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Fawkes was smouldering in Dumbledore's office, adding a slightly acrid tang to the air; Harry and Neville, who were growing uncomfortably familiar with this particular situation, lingered near the doorway hesitantly.

"Come in, please, and sit down," Dumbledore said gravely. "I trust you understand that the Quidditch game has been forfeited?"

"Not cancelled?" Harry asked, picking up on the subtle difference between the two.

"You executed an illegal move, Harry. Seekers are not to intercept the Quaffle in a pass between members of the opposing team."

"I was trying to stop the game!"

"Nevertheless, especially as a Slytherin, the rules of the game must be adhered to. I shouldn't worry; if Gryffindor gets less than two hundred points against Ravenclaw, whoever wins, Slytherin may still compete in the championship. I say this to lay your mind at rest, because I am afraid I will require your complete concentration for the next short interval."

"What about Cricket?"

"We will come to that soon, I promise you. If, of course, you are entirely honest with me."

Harry, glancing anxiously at Neville, nodded slowly. Neville nodded back. Message understood; obfuscation had its time and place, but now was the time for complete honesty.

"Where did you go when the game was halted?" Dumbledore asked.

"The Forest, sir," Harry replied. "Well, sort of...over the forest."

"With Mr. Longbottom?"

"Yes, sir."

"Why?"

Harry swallowed. "I...heard something."

"And what did you hear?"

"There's this...Voice," Harry said. "I've heard it a few times. It's...I thought it was a snake."

"And is it?"

"Sort of, sir. It's...awfully big. I think it's some kind of magical snake."

"How long have you been hearing this Voice?" Dumbledore asked carefully.

"Uh..."

"Approximately."

"A while after school started this year. It didn't used to be so loud, but I know it's what scared the birds. I wanted to see what it was."

Dumbledore sat back in his chair slightly, adjusting his half-moon glasses thoughtfully.

"And did you?" he asked. Neville whimpered slightly. Harry swallowed.

"I think so, sir."

Dumbledore gestured for him to continue and Harry told the story as well as he could, with occasional help from Neville. The Headmaster seemed particularly interested in the tunnel they'd seen and prompted Harry for the words across the top, but Harry couldn't recall; none of it had been very clear, and they had both been focused on the giant spider and equally enormous snake.

Eventually they were interrupted by a house-elf, who entered carrying a tray of sandwiches. Dumbledore sighed and allowed the elf to serve them, apparently giving up the question for now.

"Sir," Neville said, balancing his plate on his knees, "what happened to Cricket?"

"Ah yes -- young Mister Creevey," Dumbledore said. "He is, regrettably, a victim of circumstance, I suspect. He was found at the bottom of the stands, Petrified. It is a temporary condition, but regrettably may not be cured for some time. I have my suspicions that the creature you encountered was, in fact, a basilisk; they are known for a murderous stare. They are a form of snake, hatched from a chicken egg incubated by a toad during the rise of Sirius -- the dog star, of course," he added, smiling at Harry. "Quite an undertaking, and not an easy accomplishment, for toads are not by and large very good mothers -- but you were asking about young Creevey. It is believed that he encountered the basilisk..."

"But you said basilisks have a...a murderous stare? "

"We are not...certain why he did not die," Dumbledore admitted. "For now, all you need know is that he will recover, given time. And now perhaps a distraction from such serious matters?"

While they ate, Dumbledore gently but firmly guided the subject away from anything having to do with Cricket or the game, asking them what classes they were thinking of taking next year and very carefully not offering any advice.

"Now that you have eaten, I believe you may be dismissed, Mr. Longbottom," Dumbledore said. "I will require Harry's help with a little matter, but it need not concern the both of you."

Neville glanced at Harry and gave him an apologetic look before bolting with more haste than politeness would have warranted. Harry swallowed the last bite of his lunch and eyed Dumbledore warily. The Headmaster rose from his desk and went to a cupboard near Fawkes' cage, whistling at the phoenix as he went. Fawkes warbled back, cheerily.

"I am going to ask you, Harry," Dumbledore said, "To undergo something not wholly pleasant. In return, I would like to offer you information which may be of help to you."

"To me, sir?"

