I know this may come as a shock but I don't own Harry Potter
Also as a special surprise, both to you my beloved readers and to me since he originally refused to explain his reasoning and because he wasn't supposed to do anything like this, Dumbledore's somehow managed to hijack the first little bit of this chapter and then we'll be getting back to the heroes of the story. To all my reviewers- I adore you and wish to give you cookies, to those who haven't reviewed, no cookies for you but thanks for reading and I hope you continue to do so. Many thanks and extra cookies to reptilia28 for the challenge that started this story and extra thanks and cupcakes to CompVizer for being my 200th reviewer and Paladeus for being kind enough to let me bounce ideas off of him, and now onto the real reason you're reading this
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The chamber of secrets, it's been opened!" came the whispered reply and both Harry and Hermione let out small groans.
"Not again." Harry muttered. He turned to stalk back to the Gryffindor tower, Hermione close on his heels while the twins remained behind
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In centuries past Halloween was a day that people believed that the barriers between their world and others would become thing or even disappear for brief moments. Some wizards would take advantage of this and use various rituals to increase their powers or use the strange occurrences of the special night to scare their mundane neighbors. Other wizards were more prudent, and kinder, and used their magics and various ceremonies including dressing up as the visitors in order to drive off whatever would come to visit on this special day. Muggles watched and mimicked their procedures by dressing up in their own costumes.
Time went by and knowledge was lost, Halloween went from a sacred, dangerous time to a frivolous holiday with only feasting and muggles trick or treating to remind people of its power. To grown wizards it was little better than an excuse to dress up, visit friends and indulge in rich foods and drink. For the younger people, both wizarding and muggle, it was an excuse to throw eggs at peoples' houses, put shaving cream on their doorbells and pull other pranks on various residences. One particular residence on Spinner's End was an especially popular target for such pranks.
In modern times however, Halloween had reached a level of popularity not seen since ancient times, or at least since the Halloween a rather mercenary Hufflepuff of all people had figured out and sold the current password to Snape's room in Hogwarts. The reason for this almost unprecedented popularity was the fact that it was the anniversary of the defeat of Voldemort, one of the most terrifying and wicked wizards in recent history.
As one of the more influential and popular members of wizarding society, Albus Dumbledore had been receiving invitations for numerous Halloween parties for decades. Generally he chose not to attend, preferring to spend his holidays at his beloved Hogwarts. But this year, Pernelle had written to him of her decision to follow her husband to the next great adventure on Halloween and so he had chosen to do the right thing by being with his old friend and mentor on the sad occasion. When he returned to the school and discovered what had happened Dumbledore felt an irrational resentment towards the Flamel widow and he spent the next several house examining the scene of the crime and discussing with the staff as to what the words on the wall could possibly mean and what could have happened. It was two in the morning before he could leave things alone and go to try to get some sleep. He stopped at the entrance and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath to keep calm. Being the headmaster of the most high profile school in the Northern hemisphere was sometimes more trouble than it was worth, especially in recent years with the rise of the bureaucracy and Fudge's whole hearted adoration of any and all form of avoiding real work.
Bloody paperwork he mentally grumbled and he turned away from the entrance of his personal quarters and began to walk to his office, his tired mind still trying to deal with the grief that came with Pernelle's passing and the various emotions that this terrible occurrence had summoned.
How could the chamber have been opened? Dumbledore thought to himself as he wearily walked up the stairs to his office. No matter how the aged headmaster turned the problem around in his head he came up with the same answer, it was impossible. The chamber couldn't have been opened again. The true heir of Slytherin had not set foot in Hogwarts for decades and no one else knew the location of the chamber. And just in case poor Harry did have some truth in his babblings, he had ordered the house elves to search every students' belongings and bring to him the diary if they should find it and they had come through and brought him the journal that young Harry had described in that strange discussion after the mess with poor Severus.
But despite what Harry had claimed, the elves had not found a diary anything like the description that Harry had given* leaving the aged headmaster with the problem of two creatures being petrified and the only real suspect being hundreds of miles away in Albania with no possible way of being able to get into Hogwarts and getting to wherever the chamber was hidden. The only possible answer he could come up with was that the chamber hadn't really been open; it was just a copy cat. But the matter of Myrtle's petrification bothered him. What sort of person had the power to petrify a ghost?
Still, for now he pushed the matter aside and turned his attentions to what to do about young Harry Potter.
