“Get out, get out, I don’t want to see you in this office ever again!”

And as Harry hurtled towards the door, a jar of dead cockroaches exploded over his head. He wrenched the door open and flew along the corridor, stopping only when he had put three floors between himself and Snape. Then he leaned against the wall panting, and rubbing his bruised arm.

He had no desire at all to return to Gryffindor tower so early, nor to tell Ron and Hermione what he had just seen. What was making Harry feel so horrified and unhappy was not being shouted at or having jars thrown at him; it was that he knew what it was like to be humiliated in the middle of a circle of onlookers, knew exactly how Snape felt as his father had taunted him, and that judging by what he had just seen, his father had been every bit as arrogant as Snape had always told him.

J K Rowling – Harry Potter and The Order of the Pheonix

He sat there for long minutes before deciding that brooding would simply do no use. But what could he do. He knew he needed to continue the lessons, Dumbledore seemed to think they were important and irritated as he was with the man he couldn’t help but think that he probably did know best. Then again he really couldn’t blame Snape for kicking him out, at all. His father had been an arrogant bully, as had Sirius, and in Snape’s estimation Harry had most likely just joined them. He needed to prove that he wasn’t. Thinking hard he decided that a peace offering was most likely the best way to begin convincing the man to see him as Harry not James. And in a stroke of brilliance he thought of the peace offering to end all peace offerings. Thinking hard he rummaged through his bag and managed to find his invisibility cloak. That done he pulled it on and headed down to the Quidditch pitch where he borrowed a school broom. He raced back up to the second floor and skidded to a halt in a girl’s bathroom. He didn’t know why he was hurrying really, going back that evening would be suicide but he felt that he needed to be doing something nonetheless. Focusing on the tiny engraving on a tap he instructed the entrance to open up. He took a step forward and slid into the chamber of secrets.

He slid down the long slimy pipe and found himself unceremoniously thrown into a pile of small animal skeletons.

“I suppose that’s a good sign” he muttered disgustedly as he brushed himself off .He lit his wand and stuffed his cloak into his bag. “Means no one’s cleared up down here”. He picked his path carefully through the rat skulls. Now that he wasn’t filled by the same mixture of fear, adrenaline and sheer stupidity that he had been in second year he took his time to be thoroughly disgusted by the contents of the pipe. “Lovely” he muttered as he found the snakeskin that had scared the living daylights out of him and Ron the first time they saw it. He resignedly lowered his bag to the floor, tried to find a less disgusting patch, failed and dropped it in the slime, trying not to imagine how he was going to explain its condition. He stuck his hand in and found he penknife that Sirius had given him. He used the knife to cut the snakeskin into large sheets, having read that pretty much all of a basilisk was exceedingly valuable for brewing. Once he had cut up the skin his bag was full, he daren’t think about the condition of his books. Glancing at his watch he decided to abandon his adventure and continue the next day. He put his cloak back on and flew up the pipe, closing it behind him.

When he reached the Gryffindor tower he hurried up to the boy’s dorm and hastily stuffed the skin into his trunk, locking it with every spell he could think of. Still invisible he hurried to the showers in a fairly futile attempt to get the smell of mould and dead rodent off of him. Giving it up as a bad job he found some of Dean’s muggle body spray and sprayed it liberally. Almost choking from the overpowering smell he wandered up to bed.