Dumbledore grunted, slightly, as he lifted a strapped-up wooden case out of the cupboard.

"It is clear that, serpent or basilisk, you are much better-prepared to detect it than any of us," Dumbledore said. The wooden case thumped down on his desk. "And much more...drawn to it."

"If I had known -- "

Dumbledore shook his head, and Harry stopped talking.

"Harry, I will need to see what you saw in the forest. In return, I would like to show you what happened the last time there were rumours of the Chamber opening. I suspect it will either cure you of your inquisitive tendencies..."

Harry watched as the pensieve was unveiled.

"...or it will help you to survive your curiosity. Do you know what this is?"

Harry nodded. Sirius had used one, once, when he was very young; he hadn't seen him use it, but he'd seen the case before.

"Do you understand how the pensieve works?"

"No, sir."

Dumbledore sat down again, the pensieve before him like an overlarge soup bowl. He took out his wand and touched it to his temple, calmly. When he removed his wand, something stuck to it -- at first Harry thought it was a grey hair, but then he saw that it was more like a silvery strand, an almost elastic cord that finally snapped. Dumbledore let it fall into the pensieve, and then did it again.

"These are memories, Harry," he said. "Memories I would like you to witness. One of them is, unfortunately, of the death of a young woman."

Harry nodded again. He was warned.

"Lean forward until you can touch it," Dumbledore said, placing the pensieve squarely between them. "I will follow you in."

Harry hesitated, but at Dumbledore's encouraging look he leaned forward, craning on his tiptoes to fit his face over the edge of the basin. The strands had filled up more room inside the bowl than he thought; as soon as his nose cleared the rim he saw the silvery mess and was suddenly tumbling through the air, falling...

...and landing.

***

His shoes touched stone and he staggered a little, feeling someone catch him from behind. Dumbledore, face serene, helped him steady himself.

"This is the girls' loo!" Harry said in a hushed voice. There was the row of sinks, there were the stalls -- this was Myrtle's bathroom.

And yet it wasn't; it was cleaner, and somehow seemed younger. The mirror shone and the candles were tall in their brackets. There was no leaking water anywhere on the floor. But he could hear Myrtle sobbing somewhere...

He noticed, with a start, that a young woman in scarlet robes was standing with her back to them, one hand apparently covering her mouth. Behind him someone drew a sharp breath; he turned and saw what could only be another Dumbledore, considerably younger than the one still holding onto his elbow.

"Minerva?" the auburn-haired, side-whiskered Dumbledore asked. "Is that...?"

Harry, still reeling, turned back to the young woman in the scarlet robes, who was staring at --

"Myrtle," Harry breathed. The body of Myrtle, at any rate, crumpled in a corner of the bathroom like a marionette with its strings cut.

"Yes," the older Dumbledore said. "Did you never wonder why she was such a young ghost, Harry?"

"I heard a scream," someone said, arriving out of breath. Harry saw a dark-haired man -- a boy -- in the doorway. "Professor?"

"Come in and shut the door, Tom," said the younger Dumbledore. The boy -- he looked perhaps fifteen -- hurried inside and closed the door behind him as requested.

"Is she dead?" the boy asked, and Harry heard curiosity more than fear in his voice. There was a sharp hiss of breath from the girl in the scarlet robes -- Minerva. Harry could see, now that she had turned, the echoes of Professor McGonagall in her face, an unusually pretty face framed by black hair. She had a Head Girl badge pinned to the collar of her dress robe -- and the boy was in formal green robes with a Prefect's badge...

"Maybe she's just unconscious," McGonagall whispered.

"I think you know better," Dumbledore said. "Do you hear that?"

The silence was punctuated by sobs, Myrtle's sobs, and the boy moved forward, skirting anxiously around the crumpled body in the corner. He threw open one of the stalls.

"Oh, Myrtle," he said sadly. "I'm so sorry."

"Go away!" Myrtle's ghostly voice cried.

"Come on now Myrtle," Tom wheedled. "It's Tommy, look. Tell us what happened."

Harry glanced at the younger Dumbledore, who had moved forward to stand behind McGonagall. He touched her shoulder gently and she turned away from the corpse. Harry had the distinct impression that she was not crying, though her face was buried in the tall man's chest.

