The final chapter of this book is upon us! This answers the question of what Emma was going to tell Hermione a couple of chapters back, reveal the next book's bad guy(s), and prelude to a couple of surprises for next book.
As usual, I don't own Harry Potter. I own Lizzie Black, Michael Black, Whizzy the house elf, this incarnation of Blaise Zabini, and Emma Granger. Everything else belongs to Rowling.
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Chapter 8 - Ruling the Terrible Beast
The sound of Harry's feet splashing in little puddles on the floor echoed throughout the cavernous area as he stopped in front of a large iron door with ornate serpents on the front, their heads extending past the edge of the door.
"Open," Harry hissed, and the grating sound of metal scraping against metal rang throughout the cave as the serpents contracted, extracting their heads from the stone doorframe. After the last snake had retracted its head from the wall, the door swung open with a mighty groan. Drawing his wand, Harry cautiously stalked into the new chamber. This new chamber was a radical change from the cave before, with its polished black marble floor and pillars, and its large serpentine sentinels, and the large figure of Salazar Slytherin encompassing the entire far wall. In the center of the chamber, laid a small redheaded girl with a black book in her hand and the imposing teenage form of Tom Riddle.
"Ah, Harry, how nice of you to join us," Riddle said coldly. Harry glared at him darkly, his hand clenched tightly against his wand. "I'm sure you're wondering how I got here, aren't you?" Riddle continued rhetorically. "It was quite simple really. I was taken into the castle by a silly little Mudblood girl. Emma, I believe. She was intrigued by me, a talking book. She began to pour her heart out into me, and being an understanding friend, I was obligated to respond," he continued, bored. "But she became suspicious. She felt something was wrong about me, so she disposed of me. But then I fell into your hands, Harry. Unfortunately, you saw through my little white lie, and threw me into the fire. Obviously, I couldn't have that, so I was forced to grab hold of the first first-year that passed me by, who just so happened to be this girl," he said, nudging Ginny with his foot. "I possessed her, and took her down here to rejuvenate me. And now we shall see how the Boy-Who-Lived fares against the Heir of Slytherin." Turning to the head of Slytherin, he began hissing and spitting in Parseltongue. "I call to you, Salazar Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts four! Grant me your beast!"
The mouth of Slytherin slowly slid open, and a low hissing emanated from beyond the void within. Moments later, a giant green snake slithered out, shrieking.
"Kill him!" Riddle shouted in Parseltongue. Harry immediately turned around and ran away as the basilisk lunged at him, smashing a shallow crater into the ground. Harry ducked behind a statue as he weighed his options.
Okay, I can't kill it with spells, and there aren't any roosters around, so my only chance is to transfigure a mirror, Harry thought to himself. He flinched as the basilisk struck the pillar he was hiding behind, showering him with debris. Grabbing a fist-sized rock, Harry dashed to a different pillar. He pointed his wand at the rock and tried to remember the spell to transfigure objects into metal.
"Transfiguro metallica," Harry muttered, and the stone turned into a flat piece of dull-looking steel. "Chromia," Harry said again, and the metal turned into shiny, polished chrome. "Engorgio," he chanted, and it grew until it was almost as big as he was. He heard the basilisk slithering towards him to strike again, he closed his eyes and slid the piece of metal into view, hiding behind it.
The basilisk found where its prey was hiding and slithered there. Rearing its head to strike, it brought its head down, but when it saw the glint of something reflective being dragged out into the open, it instinctively turned its head, striking its head on the considerably harder floor. Harry poked his head out from behind his shield to see the dazed basilisk shake its head and begin slithering away from him.
"What are you doing?!" Riddle screamed in rage. "He's right there, you fool! Kill him!" Harry was surprised when the giant serpent shook its head.
"I will not dare attack that thing; I will not risk my life for something so scrawny," it hissed. Harry didn't know whether to be relieved that the basilisk was refusing to attack him, or insulted that it had called him scrawny. Riddle's face twisted in rage.
"Very well, I shall get rid of him myself. Reducto!" he shouted, and Harry instinctively cast a shield, deflecting the hex. Suddenly, Harry was struck with an idea.
"Kill him!" Harry shouted in Parseltongue, pointing to Riddle.
"Do not listen to him!" Riddle raged. "I am the heir of Salazar Slytherin; I am your master! You will obey me!"
"What has he offered you?" Harry asked the basilisk. "A chance to get out and stretch your coils every fifty years? Obey me, and I will let you have all the wild animals you wish! I will even grant you your freedom!" For several tense seconds, no one said anything. Finally, the basilisk inclined its head, still facing away from Harry.
"We have a bargain, Snake-Tongue," the basilisk said before swinging its tail at Riddle, sending him flying across the room and hitting the wall with enough force to kill an ordinary man. However, since Riddle was far from ordinary, he survived, his robes disheveled.
"Avada Kedavra!" Riddle shouted, and the green curse flew from his wand and hit the basilisk in the face. It did not die, but blood and gore was splattered everywhere, including several fangs. While the two were distracted, Harry ran to Ginny Weasley and kicked the diary out of her hand before pressing his fingers to her neck, feeling a faint pulse. Harry looked at the diary to see a fresh, bloody basilisk fang lying next to it. Picking up the large fang and being careful not to cut himself with it, he brought it down on the diary, ink spraying like blood from the puncture. He heard Riddle screaming in the background, but Harry simply kept stabbing the diary over and over again until it stopped "bleeding". At that point, there were several large holes burned into the diary, and his entire front was black with sprayed ink.
