Constellations of Change

Night Before the End of Term, Hogwarts, Headmaster’s Office

In the years since he had been effectively cut off from directly monitoring The Girl Who Lived, the nature of the girl had been an object of recurring curiosity for Albus. What was the girl like, what would her motivations be? Would she be the sort of person who could make the sacrifice he feared may be necessary to fulfill the prophecy and finally defeat Tom?

He had considered several possibilities. She may be like her birth parents, mischievous but ultimately dedicated to helping others and the greater good. On the other hand, he was also prepared for her to hew closer to her adoptive mother, having a certain pragmatism about the world, coupled with a fierce protective streak for her chosen family. On his darker days he had even worried the girl may resemble a young Tom Marvalo Riddle, linked either by prophesy or a darkened scar to mirror the man she was destined to confront.

What he had not, in his great wisdom, accounted for was the possibility the girl’s motivations would be like Hagrid’s. However, that appeared to be the case as the silver haired headmaster listened to the first year recount what had brought her to the Stone’s hidden chamber earlier that night. She’d not been enticed by rumors of the stone’s power, or motivated, at least initially, by any desire to prevent its theft. She didn’t know about the stone, or Quirrell, or the shade of Voldemort, or any of the other layers of protection. She’d just wanted to see Fluffy. 

It was a pleasant surprise, really, to find the young witch so filled to the brim with innocent curiosity. She had a real sense of wonder for their world that so many quickly lost as they grew. Perhaps he should have paid the Hat’s decision more heed, when he was trying to suss out what drove Iris Potter.

‘That’s not entirely fair,’ Albus reflected as Iris’s elder sister now recounted her version of events. Her actions hadn’t been entirely self motivated or without bravery.  By her own admission, when she’d realized a theft was in progress, she had acted to both alert help and try and identify the culprit. Really she had acted with more prudence than he might have expected, planning to stay under the Potter Cloak the whole time. He’d half-expect some first years to think confronting a grown wizard to be a good idea.

While his trap had been a lamentable failure on most accounts, failing to capture or destroy the wraith of Tom Riddle, he had learned something. Surreptitiously he’d cast several nonverbal scanning charms on Iris, taking advantage of the first time he was standing close to her since the night he left her on Petunia’s doorstep. He was amazed, delighted and baffled to discover the dark mass of foreign magic he’d been unable to exorcize, no longer dwelt behind her scar. 

“And that’s when you exploded in out of nowhere,” Tonks finished her tale. The older Tonks sister had kept her arm protectively around Iris’s shoulders since they left the chamber to come to the Headmaster’s office and she gave them a quick squeeze before asking, “what was that thing on the back of Professor Quirrell’s head?”

“Of that, I am afraid we cannot be entirely sure, Nymphadora,” Albus explained, oblivious of how Nym’s eyebrow twitched in annoyance at the use of her full first name, “though I have strong suspicions that it was, in fact, what remains of the wizard known as Voldemort.”

Both sisters shuddered a little involuntarily at the name, even if they had already suspected that may be the case. Nymphadora was just old enough to remember how constantly on edge all the adults were during the last years of Voldemort’s reign of terror, and the Dark Lord had basically been the boogeyman of her childhood nightmares. For Iris it was a little more abstract; she knew, obviously, that Voldemort had killed her birth parents among countless others, but it wasn’t something she could remember. She’d never even heard his name until after being rescued from the Dursleys.

“Are you certain, Albus?” Fillius asked from where he was sitting in the corner of the office. He and Pomona were in the office with him, as per the requirement that Nym and Iris’s heads of house be present. He’d actually have had the other heads there as well, but Severus was currently attempting to trace where the spector may have gone while Minerva dismantled the remaining traps on the third floor. 

“As I said, it is impossible to know for sure without containing the entity, but it does seem a likely conjecture, given the facts,” Dumbledore explained. “Though I know not how, I have long suspected that Voldemort did something to safeguard against his total destruction, and the malignant spirit bonded to poor Quirnius may have been the result.”

“He knew me,” Iris spoke, drawing the attention of the three professors to her. “Or at least he knew my name, the thing that is, not Quirrell. The Professor just kept muttering about a stone; what is the stone, professor?”

Albus sighed deeply, “the stone is the Philosopher’s Stone. It is an alchemical artifact, created by Nicholas Flamel and his wife Pernelle.”

Iris’s eyes widened; she knew about the Philosopher's Stone! Well, she’d read about it at least and she couldn’t stop herself from adding excitedly, “it can transmute common metals to gold without additional alchemical reagents, and also be used to brew the Elixir of Life!”

Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled over his half-moon spectacles, “Indeed, Miss Potter.”

“But why was it here at Hogwarts?” Tonks asked skeptically. If she had something that made the Elixir of Life she wouldn’t let it out of arm’s reach.

“The Stone held here is in fact the second one the Flamels were able to create,” Albus explained carefully. “They decided it was best to not store both in the same place, and asked me to look after this one. Of course, to diminish the danger, the fact that there are two stones must be kept secret.” That wasn’t entirely the truth. In truth there was no second Philosopher's Stone and the original was still held in the Flamel’s incredibly well hidden cabin somewhere in the Alps. The stone held within the castle was, in fact, an incredibly detailed forgery created by Albus with some aid from his old master Nicholas.

The original stone was both unreproducible, having been created by an accident Nicholas and Pernelle had never been able to reenact, and incredibly precious. As much as Nicholas doted a bit on his old apprentice, he would not have parted with the source of his and his wife’s long life, just for Albus to use it as bait for a possibly dead Dark Lord. What he was willing to do, was go along with the fiction that Albus was taking charge of the stone, strategically leaking that information to mislead Voldemort. After all, if Voldemort thought the stone was in Britain, he wouldn’t be hunting around the continent for the real one. 

It had been an elaborate scheme, if Albus said so himself, and even though it hadn’t worked perfectly, it had shown without a doubt that some piece of Lord Voldemort still lived and could still be a threat. It was an unfortunate confirmation that they were still dancing on the strings of Sybil’s prophecy. While that was disheartening, the lie had worked and Voldemort had fallen for their deception, and now it was time for another one.

“And now I’m afraid this second stone must be destroyed, so that Voldemort does not continue to come after it,” Albus said, stroking his beard.

“But won’t that just make, uh, You-Know-Who, go after the stone the Flamel’s still have?” Iris asked. Surely if Voldemort was able to get past Dumbledore’s defenses at Hogwarts, the Flamels would be at least just as vulnerable.”

“Ah, but you see, we in this room and the Flamels themselves are the only ones who know there’s more than one stone,” Dumbledore explained. “Its destruction should make the world think the Philosopher’s Stone is no more.” Pernelle would never let Albus destroy the actual stone, but she likely couldn’t care less if he destroyed the forgery now that its use as bait had run its course. It would necessitate the Flamels faking their deaths for a time, but the pair were largely reclusive anyway, donning disguises in public to avoid being recognized on the rare occasions they had to interact with Wizarding France. After all, pretending to be dead for the relatively short amount of time it would take for the prophecy to likely conclude, was a small cost to those two.

Albus was about to begin chiding Iris for having snuck into the forbidden room in the first place when the flames of his fireplace turned green, heralding the arrival of a furious Andromeda Tonks. 

‘Ah, I likely have some explaining to do.’

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

End of May, Malfoy Manor

Lucius Malfoy swung his wand in rage, shattering several very expensive bottles of liquor with his uncontrolled magic. That blood traitor bastard had the temerity to invade his domain!? Lucius had been raided by the DMLE that afternoon. It was galling to have Ministry workers tramping their dirty boots through his halls, cataloging his possessions and sniffing out his secrets.

He was lucky that his darkest artifacts remained unfound, hastily hidden in the secret chamber below his wine cellar, when he’d been tipped off to the raid. It paid to have friends in high places, and well it should considering the galleons he spent to keep those friends.

Lucius hadn’t been the only one raided, and some of the others hadn’t been so lucky. Nott was fortunate he was only facing steep fines for the Sentient Noose they’d found in his bureau. Worse still, it seemed several other raids were planned throughout the summer, with Bones backing the initiative. It was all being handled through subordinate offices such as the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office, but Lucius knew the initiative would never have gotten the go ahead without her say so.  

As distasteful as he found it, he needed to divest himself of some of his collection. Like it or not, his Lord was gone, and the fools and mudlovers were in power. He had dodged Azkaban the first time, he would not be dragged there now. With reluctance he began making a list of the most damning items, those that could be sold to Burke, those he could lend out to associates until the heat died down, and the ones he refused to part with. 

While he was going to take precautions, his anger remained undiminished. This insult would not go without answer. He knew the source of the Department’s sudden burst of vigor, Arthur Weasely. While Bones was supporting the initiative, the push for the raids had originated with that awful muggle lover. It was difficult to think of a way he could make the pauper blood traitor’s life worse, what with his haridan of a wife and the squalor he lived in, but Lucius would see it done. 

Lucius sat down in a dark leather armchair as he fumed, idly summoning one of the unsmashed bottles of firewhiskey to his hand. He took a long sip as he contemplated how to handle things. He needed to take care of this business quickly, to avoid losing face with the other former Death Eaters. 

A notion came to him of how to take his revenge and shift the attention of the Ministry in one stroke. Years ago, his master had tasked him with protecting an innocuous looking book that thrummed with dark magic if one delved deep enough. He had been told never to let it out of his protection, but, well, his master was gone. In many ways, Lucius was now the leader of the group once known as the Death Eaters, and as such, would be the one making the decisions. 

If he could pin the book on Arthur, perhaps through one of his countless spawn, he could discredit the crusader and dispose of one of the more dubious items in his possession in one stroke. All he’d need to do is slip into one of the younger one’s things before they returned to school, and let them inevitably get caught, humiliating their father. 

Yes, it would be simple to accomplish. He need only place a small bribe with one of the perennial barflys who haunted The Leaky Cauldron to alert him when the ginger rabble were in the Alley for their Hogwarts shopping. After that, all he’d need to do would be create an altercation and slip the dark book in with the rest of one of the brat’s school things. It wasn’t foolproof, but if it didn’t work he could always have Goyle or Crabbe’s boy plant it once they arrived at school. (Of course there was no way he’d risk Draco on such a scheme, that’s what minions were for.)

“Dobby,” Lucius intoned, his servant appearing before him with a loud CRACK of air, “fetch me my cloak. I have an appointment in the Cauldron.”

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Outskirts of the Tonks Property, Late June

Andromeda crouched in the bushes of the woods near Megaron Hall, craning her head back to watch the skies. She was actually just outside their property lines, straying into the area owned by a muggle neighbor, and consequently beyond the wards of her home.

While nowhere near as intense as they were during the Terror of Voldemort, most wizarding residences had basic wards on their dwellings, usually anchored via a runic Wardstone somewhere on the property. These wards could do a variety of things depending on the particular spells laid on the property, usually done by a professional warder hired for the purpose.

In the case of Megaron Hall there were anti-apparition enchantments, muggle-repelling wards, trespasser warning spells, dark beast dissuading magic, and befoulment hex counter charms going out to the edge of the estate. There was further defensive magic on the house itself, though much of it was inert until activated in the case of an attack. 

There were of course limits on the kind of wards you could have on your property put in place by the Ministry; they didn’t want to need a curse-breaker every time they needed to serve a summons. (Many of these restrictions had been relaxed or just ignored back during the time of Voldemort.)

Megaron Hall was a bit more heavily warded than most peacetime residences, resulting from a combination of Andromeda growing up a Black and the fact that Iris was more of a target than most young witches for unsavory types. Only those who were added to the wards, either permanently, like the family and the Bones women, or temporarily could apparate in or even walk onto the property without triggering an alarm.

It was an odd series of events that led her to hide in her neighbor’s foliage, only avoiding getting her shoes ruined with mud by judicious use of the Impervious Charm. She was here to get to the bottom of a mystery, and to possibly hex the snot out of whoever was harassing her daughter. 

The trouble had started roughly a week and a half after the girls had returned from Hogwarts, when Susan Bones stuck her head out of the fireplace to ask Iris why she hadn’t responded to Daphne’s letter. Iris, who had actually been a bit glum not to have heard from any of her new friends so far, told a confused Susan that she hadn’t received any letters since school concluded. 

After some experimentation with having Susan send a letter, they quickly deduced that someone was intercepting Iris’s post. That was rather worrying to Ted and Andi, and they quickly went into action to figure out what was going on. They were able to rule out the ministry redirecting her mail, as Iris’s magical guardian and mother, Andromeda would have legally needed to be notified if something like that had been done. A cursory examination of Susan and Daphne’s owls showed both had been minorly confunded to make them think their letters were delivered. 

Eventually they theorized someone was vanishing, or summoning the letters off the owl’s legs and then charming the owls to make them turn around before they reached Iris. Whoever it was had to be close enough to the residence to catch all the owls, since they realistically couldn’t be staking out all the possible points of origin for the post.

Which brought Andromeda to hiding in the woods with Amelia, the two witches watching intently for whoever was vanishing the letters and befuddling the owls to strike. Amy really could have assigned a hit-wizard from her office, but she decided to help out personally, both because she was close friends with Andromeda, and because she had her own protective streak when it came to her honorary niece. 

