and snapped, "if you don't keep reading, I'm going to take that away from you."

Sirius clutched the book to his chest possessively, then decided to keep going in fear of Lily's threat. While he did, Lily appraised Remus, now trying to think of how best to shut him up next.

Harry begged the dwarf not to do it now, but the dwarf wouldn't hear it and grabbed hold of Harry's bag to stop him from running. With a tear it ripped, splattering his bottle of ink all over his books. While Harry scrambled about trying to collect them all, he managed to block up the corridor.

"All the more witnesses," Remus muttered to Sirius quietly, giving him another moment to start snickering again, but at the cold look from two pairs of green eyes, he went on himself this time.

Draco entered the scene, demanding to know what the holdup was.

"Oh boy," James muttered, forcing a twitching smile from his face. This scene just kept getting better and better. Aloud he said, "you know Lily, I think you're right. I want the school to

celebrate Valentine's Day more."

Harry didn't even deign to react to his father this time.

Then the next best person arrived, Percy. Harry lost his patience then, trying to abandon the rest of his books and bolt again, but the dwarf caught him around the ankles, and then sat on him so he could sing,

and Sirius actually began to sing

His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad,

His hair is as dark as a blackboard. I wish he was mine, he's really divine, The hero who conquered the Dark Lord!

Then promptly collapsed into fresh waves of laughter.

Lily was momentarily distracted by noting that, 'Dark Lord' bit. As far as she knew, only Death Eater's called Voldemort that, so where on Earth would Ginny have come across that word? Could it possibly be a prank from, say, Malfoy? She had no real idea, so out loud she said, "I am so sorry Harry," Lily sighed, looking around at all of the boys in disdain. "Remind me and I'll be

more than happy to tell you about the time these three boys got caught stuck to the ceiling of-"

"Okay," James said, straightening at once, all humour gone from his face, "you've made your point. No more mocking Harry. I'm all for that."

Harry, his own eyes now shining with mirth, replied, "I want to hear this. It only seems fair."

Lily beamed at her son, and Sirius, now red in the face for a completely different reason, read on swiftly.

Harry pretended to laugh along with the rest of the crowd,

"That might have worked if you hadn't made such a scene about getting away," Remus said, still unable to totally wipe the grin from his face. This was hands down the best chapter they'd had so far.

as he got to his feet and actually thanked Percy who was shoving forward and telling all of the students to get to class.

"He could have done that when he arrived," Lily huffed to herself.

Malfoy wasn't listening though, he had jumped forward and grabbed something off the ground, Riddle's diary.

"Prick," James smirked, his joyful nature still not dampened quite yet.

Harry snapped to give it back, but Malfoy only laughed all the harder as he asked loudly what Harry could have written in his diary.

Sirius gave another amused chuckle at that, saying, "like Harry would write in a diary."

The students all froze up with weariness of this fight to come, while Ginny was looking fearfully from Harry to Malfoy.

"Why?" Remus asked. "You'd think she would have run off after her valentine had ended."

Harry was now straining for another reason, his family's amusement at his personal embarrassment gone at once. Ginny wasn't looking at Malfoy, but the book. Something about Ginny, something really important to do with her this year. Ginny and that diary...

Lily noted the other boys must not have read into the actual words of that Valentine like she had, and with no real ideas on the actual matter and not wanting to be the one to linger on the subject, she chose not to say anything and hoped to just let it go.

Sirius kept reading when no one answered Remus, ending Harry's train of thought at once.

Percy tried to tell Malfoy off, telling him to give it back, but Malfoy took a step back and pretended to start flipping through the pages for a peak. Harry lost his temper and fired the Expelliarmus charm at him, making the book fly into the air. Percy snapped that he'd report Harry for that, as magic wasn't allowed in the hallways.

"Go on then," James scoffed, "Harry was in the right then."

"Percy is such a bore," Sirius grumbled, "any good Prefect knows when to let the small things slide."

"Thanks, I think," Remus said, looking at Sirius in a puzzled sort of way, unable to decide if that was a compliment at him or not.

Sirius declined answering.

Harry didn't care one bit though, glaring hatefully at Malfoy who took his anger out on Ginny, who was skirting by him that he didn't think Harry liked her valentine.

Lily blinked in surprise, her only real suspect seemed to have just stated it wasn't him. Then again, he could have just been deflecting...really unless Harry got another bout of Polyjuice Potion to ask him and even then she may never really get an answer.

"That was uncalled for," Harry snapped.

"I wish you had snapped at him then," Sirius sighed as he saw what Ginny's reaction was fixing to be.

Ginny covered her face with her hands and ran off.

"The poor girl," Lily sighed.

Ron tried to defend his sister by going for his wand, but Harry and Hermione pulled him away, deciding it wasn't worth another bout of slug puking.

"Would have been worth it, again," Remus sighed.

They finally made it to the next class, and only then did Harry notice something off about the diary.

"Well this can't be good," James said, frowning, his good mood finally getting a damper. He'd had a bad feeling about this book since Harry had found it, now Harry had finally found something

odd about the book himself.

All of Harry's other textbooks were now soaking wet with ink, but the diary was as clean and blank as ever.

"It ah-" Remus began, but Sirius cut him off by continuing to read. He was just as curious as his friend, but had a pretty good idea they couldn't actually guess what was up with this.

Harry tried to show this to Ron, but he was having his own problems as his wand had chosen that moment to start spitting out bubbles.

Lily let out a surprised giggle as she said, "well, guess that makes it even more of a good thing he hadn't cursed Malfoy."

"When is not cursing a Malfoy ever a good idea?" James demanded.

Harry went up to bed early that night, not just because Fred and George had decided for the dozenth time to sing another rendition of Harry's valentine,

"Why do they know that song?" James asked in surprise. "They weren't around when it happened?"

"I'm sure Harry's particular valentine spread about like wild fire," Remus grinned.

Lily however couldn't help but wonder if it wasn't the twin's themselves who could have sent it to Harry. Being pureblood, it wasn't out of the realm of possibility that they knew Death Eater's called Voldemort the Dark Lord. They had the motive of just wanting to do it to prank someone for the fun of it, but again she had a feeling she was never going to get a full answer and still didn't say anything out loud.

but also because he wanted to study the diary again. He began flipping through the pages, not one of which had a drop of ink.

"I'm guessing this isn't normal then?" Harry asked at the perturbed look on everyone's face.

"It's not too hard to make a book absorb ink," James began, "helps clean it when stuff like this happens."

"So why do you guys all look so freaked out?" Harry asked.

"Because the books still creepy," Sirius told him, "and now you might have figured out how to work it. We really don't want you to figure out how to work it, because that could lead you in

another direction of bad."

"That's putting it lightly," Lily snorted, "but it got the point across."

Harry pulled out a new bottle of ink, and put a drop of it on a page. For just a second the ink remained there, but then it fell through the pages, and vanished.

"Yep," Remus sighed, "Harry figured out how to work it."

"Well this could be a good thing," James said uneasily, "maybe Hermione was right, and Riddle just put in what happened, and that's all Harry's going to figure out."

"Why would he hide that?" Lily asked.

"We've been over this Lily," Sirius snorted. "No one wanted whatever's going on to get out to the general public. This kid obviously disagreed, so he recorded it secretly. Now I really am kind of happy Harry's going to figure this out."

"You're a bad influence," Lily muttered.

Then Harry decided to write an actual sentence, putting down his name. It only took a moment for the book to respond that its name was Tom Riddle, then asked how Harry had found the diary?

"That, is creepy," Sirius said, taking back his earlier words at once.

"What did you think was going to happen?" Harry asked, since Sirius had just been happy a moment ago, he didn't get the opposite reaction now.

"For the ink to make words appear, telling you what happened. Not for the book to start talking to you!" Sirius said, going a little bug eyed at the end.

"This is bad. This is very not good," Remus said, getting a little jittery now.

Harry opened his mouth to demand to know what was so bad, but his dad cut him off.

"Harry," James began, then cut himself off as he realized, once again, no one would have had this kind of talk with his son. Forcing himself to ignore the ever lingering hurt of that realization, he began again, "Okay, the reason this is so bad is that, magical items shouldn't talk to you. They're objects, and any time they grow a mind of their their own, that means that the most powerful of enchantments have been embedded in them. While this can have its uses, unless you know who exactly did this, and for what purpose, it can be extremely dangerous to go poking around this kind of stuff."

"What about the magical paintings, or even that magical mirror that called me scruffy." Harry probed, still not getting the dissimilarities the others clearly have.

Sirius happily explained the difference, "the paintings, first of all, are all at Hogwarts, therefore on principle there's nothing too bad about them. Besides that point though, those paintings are enchanted to act and reenact how their human counterparts really did. The magic used to create them is extremely complex, but you can always trace where a paintings come from to find out how it should be acting. The mirror was not only found in the Weasley's house, again assuring it

was hardly anything bad as Molly and Arthur would never let that around, but again it was preenchanted with a prescribed comment depending on how the enchanter thought you were dressed. This thing could be harmless and we're just overreacting, but it doesn't erase how bad it seems that someone tried to get rid of it."

