Wannabe (a Hogwarts Hero)

The less-fun ‘win’ is talking Moody out of following me down into the Chamber of Secrets as on the spot backup.

“You’re not,” I insist patiently, or as patiently as I can.

“I am,” Moody repeats stubbornly, both eyes firmly set on me as he tries to will me into compliance.  By the door, Tonks and Lupin both look worried at the continued argument and Snape just glowers at everyone in general.  (Myrtle is blessedly absent.)

Dumbledore’s on his way, but hasn’t yet arrived to prove he’s (mostly) in charge and it’s his call, if not my own.

“What has you so worried?” I finally ask.  “Because you’ve seen nearly to the core of me and you know I’m tougher than I look.”

“Everyone needs backup,” Moody grunts, but he’s not meeting my eyes now, so I call at least partial bullshit on that.  I shuffle forward and duck side to side to catch his gaze again and he grumbles when he finally relents.  “You don’t know what’s down there,” he huffs, uncomfortable.

“I know what’s not down there right now, though,” I say reasonably.  “Right now, you’re not down there without a pulse from accidentally spying a basilisk in all it’s murderous glory.”

He glowers some more, but has already deflated a little.

“I’ll message you all the second I blind her,” I promise quietly and he scowls harder, but it’s to cover his continued unease.  “And that shouldn’t take long,” I add and he almost growls under his breath.  “It’s magic against magic, Moody.  I’m sort of tough to beat, especially,” I emphasize, pulling out my long-dormant guilt card, “when I’m not worried about my friends or family descendants dying because they peeked too early.”

Moody deflates completely at that and it’s sort of sad to watch, honestly.  Like all the wind just died and his inner balloon collapsed.  “Fine,” he mutters.

“Excellent argument,” Dumbledore says from the doorway, nodding in a fake-friendly way, but that crazed discordance in his aura is back with a vengeance and he's nearly twitching with distrust.

"I was just wondering if you were still joining us," I offer as a greeting and Dumbledore's aura gets even fuzzier as his eyes darken.

"If you're asking where I've been," he counters quietly, "it seemed prudent to check other sources and see if there's anything else we should expect down there."

At that, everyone but Moody stiffen with surprise and trade wary looks but they say nothing.  I just jerk a nod, feigning ignorance and Dumbledore pins me with the slightly milder version of Moody’s grumpy look.

"And you will message us--" he continues, halfway to an order.

“The second it’s safe for everyone who isn’t me,” I agree, not bothering to ask if Salazar had offered up an answer (when has Sal ever offered up an honest answer?), but I turn back to the sinks and trade a single look with Moody, ticking my eyes to the side toward Dumbledore and back.  Moody hides a tiny nod under an aggrieved huff but he'll keep a firm eye on Dumbledore, just in case.

Finally, I stroke a dragon claw over that silly little snake molded onto the tap of the sink and stand back and away while the whole wash station jerks into motion, parts dramatically rising and others receding until we all gather in closer to peer down a dank and dark pit, the ancient remains of a ladder stationed there broken off only four rungs down, making it a spooky-looking slide.  “Oh yeah,” I mutter, conjuring a few fire fluffs and dropping them in to see the slide is easily half as deep as the stairwell to my apartment, and Tonks snickers at the quiet little ‘weeeee's!!' they echo back up. “This’ll be fun,” I sigh, climbing in and springing my dragon claws wide to grip into the smooth stone overhead to slow my descent.  But I grin up at Moody before I drop.  “See you soon.”

Then I let myself fall.

***

It’s exactly as much fun as I thought it’d be, which is to say, not at all.

There’s multiple drainage corridors, most of them barred and chained shut, but I spell-lock them anyway with a brush of my claws so no one but me can unlock them.  (Being the only human dragon is sort of convenient at times.) The fire fluffs had lit all the torches, but there’s only need for so many, so I block off the drain tunnel behind me and head for the not-so-secret chamber.  