“Should be any time now,” Amy muttered as she checked the time with Tempus. Susan had sent a bait parcel from the Bones home, and it took roughly half an hour for an owl to make the transit. They were nearing the moment the owl should appear, and hopefully, so would their quarry.

A few moments later, Susan’s snowy owl, Hedwig, appeared on the horizon, carrying a large box in her talons. They’d decided to send a package for the bait, hoping the larger size would make it easier to see where it went. Just a few hundred feet from the ward line, the package zipped from the talons of an irate Hedwig, zooming towards a small huddled figure that had appeared a few dozen feet from the two witches.

Andromeda and Amelia reacted swiftly, crying “Locomotor Locus,” and “Disapperi Nix!” respectively, to bind the mail thief and prevent them from vanishing. They rushed over to the squirming figure only to discover the robber was not in fact a wizard, but rather a House-Elf

“Dobby?” Andromeda asked in disbelief as she stared at the fidgeting elf before her. She hadn’t seen Dobby since she fled the Black home in the middle of the night, all those years ago. She’d always liked the little house-elf, one of three the family still had by the time she was growing up. He was a cheerful sort, if a bit odd. 

“Little Missy Andromeda?” Dobby asked in equal wonderment, before beginning to struggle again, “NO! No, Master is saying never to talk with nasty blood traitors. Bad, Dobby, Bad!”

“Oh, Dobby,” Andromed said sadly. “What has Lucius done to you?” She had to assume that was who Dobby’s master was, as the only living male Black was Sirius, who was currently in Azkaban. Dobby must have gone with Narcissa when she’d been married off to the Malfoy family.

Andromeda felt no small amount of guilt when she thought about her younger sister, or when she thought about her twin for that matter. While she found their actions, particularly Bella’s, reprehensible, she couldn’t help but think ‘there but for the grace of Hecate, go I.’ She liked to think she wouldn’t have ended up as twisted as they, but then again she was the one who got out. 

Growing up in the Black household was difficult to say the least. Their parents were controlling from the start, and it only grew worse as the years wore on and Voldemort’s followers amassed power in the shadows. While her grandfather Pollux had never fully embraced the budding Dark Lord, two of his children, Andromeda’s father Cygnus, and her aunt Walburga, certainly had. Indeed, Cygnus had been all too excited to promise all three of his daughters off to suspected Death Eaters.

It was difficult to parse her feelings sometimes; when she’d first run from the Black house she couldn’t understand why Bella wouldn’t come with her. In a lot of ways she’d never understood what made her twin decide to stay, and the horrific woman Bellatrix had become was a stranger to her. However, when it came to Cissy she felt somewhat guilty. Leaving like she did had to have made her father tighten his grip even tighter on the younger girl, who was still in school at the time. Andi would never regret choosing Ted, choosing her freedom, choosing the Light, but on moonlit nights she wished she’d been able to bring Cissy with her.  

Complicated feelings aside, she had absolutely not been expecting to find her sister’s house-elf intercepting her daughter’s mail. Eyeing him warily, Andromeda began to question the old family elf, who, between bouts of self-punishment, wove a rather peculiar tale. 

—----

Later

They’d ended up letting Dobby go after he’d given them a very disjointed warning about some great evil that would be coming to Hogwarts. The little elf was very insistent about Iris being in great danger if she returned, but wouldn’t or couldn’t elaborate on what that danger was. 

In the end it hadn’t been that difficult to figure out how to set up some temporary Elf wards around the property. They weren’t often used, considering the relative rarity of House-elves and Elves' natural reluctance to stray from their home for long, but they were by no means unknown. Hopefully that, coupled with a veiled threat to inform Narcissa if Dobby continued his harassment of Iris would keep her daughter safe from the creature. That, or maybe Dobby remembered Andromeda Black enough to know how fiercely she would defend her daughter.

Of course, protecting her from Dobby did nothing to protect her from whatever it was Dobby was warning her of. Andromeda really wished the little being could speak plainly on the matter, but understood the compulsions he was fighting just to give a vague warning. Andromeda wished she could have freed the little elf, but that was something only Lucius or Narcissa could do and she found that exceedingly unlikely.

The whole situation, with Dobby obviously defying his master, was very peculiar considering how deeply House Elf loyalty typically ran. Perhaps it was because Dobby likely saw Narcissa as his ultimate master that he was willing to defy Lucius’ orders, it was hard to say. The ambiguity of the situation was what made her worry it may all be some sort of mind game by Lucius or his son to mess with Iris. 

House Elves were, like all varieties of elves, essentially symbiotic creatures, reliant on another source of magical power for their survival. For instance, Wood Elves congregated in places of natural magical power, tending groves of magical flora that grew around loci of mystic energies. House Elves, on the other hand, bonded to a magical family and sustained themselves on the magic that suffused a wizarding household overtime. 

In spite of how some wizards treated them, House Elves weren’t exactly owned by the human spell casters. This was most evident in the fact that ownership of a House Elf could not be directly transferred, they could not be bought or sold. They could be freed and subsequently bind themselves to a different family, but the House Elf would be able to decide who they chose. The only real way to shift an Elf to another master, without freeing them in between, was to pass them to a family member who was being married into another family, as seemed to have happened with Narcissa and Dobby. 

Unfortunately there was little they could do beyond warning their children to be careful, and Amelia staying on alert. Hogwarts was perhaps the most heavily warded dwellings in Britain, so it should be safe in theory, but there were always chinks in any suit of armor. 

“You know I could bring the elf in for questioning,” Amelia offered, “it’s been done before.” While Elf testimony was exceedingly uncommon, it had been called on before in the courts. 

Andromeda shook her head, “I doubt you’d get the order to stand up in court, especially if Lucius elevated the matter to the Wizengamot. With no real evidence of a major crime so far, they won’t want to upset the apple cart.” Andromeda let out a long sigh, “besides, if Dobby is telling the truth and something dark is going to be happening at Hogwarts, he almost certainly knows about it because he overheard Lucius or one of his friends, and trying to question Dobby will just tip Lucius off.”

“Morganna’s Tits,” Amelia cursed. She hated not being able to take action, but Andi was right. They just didn’t know enough. 

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

August, Diagon Alley

Summer passed rather joyfully and placidly for Iris and her friends. It had been absolutely brilliant in Iris’s opinion, mostly due to the addition of Daphne, Tracey and occasionally Hermione to her usual adventures with her sister and Susan. 

In addition to Daphne and Tracey becoming common sights in both Megaron Hall and the Bones Manor, Mrs. Greengrass had made good on her offer to let Iris visit the Welsh reserve.  While she hadn’t gotten to get too close, seeing so many dragon breeds in person had been amazing for Iris. Susan had been similarly excited by Miss Davis getting them tickets to an exhibition match, and letting the girls in to meet the rest of the Tornadoes after the game. 

Hermione hadn’t been able to join them as habitually, both due to her house not being connected to the Floo network and a family trip to France during the summer. Still, the other four had seen her a time or two and kept up a lively correspondence with the muggleborn girl. 

The Tonks had also gone on a small vacation, in their case to Ireland for a week in July around Iris’s birthday. It had been a fun trip, poking around the Hidden Ruins of Tuatha De Danann, doing some deep water fishing, and attending a performance of the Wyrd Sisters in Dublin.

However, all things must come to an end, and summer’s end was approaching, and in Britain that meant one thing, the arrival of the Hogwarts school supplies letter. Andromeda was once again taking charge of the trip, working from home she had the most flexible schedule, and she’d be taking Nymphadora, Iris and Susan around to do their shopping. 

This year they’d also be shepherding Iris’s muggleborn friend, Hermione Granger. First year muggleborns were taken through the Alley by Professor McGonogal, but after that they were pretty much left to their own devices. Unfortunately that sometimes led to their Muggle parents becoming easy marks for scams, due to their lack of context and experience for the price of things in the wizarding world, what was real magic, and even exchange rates. 

After all, the magical area centered on Diagon Alley was massive and could be difficult to navigate if you weren’t familiar. It extended far beyond the titular main thoroughfare, including Knockturn Alley, Horizont Alley, Carkitt Market, Vertick Alley, and Kasta Way, as well as a cluster of residential space for the magical community. For the Hogwarts shopping list you didn’t really need to leave Diagon Alley itself, but it was easy to get turned around if you weren’t paying attention.

There was a moment of awkwardness when they met with the Grangers at the Leaky Cauldron. A good part of that stemmed from the Granger’s surprise at Andromeda’s youthful appearance. Despite being 40 and 41 respectively, both Tonks parents appeared to be no older than their mid-twenties. This wasn’t anything exceptional about them, but rather a common trait of all wizards and witches, they lived on average 2-3 times longer than muggles, and, after childhood, physically aged at a reduced rate to match their lifespans. Some rare witches and wizards could live even longer, though eventually all of them would succumb to age unless their name happened to be Flamel.

This aging discrepancy was an additional reason for the rarity of Wizard/Muggle relationships, even among magical folk who held no prejudice against muggles. Knowing you’d almost certainly outlive your potential romantic partner could certainly put a damper on things. Relationships and marriages between muggles and wizards obviously still happened, but the different rates of aging could put a strain on their union. It was even hard for Muggleborns like Ted, who was getting to a point where it was becoming increasingly implausible to muggles for his parents to have been his parents, given their relative appearances. 

Of course there was variation, as magicals differed in how quickly they showed age, just as muggles did. Molly Weasley for instance was only a few years older than Andromeda, but looked old enough to be her mother; then again, part of that may be down to their differing styles of dress. 

Speaking of outfits, today Andromeda was in a red salamander skin jacket, a silk sea green blouse and dark blue skirt. Nymphadora, who was sporting wild dark hair that was a mirror of Andromeda’s, had dressed rather muggle, with jeans, sandals and a tank top, albeit one with a moving logo for the Wyrd Sisters on it. Iris was clad in a light green knee length dress with a red shrug, stockings, and her favorite dragonhide boots, somewhat matching her mother, while Susan had opted for a yellow dress with black pinstripe vest over it, showing her Hufflepuff pride.

After introductions and the Grangers getting over their surprise, Andromeda led the gaggle of young witches through the Alley, trying to answer any questions the Grangers had as she went. Susan and Hermione had both had a bit of a growth spurt since last year and needed to go to Madame Malkins to get their robes adjusted. (Iris was quite put out to have only grown around an inch, compared to her friends shooting up 3-5) 

Luckily this year none of them were first years so they wouldn’t need to be purchasing wands, cauldrons or any of the other items they’d be continuing to use from the previous year. They did need to stop by Slug and Jiggers for potion supplies, Scribulus’s for fresh quills and parchments, Wiseacres for a few odds and ends and so on. 

Iris had dragged them into the Alley branch of Rosa Lee’s Tea Bags to stock up on her favorite brews. Nym had brought her back a selection from the Hogsmeade branch the previous year, and the younger sister had developed a real affinity for fine tea, often brewing her own small pot in her dorm, using a self-heating enchanted kettle she’d ordered via Owl Post. Susan similarly diverted them to stare in the window of Broomstix for a while, salivating over the Nimbus 2001 even though she wasn’t going to purchase it. Amelia had promised her a broom for her birthday in March so she’d just have to wait.

After that they were planning to pick up the girls’ school books, but ran into a snag. Unfortunately it seemed Gilderoy Lockhart was having a book signing event that made Flourish and Blotts an overcrowded mess, much to Iris and Hermione’s chagrin, since they normally loved exploring the book store. Rather than all of them brave the crowds, they decided to just return to the shop later in the day when hopefully the crowds there to see the author would have departed.

Instead the group went to Fortescue's parlor to introduce the Grangers to the wondrous world of Wizarding ice cream flavors. Susan was actually rather surprised that the muggles knew about ice cream at all, assuming it was a magical invention. Unbeknownst to them, there would be quite the dust up in the book store while they were getting their ice cream, and a certain incoming first year would leave it with a very particular book in her possession. 

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Late August, Chateau Delacour

Fleur smiled bemusedly while her little sister, Gabrielle, chased the fireflies she'd conjured. It was a warm summer evening a week before the elder Delacour sister would be returning to Beauxbatons. Summer had been a nice reprieve for Fleur, a chance to let her walls down. Since her disastrous start to her third year, she'd kept most everyone at arm's length, developing a cold exterior.

If she was not to be treated as a peer by her fellow students, she resolved to be an object of admiration not scorn. She'd studied like a demon, rising to the top of nearly every class. She'd basically stopped talking to anyone but Sonia, throwing herself entirely into improving as a witch. If she was demonstrably perfect, no one would be able to claim her achievements weren’t by her own merits. 

Bit by bit, the whispers about her had changed from disgust to distant admiration. There were still those few who claimed she was earning her accomplishments through Veela Bewitchment, they were becoming a dwindling minority. At least, as far as what people dared to say aloud. 

It didn’t hurt that after students returned home for the winter holidays, it seemed they suddenly remembered that her father was a senior member of the magical French Government. It was pathetic in her view, the 180s some of her classmates' attitudes did after they’d obviously been reminded by their parents that it was unwise to insult Monsieur Delacour’s daughter.

