39.A Feast of Blood

The night of 30th of October to 31st October, 1992

Friday to Saturday

The starry sky above Yorkshire was choked by clouds with the occasional flash of light followed by a groaning rumble so terrible as if the heavens themselves tried to swallow the earth. The raging storm quickly spread northward.

The maternal unit of Saint James’ Hospital was having a hectic evening, doubly so because the sole obstetrician in the facility was young and inexperienced, and a third of the staff was either ill or on holiday.

There was a single patient tonight, but her shrieks and wails echoed through the hallways with unnatural strength.

“Quick, her water broke!”

“It’s too early–only in the sixth month.”

“What’s her name?”

“Sybill Trelawney.”

“Any contact with her husband or relative?”

“We have nothing in the system on her but a name, sir. It’s as if she’s a ghost.”

“She doesn’t look like a runaway or a homeless woman,” the head nurse rubbed her forearm.

As the storm raged outside, the following hours saw the rumbling of thunder mingle with cries of pain and agony, but little progress had been made.

“There are two babies, not one,” the young Doctor Husel concluded early on, his voice shaky as rivulets of sweat poured down his brow. “They must be tangled by their umbilical cord. This…” he hesitated, looking at the woman writhing in pain before him. “This requires a Caesarean section.”

A battle for life followed in the next two hours, but there was too much blood, and the baby girl came out cold, strangled by the cord in the womb, while the boy was weak, small, his skin painfully blue, and it only let out weak, wheezing whimpers.

“Put him on the ventilator,” the tired doctor barked out, blood glistening on his gloves as his shaky hands tried to stitch back the cut on Trelawney’s belly. But there was too much blood, and the woman was only feebly moaning now, teetering between life and death.

“We’re losing her-“

Another deafening and powerful clap of thunder shook the building, but this time, it was not heralded by the usual flash of lightning. Nobody noticed the difference, though. The door to the ward was gently pushed open, and a tall, wizened old man dressed in obnoxiously orange robes decorated with lemon swirls that extended from the collar to the rims calmly strolled in.

“Sir, this is the maternity ward. You cannot enter here-” one of the tired nurses tried to herd him away, but the old man raised his hand, and she found herself unable to speak.

“How is dear Sybill?” his voice was magnetic and irresistible, and the head nurse found herself explaining the situation. The old man’s brow creased at the sight of the dead infant.

“She’s dying,” Doctor Husel said, looking defeated, not caring about protocol anymore. “It’s rare for a woman in her forties to have an easy birth, but I can’t do anything further, not here. Who are you to the patient?”

“Albus Dumbledore,” was the wary response. “An old friend.”

A soft, heartwarming tune echoed in the air, uplifting the mood as a swan-sized crimson bird flew in through the open door and landed on the intruder’s shoulders. The old man waved his hand, and all the staff froze in their place as if they had turned into life-like stone sculptures.

The song only increased in intensity as the bird gently landed on the blood-soaked hospital bed and started to cry on the pale, unmoving woman’s cut belly.

A small groan tore from her lips as the flesh knitted together, but it didn’t seem to be enough.

After a moment of indecision, Albus Dumbledore fished out a vial from his robes. The twisting golden liquid inside the glass swirled as if it had a mind of its own, shining so brightly that it made the white hospital lights seem dim in comparison.

Albus Dumbledore approached Trelawney and unceremoniously poured half the contents between her chapped lips, and suddenly, colour returned to her impossibly pale skin, and the rising and falling of her chest turned steady.

He approached the dead infant next, left on a cold table on the side. The world quieted as golden droplets dribbled into the baby’s blue lips, but the body remained unmoving, dead. The man’s shoulders sagged as he bowed his head, and the song in the air turned mournful. A heartbeat later, Albus Dumbledore straightened like a sword, marched to the glass-covered crib, and poured all the remaining elixir into the throat of the whimpering infant.

The painfully small infant fell asleep, no longer dangerously blue.

The bird’s song was interrupted as the clock struck midnight, and Trelawney’s body tensed. A shuddering, raspy inhale grabbed Albus Dumbledore’s attention. The bedridden mother shook again, and her mouth opened, but it wasn’t a woman’s voice that came out from her lips. Instead, Albus heard an echoing symphony of voices, as if hundreds of men and women were whispering in unison.

“Tonight!”

The nurses and Doctor Husel attempted to move but couldn’t and watched in horror as the woman’s body jerked, suspended in mid-air.

“It shall happen tonight, whence the veil between worlds is thinnest.
Twice slain, thrice risen, the herald of death shall once again face destiny.
Blood to fire, life to death, the clash of wills and powers long forgotten.
Child of sin, child of love–paths diverge, fates converge,
A pit of darkness, a road to light, of which their choices shall decide.
It shall happen tonight…“

Sybill Trelawney collapsed back on the bed, her breathing shallow again.

“What was that?” The head nurse whimpered, her face twisted in terror as her body still stood frozen and unable to move.

Albus Dumbledore, face pensive, turned to the muggles as a gnarly stick appeared in his hand.

“Obliviate.”