Seriously, Sal had a flair for the dramatic and the ornate snake-locked vault door (that was once a dragon-locked door) only proves it.  I hiss ‘you’re boring’ at it in parseltongue and one by one, the slender, spelled metal snakes release their ‘grips’ and the door swings open with a squeak, revealing itself to be easily as thick as most bank vault doors that I’ve seen in the past.  I hop through, conjure up another few fire fluffs and let them fly.

“Oh… my… gods,” I breathe out as the cave-like chamber brightens, staring around, and stupid as it may be, I shut my eyes while I shake my head and honestly despair for a second.  “Sal, Sal, Sal,” I sigh, reopening my eyes and smirking at the extended, ornate passage before me, a long line of snake head statues on either side that have a general feel of sentries in waiting.  “At least Tommy came by his flair for the dramatic honestly," I snort.  

I spell the vault door to keep it open and begin my trek down the passage, ears tuned in for anything ‘off’, but so far, there’s nothing to hear but the continued dripping of water and a sense of emptiness.  I’m not even remotely fooled though, because the tingling in the back of my mind is fate’s signature ‘careful now’ warning and I’d be dumb to ignore it.

I let my footsteps echo as I make my way forward but even as the fire fluffs light the last dramatically snake-held torches along the wall, I feel a certain ease at merely being here at all.  There was a different, dungeon-level entrance back then, but the further in I walk, the more at home I feel.  I’ve got no doubt the basilisk feels it too and it’s maybe the reason she’s stayed all this time.  But the larger chamber (hoooboy!) only proves that Sal’s ego had taken his remaining scraps of sanity for a ride and then a turn for the worst.

“Such... a drama llama,” I snort, staring up at that too-familiar face.

“You dare?!” Comes a low and furious hiss that seems to be nowhere and everywhere at once and I let my dragon heat vision paint everything in hot and cold colors while I take a slow spin to bring the full space into perspective, but still see no immediate signs of her.

“Well,” I finally drawl, “someone has to be the daring one and it’s clearly not gonna be you.  Kinda looks like your daddy issues have made a genuine pussy out of you.”

Her next hiss has weight and volume enough to set the walls trembling, but there's still no sign of her, so naturally, I talk to the big-ass face on the wall.  “Sally boy, if you can somehow hear me up there in your frame, I seriously think it’s time to look into modern mental health care.  They’ve got support groups for megalomaniac egos this big—“

Goddamn she’s fast.

For something so large, it’s impressive all around, but I don’t waste a second.  When she all but blurs out of the shadows, I twist and shadow-blink to just over her head in one smooth move, my claws sinking into the damp, leathery skin just above her eyes, already scraping downward and forward toward her nose, cringing a bit when the jelly of her eyes splatters over my hands, then let my weight swing me the rest of the way when her whole head snaps up in an effort to smash me against the ceiling.  She pauses briefly in shock at her sudden blindness before letting out a screaming hiss of pained fury while I drop to the floor and flick a patronus back toward the entrance, then duck and dive as the rest of her comes slithering out of a side tunnel.

And she’s fucking huge.

I try a stunning spell on her first (it seriously does nothing), and not sure what actually will work, let out a dragon roar that has her pausing and trembling, but then goes right back to thrashing—

Until a shock wave visibly ripples through the room and she drops with a meaty thud and stills. (I barely feel it, honestly.)

Moody’s smirking from his spot just inside the entry, his still-glowing walking staff in hand, then limps forward to let the others spill in behind him. Everyone (except Moody, because he’s still having his badass walk of basilisk-stunning pride) pauses to look suitably impressed by the product of Salazar Slytherin’s ego shrine before hurrying forward.

I climb carefully over her massive coils until I’m finally at her head and staring at the ginormous fangs that nearly rival my dragon's.

“Now now, Miss Devons,” Moody soothes as he joins me, still smirking. “I’m sure your own chompers are perfectly serviceable, whatever their size.”

I snort and smile a little, but not much, shaking my head at the ultimate sadness of what’s become of her.  “Mine are bigger," I counter with a halfhearted shrug, then tick a nod at the unconscious snake.  "How long will this last?” I ask, squatting down and wondering if removing her aforementioned fangs wouldn’t be wise, even if Moody’s answer is ‘an eon’.