None of it mattered. Fleur had seen their true faces, their cruelty and she would not forget it. She didn’t need friends. She had Sonia and her family and that was enough. She wasn’t lonely. Not even a little bit. 

“You’re scowling again, darling,” Apolline Delacour chided Fleur gently. Fleur and her mother were sitting on the northern veranda, which looked out on the backyard of the Delacour estate. A well tended lawn sprawled out from the building, before sloping down to the point it met the beach, with the veranda giving a beautiful view of a little cove on the English Channel. 

“Sorry, maman,” Fleur demurred as she tried to banish her worries about returning to school. She wished she could be as carefree as her little sister was, dancing with the fireflies out in the yard. 

Apolline put a hand to her cheek and frowned slightly as she looked at her eldest. The mother felt Fleur was being entirely too hard on herself, but wasn’t sure how to help her. This was a turbulent time in the life of any young Veela, learning to control their abilities, not to mention dealing with the prejudice some wizards had towards half-breeds. She worried Fleur was closing herself off from not only others, but her own emotions as a reaction to it. 

She sighed, there was little she could do unless Fleur was willing to talk to her about what was troubling her, and her daughter had been very resistant to that all summer. She wished she could just vanish her daughter’s problems, but even as a former dueling champion she couldn’t hex away everything that troubled her family. 

Apolline was a spectacularly beautiful woman, as one would expect of a half-veela, even dressed down in her nightgown and robe. The Delacour women were enjoying a peaceful evening at home, marred only by her husband being away on a Ministry trip to the ICW. 

“Do you think papa will be back before school begins again?” Fleur asked. She hoped she wouldn’t have to wait to see her father until winter break.

Apolline put a gentle hand on her daughter’s shoulder, “I’m sure he will be. This issue with the Russians will soon pass.” Fleur’s father worked for the foreign branch of the magical French government, and had been sent to help negotiate an incident regarding the jurisdiction of Giant reserves. (The Russians and the Norse were always squabbling over who had the responsibility for the territory and apparently the Russians were trying to use the approval of a new ICW budget as leverage to get their way.)

“Good,” Fleur declared, smiling slightly. 

“Fleur! I bet I can catch more fireflies than you!” Gabrielle yelled up from the yard. Fleur raised an eyebrow, but ran down the stairs nonetheless to play with her little sister. Apolline conjured more of the bugs, and two butterfly nets for the girls to use. Before long, Fleur’s facade had softened a bit as she and Gabbi chased the blinking lights through the night air.

Apolline smiled. Even if she tried to act like an emotionless ice sculpture, her bright little Fleur was still in there, just below the surface. 

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Hogwarts Library, First Week of Fall Term

"So we all agree Lockhart's an idiot, right?" Daphne asked the table. The Slytherin and Ravenclaw second years had just finished their first lesson and it had been less than impressive. 

"I mean, I didn't think we could do worse than Quirrell, but I sit corrected," Iris agreed, "at least I'm moderately sure he's just a narcissist, not a criminal." While Iris and Nym had agreed to keep the presence of Voldemort's shade a secret, the fact that they'd confronted Quirrell while he was trying to steal the stone was public information. A part of her felt bad for keeping secrets from her friends, but they'd probably sleep easier not knowing a fragment of He Who Must Not Be Named was still out there.

"Narcissist is an understatement," Tracey groaned from behind her stack of Lockhart books. The trio would not bother hauling all of them along for DADA classes going forward.

"Do you think he took the post, just to pad his book sales with the assigned 'textbooks'?" Iris asked. She'd read through several of the volumes ahead of school starting and, while they weren't totally uninteresting as adventure stories and travelogs, they weren't exactly instructional. They also all seemed to be written in somewhat different styles, at least the meat of the stories, making her wonder if Lockhart was employing ghostwriters to write up his adventures. Either way, there were so many that the Ravenclaw had needed to levitate them down from the tower just to get them to class. 

"I mean, at least he's accomplished?" Tracey offered weakly, "like he has a lot of practical experience. Maybe it'll get better once he gets used to teaching."

"I wouldn't get my hopes up," Daphne said darkly while she shoved her own Lockhart books to the side. Frankly she found it idiotic they’d been told to bring all of them to class anyway, since the only one they’d even referenced was Magical Me.  “After seeing what passes for a quiz in his class, I’m considering asking father to secure me a private tutor. I can’t believe Dumbledore hired the fool.”

“Weren’t we supposed to be covering Pixies today?” Iris asked. Hufflepuff and Gryffindor had already had their first lesson, and while they hadn’t gone into detail, Susan and Hermione had mentioned there was some sort of practical demonstration with the diminutive fae. “He basically just spent the class vamping after we finished with his ‘quiz’.” There had been an over fifty question quiz given to the second years, but not on any DADA topic. Rather it had been on Lockhart’s own personal biography.  “Hey, Sue! Didn’t you say you covered Pixies in your first defense lesson,” Iris asked Susan as the Hufflepuff and Hermione walked up to join them.

“Um, well yes,” Susan tempered, “we did but I think he may have lost the pixies.” Susan didn’t want to go into detail about how Lockhart had left them to collect the pixies at the end of the class. She wasn’t opposed to a practical lesson, but she would have liked more heads up than he gave them.

“You could have warned us about how big of a pompous windbag he is,” Daphne said.

Hermione made an affronted noise, “he’s not a windbag! He’s just new to teaching. If you read his books you’d see he’s really very qualified.”

From there Daphne and Hermione descended into bickering about Lockhart’s worthiness as a teacher, with Tracey and Susan occasionally chiming in to support Daphne and Hermione respectively. Iris tuned out the conversation; she largely agreed with Daphne but figured there wasn’t much point in arguing about it. Give it a few more classes and she’d either be proven wrong and Lockhart would turn out to be brilliant, or, as she suspected was more likely, Susan and Hermione would realize there was a reason his membership in the Dark Force Defense League was only honorary. 

Iris was becoming increasingly engrossed in Riding the Storm, a Primer on the Arte of Weather Witchery, an older tome on weather manipulation magic that Nym had picked up from Obscurus Books for her birthday, when her ears perked back up to Daphne and Hermione’s argument, which seemed to have strayed rather far from Lockhart. 

“Of course Muggles have ice cream!” Hermione explained.

“I’m not saying I don’t believe you, I’m just saying I’m skeptical,” Daphne said placatingly.

“What does this have to do with Professor Lockhart?” Iris asked, causing both Hermione and Daphne to pause and look a bit exasperated.

“We’re past that, do try to keep up, Iris,” Daphne explained.

“Are we past that?” Susan asked, “I don’t remember coming to a consensus.”

“Because you two are being dumb,” Tracey declared bluntly. “You’re nearly as bad as Lavender and Milicent and they only like him because they think he’s handsome.”

“Wait, is that why everyone likes him?” Iris asked, baffled. She assumed the other second year girls were giving him the benefit of the doubt due to his many recorded accomplishments, not his looks.

"I mean, don't you think he's kind of dreamy?" Hermione shyly asked. Obviously she cared more about all the dark creatures he’d faced, but, well, his award winning smile didn’t hurt in Hermione’s eyes. 

Iris shrugged a little uncomfortabley, "I mean, not really? But, then again I really only like witches so that's not too surprising?" She'd come to that realization over the summer a little after her mum had given her the snitch and the quaffles talk; she just wasn't attracted to boys. Consequently she’d discovered she was absolutely terrible at telling whether or not a man was supposed to be handsome. 

"You like girls!?" Hermione squeaked, her face going red. 

Daphne gave her a strange look, "why do you find that odd? I'm attracted to both witches and wizards myself, but it's not strange to prefer one over the other."

“Really?” Hermione asked in a hushed whisper. She turned to Iris, “but aren’t you worried about getting married one day?”

"Same sex marriage is perfectly legal among magical folk," Iris explained with a confused tilt of her head. She vaguely knew from talking with her muggle grandparents that muggles were weird about who they let get married, and had to assume that was the source of Hermione’s shock. It seemed rather Dursleyish to her to forbid people from being together on such arbitrary lines, in service of some definition of ‘normal’. 

“Wait, it is?” Hermione asked in a mixture of disbelief and excitement. Honestly, as much as she read, she always felt like she was three steps behind when it came to learning about wizarding culture. 

This was one of the many areas of magical culture where magic had led to distinct breaks with their muggle counterparts. The main thing the noble wizarding families of Britain were concerned with, and thus what shaped the laws, was line continuance and that would have been the main objection to same sex unions. However, due to the existence of fertility potions, marriage between witches had been recognized since time immemorial. The legalization of marriage between two wizards was comparatively more recent, coming about in the 1700s, and not so coincidentally followed the invention of a fertility potion that would work for two men.

It was a simple process, a witch could simply brew a fertility potion, utilizing their own blood, and have her wife drink it while reciting the relevant incantation. The second witch would then become pregnant with a child that combined both of the women's bloodlines. It was somewhat more complicated for paired men, requiring a joint brewing and a surrogate, but it was similarly possible. In any event, the bloodlines were continued, barring any other fertility issues with the witch or wizards in question. (It was probably yet another oversight of poor integration of muggleborns into wizarding society that there wasn’t a sex ed course for them that informed them of the differences in healthcare, fertility potions, contraceptive charms, moon potions, etc.)

Susan explained all of this to a stunned Hermione, who informed them in turn that joint biological reproduction was impossible for two muggles of the same sex. Hermione was further startled to learn several of her classmates were the result of same sex unions, such as Penelope, who had two mums, or the Patil twins, who had two fathers. It was actually a nice surprise for Hermione to discover an area in which the Wizarding world was more progressive, in her mind, than the muggle world, given how old fashioned it seemed on the surface.

“You mean to tell me Muggles have found a way to replicate ice cream without using magic, but they can’t sort out a replacement for fertility potions?” Daphne scoffed. Muggles had a strange sense of priorities. 

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Abandoned Enchantment Classroom, Late September

“We hate Percy Weasley,” Penelope declared the moment Nymphadora walked in the room.

“Hello to you too, Penny.” Tonks snarked as she dropped her schoolbag in a spare chair. Today she had shoulder length pink hair framing an oval shaped face with an aristocratic nose, though she’d been changing the length of it all day to see if her professors noticed.

“Oh, right, hello Tonks. We hate Percy Weasley,” Penelope replied absently.

“And why do we now hate the stick in the mud Weasel?” Tonks asked. She didn’t have much of a strong opinion on the family, and actually found some of the pranks Fred and George pulled to be rather funny. According to Iris, the younger brother Ron was a bit of a prat, but other than being a by the book Prefect she didn’t really know much about Percy.

“We hate Percy Weasley because he keeps asking me out, no matter how many times I say no,” Penny bemoaned.

Nym’s expression darkened, “He hasn’t tried to…” If Percy Wesely had forced himself on her friend, she’d hex him into a shoebox.

“No,” Penny announced with a sigh, “he literally just keeps asking. It’s like he thinks it’s some sort of business deal and he just needs to negotiate the terms. Today he came up to me with a parchment full of reasons I was his ideal partner.”

Tonks guffawed, “what’d you do?”

“I vanished the parchment, transfigured his shoes a few sizes too small and told him in no uncertain terms I wasn’t interested,” Penny explained. She’d let the ginger boy down gently the first handful of times, but his persistence was becoming supremely annoying. She’d basically begged her fellow Ravenclaw Prefects to make sure she was never assigned rounds the same night as him at this point. 

“Ooh, Pen only busts out the Shoe Shrinking Hex when she’s really pissed, who are we mad at?” Katie Bell asked as she stepped into the room. The Gryffindor 4th year was half Irish and half Greek, with long dark brown hair and mischievous eyes. 

“Percy Weseley, apparently,” Tonks explained as she collapsed into the chair opposite Penny. It had been an exhausting day. Snape had assigned Scouring Potions that day and she’d needed to be razor focused to avoid spoiling her batch. It was both a matter of her needing an O on her Potions OWLS this year to pursue her dreams of being an Auror, and the knowledge that her mum would be disappointed if her daughter flunked her own subject, that kept Tonks from exploding her cauldron in frustration some days. 

“Wait, is the prat still acting all love sick for you, Pen?” Katie asked with a surprised expression. “I thought he would have gotten the hint by now. Want me to say something to him?” Katie was in the same house as Percy and could likely get him alone for a ‘friendly chat’ or, failing that, get his twin brothers to make his life miserable if need be. 

“Not yet,” Penelope reluctantly decided, cuddling up under the window with Biscuits, “but if he asks again I’m definitely setting you loose on him, Kate.”

“You make her sound like an angry Crup. Sorry I’m late by the way, who are we setting Katie on?” Cedric Diggory asked as he also filed into the room.

“Percy Weasely. I should make a bloody sign,” Tonks quipped. 

“Oh is it because he docked Susan five points for laughing at him?,” said Cedric as he took his own chair, pulling some parchment from his bag as he did so. Professor Kettleburn had absolutely overloaded his students with homework so far this term, with lots of theoretical research. Tonks suspected the loss of his remaining foot the previous summer may have put him off more practical lessons.

