Hermione stared. A figure stood on the far side of the chimaera's corpse, just hidden from the doorway. She walked forward. Her eyes widened.
It stood perfectly still. It was tall, had a long, billowing cloak, long hair, a hooked nose. It's skin looked like stone, and it held the smashed remains of a large potions bottle to its face. Glass littered the floor around it.
It was a petrified Severus Snape.
A human head appeared from no where.
Hermione shrieked and clutched her chest. "Harry! Don't do that!"
Harry's head frowned. "ID check?"
Daphne gave the fidelius location.
Harry nodded. His eyes were urgent. "As you can see, I'm fine. Get back to the dorms, fast. The damn snake isn't here just now, but that doesn't mean it won't turn up again."
Hermione pouted. "And you?"
"I'm going to investigate a bit more. I don't know what all this is all for, but I know I want to find out. Anywhere with this much security must be guarding something quite special."
Daphne nodded. "Let's go, Granger."
They left after a few hissed words from Harry to the snakes in their pockets and made their way back to where they'd left John Potter. "Argh!" Hermione stamped her foot. "We forgot we have to take him to the hospital wing."
"We could enervate him and send him there?"
"He'll ignore us and inconvenience Harry."
Daphne sighed. "Yeah. He would."
They heard the approach of many footsteps. She and Daphne shared a panicked look, whipped off their sunglasses and pocked them just as Dumbledore appeared around the corridor corner. "Miss Greengrass! Miss Granger! What is happening here?"
McGonagall and a few others followed a split second later. The old witch gasped. "Is that Mister Potter?"
Hermione stepped forward. "Heir Potter was injured in the fight with the troll and refused medical attention. He left and we followed. I was forced to stun him for his own protection and was about to take him to the hospital wing."
Dumbledore seemed to take in the destruction of the corridor, and in particular the smashed door to the room behind them. And here?
Daphne took over. "We don't know. We just got here."
The headmaster nodded. "Then please take Mister Potter to the hospital wing, immediately. Do not dawdle. Thank you for assisting Miss Patil and Miss Turpin in rescuing Miss Roper. Professor Vector, if you would escort them?"
Vector nodded and the three of them, plus a levitated Potter, left for the hospital wing.
At least they had avoided a detailed grilling from the headmaster. Hopefully Harry would be okay.
...
Harry followed the trail of destruction down the series of rooms. Everywhere, rubble and debris covered the floor. Rune stones lay smashed on their pillars, marking the former presence of a battery of formidable wards, all now gone.
The first room after the chimaera contained a miniature rainforest. The many rare species of magical plant curled and sniffed the air as he passed, unfelt and unseen.
The second room contained the remains of a small army of charmed warriors. One of the stone soldiers groaned and reached into the air, its bottom half completely shattered.
The third room was empty, bar a complicated looking set of glass pipes and spheres, which twisted and turned in on themselves. The basilisk seemed to have ignored it and just smashed its way straight through to the next room.
The forth room was completely dark, save for the massive hole in the far wall, and the carpet of stars, lighting the high, domed roof by the thousand.
The fifth room, he recognised from his and the girl's exploration of the pipe network. A room empty but for a muggle TV and a VCR. He padded over to the table in front of the TV, waved his wand over the parchment on it, and read.
'To reach the next room, you must program the tape recorder to record East Enders on Sunday at 7:00pm on Channel One.'
Next to the parchment was a remote controller with over a hundred buttons on it.
Harry put down the parchment and frowned. It seemed like a strange kind of lock. And why would anyone go to the trouble? What on earth was so important as to set up such an elaborate defence system while also making said defence system kind of dumb?
He peeked into the sixth room to spy a three metre tall bronze statue of Severus Snape, a set of vials of clear liquid on a table, and nothing else. There was no extra hole in the wall. The snake was nowhere to be seen.
What the hell was going on?
Behind him, he heard approaching voices. Dumbledore.
Shit.
He sidled up to the far wall of the TV room, hissed, and stepped into the pipe network beyond.
Whatever was going on here, in this strange magical obstacle course, he could leave it for another time. Ultimately, it wasn't that important. It wasn't as though it was going to help him find the stone, after all.
- End of Chapter Twenty -
A/N: OMG what happened to Fawkes?
A/N: Notice that in neither this story (so far), nor in canon, do house elves ever join in active defence of the school against threats such as trolls, dark wizards, basilisks, etc, until right at the very end when these "Powerful magic users" physically attack death eater ankle at the battle of Hogwarts.
"Hermione!" said Ron, "we've got to get the house elves to safety!"
"Take me you sexy beast!"
Harry looks on. "… Fuck that! Those guys kick ass, conscript the lot of them!"
A/N: A word on making money.
One of the more popular discussion points in reviews is how Harry could make more money, especially in the muggle world. Over the last twenty odd chapters, readers have come up with a lot of ways, many of which I didn't originally think of, but which I'm sure Harry would have.
This is problematic and reveals an underling weakness in the Harry Potter Canon…
… Making money in the muggle world is far too easy.
More than one reviewer has pointed out that Harry could just apparate into a jewellery shop, possibly wearing a mask or under polyjuice, swipe all the goods, and apparate straight out.
There is nothing to stop him doing this.
The problem is there is nothing to stop anyone else doing this either. For a fully qualified wizard, it should be sickeningly easy to acquire all the wealth you should ever need. (Although this would arguably also lead to massive inflation for those goods and services that have limited supply in the wizarding world.)
Take Bill Weasley for example. He makes his living by breaking into magical tombs. How much easier to break into museums, art galleries, personal safes, muggle manor houses, etc? Easy. Far too easy.
Or Mundungus Fletcher… Here is a man who makes his living pinching stuff and hawking it to anyone he can. He stole the Black silver form Grimmauld Place in canon. Assuming Mundungus can apparate, he should have pinched the British crown jewels before you could say 'Stop Thief'.
A well known principe of micro economics is the idea that if an opportunity can be exploited, it will be - The fabled non-existent dollar lying on the pavement. JKR built in the idea that the muggle and magical worlds are separate and it's this gulf that stops such opportunities being exploited. But the simple truth is that the gulf IS NOT THERE. Wizards can step outside their houses and be in the muggle world. Many do. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of muggleborns and even more half bloods who know the muggle world very well - who grew up there.
The wizarding world should be nothing more or less than the leaders of the organised crime of the world.
Trying to shoehorn in some kind of solution to this problem would deviate my world from JKR's so much that it would practically cease to be the Harry Potter world anymore. Therefore, I'm going to introduce an author approved plothole into this story.
Plothole: Wizards don't take advantage of bonehead obvious ways to acquire wealth using common magical powers.
Therefore, Harry is only allowed to make money in the muggle world in a way that is unique or almost unique to him and his followers. The drug trafficking was possible, in part, because of Harry's almost unique ability to fly without a broom (Plus I didn't really have this rule in place back in chapter three).
That means no apparating into jewellery stores, no using legilimency to score at poker, no confunding people into giving away all their money, no summoning money from bank machines, no selling magical cures for cancer in underground black markets, etc, etc, etc.
If Harry wants massive monies, it has to be something only he can do.
...
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