Fifteen minutes later, a squad of four men and women dressed in dark robes appeared in Saint James’ Hospital, but Albus Dumbledore was nowhere to be seen, and nobody remembered his presence or anything weird happening.

Meanwhile, in the depths of the Department of Mysteries, in a room of a thousand shelves holding dull and dusty orbs, a new orb appeared on a shelf, glowing bright blue and lively.

?

Harry

The impossibly pale reflection languidly stepped out of the mirror as if it was just a doorway, and Harry watched horrified as a red-eyed copy of him started clapping slowly. He was half-blurred around the edges as if he was behind a curtain of running water.

It was as if someone had taken Voldemort’s fiendish eyes and plastered them on his face—but only at first glance. The reflection before him was younger, slightly shorter and skinnier, reminding Harry of that gruelling month before the First Year and worse years prior.

“Surprised to see me?” Not-Harry’s voice was sinister and mocking, not at all like a child’s despite his thin, small frame, sending goosebumps over Harry’s skin, making him back up cautiously and reach for his wand. But there was no wand holster on his forearm, and he found his fist empty for the first time in forever.

“You… who are you?”

“An interesting question.” The reflection tilted his head. “We can delve into a debate about existential reality, but I suppose you wouldn’t have the guts for it. You can study as hard as you wish, but you cannot deceive yourself that the pursuit of knowledge is merely a means to an end. But to answer your question–I am you, of course.”

“Impossible,” Harry denied shakily, all sorts of alarms ringing in his head. God, he felt naked without a wand.

Not-Harry laughed. “You should know better than that,” he said. “After all, how do you think you came here?”

“…I died?”

“Almost.” Not-Harry unceremoniously plopped on the bed and cackled, twirling a wand between his fingers. It was a wand Harry could recognise anywhere after being on its receiving end more than once. Thirteen and a half inches, with a Phoenix tail feather for a core. “Does this look like the afterlife?”

Harry scowled, ignoring the sinking feeling in his gut. “The hell if I know—but it definitely shouldn’t look like Surrey.”

“This place is indeed what a hellish landscape ought to be, despite its seemingly pleasant facade,” the red-eyed reflection clicked its tongue, “but no, this is just one of many spaces between life and death. Surrey is simply what our mind has chosen as the ultimate place of crossroads—we’re neither alive nor dead.”

The proclamation ominously lingered in the air, making Harry’s insides twist. “Who are you, really?” he asked.

“Your mind already knows the answer, even if your heart refuses to accept it. I am you, Harry Potter. I am the Harry Potter whose soul you almost destroyed. I am the Harry Potter whose body you possessed, and I am the vengeful spirit that haunts your nights.”

“You’re just Voldemort,” Harry pointed out with far more confidence than he felt—Not-Harry was right in that regard, after all. “You must have taken over my alternate self’s body!”

“As a fellow body-snatcher, that’s quite the hypocritical accusation to make,” Harrymort tutted. “Taking over your body? This was never your body to begin with. What I did was different; it was a voluntary union, boy. Why do you think those muggles you call family feared you, even if dear Aunt Petunia seemed to love us more for it? I’m far more than Voldemort could ever hope to be. I am whole where he is fractured, I am young, unspoiled, and full of potential–all things he had ruined with his own hands.”

“You lie,” the words burned on his tongue. “As if I would ever accept to work with my parents’ murderer.”

“As if I needed to resort to something as pedestrian as deception when the truth is often far more amusing.” The sinister reflection chortled with dark amusement. “Why would young Harry care about parents he had never met? Parents who brought him only anger and humiliation. All I had to do was offer him honesty where everyone else lied, a friend where he had none and a path to power where he was powerless. In his anger and despair, Harry reached out to me. Perhaps a part of me was Voldemort before, but after we merged, I became Harry Potter.”

The blood-curdling smile only grew wider. “Lord Voldemort might have been my past, but Harry Potter is my future. His potential and my boundless knowledge and decades of experience will have no equal!”

It wasn’t a lie. Deep in his bones, Harry Potter knew it. No matter how much he wished it wasn’t so, he could remember Petunia refusing to meet his eyes, Dudley avoiding him, and Vernon pretending he wasn’t even there. He hadn’t given it much thought, for he never wanted to see Surrey again, but now…

“You disappeared,” Harry bit out desperately. “The scar was gone when I arrived. You failed.”

Harrymort was no longer smiling. The wand in his grip twisted, and a blue jet struck Harry in the chest, transforming into a thick, glowing rope binding his wrists and ankles together.

“I didn’t fail! I dispelled our mother’s troublesome protection, even if the backlash killed me, and somehow, an intruder came into what would have turned into an empty shell. You.”

Was this how he had truly arrived? Did it even matter?

“That’s a fancy way of saying you failed,” he snarked. “The Dark Lord, once again undone by a muggleborn. The same one who took you down at the peak of your power. It’s hard to take you seriously, now that I think about it. I mean, feeding off a lonely boy’s pain? That’s a new low, Voldemort, even for you.”

The silence stretched painfully as Not-Harry’s pale face contorted into a rage, only to resume its mocking leer moments later.