“What, he did what?” Nym asked indignantly, she had quite a soft spot for her little sister’s best friend. Susan had been a regular fixture in the Tonks home, and Nym took it upon herself to look after the Bones girl after she was sorted into Hufflepuff, in much the same way that Penelope looked after Iris in Ravenclaw.

Cedric looked up from the blank parchment he had to turn into an essay, “oh yeah, his brother’s had hexed his glasses to flash rude messages at people and he couldn’t figure out why everyone was snickering. Honestly it was an impressive bit of magic, making the words show up on only one side, without impeding his vision.”

Katie snorted, she loved the twin’s pranks, and knew their elder brother was a favorite target for good reason. She was reasonably close with the younger two Weasleys, all three being on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. The way they told it, Percy was just as irritating at home as he was at school. She turned to Cedric and explained the situation with Percy’s repeated attempts to woo Penny. 

“Ah, that’s rough, Penny,” Cedric said sympathetically. “Cho had a similar thing happen with Mclaggen last year-”

“Ugh, Ced we get that you’re dating someone but you don’t need to bring it up everytime” Katie groaned. Cedric’s friends didn’t hate Cho, but they also didn’t think she shat rainbows like Cedric seemed to. 

Cedric stuck out his tongue, “you’re just jealous, Bell.”

“Can’t you just be single and lonely like me and Tonks?” Katie whined sarcastically, before giving a sly look over towards Nym, “unless you’ve been holding out on us and have some secret crush or something?”

It took all of Nym’s practice controlling her features to keep her face from turning into a tomato, since she did in fact have a secret crush. It was Katie. "In my defense, how could someone not have a crush on Katie, she’s awesome. Also really REALLY pretty,’ Nym panicked internally as she realized she should really probably reply,

“A crush, me? Pssh, never. I’ve never had a crush on anyone, secret or otherwise, anyways we should really get started on that essay for McGonogal, right Penny?” Tonks babbled.  

“Smooth, Tonks, smooth,” Penny chuckled, while Cedric also laughed. Katie giggled along at, in her opinion, Nym’s adorable stammering, but was a bit wistful underneath. Tonks obviously did have a crush on someone, and whoever it was was a very lucky witch or wizard indeed. ‘Wish it was me,’ Katie lamented to herself as the quartet moved on to other topics. 

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Mid October, 2nd Year Charms Class

A predatory serpent was stalking the grounds of Hogwarts. It slithered quietly for its great length, the consummate predator, preparing to attack and destroy its prey, the squealing pathetic creature that the snake would destroy in the name of its master. It coiled in the shadows and tensed its muscles as it prepared to strike.

“<I don’t care for Weassssley either, but if you attack the prat, I’m the one who’ll get in trouble>” Iris hissed as quietly as she could to her pet snake Sebastian, who was coiled up under her robes. She could feel him tensing under her robe’s scooping sleeve as Ron, who was sitting to her right, gesticulated wildly while he told Neville about some Chudley Cannons game, while they waited for class to start. 

Really, she shouldn’t be bringing an eighteen pound serpent with her to class, but she wanted to let Sebastian explore a little more than her dormitory. She’d sewed a hidden pocket for him into the inside of a set of school robes, and ferried him about throughout the day. 

“<Not the boy. He hasss a funny smelling rat in his robe. Can’t I just have a tassssste Misssstressssss?>” Sebastian whined, having slithered up her collar to complain in her ear. 

‘Hmm, it seems I’m not the only one with a familiar in their pocket,’ Iris realized. 

—---

Later, Black Lake Shore

Iris had let Sebastian slither out of her robes to bask in the sun, and potentially snatch a tasty morsel scurrying in the grass of Hogwarts field. He knew not to stray too far from his mistress, but was enjoying exploring the new hunting ground. She herself was sitting on the bluff above the lake that had quickly become one of her favorite spots at Hogwarts, with a majestic view of the lake and copse of cedars to provide shade and somewhere to lean. 

It was overall a tranquil spot, or at least it would be if her friend wasn’t currently pacing back and forth and ranting. 

“It’s ridiculous, unsporting, bad for House morale and just bloody STUPID!” Tracey declared as she aggressively kicked the ground, sending a clod of dirt flying down the hill. The Slytherin girl was in a mean temper, with her cheeks puffy and red, and her light brown ponytail flying wildly back and forth as she paced. 

Tracey had been furious since she’d checked the notice board in the Slytherin common room that morning. It seems that after a lackluster season the previous year, Terrance Higgs was being replaced as the Slytherin seeker. That wasn’t what had made Tracey boil with rage. If that was the extent of the announcement, she’d actually have been pretty happy as seeker was her preferred position and she very much wanted to play for her house team.

However, what the missive had actually said, was that Draco Malfoy was going to be the new seeker, without, apparently, even needing to go through an open tryout. It was preposterous, Draco was also a 2nd year, pretty young to be a starting player if she was honest, and hardly even played any intramural games the previous year.

It hadn’t been that hard to figure out what had happened, as the announcement was accompanied by another, declaring that the entire team was being outfitted with Nimbus 2001 brooms, courtesy of Lucius Malfoy.

“You realize he’s just bought his way on to the team, right? GAH, I can’t BELIEVE Flint!” Tracey declared angrily to Susan, Iris and Daphne who were sitting against a large tree in front of her. 

Iris and Daphne exchanged a glance, neither girl particularly cared for Quidditch, but both of them cared a great deal for Tracey, and didn’t particularly care for Malfoy. For her part, Susan decided to wait until Tracey calmed down to announce to her friends that she’d been made a reserve Beater for the Hufflepuff team after yesterday’s tryouts.

“I’m sorry, Tracey,” Iris said for maybe the third time since the girls had met up at the Lake and Tracey started complaining. “Um, I’d say talk to your head of house but…” It was the sort of situation Flitwick would fix, but Snape likely wouldn’t care to.

“Honestly I’m surprised Lord Malfoy is spending his money so foolishly,” Daphne offered. Brand new, top of the line brooms were expensive, well above what Draco could afford himself even with his no doubt generous allowance. (Unknown to her, the money for the brooms had largely come from the galleons Lucius had made selling off dark artifacts to Borgin and Burkes.)

“I’m not,” Susan said darkly, “Auntie’s always said Malfoy’s pretty free with his coin.” Lucius Malfoy was the bane of Amelia’s existence with how much his money greased the corruption in the Ministry. He wasn’t the only wealthy patron who’d found a friend in the Fudge government, but he was a particularly pernicious example of the breed. 

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” Daphne scoffed. “With all the Galleons he spends on bribes, I’m shocked he has enough leftover to buy little Drac Drac’s way onto the Quidditch team.”

“It’s bullshit is what it is,” Tracey declared, “I can fly circles around that-”

“Colin, PLEASE stop following me!”

Tracey broke off her rant and the four girls looked over to see their friend, Hermione rushing down from the castle, her red and gold scarf fluttering in the wind, with a camera wielding first year trailing after her. 

“I’m sorry, I just wanted to get a photo of Iris Potter and Dean said you two were friends, so I figured if I followed you- OOH there she is!” Colin Creevy babbled before cutting off when he spotted Iris sitting on the bluff. The first year nearly tripped over himself rushing down the hill, before coming to a stop and snapping a picture of a rather uncomfortable Iris.

“Oi, get that camera out of her face,” Susan demanded as she got to her feet. The taller redhead interposed her body between Iris and Colin and stared down at him with her best impression of her Aunt’s interrogation stare. She knew Iris was more than a little uncomfortable with how famous she was, and how careful the Tonks were to avoid photographers when going out in public. She hadn’t expected anyone to try it at Hogwarts, but she’d be damned if she didn’t protect her best friend.

Colin squeaked and scampered off, though not without his camera flashing again, inadvertently capturing a photograph of the angry protective Susan. The Hufflepuff briefly considered how much trouble she’d get in for casting a jinx after him, but decided to just sigh and reholster her wand. “You okay, Irey?”

“Uh, yeah, I’m fine, Susan,” Iris replied a little unsteadily. She hadn’t had cameras shoved in her face like that since the first time she went to Diagon Alley during Winter Break first year, after knowledge of her physical appearance and adoptive family became more widely known. That had been a bit of a harrowing experience, but her mother had pretty much immediately apparated her out of there, and, after her dad had sent a strongly worded letter/threat of legal action to the Prophet, it hadn’t happened again. 

“I am SO sorry Iris,” Hermione apologized. “I thought I shook him when I ducked into the dungeons, but he caught up to me.” Trying to shake her unwanted shadows was why Hermione was a bit late to their meetup after classes that afternoon.

“It’s okay Hermione,” Iris said, “really guy’s I’m fine,” she reiterated as eight concerned eyes bored into her. “It’s not that different from everyone staring and looking for the scar when we started last year. People are always going to gawk, probably with each new batch of first years. I guess I’ll get over it.”

“You shouldn’t have to get over it,” Daphne declared. “People should learn some basic decorum.”

There was a chorus of agreement from the other three girls, and one hissing snake that put a smile back on Iris’s face. Sure, some folk were always going to see the scar first, but the people who mattered saw Iris. 

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Halloween Night, Ravenclaw Tower

Halloween had come once again, and with it, Iris felt miserable. She tried not to, really, she just couldn’t help it. The anniversary of her birth parent’s deaths just made her sad, both for their loss before she really got to know them, and for the things that followed after, the Dursleys, her unwanted fame, and so on. 

It was a complicated emotion, because she loved her adoptive family dearly; she couldn’t really imagine her mum and dad not being her mum and dad at this point, but she still grieved the loss of her first family, especially at this time of year. Her friends and sister had tried to cheer her up throughout the day, but met with only limited success. Iris didn’t feel like she made for good company when she got all mopey like this. 

She’d have just wandered the halls like last year, if she didn’t think it would stress her sister out, due to what happened with the troll. Instead she’d bowed out of the Feast by telling Flitwick she had a stomach ache, and resigned herself to being miserable alone up in Ravenclaw Tower. 

‘Or at least I thought I’d be alone’ Iris thought to herself as she paused on the stairs leading up to the girl’s dorms. It was a tight spiral staircase with a door on each floor leading to the dorms for each year-group, starting with firsties and ascending all the way to the seventh year dorms at the top. Iris had a book in the crook of her arm and a sausage roll in her hand that Nym had basically forced into her hands before she let her sister skip the feast, and was planning to just try and read herself to sleep up in her dorm. However, as she was passing the first year girl’s dormitory she heard a sound she knew all too well from the first six years of her life, quiet sobbing.

Iris gingerly opened the door as she followed the sound, seeing the dorm room that had been hers the year before. It wasn’t that different from how she remembered it, the same architecture, the same beds, just differing personal effects scattered about. Oh, and the small blonde curled up in a ball next to a trunk, crying.

Iris hadn’t given a lot of thought to the new Ravenclaw first years. It wasn’t a malicious ignoring, but rather just a result of how busy she was with her own studies and friends. So she didn’t immediately know who this was, but she knew she was in trouble. Her feet moved without thinking, dropping her roll and book on a random bed she quickly stepped over to the girl, who looked up at her through teary eyes.

“Come to laugh at the freak?” the girl bit out dismally. 

Iris felt her insides go cold, dark memories of her time with the Dursleys coming unbidden to the fore of her mind. She remembered when she’d been called freak so much she thought it was her name, and she didn’t want to see anyone go through that ever again. “No, I heard you crying and I wanted to make sure you were okay. I’m Iris by the way, what’s your name?” Iris crouched down near the girl, wanting to hug her but not wanting to invade the girl’s bubble without permission.

The girl tried fruitlessly to wipe some of the tears away, “you won’t want to help once you know who I am…”

“I can guarantee you that’s not true,” Iris declared defiantly.

The girl bit her lower lip in hesitation before quietly admitting, “I’m Luna Lovegood.”

Iris gave her a gentle smile, “well then I can say with confidence that I want to help my new friend, Luna Lovegood.” Iris inched a little closer to the younger girl, “can I sit next to you?”

Luna gave a little nod and Iris sat against the bed next to the trunk Luna had been crying against. Iris noticed the trunk was both open and conspicuously empty, considering how tightly packed most Hogwarts students had their trunks. “Is something wrong with your trunk?” Iris asked carefully.

“They took my mummy’s bracelet,” Luna told her. 

“Just a bracelet?” Iris asked with a raised eyebrow as a picture of what had happened was forming in her mind.

“Oh, no, they’ve taken a great many things,” Luna said matter of factly, “my books, some robes, my shoes.” It was at this point Iris realized Luna was barefoot below her robes. Luna sniffled again, “But the bracelet was my mother’s and she always told me to be careful with it. That’s why I left it in my trunk before we pruned the Glow Bulbs in Herbology today. I didn’t want to get any of the sap on it, but I guess Jenny saw me put it in…”

“Jenny, is she the one who’s been taking your things?” Iris asked while gently nudging Luna’s leg. Inside Iris was incandescent with rage, but she kept her tone calm to avoid scaring Luna. 

“Well, her and Olive and Constance, but I think they’re probably just doing it because Marietta asked them to,” Luna explained.