To think that someone was wicked and foolish enough to have tricked Harry like that Dumbledore thought, feeling angry with whomever it had been who had convinced Harry that they had knowledge of the future. Not even a true seer could have come up with such a complete story and since traveling backwards an inhabiting the past body was impossible it had clearly been a ploy to put the boy in danger. However he also felt curious as to whom the person could possibly be. Some of the things that Harry had revealed were obviously false, such as the silly idea that Severus would betray him like that and the impossible idea that Sirius Black was innocent and could escape Azkaban. After all, he had full confidence in severus and he had personally cast the fidelius to hide the Potters, using Sirius Black as the secret keeper.*
But other things, such as the idea that Tom had attempted to create seven horcruxes, those ideas were closer to his own theories than he was willing to admit. Whoever had managed to subvert the protections around Harry in the past summer must have been a master of Dark magic and very close to Tom, there was no other explanation. He felt yet another burst of rather uncharacteristic anger towards this mystery person who had interfered in Harry's childhood. The poor boy had already lost enough, he didn't need a Dark wizard messing with his memories and prodding him towards yet another adventure where he could get himself killed.
"At least I managed to save him from this potential disaster," Dumbledore said to himself as he looked through the papers on his desk. He still felt guilty over being foolish enough to fall for the fake owl from the ministry and for Harry nearly getting killed all over a fake stone that was merely bait to catch Voldemort and banish him for good. Awarding Gryffindor enough points to win the house cup and persuading the Dark Force Defense League to make Harry a senior member were all well and good but he knew that both acts were still more token sort of apologies. He knew that he still owed Harry a great deal for putting the child in such danger. What had he been thinking? Why had he used such a dangerous trap in a school of children? If a single thing had gone wrong then it would have been a slaughter! A single mistake and Tom would have had a new body and used that to take all of the children of his followers and forced them to also follow him and then he would have murdered Harry, Harry and every single muggle born child in the castle and from there he would have control of Hogwarts and he would have been powerless to stop Tom this time around. And that wasn't even considering the troublemakers who could have gotten eaten by Hagrid's Cerberus. Why had he practically dared the students to go to the third floor corridor? He had been teaching for nearly one hundred years, he knew how students would take such an announcement.
"I won't fail him again, I won't fail my students again, I can't let that happen again," Dumbledore promised himself, and he absently put a lemon drop into his mouth. He felt the strange, familiar feeling of floating envelope him as he ate the sour candy and he smiled, feeling a new sense of confidence in himself.
He was Albus Percival Wulfric Dumbledore, the greatest wizard in recent times. He could handle any problems that came his way and protect everyone. True there were going to be some people put in danger and there would be people who objected to his methods but he was doing what was best. It was all for the Greater Good after all.
He helped himself to another lemon drop, they really were very good, just the right balance of acidity and sweetness.
Dumbledore's eyes twinkled and he smiled blankly as he ate more of the delightfully sour little candies and went through the paperwork almost mechanically, taking no real notice of what he was signing and what he was discarding.
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If Harry had been aware of Dumbledore's promise to himself and his plans to keep a closer eye on the boy-who-lived then he would have been fairly horrified and extremely annoyed. But as it was he did not and so ignorance on this matter proved, for the moment, to be bliss, mostly. Unfortunately for Harry, the knowledge that someone had the diary and the basilisk was loose along with the newest training schedule that Hermione had developed and Oliver's sudden demand for increased quidditch practice was driving him very nearly insane. He had not slept well the previous night, too concerned with visions of the basilisk being let loose on the school and the mystery diary holder wreaking havoc on the wizarding world at large.
He glared up at the man at the front of the classroom who was only serving to make things worse.
Hermione had unfortunately been able to pull a few more memories concerning their useless defense teacher and just as in the previous timeline, Lockhart had not brought a single live creature to class since the pixie episode. So far Harry had managed to avoid acting out anything from the ridiculous books since he had not attended a single defense class since the first one, but today his luck had run out- Lockhart himself had managed to somehow corner both the boy who lived and Hermione after their transfiguration class and practically dragged them along with him, all the while babbling on and on about himself and admonishing both of them for missing so much class.
And now they were stuck in Lockhart's useless class and Harry was struggling to keep his eyes open. He had slept poorly, plagued by nightmares that he couldn't remember and he was sick and tired of not remembering things. If he had just gone with his instincts and killed the basilisk when he had the chance then this wouldn't have happened.
"Harry," a voice cut through his self loathing and he looked up to see the stupid excuse of a professor looking down at him, his teeth gleaming in an unnatural fashion.
"Harry," the fake repeated, "Why don't you come up here and help me demonstrate how I saved a town from a plague of werewolves?"