“Bold words from a fool who walked to his death,” was the chilling response. “Yes, I know. I lingered, waiting and watching through your thoughts and memories. You, Harry Potter, are a hot-headed imbecile, groping blindly in the dark and unable to defeat a disembodied Dark Lord despite all of your knowledge.”

“Perhaps I am a fool.” Harry shrugged. “I never said I was smart or capable—and I did fail again. What of it?”

The thought of death brought him peace. It was strangely… appealing. He was no longer worried or tired of being on edge. For good or bad, the struggle was over, and he could reunite with his parents and, if he was lucky, his friends.

“You have daring in spades, I must admit,” Harrymort’s lips curled. “It-“

“Can you shut up? We’re both dead, and I’m tired of listening to you prattle.”

“But we aren’t dead, you lackwit. Destiny seems to favour the likes of you, for everything has aligned in just the right way. Even now, I can feel the storm brewing outside. It has already started. Thanks to your moronic luck, your very body has become an altar for a ritual taking advantage of the catalyst of change and death… and I can use it to return and claim boons your mind couldn’t possibly even begin to comprehend!”

Catalyst of change?

‘…The Animagus Potion,’ Harry realised. No, it was technically half a ritual, as Sirius had explained. A ritual of metamorphosis. He began to laugh. “So, what? You escape this limbo only to return to a body broken beyond repair?”

“Broken bodies can be reforged if you’re willing to pay the right price, and you’ve made everything so much easier for me,” was the chilling reply, the glowing tip of the yew wand aimed at him. “I have already started the process while we were talking, you see. I have everything I need and then some more to start me on the road to greatness again. A soul such as yours is a priceless ingredient, Harry.”

One thing never changed; Voldemort loved the sound of his own voice, even if he wore the face of Harry Potter. During the speech, Harry tried to move his hands, but the ropes binding limbs painfully sank into his skin. It took all of his self-control not to cringe with pain.

Wait… pain? If pain was real… Harry paused, his mind racing as he tried to think of a solution. “Did you just spend all that time here to gloat and mock me?”

“Why yes!” the pale reflection cackled madly. “For once I am back, nothing can stand in my way, especially with the sweet knowledge in your mind. Not that old fool, Dumbledore, and certainly not a ragtag group of students. Nobody will expect the studious and kind Harry Potter to become the next dark lord. I won’t even have to fight for it–everything is in the palm of my hand. A kind word here, a well-placed truth or lie there, and countless witches and wizards will follow me because I am the Boy-Who-Lived.”

A million ants crawled over Harry’s spine, then. The shade before him was not lying, but it didn’t matter. Harry wouldn’t let him. There were barely six feet between them, and Harrymort was still seated on the bed, meaning his mobility was limited. His guard was down, too, just like Harry’s own after slaying the basilisk.

Perhaps the monster before him truly was Harry Potter—they certainly shared the same hubris. He cleared his mind as the possessed reflection continued with his monologue.

“Of course, I’ll have to get rid of Tom Riddle’s half-mad shade and plunder his soul shards for more power,” Harrymort’s voice turned patronising. “But I must thank you, truly thank you, for all the legwork you have done for me. Why, just befriending Bella’s daughter is such an unexpected boon; a smarter, more beautiful and talented version of my most loyal servant.”

For a moment, Harry lost his composure and struggled harder against his bindings, which merely made Harrymort’s smirk widen.

“Oh well, it’s been amusing to watch you squirm, Harry, but alas, I’m afraid our time together has come to an end. I will be everything Lord Voldemort failed to be, with better minions and even a loyal, if foolish, guardian willing to pander to my whims. You will be a fitting sacrifice to feed my ascension once aga–”

Harry, hands and feet tied, lunged forth with all his strength. It wasn’t a beautiful lunge, more like a deliberate fall, but he managed to take the reflection by surprise and collapse on top of it. Using all the strength he could muster and the momentum from the fall, Harry slammed his head into Harrymort’s nose, and the two of them fell on the bed. Ignoring the explosion of pain and the vertigo from the headbutt, he slammed his forehead against Harrymort’s again.

But it wasn’t enough; the reflection twisted away, and Harry only struck his shoulder the second time while Harrymort fumbled around, reaching for a wand that had fallen into the covers. Harry’s limbs might have been bound by magic… but his mouth wasn’t.

He lunged for the throat and bit with all of his strength. His teeth sunk into the soft, squishy skin, squeezing in an attempt to tear out a chunk of flesh. It was harsh on his tongue, like salty iron and made his insides churn.

The splash of still-warm blood squirted in his eyes, but Harry bit harder, squeezing down with all he had.

“…Y-You b-brute,” the reflection croaked out as the tip of something cold poked into Harry’s ribs as a hand tried to push his head away. Something hard struck his ribs, knocking out the air from Harry’s lungs. The spell dislodged him from Harrymort successfully, but the chunk of flesh remained lodged between his teeth.

The spell was weak, even for a silent spell. The pain probably prevented the red-eyed shade from focusing. “A-Avada-“

Still laid on top of him, Harry spat a bloody piece of flesh straight into his foe’s opened mouth, causing him to stumble and gag and giving Harry a chance to lunge down for another bite, tearing madly at his throat. Warm blood splattered on his face and mouth; he found himself unconsciously gulping it down while he tore and ripped until the body under him went limp.