“Marietta Edgecombe, the 3rd year?” Iris asked. She didn’t really know the older girl, and didn't think they’d ever had a conversation. Then again, while she wasn’t purposefully standoffish, Iris wasn’t exactly a social butterfly within her own house. She really only knew the girls in her own year, and Penny of course, and Penny was the only one she was close to. “Why would Marietta tell them to take your things?”

“Because I’m not a proper Ravenclaw,” Luna sniffled, “I’m a weirdo and a freak and I make us look bad. I believe in nonsense and the hat must have made a mistake and I should just-”

Luna was cut off by Iris finally being no longer able to resist the need to hug her. The older girl wrapped her arms around Luna tightly and just held her for a while. Iris knew Luna was just parroting the words of her bullies, and she hated that the girl had internalized it to that extent. 

It was all too similar to how Dudley had treated her, albeit happening with older children. Bullies trying to smush out anything they regarded as ‘abnormal’. An icy fury overtook the redheaded Potter and she felt a strong desire to go curse Marietta Edgecombe into oblivion, but she forced herself to show restraint. Exploding at the older Ravenclaw wouldn’t help Luna in the long term, and she needed to prioritize helping the crying first year over getting vengeance. 

There were three things Iris was going to do. One, threaten every Claw who was bullying Luna with dire consequences if they continued. She wouldn’t actually do anything horrible to them, but the threat of retribution should scare off at least most of them. Secondly, she was going to tell Penny, who was a Prefect, what was going on, and let the wrath of her sister’s best friend rain down. Penelope had always looked after Iris, and she knew she’d do the same for Luna. Third, she was going to purposely be seen eating with and hanging out with Luna. As much as Iris didn’t care for her fame, she was famous and by Morganna, she’d make it work for her for once! After all, Iris was a bit odd too, and she could only assume Marietta hadn’t messed with her because of the weight of who she was. 

However, before she did any of that, she was going to comfort Luna and make her less scared. She pulled back slightly while still keeping her arms around Luna, so she could look the blonde in the face. “You absolutely belong here, Luna. I promise you.”

After that Luna burst into a new round of sobbing, overcome with emotions, and Iris just held her. Eventually it all came out; Luna told her about how Marietta had seemingly targeted her early on for asking the older girl a question about Crumple-Horned Snorkacks while Marietta was apparently trying to chat up some Slytherin boy during lunch, how Marietta had blamed her ‘nonsense’ for driving the boy away and making her look bad. After that, it seemed Marietta took issue with everything about Luna, and as a fairly popular early girl, it was easy to get some of Luna’s yearmates to go along with it.

The bullying had escalated from cruel worlds, to Luna’s things going missing, to someone transfiguring her bed sheets to trap her one morning and make her miss class, to more of her things going missing. It was heartbreaking, and Iris swore it would not continue. Eventually she coaxed Luna to follow her up to the second year dorms, telling her they’d set about getting her bracelet and other possessions back in the morning. Pausing only briefly to write to Nym a very bare bones summary of what was going on, using her enchanted slate, she led Luna to her own bed where she’d be safe for the night.

It was an odd mirror of how Iris would still sneak into Nym’s room if she was upset and sleep curled up against her older sister, only now Iris was the one doing the comforting. She’d always felt protected, wrapped in her sister’s arms, and now tried to project that same feeling of protection around the tiny blonde snoring against her side. It was only then that Iris realized her earlier melancholy had entirely evaporated from her anger over Luna’s treatment. 

Luna eventually drifted off into the best sleep she’d had in a long while, with Iris following shortly after. Tomorrow promised retribution, but tonight granted the little Lovegood peace. The next morning the two new friends would wake to discover a Castle gripped by fear of a freshly opened Chamber of Secrets, and a newly enraged caretaker, distraught over his petrified cat. 

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

A Few Days Later, Hogwarts Old Enchantment Classroom

The Castle was awash with whispers about the ominous message on the wall, and the petrification of Filch’s cat. Sure, almost nobody liked the animal, but petrification was powerful and likely dark magic. That, coupled with the rumors about the Chamber the message alluded to, had everyone buzzing on a knife’s edge.

Luna and Iris had been questioned, since they were among the handful of students absent for the Halloween feast, but they were quickly cleared. In addition to being each other’s alibi for the attack on Mrs. Norris, The Grey Lady surprisingly vouched for them being in Ravenclaw Tower, informing Flitwick of what had happened. Luna hadn’t even seen the friendly ghost in the room that night, but, then again, she’d been trying to contain her amazement that someone actually cared about her. Even after a truly terrible night, Iris hugging her made Luna feel better than she had in the two years since her mother died.

Somewhat pessimistically, Luna had sort of expected Iris to maybe report the thefts to a teacher and then leave her be, but that proved to be an incredibly wrong prediction. From the moment she woke up the next day, Iris had stuck to her side like glue as the older girl set about trying to put things right. 

Luna was amazed at how rapidly things had changed for her after that night. Iris had been like a woman on a warpath, alerting professors and prefects, hunting down Luna’s lost possessions, organizing her friends to help, and terrifying the girls who’d helped Marietta with the bullying, all for Luna’s sake. Nobody had ever cared like that about Luna, since her mother passed anyways, and it was quite the peculiar feeling.

Penelope had been furious to discover that sort of bullying was going on in her own house, and came down hard on both Marietta and the first years she had egged on. The other Prefects also helped to reassert discipline, but Penelope was particularly passionate about her crusade. If there was one thing the Clearwater girl hated, it was bullies. Penny had actually apologized to Luna, for being negligent enough for the bullying to occur, amazing the blonde. Luna decided she quite liked Penny; she wasn’t as wonderful as Iris of course, but she was pretty incredible in her own right.

Most of Luna’s possessions were recovered, including, much to her delight, her mother’s bracelet. It was a golden band with a scene of a running hare etched into it, and her main keepsake of her mum. Some things, like old homework and a few quills, would never be found, but the big things were all found or returned. Penelope had even placed some wards on her trunk to alert the Prefect if anyone tried to take her things again.

If Penelope had been upset, Flitwick was OUTRAGED by the behavior of some of his Claws. He liked to be fairly laissez faire as a Head of House and give his students a fair amount of freedom, but apparently that freedom had been grossly abused. Marietta basically had detention until the end of term, and was getting the cold shoulder from a large portion of the house, which actually may have bothered the socially conscious girl more. The trio of first years escaped with a slightly smaller punishment, but still were going to be serving their fair share of detentions with Filch. And of course, everyone at Hogwarts saw the Ravenclaw hourglass drop over 100 points in a single day, leading to another set of rumors flying, even if they were largely drowned out by the ones regarding the Chamber of Secrets. 

What was most curious to the little blonde though, was that, for the past four days, she was hardly ever alone when out of class. Usually it was Iris, but sometimes it was the other Tonks sister protectively hovering around Luna. Nym had been as upset as Iris about what happened to Luna and wholeheartedly endorsed befriending the blonde. (Nymphadora might have been sporting blonde hair more than usual after meeting Luna.)

Luna had basically been folded into Iris’s group of friends, who were all rather interesting witches in their own right. Hermione was a bit gullible, believing everything that was written in ‘official sources’, but overall she was very nice. Daphne was more willing to entertain Luna’s theories, but often redirected her to do her own research independent of the Quibbler. Luna was rather surprised to find out how much her dad was getting wrong lately, but Daphne was never anything less than kind about it and let Luna discover those errors on her own, a far cry from how she’d been treated in the House of the clever. Luna thought Daphne was her favorite, after Iris, and maybe Nymphadora. 

She rather liked Susan as well, so much that she was beginning to think her daddy must be wrong about Susan’s aunt leading the Rotfang Conspiracy. She’d had similar thoughts regarding the Tutshill Tornados after meeting Tracey; she really didn’t think Tracey’s mum sounded like the sort to use dark magic to win games. ‘Gosh, Daddy’s really making a lot of errors lately; maybe he should hire a new fact checker?’ Luna reflected. 

“Do you think there’s any truth to the whole heir thing?” Penny asked no one in particular. It was a bit of a mix of Iris and Nymphadora’s friends hanging out in there today, Nymphadora, Penny, Iris, Daphne, Susan, and of course Luna. Katie was at Quidditch practice, prepping for the opening game the next day, Tracey was serving a detention she’d gotten with Lockhart for saying his teeth looked fake within his earshot, and Hermione was meeting with McGonagall about something she wouldn’t share. (Unknown to Luna, a somewhat embarrassed Hermione had finally decided to ask her head of house for some resources on wizarding reproductive healthcare.)

Cedric’s absence was a bit more conspicuous. Luna had to assume he’d been largely absent when she’d been around due to awkwardness over his girlfriend’s best friend being Luna’s main bully. On the one hand Luna felt a little bad for accidentally displacing him from his friend group, but a small part of her was somewhat jealously possessive of her new friends. She wasn’t proud of those feelings, but she’d never had friends before and she felt the need to cling to them lest they disappear. 

Well, she thought she’d had one friend, Ginny, but the last two months had disabused her of that notion. The other girl from Devon had basically stopped talking to her a month before Hogwarts even started, and she’d been very consistent in giving Luna the cold shoulder since. Luna didn’t know what she’d done wrong to make Ginny hate her, and could only hope she wouldn’t repeat that mistake with Iris and her other new friends. 

“I mean, if there wasn’t a petrified cat, I’d say the whole thing was a bad joke or some kid trying to stir up trouble,” Tonks opined, “but even then, I think it’s probably some Slytherin brat trying to put on airs.”  Penny shuddered a bit thinking about Mrs. Norris; she’d been keeping Biscuits in her Dorm room since the incident, worried that whoever the attacker was had it out for cats in general.

“Why are we assuming it’s a Slytherin?” Daphne asked primly. Next to her Iris was quietly chanting “Engorgio” as she tried to get a handle on the Engorgement Charm by making her black currant muffin grow. So far she wasn’t having much success, with the baked good enlarging unevenly before she would shrink it back down and try again. 

“Uh, because the message said the Chamber is open and enemies of the heir should beware?” Tonks replied, “obviously.”

“Engorgio, no that’s not right” Iris muttered as she managed to enlarge only the fruit, but not the surrounding pastry. 

“Yes, that is what it said, and none of those words were Slytherin. Technically we don’t even know who they’re claiming to be the heir of,” Daphne asserted. 

“I mean you’re technically right,” Susan said, “but like, the Chamber of Secrets was supposedly made by ol’ Salazar, so it’s pretty likely that’s the heir they’re talking about…”

Daphne looked like she was about to argue but then sighed and deflated a bit, “yes, fine, you’re probably correct. It's just disconcerting to suddenly have all the other houses look at you like you’re a Hungarian Horntail that could attack at any moment.” Daphne admitted, uncharacteristically downcast. 

Susan leaned over and squeezed her arm, “hey, none of us think you’re a rampaging dragon, Daph. You know that, right?”

“Well of course I didn’t think any of you were dim enough to suspect me,” Daphne replied, though it was clear on some level she’d needed to hear Susan say it. 

Luna put her index finger to her chin and tilted her head, “how sure are we that the Chamber, if it exists, is even open? I mean all we really have is a threatening message and a petrified cat; neither of those require some hidden vault being opened.”

“That’s a very good point, Luna,” Penelope said brightly. The elder Ravenclaw was trying to encourage Luna when she asked questions or contributed to the conversation, to try and counteract any behaviors she might have learned during her first several months at school. 

“I mean, you might be right, but petrification is a nasty bit of magic. I don’t even know how a Hogwarts student could have learned a spell that would do it,” Tonks pointed out.

“Well, that is something that might point to it being someone from an old family,” Susan said slowly, “family Grimoires have all sorts of magic that never gets publicly disseminated.” While maintaining a family spellbook had become less important after the publishing of The Standard Book of Spells, many older wizarding families maintained their personal grimoires and they were known to contain various esoteric bits of magic.

“If someone did have knowledge of a piece of dark magic that powerful, why on earth would they risk exposing that fact just to curse a cat and scare some muggleborns?” Daphne countered. “As loath as I am to admit there might be a Monster of Slytherin, a creature of some sort having done the petrification makes the most sense.”

“Well if it is some kind of monster that petrified Mrs. Norris, what creature causes petrification like that, and how did it get around the castle without anyone seeing?” Penny asked.

Luna lit up, “Oh! Well, the Gorgon is commonly said to cause petrification, but really they transfigure their victims into stone statues. Mrs. Norris’s skin hasn’t turned to stone so it’s probably not that-”

Further speculation on what had petrified Mrs. Norris was cut off by one more quiet “Engorgio” and the subsequent explosion of Iris’s muffin, sending chunks of muffin flying all over the room and splattering the redhead with black currant juice.

“Too much magic, Irey,” Tonks said with a chuckle that the rest of the room quickly joined in on.

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Early November, Hogwarts Catacombs

Tom hissed with his borrowed lips to direct the great beast of Slytherin towards its prey. Ginerva was proving to be an adequate, if imperfect vessel for the soul fragment.