“Eh,” he huffs, lips twisting while he considers.  “A day?  Maybe two?”

“Age has likely toughened her up a bit,” Lupin supplies, edging forward by inches but doesn’t seem eager for close proximity regardless (and who would blame him?), even while Tonks strides right by him to join Moody in looking like a fearless badass.  Dumbledore and Snape are busy inspecting everything else in sight because who wouldn’t?  I only hope they don't trip into Sal's lab, what with the freaky-dangerous collection of dark artifacts he used to keep there.

Moody grunts, his expression sobering again.  “Good point.  Best remove those,” he huffs, poking at a fang with his staff and I nod, yanking first one, then the other out to the root and toss them back toward the wall.  I rest a hand on the bridge of her half-scaled nose and simply will her to feel no pain from the injuries I’d given because I’m not keen on the idea of her hurting for simply being what she’d been raised to be.

“Sorry,” I murmur softly and know it’s not enough but realistically, I can’t apologize for Sal’s mistakes anymore than she can.

“Sorry?” Tonks demands, raising an incredulous eyebrow at me.  “She cursed people.  She cursed children," she adds for emphasis.

I tick half a nod because yeah, she did, but... “See the egomaniac carved on the wall? With him as a shining example of A+ parenting, I’m not sure how else she could’ve turned out.”

Moody grunts his agreement, then frowns at my hands.  “Yer a mess,” he says simply, then offers me a handkerchief that I wave away with a quiet 'no need', then superheat my hands until they're glowing red hot and the leftover eyeball goo, blood and venom simply burn off and brush away like dust, quick and easy.  I’ll still have to wash with boiling water before any of me feels truly clean after this— good thing my apartment shower can still do that. (Magic-clean just isn't the same as hot water clean.)

“Well, that’s one task more down—“ Moody starts to say but Dumbledore’s voice, low and almost sad sounding, cuts through all the remaining noise.

“Miss Devons.”  Everyone turns to where Snape and Dumbledore are both peering into one of the drain holes set on either side of Sal’s absurd carving.

I shadow blink over to their sides and instantly jerk to a stop, not really registering the sight, because it’s almost too bizarre.  If it’s a drain, it’s an odd and unused one but for the low and long pile of cracked shells, a few nearly-whole ones roughly the size of an ostrich egg, some covered in bits of slime and others slowly falling to dust and scattered among them—

I stumble back and spin away, eyes shutting while I breathe for a few seconds.  I’ve seen worse, yes, but... jesus, this feels so much closer to home.  I brace myself and turn back, stepping forward again and try to inspect it all clinically.

It’s a bit like the mutated people of New York, but not.  They’re snakes, sure, but not only snakes.  More like experiments of snakes trying to be human (or spelled by someone who wanted them to be human) and these all failed, one after another.  Had she been trying to make more of herself?  Or was someone else simply trying to—

“Oh no,” Tonks whispers, sounding sick as she peers into the hole from around Dumbledore’s shoulder.

Snape silently edges into my side and while I’m glad for the support, I’m not sure there’s comfort for this.  I conjure up the tiniest fire fluff I can manage and send it down the small tunnel slowly, which is a terrible idea because the further it goes, the worse it gets. It's like watching year after year of failed efforts-- of tiny, broken, malformed bodies that sometimes look all too human.  I watch until the little light drifts down and around a curved corner and out of sight.

Beside me, Moody’s crazy eye follows it’s progress back behind the carved wall and I follow after him while he marches that way, edging past the snake and ending at an identical hole in the other side of the wall, though with far less… debris inside.

But there is something familiar seeming in there, half buried under a small pile of filthy rags that I'm pretty sure are all that's left of the healer's robes and I don’t hesitate to half-crawl in, then back out to inspect it.