Even then, Harry did not let go. He pulled another chunk of flesh free; something soft and squishy folded under his teeth, and Harrymort’s gurgles grew weaker. Harry lunged again and again, savaging the throat like a wild beast, for he had learned a painful lesson today with the basilisk.

Eventually, he lost track of time, and he only stopped when his teeth painfully met hard bone, and the sight before him was a gory horror belonging to a butcher’s…

Harry cautiously raised his head, meeting Harrymort’s dull, open, terror-filled crimson eyes.

He had won, if this could be called a victory…his face covered in sticky, warm blood, with his limbs still bound.

Harry barely managed to roll off the corpse, only to stare at a familiarly decrepit ceiling. His body felt like one giant bruise while warm blood dribbled from his lips.

But it wasn’t his blood, for once.

The overwhelming taste of iron and death choked his throat. He had just died and failed and won…sort of… but all he could do was chuckle weakly.

31st of October, Saturday, 1992

Juno

Sighing, she put away The Road Less Trodden by Ethelred the Eviscerator down. Once again, there was no mention of Horcruxes, even if the book had all sorts of vile curses, potions, and blood-curdling experiments boldly penned down. It was one of those tomes that any aspiring Dark Lord would salivate over just to take a peek at.

Alas, while educational, Juno had no interest in becoming a Dark Lady. Power was sweet, but there were far easier and more prudent ways to acquire it than trying to overthrow a government or resorting to pedestrian tactics like sneak attacks on defenceless sleeping families at night. Still, the problem remained. Juno wanted to learn more about Horcruxes, and the number of treatises on dark magic in the Black Library she had yet to peruse had significantly thinned.

The more the unread tomes dwindled, the more her frustration grew. Ever since Harry had spoken that word, the curiosity to learn, to know what secrets he held, gnawed at her like an itch she couldn’t scratch. And if she couldn’t coax the truth out of Harry, Juno decided to find it on her own. After all, Friday nights were the perfect time for a pleasant late-night read on dark magic.

Just as she finally decided to sleep, someone knocked on her door, and quite insistently at that. Blinking, Juno gazed at the enchanted watch on her wall–it was just a quarter past midnight. Everyone was supposed to be in bed long ago.

Intrigued and slightly miffed, Juno hastily pulled on a robe and picked up her wand just as the knocking grew more insistent. No, not quite knocking, but rhythmic slamming. Focusing, magic channelled into her eyes, but all she could see was mere darkness.

She cautiously cracked open the door, only to be greeted by Nyx’s twitching form, which was merging with the darkness of the staircase. The majestic serpent had grown even further, her body now thicker than Juno’s waist.

That certainly was a visitor she would have never expected, but Juno loved snakes. There was no reason to be impolite, especially with Harry’s familiar, who was intelligent enough to understand English. Doubly more so, considering the snake was trained enough to know basic human courtesies like knocking.

“How may I help you?”

After cautiously looking around, Nyx nimbly slithered into the room, and Juno hastily closed the door after her.

“Master Harry is in trouble,” she whined out a hiss, her scaly face looking urgent. Or as urgent as a serpent could look. “I know you can understand me! I can taste it in your magic.”

Juno froze, then. A thousand thoughts galloped through her mind like a herd of centaurs. But relief quickly flooded her–even if Nyx knew, it’s not like the serpent could tell anyone else. Her mind immediately returned to her first words.

“How is Harry in trouble? He’s never been one to look for trouble.”

“Master always looks for trouble. He’s in pain now. He’s growing weaker as we speak. I can feel it. I require aid!”

Somehow, the confident statement did not surprise Juno at all. Perhaps this had something to do with the elusive Horcrux?

“And can you feel where he is?”

“I can. Quick—he’s dying.”

Ice filled Juno’s veins. Without asking any further questions, she pulled on her boots and downed a Pepper-up potion from her stash to chase away the looming drowsiness.

“Lead the way.”

It was late enough for the caretaker to still be awake, but the prefects should have finished their nightly patrols over an hour prior. She silenced her footsteps and tapped her hair with her wand.

“Nubilus Obscurus.”

A warm feeling cascaded down from where her wand had touched her, turning her… mostly transparent. Juno was far from mastering the Disillusionment Charm, but even her shoddy version was better than nothing, especially at night when the castle was dark. There was nothing to fear, for the fierce patter of rain against the windows deafened whatever sounds she and Harry’s companion were making.

As she followed the surprisingly nimble Nyx through the spiralling staircases and hallways of Hogwarts, Juno had only one thing on her mind. What had Harry gotten himself into?!

It was cold; the only warmth and light in the hallways were the sparse braziers filled with hot coals, and white puffs started to escape from her lips. There was also the occasional flash of light from the thunderstorm outside, which illuminated the world as if it were a day on each strike.

“Should we call for a teacher?” Even her quiet hiss was almost drowned by the storm outside. Juno whipped her wand out and quickly struck all the nearby paintings with freezing charms just in case.

