Harry and Ron were standing under his invisibility cloak just outside the headmasters office when these words were stated. A smile from the headmaster being indication that he knew that they were there, but Snape saw nothing at all. Harry slowly crept back towards the Gryffindor common room to find that Myrtle had flooded the bathroom.

“Myrtle what happened?” asked Harry.

“Here I am, minding my own business and somebody thought it was funny to throw a book at me!” she sobbed.

“But it wouldn’t hurt if someone threw a book at you, I mean it would just go right through you!” Ron exclaimed happily.

“Sure! Lets all through books at Myrtle cos she can’t feel it! Ten points if you get it through her stomach!” with that Myrtle put her hand through Ron’s stomach, “50 points if it goes through her head!” she did the same with Ron’s head. He was feeling a little unsteady. Growing up in a wizarding home and being aware of ghosts did not mean that he was ready for the angst of a teenaged girl ghost!

“But who threw it at you anyway?” Harry asked.

“I don’t know I didn’t see them,” Myrtle says, “I was just sitting there, thinking of death and suddenly a book flies right into me! It landed over there.”

Harry went and picked up the book and just out of curiosity sake he took it with him.

“There the book is gone now,” Harry said.

“Thank you Harry,” Myrtle said and giggled.

He carried the book with them back to the Gryffindor common room where Ron found himself caught by Fred and George with promises of “come on we’ll give you a knutt if you just take a look at some of these new inventions we have made.” Harry politely declined thinking of how incredible it is that they are able to mix all of these different concoctions. If the effort they put into them went into their potions classes then not only would they both be head of the class but probably deserving of the “best student of the year award” if there was one at Hogwarts. But of course Fred and George concentrated their efforts in other areas. Harry sat himself down at his desk and took out the book noticing it had a name on it, Tom Marvolo Riddle. He shrugged and opened it. Then taking a quill he wrote “My name is Harry Potter” into the book just to see what it was like to write in. Much to his surprise the ink disappeared and was replaced with the words “Hello Harry Potter, my name is Tom Riddle!” then the ink disappeared.

It looked like an old book so Harry decided to ask it, “Do you know anything about the chamber of secrets!”

“Yes”

“Can you tell me?”

“No, but I can show you Let me take you back about fifty years ago!”

The diary showed him a younger Hagrid who Harry was pleased to notice looked a lot neater than the one currently in Azkaban. He felt such a shred of guilt when he thought of that but he continued watching the memory. Feeling shocked and amazed when Tom showed him how Hagrid had opened the chamber of secrets. Hagrid? Had opened the chamber of secrets? But there was a monster in his trunk alright, a big hairy spider named “Aragog” where did Hagrid come up with names for all of these creatures? Harry emerged from the diary thinking, Hagrid opened the Chamber of Secrets? How is that possible? Is that even...is that....how to find out....Harry thought of what Hagrid had said earlier “follow the spiders.” He looked around and saw his invisibility cloak thinking. Then he saw Ron fast asleep in his bed. Concluding that it must be pretty late already he decided to crawl into bed and think more about it in the morning, after all he had a quidditch game to play and he didn’t want to miss it.

Severus awoke the next morning in his bed with his trusted animals around him, Lily was curled up in a ball beside his feet, his two dogs, Josh and Harvey were laying respectfully next to his chest and head. He always did find it a little strange that his animals seemed to get along so well but assumed (as many owners do) that it was simply because he was a well balanced person and wouldn’t stand for any nonsense like some other owners might. For a moment he felt like the whole of last night had been a dream until he looked over at his sofa, there was Metzel sitting up and rubbing her eyes on the sofa, with Graham with his hands clasped gracefully in his lap sitting in an arm chair snoring loudly.

“I didn’t mean for you to stay in such an uncomfortable place,” Severus said quietly, “I’m sorry.”

“Oh Severus that’s fine, we used to do this kind of thing all the time before Lily...” Metzel said and sighed “before the incident,”

“Where are the others?” Severus asked gently.

He was surprised to find Metzel laugh, “Why Severus,” she smiled, “they are lying right beside you!”

Severus looked beside him as if to see them all maybe underneath an invisibility cloak of some sort about to jump out and yell “SURPRISE!” but nothing happened, his mangy large dog, Harvey, stretched a bit but then just curled back up into a ball with his tail touching his nose. Only Lily sat up, bright and alert, jumped over Severus and pawed the two dogs before jumping onto the floor and transfiguring back into a person. Now fully human Andrea smiled.