As fate has it, it's a book.  Specifically, it's a journal radiating energy that I’d know anywhere, even with much newer binding and a newer, fading red cover because it's still practically humming with my own energy.  A quick peek inside has the seemingly blank pages filling with ciphered words--

“Miss Devons,” Dumbledore intones loudly and I know the sounds of wands hastily being drawn but a quick look around shows everyone’s eyes set just behind me and I spin cautiously around while Moody tries to shuffle himself half in front of me to shield me from… a guy.

Well, not a guy, exactly.

A specter.

An echo.

And from the castle’s mini-mental-movies and recap information, I know it’s an echo of an egotistical villain back in his school years, seventeen or eighteen by the looks of him.

“Tommy!” I chirp, smiling and showing off my wealth of sharpening teeth.

Tommy doesn’t respond, his enraged eyes set on the unconscious and newly-blind basilisk.

“What did you do?” He hisses, though in English rather than parseltongue and Moody grunts, then tucks his wand away, as unconcerned as I feel now that he’s gotten a good look at it.

“She was being a brat,” I sigh out like I’m disappointed with the whole ordeal. “So Mr. Moody put her in the time out corner.”

Behind me, I hear the others coming closer but Tonks might be in the lead because I hear her almost choke on what sounds like a laugh mixed with horror mixed with terror mixed with— something.  Whatever, it’s proof I still have the capacity to snarkily entertain, so it’s all good.

Now, finally, Tommy's echo sets his eyes on me, teeth bared and fists clenched at his sides in impotent rage and I wonder if yawning obnoxiously at his display of temper would be overkill.  I give him a look of curious expectation instead but glaring seems to be all he’s gonna do right now.

“Soooo,” I finally drawl out when the others finally join us and still, nothing else happens.  “Dunno if you’ve been informed or not, but you’re a spectral echo and no longer welcome to lurk in my basement," I inform him.  "The votes have been tallied, the tribe has spoken, it’s time for you to go.”

This time, Tonks snickers from just behind me and I’m tempted to high-five her.  (Survivor was a fun show in any reality.)

“You dare?!” Tom hisses, like he genuinely believes anything he does holds weight anymore.  Well... Actually, considering he’s apparently been down here with the magic-heavy, half-mad basilisk, it’s not totally inconceivable there’s been two nuts in the basement and not just one.

“Funny you should ask; that’s what she said just before I clawed her eyes out,” I supply with a careless shrug.

“Tom,” Dumbledore intones and it’s interesting, seeing what’s essentially a ghost visibly pale and shuffle back nervously.

“Wowwww,” I breathe out, then lean around Snape where he’s now all but glued to my side to give Dumbledore an impressed look.  “You really do spook him.”

Dumbledore ignores me, but I don’t take it personally because this echo is worth at least a little attention.

“Professor Dumbledore,” Tom says nervously.  “What—“

“She’s right, Tom,” Dumbledore interrupts with a sigh.  “It’s time for you to go.”

This pronouncement has Tom’s fury right back to boiling point.

“Go?!” He snarls out.  “I’m the heir to Slytherin, I’m not going any—“

“There’s a lot of that 'heir' business going around,” Moody interrupts, eyes no doubt rolling but I can’t really tell with him still half in front of me.  “And with bloodlines a damned lot thicker than yours.”

“No!” Tom snarls again, fists clenching and unclenching while he aims his impotent glare at us all individually, then freezes, his eyes caught on me before they’re narrowing.  “You… your energy—“

Uh oh.

“Yeah, my aura’s kinda shiny these days,” I cut in casually, hoping for the best of an ‘aura' talk and not the worst of ‘you created that journal full of curses!’ talk.

“Shiny?!” Moody growls, turning his back on Tom like he’s unconcerned. (And with Dumbledore right here, being unconcerned is easy.) But now Moody’s giving me his own incredulous look. “When you really crank it, it’s like staring at the sun from a meter away.”

I blink.  Oh.  Um... oops?  “Sorry?” I squeak with a half wincing smile.

Moody huffs again, eyes rolling and returns his attention to the echo while Tonks snorts, Lupin laughs in silence behind me and from the corner of my eye, I see Snape’s lips tick upward trying not to smirk and Dumbledore’s eyes now trained on the chamber's ceiling like he's praying for patience.