"I don't know," Myrtle said sullenly.

Tom was still pleading with Myrtle's ghost. Harry shuddered.

"That is, as you may have guessed, your Professor McGonagall," Dumbledore said. "One of her fellow students found the body and summoned her before she found me. I shall spare you the tedious process Tom went through to discover Myrtle's story; suffice it to say that she was weeping, as she was wont to do -- over a love affair, I think, and a boy who had taken some other young girl to the little dance we had arranged to cheer the students' spirits."

"That's why they're dressed up?" Harry asked. In the background, Tom said "But you must have seen something, Myrtle."

"Yes -- This was in Minerva's final year at the school. The young man beyond her is Tom Riddle, a very promising fifth-year -- I think that is a name you should remember," Dumbledore added. "They made a striking couple; he was rather younger than her, but a very...old soul for his age."

Harry saw McGonagall leave Dumbledore and go to Tom, who was still wheedling answers from the ghost. They did look well together; two heads of black hair, green and red robes, intelligent eyes.

"What did she tell them?" Harry said.

"The same thing she has told me, on the few occasions I have tolerated her long enough to ask," Dumbledore replied. "She saw nothing but a pair of yellow eyes. Her body was stiff when we found it, though she could not have been dead longer than two or three minutes at the most."

"The basilisk?"

"I believe so."

The younger Dumbledore spoke, startling Harry. "Tom, Minerva."

They looked up at him, expectantly.

"I do not wish to alarm the entire school, but steps must be taken. Tom, please go to the Owlry and send an owl to the Aurors at once; tell them Albus Dumbledore wishes to consult with them on a murder at the school. I know you are aware of how to enchant letters; please enchant this one to Elissa Shacklebolt's eyes only. Then find Professor Slughorn and have him call the board of Governors to a meeting."

Tom nodded, swallowed, and left.

"Minerva, you must inform the rest of the professors. Do not -- " he held up a hand. "Do not interrupt the ball. There has been little enough joy in our lives of late. Find reliable Gryffindors and post them at every entrance to the Great Hall. No one is to leave the hall or enter it until the Aurors arrive. Send the Hufflepuff prefects to fetch everyone who may be enjoying an evening...stroll."

"Yes, professor. And I should inform Headmaster Dippet, of course?" she asked, a slight edge to her voice. Dumbledore smiled gently.

"In your own time," he said. "Do we understand each other?"

"Yes, Professor."

When the door closed behind her, the scene began to change, first dipping and turning slowly and then faster and faster, until Harry thought he might be sick; when it slowed again, he was standing at the entrance to the Headmaster's office. The now-familiar red-whiskered Dumbledore was standing in the hallway, apparently speaking quietly with a portrait nearby.

"The Board of Governors determined that the school would be forced to close," the older Dumbledore said. "We began to make preparations. It was clear there was a monster stalking the school, and with the death of a girl..."

The door opened and Harry jerked back, out of the way. The edge of it passed through his toe effortlessly.

The dark-haired boy from before, Tom, passed out into the corridor with a sigh.

"What are you doing, wandering around this late, Tom?" the younger Dumbledore asked. Tom started, but turned obediently and even seemed to incline his head respectfully.

"I had to see the Headmaster, sir," Tom answered.

"Well, hurry off to bed," Dumbledore replied, and Harry almost smiled. Professor McGonagall sounded exactly like that. "Best not to roam the corridors these days. Not since..."

"Yes, sir," Tom said, then seemed to hesitate. "Professor..."

"Yes, Tom?"

"Does anyone stay at Hogwarts over the summer?"

Dumbledore scrutinised the boy, carefully. "Why do you ask?"

"Only the Headmaster said," Tom said, hastily, "that I couldn't be let stay. But if one of the professors...Professor Slughorn, for instance..."

"I don't think it would be allowed," Dumbledore replied. "Although I understand your reluctance to return to the orphanage."

Tom's face darkened at this, and Harry glanced up at the older Dumbledore.

"Tom was half-wizarding -- his mother's side," Dumbledore explained. "His mother was dead, his father uninterested in him. He had no relatives."

"But why, sir?" Tom asked. "Surely I could earn my own keep..."

