FicWad

A Different Sort of Bond Chapter 14

Author’s Note: It’s not dead. I’ll keep updating this one as well as the other until both are finished.
Disclaimer: I don't own the Potterverse!


After they’d all gotten a good look at the thing Harry asked, “So do you think any part of it is still salvageable professor?”

Professor Slughorn nodded, “Oh yes my boy. The poison seems to have kept scavengers away and so the skin is intact. I’d think it would still make excellent armor should you care about such things. The eyes are gone of course, and the internal organs are surely too far gone to sell, but the poison sacs are surely enormous on such a large specimen and will fetch an excellent price, and there is always a market for basilisk teeth.”

Harry nodded, “I’d want to keep enough basilisk hide to make two sets of armor and a dozen teeth as well but the rest I’d be happy to sell and split the profits with you.”

Daphne smiled, “He wants to start a Sirius Black Memorial foundation to provide portkeys to families who feel threatened by the dark lord and are willing to swear to support Harry.”

“Hey!” Harry said. ”I just want them to swear not to support any dark lords, now or in the future.”

Daphne sighed, “Yes, dear.”

Slughorn grinned, “Ah, there is illustrated the difference between Gryffindor and Slytherin. Still I’m glad you can look past your differences. It makes for a stronger relationship when each person brings different things with them.”

“What are planning to do with the teeth Harry?” Hermione asked.

Harry said, “I was thinking of having eight of them enchanted as knives and giving them to the ‘ministry six’ plus Tracey and Daphne. The rest can be spares although we might want to keep one as is for horcrux breaking. The diadem took a lot of cursing to destroy.”

“What did you use Harry, fiendfyre?” Ron asked.

“Daphne was the one who destroyed it Ron,” Harry replied. He smiled at Ron’s shocked expression. “I’m not even sure of half the spells she used to be honest but it took quite a few.”

“I didn’t use fiendfyre,” Daphne said. “Too hard to control and there were too many flammable things nearby. I used everything I could think of until it broke and released the piece of soul.”

“Very commendable Miss Greengrass,” Slughorn said. “I think we can and should harvest the teeth now and separate out your dozen before the aurors get here Harry. They might frown on your plans to make knives out of them. It’s not illegal exactly but neither is it something you should make generally known. The armor is something they shouldn’t have a problem with though and the extra wands will be a great help in getting the hide off in one piece.”

Harry nodded, “Okay professor. If you’ll show me how I’ll get started.”

Slughorn conjured two crates, one much larger than the other and with everyone helping soon they had both filled. The professor sealed them and labeled them with both the word “Poison” and the runes for basilisk venom. Harry shrunk the smaller crate and stuck it in his pocket. “Should we leave the other one here for now Professor?”

“I think so Mister Potter,” Horace Slughorn answered. “It can wait until everything else has been harvested and maybe we can have the goblins haul it all out for us.” Harry looked surprised and Slughorn chuckled, “They will be the ones doing the sale and dividing up the proceeds between us after all and if you don’t want sticky fingered politicians taking a cut they should be the ones to set up the foundation.” He smiled at Harry, “Hire whomever you want to determine who qualifies and who doesn’t but let the goblins handle the money. They do it well and can get portkeys at a much lower price than any individual wizard.”

Harry saw both Daphne and Hermione nodding so he agreed, “Sure Professor, we’ll do it that way.” He looked around the chamber, “So anyone up for a bit of exploring?”

Daphne raised her hand and smirked, “I think I’ll go with you.”

Harry grinned, “So kind of you to join me.”

“Where do you plan to look first Harry?” Hermione asked.

“I was thinking we’d check the walls to see if there are any other tunnels or caves,” he said.

She nodded, “That’s good. Did you see where the snake came from originally?”

“From the mouth of the statue,” he replied. “I didn’t think much of it at the time but now I’m thinking this is a lot of work to go through just to hide a basilisk. I mean I could see the parseltongue only doors but the thing didn’t need anywhere near this much room even at its tremendous size. If its supposed to eat intruders then why make it so hard to enter and why give them so much room to run? Also how did it eat? It lived a thousand years and even if it spent most of those in some sort of magical stasis it must have required some food while it was roaming the castle.”

Tracey shivered at the thought of a hungry basilisk in a school full of kids but Daphne and Hermione just nodded.

Neville spoke up, “Basilisks generally eat once a month and prefer arachnids if they can get them. It probably ate some of the acromantulas in the forest.” He looked alarmed suddenly, “That means that not only have they grown unchecked since then but if there was a way for the basilisk to get from here to them there would also be a way for them to get in here!”

