Since Hermione was eager to get started on the potion. Harry headed down to Snape’s office very early, well over an hour before breakfast, using Dobby as an escort when the elf had finished straightening the common room. When they arrived, Snape was going through what appeared to be the same large stack of parchments. Harry asked the broadly grinning house-elf to wait before stepping inside.

“I need some stuff,” Harry said. “None of it’s restricted, but it isn’t in the usual student supplies.”

Snape stood and accepted the list. With a doubtful glance at Harry, he went to his personal supplies cabinet.

“May I ask why you now are trying to have dreams—usually it is the opposite.” He handed out pollen essence and pickled worm skin.

“I’m not the one drinking it. It will have to be Hermione or Frina.”

Snape glanced up as he handed him gold-leafed scarab wings.

Harry explained, “The explanation really isn’t very interesting. They want to test a theory about the wombat assignment—”

“Ah,” Snape said, sounding like everything made sense.

“So that is it?” Harry asked.

“I am not supposed to assist. None of the staff are, but I am surprised it took Ms. Granger that long to think of that.” He handed Harry a leather pouch full of dyed bezel leaves and a tiny vial of concentrated black coat ash.

“She didn’t,” Harry could not resist saying, then followed it with a grin to make the point.

“She must be slipping.”

“Thanks,” Harry snipped at him. “You do need a break,” he said as he balanced the variety of containers against his arm. “Or a stiff drink.”

“I am…looking forward to the party on that regard.” Snape watched him juggling things before saying a little snidely, “Would you like something to carry that all in?”

Harry found the three of them in the girls’ toilet and waved Dobby off with thanks.

With his oversized eyes, the elf glanced doubtfully at the sign on the door, but did not comment about Harry’s entrance into the wrong toilet, just bowed and said, “Good day, Master Harry.”

Harry put the ingredient sack down beside Hermione who was firing up a cauldron in the middle of the floor.

“Doesn’t bother you to be in here, does it?” Hermione asked. Harry’s eyes were on the washbasin tap, the one with the serpent.

“No.”

Frina and Penelope were giving him curious looks.

“Couldn’t get Ron to come down?” Harry asked.

“He refused to get up early for an assignment,” Hermione said.

“Well!” Myrtle said as she floated out of a stall. Frina and Penelope jumped back in surprise, one grabbing the other.

“Hi, Myrtle,” Harry said congenially.

“WHO…is this?” Myrtle asked, floating nose to nose with one, than the other, of the Durmstrang students. “And THIS?”

“Yet another ghost?” Frina asked. “No one purges them?”

Myrtle’s face crinkled up before she burst into tears, covered her face and dove into the nearest toilet. Hermione had her wand out with an umbrella charm well before the water splashed into her work area.

“Try to be nice to her,” Harry said quietly. “She used to be a student.”

“What happened to her?” Penelope asked. “How long has she been here?”

“A long time,” Hermione said as she adjusted the flame below the cauldron, “About fifty years.”

“She was Voldemort’s first victim,” Harry said.

“What?” Penelope and Frina blurted in unison.

“That was back when he still went by his given name, Tom Riddle.” Harry lower himself to sit on the floor beside Hermione and helped her grind the beetle wings into powder. “He was the heir of Salazar Slytherin,” Harry went on, “one of the school’s founders. He opened the supposedly mythical Chamber of Secrets the founder left behind, and released the Basilisk, which did in poor Myrtle there.”

They stood staring at him in disbelief.

“The entrance is just there,” Harry added, pointing at the sinks.

“Right there?” Frina asked fearfully.

“Don’t worry, the Basilisk is dead,” Harry said reassuringly.

“Who killed it?” Penelope asked.

With her silver stirring stick Hermione pointed at Harry.

“You did?” Penelope said, “Is this what Professor Snape was referring to?”

“Yep. Want this now?” Harry asked Hermione in reference to the powder.r32;“Dump it in,” she said, stirring rapidly as he did so.

“Figuring out how to kill Riddle was harder than sticking a sword through the Basilisk,” Harry said. “I can roast the skins if you want.”

“Not quite yet. They might dry out. Or get tough.” Hermione said, glancing at the recipe.

“You killed Riddle, er, Voldemort that time too?” Frina asked in confusion.

Harry took over stirring while Hermione opened more jars. “That was the third time I’d did essentially kill him,” he said casually. “Too evil to die,” he added casually.