Tom controlled her body like a puppet, but it wasn’t complete. While the girl was largely unconscious, and would have no clear memory of what he did with her form, her body would resist if he tried to do something grossly contrary to the girl’s desires or ideals. That was part of the reason he hadn’t simply let loose a killing curse on the girl, Potter, who apparently had somehow destroyed his other self. It was far easier to have the girl release his serpent, keeping everything nice and indirect. 

While Ginny was all too happy to make herself vulnerable to friendly Tom, and thus to possession, he had to tread carefully. The girl didn’t share his ideals and would resist if he tried to use her to set the creature on filthy mudbloods just because of their filth right away. He would need to build up to that.  

He had started with simply having her sneak out and open the Chamber. Then he made her slaughter those irksome roosters, intentionally leaving evidence of the deed in the form of feathers on her robes to torment her. After that, he pushed her to send the Basilisk after Mrs. Norris; it was easier to get Ginny to go after an animal than a person to begin with, and it seemed every student universally loathed Filch’s cat. He was breaking her down steadily, step by step, and tonight they’d finally lose the monster on a mudblood. 

Perhaps it seemed odd that Riddle would reopen the Chamber before he’d reclaimed his own physical form, considering the extra scrutiny it brought upon the castle, but there was a simple reason for it. To drain the girl of her life, he needed to pull her ever further in, get her to give more of herself to him, so he could pour more of himself into her. He needed her isolated, emotionally dependent on him, and causing paranoia by releasing the basilisk was a good way to do it. The girl would be terrified, with blank spaces in her mind and signs she might be going mad, all the while worried about a terrifying beast roaming the halls. If all went to plan, she’d be scared to admit that it might be her doing these things to others, and the only one she could confide in would be Tom. The fact that he would get to kill some mudbloods was just an added bonus.

There was a delicate balance to be struck, steadily increasing the girl’s crimes so she’d become more drawn into the book without causing her to balk. He started with just opening the chamber, then it was identifying mudbloods, then it was killing chickens, then a cat and so on. All the while his hold on her grew stronger and she grew emotionally weaker, nearing the point she’d be so broken he could finally take her lifeforce for his own.

The longer she held the book, the more she poured her soul into it, the weaker her mental safeguards became and the closer Tom was to fully breaking her will and reclaiming his physical form. 

Ginny was following behind the great serpent now, as it slithered its way through the vast network of pipes that honeycombed Hogwarts. The Headmaster who had installed plumbing in the castle was rather inventive in his methods, creating a sprawling web of pipes that were just perfect for Tom’s purpose. In any mundane structure the pathways wouldn’t make any sense, but Hogwarts was a living castle, more magical than any other place Tom knew; it shifted and resculpted itself as needed, both in obvious ways like the moving staircases, and in subtler ones where dimensions folded in on themselves to create paradoxes in conventional geometry. 

“<Kill, hunt the boy, let him feel your gazzzzeeee>” Ginny and Tom chanted as one, urging the Basilisk onward towards their target, Colin Creevy. There was nothing special about this mudblood as far as Tom was concerned, but rather it was Ginny’s feelings towards him that made him their first human target. Simply put, Colin was incredibly annoying, constantly pestering his fellow Gryffindor first years, and just not shutting up. For Ginny, who was already struggling with the gaps in her memory, he was an incredible nuisance, and the mudblood Tom discovered she was the least resistant to killing. 

It had been simple enough to approach the boy as Ginny earlier in the day, and promise him the chance to photograph Iris Potter doing secret Quidditch training that night, if he’d only meet her atop the Astronomy Tower. Like so many of the insipid insects polluting his school, Colin was obsessed with the so-called Girl Who Lived, and quickly bought the lie. 

Which brought him tonight, as his stolen mouth twitched into a smug, self satisfied smile. With a wave of Ginny’s wand, he shifted the brickwork to reveal an aperture of the pipe network, and allowed the beast to slither out towards the unsuspecting Colin, who was craning his neck and leaning over a railing to try and get a look at his fictitious photography subject. Ginny hissed the last command and the boy had only a moment to turn around, camera in hand, before he beheld the horror.

CLICK!

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

November 9th, Gryffindor Common Room, Evening

The mood was dour all around Gryffindor tower, ever since the news broke that Colin Creevy had been petrified. The writing on the wall after the attack on Mrs. Norris had been a bit ominous, but most students hadn’t taken it too seriously, with some even thinking it was a bad prank of some kind. After all, nobody liked Filch’s cat, and it was only a cat; now though, one of their own had been attacked, and the implicit threat of the Heir of Slytherin’s return felt all the more real.

For his part, Neville was just doing what he’d been doing for the last year and a half, trying to keep his head down. If someone really was going around trying to kill those who didn’t belong at Hogwarts, the Longbottom boy absolutely didn’t want to draw any attention to himself. He might be a pureblood, part of the Sacred 28 even, but everyone knew he was nearly a squib. He was lucky to get a reaction of any kind from his wand most days, much less successfully cast any spell in particular.

All this was to say, he was sitting in the far corner of the Common Room, leafing through a book on the magical flora of Australia, and hoping nobody would notice him. 

“Oi, Nev!” 

‘Well that didn’t work out,’ Neville thought morosely as he looked up to see Ron Weasley standing in front of his chair, Seamus Finnegan and Dean Thomas flanking the redhead. Despite being in the same year and house, Neville wasn’t particularly close with any of the other three boys, but then again he wasn’t particularly close with anyone. Still, they were friendly enough sorts, even if Ron snored like a Yeti.

“Uh, what can I do for you, Ron?” Neville asked.

“You know Granger pretty well, right?” Ron replied.

Neville’s eyes narrowed in confusion. He would not in any way say he knew Hermione ‘pretty well’, they were casual acquaintances at best. She was nice enough to try and help him when he was having trouble in class a few times, but they weren’t really friends beyond that.

Hermione was actually something of a loner amongst Gryffindors, really only hanging out with Lavender, Parvati and an older girl, Katie Bell, as far as people within their house went. She was rarely in the Common Room before curfew, usually out instead studying or spending time with her friends from other houses. 

That friend group had developed a bit of a reputation amongst their year, if for no other reason than that it contained Daphne, Iris and Hermione who were the top three as far as marks were concerned in nearly every single class, though which of them had the top spot varied over time and by subject. (The only exception was Potions, where Hermione dropped out of the top three due to Snape’s inability to grade Gryffindors fairly.) Tracey and Susan were also very competent, even if they trailed behind the other three a little bit. Honestly Neville found the whole quintet more than a little intimidating. 

The awkward dinner the previous winter holiday had failed to spark a lasting friendship between him and Iris Potter, despite his Gran’s wishes. The Potter girl was perfectly friendly to him, but they weren’t close. The whole dinner had been really uncomfortable for him overall, both because of his Gran trying to basically force a peer to be his friend, and because Iris’s adoptive mum was Andromeda. Logically Neville knew Andromeda Tonks had nothing to do with her twin sister’s crimes, but she looked enough like Belatrix to make him feel incredibly ill at ease while in their house. 

“Uh, kinda?” Neville responded, “why do you ask?”

“Cause we think we’ve figured out who the Heir of Slytherin is and we need her help to prove it,” Dean declared confidently, causing Neville’s eyebrows to soar towards his hairline. 

“You know who it is!?”

Ron shushed loudly and leaned in, “Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s Draco Malfoy, but we’re trying to get evidence.”

“W-why do you think it’s Malfoy?” Neville asked. There was no love lost between the Longbottom boy and the blonde Slytherin, considering Malfoy was the biggest bully in the year and Neville was a frequent target. However, while the boy was undoubtedly unpleasant, Neville didn’t get how Ron had determined him to be the mysterious attacker.

“Well, stands to reason, doesn’t it?” Ron explained, “who hates Muggleborns more than Malfoy? Plus he was telling some first years, ‘enemies of the heir beware’ a few days ago.”

“...and?” Neville asked, waiting for Ron to elaborate. Sure, Malfoy was a blood purist, but everyone knew that and it hardly made him unique. 

“And what?” Ron said, “he seems the most likely, don’t you think?”

“I guess,” Neville agreed weakly, not wanting to argue with the other boys. “Why do you need Hermione’s help?”

“Well, we figure we need to sneak into the Slytherin dorms to try and overhear him talking about it,” Seamus said excitedly. “And she’s really brainy, so we thought she’d know a way to make us invisible or make us look like Slytherins so we can get in.”

Neville had to resist the urge to smack his forehead with his palm. ‘Even if Draco was the heir, he’s hardly going to be talking about it openly in the Slytherin Common Room where anyone could report him!’ Neville screamed internally. However, he didn’t say that aloud, instead asking, “well, why do you need me? Just ask Hermione” Hermione would almost certainly say no, but Neville really didn’t see why he had to be involved.

Ron looked askance and scratched the back of his head, “uh, well, she doesn’t really like me that much. She blew something way out of proportion last year and hasn’t let it go.” It was clear that Ron didn’t really feel like he’d been in the wrong over his badmouthing of the girl last year, or didn’t understand how hurtful he’d been.

“Glad to know you’re still a paragon of sensitivity, Weasley,” a female voice drawled from behind Ron, Seamus and Dean. The boys turned around to find Hermione had walked up behind them, alongside Lavender Brown.

“Oh, uh, Hermione…” Ron began before saying, “look I said I was sorry.”

“After I made you,” Lavender muttered. The other brunette had become Hermione’s best friend within Gryffindor over the last year, even if she didn’t share Hermione’s burning passion for academics. 

Hermione sighed a little,  “it doesn’t matter. What were you trying to get Neville to ask me?” She and Lavender had only entered the common room towards the latter part of the conversation.

Seamus excitedly explained their suspicions of Malfoy and their desire to find a way to sneak into the Serpent’s Nest. Neville really wished he was somewhere else as Hermione’s expression grew increasingly annoyed, ‘but no, apparently this conversation needed to happen right in front of my armchair.’

Hermione rubbed her temples in irritation. “Look, I don’t like Malfoy either, but that’s a terrible plan. He’s not going to just be bragging about attacking students in the middle of the common room,” Hermione explained, mirroring Neville’s own sentiments. 

“You don’t know that!” Dean protested.

Hermione put her hands on her hips, “um, actually I do. I’ve got friends in Slytherin, and I think they would have mentioned it if one of their housemates was claiming credit for the attacks.”

Ron scowled, “you can’t trust snakes. If you were smart, you’d stop hanging round with Greengrass and Davis.”

That comment was the spark for a ten minute long rant from Hermione about, among other tangents, how prejudiced Ron was being, how wonderful Daphne and Tracey were, and how Ron had no right to tell her who to spend time with. The two ended up arguing for almost half an hour, with Lavender, Dean and Seamus sometimes chiming in, until a prefect broke it up. All the while, Neville was trapped in the middle, desperately wishing he’d chosen somewhere else to try and read his book.

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Mid-December, Great Hall

Iris thought a dueling club had sounded like a wonderful idea. She was, however, sorely disappointed with the reality. Three minutes in and she was already regretting coming. The Ravenclaw found herself wishing she’d just gone to the library instead.

The Hogwarts Library was easily the best thing about the Castle, a readily available archive of magical knowledge at her fingertips. It helped that her invisibility cloak made the term Restricted Section really more of a suggestion. Look, Iris tried to be a good kid, but some rules were meant to be broken, especially if they got in the way of her curiosity. 

But no, instead she was stuck in the Great Hall that evening, listening to Lockhart bluster on and on. Why on earth he was doing this instead of Flitwick, who was a former DUELING CHAMPION, she had no idea. 

“Gather round, Gather round, can everybody see me? Can you all hear me? Excellent!” Lockhart proclaimed from the raised dais that had been set in the hall. Iris had not warmed to the DADA professor over the course of the year. Not only was he nearly as bad as Snape when it came to actually teaching the material, but he also kept trying to give Iris unsolicited advice on how to manage her fame.

‘Speaking of Snape,’ Iris thought as she saw who Lockhart had roped into being his assistant for the night. 

“You’ll still have your Potions Master when I’m done with him, never fear,” Lockhart quipped while Snape scowled, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else.

From there Lockhart proceeded to give a very basic explanation of dueling etiquette before assuming a ridiculous stance in his example duel with Snape, who sent the DADA professor tumbling end over end, much to the despair of those students who still idolized the handsome professor. Iris, who was actually something of a fan of professional dueling, was rather disheartened to see the standard of the man who was supposed to be teaching them.

After their short presentation, Lockhart and Snape selected Draco and Neville to do the first duel up on the dais. The Gryffindor looked very much like he was also regretting having come to the club, and Iris didn’t think whatever Lockhart muttered to him before the duel commenced. 

Iris was thankful that she hadn’t been selected for the demonstration. Draco had cursed Neville so much the round faced boy was sent to the hospital wing. That said, she’d actually been reluctantly impressed that Draco was able to conjure a full snake, even if his control ended up being lacking. Iris had almost decided to step in when the serpent began menacing the crowd, but luckily Snape banished it before she had to or before it bit Justin Finch-Fletchly.

The professors then had the students pair up to all conduct simultaneous duels, which really just seemed like a recipe for disaster. Lockhart mostly let the students on his side of the room choose their partners, but Snape broke up various pairs while letting loose a few choice cutting remarks. It was a bit odd seeing the normally silent professor suddenly dishing out snide insults left and right, but it did jive with how everyone not in her and Susan’s class described Snape. 

