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(Enchanting Melodies) Chapter 411: Baring Fangs
🕑 Added 2025-01-18 14:00:04 +0000 UTCChapter 411: Baring Fangs
18 May 1995, Hogwarts, Scotland
Never again. That was what Harry was fighting for. That was why he was willing to fight Dumbledore and Grindelwald. It was why he had to win. Still, sombre atmosphere aside, Harry was glad to be back, even if he had a lot to do, and a lot to prepare.
Harry sat on one of the couches in the Slytherin common room, with Daphne leaning on his shoulder. It would have been a relaxing atmosphere if it weren’t for the entire room watching him as if he were some wild animal that would kill them all on a whim.
He really needed to get used to this, especially considering how much it annoyed him. It was funny; before the European tournament, Harry did his best to blend in the background. Oh, he definitely wasn’t successful; people still considered him a very powerful and brilliant wizard, especially after the tournament the previous year. The way he humiliated Dumbledore, the way he won with basic tactics and mastery over simple spells, all showed that he was far more proficient than people thought.
But when Harry let things loose a bit during the tournament, he was mostly preoccupied with the magical world’s opinion of him, not that of his schoolmates. It seemed like such a long time ago as well. It still wasn’t what he was truly capable of, not even close, but it was still more than enough to scare most people shitless, especially considering his age. And of course, that included the rest of his housemates.
As if she was reading his mind, Daphne grabbed his hand and spoke up with a teasing tone, “Stop glaring at everyone, Harry.”
“They’re the ones staring at me,” he grumbled back.
“Sure, but they’re also about one bad look away from passing out.”
Tracy seemed to find that amusing, “Oh, you have no idea. We were bombarded by everyone after the task, asking how you did what you did. Like we have any idea what you do in your free time.”
Harry rolled his eyes, “Yeah, but the staring is a bit much.”
He gave them all another glare and the entire common room practically ran away or pretended not to look at him. With a wave of his wand, he erected a few privacy charms before turning back towards his friends, feeling a bit awkward, “So, how have things been around here?”
“Nice enough. We got promoted in the Court. I’m the new Black Bishop. Blaise is the current Black Knight. It was nice at first, but with the war starting off and everything, things have been a bit too tense for house politics. A lot of people here lost their parents because of the Lycan attacks, and the power games here seemed a bit too childish.”
Harry had forgotten a bit about the whole Court of Slytherin thing. He had never really bought into it, seeing it more like some weird club that made them feel superior. Maybe it was a weird way for Purebloods to make friends. The members of the Court were mostly either Purebloods from very old families or very talented students. It worked somewhat both ways, with the ‘best’ members of the house getting to know one another in some weird make-believe land. Tracy had obviously bought into the whole thing and Blaise followed her. He found that he did look down a bit on them for that. It was unconscious, really, but Harry had never considered this to be a good way to secure a future. All he would have done by joining was get to know a few people who probably cared too much about their family lines, something that Harry didn’t really care about.
Blaise gave him a sad smile, “We all tried to busy ourselves since we barely got news apart from McGonagall or Slughorn calling us to their offices. It was almost always bad news when that happened. I mostly just went to this hidden room you told us about, the Room of Hidden Things. I explored it and tried to find useful stuff that I could fix up. I think it was mostly to distract myself.”
That sounded pretty sad, all things considered. Then again, students must have been worried sick and bored out of their minds. And a bored mind often went to dangerous places, “I bet you’re all happy that the wards are open now.”
Tracy let out a massive grin, “I just sent a letter to my parents. Hopefully, we’ll see them in Hogsmeade this weekend. Hopefully, things have calmed down on the outside. I haven’t heard of any casualties in a while.”
Harry simply shrugged, “Things seem to be winding down.”
“You obviously know more than that,” she pushed.
“I do, but you’re the one who wanted that I don’t involve you too much in my life. I’m just respecting your wishes.”
Blaise rolled his eyes in response, “Come on, we’re not asking for state secrets or whatever.”