“The boys and I couldn’t bring ourselves to leave you very long Severus,” she said gently.

Severus cringed at the sight of her and started blushing. All of his secrets that he believed he had merely told his cat and dogs...he had told these people that...ok so there had been some memories of them together as children but from what Severus knew they hadn’t been friends for at least ten years.

“Then why didn’t you reveal yourself when I found out about Harry?” he asked watching his two dogs do similarly to Andrea revealing themselves to be Ralph and John.

“We simply didn’t know the best way to tell you mate,” Ralph said.

“And we have been together for so long, we didn’t want to leave you,” added John.

Severus just sat in his bed with a dumbfounded look on his face. How could he not realise that his own pets were animagus? But then...who really thinks to check on these kinds of things? Surely the thought that his pets were not showing their age should have tipped him off but then again a lot of strange things are known to happen around magic. Severus looked down at his bed pretending that his doona was the most fascinating thing in the world to him. Feeling so ashamed.

“Severus,” Andrea placed a finger under his chin, “look at me. We have been watching over you this whole time. Think of us as guardian angels. Lily would want you to.”

“Yeah mate,” Ralph added, “your Lily was a fine woman, she asked for John and I to watch you and ensure that you didn’t get into any mischief past the time of her not being able to see you.”

“When I heard that you had given yourself to the dark side,” Andrea said, “I thought, those two idiots were probably not paying any damn attention to him to allow for such a thing to happen.”

“Hey!” said Ralph looking rather indignant.

“When I realised that it was due to you sacrificing yourself for Lily I realised that your love was something that no mere memory charm could remove from you,” she continued, “you wanted her to be safe and I chose to stay by your side since that time, to ensure that you would come to no severe harm.”

“Andrea has always been quite charmed at healing spells,” Metzel said, “haven’t you ever wondered how with a simple pain reliever potion you have been able to overcome so much that the dark lord has put you through.”

“I just thought that....” Severus said gently.

“That you were strong enough to push through it?” John said, “no Sev, if she hadn’t have healed you that night Voldemort put you under the cruciatus 15 times, you would have died! Your heart had already started to slow by the time you had gotten home or do you not remember falling asleep in front of the fireplace?”

Severus blushed again looking at Andrea.

“You’re welcome,” she said, “after all I knew that you had other business to attend to and needed to look out for when Harry came looking for answers.”

Severus thought of many a time when he had sat in his chair stroking one of his animals and again looked away in ashame.

“Severus,” Andrea said as if reading his mind, “an animagus doesn’t just take the form of an animal but its characteristics as well. It is alright to be affectionate towards us in our animagus form, it is actually quite soothing.”

Severus smiled a little. But quickly stood from his bed acting for all the world like the sturdy potions master that the last 12 years had made of him.

“So that’s why you understood my potions so well,” Severus said.

“Yeah mate, we studied together in Hogwarts, we were just as unseperable as, what do you call them, the golden trio? Harry and his friends,” Ralph stated.

“That’s also why sometimes we have been away for a while,” John stated, “doing small tasks needed by Dumbledore, anything to help against the fight with Voldemort.”

“A fight which your son still has to bare Severus,” Metzel said.

“But we can help him,” added Andrea.

This whole time Graham hadn’t moved from the chair, a steady snoring being the only indication that he was even there at all.

“Now we play our game, we play faster and stronger than anyone in Hufflepuff and we shall be fine,” Wood said.

“Not to mention they are all dead scared that Harry will petrify them if he flies anywhere near him,” it was nice for Harry to hear Fred make such a joke and for it to be responded by Wood simply saying “yeah that too, come on everyone this’ll be fun!”

But Minerva McGonigall stood in their path “Quidditch has been cancelled, everybody back to your dormitories.”

“But professor,” wood protested.

“you heard me wood,” McGonigal said. Quite seriously.

“Potter, the two of us shall find Mr Weasley.”

She led them to the hospital wing.

“I warn you this may give you quite a bit of a shock,” she showed as she drew the curtain on a hospital bed. There lay Hermione, petrified. “I’ll leave the two of you here, to see your friend.” McGonagall left sadly wishing there was more that she could do for them.