Chapter 23.

The Search, Part I

6:48 pm, June 27th, 1993

In his headquarter office, Harry flipped another page of Obscure Book of Potion Making, and looked at Hermione with some admiration. They started reading the same book at the same time, and now she was already reading the last quarter of the book, while Harry hadn't finished half of it. And Harry would bet with a probability of 99%, that of what they both had read, Hermione remembered more than he did.

Three days ago, the ex-Potions master took on the responsibility of teaching all the potion tricks and lore he knew to Harry, Hermione and Draco, and that man had been quite a strict teacher even if he was no longer deliberately cruel. Harry wasn't against learning anything that could grant him more power than a third-year student could usually invoke, and he would be quite embarrassed if Hermione could cope with Severus' teaching speed while he couldn't. Harry guessed it might be harder for Draco to catch up, because, to be honest, Draco wasn't as Harry and Hermione as in reading books. Plus, knowing Severus, Harry guessed that the man would only arrange a longer reading list and some other training for his new godson, which Harry could only offer his sympathy to Draco.

All of a sudden, the ex-Potions master's bright patronus emerged in the room.

Even now, a part of Harry was still nervous at the pointless question that whether the evil ex-Potions master had decided to give a surprised quiz exam - in which Hermione would get one hundred points, while Harry would only get eighty-nine.

The news Severus wanted to deliver was much worse than an exam. The bright ball hissed in Severus' broken Parseltongue: "There iss a tv-twinge in my Dark Mark, color turned d-darker. Ssame thing in April, nine...k-teen ninety-one. Narcisssa felt ssensse of losss. Need to ssee you, now. D-Draco with me?"

Obviously, a Version 1.0 horcrux was activated by some unfortunate victim. And judging from Narcissa's sense of loss, the victim was probably Bellatrix Black.

Harry knew who was responsible for this, but he didn't have time to blame himself yet. Otherwise, he would have cursed himself for hours, for his reluctance in sinking into his dark side earlier, for his intentional negligence of who he was in the eyes of Bellatrix, along with a number of other things.

Now, as Harry was allowing Severus and Draco to come through the fireplace, his mind just concentrated on one question: where is Voldemort now?

Harry needed to vanquish him, again,before the man became all powerful, again. Time was quite limited.

Just as Harry began to translate Severus' Parseltongue message to Hermione, the ashen-faced ex-Potions master appeared from the fireplace alongside his new godson.

Harry needed Draco's raw talent, and there was no point hiding the bad news from Draco anyway, so Harry just nodded to the two Slytherins, and continued his explanation to Hermione. "In short, one of the Dark Lord's horcruxes was probably activated by Bellatrix."

Draco's face became white as paper upon hearing this sentence.

Severus nodded in agreement, then asked in Parseltongue: "Am I to know, doess the Dark Lord hass ssome ym-improved ho-horcruxess, that grant full p-power insstantly?"

Harry remembered that the ex-Potions master had heard a glimpse of the conversation between him and Voldemort in the graveyard, so there wasn't much point hiding the truth from the clever spy. As for Draco, Harry might have to take some time to think whether he was to know. Harry answered: "Yess, he hass both the original horcruxess, and improved oness. Lasst time, he wass revived through an improved version. None of the improved oness hass been activated now, for he iss not dead. It iss the flawed original one, for now. You-Know-Who can posssibly regain power, ssome other way."

Severus regained some composure after Harry spoke, while Draco and Hermione looked confused.

Just then, Mad-Eye's lion patronus jumped out from nowhere. In the harsh voice of the old auror, the patronus snarled. "Son, Lucius has just reported that his Dark Mark has turned darker, which he claimed also happened in April, 1991. I need to check with Snape. Lad, report where you are, Bones and I will be there soon. Constant vigilance!"

"I am in my headquarter in Hogwarts, and I will give you access to our location by the Floo. Professor Snape has reported the same phenomena, so we'd better get prepared for the worst." Harry answered, and began to waive his wand again in front of the fireplace.

The moment Harry moved away from the fireplace, Mad-Eye swirled out from it. The old auror eyed Draco with great suspicion, and Severus looked every part ready to defend his godson from Mad-Eye's curses. Luckily, those two refrained from firing hexes this time.