James was nodding right along with the explanation, adding on, "yeah, you could find yourself possessed, making rash decisions you normally wouldn't or-"

"I think he gets it James," Lily cut him off as she saw how pale Harry had gone when his father first started listing these bad things.

"Err, well," Harry began lamely, "I don't um..." he trailed off miserably. He had no way to reassure any of them like they had done for him. All he could do was sit there and gesture vaguely

to the book, and ignore the feeling of impending doom he had.

Sirius read on, ignoring the tangible fear that was lacing the room all over again.

Harry explained that he'd found it when someone had tried to flush it down a toilet. The diary said this wasn't surprising, as what laid in these pages was a secret no one wanted to know about. Harry asked why, and the diary admitted that it knew things about the Chamber of Secrets. Harry scribbled back that he was at Hogwarts now, and these things were happening again! The diary replied, the return handwriting getting messier the longer this went on,

"This thing is creepy sentient," Remus muttered.

as it explained that it happened in his fifth year when the Chamber had been opened, and someone had died. Riddle had caught the person who had done it, and said person had been expelled. The Headmaster at the time, Dippet, had managed to hush the whole thing up, and forbid anyone to tell.

"Sometimes I hate being right," James sighed, "because this is just awful."

"I can't believe any headmaster would try and cover something like this up," Lily moaned.

Riddle had recorded the story in these pages anyways, because he knew the monster hadn't died, and could be released again, and the person who had done those awful deeds had not been arrested.

"What?" Sirius asked in confusion. "Someone went and murdered a kid, got caught, but not imprisoned?"

"I guess, since this was all covered up," Remus reasoned, "they couldn't convict who did it."

"So there's a murderer running around, even now. That's just great," James grumbled.

Harry asked if the diary would tell him who'd done it, and the diary said it could do one better, show him.

"No," they all yelped at once.

"Why not?" Harry asked, "I thought you guys wanted to know what happened before to?"

"We do," Sirius agreed, "but not at the risk of you being... whatever the hell's going to happen next."

Harry still looked genuinely confused, so Lily tried to explain saying, "just, let's just say this thing isn't good for you to go using like this Harry. I'm really wishing right now you had showed this to a teacher by this point."

"But you still have no idea what 'bad' thing is going to happen?" Harry asked.

"No," Remus sighed, "we're not even sure if it's going to be bad, but we don't know what it is going to do either."

The diary promised Harry didn't have to take all this at word, he could show him a memory.

Remus narrowed his eyes before asking, "so, it's like a Pensive?"

"A really creepy Pensive, that with any luck only holds one memory," Sirius agreed.

"I still don't like it," James huffed, "this diary has a personality, wants people to see this! There's something dark about that book."

"Agreed," Lily nodded, "but I want you lot to shut up now so I can see what Harry actually does with it."

Only looking mildly scolded, Sirius still continued.

When Harry didn't write his reply at once, words appeared again, insisting it wanted to show Harry this.

"Pushy little bugger," James grumbled to himself.

Harry relented, writing down 'ok.'

The four of them released a breath, not at all pleased Harry had done this. James and Lily couldn't help but lean a little closer into Harry again, fearing something awful from something that they were so afraid was full of dark magic.

Harry felt himself going weightless as he seemed to fall forward into a whirlwind of colours.

Remus nodded and said, "at least that was the correct description of going into a memory, I still hadn't ruled out the idea of something more sinister happening here."

When it stopped again, he found himself in a familiar circular office, but it wasn't Dumbledores. Instead sitting at the desk was a very different wizard.

"Who was the headmaster fifty years ago?" James asked, knowing it may have been mentioned earlier, but not really having taken note at the time.

"Ah, I think his named was Dipper or something?" Remus shrugged.

"Well, at least now I know it wasn't Dumbledore himself who covered up a murder," Lily smiled with relief.

Harry tried to apologize for barging in, but the man didn't even react.

Harry sat there, looking genuinely confused as he asked, "ah, what's a Pensive, does it make people not be able to hear me?"

"Oh," James blinked when he realized no one had explained that to Harry, "no, it seems to have tossed you into a memory. A pensive can hold a lot of memories at once. While in memory's, you can see what's going on around you, but you can't actually interact with anything."

He nodded in understanding.

He tried again, nearly shouting out an apology.

"I love your kid," Sirius cackled, "who on earth falls into someone's office like that; and instead of demanding to know how he got there or who that was, he apologizes."

Harry smiled sheepishly.

Still nothing happened, the scene went on around him with the wizard fidgeting and looking at the door.

James suddenly frowned, very puzzled as he demanded, "I doubt this is a former Headmaster's memory, so why is Harry seeing this? Is this Tom Riddle in the room behind Harry somewhere?"

Harry shook his head, then shrugged and said, "you guys know more about this then I do, but I've no idea why he hasn't come in yet."

Remus said, "I've heard some memories can be exaggerated upon to guess what was happening before the memory they are experiencing can begin. That's very advanced, and practically never used since he could very well be guessing the wrong things, but it's the only theory I've got."

The others nodded in acceptance.

Harry looked around the office again and saw no Fawk, nothing of Dumbledore's, so he came to the conclusion that this must be Riddle's Headmaster, Riddle's Hogwarts in his time. Harry was simply watching like a ghost.

"I'm impressed," Lily beamed, "you figured that out rather quickly."

Harry gave another sheepish smile as he said what he had then reasoned out, "well the last thing I saw was that Riddle wanted to show me something, then this. I just kind of worked it out from there."

"Very clever," James nodded.

Then came a knock at the door, and Dippet called in Tom Riddle.

"Dippet," Remus huffed, "can't believe I forgot that."

"Can't believe you even kind of remembered that," Sirius laughed, "who even remembers old Headmasters for fun?"

Remus gave his friend the stank eye, which he promptly ignored.

Dippt began the conversation by telling Riddle how sorry he was that Riddle couldn't stay at the school over the summer holidays.

"Jeez," Lily said, going wide eyed, "exactly how many abused students does Hogwarts house?"

"To many it seems," Sirius sighed, feeling pity for this kid at once.

Harry was feeling something very bad welling up inside of him as he watched his family take pity on Riddle. That was not right, his gut told him, these people shouldn't feel anything but hatred for this sixteen year old. His brain however, once again failed to give any evidence for this.

Asking that if he was correct in remembering that this boy lived in an orphanage.

"Ouch," Remus winced, "poor kid."

Riddle agreed this was true, but reminded he wasn't muggleborn. His mother had been a witch, his father a muggle. Explaining that his mother had passed away just after his birth, only alive long enough to name him Tom for his father, and Marvolo for his mother's father.

Sirius gave a surprised brow raise, Marvolo was an old hand me down pureblood name. Had this kid's parents been killed for half of his family not being like the other half? Not having any way to know this for certain, he continued on without raising his suspicions.

Dippet clucked his tongue sympathetically.

"Who clucks their tongue sympathetically?" James asked, giving a wane smile, "who clucks their tongue at all?"

The others just shrugged, perhaps this was something that Headmaster had simply done regularly, and Harry merely knew this by second hand knowledge of being in the memory? It wasn't

unheard of.

Dippet got back on track, saying that maybe special circumstances could have been set up for Riddle, but under the current situation,

"What kind of special arrangements?" Harry asked curiously. Though he somehow knew he wasn't in school anymore, he suddenly wondered if perhaps he should have brought this up with Dumbledore?

"Basically, they would have told you if anything to bad happened you could contact the school, then nothing more could be done," Sirius muttered bitterly. "I don't know why they even bother to

tell you that."

Remus gave his friend's shoulder a sympathetic squeeze, so Sirius paused enough to smile at his friend before reading with less venom.

Riddle cut him off to ask if this had to do with the school attack, and Dippet agreed it was. What with that poor girl being murdered, Riddle would be safer at the orphanage, and he'd be lucky to return as Hogwarts very well may be shut down if they couldn't find out who had done it.

"Good to know the teachers were just as clueless back then," James muttered, "really makes my faith in the school go up some."

Riddle got excited then, asking if perhaps the person who'd done this had been caught-

"Does he know already?" Lily asked in surprise. "If so, then why wouldn't he have said anything before now?"

"Maybe it's a hunch?" Remus offered. "He doesn't feel confident enough to act on it, but this might have motivated him to."

"Then his hunch would be right I guess," James said, frowning, "because Riddle had said in the diary this was his capture of the person."

and Dippet cut him off, asking if Riddle knew what was going on? Riddle quickly said he didn't.

"What is with these kids?" Lily huffed, "Is it really so awful to tell an adult if you're thinking about something?"

"Probably didn't want to be told he was being paranoid, or pointing fingers," Sirius shrugged.

Riddle was excused then, and he quickly left the office and returned to the main floor, before pausing and clearly considering something. He made to head off when he'd come to a decision, but was stopped by a teacher, and Harry was stunned to find an auburn haired Dumbledore.

"Wow," Lily said in surprise, "Dumbledore used to be a redhead?"

"Learn something new every day," Sirius shrugged, clearly feeling the information was inconsequential. He was dying to know who Riddle was going after now, wanting to go find this

murderer now and toss him in Azkaban himself.

