7

{ === + === }

The following things happened after the dueling club episode:

Justin FF (the poor kid who would've been 'attacked' by the snake in the normal timeline) was attacked and petrified. He was saved from certain death by the translucency of the Fat Friar instead of Nick though.

Like the normal timeline, Harry was implicated due to his Parseltongue performance during the dueling club. Unlike the normal timeline, not as many people believed the implication as there was no direct connection between Justin and Harry this time.

To be fair there was never a connection before, just an implied attack that apparently everyone fell for.

In addition, I'M being implicated as an attacker this time around, since I gave the impression of being able to understand (and thus speak) Parseltongue.

…To be honest, I didn't have the heart to tell the kids that what I did was the equivalent of speaking to a cat while the cat meows back.

Also known as "that thing every pet owner does".

Plus it feels like quite a few of the students were looking for a conspiracy, so trying to dissuade them would be a lost cause. My reputation of being overly aggressive helped deflect some of the accusations.

In the words of some skeptical students: "If Ash disliked Justin that much he would've just hexed him." I would then prove their point by insisting that the Prismatic Beam was technically not a hex.

Regardless, the two of us were given rights to visit Dumbledore's office as a result of the accusations though, and that's…uh, good. I guess.

Dumbledore made it clear during the meeting that he doesn't consider Harry to be the culprit. He also asked for my opinion on the matter.

Our response was a very certain "Uh, yeah, I mean…I'm pretty sure Harry wouldn't do it."

We weren't expecting to be consulted. Besides, the fact that Fawkes actually did burn to cinders was a little too interesting for us.

How can a bird do that anyways? More to the point, if Fawkes met the Basilisk and stared it in the eye, would Fawkes immediately burst into flames or…I feel like the book covered this at some point, but I don't remember. I feel like this is an important thing to establish though.

…

Following the…well, it wasn't really even an inquiry, just a reassurance…following that whole thing Dumbledore asked us to stay behind for a little bit as Harry left.

Harry's departure was complete with worried glances backwards at us still standing at attention in the center of the office.

"Young Ash. Are you aware of the beast that is currently endangering my school?" He asks me after his door Gargoyle stopped moving.

Also, I find his wording to be a touch suspect. "I know it exists, headmaster."

"I see." He nods, convinced. "And the fact that someone has killed all of Hagrid's roosters…?"

He pretends to be convinced, more like.

I also find it really, really difficult to believe that a magical school has no grasp of magical creatures. I mean…it can literally be one of three things if we just take into account the fact that it Stones on sight. It's a Medusa, a Gorgon, or a Basilisk. Possibly more, depending on how many of the mythos are real.

"Ash?" Dumbledore sounds concerned.

Oh, wups.

We drifted off into our own mind.

"Well…I can't prove a thing, Headmaster." I shrug. "Though I have my guesses." I think I just channeled Dumbledore, so let's backpedal a little. "My guesses are a lot worse than yours, though…sir."

We backpedaled like an idiot.

Dumbledore chuckles. "I see." He then…wow that's a glare if I QUICK AVOID HIS EYES "Am I correct to assume that you will not knowingly place my students in danger, then?"

Um. "I assume nothing." I reply. "I know someone is orchestrating these attacks, and I'm pretty sure if I move too quickly I'll endanger more people than I save."

Ginny does ditch the journal in the book, so I'm kind of running on that. Imagine if we butterfly the situation so bad that the basilisk shows up in the Great Hall during dinnertime. Oh the casualties.

Dumbledore nods slowly. "If you have the power to act quickly, then please do not dally…lest the situation leaves your control."

The situation isn't even in my control to begin with. "I'll keep that in mind, headmaster."

…

…

Next action on the agenda: the Polyjuice Potion event.

Let's see…Harry and Ron turned into Malfoy's Bodyguards and went for an interrogation. Hermione turned into a cat.

It's unfortunate that she turned into a Western catgirl instead of a Japanese catgirl, but eh.

Harry and Ron were CAUGHT during the investigation by Snape (though by then they had un-transformed and were on their way out of the dungeons). They both lost house points and got detention but otherwise nothing interesting happened.

I personally spent the day sleeping in.

…

…

[Other Events]

…

My spells got better, my aim got better, my FUS RO DAH got better…

I'm also starting to experiment with other spells to expand my arsenal. It's…surprisingly tough.

