Chapter 64

Finding an owl brave enough to weather Hedwig's intimidating presence that also passed Hedwig's high standards had actually been fairly easy. Sirius merely had Harry walk into Eeylops Owl Emporium (since the mail centre had a larger selection of owls to choose from than the Magical Menagerie) with Hedwig on his shoulder and whatever owls didn't plaster themselves to the back of their cages or to the store's rafters were the ones that passed the first test. The small handful of unruffled owls had then been personally inspected by the occamy as Harry walked through the store

Sirius ended up purchasing a male snowy owl with very few black speckles (after Hedwig had refused to allow Harry to have anything to do with the female snowy that had tried to cozy up to him). Harry promptly named the new owl Gaki when the first thing the owl did was bite Harry on the ear when he took him out of the cage upon returning to the castle.

Harry had then said goodbye to Sirius and spent the rest of the day settling his new pet in; the owl forced to roost in Harry's dorm because the other owls chased him out of the owlry (due to Gaki's association with Hedwig – though how the other owls had learned that so quickly was anyone's guess). The next day saw the students returning and Harry attending his first Sorting Ceremony (his own did not count as it had been done privately) and the Start of Term Feast alongside the rest of the students. After the meal (and after the start of term announcements), Harry reluctantly followed the rest of the Gryffindors up to Gryffindor Tower and his dorm all the while wishing that he could return to the forest.

That first night of the new term he was visited by a deranged House Elf that insisted that he needed to leave the school immediately because it wasn't safe for him. Harry barely had time to learn that the creature's name was Dobby and that 'terrible things' would be happening at the school that year before Hedwig expressed her irritation at having her personal space invaded by strange creatures (the occamy had claimed Harry's bed as hers not long after Harry had moved into the dorm though she graciously allowed Harry to sleep beside her).

Harry would then have five relatively normal days before he earned his first ever detention from the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor; Gilderoy Lockhart. The man had unleashed two dozen Cornish Pixies upon the second year students during their first lesson with him and Harry immediately killed them using the Needle Javelin Barrage spell that fired a spray of a hundred needles at the target. The needles were harmless enough to humans and larger animals but fatal to Pixies and Doxies which were nothing more than overgrown bugs.

Professor Lockhart had immediately given Harry two nights of detention once he got over the shock of the pixies exploding into crystal shards just seconds after releasing them. Harry growled and grumbled over the unfair punishment (the man had told the class to deal with the stupid bugs, after all, and that was exactly what Harry had done) as he calmly closed out the numerous summary windows that had popped up upon their death. He considered complaining to his Head of House but decided that it just wasn't worth the effort.

As a result, he had spent the next two Friday evenings after supper addressing envelopes for Professor Lockhart's fan mail while trying to ignore the arrogant tosser as he lectured Harry on the proper methods of handling fame. The worst part of the tedious punishments was that they had eaten into his weekend forays into the forest where Harry continued to improve upon his Skills; cutting the number of hours he spent beneath the trees during those two weekends.

Things had thankfully been quiet for the rest of September and almost all of October and Harry had taken extra pains to avoid Lockhart at all costs because the man had begun to creep Harry out as he practically stalked the pint sized twelve year old between classes. Hedwig didn't particularly care for the barmy ponce either. The peace would be shattered on Halloween night when a scream echoed through the castle as a third year Ravenclaw stumbled across a petrified cat and a cryptic message written in blood on the wall.

The Chamber of Secrets had been opened.

Harry couldn't help but curse under his breath as he immediately equated Chamber of Secrets with Game Dungeon and quickly began making plans to research and locate the new Dungeon because he again assumed that he was required to clear it before he could pass onto his third year. At the time, he hadn't realized that Hermione had overheard him and began making plans of her own to help Harry in his research since he was one of the few Gryffindors that were nice to her; even if he did tend to ignore her outside of their nightly study sessions. He at least never teased her or Neville and was polite enough to both of his fellow second years when they did interact during the study sessions that he'd continued to attend after his tutoring sessions had ended with the pair and that was apparently enough for Hermione to help him.

Six days later, a fourth year Hufflepuff was attacked and petrified not far from the message that Filch hadn't been able to clean off of the wall. On the fourteenth, Harry learned from Hagrid that something had attacked his chickens and killed his rooster but that attack would never be linked to the Chamber of Secrets or the attacks on the students. The next attack would occur during the first Quidditch game of the year, when the Gryffindor team played against the Slytherin team at the end of November.

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