Chapter 7
“So, Ron couldn’t try the spell with me. Snape, because he hates me and wanted to make his godson who’d probably been learning magic from birth because he grew up with magical parents happy, chose Draco Malfoy to replace him in showing off. Malfoy got Snape’s advice and already knew what was happening; I got no one and no knowledge. We’d been forced into an impromptu duel, though Lockhart repeated that it was supposed to be just practicing disarming our opponent a few times. Malfoy wasn’t going to follow that. I could tell by the look in his eyes, so I tried to remember everything that I’d learned that might help me fight someone.
“Of course, Malfoy started off by cheating. He threw his spell on two instead of after three like he should have, so I went flying head over heels. I managed to get him back, but Malfoy cast ‘Serpensortia’, throwing an attack snake right at my face. If Lockhart was any kind of teacher or dueller, he should have stopped our ‘duel’ when Malfoy cheated, but he didn’t. Snape hates me enough, now and then, that he didn’t care that his godson was cheating or that the snake or a rogue spell could actually have hurt someone, so he didn’t stop us either. The poor snake was obviously a bit confused, but it was coming straight at me so I wasn’t worried. Everything would have been fine, or at least wouldn’t have caused nearly as many problems if Lockhart hadn’t chosen that exact moment to attack the snake. I guess it seemed like an easy enough target, but he only made it mad by flinging it really high. When it came back down, it was more confused, angry, and hurt enough to immediately try lashing out. Unfortunately, it came down facing towards one of the crowd members I’d been talking to before, so I asked the snake to back off.
“Snape killed the poor thing before it could do anything else. I guess it looked like I was telling it to attack to everyone else, but I was really confused. I didn’t realize I’d been speaking another language, because Parseltongue sounds like English to me. To make things worse, the student it tried to attack was a Muggleborn who’d told me he was a Muggleborn right before Lockhart actually started doing things. The Heir of Slytherin and its monster were supposed to clear out the school from anyone Slytherin apparently wouldn’t have liked, meaning anyone not a pureblood. The school knew I was a Parseltongue, and it looked like I’d sent a snake after Justin. The whispers only got worse when Justin got petrified by the basilisk, though no one knew what was petrifying people until Hermione figured it out.” Harry paused to gauge Steve’s reaction.
“You know Parseltongue is a highly celebrated gift in America and pretty much everywhere else in the world, especially in India, right?” Steve asked. “Plus, Slytherin didn’t hate non-purebloods the way that America’s magical society doesn’t hate magicals born from no-maj parents. He, like American magical society, was scared of what the no-majs could and would do to any magical people they found. From what I understand, the Salem Witch Trials were a state of mind for everyone other than a few when Hogwarts was founded. I think Slytherin wanted people to be a little more careful when they could potentially reveal our existence to the no-majs. Do you guys not learn any magical history or things like this?”
“Our current teacher is a ghost that’s been teaching the Goblin Wars for the entire time I’ve been there,” Harry replied, shocked by the new information Steve was just giving him and that most of it actually made sense.
“I get to teach you magical history? That’s awesome!” Steve exclaimed, both actually happy for the chance and acting happy so that Harry wouldn’t feel like a burden. He tried to cut off Harry’s protests before he could voice them. “I love history, and I really do want to teach you, or I wouldn’t offer.”
Harry opened his mouth, then shut it. “You’re sure?”
“Positive! Besides, I don’t think the tests will just be on Goblin Wars, so it might be nice to have someone help teach you, if you want.”
“If you’re completely sure you don’t mind.”
“I really, really don’t. I want to do this, Harry,” Steve said, as seriously as he could. This was one thing that Steve could do to help Harry, one thing to help provide the education Harry was clearly not getting.