Riddle quickly said he had been with the Headmaster, and Dumbledore cautioned him it wasn't that safe to be wandering around, then excused himself. Harry followed Riddle as he went off again, then ducked into Harry's current Potions classroom.

"Figures something awful would still take place in there," James muttered to himself.

It felt like he ended up waiting there for hours,

"Does time pass differently in memories?" Harry asked curiously.

"Yes," Lily nodded, "what could feel like hours to you during that time, is actually just seconds outside of the memory."

until sounds of approach came, and Riddle went after the noise. Harry seemed to forget no one could hear or see him, as he crept along just as quietly as Riddle.

Sirius couldn't help but give a little snort of mirth at that description, but he was so close now to finding this perpetrator that he didn't feel like pausing to mock Harry for this.

They followed the shadow until it stopped inside another room, and Harry heard a familiar voice telling about how he had to get someone out of here,

"Sirius, you must be joking," Remus demanded, trying to read over his shoulder.

Sirius ignored him though, going paler by the second as he continued reading.

insisting the same someone had to get in a box.

"But, but that's-" James started to splutter as he, like his friends, recognized the accent the book was going for.

"Hagrid wouldn't," Lily moaned, fear lacing her tone, "he would never-" then she broke herself off and began gnawing at her lip again.

Sirius hesitated, glancing up at the others before continuing on with high trepidation.

Riddle pushed the door open, and greeted Rubeus Hagrid.

"It wasn't Hagrid," Remus snapped, coming out of his shock now, "and that's not a Basilisk behind Hagrid, I'm sure of it. For starters, it wouldn't fit in a bloody box! Perhaps Riddle thought it was him, but-" then he broke himself off and ran his hand through his hair in worry.

"But what?" Harry asked eagerly.

James picked up his line of thought as he continued, "but that must mean that he somehow got blamed for this anyways."

"How though?" Sirius demanded. "There's no way Hagrid could have done something like that, I know that and I've never even spent time with him properly. Anyone who glanced at him would

know that, so this must not be who Riddle convicts this night."

"Who else though?" Lily asked. "Unless someone else comes strutting into the room right now to claim they'd done it, Hagrid got expelled from school but he's not in Azkaban..." she trailed off miserably.

"This is an outrage," James growled, "Hagrid took the blame for this!"

"Let me finish this memory," Sirius sighed, looking like he wanted to do the exact opposite, "with any luck we're wrong."

Harry didn't have the heart to tell them he knew they were right on the mark with this one.

Riddle told Hagrid that the game was up, and how they were talking about closing down the school now. Hagrid insisted it had never killed anyone, and Harry heard an odd clicking noise coming from the box behind Hagrid.

"There's proof as if I needed any," Remus huffed, "since basilisks don't click."

"Then what does he have in there?" James asked as a distraction.

Sirius, for once, didn't look the least bit curious to know that. He simply wanted to read proof that they were wrong about what was going to happen this night.

Riddle ignored this, telling how the dead girl's parents would be coming tomorrow,

James did a double take in confusion at that, blurting out louder than Sirius, "how though? I thought Myrtle was a muggle-born, or at least I'm fairly certain she's said so. Her parents literally couldn't come."

"It is possible they made an exception," Lily voiced quietly, the very idea of parents having to come up to the school for this reason nearly unthinkable. "Lifted the charms enough to allow them entrance and for them to pick her up." The topic was so depressing that no one wanted to linger on it long to question this further.

Hagrid still insisted it wasn't who Riddle thought it was, but Riddle lost his patience and shot a curse at the box, tipping it over, and Harry let out a scream no one heard,

"Now I'm happy it wasn't a giant killing snake," Lily shuddered in disgust, "memory or not, I don't want Harry anywhere near what killed that girl."

as a spider the size of a dog came scuttling out.

"It's an acromantula," James said in surprise.

"I guess Hagrid went in the forest and caught one, and brought it back to the castle with him," Sirius shrugged.

Riddle tried to curse it again, and Hagrid jumped in the way to block it, giving the spider time to run.

That was the last thing Harry saw as he came smacking down onto his bed.

"Well that was awful," Sirius snarled, pressing his face into the pages to hold in his temper.

"Great, this is just great," Remus hissed, "now, not only do we still have no idea what's going on at the school this year, but now we can blame this Riddle jerk for Hagrid being expelled!"

"I shouldn't be too harsh on Tom," Lily sympathized, "he may have truly thought it was Hagrid's fault, and he was just-" then she cut off in a wince as the four boys gave her haughty glares.

"What," she demanded, "I'm no happier than you about finding this out, but there's no since in needlessly hating on the other boy."

"I swear you'd defend a Death Eater," Sirius muttered.

"I would not," she snapped back, "I'm just willing to look at more than one side of a coin, unlike you lot who curse first and ask later."

"Moving on," James groaned, wanting to get past this part. "I agree with Remus, this whole memory was a bust. Now Harry's gotten his use out of it, and he'll turn it into a teacher, and we'll be done with it for the rest of the year."

"That's being optimistic," Sirius informed him, before pressing on anyways.

Ron came in that moment, telling Harry he looked quite out of it. Harry wasted no time in telling him that it was Hagrid who had opened up the Chamber all that time ago.

"Wow Harry," Sirius said in surprise, as he passed said boy the book, "I wouldn't have thought you'd think that."

"I have a reason for thinking it then," Harry defended.

"Well let's hear it then," James prompted when his son hesitated.

Harry rebutted by saying, "I'm sure I say it in the next chapter, where I'm just as sure we go to confront Hagrid."

#Harry Potter #James Potter #Remus Lupin #Sirius Black #fanfiction

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halothenthehorns · 5 years ago

Text

THE WRITING ON THE WALL

"That's ridiculous Remus," Lily said, "Malfoy isn't nearly capable enough to be pulling off these kinds of stunts."

"What, making creepy voices and stunning cats?" he demanded back.

James and Sirius exchanged a look, before Sirius said, "I can see that. Malfoy's a pureblood, so he's got means and motive to pull this. Plus he hates Harry, so that could be why he's singling him out."

"But how though?" James said uneasily, clearly siding with his wife on this, "I'm still stuck on why Harry's the only one hearing this. I can't imagine why a second year would know how, and we can't."

"His Dad's a Death Eater," Remus shrugged, "I wouldn't be too surprised if he knew a few things we never will."

Harry was looking torn, his twelve year old mind really wanting to agree with Sirius and Remus, while something else was holding him back from saying this aloud.

Not wanting to cause another stir of pain in him, none of them really wanted to ask Harry another question, in fear it would cause another memory blast he couldn't handle. So out of any more usable information, and without an input himself Harry read.

Filch was coming forward, yelling about what the holdup was, most likely attracted to the scene by Malfoy's shouting.

"Or the fact that his cat disappeared for more than ten minutes," Sirius muttered, this time without any real heat. Even he felt bad for Filch for what was about to happen.

Then he caught sight of Mrs. Norris, and began demanding at once what had happened to his cat!

"I really do feel bad for him," James said, knowing full well that cat was one of the only things Filch actually cared for.

His popping eyes fell on Harry.

"Pity gone," Remus said at once, having at first sided with his friends, but now knowing for a fact Filch was going to blame Harry for it.

"Harry didn't do anything wrong," Lily said at once, her sorrow for the cat still lingering, "and there are a dozen ghosts that can prove it. No way should he be blamed for this."

"Not going to stop Filch," Sirius muttered.

He began screaming at Harry that he was going to kill him!

"Really!" James yelped, going red in the face, "did he really just threaten to kill you!"

Harry still looked rather upset and said, "Yeah, but he didn't mean it."

"I don't know," Sirius said bitterly, "the few times someone's actually tried to get at that cat, they tend to wind up in the worst kinds of detentions. If someone did do something like stun and string up his cat..."

"Don't," Lily snapped at him, "or at least wait until they catch whoever did do it. He's not going to do anything to Harry."

Sirius shrugged in surrender

Dumbledore arrived on the scene then, along with Professors McGonagall, Snape and Lockhart. Dumbledore put himself between Harry and the scathing caretaker and instructed all of them to follow him. Lockhart offered up his office for their use, saying it was just upstairs.

"I thought Lockhart's office was on the second floor?" James asked. "Why did he move it upstairs?"

"Why would you remember something like that?" Lily asked in disbelief.

"I always know where all the teacher's offices are," James said, grinning like a child again, "even if I'm not at the school."

"For some odd reason, someone released a bunch of Cornish Pixies in his room," Harry said innocently, "I've no idea who could have gotten the idea. Ron and I were sure it was just a coincidence we had mentioned our disastrous first lesson to Fred and George that day."

The three boys looked at Harry like he had suddenly turned blue. Remus was the first to gasp, "and you didn't mention this because!?"

Harry shrugged, forcing an innocent look to cross his face as he said, "Like I said, it was just a coincidence-"

"Don't," Sirius said, then he let out a bark like laughter, his eyes shining with mirth as he continued, "don't even try that one on us Harry. Did you really do it, or-"

"No," Harry interrupted, not bothering to hide his smile anymore, "I meant that. Fred and George really did do it. They were looking for an excuse to get at Lockhart themselves, and apparently those Pixies destroyed his office. For some weird reason, no one had fixed it yet..."

