Breaking Isolation
January 5th 2023
Harry walked up to the Slytherins who were gathered in the library. He walked straight up to Theodore Nott “Hey Nott, any chance your good at sewing? I need to be taught and i figured if you knew you could show me a thing or two.”
“No, unfortunately for you my skills tend to be mostly theoretical or art based.” Nott didn’t deign to raise his head from his book.
“Cool, cool any of the rest of y’all ever do it or should i go looking for Hufflepuffs next, they seem like a group that would have a bunch of random but good skills.”
Parkinson deigned to raise her head at that. “I’ve learned a few things while being fitted for clothes and helping choose outfits for others.” She raised an eyebrow.
“Sweet, are you willing to do me this favor then? I’d owe you one back, or I could pay you but I figure the favor would be more appreciated. Especially from someone who can get in and out of places virtually undetectable” Harry smiled passively and winked as if not making only his second positive interaction with slytherin students.
Pansy’s mask broke for a moment as she grinned at him. “How slytherin of you potter, i would have never expected it. Yeah i’ll take the favor especially if you can be undetectable as you said.”
“Hell yeah. All right do you have like large amounts of free time or a specific schedule or would now work cause i brought the sewing kit with me and well my blood is always in my veins but i’m not using that yet.”
The other’s at the table looked up at that last comment almost as if trying to figure out his deal. “You know what potter your not so bad i don’t know what dray is alway talking about, call me pansy.” She held her hand out to him.
He smiled and shook her hand, “call me Harry then as all my friends do. Seriously though about that sewing, i tried on my own and almost sewed my fingers together instead of the thread and cloth.”
Nott snorted from his place with his book. “And how did you manage that?”
“I was thinking of the runes I was trying to sew in and figured it’d be easy because i’d managed to fix things with sewing in the past. Turns out that was more my magic than me because I'm arse at making the designs themselves.”
“Well heres the secret Harry, you use magic to do it because it’s much easier than working with your hands, we are wixen. If you want to sew patterns or runes as you said; The embroidering charm Ornatus would work perfectly well.” Pansy grinned at his disbelieving look. Harry sat down at the table and proceeded to hit his head against the table three times.
“I can be such an idiot. I literally grew my hair like 15 inches with one spell but i somehow can’t remember that when sewing.” He groaned and slumped his head down. And then pulled a shirt out of his bag and a black thread and a seemingly brown thread.
“Pansy you said the spell Incantation was Ornatus right?” At her nod, he spoke the spell calmly while imagining the rune sequence ‘Fehu - Kenaz - Jera - Isa - Jera - Kenaz - Fehu’ going around the collar of the shirt, using the brown ish thread, it appeared only in the collar and glowed for a moment before dulling. (ᚠ - ᚲ-ᛃ-ᛁ-ᛃ- ᚲ - ᚠ)
“You got that spell down quickly, does it normally take so little effort for you?” Pansy seemed a little baffled at him getting it down with only trying it once.
“Not really no, but i’ve basically stained my skin with the Mannaz rune at this point so i learn much more quickly than i used to and i had already been good at retaining information. Well better after I invented that healing potion really. It’s pretty great that i don’t need my glasses anymore.” He shrugged nonchalantly.
“Beg my pardon, you made what?”Pansy was looking at him wide eyed.
“I made a healing elixir to fix my vision, the only reason my glasses are even touching my body right now is to stop my hair from falling in my face.”
“You know i didn’t notice that till now but you do look different. Its usually draco whose obsessing over you, not the rest of us.” Pansy snorted inelegantly.
“He’s obsessed with me? Do you think he’d recognize me if I dressed up as a slytherin for a day and just followed you around?”
“Pott- Harry! That sounds brilliant.” Pansy looked gleeful at the idea of it.
“Give me like half an hour, i’m going to charm my hair a bit with some color changing charms so some of the strands of my hair match my eyes.”
With His hair held back into a high ponytail with one large strand of red and one large strand of green and his scar more faded than ever before, harry walked (speed walked) back to the library In a black top, Black Jogging pants, and a robes that have the sleeves resting around his elbow on one side constantly.
Harry somewhat snuck up on Pansy, “Alright do i pass as slytherin enough or should i charm a tie too? I kinda look like a fancy slut in my own opinion but that kinda seems like the pureblood style.”
