Chapter 105: One Step Forwards

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I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.

I would like to thank my beta, Akisu, for his help in this chapter.

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19 December 1992, Hogwarts

It was the end of the semester, and for the first time, Harry wasn't staying at Hogwarts for the winter holidays. The previous year, Harry was blinded by Hogwarts' beauty and the wonder of a magical castle for him to explore. But the thing was that it was easy to get bored if you stayed too long in a single place, and while the castle was lovely, a change of atmosphere was welcome.

Normally, the Potter scion wouldn't have done it. Every time he stayed in Diagon Alley, he risked being found out by some concerned parent and brought to the ministry, and he didn't really need to pay anything to stay in the castle during the holidays.

However, Arcturus Black invited him to attend the Yule ceremony with him in his manor, and the Potter scion had planned to ask the Black Patriarch for a favour that he needed for his Basilisk contingency. With Tom Riddle returning in a couple of months, Harry needed to prepare for the possibility of fighting a Basilisk, and luckily, his magical crest had given him the plans for a weapon for him to use.

In other news, Harry had finally made some progress in the Anti-Basilisk Glare goggles, precisely, he had found a way to decrease the possibility of the lenses breaking. The key lies in the Alchemical Elixir of Hardening, which reinforces a material permanently and makes it impossible to change. Ironically enough, it was a form of petrification. Harry was still wary of the permanent effects of Alchemy, but elixirs were usually the safest side of the field to learn from if you made sure not to touch and imbibe the product at any point.

To even strengthen the enchantment, Harry decided to make each lens to be about the size of a human, which allowed him to carve the runes without any issues on the side of the lens. The lenses were then shrunk using a shrinking charm, which was rendered permanent after treating the lens with the Hardening Elixir, which petrified them. The lenses were positioned in a way that would reflect any magic effectively, and the loss would be sent in by small Orichalcum veins that surrounded each lens and transported the energy into two rubies that were magically treated to hold magic to be used at a later date. Jewelcraft was a surprisingly diverse field of magic.

So, yeah, Harry had finished his Anti-Basilisk Glare goggles. It had taken a few weeks to figure out the Alchemical process so that he wouldn't blow himself up or injure himself permanently. However, the only issue was that he didn't know how these would hold against an actual Basilisk Glare, and he had no way of testing that. Perhaps, the Black Patriarch would help. He would probably find that out in a couple of hours.

Harry's thoughts were interrupted by Blaise who was struggling to push his heavy trunk in the first compartment of the Hogwarts Express available, "I'm really happy to be out of the castle and going home this year."

"I see what you mean." Sighed Harry, once the group of four were all seated in the compartment. "Between the snow storms and the attacks, winter is really not pleasant at Hogwarts this year."

"I heard only a few students were staying here for the holidays," Tracy interjected.

The Potter scion could see where they were going from. Practically no one wanted to risk attending the school and risk getting petrified.

"The Weasleys and some older students wanting to study for their NEWTS are all the living who remain." Confirmed Daphne. "Apart from the teachers who do not go home for Christmas, everybody is gone, even the researchers all were scared from getting petrified in a way that Dumbledore couldn't reverse without a Mandrake Draught."

"Wouldn't it be safer in the castle now?" Tracy asked, "With Longbottom suspended. Wasn't he the heir of Slytherin?"

Yeah, the Potter scion had to stifle a smirk at that. His impromptu prank was a bit more effective than he expected. He didn't expect Dumbledore to outright suspend Longbottom and Weasley. The Golden Trio had to have entered the Slytherin common room without the wards expelling them, and that meant that either Snape or Dumbledore had to support them. The latter was more likely. So, Harry decided to expose them in a way that wouldn't be traced back to him and that wouldn't be hushed up with the headmaster like all the other complaints.

Harry expected Dumbledore to just ignore the situation like all the previous ones and let the court of Slytherin take revenge in the house's stead. The golden trio would get the valuable information they wanted but they would have been punished enough that they would think twice before doing something like this in the future.

It certainly sounded like this would be the plan that Dumbledore would follow when Harry was summoned to the headmaster's office. The aged headmaster seemed like he kept focusing on the information Harry had, and not on the fact that his golden boy had broken the rules. Harry's knowledge of Tom Riddle's name had rattled the old man, but it was questioning the fact that he didn't even have a modicum of understanding of his enemy that truly shut the man up. Now, the headmaster would be so lost in his memories, trying to figure out the motivations of Tom Riddle and Harry wished him good luck with that.

Harry expected the man to be distracted by the information he revealed as well as the political shitstorm that the boy who lived and his friends made. Yet, Dumbledore just outright suspended Weasley and Longbottom. Suspensions were rare in Hogwarts and since there hadn't been an attack ever since Longbottom left the castle, the entire student body was convinced that Longbottom was the one attacking. To be perfectly honest, it was all a big misunderstanding, but humbling the boy who lived without even meaning to was surprisingly satisfying.

Anyway, Hermione, who was the only one not to be suspended, had been hounded with questions but refused to say anything for fear of incriminating herself and the others.

Blaise yawned loudly, "I, for one, didn't expect Dumbledore to suspend Longbottom and Weasley for just breaking into our common room. I'm pretty sure that the Weasley twins broke into all four, but they were barely punished."

"Yeah, but they weren't found out," Harry said, "and they definitely weren't using an illegal potion to break in and impersonate the children of a few Wizengamot members. The headmaster probably wanted to avoid the ministry. Looking too closely on this, especially with the attacks happening."