"Guess that moron couldn't fix it himself," Lily chuckled, "and at this point he's annoyed the other teachers so much they wou-"

"Harry!" James yelped, finally coming out of his shock, then shocking his own son by grabbing him up in a hug, "I can hardly believe how proud I am. It's certainly the best start into pranking I've ever heard."

Harry was laughing like a pure child. Really, he hadn't mentioned this because he hadn't been directly involved in Fred and George's prank. He hadn't even realized he'd given them the idea. He and Ron had been talking about it in the courtyard though, and when the twin's had commented on it he had thought they were just commiserating yet another bad teacher. Then the

next day, they heard Lockhart had to change offices, only learning the details that night. He hadn't realized his dad and, (uncles? friends? he still wasn't sure what to make of them) would take this as an introduction to being a master prankster like they had. Even his mom didn't look mad, she like the others seemed to think Lockhart deserved whatever he got.

Only after giving them the full details that he knew of would they let him continue. Just before though, they did demand that he tell them any time even the smallest thing like this ever happened again.

Dumbledore agreed, and the crowd parted for them as Lockhart lead the way, looking far happier and important then the occasion called for.

"Probably the most useful thing he did that year," James snickered.

When they reached his office, all of the paintings of him had to dodge out of the way so they wouldn't be seen with hair curlers.

"Did you know," Remus said brightly, "that paintings are imbued with the personalities and memories of who they were painted of. Often times, they even reenact what the real person did in

their free time."

Harry chuckled, fully realizing what Remus was saying, and laughing all the more when Sirius pretended to be shocked while saying, "Oh come now Moony. I'm sure a man like Lockhart

wouldn't put his hair in rollers!" Then he dissolved into laughter without being able to continue.

Harry waited patiently before continuing.

The real teacher lit several candles and cleared away a space so that McGonagall and Dumbledore could begin investigating Mrs. Norris.

"I don't get it," Lily asked, confused, "why don't they just unfreeze her?"

Harry was twitching because of his mother's question, before saying out loud, "Something about what you said doesn't sound right. It's more complicated than that, or" he trailed off, but Lily smiled and nodded at him, saying, "It's alright dear. Guess we'll find out as you do."

In the background Snape loomed, his expression may have been trying to hide a smile.

All four boys scowled at this, finding it rather annoying how whenever something bad seemed to be happening, Snape was smiling right along. Why was he even there, he had nothing to do with

this! It was Lockhart's office, fine, and they were McGonagall's charges, but Snape had no reason to be there! There was absolutely no point in anyone grumbling about this though, they wanted their answers to much to point out something they wouldn't get an answer to.

Lockhart was blathering around, claiming things that could have happened.

"As useless as ever I see," Remus snorted. He seemed to find him more annoying than any of them. Feeling personally offended that this joke of a wizard got a position he could never have.

Beginning with the fact that a curse was certainly what had done her in,

James wanted to blurt out what an idiot he was, but forced himself to remain silent when he reminded himself he had been thinking the same thing until Harry corrected him.

probably the Transmogrifian Torture,

"The more I hear about him, the more I wish he had gone on all of those stupid adventures," Sirius huffed, "then he would have died from his own ineptitude." He was rather annoyed that he had

been wondering the same thing before they found out Mrs. Norris wasn't dead. "He clearly has an idea what he's talking about, but since he can't execute a first year charm, that makes him talking all the more annoying!"

He had seen it plenty of times on his travels, and regretted he hadn't been there to help the poor cat, as he knew the perfect countercurse to save her.

"There isn't a countercurse for that," Lily huffed, "it's practically as bad as the Three Unforgivable curses. The only reason it didn't make it on the list, making four, is because its effects aren't as bad."

"What does it do exactly?" Harry asked.

"It transfigures the body in painful ways," Sirius said, "like twisting an arm or a leg out of socket. I was wondering, if aimed right, that's what happened to the cat. You know twisted its tail out of place or even it's neck. If it was dead long enough, the body would have gone rigor."

Harry nodded along sadly, then asked, "What are the Three Unforgivable curses?" It was another of those awful moments where he definitely knew the answer to that.

James answered, "Cruciatus, Imperius, and Avada Kedavra."

Harry winced especially hard at that last one, though he didn't understand why. The four of them just put it up to his memory returning to him, since most seventh years are taught this towards the end of the year.

"And why are they called that?" He asked, still annoyed he didn't know this himself.

"Ah," Remus said weakly, "because they do really awful things to people. Cruciatus tortures people, sometimes to the brink of losing their minds. Imperius can control a mind, forcing them to

do anything the controller wants. Avada Kedavra is the Killing Curse. There's no counter spell, nothing anyone can possibly do. Once you're hit with that, you're dead. If anyone is found guilty of using them, they get a sentence in Azkaban."

Harry nodded, feeling a bit more relieved now that this particular memory was returned, though he had no idea what it's significance was.

Filch was on the fringe, sobbing quietly into his hands.

"Aw," Lily cooed sadly, "now I really hope they hurry up and fix her."

James couldn't help but smile at his wife. Lily had disliked that cat as much as everyone else at that school, but she was such a good person she was willing to put aside a petty difference for the jerk of the owner. Something that had probably garnered him that first date so many years ago.

Harry couldn't help but feel bad for the man, he looked so devastated, but that feeling went away when he reminded himself that if the teachers believed he'd done this to the cat, he'd be expelled.

"True," Remus winced, "but I am positive Dumbledore won't think that of you."

Harry only looked slightly relieved at his words, enough to go on anyways.

Dumbledore was trying very random things with his wand, but nothing was working as Mrs. Norris continued to remain frozen.

"Okay," James drew the word out past its normal syllables, "so it's definitely not a normal paralysis. Far beyond a second year level anyways" he said smugly to his friends.

Sirius and Remus gave each other loaded looks, before nodding. Sirius said, "I still think he did it, like I said, dark father, dark spells."

"I'm still agreeing," Remus nodded, "that jerk seemed far too unsurprised about what he found. It probably took him ages just to think of his comment."

Harry laughed at Remus, while Lily and James rolled their eyes at the two of them.

Lockhart was still going on about the time he'd rescued a village by giving them some amulets against this curse.

"Amulets," Lily rolled her eyes, "he must be joking. No one is stupid enough to believe that."

"Why not?" Harry asked curiously.

Lily continued in much kinder tones, "Anything can be charmed so that it's imbued with protection, but only against small, simple things. Something as awful as curses, there's no way anyone could produce a charmed amulet that strong. Let alone him," she finished in scathing tones again.

Harry smiled at her again.

All of the magical photos of the blonde were nodding along, one of them had forgotten to take his hair net off.

All five of them chuckled at yet another visual catch from their boy.

Finally Dumbledore turned his attention back on Argus, gently telling him that his cat was not dead. Lockhart froze in the middle of counting all of the people he'd saved.

"Did he have to take off his shoes and start counting on toes from those fake numbers?" Remus laughed harshly.

"You're really taking him personally aren't you?" James laughed.

"Me? No, I would never," Remus said, not even pretending to hide his sarcasm.

Filch still seemed suspicious, asking why she looked the way she did. Dumbledore explained she had been petrified.

"Petrified," all four of them said. They had noted Harry's use of the word earlier, guess now they knew why he said it like that. However, they hadn't known he meant the term literally, like Dumbledore sure seemed to.

"Okay," Remus and Sirius said together, Sirius continuing, "we admit Malfoy probably didn't do that then."

"Which leads back to only a Gorgon," Remus huffed. "Honestly though, I'm still unconvinced anyone could get that thing, or take Mrs. Norris out for that matter, petrify the cat and no one

noticed! Not even Dumbledore himself."

"Well he seemed pretty daft about goings on last year," Lily huffed.

The four boys gave her upset looks, still not as convinced as her of Dumbledore's gilt from last year. Still, they continued on in hopes Dumbledore would say more.

Lockhart was the first to say he'd guessed as much!

"Says the moron prattling along about her death a moment ago," Remus muttered before Sirius could say something.

Filch turned on Harry at once, demanding to know how he'd done it. Dumbledore reprimanded that this level of magic was far past a second year level, but Filch was unconvinced.

"Thank Dumbledore for listening," James huffed, getting angry at Filch all over again.

"If the Headmaster listened to Filch every time he tried to get a student thrown out, there wouldn't be anyone left in the school after a month," Sirius laughed.

Insisting Harry had done it because the boy had found out he was a Squib.

"Why would I care about that?" Harry asked

"In some circles," Sirius said, "Squibs are more of an offense then muggleborns." He put on a female pitched voice as he continued, "A wizard who can't produce another proper wizard doesn't deserve the bloodline!"

"I have heard some pretty awful stories as a trainee," James agreed, "about wizards who tried to hide away Squibs and-" he shuddered saying, "well, if I tell you later, you'd understand better why we were so upset about the Dursley's making a crack at 'squashing out' your magic."