The number one reason why it's tough: I have some pretty good all-rounder spells right now.

At medium range, I have my Prismatic Beam. At long range, I have the Crystalline Bits (small pieces of sharp things being tossed into the face of the target), and at short range, I have both the Unrelenting Force and the Thunder Axe.

Plus, I have all the normal spells available to the Harry Potter universe…so I daresay I have my jack-of-all-trades spells locked down right now. In that sense, making new spells has been oddly difficult, since I don't really need said new spells even for variety.

That being said, I'm currently working with three spells to see what kind of alterations I can make.

First off is Diffindo, the cutting spell. Basically it's Sectumsempra but utterly and totally harmless in every shape and form. Diffindo's greatest weakness is that it's a cutting spell that requires PERMISSION from its target for the cutting to actually happen.

Naturally, this means that the spell is most effective on inanimate objects. I don't give a shit about attacking inanimate objects; there are better spells for that.

Like all spells, we can force Diffindo's combat effect by adding in more power (thus overriding the 'asking' with 'demanding', but at that point it's the same as Sectumsempra except worse in every way possible.

Except maybe the "hard to heal from" part...Diffindo will be easier to heal from than Sectumsempra.

So Diffindo's pretty much a wash.

Next, I played around with Incendio.

Incendio started off as a niche experiment, where we just tried to set fire to everything. I got some good practice with the water spell as a side effect, so I can do ice and fire in the future if I want to go down that path.

Following initial testing, Incendio's major problem is that, like regular fire, it requires something flammable on the strike area to actually work. Unlike regular fire, it needs to make a resistance check based on the strength of the target (most wizards have innate—if thin—barriers against attacking spells).

So the initial tests were not exactly promising.

And then I discovered something good.

When we made said discovery, we started cackling maniacally in Our Corner of the Common Room. It's capitalized now because nobody approaches it except us.

We then rushed out to the Room of Requirement for testing, complete with shit-eating grin.

Initial tests following our little realization proved to be fruitful. I'm gonna have fun using this one in the foreseeable future.

Short version: Incendio has two delivery methods: packet, and stream.

Hehehehehehe

Ahem. Where was I?

Oh! Right.

Lastly is Alohomora, the unlocking spell.

Wait, why that one?

I'm trying to see if I can unlock more than just doors. Currently, it's not going well. Combining it with Diffindo is turning out to be oddly productive though, but I still need to fiddle with it more.

…

The wizards really need to keep better documentation.

…

[Diary]

…

Some weeks after the trio's trip to the Slytherin Dungeons, Harry got his grubby mitts on a diary. He got his grubby mitts on THE Diary, as he very clearly shows us in the common room after class.

They do their thing…Ron recognizes the Riddle name as 50 years old, Hermy makes the conjecture that since it's a 50 year old name, Riddle must've gotten his award from the last time the Chamber was opened.

I'm just sitting here realizing that Voldemort's almost 70 years old at this point.

"Ash? You ok there, mate?" Ron asks us with a frown.

"Yeah, yeah." I shake my head. "Just…had a moment."

Ron, like any sane person, is confused. "Right, well…whoever this Riddle is, he's a bit off his rocker to keep an empty diary around, don't you think?"

"Maybe we have to do something to it?" Harry wonders and pokes the diary with his wand.

"Maybe you should try writing in it." I suggest in my best 'offering stupid advice' voice.

Harry dutifully reaches for quill and ink.

"Maybe you should leave it alone." Hermione offers. "It could be cursed."

Hmm. "Or maybe we should get an outsider's opinion." I look around for…aha! Ginny just entered the scene. "Hey, er…Ginny!"

She…it feels like she's a little bit dazed and confused, but she does respond to my voice and glare at the four of us sitting around a table.

I snatch the diary from Harry before he could protest. "What should we do with this?" I call out and wave it over my head.

She…yep. She turns white and bolts out of the common room.

We look at each other.

"What's that all about?" Ron grumbles. "My little sister is going mental."

"Must be because Valentines is around the corner." I say, loud enough for the twins (who happen to share the same common room) to hear it.

"On it." They reply (in sync) immediately with all of the determination of brothers protecting their little sister from literally everything awful about the entire world forever. And boys. Mostly the boys.