Harry was about to deny it again, only for Daphne to squeeze his hand and murmur, “Come on. You don’t have to tell them anything serious. They’re just worried about their friends and families.”
He took a deep breath and sighed, “Fine. Voldemort ran away for some reason. He lost control over the dementors, who also disappeared a few ago in Tartarus, probably dead. The Red Witch is dead and the Lycans are currently fighting amongst themselves, but it looks like, after the fighting, they’re planning on making an alliance with the ministry to join as official citizens, which would technically be a deterrent against the ICW involving themselves again. The civil war is essentially over, but there’s someone probably planning something during the next task. That’s about it.”
Both Slytherins sat there in silence, gaping completely at him. It was technically overwhelming and that was him keeping out a lot of things, including Voldemort’s death, the Red Witch’s true identity, and the Light and Dark messing with the tournament, and so much more.
Daphne was obviously amused by that, “Well, I guess I’ll have to go unpack. I can’t believe I’ll have to sleep in a dormitory with other people again.”
Oh, right. They used to share a room with others. Harry winced and decided not to think about it, “Sure. I’m going to do the same. I have just a couple of errands to run first.”
The blonde gave him an incredulous look, “Already? We just got here.”
“It’s nothing serious and it shouldn’t take long,” he answered back.
“Well, if it isn’t serious, then I’m coming with you.”
Harry’s first instinct was to refuse. Daphne had been in enough danger in Greece to last multiple lifetimes, but something stayed his hand. He wasn’t planning on doing anything particularly dangerous. Huh, it had been a while since he went on a ‘safe’ adventure with her. He remembered the days when they’d explore the castle, planning to save Hogsmeade from a Death Eater attack.
It was weird how that was the safest thing that came into his mind. Holy shit, no wonder Tracy and Blaise wanted none of this. Now that he thought about it, his errands tended to be on the dangerous side.
Seeing as what he was planning was relatively harmless, he nodded, “Sure. Do you want to unpack first?”
The blonde blinked in surprise before smiling, “No, let’s go now. You’ll probably get into trouble by the time I’m done anyway.”
Harry rolled his eyes and motioned to Daphne towards the exit of the common room. They walked up towards the third floor, near one of the wings of the castle that was barely used.
Daphne obviously noticed and asked, “Where are we going? I don’t think there’s anything here.”
Harry gave her a small smile, “It makes it a good place to hide something, huh.”
Before she could voice her confusion, he entered an empty classroom, before using his Arcane Hearing to mimic the basic Parseltongue command he copied off Longbottom almost two years prior. Slowly but surely, a small door appeared out of thin air, and Harry pointed dramatically at it, “Behold, the infamous Chamber of Secrets.”
She was gaping at him. To be fair, the chamber was a bit of a legend for most families that graduated from Hogwarts. It was often considered no better than a fairytale. Daphne obviously knew that Harry found it and killed the World Serpent, but there was obviously some difference between knowing and seeing for themselves.
Daphne quickly schooled her expression and hit him in the shoulder, “You were going to the Chamber of Secrets without telling me?”
“It’s not a particularly welcoming place, Daph. It’s nothing much. I’ve just been meaning to check something out here. I never had the time, and I’ve always had a feeling that I missed something the last time I came here. To be fair, I could barely use my magic at the time, after the whole mess with the Gardens of Avalon.”
She huffed and motioned him to enter the Chamber. He jumped into it, and he found himself surrounded by the skeletons of thousands of rodents. With a flick of his wand, he vanished them, and he found himself looking slightly chagrined by the sight.
If the previous time, the Chamber had been in a sorry state, then it was downright miserable now. It could barely be called a chamber, really. The walls, once smooth as if it was made of black marble, now seemed to hunch inward, as though time itself had consumed them. The floor, slick with moisture, stretched before him like a vast expanse of broken tiles—each one now resembling the grotesque, overlapping gigantic scales.
The corpse of the Basilisk lay in the dim light, its enormous length curled in upon itself, the great serpent’s body now half-sunken into the stone, as though the Chamber had swallowed it whole.