Then, Madam Bones landed.

One second later, a rabbit patronus appeared in the air, and in a slightly panicked female voice, it said: "This is a message from one hour in the future. We have checked the Death Eaters in Nurmengard, and their Dark Marks have all turned darker."

Everyone in this room knew what this meant.

Mad-Eye's magical eye was jumping in wild turns from Harry, to Draco then Severus, and his voice was harsh. "Son, if you have any special information on where Voldie might be, you'd better say it now. If he is in the condition that I suspect he is, then he probably can't perform much powerful magic at this moment. However, I am quite sure he has ways to regain his power very fast. Last time, it took him a few months to be able to retrieve Bellatrix from Azkaban. This time round, it's only going to be faster. I doubt he can slay most aurors in less than a second right now without any powerful magic, and I wouldn't be surprised if he can kill me in two or three days - while, actually, he might be able to kill me in the next second."

Although Harry's private estimation was a little bit more optimistic than Moody's on Voldemort's magical power level, he agreed on the old auror's estimates on the Dark Lord's danger level. After all, it was Harry who gave muggle books to Professor Quirrell, and who knew what a creative dark wizard would gain from those books.

The problem was, Harry couldn't think of anyplace that the enemy might be. If he were Voldemort, after seizing his pet basilisk from its hiding place, he could be at any random location on or near the earth's surface now.

Then the next question was: where would Harry/Voldemort hide his pet basilisk? Hogwarts would be too obvious, and other places…

Harry could almost assign an equal probability to anywhere else on planet earth.

Out of all people, someone Harry didn't think would offer much useful information for this question spoke. "Harry, I have read it somewhere that Salazar Slytherin could ask snakes to spy for him." As Draco avoided looking at either Mad-Eye or Madam Bones, he continued. "Father is a snake animagus, and I am pretty sure that he can speak to our pet snake at home. So maybe we can ask Father to talk to snakes in the wild."

Harry knew what Draco really meant, and what he couldn't say in front of Madam Bones. Draco was suggesting Harry to speak to snakes, and to ask all snakes to look for the other Tom Riddle.

-Oh well, that is a good way to find Voldemort's pet basilisk as well. And…

And we have actually thought of this three days ago. You guys just dismissed this idea because you don't want to create sapient snakes. Slytherin said through gritted teeth. Therefore, now we are in a potentially world-ending disaster that our snakes don't have enough time to find the basilisk.

The other parts of Harry all fell silent.

Just as both Madam Bones and Mad-Eye began to give Draco suspicious glares, Severus suddenly tensed up. The man's face became blank, and his tunneling eyes unreadable. "I need to check on something, and I will be back one moment later."

The man in black disappeared in fireplace, and reappeared within several seconds. Although Harry didn't know what Severus' face would be like in front of Voldemort, he knew the level of blankness currently exhibited by that man might suffice.

"It appears that our gamekeeper Hagrid has kept quite some acromantulas in the Forbidden Forest without anyone knowing it." The double-agent said in his calm and smooth voice. "And there had been quite some unsettling in the swarm in the past few months, and an exodus of spiders from the castle had been taking place since about ten days ago. Hagrid never reported this to anyone, in the fear that his illegal action might be found out if he did. Mr. Potter, I am afraid we need to notify Headmistress McGonagall of this development. And Madam Bones, we may need your best aurors to conduct a thorough search of this castle, perhaps for snake monsters."

Upon Severus' words, Mad-Eye's magical eye began to jump in all directions, and his wand in a position to attack. And Madam Bone sent out her patronus immediately before Harry could send out his patronus in the form of a ball to Minerva.

As Harry started to wave his wand in front of the fireplace again, Severus summoned several potion protection goggles from his pouch, and started to distribute them. "I should have asked Hagrid more questions when I went to his cabin two days ago to get potion ingredients from him, while he seemed to be in some stress." The ex-Potions master sighed, and when he was handing a pair of goggles to Mad-Eye, he said, "Mad-Eye, I don't know how your magical eye works, but I guess you'd better cover all angles with glass."