I feel like I just accidentally subjected a lot of unfortunate ten-year olds to hell for my own personal amusement.

It will be a good learning experience. Y'know, "Life fucks you over because someone else wanted it to."

…I'm a terrible person. Or something.

…

Well, all bad jokes aside, I know that Ginny eventually regains the diary, probably via stealing it from Harry's stuff.

I should be able to defuse the situation (a little) by telling her that we haven't been able to find anything unusual about the book. Given that she's ten, the biggest thing I need to do is to ensure that she doesn't feel like she's in trouble. If I can do that, I can get my grubby little mittens on the book.

From there, I should be able to prepare countermeasures against the Basilisk without worrying about a time limit.

If we do that, we'll throw the entire endgame for book 2 off-script.

Yeah…better be ready for anything.

…

[Next Day]

…

I showed up late for Herbology today.

"I'm amazed you were late!" Hermione gasps.

We're usually the first person to show up…because it's MAGIC we're learning here.

"Don't remind me." I grumble, as if I was late due to interference.

I showed up late for a very good reason: I nicked the diary and tucked it into my storage chest before rigging said chest with a trap. Whoever opens it (Ginny) will get blasted in the face by a Wind of Sleep.

We lost two points from Professor Sprout for being late.

No biggie.

…

[That Afternoon]

…

Nothing interesting happened during the day, beyond a Ravenclaw challenging us to an informal duel.

The challenger was a third year NPC. Apart from being polite there's absolutely nothing interesting about him.

He tried to show us up with the Lumos Maxima, which is technically a third year spell that's both easy to do and honestly pretty cool if done right. In this instance, the NPC made fairy lights and it…I guess he's trying to show off for his admirers? There's like three girls watching him.

Valentines is around the corner. The boy made little sparkly hearts and birds in the air too.

…Oh.

Well then.

We then proceeded to fill the air with solid ice roses.

Funny thing with the water spell: I can just use it to make ice.

The boy, showing class, graciously bowed and shook our hand.

He gets props for being smart enough to realize that a duel of violence would've ended badly for him.

…

So yeah, nothing interesting happened.

Oy.

We did find something interesting when we raced up into our dormitory though, with Harry and Ron in tow when they realized I was apparently hurrying for some reason.

"What the?" Ron gasps when he sees Ginny slumped over my storage chest.

"Huh, I didn't think I'd catch her of all people." I mutter. "Harry, I have a confession."

"Why is my sister on your chest?" Ron demands.

We, the immature little voice in Ash's head, would like to apologize for your facepalm and exasperated (and maybe a little angry) sigh.

Harry looks at Ginny nervously. "What did you do?" He asks me.

"Well, first off, I took that diary you found and stuffed it in my storage." I explain. "And then I trapped my storage to put the first person who opened it to sleep."

"So that's why it smells weird in here." Seamus the Gryffindor NPC wrinkles his nose. If memory serves he's the powder keg, right?

As in he blows himself up a lot.

"Yeah, Wind of Sleep tends to do that." I sigh. "Now out, if you're not Harry or Ron, out."

We wait until the room is clear (Ron cracks open a window to air it out).

"Renervate." I cast, and Ginny stirs.

She rolls off of the storage with a groan, blinks, sees the three of us, and freaks the fuck out.

By freezing in fear.

"Yo." I greet her cheerily. "What were you looking for in my storage?" I can already guess, but it's better to have her say it herself.

She says nothing.

She flinches as we point our wand at her.

"Oy." Ron narrows his eyes at us. "Don't threaten my sister." He aims his broken wand at us.

Harry, knowing that Ron's wand is shit, points his wand at us in his friend's stead.

"I don't want her to run away." I explain (badly). "Ginny?"

She doesn't respond.

I sigh. "You were looking for this, weren't you?" I go into my storage and hold up the Riddle Diary.

She flinches again, but nods.

"Why do you want an old thing like that?" Ron says with disdain.

Ginny glares daggers at him and doesn't respond.

Ron rolls his eyes.

I sigh again. "Ginny, for the record, we haven't been able to get this thing to work. I have no idea why you want this thing so bad."

She…wow. The relief in her body is evident.

"Why do you want that?" Ron asks again with a scowl. "It's ancient."

"It's none of your business, Ronald." Ginny mutters under her breath (so only I heard clearly). "I'll leave. Sorry about messing up your things."