Daphne gasped behind him at the sight of the Basilisk, “You killed that when you were twelve?”
His answer was a snort, “No, Neville killed that when he was twelve. And he did it with a sword and a few trinkets of all things. Shows you the power of prophecies. Sure, Dumbledore and Grindelwald had been destroying many of them left and right, but they’re still extremely potent.”
“I forgot about Longbottom fighting the Basilisk, to be honest. Wait a minute, you’re telling me that this is not the World Serpent?”
“Of course, it’s not. I’m surprised you assumed it was. Even the Hydra back in Greece was bigger and I still killed it. No, the World Serpent was far more dangerous. I’m sort of very lucky to be alive, I realize that now. I had precisely the exact skillset needed to kill it, Riddle’s arrogance included. It was like the stars aligned.” That last part was barely more than a mutter. It grated his nerves a bit, now that he understood just how ridiculous the feat was. There was some irony there. Harry manipulated a prophecy to get Neville to fight the Basilisk, while he was also manipulated to kill the World Serpent. No matter how brilliant he was as a child, killing something like that was beyond ridiculous.
Still, he did his best not to bring the mood down and continued, “As I told you before, this entire place, the Chamber itself is the manifestation of the World Serpent. It’s why it’s in so much disarray. It’s dead and we’re walking on its corpse. The ground, the very walls, are its scales.”
“I know, but I assumed it would have been a physical creature, that was connected to this place as a realm. Sort of like how the Olympians were. Where did you even aim the Colt to kill it?”
Harry simply shrugged, “Everything has a core, a source, essentially. To be fair, it was completely under Riddle’s command, and he probably didn’t think that killing it was possible. Of course, I managed to kill it with the only side-effect being the start of the Apocalypse.”
“I don’t understand. How can something be imprisoned inside itself, and not have a body?”
“To be honest, I don’t either. It’s a very unique problem that I never really had the time to crack. It always niggled my mind, the creature that started everything, how little I actually knew what it was. But I never really had the time. I was always busy with one thing or another. I never had the time to properly understand it. This is purely an academic pursuit.”
He finally had the knowledge necessary to truly understand what the World Serpent was. It was always so puzzling. Its existence was a paradox. They lived in a material world and yet the creature wasn’t. Everything, to anchor itself into this realm had to have a physical manifestation, a way to anchor itself. And yet, this creature was not material, not by nature. No living body could ever be as large as the World Serpent, who was rumoured to be able to wrap itself around the entire planet.
Daphne spoke up, with awe in her voice, “And what’s that?”
Harry turned towards what she was looking at and froze. It was a large spike made of what looked to be ivory. He remembered it being around five feet tall the previous year, and yet it had almost doubled in size. That was interesting. The chamber obviously shrank in size, and yet, the fang got bigger. How was that possible?
Still, from the moment Harry looked at it, he felt drawn. It was as if something was pushing him, telling him how important it was. He spoke up in a reverent tone, “This is the World Serpent’s fang, and what I came here to check out. After all, if it works like I think it does, then I think that it might be the final piece of the puzzle I need.”
"For what?" she asked.
"To kill the Light and the Dark once and for all."
AN: Again, sorry if it feels rushed. As I told you before, I got a call from work, but what I didn’t say was that they sort of screwed up my schedule big time and essentially doubled my workload. I’m trying to resolve it, but it’s going slowly. Anyway, about the chapter. I don’t know if you remember the World Serpent’s fang in one of the earlier chapters, but I’ve wanted to bring it up for a while. I don’t know if it came out like I wanted it to, especially with the rush, but the World Serpent’s true nature is sort of important and I’ll explore it in the next chapter. As usual, I don’t mind rewriting this depending on your feedback, so, please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions.
Comments
Garri Sarkisov
Like Thor hammer in a way
Afterdark230
You and your cliff bombshells…. It seems like the more you are rushed and put under stress the greater your chapters are…. This is both good and bad…. Good because this story is beyond awesome, bad because burnout is a real thing. Keep yourself centered and take breaks as needed. Cannot wait to see where this goes now….