“Okay. Anyway, some crazy things happened. The school was in danger of closing down because the last time the Chamber was open and things like this were happening, a girl named Myrtle Warren died. She actually stuck around in the place where she died, the second floor girl’s bathroom, and is known as Moaning Myrtle because she cries a lot. Ron and I - Hermione had been petrified - were with Hagrid when the Minister and his people came to arrest Hagrid, and he very helpfully said that if someone wanted to know what was happening, they should follow the spiders. Both of us trusted Hagrid enough to try that, plus I was desperate to find out what was happening because I didn’t want to return to the Dursleys. So we followed the spiders into the Forbidden Forest and right into a nest of acromantulas.”
“Please no,” Steve whispered.
“That’s how we felt. Aragog, the leader and father of the nest, liked Hagrid because Hagrid saved his life and had been raising him the first time the Chamber opened, which is why Hagrid got arrested for opening it again. The first time, Tom Riddle framed him and got him expelled with his wand snapped; the second time, Hagrid went to Azkaban for Tom’s crime. Aragog liked Hagrid, but he didn’t care that we were Hagrid’s friends. He said something like not turning down free meals that presented themselves and that his children were always hungry. Actually, I’m pretty sure Aragog and his kids are the main reason the Forbidden Forest is banned to kids, other than the centaurs, and Hagrid put them there. I don’t think they would have been there otherwise. I keep getting off track, sorry.
“Luckily, Ron’s dad’s flying car, the Ford Angela that had gone wild, came and saved us from the huge spiders. It promptly threw us out of it when we were safe and went back into the forest, but we were too busy being relieved we were alive to care. With no other clues to go on, Ron and I started spending most of our time with the petrified Hermione, wishing she was there because she’s always been the brain behind our adventures. Eventually, I realized that there was something in her hand, and I pulled it out to find a book page about basilisks. All the clues fit - spiders flee from basilisks, and whoever was releasing the basilisk had been killing roosters. I could hear it too, and since it was a giant snake, that made sense. The only thing we didn’t know was how it was traveling around the castle, and Hermione had solved that too. She’d written ‘pipes’ in the margin of the page.
“We knew what was hurting people. I figured I could try talking to whoever the Heir actually was - my only guess had been Malfoy, and we brewed Polyjuice Potion and found out it wasn’t him earlier in the year - or just talk to the snake to put a stop to the madness. If things had stopped there, everything would have gone fine-ish, but we found a message written in rooster blood again saying ‘Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever.’ The teachers knew who’d been taken but not what the monster was, and they were debating how to break it to us when we found them under the invisibility cloak. Ron’s sister Ginny was the one who’d been taken. Tom Riddle’s spirit had finally gained enough control over her to draw her into the Chamber permanently, and he was too impatient after his failures to kill people to wait any longer to try taking over Ginny and become a real person again. We were the only ones who could save her.”
“Hang on,” Steve said. Out of the several problematic things he was discovering about Harry’s time at Hogwarts, there were two he wanted to address: the teachers not knowing, and Harry feeling like only he could help his friend’s sister. “No one else figured out what the monster was? From what you’ve told me about Hermione, it’s wildly out of character for her to hurt a book, but no one checked up on that and realized that what she’d found fit perfectly with everything happening? Not to mention that most people take Care of Magical Creatures, though maybe basilisks aren’t covered. Even if they aren’t Albus Dumbledore, your Headmaster, was renowned for his genius and researching skills even in my time, so if no one but a twelve-year-old girl was able to figure it out, which I doubt, he knew what it was. If he was there the first time the Chamber opened, there is no way he wouldn’t have researched to figure out what caused the death of a student just in case similar things started happening again. Also, it never should have been your responsibility to save Ginny from the basilisk and Tom Riddle. That’s what the teachers are for.”
“That’s what the teachers are supposed to be for, but a teacher almost killed me my first year, and all of the teachers had Lockhart pinned as going to take care of the basilisk, probably because he said he knew what was in the Chamber and where to find it.” Harry didn’t say anything about Dumbledore and that he might have known what was happening, but Steve could tell he was at least thinking about it. “Ron and I, still under the invisibility cloak, followed Lockhart back to his office to offer our help. See, we figured that the teachers should deal with the problem too, and that Lockhart couldn’t be entirely useless if Dumbledore gave him the job. When we got there, Lockhart was packing up, ready to flee and leave Ginny for dead. We confronted him, and he threatened us. We managed to disarm him before he could obliviate us like he threatened to, and we took him with us to the Chamber. I guess we were angry that he’d given up on Ginny and how useless he was, plus we didn’t know how to stun people back then.