Well at least she's polite.

She leaves without really answering any questions.

My gut instinct is to forcibly stop her from leaving, but that causes so many more issues and gives no advantages. Oh well.

After she leaves, we all lower our wands and I toss the diary back to Harry.

"Maybe she knows how to get this thing to work." Harry observes, looking over every inch of the diary again. "Can you ask her, Ron?"

"Sure." Ron nods.

So that's…

…

Well, the problem is not really solved. We've averted an immediate issue, which is having the diary stolen without our knowledge. The fundamental problem of the diary being stolen in the first place is still present…

I can carry it around, sure, but I don't know if I like the idea of keeping a Horcrux on my person for long periods of time, and I'm not stupid or optimistic enough to believe that I'll somehow be immune to its effects just because I'm not using it.

For now, adopt a wait and see attitude?

Yeah.

…

…

[Valentine's Day]

…

So this was a thing.

Or…rather, the Dwarves that Lockhart…

Ok seriously how much alcohol did he buy to get these guys to do this?

This is like the worst fucking idea a man can ever conceive.

Including Hitler?

…Godwin's law is cheating. This is the worst idea ever with exception to anything that requires a significant military force to execute.

So Lockhart has Dwarves dressed like cherubs running around the school, bellowing out valentine day things to people in off-tune tones. That's actually not the worst part.

Though it might be because of the difference in expectations between a 12-year old and an adult.

Harry and crew find the things embarrassing. I'm…reasonably ok with their singing. I've heard worse, and I'm pretty damn sure I sing worse.

We've actually gotten a few Valentine songs from people, which was pretty sweet of them. We made the Dwarves go back to sender with both a small pouch of vodka and a box of chocolate.

I ordered it through Fred and George.

…The chocolate, not the Vodka. The Vodka I just had on hand.

So if I see someone wandering around with a box of Hershey's Kisses, I know who sent me a nice thought.

But anyways, the worst part of the Cherub Dwarves?

One: their outfit is loose. Two: they are men.

Three: They have no sense of outfit adjustment or are just too sloshed to care.

Flop flop flop flop flop.

Don't make me spell it out.

…

I got…what, six valentines in total?

I wouldn't call them Valentines, per se…unless every Valentine poem is supposed to end with "Please don't blow the school up".

It's still a valentine.

I also got one from Ginny, which is…which would be nice if I was sure she had no ulterior motive.

It also says a lot about our mindset when we suspect a child of having plots.

Children are mean little fuckers, what are you talking about?

Anyways, having the Valentine from Ginny was interesting, because it meant I was now Weasley Enemy Number One and the twins have openly announced their decision to "hex me to next year" if I made a move on her.

Our response was: "Good idea."

…

[Later]

…

I heard something about Harry getting into an altercation with Malfoy concerning the diary (ending with Harry apparently blasting Malfoy's face to pieces), so good for him.

The story may have been slightly embellished.

Percy was unhappy about it (at least officially) but given that I caught him daydreaming with one hell of a smirk…

Harry did, however, try writing in the diary, apparently after noticing that the ink he spilled on it disappeared.

In other news, I need to buy like a few boxes of those blue pens that are so cheapo and good and stuff.

Cheapo blue pens and stacks upon stacks of wide-ruled line paper.

Anyways, after he learned that Riddle's book apparently wrote back, Harry got a vision from the book, the same one that tells him about Aragog and Hagrid.

For those that don't remember: Then-Headmaster Armando Dippet tells Riddle that the school needs to be closed, Riddle finds a solution to the 'Beast of Slytherin' in Hagrid's Acromantula, and gets Hagrid expelled in the process.

This means Hagrid's like 70, too.

Anyways, the trio (Hermione hasn't been attacked yet. Hopefully will never be attacked) go down to Hagrid's Hut to ask him about the giant spider, while I sit around with the diary.

…Heh.

…

[For the following part, italics are Riddle's words, Bold are my words written down into the Diary]

…

Hello, Riddle.

I assume you are not Harry Potter. It's a pleasure to meet you.

Yeah, I'm not Harry. Say, Riddle. Do you ever get mocked for your name?

Pause.

Some, but fortunately they learned better after some fashion. If I may ask, who am I conversing with?

Polite, ain't he?