Iris ended up dueling with Susan, if you could really call it that. Needless to say, having so many duels happening at the same time meant there was hardly any supervision or proper discipline. It didn’t help that pretty much none of the students under year four knew any Shield Charms. 

Due in part to the shaky supervision, neither of the friends really went all out, just sticking to the Disarming Charm, making it really more a contest of dodging than mastery of magic. In this arena at least, Iris’s shorter stature actually helped for once, as the tiny girl was a somewhat more difficult target to hit. 

On the other hand, Susan was no slouch with her wandwork and had a bit better aim with her jinxes, so the two were fairly evenly matched. They traded off sending their applewood and aspen wands flying for a bit, but ended up having to focus just as much on dodging stray spells from the people dueling around them. 

“You think they would notice if we ducked out of here?” Iris asked as Lockhart went around the room, somewhat fruitlessly trying to reverse the various jinxes and hexes that had been bandied about.

Susan looked around quickly, and noticed neither Snape nor Lockhart was looking their way, “not if we run!” she declared with a chuckle, grabbing Iris’s hand and slipping out of the Hall. The evening had been a bit of a bust, but it was a fun misadventure at least. 

—---------------

The Next Afternoon, Empty Classroom

Susan was in a far darker mood as her friends finally found her sitting in the dark in a disused classroom. The four girls had been searching for hours after they heard what had happened this morning, and noticed Susan wasn’t in the classes they normally shared together. McGonagall had needed to threaten Iris with detention to keep her from dashing out of Transfiguration to go looking for her friend. 

The morning had started well enough, good even. The final herbology lesson of the term had been canceled due to the extreme cold and Professor Sprout needing to focus on a delicate step in the Mandrake rearing process. Normally she’d have let the students give swaddling the mandrakes for winter a go, but she didn’t want to lose any of the crop considering how important they were to curing the petrification of Creevy and Mrs. Norris. That meant the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff second years, who had Herbology that morning, were suddenly facing a free period.

Susan had decided to take advantage of the time to finally teach Hermione Gobstones and had dashed down to the Badger’s Den (Hufflepuff Dorms), after breakfast, intending to grab her set and bring it back to the Great Hall to play a short game. 

Unfortunately, she never did get back to the Great Hall, as she instead would make a gruesome discovery. She was taking a winding passage from the basement that would lead to the main staircase, when she tripped over something, sending her Gobstones flying down the hallway. It was Justin Finch-Fletchly, petrified just like Colin. Spiders were crawling all over the body in neat rows as they made their way out and away from the castle, but Justin just stared unblinkingly even when they scampered over his eyeball. 

She’d had to fight to keep her breakfast down, especially after she glanced up to find the Gryffindor ghost, Nearly Headless Nick, who looked worse if anything, all black and smoky. She didn’t think a ghost could get sick, but if they could they’d look like Sir Nicholas. 

Unfortunately, just as she was about to run and get help, Peeves barged onto the scene. The poltergeist had immediately started shouting, and it wasn’t long before a horde of students and several professors had gathered, including her housemate Ernie Macmillan who had loudly accused Ron Weasley for seemingly no other reason than that he’d dueled Justin the previous night. She had a dark suspicion that if she wasn’t also a Hufflepuff, he’d have accused her of being the heir just for finding the petrified bodies. 

After that she’d been hurriedly bundled off to the Headmaster’s office to be questioned about what she knew, which was very little, before being excused from classes for the rest of the day. She probably should have gone to the Hospital Wing for a Calming Draught, but she didn’t have the state of mind to take herself. Susan was shaken, and she was mad, and more than anything she was scared. 

What made this whole Chamber of Secrets thing so terrifying was the mystery of it all. People were being picked off one by one and no one had any idea who or what was doing it, or even how they were doing it. With the first two victims she’d assumed someone was casting a particularly nasty Petrification Curse, but what could do that to a ghost? 

Her Auntie was likely to be on the warpath; she’d already dispatched Robards and Williamson from the Aurors to investigate after the petrification of Colin, but they hadn’t been able to discover anything more than the professors had. After this, Susie wouldn’t be surprised if they were assigned to Hogwarts full time, even if there was only so much they could do with this kind of menace. 

Either way, Susan was on the sidelines and she hated it. She hated being a bystander, she had ever since she was stuck in a closet while Death Eaters killed her parents. She was ashamed of it, but she was a little jealous of Iris sometimes for not remembering the death of her birth parents, because a flash of green through the door jamb was her first memory. 

Susan wasn’t the kind of person to run from danger, she was the kind to leap in front of it to protect the people she cared about. Only, she couldn’t even see this danger. She didn’t know what it was, or who it would strike next. Would it be Daphne, Nymphadora, Iris? She couldn’t protect them, and it terrified her.

Iris could see how hard her friend was taking this and sat down on the floor next to her, gently grabbing Susan’s hand. “Do you know him very well?” Iris asked Susan who was still grimly staring down at the floor.

“Not really,” Susan admitted, “he’s a bit full of himself, if we’re being honest. I think his folks are some sort of big shots in the muggle world, and he doesn’t get that that doesn’t really carry over into ours.”

“Sounds like he’s a bit of a prat,” Tracey offered weakly. The half-blood Slytherin often fell back on humor to deal with difficult situations, but that was difficult with how bleak things were feeling.

“That doesn’t mean he deserved to get petrified!” Susan snapped. Susan instantly felt bad when she saw Tracey recoil back from her sudden burst of anger, “I’m sorry Trace, I’m just… it’s scary.”

Tracey leaned back in and rubbed Susan’s arm, “It’s okay Sue.” She took the spot on the other side of Susan, while Hermione and Daphne sat opposite, next to Tracey and Iris respectively to make a little circle. 

“At least you’re pureblood,” Hermione muttered darkly. Iris and Tracey shared a look. They knew that if the beast was truly following blood purist dogma, they weren’t at as much risk as Hermione, but they weren’t definitively safe like Susan and Daphne.  

Daphne locked eyes with Susan who nodded, seeming to understand without words what the other pureblood heiress was thinking. Daphne turned to the other three girls, “until they catch whoever’s doing this, don’t go anywhere alone. Once classes are done, always wait for me or Sue to walk with you, understood?” Daphne’s voice was like ground granite; it was a command, not a request. The other three girls nodded after a moment, seeing the wisdom in sticking close together until the danger had passed.

Susan pointed a finger at Iris, “especially you, Iris. I don’t care if you have an invisibility cloak or not, you wait for me. No matter how curious you get, or how quick you think you’re going to be, I’m begging you to please not wander off alone.” Susan was misting up by the end of her plea and Iris hastily agreed and pulled Susan into a hug that soon became a group hug with all five of the second years. 

They quickly tried to work out a few contingencies. Hermione was to stick like glue to Lavender when she couldn’t be with the other four, Daphne would naturally shepard Tracey and Iris would always be with either Susan or Luna, who was also a pureblood. The younger Ravenclaw would have been with them at the moment, but she was instead with Tonks, who was helping tutor her in Potions. (The Tonks sisters were increasingly becoming de facto Potions tutors for their friends, especially for the ones younger than themselves on account of Snape’s less than helpful teaching style.) 

After a while the five just sat together, happy to have come up with a plan, but still dejected over not knowing who or what was doing this. Tracey was the one to give it voice, saying “I wish we just had some clue what was going on.”

Iris looked around nervously for a moment before saying, “I think I heard something last night.”

Tracey motioned for her to elaborate, “what did you hear?”

Iris rubbed her arms anxiously as she talked, “a voice, saying something about… killing.”

That immediately got the other girls’ attention. “Wait, who was talking about killing?” Hermione demanded.

Iris threw her arms up, exasperated, “I don’t know! Whoever it was sounded like they were really far away. It was all echoey, y’know?” 

“Iris, that's still really suspicious, especially considering…” Daphne said carefully, gesturing to reference the petrification of Justin.

“I know, I know…” Iris replied. “I’m just not sure it was real? It was in the library, Luna and Nym were with me but neither of them heard anything and no one else in the library reacted. Maybe I’m just cracking up…” 

“Or maybe someone’s messing with you,” Susan said firmly. “I wouldn’t put it past some idiots to be trying to scare people for a laugh.” The thought disgusted her but she knew some idiots like Nott might take advantage of the situation for a meanspirited prank.

Hermione nodded furiously, “it was probably a Ventriloquism Charm; they let you throw your voice over a hundred yards, and to a very select space if you cast it right.”

“How do you just know that, offhand?” Tracey asked, impressed. Daphne and Iris were also geniuses as far as she was concerned, but when it came to knowing a truly dizzying array of random facts, it was hard to beat Hermione. 

The bushy haired brunette blushed a little, “Uh, last year I did a bit of research on communication magic. Since you guys aren’t in Gryffindor, I wanted a better way to send messages, but I haven’t found anything particularly practical so far…”

Tracey gave her a wry smile and threw her arm around Hermione to give her a quick side hug. ‘She can be so sweet sometimes,’ The half-blood mused to herself.

“Yeah, you’re probably right. It was probably just Malfoy messing with me,” Iris asserted, trying to reassure herself. It worked, for the most part, but some part of her felt like she was overlooking some nagging detail. She shook her head, maybe she’d figure out what was bothering her about the whole thing over Yule.

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Megaron Hall, Yule Holidays

Ted Tonks took a sip of his mulled wine as he took in the whimsical sight before him. What had started with Iris showing Luna how to shape the snow with her wand, had turned into a full blown magical snowball war. Now, an hour later, Iris, Susan, Luna, Nymphadora, Penelope, and somewhat surprisingly, Andromeda, Amelia and Emily Clearwater had all been drawn into the evershifting conflict. From what Ted could tell, everybody had changed sides at least once, and the whole thing was basically organized joyous chaos. 

Really, it had been a relaxing and fun holiday so far, for which Ted was thankful. The kids' fall term had been marked with terror that really shouldn’t be dogging them at school. Ted, like many other parents he guessed, was of course rather upset that something or someone was going around petrifying students, but unfortunately there was little he could do about it besides lodge a complaint. Well, aside from removing his daughters from the school, but he viewed that as an option of last resort, considering the difficulties they’d have with suddenly transferring to Beauxbatons. 

He knew Amelia was taut as a highwire over the whole situation, today being the first one she’d taken off all holiday. That alone would have told him how serious she was taking this, considering how reluctant she was to sacrifice more time with Susan than her demanding job already made her. The whole Ministry was under pressure along with the school’s faculty to get to the bottom of the situation, or at least be seen to be taking action.

Part of the issue was a lack of clear jurisdiction. There was disagreement over whether it was a DMLE or DRCMC case, considering they didn’t know if the primary perpetrator was a dark wizard or a beast of some sort. That was before you got into the fact that some people thought Dumbledore should be able to deal with the problem personally, despite having failed to do so thus far. The only thing keeping the whole powder keg from going off was that the victims had all been muggleborns so far, and no one had been killed like they were when the Chamber was supposedly opened in the 1940s.

In any event, after the petrification of Finch-Fletchley, Amelia had gotten Albus to agree to a permanent posting of two Aurors to the school, until the crisis ended.  There was actually some rumbling in the board of governors, which Ted knew about due to several members being clients of his, about ousting Albus but it didn’t have much popular support yet. Many were hopeful that the brick by brick sweep of the castle by the faculty during the holidays, when most of the students were away, would ferret out the source of the trouble, but Ted wasn’t that optimistic. 

Then there was the matter of whether the attacks were the danger Dobby had warned about at the start of summer, as seemed increasingly likely. Andromeda and Amelia certainly seemed to think so, but there was precious little physical evidence to connect Lucius to the crimes, and given his connections, it was foolish to go after him until they’d built a better case. Apparently Amelia had directed one of the two assigned Aurors, Dawlish if he recalled correctly, to covertly surveil Draco at Hogwarts, in case he was this supposed Heir of Slytherin, but nothing had turned up so far. 

Ted shook his head, trying to banish gloomy thoughts and instead smiled as he watched his wife, Nymphadora, Iris and Luna all assemble back to back as a newly formed team, working in tandem to pelt the others with an onslaught of snow balls. It was interesting to observe how easily Luna had meshed with the Tonks women, like a missing piece of a puzzle. 

That had been the major change this holiday from the last; while the Bones and the Clearwaters were frequent visitors to Megaron Hall as always, Luna was basically living with them. She’d stayed the night nearly every night since the holiday began, and Xenophillius had made no protests about wanting her to return. Somewhat grimly Ted wondered if the man even noticed his daughter wasn’t returning to the Rookery most nights. 

Ted knew the importance of giving children freedom; if you held on too tightly, you’d just stifle them. However, based on what he’d observed so far from the little blonde who’d been trailing after Iris all Yule, Xenophillius had taken that entirely too far. Apparently, since his wife’s passing two years ago, the man had been even more consumed in his own world than he used to be, and Luna was bearing the brunt of the neglect that resulted from that. 