“We found the entrance to the Chamber in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. A little snake was carved into one of the taps, and I managed to switch to Parseltongue and tell it to open. The entire thing sank into the floor, leaving this huge dark hole. Lockhart tried to back out and leave again, saying something about leaving the two of us - we were twelve and he a published Defense author! - to handle it ourselves. So, naturally, we pushed him down the hole first to test if we’d die if we went down there. He survived, so we jumped down there too. It was gross. The floor had a whole bunch of animal bones all over it, and it was slimy and stunk. We prodded Lockhart to lead the way for a bit, but he eventually did manage to rebel and grabbed Ron’s wand from him. He told us how he would come out the tragic hero here, unable to save Ginny, and the trauma of what had happened had caused both of us to lose our memories. Apparently, he was a bad wizard with everything by memory charms, which is how he’d managed to get so famous. He found the people who’d actually done the things his books were about, interrogated them for the stories, and then erased their memories so he could take their credit. He tried to permanently erase our memories then, but Ron’s wand was broken. The spell backfired, caused a cave-in, and erased Lockhart’s memory instead. So, that’s who Gilderoy Lockhart is, or was, how he lost his memory, and why he deserves to die by dementor.”
“Do you think we could convince whoever sent a dementor after you to try restoring his memory via dementor?” Steve asked.
Harry snorted. “I wish. Besides, it’s my turn to ask you a question now. What’s your best guess on how you got stuck in bird form?”
“My best guess is that magic gave me my form. There are a few accounts of things like that happening in history books, so I think that’s what happened for me. Of course, it could be something from my dad’s side of the family that magic unlocked in me. I was too sick in my memories to survive something like turning into a hawk or ever be able to fly, and I don’t know who my dad is anyway. I don’t think I’ll ever find out, not unless I take a heritage test or something. So yeah, one way or another, magic gave me my hawk form. That’s why I was able to physically hurt the dementor like I did, I think. You can’t usually just punch a dementor and hurt for the best.”
“I did though, and it went away for a bit before it came back angrier. I just figured people didn’t try to punch them because it just made them mad.”
“Was your wand in your hand when you punched it?”
“Yes?” Harry answered, now sure what that had to do with anything. “Why?”
“That’s why the dementor was affected then. It was your raw magic that essentially punched it, not your fist or anything. Magic gave me my hawk form as far as I can figure, so my magic is a little more raw and available in that form than most peoples’. Plus, I’d just used my magic the most I had to that point transforming back into a more human shape.”
“That kind of makes sense, but I think that’s gonna hurt my head if I try to think about it too hard,” Harry said.
Steve laughed. “That’s how I feel about it too. I think it’s my turn to ask a question again?”
“My answer was a lot longer,” Harry pouted.
“That’s the best answer I have for you though,” Steve pointed out.
“Fine,” Harry sighed. “Ask.”
“What ended up happening with the basilisk and the whole Ginny and diary mess?”
“I should have figured you’d ask that,” Harry smirked. “Ron got stuck on one side of the cave-in his wand caused with the memory-less Lockhart. I was on the other side, where the door leading into the Chamber of Secrets, so I asked Ron to clear a hole in the rubble so that Ginny and I could get back through once I found her. That’s exactly what I did - I opened the Chamber, ran inside, and found Ginny. Unfortunately, the diary didn’t like me trying to wake Ginny from the coma it put her in so it could finish taking her soul, or eating it, or whatever it was doing to it. I’d dropped my wand when I was trying to wake her up, and Tom’s memory picked it up and proceeded to tell me that he wouldn’t give it back or help me save her because he was actually Voldemort. See, his full name is Tom Marvolo Riddle, and he could rearrange that into ‘I am Lord Voldemort’.”