Hermione added more ingredients and stirred thoroughly before saying, “It needs to simmer for an hour.” She stood up to stretch her legs and wandered around the sinks. “Can you still open the Chamber?” she asked curiously.

Harry followed Hermione over as Penelope said, “Open the…?”

They stood before the faucet with the snake. “I don’t know,” he said. “The tunnel caved in some back then—it may be completely blocked now.”

“I want to see,” Hermione said. “I never had a chance to see it. Do you want to see it again?” she asked hopefully.

Harry considered that. It seemed ages ago. Another lifetime. A glance at the clock showed that they still had forty-five minutes before breakfast. He could still sense his younger instinct to explore without regard to risk and felt nostalgic about it.

“Sure.”

“Won’t you get into trouble?” Penelope said quickly, stepping close.

Harry shrugged lightly. “I’m the only one in the world who can open it, I think.” He turned to Hermione as if asking for confirmation.

“Maybe. Certainly the only in this school. I’d really like a look before we leave for good,” she said, wheedling slightly.

Harry grinned at her. “I remember when you wouldn’t do anything even slightly out of line. Used to make us bonkers.”

Hermione laughed. “Go on then.”

“It’s probably sealed up,” he warned. Harry narrowed his eyes and stared intently at the snake figure. “Open the Chamber,” he said.

He knew he had spoken Parseltongue only because the visiting students tripped over each other stepping backward. Harry pulled Hermione back as the porcelain unit moved and folded in on itself, leaving a square gap in the floor. He and Hermione stared down into the dark hole.

“We’ve got a bit of time this morning or do you want to wait for another time?” Harry asked his friend.

“You’re a Parselmouth?” Penelope said in utter shock.

“Yep,” Harry replied with extra casualness. He let her hang there, feeling as though she should learn to deal with it on her own.

“We have almost an hour and a half before class,” Hermione said. “Time enough for a little exploring followed by a quick shower.”

“We should go get Ron,” Harry said.

Hermione used a bird spell to summon him. “He shouldn’t be so lazy,” she said before bending down to squint into the darkness again. “How’s the landing?” When Harry shrugged, she jumped in.

Looking into the hole after Hermione in concern, Frina asked “How far down does it go?”

“It isn’t too bad down here,” Hermione shouted up before Harry could respond. “A little obliterate spell and it’s pretty clear.”

“It occurs to me,” Harry said to no one in particular, “that we got out last time by riding on the tail of a Phoenix.”

Penelope and Frina gave him wide looks as though he had lost his senses. “My silver message spell isn’t as good as hers. Can one of you go down to Hagrid’s cabin and ask him to send Fawkes to the Chamber of Secrets?”

“Sure,” Frina said in a tone one might use to calm someone who had lost his head.

Enjoying their surprised dismay too much, he added, “Thanks and really, we will need Fawkes. You remember the bird Hagrid had in class a few weeks ago?” When they nodded, but still looked doubtful, Harry shouted, “I’m coming down,” as he stepped into the hole.

At the bottom on the dusty floor in half darkness, Harry brushed himself off. “You have cleared it out. But boy does it stink.”

“Didn’t last time?”

“No. Not like this.”

Harry led the way to the sealed chamber latch where he again had to ask in Parseltongue for it to open.

“Interesting locking mechanism,” Hermione said. “I detect a theme.”

Harry shook his head with a crooked grin and they stepped inside. Water covered most of the floor and they held up their robes while they splashed through it. Rats scurried away from their approach. At the front, the source of the smell was clear. Face wrinkled in disgust, Harry approached the twisted Basilisk skeleton. Its skin hung in tatters like old cloth draped over of the mildew-stained protruding spinal bones.

“They never took the Basilisk away,” Harry said. “I’m surprised.”

“The sword is gone, though,” Hermione observed.

“As is the diary. Dumbledore had them.”

“Hey!” a voice made them jump severely. It was Ron, entering from the hatchway. “Didn’t imagine you’d come down here…yeech.”

“Morning, Ron,” Harry greeted his friend, who splashed over to them while holding his robes bunched at his waist. Harry slowly circled the long creature. In a shallow pool lay a long, bleached tooth. After examining it, he tossed it aside with a splash. He could remember the extreme pain of being bitten by it too much to want to keep it.

“Don’t want it?” Ron asked, fetching it and slipping it into his pocket.

“You can have it,” Harry said, stepping over to the gigantic carvings on the wall.

This place felt empty, dead. Maybe that was why Dumbledore had left it as a tomb.