“Harry doesn’t trust the older two legs.”

Then again, Juno wasn’t sure Harry trusted anyone. Perhaps rightly so; an excursion late at night required a certain amount of subtlety, breaking more than a handful of rules while he had a spotless reputation to uphold.

“And where is your master?”

Nyx didn’t even pause to answer her.

“In the Old Queen’s lair.”

“…Old Queen?”

“Yes.”

“And what is the Old Queen?”

“Old and big and powerful.”

Right, how silly of Juno to assume otherwise.

It still sounded quite ominous. Was there a living horned serpent in Hogwarts? However, there were at least another handful of magical snakes big and powerful enough to claim a ‘crown’. The castle was certainly old and big enough for a lair to be hidden in some secret room or perhaps even underneath. ‘It couldn’t be a horned serpent,’ Juno mused inwardly. They lived in rivers and lakes, and the giant squid certainly wouldn’t suffer a rival in the Great Lake.

Or perhaps there was an underground river? It would also certainly explain why Harry wanted phoenix tears so quickly. They were the only universal antidotes against all snake venom.

It didn’t matter.

Juno cleared her mind, steeling herself. Fighting a class five beast would be challenging, but she had already slain one while far weaker. Sure, it had been wounded and tired, but now Juno was far more dangerous than she had been the summer.

To her great surprise, Nyx finally stopped at the second-floor girls’ bathroom.

“Who’s there?” Myrtle’s high-pitched voice made Juno cringe. “I heard you, you rulebreaker. Show yourself!”

Thankfully, it seemed that Myrtle’s vision was poor even in death, as the floating ghost was squinting around, but her gaze passed over Juno.

“Spectro Exilium.”

A streak of silver struck the hovering ghost, and Moaning Myrtle exploded into a shower of pale grey. Something that wasn’t alive, like ghosts, was very hard to kill, requiring a level of magic and skill Juno couldn’t wield just yet. The Ghost-Banishing hex she used just… dispersed the annoyance. Myrtle would reform the following day, and by then, Juno would be long gone.

“He’s here,” Nyx stopped at the round obelisk with sinks in the middle of the bathroom. “Deep under. We should try breaking it!”

Before Juno could even say something, the serpent slammed into marble headfirst. Sadly, marble was harder than bone and snakeskin, and the collision ended with a loud thud as she hissed painfully, twitching unhappily on the floor. Then, just as Juno tried to swallow her chuckle, Nyx reared up, slamming her head into the marble again.

“It hurts!”

“Wait,” Juno cautioned in between her wheezing laughter. After focusing magic in her eyes, she could see the subtle strands of dark and green twisting and wiggling around the marble-like serpents. “It is probably one of those enchanted passages that opens with a password. Let’s try… open!”

The sinks remained mockingly still while Juno frowned. What kind of perverted serpent made the entrance to their lair in a girl’s bathroom?

“Slide!”

“Passage!”

“Revelio!”

“Alohomora!”

Once again, the obelisk remained unmoving. Magic wouldn’t help, then. Juno was tempted to try to blast the stone open, but she would likely wake up the whole castle before succeeding.

“Unlock!”

“Unfold…”

Ten minutes later, Juno had spoken all sorts of commands, but none of them worked, and she wanted to tear off her hair in frustration. Harry was possibly dying at any moment. “Can you feel Harry?”

“Yesss.” Nyx’s response was far less urgent. “The pain is gone… I think. It’s hard to feel now as if something is blocking our connection.”

“We still need to get to him,” Juno said, tugging on her hair. “Don’t you know the password?”

“I know only one for Master’s magical sheepskin.”

Juno’s lips twitched, and she filed the knowledge of Harry having a magical roll of parchment for later. Oh, this was good. Tonight, she would catch him in the act again, and he could no longer refuse to work together. Just the anticipation of finally grilling her friend for answers made her feel giddy.

“Why don’t you try it?” Nyx just twisted hesitantly, looking at the sinks. “What is it?”

“It’s silly. Ugh. I solemnly swear I am up to no good!”

Just as Juno was about to agree, the sinks slid away, revealing a dark tunnel spiralling under the floor. She just stared as the realisation sank in. To enter, you had to speak Parseltongue. And Harry had entered, which meant he was one, just like her.

“It worked?” Nyx carefully peered down the darkness, sounding as confused as the young witch felt. “Let’s go!”

Shaking her head, Juno cast the most powerful Cleaning Charm down the hole and carefully slid in the pipe. She kept falling deeper and deeper into the darkness for at least a few minutes.

How deep underground was this place?

Landing on a carpet of crunching bones wasn’t what Juno expected–even if it was all rats, nifflers, and other vermin. But her attention was elsewhere. The dampness and sludge on her robes made her cringe in disgust. After enough cleaning charms to make herself presentable again, she finally gathered herself.

“Lumos!”

The enormous hollow snakeskin lazily sitting over a hill of bones made her heart leap to her throat. As any self-respecting Parselmouth, she had memorised each and every type of serpent, mundane or magical. And the vivid, poisonous green scales were unmistakable. The old queen was a bloody basilisk!

A part of her got angry.