“I wonder how long he spent trying to figure that out,” Steve wondered aloud.
“I know, right?” Harry snorted. “Anyway, he called the basilisk out from its cave behind a giant statue of Slytherin after I said something about ‘help will always be given to those who need it’ at Hogwarts or something. I ran and hid the best I could for a bit before Fawkes - Dumbledore’s phoenix - arrived with the Sorting Hat. Tom mocked Fawkes and Dumbledore until Fawkes blinded the basilisk. I could run with my eyes open after that, which was definitely helpful. Eventually, the Sword of Gryffindor shimmered into existence inside the Sorting Hat, so I pulled it out and stuck it into the basilisk’s head through its open mouth. It died, but I’d gotten my own arm stuck on one of its fangs while killing it. Tom was gloating, so I did the only thing I could think of: I stabbed the diary with the fang that had been in my arm. Tom’s memory died, but I was dying too. Ginny woke up right around the time Fawkes cried on my arm and saved my life. What?”
Steve knew his face had gone completely pale by the time Harry stopped talking. Again, something this outlandish could really only be the truth, especially since he’d seen the scar on Harry’s arm. The thing he was trying to remember even though he didn’t really want to had finally come back to him, and everything that Harry had just said only made Steve more certain that he was right. “If you really want to know, I’ll tell you after you finish your tale.”
“Fine. We crawled through the hole Ron made at the top of the cavern, and Fawkes flew all four of us back up the tunnel into Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. Ron took Ginny and Lockhart to the Hospital Wing, and I went to Dumbledore’s office to return the Sorting Hat, the sword, and Fawkes, though I’m sure Fawkes could have made it back without trouble. When I got there, Lucius Malfoy was threatening to shut down the school and remove Dumbledore from his position of Headmaster, I think. Dobby was with him, looking miserable and being actively hurt in front of my eyes, not that I could think of anything to do at that moment. Dumbledore didn’t do anything either, but I don’t think he could have anyway. I got this idea to get Dobby free after Malfoy Senior left the office, so I asked for the diary back and put one of my socks in it. I gave it to Lucius Malfoy to hold, but it was so disgusting that he immediately gave it to Dobby like I’d hoped while saying he knew nothing about it, even though I’d seen him put it in Ginny’s cauldron. I let it go though, because Malfoy Senior had just given Dobby a sock inside of the book. Dobby was free. Malfoy Senior tried to attack me, but Dobby protected me. I gave the destroyed diary back to Dumbledore and went to the hospital wing to get myself checked out.
“Dobby’s loved socks ever since, and he tries to find crazy socks for himself, and he gives me some awesome socks every Christmas. People eventually forgot I can speak Parseltongue, or at least pushed it to the back of their minds, because I don’t get any crap for that anymore.” Harry held up his hand to stop what he could see was Steve telling him his “gift” wasn’t evil. “I heard what you said about it being a valued skill pretty much everywhere else, but since it’s one of the things Voldemort is most known for, I’ve been taught it’s completely evil any time it’s mentioned. Then again, people think snakes and Slytherins are also complete evil, and the snakes I’ve talked to are nice. Since I almost ended up a Slytherin myself, I can’t really just hate everyone in that house because of what the Sorting Hat decided. Besides, I don’t like everyone even in Gryffindor, so not everyone in Slytherin has to be the exact same evil type of person like I was told they were. If there’s anything Ron and Hermione and the other Gryffindors that said they cared about me but obviously don’t have shown me this summer, it’s that house doesn’t make a person good and automatically always right, so Slytherins aren’t automatically evil and wrong, even if most of them make bad choices.”
“That actually makes a lot of sense. From the way you said that though, I’m guessing that most people don’t share that view?” Steve asked.