Mad-Eye gave a vicious smile. "Good thinking, lad, but not good enough. I will cover my entire magical eye with glass, and if it is indeed a basilisk as I think, you just need to look at the direction of my eye to know which direction the monster the moment I become a stone. We need to ask Sprout for a mandrake, so that you guys can wake me up and use me as a constant basilisk detector." With these words, the old auror took out his large magical eye, waved his wand, and a shimmering layer of glass formed all over it. Mad-Eye put the glass-covered Eye of Vance back, then put on the potion goggles Severus provided.

When Harry finished wand work, Hufflepuff quietly said, we should have made friends with Hagrid after we cleared his name, but we just thought he wasn't useful. Just think what we might be able to do if we know the information earlier.

And Slytherin suggested some idea that others might disagree at any other time. We'd better not do anything else that we might regret later. Say, some aurors' goggles may fall off one way or the other, and they may get killed by a basilisk. Just stop your qualms and use snakes to explore the whole castle now. Other snakes can interbreed with basilisks, so they can't be killed by basilisks' eyes, what are you thinking?

Harry knew he was trapped between a hard place and a rock, and he should valued the lives of innocent aurors much more.

Slytherin yelled at the other parts. For Merlin's sake, Mad-Eye has offered himself as a basilisk detector to be repeatedly petrified! Imagine what would happen if the glass is broken at some point!

Harry sighed inwardly. "Madam Bones, could you ask the aurors to wear goggles, and bring a lot of magical snakes when they came?"

Madam Bones paused a little, then asked. "Should I ask Lucius to speak to the snakes?"

Harry weighed the political consequences of revealing himself to be Heir of Slytherin, and letting Lucius be the hero.

Severus smirked. "As Mad-Eye and Mr. Potter already knew, I can speak some Parseltongue." The ex-Head of Slytherin smirked smugly at Madam Bones' gasps.

-Oh well, we don't know what they know of each other. And I should have thought that for someone like Mad-Eye to be able to work with an ex-Death Eater, Dumbledore might have to provide some definitive evidence to Mad-Eye. And for Severus to let Madam Bones know… OK, Severus might think that he had solved a dilemma for his new Light Lord.

The Boy-Who-Lived knew that you could hardly expect obedience and on-the-spot creative problem solving skills at the same time from the same subordinate, but some dark corner of him still felt some unease: hey, if we were Dumbledore, Severus would never dare to do that. Let alone Vol-

All the other parts of Harry shouted. Shut up!

At this point, Harry figured that he could no longer withhold another piece of important information, because withholding that might mean loss of innocent lives and precious opportunity. "Professor Snape, I know a place that you may consider letting the snakes check first. I will tell you when the snakes come."

A short moment after that, Headmistress Minerva McGonagall came in, and auror trios with goggles on all their faces began to file in through the fireplace. Quite a number of aurors looked to be more afraid of Madam Bones than the unknown threat, or the barrels of snakes that their colleagues were bringing in.

After five barrels and seven boxes of swarming snakes were put on the floor, and an auror reported that they had bought all the magical snakes in Great Britain and France, Severus put up privacy barriers to block the sights and sounds from all the aurors outside, and only Minerva, Harry, Severus and the snakes were in the circle.

"Headmistress McGonagall, and Professor Snape, there is a wall with an artistic carving of Salazar Slytherin wielding his wand in the Slytherin dungeon, and the Chamber of Secret is behind that wall. One needs to use Parseltongue to open the wall. And there are a lot of branches in the tunnels behind the wall, and I guess there are quite a number of walls and doors that you can only open with Parseltongue." Harry said to the surprised looking adults. "And I am not sure if all the doors can be opened by magical snakes, so Professor Snape and I may have to go down there after the snakes finished their first search."

Before the adults could say anything, Harry hissed to the hundreds of snakes in the barrels and boxes. "My dear ssnakess."

Before Harry could say anything else, there was a hissing commotion in the snakes magically restricted in their containers.

"Parsselmouth?"

"Another King of Sserpentss?"

"Are we ssupposed to obey this one?"

"Not important. Original order iss to travel to Hogwartss, and I have come."

"You are not powerful enough, and you didn't come disscreetly."

Harry and Severus looked at each other in absolute horror.

Voldemort asked powerful snakes to come to Hogwarts? What purpose could he possibly have in mind? Harry's imagination conjured up images of possible plots. Are the snakes meant to be spies? Perhaps they are to be used in a ritual. The problem with only knowing the one order is that there were so many different things that might be accomplished with it.