With the rest of us so well humored, Tom looks amazingly awkward in his anger, but his eyes are still settled on me, and when Moody shifts again, his eyes catch on the red-covered journal still in my hand.  “That’s mine,” he snarls softly.  “Give it back!” He orders and his voice actually carries the faintest edge of power.  Huh.  Interesting.

I raise my eyebrows and purse my lips.  “Sorry kiddo, but saying it’s yours doesn’t make it yours.”

“Slytherin left it for me,” he hisses and for a second, his eyes flicker with a snake’s slitted pupils and back to human and beside me, Snape stiffens.  “Give it back,” Tom orders again.

Five lifetimes ago, the neighborhood klepto knew the cops were coming with a warrant for search and seizure and desperate not to get caught with them, he tried foisting off his ill-gotten goods for free. I think hard on that while I answer.

“It wasn’t his to give,” I say bluntly. “And therefore not yours, either.”

“No! It’s mine!” He shouts, jerking a step forward again, then back, still too wary of Dumbledore's presence to approach.

“Like an overgrown toddler having a tantrum,” Tonks mutters and I nod my hearty agreement, finally giving the book another look over, letting it fall open to a random page and— ohhhh.

“I can see why you think it is yours, though,” I tell the echo as I read.  “You left quite a bit of yourself in here,” I murmur, skipping through the pages and see the faded echoes of handwriting from both Salazar and (I presume) Tom himself, but none of it really sank in until near the end where the last three curses— ah.

“He left a piece in there?” Dumbledore demands and I hum an agreement, flicking a few pages further and freeze.

“There’s a few curses at the very end,” I offer, nodding with a frown.  “One of them is the soul curse, plus two others I don't recognize, all written in the same hand.”

“How?!” Tom snarls, fists clenching again while his glare bounces between Dumbledore and I.  “How can you even read it?!  No one can read it but us!”

“Did you miss the part where you’re not the only heir?” I ask dryly, frowning at the last two curses, equal parts worried and now insanely curious.  I lean around Snape again to address Dumbledore.  “I’ll need to counter these two as well, just in case.”  I offer the book over easily and that alone seems to surprise Dumbledore, though he takes it with a nod anyway.  Snape shrinks back from it as it passes by and I don’t blame him.  It’s combination of dark energies is as foul as that extra chunk of soul in Riddle’s snake had been and way more dangerous.

“Do you need the book to accomplish it?” Dumbledore asks, frowning as he too flicks through the pages.  “It would be best to destroy it before it accidentally becomes a problem for someone else.”

Now Tom smirks, like he’s got the keys to all the secrets of the kingdom.  “It can’t be destroyed,” he gloats, smirk widening when everyone stares at him with surprised disbelief but his smirk dies off bit by bit when all their collective attention turns to me next for confirmation.

“I can, yes?  But I should probably read it first.  Salazar put a bit in there too, and the spoiled wanna be,” I add, flapping a dismissive hand at Tom.  “Plus those curses at the end, which might've been the basilisk?  But I speed read, so it’d take all of two minutes.”

“That’s not possible,” Tom hisses and this time, his eyes flicker yellow and snake-like and hold for a good five seconds until Dumbledore steps forward, breaking his attention from me.  “You’re just— you’re just a girl!” Tom exclaims.  “What could you possibly know?!”

I blink my most blasé expression back at him and wish he and I were alone so I could terrify him with a decent dragon roar.  Instead, I sigh.  “I know you bore me,” I tell him bluntly, then turn to Dumbledore again.  “The sooner we get rid of him, the better.”

“Agreed,” he murmurs, handing the book back and now Tom darts forward, snake-quick to snatch at it and then everyone’s moving at once, spreading out and pulling wands like the wanna-be is an active threat.  But it’s not until he’s nearly to Snape that I realize that with the book's active, dark magic and my added presence leaking magic out everywhere, he maybe could be. And I'll be damned before I let him hurt any of my pack or allies.