I am Reinhart Schenbach III.

I think I spelled that wrong.

…

Another pause.

Well then, Mister Reinhart. May I inquire how you know about me?

Hmm…so how do I want to play this?

Harry told me.

Minor pause.

Of course, of course…he is a charming young man.

That's…slightly creepy. So. How do I want to do this?

All things being equal, I'm pretty sure I can pretend to be his friend, as I, a grown adult, should be able to out-lie a proud little boy…that said, there's no concrete benefit for us pretending to be his friend. Plus, there's no proof that the soul fragment inside here is only fifteen years old.

Fuck it. It's a snake, isn't it?

I beg your pardon?

The Beast of Slytherin is a Snake, not a Giant Spider.

I would imagine so, yes.

So why did you tell Harry that Hagrid was behind it?

Long pause.

I told him no such thing. Potter jumped to his own conclusions.

Right…right…he showed Harry that Hagrid was being suspected and thus arrested for perpetrating the attacks and TECHNICALLY didn't show Hagrid unleashing the beast on any targets. I don't remember if he explicitly said he showed Harry what the beast was, though…more to the point, I'm expecting Riddle to be truthful to someone who clearly knows more than he's letting on (me), so that's kind of naïve of me.

Oh, by the way, VRiddle. I wrote the V on purpose and then crossed it out, but it's pretty damn clear what I'm implying.

REALLY long pause.

Yes?

Look at what I can do :D

What is that supposed to be? He asks of our smiley.

I then rapidly sketch a massive penis into the diary, because why the fuck not…also because I'm immature and is easily amused.

What is the meaning of this?!

I thought you liked these. I have one in higher resolution, hang on.

I practiced drawing photorealistic Horse Appendages throughout this year (complete with VEINS) and by god I'm going to imprint them upon Voldemort's soul if it's the last thing I do!

As Romero Sayeth, "Suck it down."

…

[End Diary Segment]

…

The other kids in the common room take one look at us furiously giggling and scribbling in our Corner of the room and roll their eyes.

I wonder if he feels it if I draw a head to go along with the shaft? Probably not.

What we did not notice: Ginny saw us writing in the diary profusely, and turned stark white. She was, fortunately, too far to see exactly what we were drawing.

…

…

Harry came back from Hagrid's after, oh, about three-peni's worth of time? Drawing these things up to high quality with a quill and ink is impressively difficult.

Riddle had stopped responding, probably because he blocked us for sending dick pics.

Though they were truly photogenic dicks, the fun of trolling Riddle wears off pretty fast if he doesn't respond…and besides, my hand's cramping. "Yo." I greet Harry. "How was Hagrid?"

"Not well." Harry sighs. "Apparently that giant spider of his is living in the forbidden forest."

Wonderful.

"I'm never going anywhere near it ever again." Ron swears. I assume he means the forest.

Harry gestures to the diary. "Did you learn anything else from that?"

"Not really. I've just been playing with it…" Hang on. "Where's Hermione?" She's not with them.

"She shot off to the library, something about 'research'." Ron grumbles. "You're a bad influence on her, mate."

I just realized that I have the diary so Hermione can't be attacked. Whew. "I'm a bad influence? I'm a perfectly ok influence on our resident little miss genius." had a mild panic attack there for a second.

"Whatever you say, mate." Ron rolls his eyes. "What do you reckon the beast of Slytherin is?"

Dur. "A snake." I say in the most 'isn't it obvious?' voice possible.

Harry and Ron blink in surprise and stare at each other in shock.

The two of them…did they seriously never make that connection?

"What makes you think that?" Harry asks slowly.

I do the eyeroll. "I can't imagine the house of pride going with a beast not from their banner."

The two seriously never considered it, huh? Yikes.

It's more likely that they never had the same exposure to mythology that we did. After all, we were pretty dumb about actual mythology until we were at least fourteen.

True that…I hop onto my feet. "I'm gonna go talk to Hermy. Watch my stuff."

Harry looks at our Corner. "Watch your…what? Wait!"

The two of them follow after us, but not before Ron pockets the Riddle Diary due to Harry forgetting.

…

We find Hermione in the library, pouring over a book about mythical creatures.

She realizes that we've arrived but doesn't look up from her book.

"Yo." I greet her. "Find anything interesting?"