They explored the sculpture and the perimeter of the room until a cry rent the air and Fawkes flew toward them low across the water. The bird fluttered to a perch on a high protruding basilisk bone and cocked its head at them.

“What’s he doing here?” Hermione asked.

“That’s our ride out,” Ron said. “Am I right?” he asked Harry.

They all looked at each other with grins of shared experience and emotion.

“Gosh, I’m going to miss this place,” Harry said with more than a hint of sarcasm.

They all laughed uproariously.

“Bloody lucky to be alive,” Ron said.

Harry removed his glasses to wipe his eyes free of tears of laughter.

“You outlived Voldemort, though. Not many thought you’d manage that,” Hermione said, squeezing Harry’s hand after he had replaced his glasses. “Couldn’t hope for more, though I think you got it anyway.”

“What do you mean?” Ron asked.

“Only a father, silly,” she said.

Harry, having difficulty balancing out the memories of this place with what she said, turned his gaze back to the long grim skeleton before them. Fawkes had his head tilted oddly as though listening in. He met the bird’s tiny eyes and considered how very much Fawkes had seen through the years.

A rush of odd thoughts flickered through his mind then as though he had accidentally Legilimized the bird. Visions of stone arches being constructed and books being collected and read, late candlelight discussions and arguments with two witches, one who always seemed to be smiling and a messy-haired wizard, who always seemed to be scowling.

Harry staggered, bringing his friends near. Ron took his arm and held him up by it.

“You all right?” Hermione asked.

Harry looked up at Fawkes again, stunned. The bird let out the loudest cry Harry had ever heard from it.

“Nothing,” Harry said as he shook them off. “Just too many memories.” But someone else’s, he added to himself, staring at the bird, wanting to believe what he suspected, but not daring to. Two witches and two wizards and the school under construction…

“We should go,” Hermione said, nervous now. More lightly, she added, “I want to finish the potion before class so it can simmer during the day.”

Fawkes easily carried them back up through the floor of the girls’ toilet. Frina and Penelope were stirring the potion when they arrived, announced by a loud Phoenix cry. The girls jumped to their feet and stood against the wall, even though they were already out of the way.

“Thank you, Fawkes,” Harry said. The bird circled once, nearly colliding with Harry’s chest, before it vanished, leaving a feather fluttering to the floor. Harry caught it out of the air.

“When you said to send die Phoenix, I didn’t belief you,” Penelope said. “Fortunately, Frina did.”

Harry held out the feather to her. She accepted it hesitantly.

“That is a very rare thing.” Penelope said.

“Have it anyway,” Harry insisted, teasing. “Fawkes has more, I’m sure.”

Hermione sat before the potion, stirred and examined it. “Maybe I’ll skip breakfast and finish this up. Then it can brew until evening.” She reached for the pollen and added a dusting to the bubbling surface.

“I will stay and help,” Frina said, sitting beside her.

“Did you make enough for Opus and I?” Ron asked.

Hermione added more beetle wings and stirred slowly. “Enough for one of you, but let me try it tonight first since we aren’t certain this is going to get us anywhere.”

“Actually, we are sure,” Harry said.

She looked way up at him from her low position. “We are?”

Harry nodded, then added a wink.

Hermione clapped her Arithmancy book closed and stashed it in her book bag as they all sat studying late in the common room that evening. “We have a fruit basket, torches…everything hopefully. Just have to go take my potion.”

“I will take it as well, if you wish,” Frina suggested.

“I didn’t make enough for all four of us. You gave Opus his bottle, right?” she asked Ron.

He nodded, not lifting his gaze from his History textbook. She did not bother him further, presumably since he was actually working through the N.E.W.T. revision tables she had drawn up for him. He had not even noticed that Crookshanks was curled up around his feet, asleep.

Eventually they all headed up to bed after stretching out the kinks from sitting too long.

Harry was sound asleep when a commotion woke him. Frightened voices sounded from beyond the drapes of his bed. “This one,” someone said and the drapes parted, letting in flickering lamp light.

“Harry!” Penelope’s voice called. Frina was rousing Ron, Harry noticed, as he put on his glasses and squinted at the next bed. “Hermione is sick. Come, please!” Penelope said, desperately grasping his pyjama-covered wrist.

Harry stumbled out of the room, just grabbing his dressing gown from the corner bedpost. “Did you call Madam Pomfrey?” he asked.

Ron, who awoke faster at the news, stomped down the staircase ahead of him, and turned to head up the other which instantly turned to a slide.