"I do not believe it is a matter of earning keep, as you know," the younger Dumbledore continued. "No doubt the Headmaster has informed you of his plans?"

"He can't close the school, sir," Tom said, sounding nearly hysterical.

"Alas that force of will should make it so. We have not discovered that creature which killed the girl...could Miss McGonagall's family perhaps...?"

Tom shook his head. "I wouldn't intrude like that, sir, and I haven't anything to pay them with."

"Always a very independent boy," the older Dumbledore said. Oddly, he did not sound approving.

"But if the creature were found..." Tom said, almost to himself, and the younger Dumbledore gave him a sharp look.

"Do not endanger yourself, Tom. Hogwarts has always been a sanctum; it should not ask the sacrifice of its students for its own well-being. And now...I think you had better find your dormitory, and your bed."

Tom nodded again. The younger Dumbledore strode off, and Harry made to follow him, but found himself still held by the arm.

They stood there at the juncture of two corridors; Tom vanished down one stairway, but Dumbledore did not go as far as Harry had assumed he would; after only a few minutes, the younger Dumbledore doubled back and, with a whispered incantation, followed on feet that were suddenly cat-silent.

It was almost comedic, like a string of ducklings -- Tom leading, the younger Dumbledore following Tom, Harry following one Dumbledore and trailed by another. They descended into an unlit corridor in the Slytherin dungeons; when Tom paused at a door, so did the younger Dumbledore. Harry edged past him, curiously. The boy seemed to be listening at a crack in the door, stock-still and almost quivering like a dog at point.

Then the door creaked, and Tom backed swiftly away. Harry heard an oddly familiar voice.

"C'mon...gotta get yeh outta here...c'mon now...in the box..."

Harry, intent on the shadowy figure speaking, almost jumped out of his skin when Tom spoke at full volume and commandingly --

"Good evening, Rubeus."

The enormous boy, now visible, jerked away from the door, nearly dropping the box he was carrying.

"What yer doin' down here, Tom?" Rubeus Hagrid asked. Harry gaped. The gamekeeper -- giant even as a young man...

"It's all over," Tom said. Something large and hairy pushed its way out of the box, and Hagrid shoved it back in, carefully. "I'm going to have to turn you in, Rubeus. They're talking about closing Hogwarts if the attacks don't stop. I don't think you meant to kill anyone. But monsters don't make good pets. I suppose you just let it out for exercise -- "

"It never killed no one!" Hagrid protested. Harry turned to see Dumbledore's younger self, one hand splayed across his face in a gesture of defeat.

"You said it couldn't be Hagrid this time," Harry whispered.

"You eavesdropped," Dumbledore answered calmly.

"But whatever's in that box..."

"Come, Harry," Dumbledore said, and then they were tumbling backwards somehow, the wind rushing in Harry's ears. He found himself in Dumbledore's office again, but it felt as though the colour had seeped back into the world, and he knew that this was not a memory but reality once more. If he had not, the single Dumbledore replacing the silvery strands in his head would have convinced him.

"Hagrid was expelled, I'm afraid. Oddly enough," Dumbledore said, when he had finished, "the creature in Hagrid's box escaped. I think we shall see him once more in a minute."

Harry looked wildly around the office. Dumbledore chuckled, dryly.

"No, Harry. He is not here. What did you think of young Tom?" he inquired.

"Bit of a tell-tale," Harry decided, after a minute. "He only told on Hagrid because he wasn't going to be let come back otherwise."

"And in the same situation, what should you have done?"

Harry considered matters.

"I shouldn't have told. I wouldn't have waited for Hagrid; I'd have knocked him out and killed whatever it was and not told a soul," he announced. "When the attacks stopped, they would have asked us all back."

Dumbledore regarded him over folded hands, calmly.

"And now, Harry, that I have paid in coin of the realm, I must ask you to share a memory with me," he said. Harry glanced uneasily at Dumbledore's wand. "This afternoon's memory of your adventure in the Forest."

"Does it hurt?"

"No. You must simply concentrate very hard on the memory; remember the feel of the wind, the broomstick, the position of the sun..."