"What are your orders now, master?" the basilisk hissed, staying far away from Harry.
"Is there a way out of here? One that does not lead into the castle?" Harry asked.
"Indeed, there is, master," the basilisk replied.
"Then go out through there. Go somewhere far away from here, from human contact. Once there, you will be free, and I will never trouble you again," Harry ordered. The basilisk obediently slithered back into its lair within Slytherin's mouth, and Harry didn't move until he could hear the snake no longer. He looked down at the still unconscious Ginny Weasley, and sighed exhaustedly. A couple of minutes later, a pillar of fire appeared before Harry, before revealing a crimson and golden phoenix. Harry watched wordlessly as the bird hopped over to Ginny Weasley, resting on her arm. A moment later, they both disappeared in a burst of flame, only for the phoenix to reappear a moment later. Before Harry could say anything, it flew onto his shoulder, and he suddenly found himself standing in the hospital wing, surrounded by his friends.
"Fancy meeting you here," Michael said, lying on his own cot.
"How long have you been here?" Harry asked. Michael shrugged.
"Couple minutes," he said. "We managed to dig our way out, but we got stuck at that big door. A little while later, the phoenix came in and took us here. A few seconds later, you show up."
"I wonder who the phoenix belonged to," Blaise mused out loud.
"Dumbledore, most likely," Harry said as he sat down on an empty cot. "Which means he'll probably come up to me and spout out some crap about how it would only come to me if I were loyal to him or something like that," he continued dully.
"Enough about that, what happened?" Blaise asked, and they all leaned in to hear Harry retell his story.
To Harry's surprise, Dumbledore didn't approach him about the phoenix. The day after the diary was destroyed, Dumbledore addressed the students, saying that the petrified students had been cured and the "threat" had passed. The Marauders noticed that Dumbledore seemed to be thinner than usual.
After Lockhart had awoken, it was discovered that his deflected spell had completely wiped his memories, and had to be taken to St. Mungo's. Because of the lack of a Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, the other teachers had to share the duty between each other to fill it in.
The night before the school year ended, the Marauders were talking amongst themselves when Emma showed up.
"Can I speak to Hermione alone please?" she asked. Nodding, Hermione stood up and followed her sister to the girls' dormitories. "Okay, Sis, remember that time on the train I tried to talk to you?" she asked nervously. When Hermione nodded her head, Emma continued. "Well, I don't think it matters, but I think...I think Professor Lockhart may have been a poofter," she whispered softly. Hermione just stared at her sister, her jaw hanging.
"What?" she finally said. Whatever she had expected Emma to say, it wasn't that.
"A while ago, I went to his office to ask him something about the assignment, but I heard him moaning and saying things like `you handsome devil, you,' and I freaked out and ran," Emma said, shuddering. Hermione laughed and hugged her sister.
"Don't worry about it, Emma," she said. "Now go finish packing; we're leaving tomorrow," she added, nudging Emma back to her dormitory before going back to her own to find anything that she had forgotten.
The next day at breakfast, Dumbledore stood up and cleared his throat, immediately grabbing the attention of the student body.
"Students, I have an announcement to make," Dumbledore said boldly. "For years I have overseen this school, but now I feel that I must pass that mantle to someone else. Therefor, it is today that I am formally announcing my retirement." All of the students gasped simultaneously at this announcement. "Next year, Professor McGonnagal will be your Headmistress, so expect to see a new Transfiguration teacher next fall. That is all," he finished, sitting back down. The rest of the morning and train ride back to London was about this news. When they got off the train, they saw their parents waiting for them.
"Where's Uncle Moony?" Michael asked as they walked back to 12 Grimmauld Place.
"At an interview," Lizzie said, cradling Morgan. "He's trying for a part-time position at a store
down the street. He's probably trying to get enough money to move out," she added, shaking her head.
"There's another surprise for you two," Sirius said as he clapped both boys on the shoulder. "This summer, we're going to work on your Animagus forms, and make you into true Marauders!" he said proudly.
"Wicked!" Harry and Michael both said. Sirius just shrugged modestly.
"Hey, maybe you can write your girlfriends, and they can come by and work on it with you," he added teasingly, earning him a swat on the chest from his wife.
"Agh, don't abuse me in front of the children!" Sirius gasped, clutching his chest dramatically. Lizzie just rolled her eyes and held Morgan up.
"Your daddy is so silly," she said to the baby. Morgan just giggled and drooled in response.
The next morning, Blaise woke up and walked to the kitchen to see the morning Prophet lying on the counter. She paid the owl from a jar full of Knuts on the counter and unrolled the paper. When she saw the headline, she gasped and dropped the paper, stunned by what it said in large bold letters.
MASS BREAKOUT AT AZKABAN! CROUCH, PETTIGREW AND LESTRANGE AT LARGE!
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Final chapter, yay!
Dumbledore may be retired, but I'm not quite done with him. I've still got plans for him, and Hogwarts in general.
Who here was wasn't expecting Emma's revelation? Be honest now.
The new Marauders' Animagus forms will be revealed early next book.
Don't forget to read and review!
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