“You’ll do fine without the tie, but not before you tell us what you mean by ‘fancy slut’ when you refer to us.” Pansy seemed in between the idea of physical violence and cursing him.
“Well by fancy slut, i mean most of the slytherins constantly look fancy but also good. Their clothes tend to bring out the best of their features when they were them.” Harry smiled nervously. “Okay so i’m pretty sure i’m not allowed in the slytherin common room, so i was thinking-”
“Thats a bad sign” Pansy cut in without a second thought.
He sent her a playful glare, “so i was thinking while we pretend i’m a slytherin, during times were were alone we can practice spells i learned in my like 3 week long book binge.”
“Like what?” She seemed more happy at the thought of learning
“Well i’m not teaching you anything violent, yet, but theres a scrying spell in there, and well lets find the fucking chamber of secrets.”
“You know.. For moment i thought we might have found some slytherin self-preservation and cunning in you ‘aw thats sweet’ we were wrong. You want to go into a chamber with a basilisk?” She looked at him incredulously, and sent a stinging hex at him.
“That was just mean” He pouted at her.
“You are like an overactive child” She raised an eyebrow at him.
“I know but you don’t have to be mean about it” He mock glared again.
“Oh please we both know that you enjoy being mean as much as i do” She rolled her eyes.
He stayed silent at that and she grinned triumphantly. “So you said you have a scrying spell to practice?”
“Oh right, so the one i’m planning to use is a modified version of the point me spell, but because i’m looking for a place aka the entrance to the chamber. I didn’t want it to take too long. So i stole filch’s map then copied it and gave him the original back.”
“Thats devious. But also brilliant.”
“Right so the spell i’m using will allow me to use an object as a sort of pin point to where the entrance is on the map. Do you have any kind of crystal necklace on you?”
Pansy thought for a moment before removing an amulet with the parkinson crest on it. “Here be careful with it.” Harry nodded and wrapped the chain around his wand. He slowly began swinging it in a circle over the map. “Indico Locus, the entrance to the chamber of secrets” he hissed the last part of the sentence to give it a stronger connection to the magic likely surrounding the area.
The amulet stopped its swinging motion halfway through a circle and plomped down straight into what appeared to be a bathroom.
“Are you familiar with that bathroom?” He asked, it seemed familiar but he hadn’t ever entered.
“Yeah, 2nd floor girls bathroom is moaning myrtles bathroom..” “whose?” “ oh she’s this ghost of a girl who died in the 40’s.. Yeah that would’ve helped people figure it out.”
“Should we invite Nott to come along if we go in or do you think he would be against it?”
The sound of someone clearing their throat is what notifies them to the presence of one hermione granger. “I think, if your going to do something reckless like going into the chamber you should bring at least two others and food for the creature down there”
“Right snacks for a snake, so fresh raw meat?” Harry looked puzzled at his own question, then nodded and started walking off towards the kitchen without another word. Leaving the map amulet and his own wand on the ground next to Pansy And Hermione.
With pansy, hermione and nott, in tow he floated a bucket of raw meat alongside him and new knowledge of summoning spells for rats that he could enlarge.
He walked into the bathroom, looked around and just started hissing “Open up Bitch” all over the place. Eventually he got to the sink and it opened, with little to No hesitation he jumped in.
Ignoring the distinct shouts of “HARRY!” and “POTTER!” from above, he landed with a roll and a grimace. He cast several Scourgify spells on himself and the area, the magic washing away the dirt and grime. After a quick flick of his wand, he shouted, “Vide Lumen!” Instantly, his night vision kicked in, revealing the dimly lit chamber around him. “IT’S SAFE TO JUMP NOW! I CLEANED UP THE DIRT AND BONES!”
A minute later, three teenagers landed on the softened ground. Nott ran up to him, pointing an accusing finger into Harry’s chest. “Harry James Potter, you are a fucking idiot! We thought you were dead!!”
Harry shrugged, a smirk playing on his lips. “At least it would’ve been hard to find the body.”
Nott scowled, his frustration palpable. “That’s not the point!”
“I had a healing elixir just in case I broke some legs; anyway, I would’ve been fine. The most I did was temporarily dislocate my shoulder.”
--
“You see, Granger, this is exactly why I said we need to beat some self-preservation into him,” Pansy whispered, glancing over at Harry as Theodore launched into a lecture about taking care of himself.