“Absolutely not!” Harry snorted. “Everyone hates the Slytherins and attacks them, which I only realized was wrong after some hard thinking this summer. Peter Pettigrew, the person that did the ritual to bring Voldemort back to life, was a Gryffindor and one of my father’s best friends before he betrayed them, so then it only makes sense that it’s the person that is good or bad, not the house. If all Gryffindors are good, what about Pettigrew or any other Death Eaters that aren’t Slytherins? It just didn’t make sense. Anyway, what was the thing that scared you so much about the Chamber?”
“Before we get into that, did you ever go back into the Chamber of Secrets? It seems weird that something named to have secrets wouldn’t actually have any other than the basilisk inside.”
Harry hummed. “I haven’t actually been back, but that’s a good point. I don’t actually know what’s down there. Maybe I can explore that when I get back to school.” Harry slumped slightly with the thought that Steve, the only person he really trusted and thought he could rely on at that moment, wouldn’t come back with him to Hogwarts.
Steve, figuring he knew what had caused that sudden attitude change, said as lightly as possible, “You mean we’ll explore it, right?”
“What?” Harry asked, shocked.
“I was planning on going with you and pretending to be, like, your familiar or something. I mean, if you want,” Steve offered, getting less and less sure of his words as his face got redder and redder.
“Really? You’d do that for me?” Harry whispered.
Steve nodded, throat too dry to form words.
“Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” Harry said, rushing in to hug Steve, coming to a sudden stop as he realized what he’d been about to do. Steve probably didn’t want to hug him.
Steve pulled him the little ways left into the hug and folded his wings around them both, hating Harry’s relatives on a whole new level. For Harry to be so hesitant about initiating something as simple as a hug when he’d just gotten good news made Steve never want to let him go and also kill his aunt, uncle, and cousin as agonizingly as possible. “I love hugs and pretty much all forms of contact. I was too sick to spend a lot of time around other kids when I was young, and my mom worked to pay for my medicine, so I really like hugs and half-hugs and pretty much everything else,” Steve said, trying to invite Harry hug him as often as he needed, or at least start the process of Harry reaching out for touch.
Harry was glad Steve couldn’t see his face, because it was bright red. “I like hugs too,” he mumbled. He wasn’t going to say anything about liking that hand in his hair. That was too embarrassing. They stayed there for a long time, longer than Harry had ever touched someone before. Eventually, Harry felt like his face had returned to a normal-ish color, so he pulled away. Steve let go of him reluctantly. Harry grabbed hold of one of Steve’s hands and plopped down on the bed, pulling the other boy with him. Hopefully, Steve wouldn’t think this was too weird, but Harry felt like it would be nice to touch someone after reliving one of his near-death experiences. Steve had just said he didn’t mind, right? He wasn’t pulling away, so Harry kept his hand in Steve’s and cleared his throat. “We got sidetracked. What were you trying to tell me earlier?”
“I think I know what the diary was,” Steve said reluctantly. He was thrilled that Harry felt brave enough to grab his hand, though he wasn’t hopeful that he’d do that again when he wasn’t feeling quite so raw.
“What?” Harry asked. “Dumbledore was looking at it pretty hard after I gave it back to him. I think he knew what it was and didn’t want to tell me.”
“If I could figure out what it probably was from what you told me without even seeing the thing, I’m absolutely certain that Dumbledore knows what the diary was, or could have researched it and found out fairly easily, with his previous knowledge and contacts.”
“You’re procrastinating. What is it?”
“I think the diary might be a horcrux,” Steve said, hating that all of his evidence pointed towards that conclusion.
“A what?”
“A horcrux.” Steve sighed. “A horcrux is basically a container for a soul piece. Making one takes some serious dark magic, especially since it requires killing an innocent without remorse. Herpo the Foul created them. He also hatched the first basilisk. I only know about them because I read a lot of history books when I couldn’t leave my bed, and I really liked the ones talking about Dark Lords and how they were defeated. The people that eventually defeated him had to destroy his horcrux first. They tried a lot of different ways before realizing that the container had to be irreparably destroyed, like by fiendfyre. Something as potent and deadly as basilisk venom would work too, theoretically. Well, I guess it’s not exactly a theory anymore.”