Harry closed his eyes and concentrated, and like the silver threads it unspooled; it rushed past him like a bullet, and there was the sensation of having a loose tooth pulled -- no, there was no pain, but a feeling of something momentarily...missing.

He opened his eyes. There, on Dumbledore's wand, dangled a thin silver strand. It looked more sharply defined than the others, like steel wire instead of thread.

"Shall we?" Dumbledore asked.

"Me too, sir?"

"You too, Harry."

When the tumbling, falling sensation had passed this time, Harry found himself standing on a stout branch near the clearing, well up from the ground. He looked up; there he was overhead, Neville clutching him tightly around the waist. Down below --

"Oh," he said suddenly.

"Yes -- the large spider," Dumbledore said, holding onto a branch for balance. "That was Hagrid's pet; as you can see, a good sort of creature in its own way."

"It's a giant bloody spider!" Harry blurted.

"Language, Harry," the Headmaster reprimanded him gently. "Ah yes, and the valiant Anglia. Now, let us see..."

He pointed past the battle, past the car and the giant spider and the equally giant snake -- the basilisk. Harry followed to where the tunnel mouth opened, its stones covered in moss and ivy. The wording was clearer in the memory, not noticed at the time except in passing.

It was a short memory, and before he could puzzle out even what language it was, he was falling back into reality, but he could hear Dumbledore speaking as they went, chanting as though attempting to memorise the phrase.

"Cavite hospites viae serpentorum," the Headmaster said. "Cavite hospites viae serpentorum. Beware, Strangers, of the road of the serpents..."

***

"So what does he want you to do about it, anyway?" Padma asked, later that evening. Harry, who was in bad odor with his House after forfeiting the game, had retired to hide in the library, where Padma and the others had sought him out.

"I don't know," Harry said, somewhat miserably. Draco offered him a marzipan wizard's hat from a box of the stuff Dobby had brought him. Harry nibbled it.

"At least we know what it is now. Heir or not, it's sort of comforting to..." Neville paused. "Well, you know. To know it's a big snake capable of killing people with its eyes, instead of not knowing what it is."

"And that's the point, isn't it?" Draco said. "I mean, that it is basically a very large snake. For all you know it might do what you tell it, Harry. No wonder the Headmaster wants you to be prepared."

"And now there's proof you're not the one already telling it what to do," Padma added. "You were playing Quidditch when it attacked Cricket. Couldn't have been you giving orders, could it?"

"I guess not," Harry said doubtfully. "I don't think very many people are going to be thinking that logically about it, though."

"It all gives me a headache," Neville complained. "Hagrid was the Heir only he wasn't the Heir because he had a spider and not a snake, and the spiders were fighting the snake, and Dumbledore doesn't think he's the Heir, which means there's another Heir, but it's not Draco or Dora or Harry even though he talks to snakes, and there are brothers switched at birth..."

"Hard to remember who's what, isn't it?" Harry asked.

"It makes you miss the days when people just outright were trying to kill you," Neville complained. "At least then you knew when to duck."

"The saddest part of that sentence," Draco said, into the silence that followed, "Is that none of us thinks it's very unusual for a twelve-year-old to say it."

"Spiders and snakes are natural enemies," Harry mused, lost in his own thoughts. "Well, I mean, snakes eat spiders, and when they're not eating them, they're eating all their prey. Snakes are a lot smarter than most spiders, too."

"Well...." Draco began.

"What?"

"Now we know why the spiders were leaving your dormitory, don't we?"

Harry blinked at Draco. "You don't think that thing is somewhere in my dormitory, do you? It's huge! "

"Stands to reason it'd be underground. Where else is someone going to keep a snake that big?"

"It would be a lot more useful if you could talk to spiders instead of snakes," Neville said.

"If you think I'm going in search of that ruddy great spider we saw in the Forest, you're bonkers," Harry said.

"If you think I'm going in search of any kind of giant snake or insect or other brand of crawly thing, you're bonkers," Draco told Harry.

"Well, we're not likely to find it anyway," Padma said suddenly. "You can't think Dumbledore expects Harry to find it, not with an Auror working at the school and all the professors probably looking too. So you might as well just forget about it."

"It's a bit hard to do that," Harry said mildly, "when it talks to me in the walls at night."

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