"Isn't the school its own entity? I remember reading something that said that, technically speaking, Hogwarts is a law in itself in Britain. The Ministry of Magic only had control over a handful of things, but not nearly as much as the Headmaster."

Daphne nodded, "Yeah, but they still have enough power to interfere if a severe crime happens. The use of Polyjuice potion by a public figure would make news and that would be a scandal by itself. This was Dumbledore essentially punishing his golden boy enough that no one would say that it wasn't warranted, and no one would really raise a fuss, especially since all traces of Polyjuice disappeared so they claimed it was using illusions. Yeah, like Longbottom could cast something as delicate as an illusion for half an hour without messing anything up. So, in the end, it'll boil down to closed door deals to make repairs and the reputation of the school is maintained."

Harry raised an eyebrow at his friend's explanation. She was really clever when it came to political motives. She really will make waves when she joins the Wizengamot one day.

"What about the petrifications? Why doesn't the ministry interfere then?" Tracy asked.

"Well, that's easy," Harry replied, "Every case that the ministry takes on Hogwarts soil that is not officially its responsibility, must be accepted by either the Headmaster or the Board of Directors after the charter reformation of Headmaster Phineas Nigellus Black. Apparently, Black decided to allow the ministry to help with the muggleborn and orphan funds, since his predecessor was fired for mismanaging the school's gold. It's the only reason the ministry could even interfere in the castle. Now, Dumbledore obviously doesn't want the Aurors messing around with his territory, and well, for some reason the Board feels the same. Since Lucius Malfoy is a member, I'm assuming that he has no issue in the situation since petrifications are easily reversible, or maybe he's waiting for something to happen to act on it. I don't know. There's also the fact that the entire fiasco is obviously forbidden from being published, either by Fudge or Dumbledore. So far, only a cat was killed, a squib that no one liked and that had no family is petrified, and a Gryffindor muggleborn with only his mother as his blood relations, a Gryffindor that is honestly so unremarkable that people forgot he even existed."

Tracy groaned and palmed her face, "I didn't notice that there hadn't been a single article about it in the Daily Prophet."

"Welcome to the world of politics, young Davis," Harry answered her with a smug smile, "There's a reason why I hate dealing with it."

"But you're pretty good at it though?" Blaise asked.

"Being good at something doesn't mean that you have to like it. I would very much rather read a good book or experiment with my magic than debate a senseless issue for hours without achieving anything. Honestly, I'm dreading the day I'll have to attend a Wizengamot meeting."

Tracy snorted, "You'll probably turn it into a lecture of some sort, anyway."

They all bantered for a couple of hours, until Daphne asked an important question, "What about the heir? What are we supposed to do about him?"

They all looked at Harry who shrugged, "Why are you all staring at me?"

"Because you always have an explanation and you can't leave a mystery alone to save your life," Daphne answered with a cheeky tone.

"Hey," the green-eyed boy protested, "I am not that bad."

"You kinda are, Harry," Tracy answered.

The Potter scion looked at his only male friend who just betrayed him by nodding. He was on his way to protest again but was interrupted by Daphne, "So, you're telling me that you have no idea who is behind this at all?"

"Well…" Harry started.

"And that's why we all looked at you. Unbelievable! Half the school and the entire faculty are trying to solve the mystery of the chamber and you're ahead of everyone. Why don't you say anything about it?"

The Potter scion hesitated for a second before answering, "Yeah, I figured out who is opening the chamber and what the monster is. The problem is that it's a very complicated situation and the magic involved is some pretty messed up stuff that I have no business knowing about. Seriously, this is the kind of magic that gets you hunted down for just knowing about it and I don't want to get to a trial where I'll have to convince people not to kill me for my knowledge. Look, the reason I'm not involving anyone else is because whoever is doing this is messed up in the head and the monster is very dangerous. Honestly, killing students is easier to do than petrifying them. It's actively holding back and breaking the rules in our little game could have a lot of consequences."

"Please, Harry, we're your friends," Daphne pleaded while holding his arm.

"Are you sure about this?" Harry looked at them, "I have been keeping you separated from this part of my life for a reason. You'll see things that you would consider to be impossible. You will see the world differently, and even then, I can't tell you everything, but I will assure you that the way you see the world will be over. So, I'm giving you a choice."

Harry opened a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans and took out six beans. Half of them being red, and the other half being blue. He handed over a bean of each colour to his friends, leaving them each a red bean and a blue bean, and grinned. Harry always wanted to say this, "And there will be no going back from this choice, which is why I will leave you as much time as you want before you give me your answer, and I won't take one before the winter holidays are over. When you make your decision, I want you to hand me one of those beans. If you choose the blue bean, and I will take it on the fact that you wish to relish in your ignorance. There's no shame in not wanting to involve yourselves in something dangerous. But if you take the red bean, I'll show you a glimpse of how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember that this is your choice. Make sure you don't regret it."

Not letting them say anything, Harry got up, took out his trunk and left the compartment. They had arrived in London without them noticing, that's how distracted they all were. Still, Harry got out of the train and walked towards the familiar melody of the Black Patriarch, choosing not to think too much about the choice he had given his friends. He honestly didn't know if he wanted them to accept his offer, or if he wanted them to reject it.

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If you want to support me check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr

I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.

Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.