Harry nodded along sadly, then decided to keep going before any more of the transgressions of the Dursley's could come up.

Harry insisted none of this was true, mostly because he had no idea what a Squib was. Filch snapped back Harry was lying because Harry had seen his Kwikspell course.

"Which would mean nothing to someone raised by muggles," Remus pointed out, wincing in pain at his own words, "as Filch would very well know."

Snape came forward then,

All four boys grimaced, knowing anything Snape said couldn't be helpful to Harry.

and Harry felt his spirits deflate further. He was convinced nothing Snape said was meant to help him.

"Glad to know we're on the same page," Sirius said with pride.

At first he started off by voicing that perhaps Harry had just been at the wrong place at the wrong time,

James pretended to faint in shock, flopping against the armrest of the sofa.

Harry was the only one laughing, Remus and Sirius were still to in shock to react, looking like they really might pass out, and Lily simply rolled her eyes at these boys.

though his tone implied how little he doubted this. He continued by pointing out it was suspicious that Harry had just happened to be there when he was. Why hadn't he been down at the feast with everyone else?

"Oh," James said, perking back up again at once, "alright then."

Remus and Sirius finally broke out of their shock long enough to crack up at James' theatrics to even ask why Snape would notice such a thing. Did he really watch Harry at meals just to try and

catch him doing something wrong? That should have been ridiculous, but considering all the times Snape seemed to have stalked them intent on finding the same thing, they didn't find it farfetched either.

The three of them quickly explained they had been down at Nick's deathday party. Then Snape persisted why they still had gone to that corridor?

"The same reason as everyone else apparently!" Sirius snapped.

"Besides how did he even know they weren't there," James huffed, "of all the Gryffindor students at that table, he spotted those three were missing?"

Harry stuttered out then, realizing how bad it would sound if he said he'd followed a voice up there.

"Agreed, you shouldn't go shouting about it in front of him," Remus snorted in disgust, "but I do hope you tell Dumbledore or at least McGonagall afterwards."

Harry sighed and said, "Can I just say now, I don't think that happens."

"Well," Lily began, "thanks for telling us of that feeling. Hope you won't mind to much if I hope that feeling's wrong."

"Not at all," Harry shrugged, he had still been a young student who was more afraid of being called crazy at the time, but now looking back he admitted he should have said something.

Finally he just said they had just wanted to go to bed. Snape pointed out, without dinner? Ghosts weren't known for providing edible food.

"Here I didn't think Snape could get more annoying," James huffed, "does he have to question you?"

Ron quickly butted in by saying they hadn't been hungry.

"Guess that's not a bad lie on the spot," Sirius said miserably, knowing Snape wouldn't fall for it anyways.

Snape clearly didn't buy this, suggesting the punishment of Harry being taken off the Quidditch team until he told the truth.

"You're joking right," James growled, "that cat wasn't knocked out with a bludger! Is he really so upset about the game he's going to kick Harry off for something he didn't do?"

"What a sad, desperate man," Sirius said without any pity.

Harry's head of house jumped in then, pointing out that there was no proof Harry had done anything wrong as the cat hadn't been knocked out with a broomstick.

All four of them cracked up laughing, James going a little red in the face as he spluttered, "I didn't, we-"

"It's close enough mate," Sirius chuckled, "you just mimicked a teacher!"

"Technically, I said it first," he pointed out, without any conviction.

"Hum, Professor Potter, it really does have a nice ring to it," Remus teased, causing James to scowl at him.

"Harry keep reading," James said grumpily, "before I knock their heads together and put some sense back in them."

"Ooh, we're so scared," Sirius cackled.

Dumbledore was watching Harry like he was being x-rayed.

"I hate that look," James huffed, still annoyed at his friends.

Then he backed up McGonagall by agreeing Harry would not be punished. Filch snapped that as his cat had been hurt, he wanted to see someone punished for it!

"Punishment for what," Sirius demanded, finally distracted from smirking at James, "who is he supposed to be punishing? Lockhart? He's the only one there who's done anything wrong this

year."

"He's just upset," Lily said sadly, "and being a jerk as usual. Let him be, since we know Dumbledore won't really do anything rash."

"So that makes it right to yell at Harry?" James demanded.

"No," Lily snapped, "he's just yelling. It's not even directed at Harry really, just at the world for taking his cat away."

"And you know this how?" Remus laughed at her, "you telling us you were there?"

Lily just sighed and rolled her eyes, there seemed to be no way of getting through to these boys.

Dumbledore soothed that they would fix Mrs. Norris, as they had procured some Mandrakes this year and would brew a potion out of them when they were fully matured.

Lily nodded, this made perfect sense to her. The Mandrake Restorative should do the trick. She could think of a few others, but without knowing exactly how Mrs. Norris was petrified, that particular potion was the best option.

Harry however looked a combination of upset and disgusted as he asked, "what, they kill those ugly little plant babies?"

Lily was quick to explain, "they're not sentient sweetheart. Not even on an animal level. Their body goes through the stages of human life and then they recycle and start all over again. That's why they're so useful for these types of potions."

Harry nodded in understanding and let the matter go, deciding that if his animal loving mother didn't have a problem with this, if no one seemed to, he may just be overthinking it.

Lockhart quickly offered to make it.

"Please," James yelped, "for the love of Merlin, don't let anyone be so stupid to let him do that! Even Remus would do a better job than that yuk."

"Thanks," Remus snorted at the backwards compliment.

Claiming to have done it so many times he could accomplish this in his sleep.

"More like you'd fall asleep trying," Sirius muttered.

Snape snapped back that as he was the Potions master at school, he would be the one to do this.

Lily smiled with pride. Now there was no way the boys could pick on Sev anymore this year, since he had just volunteered to help a cat he himself didn't like very much. She stored that away

for future use, as right now all four of them were muttering in annoyance, but couldn't think of anything bad to say about that.

Dumbledore dismissed the trio, who quickly left. They stopped on the next floor though to start talking, Harry asking them if he should have mentioned he'd heard that voice? Ron said no at once, claiming that hearing voices was considered odd even in their world.

"Ouch," Sirius winced, "and here I thought Ron had gotten better about compliments."

"Agree with the advice though," James said sadly.

"Gee, thanks dad," Harry muttered with good nature.

Harry couldn't help but ask if his friends even believed him?

"They should," Remus said at once, "I can't imagine why they wouldn't."

Ron quickly agreed he did, but the whole situation was weird.

"No one's denying that," Lily agreed sadly.

Harry agreed with that, then asked if either of them had heard of the Chamber? Ron admitted he may have once heard the story, maybe from his older brother Bill?

The three boys nodded. It was an old spooky story passed down through bloodlines. You didn't even have to have siblings to hear about it, even a parent would mention it from time to time.

Then Harry asked what a Squib was, causing Ron to start snickering.

Lily huffed in annoyance saying, "Why's that funny?"

"Let him explain," James said, rolling his eyes, "I've a good idea why he's sniggering like that."

Ron was quick to explain that a Squib was the opposite of a Muggleborn, a non-magical person born to a wizard. Then he voiced that it explained why Filch hates all of the students, he was bitter.

"See," Sirius said proudly, he had been a little more rude than that when he'd first found out. Lily still didn't seem to find it funny, but she didn't seem mad at Ron anymore either, so Harry kept going.

Harry decided it was time to head off to bed, before Snape came back and tried to blame them for anything else.

"Like he's ever needed an excuse," James muttered.

The next few days were gossip central for Hogwarts as everyone discussed Mrs. Norris. Filch had now taken up a post where she had been found, pacing the corridor as if hoping the attacker would come back.

"Doubt that," Remus chuckled.

The caretaker was also charged with the task of taking those words down from the wall, but never seemed able to make a scratch.

"Now that's odd," Lily said in surprise, "why couldn't it come off? Did any of the teachers try?"

"The message was left up there all year," Harry began with confidence, then he trailed off in agitation as he muttered, "but I-"

His mom cut him off and said, "alright then, guess we'll just wait and see."

Harry nodded, both annoyed at his inability to answer even the simplest questions, and warmed the people around him were trying their hardest not to push him for information.

When Filch wasn't doing either of the above, he instead turned even nastier then usual against the students, pouncing on innocents and trying to put them in detention for such things as looking happy.

"Wow," James said in surprise, "here I thought he couldn't get worse."

"Did he get away with it?" Remus asked.

"No," Harry shrugged, "a teacher would always step in and stop him. Even Snape wouldn't allow it, cause I never saw Slytherins getting punished for that either."

Ginny in particular seemed torn up over the cat.

"The poor first years," Lily agreed, "that's got to be really creepy to them."

"It's really creepy to me," Sirius said, "and I'm a graduate!"

Ron told them that his sister was a great animal lover, and tried to comfort his sister by pointing out they were better off without that cat in particular.

While James and Sirius chuckled weakly at this, Remus said, "Okay, that's it. Ron's not allowed to try and comfort people anymore."

Harry started laughing with them, while Lily just smiled fondly at her boys. At least Ron was trying.