Next evening Harry was once again in the second floor girl’s bathroom, with his broom and cloak. He had faced possibly his most horrible potions lesson ever, and cursed the fates that were clearly getting a whole lot of entertainment from assigning him potions the morning after Harry had seen into his pensive. As if that hadn’t been bad enough his friends had not given up easily on the state of his bag and his books, and his excuse that he had dropped it in the edge of the lake just didn’t seem to cut it. He couldn’t really be surprised but making a homemade gift for Snape certainly sounded a whole lot less plausible. He slid down into the chamber. He removed his cloak, lit his wand and again began trekking through the slime. He passed the part of the chamber that had contained the snakeskin and soon reached the cave in. Wondering at how small he and Ginny must have been to fit through the tiny hole he had to move a few more rocks to make a hole big enough. He scrambled down the other side of the cave in and continued down the pipe. He hissed at the entrance to the main chamber and watched mesmerised as the snake like locks moved with mechanical beauty. He supposed that the fascination with the silvery metal snakes was something that came with the territory of being a parselmouth. He stepped through the doorway and into the main chamber. The smell made him want to retch but the thought of Voldemort controlling him without occlumency made him continue forward. Surprisingly, the giant snake itself was almost in the same state as it had been three years ago. He supposed there must be some preservation spells down there. The snake had survived an unreasonably long time without a visible viable food source, he reasoned. Getting out the large knife and the crates that he had shrunken and stored in his bag he returned them to their normal size. He had spent a frustrating half hour at lunch trying to convince a reluctant Dobby that ‘Master Harry Potter sir wasn’t going to kill anyone’ but had eventually managed to obtain them. He put on his dragonhide gloves and began hacking at the tough snake flesh, once again close to emptying his stomach. He was glad that he had had the foresight to only eat a small dinner. He painstakingly cut all the flesh away from the bone, careful to keep the organs intact. He decided that if the potions master did not accept his gift he was going to use his newly acquired skills to obtain some human ingredients. By the time he neared the head it was time to return to his dorm. He shrunk the now mostly full crates and the bloody knife and left the chamber, estimating that he could complete his work the next night.

Friday night brought Harry back to what was fast becoming Harry’s second leas favourite place on the planet, (first being the Dursley’s). He had returned with his empty crates and his truly revolting knife. He had omitted to eat at all since the previous day due to the fact that he had been unable to get the smell of dead basilisk off (despite the dragonhide gloves), which he had found tended to kill ones appetite. He was immensely pleased by this fact once he began attempting to remove the creature’s brains, as he felt certain that anything he had eaten would have been revisited at that moment. He collected the brain, eyeballs and the tooth that he had used to stab the diary then stood back to look at the skeleton. Having prepared for the big finale of his mission he cast a spell that worked a lot like a pressure washer, removing the remaining gore from the skeleton. Once it looked presentable he shrunk it and carefully manoeuvred it into a crate. More than pleased to get out of the revolting place for what would hopefully be the last time he left, making a beeline to the bathroom where he used most of Dean’s body spray.

Saturday morning brought the start of the ester holidays and the perfect chance to confront Sirius. He pulled Hermione aside at breakfast and dragged her to the room of requirement. Upon entering the room he saw a small pensive and rolls of green and silver wrapping paper and ribbon. He chuckled and stuffed them into his bag.

“I’m going to break several hundred rules today, and I’m telling you so that you don’t worry more than you will anyway.” He told her bluntly

“What are you doing? You shouldn’t do anything dangerous.” He sighed.

“It’s worth the risk. I did something pretty unforgivable in occlumency lessons – I didn’t realise how bad it was at the time – and Snape’s cancelled my lessons because of it. I need to speak to Sirius about something so that I can possibly get him to give them another go, so I’m going to headquarters.” His all too intelligent friend thought back to the items Harry had just packed away.

“You saw a memory” she realised. “Are you sure telling Sirius is the way to go? You know how they the each other.” Harry nodded

“I’m certain. Lets just say that Sirius was in this one as was my dad.” He shook his head in disgust “they were just as bad as Snape always said they were.” Hermione’s eyes widened.

“Is there no way you can avoid going out?” Harry shook his head. “Well how do you plan to get there?”

“I’ve uh – commandeered - a school broom ad I’m going to fly. There’s no way Voldemort can have the whole sky monitored.” She nodded doubtfully.

“I see why it’s important but is there really no other way. Couldn’t someone at least come with you?” Harry shook his head

“Sorry Mione. I can’t risk anyone overhearing. It just wouldn’t be fair.” She hugged him

“Be careful then. When will you be back?”

“Thanks Mione, I knew I could count on you. I should be back by dinner. Most likely ready to kill an animagus. I’ll be careful, I promise.”

“Good luck” she called as he hurried out of the room.

Harry hurried to the statue of the one-eyed witch under the invisibility cloak. He travelled the passageway and cautiously made his way out of Honeydukes cellar. Once outside the shop he climbed onto his disillusioned broom and looked at his broom compass. Having looked it up on a map the previous day he had a rough idea of the bearing he should take so he took off, fleetingly hoping that he didn’t end up totally lost forever, or that the old broom didn’t die on him.

Harry could have jumped for joy seeing Grimmauld place, but that would have been inadvisable while riding a broom. He dismounted on the top step and knocked on the door.