Everyone pulled their wand upon hearing that and Harry threw more globes of light around the edges of the chamber. Nobody saw anything and Slughorn used a spell specifically to check for acromantula to make sure there were none lurking in the shadows. “They are useful in several potions but no harvester wants to encounter them alive,” he said when asked how he knew it.

“I think we should stick together then,” Harry said.

“I rather think this is an excellent reason to leave until we have auror escort,” said Slughorn.

Daphne nodded, “We risk them confiscating things that way but this way we have more chance of being eaten so let’s wait.”

Ron agreed with her immediately and eventually Harry was persuaded.

“Okay, let’s get back up to the castle and I’ll owl the goblins about making knives from the teeth,” Harry said.

The next day at breakfast Harry got a reply from Gringotts, “They say they’d be happy to make knives out of eight of the teeth if we let them have the other four as payment.”

Daphne snorted, “Well enough, just remind to tell dad not to upset any goblins if he can help it.”

“I think that’s good advice regardless,” Harry said. “But I’ll remind before we got visit your folks at Yule.”

After breakfast they met four aurors in the entrance hall and were surprised to see Director Bones had arrived with them.

She smiled at their obvious surprise, “I figured I’d pull a few strings and get to see my niece Susan as well as the famous chamber of Slytherin. How are you doing Harry? You are looking better than you were last time I saw you.”

“I’m fine Madam Director and Daphne gets the credit for my looking better,” Harry said. “She’s decided that my health and wellbeing is a project worthy of her time and has expended great efforts on my behalf.” He smiled at her fondly.

Daphne was at first shocked to see that Harry and the director were on familiar terms then a bit embarrassed at his praise but she shook it off and spoke, “It is a pleasure to meet you Director Bones. I’ve always heard good things about you. You are one of my role models for the way you made it to the top of a traditionally male profession.”

Amelia Bones smiled at that, “It is good to hear I can inspire the next generation.” She offered her hand then remembered Daphne’s lack of a right hand to shake with and asked, “How are you bearing up under what I imagine to be a most distressing magical accident?”

Daphne smiled, “It has been pretty stressful but Harry has been making it as easy as possible on me. I wish I could say I did the same for him but alas due to circumstances he’s learned things about women that he never wanted to know.” She kissed his cheek, “He’s truly a prince among men though and I’m happy to say this ordeal has truly been for the best.”

Madame Bones smiled at them, “I’m glad you managed to bring something good out of this. Now shall we get to business? Professor Slughorn intimated that I might need to bring more than two aurors. Why is that and why is he not coming with us this time?”

Harry told her about their theory about what the basilisk ate and her eyes widened, “I didn’t know there was an acromantula colony in the forest.” She pulled her wand and sent off a patronus message. “That should alert the department of Dangerous Magical Creatures. They generally leave the magical forests alone but they’ll make an exception for acromantula.” She shook her head, “Do I even want to know how old you were when you fought them?”

Harry smiled, “I didn’t fight them so much as run away screaming.”

Daphne said, “He was twelve and he along with Ron Weasley talked to the queen spider Aragog and got out alive as part, just part mind you, of saving Ron’s little sister.”

Harry blushed and looked down, “It was mostly Ron.”

Daphne snorted, “It’ll just be us this time. Professor Slughorn has decided it’s a bit too scary down there and is waiting until you and your men give the all clear before he finishes the harvesting. If you’ll follow me, or rather us, we’ll get you inside and come along in case there are more doors that require parseltongue.”

Amelia smiled, “I see Horace hasn’t changed a bit. Thank you for escorting us and for bringing this to my attention. This may help us solve several cold cases from the days of the first attacks.”

Harry told her what he knew about Myrtle’s demise as they walked to the second floor girl’s loo. When they arrived one of the aurors laughed, “You know I looked for the place when I was a student but I never thought of looking in a girl’s loo!”

“That’s probably a good thing Stevens,” a female auror said. “You’d have gotten a bad reputation if you’d made a habit of it.”

The man chuckled, “True.”

Once Harry had opened the entrance Madam Bones sent two aurors first before following Harry and Daphne down. The last two aurors brought up the rear. They looked grim and sad as they catalogued all the bones and found other remnants such as the occasional bit of jewelry. They vanished the animal bones, put the human remains in separate body bags, and conjured evidence bags for the rest.