I deliberately drop the book to draw his attention to it, then snatch Tom by the energy of his spectral wrist (and he’s damned lifelike for an echo) and don’t hesitate letting my hand heat until it’s visibly red-hot and the spectral idiot’s screaming with pained surprise and jerking back away, but it’s only five seconds of my continued touch that leeches enough of his spectral magic to have him nearly translucent and largely harmless again.

Dumbledore stares at me with something akin to nervous accusation when I finally let the specter topple backward to scramble away on elbows and heels then let my hand cool again before I drop casually to the floor, cross-legged, scoop the book back up and, as promised, begin speed-reading my way through.

“What are you?” Tom rasps, still sprawled on the ground, half held up on his elbows, his voice now tinny-sounding and distant without his added magical oomph.

I pause with my finger tracing halfway down the page to blink over at him again.  “Unique,” I deadpan. "Just like everybody else."

Somewhere on my right, Tonks snickers and Lupin makes a choked little noise of amusement.  Snape simply retakes his spot at my side and leans carelessly against Salazar’s stone cheek as if everything’s perfectly alright with the world as it is while I return to my reading.  

Two minutes later, I’m highly disturbed, but glad I’d read it anyway because there’s at least one nifty trick Sal mentioned that I’m eager to try.  I stand and head back for the she-snake and trace my finger slowly up her prickly, wrinkled snout with a firm streak of power and the bulk of her shimmers and shrinks with a wave of vapor and lizard-like skin until it’s just the snake woman again, now nude and a bit grungy and I wave a blanket to settle over her, though I doubt she’d care about her nudity either way.

I make myself look at her eye-less, still mostly-handsome face because it’s my doing and I deserve the punishment of having it seared into my mind, even if it was for all the right reasons.  She really does look like Salazar, too, and I can’t help but wonder if she’s the ultimate reason he’d changed his crest— distance from the memory of me being what Sal himself could never be as well as her being something dangerous and powerful that he could easily control.

“How—“ Tom’s disbelieving, tinny voice whispers but no one bothers answering him.

“She’ll be much easier to manage at this size, at least,” Tonks comments, nodding.

“Lupin's right, Tonks.  Even blind, human-shaped and wand-less, don’t think she’s not dangerous,” I warn seriously.  “She’s likely close to a thousand years old and with age comes power.”

Tonks nods once, full serious mode.  “Understood.  Are we taking her with us now, Moody?”

I stand again and settle an uncomfortable look first on Moody, who seems to be ceding the choice to Dumbledore, who’s again looking at me with worry.

“No,” Dumbledore finally says with a stern shake of his head.  “She’ll remain here, bound, until we can speak with her.”

I finally release the breath I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding, relieved.  Still, I worry that he hadn’t mentioned about ‘after’ and choose to save that question for later.  (But I’ll probably have a few industrial-strength bottled time tamper potions by morning.  Having multiple options at the ready usually helps, right?)

“And the book, Miss Devons?” Dumbledore asks mildly, a tiny undercurrent of distrust and worry still there, even though that funky discordance has all but faded away.

“I can use dragon fire to destroy it,” I explain.  Beside Dumbledore, Moody’s jaw drops and both his eyes snap toward me and Dumbledore’s eyebrows pop up while his eyes widen.  “You can all stay and watch, if you don’t mind seeing it from the doorway.  But even from there, you’ll need a decent heat shield,” I add, shuffling my feet awkwardly.

“Wait, you can actually turn into a dragon?” Tonks demands and I shrug awkwardly.

"Well, yeah.  Because I actually am a dragon."  Everyone but Snape and Moody just sort of gape at me.  "Sooo... I guess I didn't explain that part all that well, huh?"

Lupin's snort seems to shake everyone out of their surprise and they begin shuffling toward the door, Snape  bringing up the rear with the unconscious basilisk, now firmly wrapped in the blanket, hovering before him.

I’m feeling weirdly self conscious as I back toward Sal’s ridiculous wall, but whatever.  I haven’t lied about any of my attributes, even a little, to any of them, so this shouldn’t shock them too much. (Hopefully.)

I chuck the book down to the floor and from his place still on the ground, the wide-eyed echo is almost trembling with fear.