“Harry?” asked Sirius in shock. He did the relevant checks for polyjuice. “What are you doing here? Is something wrong?”

“In a way.” Harry replied coolly. Hearing voices from the kitchen he led Sirius up to a deserted bedroom. “Would you please lock and silence the door?” he asked. Sirius complied. “I had a rather illuminating occlumency lesson on Wednesday” he said slowly.

“That greasy git didn’t hurt you did he?” Sirius snarled. Wrong thing to say.

“No Sirius. That ‘greasy git’ did nothing, however for reasons that I won’t go into I saw into his pensive. Do you know what I saw? I saw the day of your defence OWL” Sirius smiled “and I was horrified” he continued mercilessly. “What were you and dad thinking? That was cruel. Picking on him because you were bored.” Sirius had the grace to look ashamed.

“Harry we were fifteen.” He informed his godson as though that explained everything.

“Do you know how old Dudley was when he started picking on me? Because I sure don’t. He did it as long as far back as I can remember. Do you know how old he was when he got a gang together and managed some organised bullying? Six, when I started school. They picked on me because Dudley wanted to. A group against me. Just like you picked on Snape, a group of you against Snape. Just because he was different. You were fifteen. So what? Dudley was six. How does that justify your actions because you were a damn slight older than Dudley?” He ranted. He removed the pensive from his bag and added his memory from Snape’s pensive and his memories of Dudley’s bullying. “Go on, look. Because you see, you’d have picked on me. I was the scrawny kid in the second hand clothes,”

“Harry…”

“Watch them!” Harry snarled. Sirius went into the pensive. Harry was very tempted to break something, preferably something named Sirius. “We were fifteen” he mimicked angrily, pacing backwards and forwards. Sirius emerged a few minutes later looking pale.

“I’m sorry Harry.” Harry glared.

“Yes I’m sure you are. Sorry that I don’t agree your actions. Sorry that I saw you at what I sincerely hope was your worst. You and my dad were just as bad as Snape always said. Merlin, it’s no wonder he hates me. I’d hate me. You tried to kill him!”

“Harry…”

“is my name. Well done Sirius, gold star.” He replaced his memories in his head and put his pensive away. “I have to be going before someone realises I’m gone. You need to apologise to him the very next time you see him, every time you see him. Grovel on your knees. Be his personal house elf. I DON’T CARE. You and my father were nothing more than bullies. Remus wasn’t much better, watching like that and look where Pettigrew ended up. And to think I admired he marauders. To think I was so desperate to be like my dad. That would have created a paradox if I had been like him. I’d have had to bully myself. Don’t you get it?”

“Harry…” Sirius repeated desperately

“I will speak to you again once you have done your best to act as an adult and rectify the situation. Do not speak to anyone about that memory. I am doing my best to get my occlumency lessons restarted and if you spoil my chances I will chop you into potions ingredients and give them to Snape. Merlin knows I’ve had enough experience at that. I will see you in the summer.” He gestured towards the door which Sirius helplessly unlocked. He left Grimmauld Place without another word, leaving an animagus with a lot to think about.

“Oh Harry, your safe” Harry whispered in relief as Harry arrived for dinner in the great hall.

“Yep” he admitted “But right now I’d be willing to eat Hagrid’s cooking. I missed lunch and controlling ones temper and not murdering one’s godfather really works up an appetite. Well, it was either that or flying across the country all day. Somewhere along the line, I’m pretty hungry” she laughed quietly.

“So, you didn’t kill him. It went that well huh?”

“Oh the best” Harry replied sarcastically between mouthfuls.

“So do you have a play for you know who?”

“Voldemort?” he asked sarcastically

“You know precisely who I mean” she scolded playfully. “So do you?”

“As far as more gifts than you can shake a stack at and a feeble apology go yeah I’ve got a plan”

“What colour flowers do you want at your funeral?” she asked bleakly.

“Thanks” he muttered “your support means the world to me” she pulled a face.

Late that night once his dorm mates were asleep Harry snuck out of bed and reclaimed his Basilisk parts from his trunk. He took them down to the common room and laid out the various crates on the floor. He looked into each of them and attempted to make a note of what it contained. He stopped when he saw the skeleton. It looked like nothing more than a normal snake skeleton, not a mistake one wanted to make. Trying to figure out a way to give it to Snape fully sized he had an idea. He shrunk all of the crates, picked up his bag and hurried down to the dungeons.