She sounds a little annoyed that we interrupted her reading. "Take a look at this." She shoves the book she was reading to us.

Let's see here…

"A basilisk?" Harry parrots the title. "What does it do?"

Hermione sighs and explains it to our resident Hero and his sidekick while we sit down and read the damn book.

…

…

To summarize:

First off, Basilisks are semi-magical creatures. That is, their magical power is proportional to their physical strength and size.

To compare: Threstrals, the deathhorses, are high magical creatures where their power is irrevelant to their physical abilities, while giants are low magical creatures who have more physical power than magical.

Basilisks as a species have the "glare" ability that allows their eyes to cast an enchantment. This ability allows them to paralyze their target upon making eye contact. The ability also loses power depending on how often it is reflected. The Glare ability is also activated instead of constantly active (that is, Basilisks aren't killing things with their eyes 24/7) but given that we plan on fighting one that point is moot.

Also, apparently the "kill/stone" part of the Glare ability is a rare mutation among Basilisks, rather than a constantly innate ability. Apparently Basilisks with this ability don't live long, as their food has a nasty tendency of catching the Basilisk's eyes only in reflections.

So going by this information, Salazar found an impressively rare specimen of an already rare magical creature to act as the Beast of Slytherin…fitting, really.

"So…how is it getting around the school?" Harry asks once we're sure we're talking about a massive deathsnake. "How is something that big getting around the school unseen?"

The three of them mull it over.

To be honest, if I did not have prior knowledge, I would not have considered pipes as the answer, especially when you consider just how large the snake must be in order for it to be a reasonably dangerous-looking enemy.

Imagine if the Basilisk was just a snake the size of your arm. Utterly unassuming and will kill you very dead on sight, but narratively is not dangerous at all.

In the end, Hermione comes to the conclusion that it must be moving through the pipes, we jump to the conclusion that Moaning Myrtle must have been the student killed 50 years ago…

I had to act as if I didn't know who Myrtle was and get exposition in my face…

…and we eventually make the decision to start looking around in Myrtle's bathroom.

"You have a new friend." Myrtle points out when she sees me. "Hello, new person."

"Ash, Myrtle. Myrtle, Ash." Hermione does the quick introductions.

I bow. "Hello, Myrtle, and pardon our intrusion."

"We're going to poke around here a bit, if you don't mind." Ron says bluntly.

"Of course I don't mind." Myrtle sniffles. "Why would I mind anything at all?"

With a wail she dives into a toilet.

I'd be lying if I said I was surprised. "Ok, let's see…"

…

I'm going to guess that the pillar ringed by sinks sitting in the middle of the room is probably somehow important. Maybe.

"Given how Slytherin works on reputation, I'm going to guess there's a small snake thingy in here somewhere." I say while jumping to (admittedly a reasonable) conclusion.

"Wouldn't surprise me." Hermione quips. "But where would he hide it?"

With the four of us, we find the small snake thingy underneath a sink within minutes. Harry uses his Parseltongue on it, and the pillar retracts and turns into a massive hole into the ground.

We make damn certain to remember exactly how "Open" sounded.

"Wicked." Ron breathes.

…Huh.

"I guess that's it for today." I grumble. "None of us brought any rope."

Hermione looks at us, looks at the hole, looks at us, and nods. "I see what he means…I don't fancy going down there and not having a way back up."

We leave the hole alone, and after a few minutes it returns back to its original fountain form.

"I'll see if I can get Fred and George to give us some rope." I say. "We'll do a proper investigation then."

"Wonderful. I always wanted to jump into a hole inhabited by a vicious monster." Hermione says with her deadpan snarky tone.

"You'll get your chance in a few days then." I grin.

She rolls her eyes and shakes her head.

…

[Next Day]

…

I told the twins that I needed rope.

"What for?" Fred wonders.

"There's a place I need to get into that requires a lot of rope." I respond.

Fred stares at us. "Well…why not just make the rope on your own?"

…With magic? "I thought about that" (I actually haven't thought about that) "but I need to conserve my power for exploring the hole…plus I don't know how much rope I need."

George is indignant. "It's an adventure, and all you want from the two of us is rope?!" He throws up his arms. "We can do much more than rope!"

…

That's true.

That's definitely true.

I look around for any possible eavesdroppers. Given that we're using an empty classroom that seems implausible.