Harry dared to chastise her for going after something as harmless as a Wampus Cat when he was basilisk hunting at night?! Both of the beasts might be class five, but a nearly immortal, titanic, murder serpent with scales impervious to magic and poison that could kill even a dragon was a far greater foe than a feral mind-assaulting cougar.

Alas, she didn’t have time to dwell on her musings or revel in vindication, as Nyx was already rushing to the hallway at the end of the twisting antechamber. There were two other pathways she could see here, disappearing in the darkness.

It was cold, and the impossibly smooth walls were covered with a damp sheen, which meant they were somewhere under the Great Lake. But the stonework wasn’t something a beast could create–this was hewn by the hand of a powerful wizard.

With every step, something inside her that Juno never knew existed twitched. The place was unassuming, with the faint smell of moss or its eerie darkness. Yet it wasn’t disgust and fear in her chest but a feeling of… rightness. Of belonging.

It felt right to be here. Her magic tingled underneath her skin with anticipation, as if this place belonged to her. Juno had never felt this, not to this degree. Not even on House Black’s properties. Her magic slithered into her veins as if it were an excited dog who was reunited with its long-lost owner.

When her blood started singing, Juno scowled and hastily cleared her mind. Just the last month, she had read dozens of tomes about those insidious curses and dark enchantments that would lower your guard through pleasure, making you vulnerable to attacks.

To her chagrin, the feeling of giddiness receded but never went away.

The hallway, however, ended at a smooth, dark wall adorned with two stone serpents with glinting emerald eyes. They tracked her every step as if alive, but Juno didn’t feel threatened or wary. She felt welcomed…

“I solemnly swear I am up to no good!” Nyx’s proud proclamation was met with silence as the black serpent looked around, confused. “Open, or I will bite-“

The serpents smoothly untangled from each other, parting and revealing a spacious chamber alight with a dim greenish light. The first thing Juno saw was the pair of scorched roosters in a cage just by the entrance. The chamber was enormous, easily as wide as a Quidditch Pitch, and the far end could not be seen from here.

Enormous columns in the form of stone serpents lined each visible wall, and the floor was lined with damp tiles. Debris, as if a clan of trolls fighting an angry giant had rampaged through the place, lay jagged across the chamber. A trail of destroyed tiles and spider-web cracks the size of Hagrid could be spotted along the walls, and pieces of broken columns and statues the size of a grown hippogriff littered the floor.

Nyx was giddy. “Master Harry is powerful! Even the Old Queen is no match for him!”

The snake and the witch cautiously forged onwards through the trail of destruction until Juno spotted a terrible shape in the dim darkness ahead.

The basilisk.

A terrible beast, its fallen carcass lay twisted on the floor. It was nearly two heads taller than Juno and looked even more eerie–and not because it was dead or a basilisk. Its head was reduced to pearly white bones as if something had stripped each ounce of flesh and scales from the remains, while from the neck down, it was bleeding flesh as if it had died just now.

Harry was nowhere to be seen. Nyx paused next to a fleshy cocoon by the gargantuan skeletal maw, and Juno could feel the magic twisting in the air as the ends of her hair stood up. A visible string of blood and flesh weaved from the corpse into the cocoon itself.

Ba-dump.

The cracked tiles around the head were bereft of blood or venom–the cocoon had absorbed them all. Juno even spied two broken-off yellow fangs the size of daggers, and surely enough, there were two broken stubs in the maw.

Ba-dump.

“Harry is here,” Nyx stated confidently as she cautiously nudged the cocoon with her nose. It looked more like a sinister egg made of raw meat up close.

Ba-dump.

And there was a faint, barely audible thrum coming from within as if a heart were beating slowly in the distance. But there was an odd power to it, as the heartbeat lingered in the air as if announcing its presence to the world.

Ba-dump.

Right. For some reason, Juno felt more numb than surprised. By what little she knew, this looked like a ritual. No, it definitely had to be ritual–the only way to explain the queer sight before her. A quite powerful one at that, considering the unravelling basilisk corpse by her side.

Had he planned this? How powerful would he grow now?

Ba-dump.

Did Juno even know Harry Potter?

She didn’t feel mad about him catching up, but there was a sliver of disappointment in her chest. Juno wasn’t sure why she felt that way. Instead, she turned to the black serpent.

“Do you know what this is?”

Ba-dump.

Nyx cautiously circled a few times around the cocoon, sniffed around the damp air, and tilted her head.

“Magic. Master is feeding on the magic of the beast because he doesn’t have enough.”

Ba-dump.

And the flesh of such an ancient class five magical beast was saturated with so much power it might as well be considered magic made flesh.

Just as Juno wondered what to do–or even if she should do anything, Nyx slithered to the far end of the carcass where the tail was and greedily tore a piece of flesh. Before long, she was feasting with relish under the witch’s disbelieving eyes.

Right, of course… the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

A part of her wanted to go around and explore. But she wasn’t feeling prepared to blindly venture into a basilisk lair. Or, well, deeper into one.

Ba-dump.