Surprisingly this didn't make Ginny feel any better. Ron tried again by pointing out that the school was sure to catch the person who had done this, though hopefully whoever could hide long enough to get Filch as well, causing Ginny to nearly cry.

Harry wasn't able to read this fully without breaking out in a few more spurts of laughter. He did this mostly though, to hide just how uncomfortable this was making him. Clearly he was just upset on Ginny's part...what else could it be?

The boys appreciated Ron's attempt at humour that time, while Lily dearly wanted to point out there was a time and place. That clearly wasn't helping Ginny.

Hermione also seemed at odds, now spending every waking moment she wasn't studying combing through the library, though when asked why she refused to answer.

"Any ideas?" Sirius asked.

"It might have something to do with looking up being paralyzed," Remus offered "that's something she might not have come across yet, which would annoy the little brainiac."

"You're starting to sound like Ron," James said, eyes gleaming with humour as he stared at his friend, "that was the most backwards compliment I've heard yet."

"What?" He shrugged, "brainiac isn't an insult. It's a compliment."

"Then I'd like to hear you say it to her face one of these days," Sirius cackled, causing Remus to go red in the face.

Harry was grinning at these three boys, simply enjoying watching them interact how they probably had during their own school days.

The narration returns to the story line by starting with Harry being held back in a Potions class by Snape forcing him to clean off all of the desks from the tubeworms that had been used that day.

"For what reason?" James snapped, good mood almost snipped away just by the mention of his name.

"His excuse was 'so you can learn another way tubeworms aren't used.'" He snorted in annoyance at him, "Apparently my potion was 'destroyed' because of the way I did it."

"Jerk," Sirius huffed.

Lily was dearly tempted to argue back, but she floundered for an actual reason Severus would have done this other than to just be a jerk. Harry was already reading on.

Harry was on his way up to the library to meet his friends, and spotted Justin at the end of the corridor. He started to wave at him, but when the Hufflepuff caught sight of Harry, he turned tail and ran back out of the corridor.

"Well that was rude," Remus said.

"I was going to say odd," James disagreed.

"What, did you still smell like tubeworms?" Sirius asked innocently.

"I don't think so," Harry muttered, wondering why he suddenly had a feeling of trepidation at Justin's name. Let alone that reaction to him.

Harry found his friends working on their homework, Ron trying to work in a few more inches of this three foot long essay about 'The Medieval Assembly of European Wizards.'

"Poor kid," Sirius said in sympathy.

"That's why I always made my writing as large as possible," James agreed.

He was grumbling that he was still missing a few inches, but Hermione had an extra foot on her's, and her handwriting was tiny!

All five of them snickered a bit at this. Unsurprising though, it was more than obvious Hermione was an overachiever.

Harry asked where she was, and Ron said she was still looking through books. He was convinced she was trying to read the whole of the library by Christmas.

"Well she's got a good start because of last year," Harry laughed, "we went through dozens of books looking for Flamel."

Harry then told Ron about his odd encounter with Justin, and Ron just snorted as he said he hadn't liked that kid anyways, especially because of the way he'd gone on about Lockhart.

"Can't argue with Ron there," James agreed.

"Well, Justin hadn't been to any of his classes at that point," Lily pointed out, "I'm sure by now the whole of the students know better."

"Like Hermione?" Remus disagreed.

Lily pursed her lips, but kept silent at that.

Hermione came over to them, clearly frustrated as she told them that all of the copies of Hogwarts, A history had been checked out.

"Doesn't she own a copy?" Sirius asked in surprise, remembering her random mentions of the book last year.

"Wait for it," Harry said, before continuing.

Then she bemoaned that she wished she could have brought her own copy, but it hadn't fit in with her Lockhart books.

"Yet another reason to hate that idiot," Sirius rolled his eyes.

"Well, there's our proof that Hermione doesn't actually have a photographic memory," James snickered, "I thought she had memorized that book."

"Does Hogwarts, a History even mention the Chamber of Secrets?" Remus asked.

"It only says that there are secrets that the founders created," Lily said, "some that may never be discovered. It was such a vague thing, I never put much stock into it."

Harry asked why she wanted it, and Hermione says for the same reason all the other copies had been checked out, to look up any information on the Chamber of Secrets.

"Well then, once the populace realizes Hogwarts, a History has no mention of it, Hermione should get her turn pretty quickly," James said.

Harry asked if she remembered anything, and Hermione huffed that nothing was coming to mind. Ron butted in by asking if he could borrow Hermione's essay, and Hermione snapped back that he had ten days, and he'd chosen now right before the class was to start? The two kept up the argument all the way to class.

"Don't need to hear that argument," Remus sighed in remembrance, "I've lived it."

James and Sirius didn't even looked abashed.

The class History of Magic was easily the worst subject in school. Taught by a teacher whose voice had the magical quality of putting his class to sleep, he spent the whole of the class reading monotone from his notes. Rumour had it that he'd simply fallen asleep in front of a fireplace one day, woken up as a ghost, and hadn't even taken notice of the fact.

"Did you guys start that rumour to?" Lily asked.

"Nah," James chuckled, "that was started long before we got there."

This class started out the same as any other, the students falling into their usual coma, but then to Harry's astonishment, Hermione put her hand up.

"Wonder if he'll even notice?" Sirius laughed, "he doesn't even look up."

"So even Hermione's never interrupted to ask a question," Remus asked.

"Nope," Harry shrugged.

"Then why did she this time?" Lily asked.

Harry gave her an odd look, and she blushed when she realized Harry didn't know any better than she did.

Binns cut himself off in the middle of talking about the International Warlock Convention of 1289,

"I'm impressed you even know what he's talking about," James gasped.

and tried to call on her, though clearly not knowing her name.

"Probably the only teacher ever who didn't know her name," Lily giggled.

Hermione told him her name, and then asked if he knew anything about the Chamber of Secrets.

All five of them looked startled. No one had ever interrupted Binns, let alone with a question like that. Eager to hear what this teacher had to say, even in his vacuum voice, Harry read.

The reaction this had on the class was instantaneous. They all jerked upright and actually looked around with interest. Binns was clearly not pleased at the interruption, telling how he taught History, not myths and rumours.

Lily huffed and said, "Well that's ridiculous. All facts have a start as myth or legend. Just because someone didn't write it down, doesn't make it not true."

"No wonder Binns is so boring," Remus rolled his eyes, "he's got a boring mind set."

He then turned right back to his notes, but Hermione raised her hand again. Looking like he was going to regret it, Binns began to call on her again, calling her Grant.

"She just said her name," James rolled his eyes.

Hermione pointed out that didn't legends come from fact?

Lily beamed with pride as she said, "Now there's someone I don't mind mimicking."

"It is still better then Professor Potter," Sirius agreed, while James through him a nasty look all over again.

Binns looked so stunned, that Harry started to wonder if any student before had ever even bothered to speak to him, dead or alive.

"Nope," James agreed, "as far as we know anyways."

Binns relented then, as he suddenly realized that his class was paying him full attention.

"That's sad," Remus sighed, "I'm sure if the student's showed more interest, this could be a good class. But for that to happen, the teacher would have to actually be interesting."

He began explaining that the Chamber of Secrets was an old rumour about how Salazar Slytherin had wished to keep the teaching of magic in wizard families only.

Sirius huffed in disgust. He'd heard this story before, his mother had given it to him the night before he went to Hogwarts, to showcase how legendary Salazar Slytherin had been.

Lily noticed and reproached him by pointing out, "to be fair, you have to see the timeline they were in. This was back when we were so feared and persecuted, we cut ourselves off from muggles for good. He was afraid for the young students."

"You do realize you just argued that students like you shouldn't have come," Remus pointed out.

Lily rolled her eyes at him and said, "I didn't say it was right, I'm just saying it won't kill him to see it from another perspective."

How he'd distrusted muggles and had created a chamber that none of the others founders knew about.

"Actually," Lily butted in, "all four of them supposedly did something special to the school. Slytherin's was just a bit more, ah, wrong."

"Yeah," James agreed with a straight face, "that's putting it nicely."

"Got any ideas what the other three are?" Remus asked, lips twitching, which was a clear indication he already knew the answer.

"Let's see if Harry comes across them on his own, like he did this one," Lily said quickly, tactfully avoiding the question, without giving away her answer.

Legend says that Slytherin had sealed up the Chamber of Secrets, and that only his true heir could reopen it and release the horror within.

"Well that doesn't sound very good," Lily said with surprise, never hearing that part of the story, not really thinking much when one of the boys mentioned the monster earlier.

Said creature would purge away all those who were unworthy to learn magic. The class remained in stunned silence after this little story, still eyeing their teacher and hoping for more. Binns looked annoyed.

"Really," Sirius laughed, "they're still hanging on your every word, and the only reactions we've heard about, is how annoyed he feels about it."

"Not a good method of teaching," Remus agreed.

Binns snapped that the whole thing was foolish of course. The school had been searched from top to bottom, and there was no evidence that any such thing existed.

"I don't know," James said, raising a brow, "just cause no one can find it doesn't make it not true."

Hermione asked if he could elaborate on what the horror within was? Binns said that it was supposedly a monster that only the Heir of Slytherin could control.