Hermione raised an eyebrow. “You mean jumping into deadly situations with no concern for himself?”
Pansy nodded, her tone dripping with exasperation. “He jumped down a pipe and dislocated his shoulder. That’s exactly what I meant. I’ve known him as a friend for three hours, and I already know he needs better self-preservation instincts!”
Hermione couldn’t help but smirk. “Yeah, his ability to get into trouble is uncanny. I would have said he was cursed before, but he seems better now.”
Pansy crossed her arms, looking at Harry and Theo with a skeptical frown. “This is better?”
--
In Harry's (im)professional opinion, Nott was incredibly hot when yelling at him. His normally quiet, snarky demeanor had transformed, and the fire in his eyes made Harry want to stare, not listen. Thankfully, hanging around Hermione had given him the useful skill of tuning out lectures while daydreaming.
Focus on the important stuff, he reminded himself, gaze drifting to Nott’s lips mid-rant. And then, in a move that even Harry didn’t quite understand, he stepped forward and booped Nott on the nose, grinning as he watched the boy freeze mid-sentence.
“Wha—? Potter—what the hell—”
Without waiting for a reaction, Harry took off running toward the entrance of the basilisk’s chamber, laughing when he heard Nott’s footsteps chasing after him.
“Potter! You absolute—!”
Harry could hear Nott stumbling behind him, probably cursing him in at least three languages. He pressed his hand to the wall and hissed, “OPEN QUICKLY.” Then, raising his wand, he whispered, “Sonorous.” “I BRING LOTS OF FRESH MEAT, QUEEN SNAKE! PLEASE DON’T KILL ME OR MY FRIENDS IF YOU’RE IN THERE!”
The sound of stone grinding echoed through the chamber. From the shadows, the basilisk emerged, but instead of terrifying yellow eyes, they shimmered a faint, rosy pink.
“Another speaker?” the snake hissed. “I thought Tom was the only one left.”
Harry glanced at Nott, whose face was a mix of disbelief and horror, and shrugged. “No idea who Tom is, but I brought friends in case I die. I also learned a rat-summoning charm.”
“You, new speaker are officially my favorite since ssalzar.”
“Do you want me to enlarge the food to the size of a small building so you can eat?”
“Yess” Harry scourgify’d the floor several times before determining it enough and enlarging the meat in the bucket.
“Potter i finally caught up to you… Is that the basilisk you were talking about with angela?”
“Yes it is, she seems very friendly and apparently i’m her favorite speaker.”
“Uhuh… and that means?”
“I don’t know but from what i can tell some tom dude is the heir.”
“Hey queen snake, my names Harry what’s yours?”
“My name is Achlys, i believe sal named me after the goddess of death and poison.”
“Cool, cool, can you stop listening to tom? Or like at least following his orders? I understand if you need some fresh air and decide to hunt down some spiders for snacks but please avoid killing and petrifying more students.”
“I must apologize but did you say i’ve been harming students? Tom told me i was getting intruders.”
“Yeah no he lied to your face, he was having you attack students then and now.”
“Thank you for telling me that Harry. I shall go rest, enjoy the chamber”
He turned to Nott who appeared a combination of flustered appalled and curious. “So Achlys is all good she was being lied to so we’re safe to hang out down here.”
Harry pulled out his wand and yelled, “Lumos Maxima!” The orb of light burst forth, illuminating the ancient stone walls of the chamber in a warm glow, chasing away the oppressive shadows that clung to every corner. Hermione and Pansy quickly moved toward the light, relief evident on their faces.
He muttered, “Lumen Stasis,” and the light flashed once in confirmation, hovering like a miniature sun in the middle of the chamber.
Waving his wand, he declared, “Purgare Osseus!” A bright flash erupted as the remnants vanished, leaving the floor clean. Then he added a quick “Scourgify Maxima,” banishing the dirt with ease.
Turning to Nott, Harry smiled sheepishly. “I forgot to say it earlier, but I want you to call me Harry. You’re a friend now, too.” The words felt strange yet comforting, a promise he hadn’t known he needed to make.
Nott looked surprised for a moment, his expression softening before a genuine smile broke through. “Theo then,” he said, his voice lighter. “It’s what Blaise and Pansy refer to me as because it’s apparently easier than just Theodore.”
Harry grinned and tackled the other boy in a hug, he giggled as the fell on the now squeaky clean ground.