"The two of you know about the Room of Requirement, right?" I ask them, dropping my volume all the same.

"The what?" They reply in unison.

…wait, really?

Erm. "Meet me on the seventh floor corridor, I'll brief you then."

"Brief?" They frown in unison.

…

Nothing important happened during the day.

Bull. Flitwick started teaching us basic enchantments.

It is wonderful. I enchanted a Knut to have its specular through the fucking roof. Every time I put it underneath sunlight someone goes blind.

We're usually the one holding the damn coin, who do you think it affects?

It's the thought that matters.

I'll need to play around with this more to get some good effects out of it, but the fact that I can make flashbangs with Lumos and pebbles is certainly reassuring, especially since the boss for this year is dangerous because of its sight.

We got 5 points from Flitwick for making flashbangs.

We also got 5 points for giving Flitwick (the tiny dwarf of a man) sweet sunglasses.

…

[Night]

…

"Alright, so what's this 'brief' about?" Fred asks once the two of them have arrived in the RoR. "How did you know about this place, anyways? We don't know where this place came from."

"I know things." I reply airily. "Now then. The rope?"

It is fortunate that the Room of Requirement was simply a small, nondescript room with a few chairs.

"The two of us can make miles of rope for you to use, Ash. Don't worry about that." George grins. "What's so important?"

Ahem. "As you know, the school has been under intermittent attack from an unknown assailant for the better part of this year."

The twins recognize my switch of tone as "business mode", and settle down accordingly.

"Through research, we have established that Hogwarts is currently home to a Basilisk…a rare breed of a Basilisk, no less."

"Holy shit." Fred mutters. "So you need the rope to get into its lair?"

I love smart people. "Exactly."

"What should we do afterwards?" George asks. "You can't possibly expect us to sit back and do nothing while…Harry's involved, isn't he? And Ron?"

"Bugger." Fred breathes.

I nod. "Yeah, they are. If possible I want to keep Ron out of an active combat role, as his wand will be a greater hindrance than a benefit in the battle ahead."

"On it." Fred nods. "What about you and Harry?"

"Harry…will probably be fine. Probably." I shrug. "I plan to set as many traps for the snake as I can and blast it out of existence. Failing that, I'll do whatever I can to take its eyes out before we engage in close quarters combat."

"But if it kills on sight…" Fred wonders. "How do you destroy its eyes?"

I grin. "Muggle weapons. With enough of them I don't need to aim, I just need to shoot."

The two are suitably confused, but seem to come to an agreement after a few minutes.

"Ok then." George nods. "I can think of a few things I can do to make the fight easier."

"Yeah." Fred agrees. "No way am I sitting back for something like this."

"Think of all the money we can make by selling pieces of the Basilisk." George notes with a slowly spreading grin on his face.

The two of them then ascend into capitalist daydream heaven.

I try to bring them back. "Let's worry about killing it before we worry about selling it, yeah?"

I think I failed.

Given that we don't have that much information to go on, we end the briefing there and let the twins continue their daydream.

…

[Next Day]

Throughout the year we've been receiving normal people news (usually at the top of every month), and today was no different.

The owl drops a small bundle at my spot on the table and I roll open the fairly thin newspaper.

Let's see here…A1, football…A2, politics…A3, economics, more economics…dating, dating, school, school and money, nothing too interesting.

We continue idly flipping through the pages while sipping on our morning tea until we hit A12, and then we freeze.

What?

Our brain froze for a moment, before rebooting and letting us reread the story three more times.

I…what?

Shit.

"Are you ok, Ash?" Hermione asks us, as our face has drained of color and we're gripping the paper so tightly it is shaking. Her asking has also drawn the attention of the others sitting around us.

I want to scream expletives, but I can't (not in front of so many kids), so I just slam the paper down onto the table for everyone else to read with as much anger as I can manage.

The impact of the paper hitting the table rendered a large portion of the great hall silent.

Nobody saw anything out of the ordinary except Harry, who noticed a small story filling not even an eighth of the paper sitting in the corner.

It was titled "Tragedy Strikes Little Whinging."

.

.

.

{ === + === }

Author Notes: Yep.

This is rapidly becoming one of my favorite stories to write.

Because you don't do any planning for it.

I never do any planning for my stories though.

It shows.