After watching the slow stream of blood and flesh weave into the cocoon that was slowly shrinking in size for what felt like an eternity, Juno’s eyelids felt as if they were made out of lead. She moved away from the echoing heartbeat towards the tail over sixty feet away, too tired to care.

For good or bad, Juno’s skill in Transfiguration had yet to advance to the Sixth Year material; otherwise, she would have made herself a crude bed–or even a bench or a chair would do.

She hastily looked around for a place to rest, but all she saw was destruction, damp tiles… and the enormous basilisk carcass. Transfiguring pieces of stone from the floor into a mattress and three thick linen blankets, Juno set them a bit away from the carcass to avoid the stench, laid down and wrapped herself tight.

It wasn’t the most comfortable place to sleep, but she had worse during her hunt for the Wampus cat.

“Wake me up in three hours or when your master is done,” she murmured to Nyx, who nodded for a moment and hastily resumed her quest to gorge herself with as much meat as possible.

Harry

Harry opened his eyes. Which was quite the surprise, considering he really didn’t think he’d get to ever open them again. For once, the pain he expected was utterly absent. He wasn’t dreaming either; the feeling of weakness that had taken hold of his body wouldn’t go away, and the tiles beneath him were as cold as they were hard.

“Sheer dumb luck.” Harrymort’s accusation rang true. He chuckled wanly as he struggled to get up.

Harry was naked. For a brief moment, he inspected his body and found no difference save for one. The place where the fangs had pierced him had a circular scar so faint he barely made it out. Harry panicked, hastily looking for his robes, mokeskin pouch, Marauder’s Map, and his father’s cloak, but they were gone. All gone, even the expensive wand holster, save for the pale yew wand that was lying just by his head.

Then, the realisation slowly sank in. They were gone. He just knew it with the same certainty he knew the sky was blue.

It wasn’t hard to figure out why, as the sinister mocking voice still echoed in his mind.

A fitting sacrifice to feed the ascension…

Sacrifice. From what little he knew, all rituals were based on giving and taking, and returning back to life couldn’t have been cheap. And the basilisk carcass near him had been reduced to pearly white bones, as if someone had stripped all flesh for nearly forty feet starting from the head, then abruptly stopped.

Harry felt hollow. Worse, he could recall a few errant lines from the diary he had purchased from Borgin.

All rituals require sacrifice. Sacrifice takes many forms, and it is always hard to quantify. But usually, the rarer it is and the more precious it is to the caster, the better the result.

Gone. Death’s cloak was gone–he felt it in his very soul. Not that Harry cared about some dusty old legend. Sure, the cloak was special, but it could have been an ordinary cloak, and Harry would have felt the same way. It was the only heirloom his father had left him.

Even the Animagus Ritual had failed, for he hadn’t turned into a beast as he ought to have. There was no second heartbeat, a thunderstorm to herald the moment of change, just the eerie silence in the dim Chamber. Only the reassuring warmth of the yew wand in his hand brought him any consolation. He was a fool to think he could fight a basilisk and return unscathed, but at least that unholy fusion of his alternate self and Voldemort was gone.

The price was crushing, but Harry would pay it again. He shuddered to think what such a monster could have done if given a proper body.

Despite the persistent feeling of weakness, the incredible weight driving him deeper into agitation was… gone. He tried to focus and tug on his magic to conjure a basic robe, but the attempt earned him several pained jolts throughout his body.

He was squeezed dry, and it would take a while to recover. Now, he only had to drag his tired body to his bed. Why did the Ravenclaw common room have to be on the seventh floor? But there was no time to dally. Harry had no idea how much time had passed; things would turn ugly if the diary-possessed student caught him so defenceless.

“Harry!” Nyx’s excited greeting wasn’t what he expected. The usually agile serpent slithered his way, but she looked fat, her body comically bloated from neck to tail, as if she had swallowed a giant balloon. “He’s awake!”

Before Harry could ask the dozens of questions swirling in his mind, Juno, wrapped up in drab blankets, blearily appeared from the other side of the carcass, blinking his way. For the first time ever, her hair wasn’t perfectly straight. If anything, it bore a strange resemblance to Hermione’s frizzy nest before she discovered the wonders of Sleakeazy’s.

A faint flush crept up her neck. “Harry, you’re naked.”

Grimacing, Harry hastily covered his modesty. “I know,” he muttered weakly. “But I woke up this way and sort of… don’t have enough strength to conjure anything.”

Juno coughed and tossed one of the blankets around her at him, which Harry used as a cloak to cover himself.

“Thanks.”

The awkward silence before them painfully dragged on. Juno’s eyes swung back and forth from the basilisk’s carcass to him.

“What are you and Nyx doing here?”

Juno quirked a dark eyebrow as if to say: look who’s asking.

“Your familiar politely knocked on my door late at night to inform me that you’re in grave danger and need assistance,” she said politely. Then her eyes narrowed on him. “And yes. I can speak Parseltongue. And so can you.”

It was a statement, not a question. Juno had found out.

“We found the password to the entrance, Harry,” Nyx added helpfully. “Same as your old dried-up skin roll.”