“Don’t,” he orders shakily in that hollow, tinny voice and I can only sigh at him now.

“You've gotta go with the glass half full mentality here, Tommy.  In a minute, you’ll never have to specter-echo-live with the knowledge that a future version of yourself is a nose-less, psychotic, wanna-be megalomaniac who gets his sorry ass handed to him by a one year old.”

Even from across the chamber, I can hear Moody snort, Tonks giggle and Lupin’s chuff of amusement.

Tom just glares back at me, but that doesn’t last long when I shake my hair back, relax all the magic bound tight to my skin to keep my human form and then— grow, pretty much.  There’s an ache in my back for a brief second before my wings unfold and my weight resettles, tipping me down to four clawed feet while my tail and neck grow and thicken and holy shit I’d forgotten how good it feels to be back in my scales.  It's like keeping a hand clenched into a tight fist for years.  It's not painful, but not totally, completely comfortable until you relax it again.

I shake my head like a cat to flex and stretch the muscles of my long neck, golden-silver spines standing out in stark relief against the purple-green scales of my back before the spines settle again, nearly flat.  A quick peek to the side says I’m clearly the unsettlingly large main attraction, but there’s now a heavy-grade heat shield between me and my audience, so I step back, my spike-ended tail scraping across the floor and just get it done.

It’s easier to roast when I roar, but I forego that part because I’m pretty sure my friends would like to keep their eardrums as they are, so I just suck in a breath, then force it out with emphasis and the book— my book, pretty much melts, dries and turns to dust, page by nasty page of mad ravings, a horcrux and the clinical and soul-less thoughts of the nightmarish danger that I used to be.  It takes a full three breaths before I’m satisfied and the echo is long gone.  I do take an extra few seconds to incinerate the remains in those odd not-drains, glad to release the evidence of what was both cruelty and madness before I finally pull my skin back in, wings flexing as wide as the chamber allows before they comfortably refold and then re-meld.  A final sweep of magic has me human and clothed again, settled but exhilarated.  Then I turn back to my friends and freeze.

They’re staring.

They’re all staring with their mouths open and maybe a bit freaked out and was this just a terrible idea all around?

“Merlin’s beard,” Lupin chokes out.  “You’re a dragon.”

“Um... yeah?  When has that not been true?” I demand, again shuffling uncomfortably.

“Seeing is believing, girl,” Tonks huffs, now grinning with surprise and I twitch a smirk at her and cautiously shuffle my way closer, a bit wary of spooking them.

“That was… unexpectedly dramatic,” Dumbledore offers, but he’s relaxed now while Moody seems a little more keyed up, then literally shakes it off with a grunting nod of approval.

Snape’s expression is mostly stunned surprise, but there’s something like awe just under it, so I just shrug at the lot of them, smiling awkwardly.

“Sooo,” I say after a few more seconds, then head-nod to the blanket-wrapped woman.  “Can we bind her now and go?  I can practically feel Sal’s wall watching me and it’s weirding me out.”

“Head to head with a basilisk and you’re just fine and dandy,” Moody huffs, eyes rolling, “but a wall spooks you.” He shakes his head.  “You’re a strange one.”

“Well, normal is boring, so... Thanks!” I say brightly, now having shuffled all the way back to their sides and from this close, I’d smell fear if there were any and there’s blessedly not, though it looks a bit like both Snape and Lupin’s eyebrows are still stuck in their awed and upright position, halfway to their hairlines.  I don’t comment (yet) because I'm a good friend (usually). (The teasing will come later.)

Moody just rolls his eyes again while Dumbledore weaves a spell over and around our newest prisoner and the second he’s done, I’m ready and prepped to bolt when something catches my attention just under the surface of the water the snake statues are set in.  I splash my way over to investigate and find it’s actually a shard of an old mirror, though there’s nothing in here that it seems to belong to— but like the shard of cornerstone marble and the chip of wooden flooring (that I still haven’t investigated), this feels a bit like a puzzle piece of its own.  I pocket it carefully and hurry to follow the others out.