“Kind of lucky that I stabbed the diary with a basilisk fang then, isn’t it?” Harry asked, understanding why Steve had gone so pale. He lost all his color a moment later as the dots connected. “Wait. That was Voldemort’s horcrux. Do you think he could have made more?”
“I have no clue.”
“Is there a way we can find out?” Harry had withdrawn his hand and was rocking back and forth slightly.
Steve pulled him into a light hug, trying to help the shaking and fear to calm at least slightly. “We can always ask the goblins. They know a lot of things they don’t share with wizards unless they ask the right question or pay a lot. We were planning on going to Gringotts anyway, right?”
“Right,” Harry whispered. He firmed his voice. “Right. Let’s go then.” He pulled himself out of Steve’s arms, missing the warmth immediately. Steve caught his hand, and Harry looked back.
“It’s not your job to fight Voldemort,” Steve said slowly and clearly, meeting Harry’s eyes and trying to show him how serious he was.
Harry froze. “People have been telling me my whole life it is, and he keeps coming after me.”
“Then we’ll fight him off together, but it’s not your job to fight or defeat him. The only thing we need to do is protect ourselves from him. You can decide to fight him if you want to, but it’s not your responsibility.”
Harry stayed frozen. He had no clue how to process this. Every person he’d met in the wizarding world, except for maybe Snape, expected him to kill Voldemort the way he had when he was a baby. Slowly, Harry’s legs collapsed. Steve caught him and he held tightly to Harry as his worldview rocked on its axis. Harry hadn’t realized just how heavy the constant pressure of that expectation was until Steve chipped at it. “You’re sure?” Harry whispered, face turned into Steve’s chest.
“Certain,” Steve whispered back, though there was no mistaking the conviction in his voice. Mentally, Steve made plans to convince Harry of this fact and remind him of it when people tried to force him into doing things. In the meantime, he’d hold Harry as long and as often as he needed to be held.
Harry pushed away from Steve. “We can finish talking later. I have more questions for you, and I’m guessing you have more for me?”
Steve nodded.
“So we’ll talk more later. For now, I’m more worried about the whatchamacallits, the soul containers, and getting food. We need to get to Gringotts for both of those.”
Steve nodded again. “Makes sense. Do you have your key?”
Harry gulped.
“So that’s a no?”
“I’ve never even touched my key,” Harry admitted nervously. “Every time I needed money after my first year, someone else went to Gringotts and got it for me. Usually, Mrs. Weasley did it and got all of my school supplies while she was getting things for her own kids.”
Steve paused. That didn’t exactly sound ideal, even if Mrs. Weasley was someone Harry trusted. Also, Gringotts keys generally needed willingly given blood placed on them in order to be activated. Either Gringotts had gone far downhill in the decades he’d been absent from the world, or something more sinister was going on, like the key being charmed to make the goblins accept it or something. Steve didn’t really want to meet a wizard who could fool the goblins. “Has she ever given you receipts for the things she bought?”
“Um. Not that I can remember, but I trust Mrs. Weasley!” Harry defended.
“I wasn’t saying you shouldn’t,” Steve said gently. “I just thought that she and any other person with access to your money would show you the withdrawal paper and the receipts for what they bought for you. Maybe that’s not how it’s done now. Sorry.”
Harry hated that Steve actually made some good points. Why had Mrs. Weasley never told him how much she took out or spent? He didn’t want to think that she was pinching some of his money, but he didn’t see a lot of other options. She did like to consider him as a helpless child, ignoring that he’d fought Voldemort more times and with more success than any auror, so maybe she was trying to take on the responsibility for him so that he didn’t have to. Any way he looked at it though, Harry knew the Weasleys were poor and that they struggled to make ends meet. If they asked, he’d gladly give them money, but the idea that it had been taken from him rubbed him the wrong way. Unfortunately, another item had just been added onto his mental Gringotts list: withdraw enough money to buy food, ask about horcruxes, and now ask for the records of his account. Harry was looking forward to this trip less and less.