"How about I just sit here and watch your technique." Harry snapped in reply, his fingers just itching to take out his wand and hex the git so he spend this time doing something productive, like practice, or take a nap, or find whoever had the dairy.
Lockhart frowned for a moment, before he remembered that frowning would cause wrinkles and he quickly smiled condescendingly at the green eyed wizard.
"Harry, Harry, Harry," he started, "I know that it may seem that there are some things that are beneath you, after all, you do have some claim to fame what with that whole you-know-who mess,"
"His name is Voldemort, or Tom Marvolo Riddle if you prefer," Harry interrupted, ignoring everyone's flinches as he began to gather his books together. There was no point in being here.
"Come on now Harry, keeping the other students from learning just because you're too proud isn't fair on them." Lockhart said as he smiled in what he probably thought was a paternal fashion. Harry repressed a shudder as he glared at the smiling idiot.
"I'm not keeping them from learning. If anything, you're the one that's keeping them from learning. You haven't shown us a single, working spell or given us any information about creatures that are actually dangerous. All you've done was tell us ridiculous stories about yourself. I could teach better than you!" Harry snarled at the incompetent blonde, too tired and too concerned with other things to bother trying to polite. He started towards the door. The entire class, barring Hermione, gaped after him. Professor Lockhart looked as if he had been hit over the head with a fish. Harry didn't bother to look back as he stormed out of the classroom.
Harry was halfway down the hall when Lockhart regained what few senses he had and he rushed out of the classroom after his famous pupil.
"Mr. Potter! You get back here or you'll be serving detention!" Lockhart bellowed and Harry didn't even bother to turn around.
He toyed with the idea of going back to bed but shook his head. He was too wound up to try to sleep and Hermione would kill him if he tried going after the basilisk now without even the sword of Gryffindor to help him. Instead, he went straight to the room of requirements and began to practice. He ran laps around the room's giant interior, dodged the various projectiles that the room obligingly hurled at him from each and every angle and practiced his wandless magic until he collapsed from exhaustion. When he awoke, he would repeat the process, taking breaks only when a house elf would appear with snacks or when he needed to relieve himself or puke up the snacks because he worked too hard, at which point the room would create a bathroom that would make Harry's subconscious nag at him. But without Hermione the boy-who-lived had no idea what to do to bring the memory to the forefront of his mind so he simply trained even harder to try to ignore it.
He was in the middle of another cycle of training when he realized that he was no longer alone.
"Luna?" Harry gasped and as soon as his attention wandered, three of the room's projectiles hit him in quick succession.
"Ouch!" Harry yelped and cursed as he concentrated on making the room stop. The blonde girl looked at him with a smile on her face.
"Hello Harry," she said, looking around the room with a mild expression on her face.
"Hello Luna, what are you doing here?" Harry asked.
"Ginny wanted to know why Hermione is angry with you and why you stormed out of Lockhart's class. She persuaded Wood to put her in charge of the Gryffindor first years so she could have a chance of talking to you first." Luna explained and Harry frowned.
"Why would Ginny care if Hermione is mad at me? And why is Wood looking for me? And how did you find this room anyway?" Harry asked, several other questions running through his mind. Luna bit her lip and then seemed to come to a decision.
"It's quite simple Harry, the puffed schalts have infested Ginny's brain and she thinks this is an opportunity to take Hermione's place as your best friend." Luna replied. Harry waited for an answer to the second question but Luna simply walked further into the room and then she stopped. Her already large eyes became even wider and her mouth was hanging open slightly as she stared at him. Harry looked around the room and then he tried to subtly inspect his own appearance but he didn't notice anything that would cause the usually unflappable girl to look so shocked.
"What about the rest?" Harry asked, trying to jar Luna back into the present.
"I'll answer that. I'm annoyed with you because you've brought unnecessary attention to yourself, again," Hermione answered primly. Luna and Harry turned to see the bushy haired book worm enter the room with the door disappearing moments after she stepped inside. She raised a brow at the site of the still gaping blond and then shook her head.
"And because the room wouldn't let me in until now. Harry, how long do you think you've been in here?" Hermione snapped.
"An hour, maybe two?" Harry guessed.
"Try nearly a day," Hermione replied, "You have a quidditch match against Slytherin in less than an hour. Wood's been going nuts."
Harry cursed and ran out of the room, a bemused brunette trailing after him while the blonde Gryffindor remained behind for awhile, smiling slightly as a strange gleam appeared in her eye and she slowly left the room.
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There are explanations for the starred things
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