From what little Luna had said, it seemed calling her free-range was still being generous. It sounded like little Luna was looking after her father, making sure he ate, keeping him from his more dangerous investigations and so on, more than he was looking after her. When they did spend time together, it was during brief moments of interest, and usually consisted of Xenophilius roping Luna into one of his expeditions, not him taking an interest in her day to day life. 

Ted understood grief, gods, he thought everyone in their generation did. He knew Xenophillius must still be devastated by the tragic death of Pandora, but that was no excuse to neglect the daughter she’d left behind. The man had always been absentminded, but with how Luna had casually mentioned him constantly forgetting to have food in the house, it seemed it had grown to a dangerous extent. 

So no, Ted did not at all begrudge the new addition to his dinner table. Luna was more than welcome to a place in the Tonks home as long as she wanted it. If Iris had decided to protectively latch onto a neglected overly inquisitive little girl, well she was just taking after her mother. 

In a way, it brought back fond memories of the first couple of years after his wife brought Iris home. Except, instead of Iris following after Nym like a little shadow, it was Iris who had acquired a shadow of her own. Well, sometimes Iris still followed Nym around, while Luna followed Iris, making his eldest look like she had a trail of ducklings following after her. Honestly it was adorable.

Ted sighed, the best he could do was make sure Luna knew she always had a home here. It wouldn’t be as extreme, Xenophillius seemed neglectful, not abusive, but it wouldn’t be dissimilar to what Charlus and Dorea Potter had done for Sirius and Andromeda in their teenage years. Ted seriously doubted Luna would ever need to flee the Rookery in the middle of the night like Sirius had, but he could definitely foresee the girl remaining a fixture at Megaron Hall going forward. 

Out in the yard, Luna was up on Nym’s shoulders laughing wildly as she levitated a massive snowball over Susan’s head, the Bones girl only somersaulting out of the way at the last moment. ‘Well, then again, perhaps she’s exactly where she’s meant to be’.

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Valentines Day, Great Hall

Iris didn’t know who she was more mortified for, Penelope or the dwarf who apparently had been so hard up for Galleons that he’d agreed to don a set of wings and roam around Hogwarts delivering love letters for Lockhart. In either case, hearing the diminutive being blurt out an overly earnest poem to her sister’s best friend in the middle of breakfast, was one of the most uncomfortable things she’d ever had to sit through.

Granted, the aftermath had been funny. Iris watched as Penny gave Katie a nod, who in turn gave a nod to the Weasley twins who did something, that resulted in Percy Weasley’s robes turning an offensive shade of orange and his ears swelling to the size of an elephant’s. Their brother had tried to protest, but when he spoke the only noise that emerged was that of a duck quacking, leading to him needing to go to the hospital wing. It was humorous, but also a reminder to Iris to never get on the twins’ bad side. 

Overall, the previous day had been the more enjoyable holiday for Iris, as they’d celebrated Luna’s birthday. Nym had gotten a cake on her last trip to Hogsmede, and they had a little party for the blonde Ravenclaw in a disused classroom on the fifth floor. It wasn’t a massive gathering, just Iris, Nym, Penelope, Cedric, Daphne, Hermione, Susan, Katie, Tracey, Cedric, the Patil twins and Lavender, but Luna had been over the moon. They’d also invited Luna’s old childhood friend, Ginny Weasley, but the girl had been a no show. Apparently she’d been standoffish with Luna all year, and Iris was annoyed that it seemed yet another person was being needlessly mean to her little sister friend. 

Anyway, yesterday’s party had been far more enjoyable than the spectacle Lockhart had turned Valentine’s day into. While her friendship with Luna had started from a protective instinct, Iris had grown to really love the younger girl in her own right. 

‘I mean Luna’s just so wonderful’ Iris reflected, ‘She’s like an adorable bundle of inquisitiveness.’ (Iris was unaware that the same description had been applied to her by most of her friends and family.) She couldn’t even understand why Edgecombe had said Luna wasn’t a proper Ravenclaw, when as far as Iris was concerned, the blonde epitomized the credo of their house. Luna was open minded, curious and very very bright; sure she was a bit too credulous when it came to things her father published in the Quibbler, but it wasn’t like Luna was dogmatic about it. If you presented enough contradictory evidence, instead of just telling her she was wrong, she was perfectly willing to reform her hypotheses. 

Well, Marietta’s loss was Iris’s gain. Luna was brilliant and a very welcome addition to Iris’s little circle. She was delighted to finally have a friend that loved magizoology as much as she did, who would listen to her ramble on about the topic long after most of her other friends would have tuned out. 

Which was what was occurring at the moment, “of course Kelpies are hard to get an accurate population count for, due to their shapeshifting abilities,” Iris explained as she buttered her scone. It was just her and Luna at their end of the Ravenclaw table, since Penelope had left the Hall rather hurriedly after the incident with the dwarf. 

“Oh, I was actually reading something about that!” Luna announced as she began fishing in her purple bag. The bag had been a Christmas gift from Andromeda, and was woven from alchemically resistant fibers, making it both waterproof and somewhat heatproof. Andi had also sewn a stylized depiction of a Crumple Horned Snorkkack into it, and it had consequently become one of Luna’s favorite possessions. 

Luna emerged from the bag holding a slim volume that she handed to Iris, “Rockears actually developed a system for marking Kelpies to avoid double counts.”

Iris flipped open the book, only to be met with unreadable text, “Uh, Luna, is this in Gobbledegook?”

Luna tilted her head, “yes, is that a problem?”

Iris laughed as she handed the book back, “only in so much as I can’t read it. I’m really impressed you can.”

Luna preened under the praise, “oh, I love learning new magical languages. I’m working on mastering Mermish, but it’s so hard to practice since you can only really speak it underwater.”

Iris would in retrospect be disappointed in herself that it took her as long as it did for her to put it together. However, it was Luna’s comment that provided the necessary push for the pieces to fall into place. ‘A conditional language… That’s why Nym and Luna couldn’t hear the voices! It wasn’t a spell, it was Parseltongue!’ Iris realized excitedly. While she could normally discern what was snakespeech and what wasn’t, the voice had been on the far edge of her hearing and she must not have noticed her mind switching over to Parseltongue.

From there it was only a quick jump to figuring out what the supposed Monster of Slytherin had to be. ‘It’s obviously a magical serpent, since it’s speaking Parseltongue. None of the victims had any obvious marks on them, so it’s attacking indirectly, and it’s likely a Dark creature since it causes petrification! Susan saw spiders fleeing the castle… I think we’re dealing with a Basilisk’ Iris determined as she stood up suddenly, much to the confusion of Luna.

“Luna, stay here, I just figured something out I need to tell Professor Flitwick as soon as possible,” Iris told her before quickly gathering her things up from the table and rushing by the Hufflepuff table. 

There wasn’t a huge amount of verifiable information of Basilisk’s due to their nature as dark creatures. Pretty much every government had a standing extermination order for the wizard made monsters, so comprehensive studies weren’t exactly easy to conduct. The people who likely knew the most about them were the rare sorcerers who dared to create them, and they weren’t exactly publishing peer reviewed works on the subject.

Still, everything fit except for the petrification instead of death, but that could easily be explained in her mind. Many magical creatures had variations, house-elves vs. wood-elves, that sort of thing. Perhaps the monster of Slytherin was some sort of Lesser Basilisk, whose gaze merely petrified rather than kill?

Stopping only to grab Susan, she rushed to Professor Flitwick’s office so she could share this revelation. She wasn’t looking forward to telling the faculty that she was a Parselmouth, but if it stopped more people getting hurt, she was willing to make the sacrifice. 

—-------

Later

She’d done what she could, but unfortunately confirmation that the Monster of Slytherin was likely a Basilisk didn’t end the threat the school was under. They still had no idea where the chamber the creature was hiding in was, and, perhaps most importantly, no idea as to the identity of the heir. They didn’t even know why the attacks had paused since December, or whether they were going to continue at all.

It was a bit infuriating, or at least frustrating, to have had to reveal her Parselmouth status to Dumbledore without it putting a definitive stop to the attacks. He had taken an uncomfortable interest in that fact, but did seem to believe her and agree with her conclusion of the Monster being a Basilisk-like monster. It would at least be good information to have for the Aurors or Beastslayers from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, if and when they found the creatures secretive lair. 

The one course of action Dumbledore said he could take right away, was securing new roosters. The deaths of the ones Hagrid kept previously was actually neatly explained if the monster was indeed a Basilisk. By next week, Iris expected the halls of Hogwarts to be filled with the crowing of the birds. Hopefully that would keep the attacks at bay, even if it brought them no closer to capturing the culprit, and unfortunately there was always the possibility this Basilisk variant wouldn’t be vulnerable to the same weakness.

Now hours later, Iris was trying to distract herself from the frustration of her deduction not bringing the crisis to an end. Susan had handed her off to Daphne, while the Hufflepuff went to track down Hannah Abbot, who was her partner for an upcoming project in Herbology. 

Iris was sitting at her favorite spot by the Lake, accompanied only by Daphne this time. Luna, Susan, Hermione and Tracey were at the Quidditch Pitch after Hermione had finally been worn down enough by Tracey to give the sport a try. (The Pitch was open for intramural pickup games on a regular schedule.) The two bookworms were reading in companionable silence. She was slightly annoyed that a pack of Gryffindor boys, Ron, Dean and Seamus, were making a ruckus at the water’s edge, evidently trying to coax the giant squid into making an appearance by casting stones into the water. (Why they were taking this counterintuitive approach would forever elude Iris.) Overall though, it was a peaceful afternoon that was doing a good deal to soothe her nerves. 

While Iris was frustrated, her beloved familiar was excited, both because he was getting to stretch out in the sun, slithering among the reeds below where Iris sat, and because his quarry was unattended. Sitting atop a heap of Ron’s second hand robes, doffed so the ginger boy didn’t get them wet, was the plump nine toed rat Sebastian had been eyeing all last year. Swiftly, so as not to get told off by his mistress again, the snake slithered close and then struck.

Sebastian had known something was strange about the rodent morsel he’d tried to devour, however he could not have anticipated what occurred. As he tried to bite down into the creature, suddenly he felt it expanding beneath his fangs until it was far too big for him to swallow.

Sprawled out on the Hogwarts Lawn, a great snake biting into his rear, in front of nearly a dozen students, was a man who should have been dead for eleven years,

Peter Pettigrew. 

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Excerpt from Decoding the Founders, by Armando Dippet

…No other individuals were perhaps as influential in the development of Wizarding Britain than the four Hogwarts Founders. While they never held posts in court, by establishing a centralized educational institution for these Isles, they shaped and molded all of our society in the centuries to come.

As the reader may know, prior to this magical education in Britain was primarily done via individual apprenticeships, or simply taught within a singular family. Echoes of this system exist today in Mastery studies, but these Master-Apprentice relationships now only occur after the student has a thorough grounding in the basics of magic from a well rounded Hogwarts Education. 

Magical learning was very splintered at this time, with some spells being known only to a few select families, and not a good way to disseminate information. It can not be overstated how important Hogwarts was, not only for establishing a much higher minimum standard for magical proficiency, but also for helping to create a unified wizarding culture, distinct from Muggles. Hogwarts was the beginning of a cultural identity for wizarding kind, and laid the groundwork for Britains eventual support in forming the ICW and the subsequent establishment of an independent magical government, following the passage of the Statute of Secrecy…

… While the four founders are monumental figures in our history, we know less about them than one might think. They are even less well known than the magical council of Arthur, who would indeed be among the first students at the newly established Hogwarts.

There are some things we know for certain. The initial keep belonged to the Ravenclaw family, though it was greatly expanded before the school would be opened. We know from a surviving writ of royal endorsement, that can be viewed now in the Ministry Archive, that Godric was the one to secure royal support for the establishment of a wizarding school. Helga Hufflepuff  was the one who provided much of the initial funding for the renovations made to the castle, as per Goblin records, and Salazar Slytherin was the one to draw up the initial roster of prospective students.

This last fact may surprise some casual scholars, due to Salazar’s famous break with the other three founders, some decades after the establishment of Hogwarts, over the issue of Muggle Born students. Unfortunately this is a case where legend has overshadowed known facts, of which there are very little. We do know there was a disagreement over the students Hogwarts was taking in but the exact nature was not recorded in surviving sources.

There is the traditional understanding that Salazar objected to taking in Muggle Born children in any capacity and broke with the other founders over this decision. However, some recent scholarship has poked holes in this theory. For one, Salazar taught at Hogwarts for at least fifty years before leaving, and there is circumstantial evidence to indicate at least some muggleborn students were educated at the castle during that time. It is difficult to prove one way or another, but in either case, it does indicate that the argument arose after the foundation of the school.

We do know Salazar was concerned with Muggle aggression, as were many people in his day and throughout the ages. Muggle violence, exemplified by the witch burnings, was one of the major motivations for the Statute of Secrecy after all. However, whether his ire extended to muggleborns is harder to say and clouded by more recent rhetoric. 

Some scholars have suggest that Salazar may have been advocating taking muggleborns into the castle full time, and removing them from their muggle families, to both keep muggle relatives from learning of the castles secrets, and to more fully integrate muggleborns into the burgeoning independent wizarding society. We may never know the answer in truth, however…