“Parvati went to get Professor Sinistra,” Frina stated calmly as she followed them down. “What is this?” she asked regarding the now nonexistent stairs.

Harry pulled out his wand and Accioed his broom from his trunk. “Ron! Here,” he said as he mounted it.

Ron gave up on climbing the polished slope and jumped on the back of Harry’s broom and barely held on to his shoulder as they zipped up the passageway. At the landing they jumped off and stepped inside.

Hermione was on the floor, Lavender, Ginny and some other older house girls were kneeling around her. Harry and Ron moved in beside. Hermione was clutching the edge of a long piece of torn bed drape and muttering something. She had apparently been sick as soiled damp rags were piled to the side.

“Hermione?” Ron prompted, shaking her.

“Ginny,” Harry said, “Please go down to the Slytherin dungeon and make sure Opus is all right.”

“What?” she blurted.

Ron was lifting Hermione off the floor, trying to get her to release the drape from the death grip she had on it.

“He took the same potion,” Harry explained.

Ginny gaped at him, he assumed at the notion of the Slytherin dungeon at night. “Take Neville with you, or Dean,” he suggested smartly when she stood reluctantly.

Finally, still wide-eyed at the suggestion, she departed. Harry turned back to Hermione. She was completely nonsensical and Ron was trying to get through to her with verbal reassurances. “Just a second,” Harry said to quiet him.

“…trapped, so dark, so alone…help, help, where are the hands, help,” she muttered almost imperceptibly.

“Just take her to the hospital wing, I think,” Harry said firmly to Ron, who appeared to pull himself together at having instructions to follow.

Harry stood with Ron as he hefted the much smaller Hermione into his arms, her long hair tangling around her face. “Hospital wing, yes,” Ron muttered in a similar way to Hermione. “Pomfrey will know what to do.”

Sinistra came in as they reached the dormitory door. “What are you doing in here?” she asked the boys, very surprised to see them.

“Herme’s sick,” Ron explained, voice breaking.

“Oh, dear. Well, come along then.” She ushered them down the stairs and across the common room, opening the portrait with a wave before they arrived so they didn’t have to slow down.

In the hospital wing, Ron gently put her down on the last bed. She spasmed strangely and muttered something about darkness and fear again. Harry had never seen such a tragic look on Ron’s face as he reached out to pull her hair aside. It made him very sorry he had mentioned anything about dreaming.

Pomfrey shooed them aside brusquely. Ron grudgingly stepped back just a half step and moved back close as soon as the hospital witch shuffled around to the other side.

Ginny and Dean came in as they watched Pomfrey work. “Opus is fine, said he hadn’t had any troubles at all even though he took the potion hours ago.”

Harry puzzled that with no luck. Penelope’s worried gaze caught his own, which was not reassuring. Hermione’s mutterings from the outset replayed in Harry’s mind.

“What if?” Harry started to say. He stepped closer to Penelope and Frina. “I have an idea,” he said, leading them away from the group around the bed. Quietly, he said, “What if she is dreaming someone else’s wombat?”

“All of you: scram, scram,” Pomfrey finally ordered, prompted by Ron and Ginny standing directly in the way.

Reluctantly they moved completely aside. Harry gestured adamantly for them to follow. “I have an idea,” he repeated.

On the way to the attic, he explained what he was thinking.

“You think it’s Malfoy and Parkinson’s wombat she’s dreaming of?” Ron asked, aghast.

“One way to find out,” Harry said.

Once in the attic, Harry strode purposefully to the crate on the end and ran through the un-spelling of it. It didn’t open.

He knelt hurriedly beside it. “Is there something to pry with?”

Frina transformed a stray pine crate slat into metal and handed it to him.

“Thanks,” Harry said. He inserted the end under the edge of the cover and pried hard because the adrenaline in his blood would not have allowed for less.

The cover popped open easily, knocking him over, off-balance. Flailing and screeching filled Harry’s senses. He managed to throw an arm over his eyes as a blur of needle-sharp claws descended on his face. Pain spiked along Harry’s arm as he threw himself aside, trying to escape the blue and black, madly flapping thing that had latched onto him. The others around him were shouting.

Something web-like shot at Harry and the creature was gone, trapped in white netting that tangled its membranous wings up in odd directions. It hit the floor and skidding to the center of the attic.