Harry had never felt so naked despite the black blanket that covered his body. He could lie, deflect, or even avoid answering Juno’s questions. Not that Harry was good at any of that stuff. But there was a sliver of concern in her gaze, a bit of fear–she was afraid of him as if he was some monster. Even though he felt as weak as a toddler, he somehow knew Juno wouldn’t attack him.

Harry could remain silent, but he suspected their friendship would irrevocably be torn away.

God, the cat was out of the bag. He couldn’t even begin to explain what was happening here. Worse, he needed her help not only to crawl out of the Chamber but to deal with Tom Riddle’s diary.

Juno was good at manipulating. She was proud to the point of haughtiness. Smart, talented, and driven. ‘Just like her father,’ a small, insidious voice whispered in his head.

But Juno wasn’t her father, and she never hesitated to help him.

Merlin, he was tired. He was tired of lying–and tired of groping in the dark on his lonesome and failing. But what if he didn’t have to do everything alone?

“I already knew,” Harry confessed, probably making another stupid decision. “That you can speak Parseltongue. You heard the basilisk in the pipes with me.”

Her eyes widened in shock. “That was this basilisk?”

“Yeah. I had to kill the beast before it killed someone. And I did it. Or I thought I did, but it was playing dead, and it got me at the last moment.”

“So, that’s why you needed phoenix tears,” Juno noted neutrally. “Because we heard it again this Wednesday. But if the beast’s lair was here, why did it awaken from its slumber now? Surely, the staff in Hogwarts would know if there was a basilisk underneath the school!”

“It’s old,” Harry shrugged. “About a thousand years or so, considering it was Salazar Slytherin’s pet.”

The witch glanced at the carcass and winced. “Let’s ignore how you decided to hunt a thousand-year-old class-five beast alone.” Juno gave him a pointed glance heavy with a silent promise to return to the topic later. “The size certainly matches. But then,” her voice thickened with awe as she carefully looked around the walls, “this would be Salazar Slytherin’s infamous Chamber of Secrets. And somehow, you knew about it. You knew what lay in here and how to get in and kill it.”

A small voice in his mind that suspiciously sounded like Albus Dumbledore whispered that this would be a terrible idea. Harry squashed it and muttered, “I did.”

Juno rubbed her face tiredly.

“I have so many questions I don’t know where to begin,” she groaned. “How can you be so secretive at one moment and infuriatingly honest at the next?”

“I did promise to answer your questions,” he laughed weakly, “and besides, I screwed up today and the phoenix tears weren’t enough. I accidentally drank my Animagus Potion and barely survived at the cost of a family heirloom and more. All of my plans failed. I don’t think I can do this alone anymore. You told me before that you wanted in, right?”

“Indeed.” Juno’s face softened.

“Trouble seems to follow me everywhere, Juno.” He looked at her, trying to convey all of his seriousness and honesty. “What I’m doing is dangerous.” His hand swept towards the half-stripped basilisk carcass. “The I-will-die-upon-failure-and-possible-success sort of dangerous.”

“I’ll assist you.” The declaration was made without an ounce of hesitation. “There’s no need to dissuade me, Harry. My mind has long been made up.”

His knees chose that moment to buckle, and he collapsed on the cold floor again, groaning in pain.

“I need a bed,” he said, his voice weak. “My body has no strength right now. Even staying awake is like a struggle; all my muscles feel like jelly.”

“We should get you to the hospital wing.” Juno’s gaze was filled with concern.

“But—”

“I can’t exactly smuggle you out of school to recover under the care of House Black’s personal healer,” her voice turned dry. “This is not something you can sleep off for two days with no one the wiser, and Madam Pomfrey can treat you.”

Juno transfigured a piece of stone into a crude crutch and carefully helped him up. A pleasant mix of hyacinth and lemon tickled his nose. “What am I going to tell them?” Harry waved at the devastation surrounding them. “I suck at lying.”

“I know,” Juno smiled slyly, “that’s why I will do the lying. My grand-aunt taught me a handful of tricks to deceive Diagnostic Charms, too. Besides, it wouldn’t be too hard to cover the whole work with overtraining if we just present it at the right angle. Your dogged persistence in all things magic will make the deception all the easier.”

Harry had to lean a good portion of his weight on her even to move, and they slowly made their way out of the Chamber.

“I suppose,” he agreed weakly. A soft bed and a pillow sounded too appealing right now, even if Poppy’s potions tasted disgusting. “I… I’m not sure how to explain everything, and I’m not even sure if there’s a proper explanation for a good chunk of this mess.”

Or if he even wanted to tell her everything, but he was too tired to think of some grand plan or explanation that would doubtlessly come short or backfire spectacularly.

And frankly, the whole mess was a problem for future-Harry.

“We’ll take it slow, question by question, then. I can see you’re tired enough to keel over. Just tell me the most pressing thing first, I suppose. What is a Horcrux, and why do you want to destroy them so badly?”

They just entered the hallway leading to the pipes.

“Well…” Harry took a deep, shuddering breath. This was it. There was no going back now. Or perhaps there was no going back the moment Juno had found him in the Chamber. “To my knowledge—which might be rather unreliable now that I think about it—a Horcrux is a splintered piece of a wizard’s soul–”