“Can you close this from down here Harry?” she asked. “Otherwise I’ll have to leave someone here when we go further in.”

Harry shrugged, “I never tried before but I’ll see if I can.” He hissed ‘Close’ in parseltongue and the shaft disappeared. “It looks like I can,” he said and smiled.

Stevens said, “I just hope you can open it again kid.”

“Me too Auror,” Harry said. “Me too.”

Daphne rolled her eyes, “Don’t tease the man Harry.” She pulled out a flashlight, “I brought a muggle torch with me and I hope you all have something similar. The main chamber is a bit too big for even one of Harry’s light spells to illuminate completely and I certainly don’t want him to exhaust himself providing light when we might be fighting giant spiders.”

“Don’t worry about that we’ll protect both you kids,” an auror said. “We’re the pros after all.”

She rolled her eyes, “Say that after you see the basilisk he killed.” She tugged on their joined hands, “Come on Potter open the next door.”

“Yes dear,” Harry said. He opened the door and pointed out the shed skin, “The next door is just a bit further then we’ll be in the main chamber.”

When they saw the dead basilisk there reactions were typical. “That’s huge!” and “You killed that?” were mixed in equally. Daphne smirked and reminded them Harry did it at twelve, with a sword and no spells at all.

Eventually Madame Bones got them back on track and they lit and searched the chamber. In the walls they found a passage to what looked like private quarters. They were ruined by the passage of time and water seeping in. They then levitated themselves up to the open mouth of the statue and went through. Inside it was considerably drier and better preserved. It was a man made stone corridor with rooms branching off on either side. In the first few rooms they found more shed skins and some more bones which were all animal. They vanished the bones after identifying them and moved on. They found a room with several newer looking books and what looked like a trophy case against the far wall.

“Who’s T.M. Riddle?” one of the aurors asked.

Harry looked at Daphne who shook her head, “It’s your show Potter.”

Harry raised his wand and wrote in the air ‘Tom Marvolo Riddle’ then had the letters rearrange to spell ‘I am Lord Voldemort’. “That’s who Riddle is.”

The aurors look shocked. “How?” one asked quietly.

“How do I know?” Harry said. “He told me so. Or his spirit did, in between telling me he’d return stronger than ever and describing how he’d kill me once he was back. I stopped him then but he’s back now.”

Amelia nodded, “Fudge wasted a whole year with his vendetta against you. I could wish you’d approached me with this but I imagine your experiences with magical authorities have not been the best. I will say that if you receive any further info on his whereabouts or his plans I am more than willing to listen.”

“Thank you Madam Bones,” Harry said. “I’d not touch any of the book if I were you. The last book that had his name in it tried to possess Ginny Weasley. I had to stab it with a basilisk fang to get it to stop.”

The director of magical law enforcement nodded as the aurors pulled their hands back, “I think we’ll have a curse breaker go over this place before we try to touch anything.”

“Bill Weasley is a good one,” Harry said. Then smiled and added, “Of course he’s the only one I know so I might be biased.”

She smiled, “Biased or not it’s a good idea. You’ll be contacting the goblins to come deal with the carcass right?” When Harry nodded she continued, “So we’ll just have them bring a curse breaker along. For now we’ll just leave this place untouched and keep going to see where this corridor goes.”

“Maybe we should wait for the people from the creatures department?” said one auror.

“I thought you said you were the pros?” Daphne said smirking. The man turned red but said nothing.

“Be nice Daphne,” Harry said.

“Yes dear,” she replied but her smirk stayed in place.

They continued down the tunnel until it was blocked by thick webbing. “I believe at this point we can assume that this once lead outside to the acromantula nest but the creatures sealed it off to protect themselves from the basilisk. Let’s not disturb it.” She turned to Harry, “I know tomorrow is a school day but would you be willing to miss class to escort people in? It might be quite a crowd with us, goblins, curse breakers, and the dangerous magical creature people coming.”

Harry had a thought, “Walden Macnair isn’t still in charge of that department is he?”

“No Harry,” Amelia replied. “He left to go rejoin his master eager to start killing people rather than creatures.”

Harry grimaced, then nodded, “I’ll be happy to show everyone down here but can I ask you to vet them first?” He pointed to his left arm and and she nodded catching the hint.

“Yes Harry,” she said. “I’ll check to be sure no marked men accompany me here tomorrow.”

He looked at Daphne and she nodded smiling at being consulted, “Good, then let’s leave here for now. I’m sure Susan will be happy to see you.”