Remus' brows shot into his hairline, and he began to wonder on something...

Binns was clearly done now, finishing with how it was just a story, and that there was no Chamber.

Harry had to stop for a moment just so he didn't burst out snapping that was a lie. He huffed in annoyance to himself, clearly he knew something this teacher didn't, but he had no idea why! He didn't want to upset his family either though, so he waited until he found out more through the year.

Seamus Finnigan piped up with, if the Chamber could only be opened by Slytherin's heir, then no one could find it, right?

"That's what we finally decided," James agreed sadly, "which is why we had to eventually give up the search."

Binns cut back that this was nonsense, then he called him O'Flaherty.

"That wasn't even close," Sirius chuckled.

Then Parvati Patil pointed out you would need to use really Dark Magic to do this, and Binns cut her off by saying that just because one chose not to doesn't mean no one had used this method, calling her Pennyfeather.

"I swear, is he getting their names wrong on purpose now?" Lily rolled her eyes.

"Since this is most likely the first time he's ever actually addressed a class, I'm impressed he's even trying," James chuckled.

A few more students tried a few more tactics and questions, but Binns cut them off for good. Saying he regretted even speaking of the topic, and then returned to absolute fact.

"Snappy," Remus said in surprise, "now I regret never having tried anything like this in his class."

"And here I thought you were the good one," Lily rolled her eyes.

"Nah," Sirius laughed, "he was just the quiet one. Made him seem less likely to pull something, which gave us quite the advantage."

Within minutes, the class had sunk back into its usual torpor.

"That was probably the most interesting History of Magic class; ever!" James laughed.

When class was released, Ron jumped in at once of how he knew there was a reason he hated Slytherins, that all of the bull that purebloods were the best stemmed all the way back to the original guy.

Lily sighed in disappointment, there were times she had dearly wished she had been sorted into Slytherin. She hated it when someone else put the house down like that. She was also refraining from pointing out that Slytherin himself would have been thinking something like this back when Muggles couldn't be trusted not to burn a wizard at the stake, so his suspicions weren't even considered that wrong at the time.

It was a testament to how they had aged that none of the boys in the room commented on this, whether in agreement or not.

While Hermione agreed with Ron, Harry began to feel rather uneasy. Back during his own house sorting, the hat had seriously,

"Not as seriously as I could have," Sirius said loudly, hating to see how upset Harry was clearly starting to look at the reminder.

Harry gave him a brief smile, he clearly still found the joke funny even if everyone else in the room groaned.

considered putting him in Slytherin.

"I doubt they'd care," Sirius tried again, and chuckled, "since all of my friends on the train fully expected me to be in Slytherin before I even made it to the hat."

"You were a less likable jerk until you were in my house," James teased.

"I got sorted before you," Sirius reminded, "how did you know you weren't going to be in Slytherin?"

"Cause I know these things," James said, puffing out his chest.

Lily rolled her eyes indulgently at them.

Harry had pushed against that though, having already heard the rumours about all the dark things of that house.

"You know, I think Merlin was in Slytherin," Remus chuckled, "so even though, Harry, I know you don't need any more convincing. Your mom does that well enough, there you go. Best wizard

who ever existed, Slytherin House."

Lily beamed at him, while James and Sirius rolled their eyes, James saying, "Honestly Moony, how many times are you going to spout out facts like that?"

"I like them," Harry smiled, "that's definitely something I've never heard before."

"Well that settles it," Sirius grinned, "fact away Remus!"

Remus just rolled his eyes at the pair of them.

Walking down the hallways, Harry wasn't quite distracted enough not to hear Colin calling out a hello to him. Harry responded back on automatic, and Colin tried to keep talking by telling him that another student was calling Harry- but the smaller kid was being pushed away by the crowd and couldn't finish.

"You're what?" Lily asked in confusion.

"The heir of Slytherin probably," Harry said miserably as he thought back to the way Justin had reacted.

James snorted in disbelief saying, "Oh please. You're as much related to him as Ron is. All purebloods are distantly related, which means that anyone in that castle who has a drop of the Old

Blood could be suspect."

"Yeah," Harry muttered, his good mood from before gone in a flash at Colin's reminder, "but none of them are the famous Harry Potter, so the school won't even think about that."

"Well, that's why you ignore the school, and focus on your friends," Sirius said in a forced bright voice, having quite a bit of practice at this himself.

Hermione wondered what Colin had been about to say, and Harry mutters that the whole school probably thought he was the Heir of Slytherin, considering the way Justin Finch-Fletchley had acted around him earlier. Ron was not pleased, saying that people at school would believe even the most ridiculous of things. Then Ron asked Hermione if she thought there could be a Chamber? Hermione admitted that it was definitely something bad that had happened to Mrs. Norris if Dumbledore hadn't just been able to fix her.

All five of them nodded, in full agreement with Hermione's logic.

They reached the exact spot where they'd found the cat again, and Harry suggested the have a look around for clues.

Lily sighed miserably. It didn't seem too dangerous, since Filch had been hanging around there and nothing had happened to him yet, but, "why on earth did you feel the need to poke around!"

"Come off it," James snorted, "for the same reason they were determined to find Flamel last year. They're curious. Can't knock that, until it gets dangerous."

Harry smiled at his dad, while his mom rolled her eyes again.

Harry first noticed some scorch marks across the floor,

"What's the significance of scorch marks?" Sirius asked, "that could have been caused by any student, at any time, before or after the attack! Do you know how many times a day someone set

something on fire in that castle!"

"I'm sure you know," Lily chuckled.

"It was just something to do with the scene," Harry shrugged.

Hermione however noticed over a dozen spiders climbing up the wall in single file, all headed for a small crack in the wall to let them outside.

Remus went cross-eyed at yet another clue. He crossed a few more things off his list of what he thought this 'monster' might be.

Hermione voiced how odd this was, since spiders weren't known for acting like this. She looked around to see what Ron had to say about this, and found him going quite pale and looking like he was fighting the impulse to make a run for it.

"Wow, Ron doesn't like spiders," James said in surprise.

"Must make potions for him really difficult," Lily said.

Harry asked what his problem was, and Ron admitted how he didn't like spiders. He didn't mind them dead of course,

"Oh," Lily said, shrugging.

"Well then, here's hoping Ron never goes too deep into the forest," Sirius said, "or he'll be in for a nasty surprise."

Harry blanched slightly, that felt ominous to him. The others noticed, and didn't like that reaction one bit. However, when Harry didn't offer up the information, no one decided to pressure him about it.

it was the way they moved that really bothered him. Hermione giggled at hearing this.

"Aw," Remus said sadly, "that's not something that's funny."

Lily shrugged, she'd had the urge to giggle herself, but she'd held it back.

Ron snapped at her that it wasn't funny! When he was three his older brother Fred and turned Ron's toy into a real live spider.

"Ouch," James winced, "yeah, that would give anyone arachnophobia."

"Poor kid," Sirius said again in sympathy, "I once set Regulus' stuffed dragon on fire. Appreciated the irony when I grew up anyways."

"Once when I was little," Lily said darkly, "Petunia got a new dress for her birthday. I was jealous because I wanted one too, but my mom told me I had to wait for my own birthday. The dress

changed to this ugly color, and it smelled something awful which never came out. Of course, I don't regret that anymore..." she trailed off miserably, suddenly wondering if her sister's hatred of magic wasn't so unfounded with a few more of these instances coming to mind.

"Ah sibling love," Remus said weakly before waving Harry on.

He stopped there with a shudder of horrored remembrance. Hermione still looked like she was trying to stop herself from laughing, but Harry changed the subject by pointing out that there had been water on the floor that night, and where that could have come from? Ron pointed to a nearby door and was more than happy to go towards it, until he saw it was a girls' bathroom.

"Oh wow, that explains it," Lily said in surprise.

"What?" The boys all asked.

"That's Moaning Myrtle's bathroom."

"Huh?" Harry muttered, wondering why this felt significant to him.

The others boys just laughed, Sirius saying, "well, guess she still enjoys flooding her bathroom then?"

Hermione just laughed at him again and said it was okay they go in, since that was Moaning Myrtle's toilet. She pushed the door open and the two boys followed her in.

"You mean you went in?" Remus asked in surprise.

"Geez, even we never bothered to go in a girl's bathroom," James chuckled.

"Then how did you know about Myrtle?" Lily asked, "I thought she never left her toilet."

"She was at Nick's deathday party," Remus pointed out.

"That was a special occasion," Lily disagreed.

Before they could keep arguing like this, Sirius answered her question, "Myrtle hangs around in a lot of the bathrooms. Found her snooping on a guy's bathroom once, and we got to talking."

Lily and Harry both went bug eyed at this realization, Harry sputtering, "which one!"

While Lily said, "She did what?"

"Oh yeah," James nodded, "she did it all the time apparently."

"That's disgusting," Lily balked.

Harry dearly looked like he regretted ever using the bathroom at school ever, then wondered why he wasn't more shocked by this bit of information? Had he ever run into Myrtle in another

bathroom? Shrugging, he decided to keep reading, knowing it was no good complaining about a ghost's creepy habits.