Beyond, on the far side, Penelope crouched with her wand out, pointed at the floor Harry rolled over, clutching his arm which still blossomed anew with pain. Blood soaked his pyjama sleeve where he pressed it tight to dull the searing.

“The hell,” Ron muttered, stepping over to the trapped thing.

It screeched at him and tried to hop away, on four feet, Harry noticed, not really a bat anymore. Frina handed Harry a clean rag from the supplies table. He pressed it against the deep cuts on his arm with a wince. The creature had quieted and now shifted fitfully in the snare. On his knees Harry moved closer to it, checking the netting to be sure it was secure. The taut ends of the web pressed into the wood beam of the floor where Penelope held her wand point.

“Thanks,” Harry said to her.

“You’re welcome,” she said, looking pleased and a little embarrassed.

“What’s it doing?” Ron asked in disgust.

Harry squinted. It was cleaning its feet and the edges of its wings. It’s fur looked a little purplish now. Its tiny pointed fox head looked up at him, sniffing him with a dark blue nose. Harry backed off a little.

“It likes you,” Ron teased. “Imagine that.”

“It wants the blood,” Frina said.

Harry, moving slowly because he was stunned by that notion, pulled the rag away from his arm. Dark streaks marred it where his arm still bled freely. The creature strained forward against the webbing with sad, hungry noises.

“Can you get me another rag?” Harry asked.

Frina handed Harry another cloth which he traded for the soiled one on his arm. The bloody one he tossed within range of the transformed wombat, which eagerly picked it up with its tiny, dexterous front feet and gnawed on the darkest parts of it through the netting

“I think I’m going to be ill,” Ron murmured.

“Maybe check the others,” Harry suggested. “Don’t be surprised to find any normal bats.”

The others went about opening the remaining crates. Many teams had turned theirs in already, essentially giving up. Only six remained.

Ron gave a cry of victory when he opened his. “It’s a bat now,” he announced proudly.

“See if it will eat any fruit,” Harry said tiredly, still watching the netted creature. His arm wasn’t throbbing nearly as much as before. He pulled the rag aside to reassess the damage. The streaks had almost stopped bleeding. He blinked at his arm in confusion when one of the streaks disappeared while he was looking at it.

“Wha?” Harry muttered.

The others were busy and did not take note. Harry looked up at the creature, watched it gnaw contentedly on the rag in one spot, before shifting to another damper section. Another cut disappeared.

“Merlin,” Harry said. “Come look at this.”

Ron left his bat hanging with an Asian pear clutched in its feet. Frina and Penelope loosely replaced the lids on the crates they had just opened and stepped over as well.

“Your arm does not look so bad,” Frina said.

“Now it doesn’t.”

Harry reached over and jerked the rag from the creature, which hissed at him as it lost possession.

“Watch.” Harry pressed a clean corner over the deepest of the remaining gashes before holding it out to the creature, which grabbed it up and began gnawing on it eagerly to recover the fresh blood there. “Look,” Harry said, indicating his arm. The wound was narrowing and finally vanished.

“Bloody amazing,” Ron said.

“It’s like the powder of sympathy,” Harry said.

After a few minutes of careful feeding, all of Harry’s wounds were healed, including the ones on his face, which Penelope wiped blood from for him. The creature was calm now and nearly riotously violet in color, the kind of color only Tonks would find appealing as hair. It finally dropped the rag and began grooming itself awkwardly through the webbing.

“Now what?” Ron asked.

Harry shrugged. “Put it back in its crate?”

“Then let’s check on Hermione,” Ron said, thinking ahead.

“Go now, Ron. We’ll clean up,” Harry insisted.

“You’ll escort him then?” Ron confirmed with Frina and Penelope with unusual seriousness.

At their nods he dashed off.

They put each of the wombats away, including Hermione’s and Frina’s small sleeping one and Ron’s and Opus’ now greenish yellow swirled one which had to go into a larger crate. Harry was glad that Ron’s grade had just gone up, if nothing else. The strange violet one of Malfoy’s, they closed in, still netted, and canceled the webbing spell only after the lid was secure.

“I owe you one for catching that thing,” Harry said to Penelope.

She tossed aside the rag she was wiping her hands on. “No. You cannot.”

“Let me try, at least,” Harry insisted, feeling this point was broadly important.

Frina had moved to the other side of the attic, near the stairs where she waited with her head turned downward.

Penelope tilted her head to the side as though maybe accepting that.

“Can you show me that spell?” Harry asked.

“Of course,” Penelope replied eagerly.