Harry found the place quite depressing. Most of the surroundings were broken and the dim lighting made the shadows ominous.

"Creepy," James muttered.

"Geez, no one keeps that place kept up," Sirius laughed.

"Well, since no one ever goes in there, I guess no one bothers," Lily shrugged.

"Plus, seeing as Myrtle did die in that bathroom, I imagine not many people want to go in there. It's the principle," Remus shrugged.

Harry looked at Remus oddly, wondering why on earth that felt important to him...

"How did you know she died in there?" Lily asked skeptically.

"She told us she died in the bathroom she stays in," Sirius shrugged, "so what?"

Lily found that slightly disturbing, but Harry was beginning to feel sick again. Something about what they were saying felt really important to him, and his mind was already starting to swell with information it wanted to give him. So he instead decided to keep reading, rather than let that happen.

Myrtle made her appearance then, appearing out of a toilet and asking what Harry and Ron were doing there, as they weren't girls.

Sirius gave a slow, sarcastic clap at this brilliant deduction, until Remus smacked him to get him to stop.

Hermione said she had wanted to show them how nice this place was, while pointing to the cracked and dusty mirrors.

"Good show," Lily snickered.

Harry quietly whispered to Hermione to ask Myrtle if she'd seen anything,

"Not a good idea," Remus said at once, "if you don't say anything to her out loud, she'll get all paranoid on you."

Smiling slightly, Harry read.

but this upset Myrtle at once, insisting Harry was now talking about her. Hermione tried to cut in and sooth her, but Myrtle wouldn't hear it, whining about how people just kept coming around and torturing her even in death.

James opened his mouth like he was going to make a sarcastic comment about that, but Lily reached behind Harry and smacked him before he could.

She was ghost sobbing now as she said how she'd tried to kill herself again, but then of course she was... she'd stuttered off and Ron helpfully supplied that she was already dead.

"Well he wasn't wrong," James said quickly, cringing when Lily looked like she was going to smack him again. The girl was dead, no need for these boys to be poking fun at her, even if Myrtle thought they were doing it anyways.

Myrtle wailed at the top of her lungs and dive bombed back into her toilet, causing the water to splash out and create an even larger puddle on the floor. Hermione admitted this was standard when talking to this ghost, and so they turned to leave again. Just as the door began closing behind them, someone shouted Ron's name.

"Dang, who would yell at Ron like that?" Sirius asked, having jumped slightly at Harry's yelling.

It was Percy,

"Ah," Remus acknowledged, "of course it would be his older brother."

who was storming towards them in a rage, demanding to know why his brother was hanging around a girl's toilet. Ron tried to explain they were looking around for clues, but this only angered his brother further. He began shouting at them, and Harry was distinctly reminded of Mrs. Weasley.

"Probably where he got it from," James agreed.

He began shooing them away, hissing that this looked quite awful in appearance, these three coming back around here while everyone else was at dinner again.

"He's got a point," Lily grimaced, not having thought of that.

"He's just being paranoid," Remus disagreed, "I'm sure loads of students have done the same thing. It was just their misfortune to get caught."

Reminding Ron that Ginny was upset enough about this instance, and Ron snapped that Percy didn't care about Ginny,

"That's not fair," Lily said hotly, "I'm sure he cares about his baby sister as much as Ron does."

"Ron's just angry," James pacified, "lashing out and all. I'm sure Ron doesn't really mean it."

he only cared how this reflected back on Percy. Percy lost his temper and took away five points from Gryffindor, snapping that if he caught them around here again he'd write a letter to their mother.

"Worst thing you could threaten a sibling with," Sirius laughed.

Then he stormed off, and Harry saw the back of his neck was as red as Ron's ears.

"Must be a Weasley thing," Remus chuckled.

That night as they were working on their homework, Hermione suddenly closed her books and leaned over to whisper who could be doing this.

"She'd probably been thinking about it while doing her Charm's work," Lily said.

"You're saying she doesn't even need to concentrate on the homework, and she's still top in her class?" James asked.

Lily shrugged, knowing first hand she could both do Charm's work and think of something else.

Who would want to frighten away muggleborns? Ron sarcastically returned who on earth in the school would want that. Hermione caught the tone and began to say if he was thinking of Malfoy, and Ron cut her off saying of course that's who he meant.

"Don't blame him at all," Remus shrugged.

His first words had been to say they would all be next, and insulting them again with the word mudblood. Hermione still seemed skeptical that Malfoy could be the Heir of Slytherin,

"That's what she's skeptical about?" Sirius laughed.

but Harry reminded that all of the Malfoys had been in Slytherin for generations. It wasn't that hard to believe they traced their ancestry that far back. Ron agreed that the key to the Chamber could have been passed on for years.

"No," James sighed, "otherwise this would be a more frequent thing. Yet there's never been a petrified cat before."

Hermione agreed this could be a possibility, and Harry asked how could they prove it?

Hermione pointed out that she knew a way, but it would be very dangerous.

"What is she planning," Lily asked in disbelief.

"Something that sounds like a load of fun," Sirius grinned.

Ron snapped to get on with it, and Hermione admitted that she was thinking if they could disguise themselves as Slytherins and get Malfoy talking, without realizing it was them he was talking to.

The three boys looked puzzled for a moment, before James said, "I give the idea merits, but not that scenario in particular. A small dose of truth serum, or he's just dumb enough you might could trick the information you think you need out of him..."

"I still don't get how she plans on doing what she said," Lily said in surprise. A few ideas came to her own mind, but they were seventh year levels. After all, they didn't teach wizards how to disguise their appearances lightly.

Harry said that was impossible, and Hermione said not with a bit of Polyjuice Potion.

Harry brightened as he finally remembered what had been bothering him this whole conversation, then blinked in shock when his mom burst out laughing.

"Why's that funny?" Sirius asked, "She's not wrong."

"No," Lily chuckled, "but it is ridiculous. That's a sixth year potion! She's a second year! Hermione's advanced, I'll not deny that, but to be able to pull something like that off! No, I'm

sorry, it's just funny..." and she trailed off weakly at the look on Harry's face.

The other boys gave Harry looks of disbelief as well, as Remus asked, "It is ridiculous, right?"

"Hum," he muttered, thinking for a few moments before shrugging and saying, "I wouldn't put it past her."

Lily still didn't look convinced, while the other boys were privately thinking that if Hermione could pull this off, she shouldn't even be in school! She could probably pass an exam and get herself out already!

Harry finally asked, "well, what does it do?"

"It's a potion that can change your physical appearance to match someone else's exactly for an hour," Lily promptly explained.

Harry nodded, now knowing this must have been exactly what they did, since this information didn't feel new to him at all.

Harry asked what that was, and Hermione said that Snape had just mentioned it in their last Potions class. Ron pointed out that they had far better things to be doing in Snape's classes then listening to him.

Sirius and James cracked grins at each other, that was a very memorable sentence to their feelings about Potions as well.

Hermione ignored the jab and explained what the potion could do, pointing out that Malfoy would have no problem boasting anything they wanted to them.

"Anything is stretching it," Remus said, "I doubt, even if he was the one doing this, he'd be boasting about it. Then another student could go and report him."

"I doubt the reporting part," Sirius disagreed, "without proof, no student would go and rat out another student like that."

Saying he was probably doing that right now in his common room.

"Whelp, Hermione disagrees with you Remus," James said cheerfully, "so now Sirius and I need to have a debate about which of you we think is smarter."

Remus looked like he was fixing to make a very sarcastic comment back, but Harry interrupted, "While I'd like to hear that, can I finish this chapter? It's only got a bit left."

Lily snickered as Harry easily broke up a squabble between these three with ease. They all backed down at once so he could keep going.

Hermione said that the only problem they had was getting a hold of the recipe. Snape had mentioned that it was held in a book called Most Potent Potions, which was most likely in the Restricted Section.

"Why would he tell them the book it was in?" James asked, "If they're only second years, why was he mentioning it at all?"

"Don't know," Harry shrugged, "we weren't paying attention remember, and I never asked."

The problem was, students could only get books out of there with signed permission from a teacher, and Ron pointed out that they didn't have a good reason for getting the book if they weren't planning on making one of those potions from said book.

"Just tell McGonagall you want to look into some advanced work," James said, smiling back at an old memory, "then copy the book. Worked for us all the time."

Lily dearly wanted to ask when and why they needed a book out of the restricted section, but she was honestly afraid of the answer.

Hermione voiced that if they said they just wanted to look through it for some theories,

"This being a Potion's book, I don't see that working as well as a Transfiguration book," Remus disagreed with both Hermione and his friend.

"Well, doesn't hurt to try," James shrugged, then laughed and said, "It's better than Harry's idea of sneaking in anyways. Don't want any more screaming books now."

"Agreed," Harry muttered, rubbing his ears in remembered pain.

and Ron laughed, saying that no teacher would fall for that! They'd have to be really thick...

"Chapter's over," Harry said, passing the book to Remus.

#Harry Potter #Remus Lupin #James Potter #Sirius Black #Lily Potter #Reading the books #fanfiction

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