Harry tried to calm himself, and asked. "What wassoriginal order, and when wass it recieved?"

"All ssnakess sshould tell all ssnakess, that powerful ssnakess ssuch ass bassilisskss sshould come to Hogwartss disscreetly. Five monthss ago, before I wass caught." One white snake with bright orange stripes offered.

"Two." A black baby snake said innocently.

"You sstupid child-ssnake, that'ss when you were out of your egg. I recieved order eight monthss ago, wass why I wass caught near Hogssmeade." Another black snake rebutted.

"I knew of it sseven monthss passt from a newly captured magic-ssnakein sstore where magic-children receive petss. He was bought ssoon after." A cobra said lazily.

The more Harry heard, the more horrified he became: the Dark Lord sent things in motion more than eight months ago? Maybe even earlier... the moment he was transfigured? Did he have a Version 3.0 horcrux system? Or perhaps the 2.0 horcruxes were activated despite him not being dead by definition?

Something Harry used to call Hope, and now called it Wishful-thinking offered: maybe it is still a very weak Version 1.0 horcrux, and that's why he is calling for all basilisks to come to Hogwarts. He killed Salazar's Monster, and when he needed all the ancient knowledge again, he called for all basilisks to see if Salazar's Monster had transferred the knowledge to other basilisks.

Rationality caught on Hope in time: Even so, all the Death Eater's marks have darkened today. Therefore, the most likely scenario is that Voldemort found a victim tonight.

Slytherin sadly added, and this disaster only happened because we have been reluctant to create sapient snakes.

Hufflepuff was equally frustrated. And it is because we didn't tell the adults about the Chamber of Secrets earlier.

Severus asked in broken and quivering Parseltongue. "Any ssnake knew the ou-order for … more than a-eight monthss?"

"Another, another! Which one to obey?"

"Not good, though. I guesss, ten monthss?"

"I know, eleven!"

Severus' face was blank, but his lips became whiter as he addressed Harry in hisses. "I sshall y-enter the Chamber of Ssecl-rretss. I ssuggest you sstay here. If Mad-Eye and I were to d-die, conssider calling for help from our ku-cousinss acrosss the sea, or any other nation that ssuitss your tasste. I ssuss...pect mosst will be willing to aid the p...Boy-Who-Lived"

"I-" Harry wanted to refuse, but could not help but to be aware of the fact that he simply couldn't take any risks himself.

Slytherin quietly suggested: see how lightly Severus proposed to call for help from the United States? A good and loyal fighter as he is, he probably doesn't have any place in international politics. The logical thing to do is to let him do the fighting.

Slytherin's suggestions just made Harry felt worse, but time was limited, and they needed to start doing things now.. "Thank you, Teacher Ssnape. Be careful and notify me of anything unusual by guardian charm. Ssalazar Sslytherin'ss Monsster iss probably bassilissk. Dark Lord probably killed it, but cannot be certain."

"Ssacl-crificing bassiliskss gainss power? Sshould you tell me thiss much?" Severus' face betrayed his shock, then his face returned to its neutral pose, with some hints of sadness, if you knew him well enough to notice.. "Do not dissturb sleeping dragon, Hogwartss motto. Sslytherin may have left long-lived monsster ass v-final dev-fensse of sschool, and only -"

Harry knew Severus' guess was right from a certain point of view. Salazar might think the knowledge his monster taught his descendents could help defend Hogwarts from the possible invasion of muggle armies, but the basilisk itself was clearly not a weapon. It was a library.. And Harry probably had said too much. "I cannot confirm or deny at thiss moment, but I believe Slytherin left monsster with good intentionss."

The ex-Head of Slytherin closed his eyes for a moment, and when they opened, two endless tunnels stared at Harry. "Good to know thiss much."

Harry's inner Slytherin began to praise him, See? We can almost ask Severus to do nearly anything when he's in this mental state, he seems perfectly content to willingly sacrifice his life.

Hufflepuff was in tears, and Gryffindor started to throw punches at Slytherin.

Harry shook off his emotions, and hissed orders to the snakes. "I am Heir of Sslytherin. You will obey all orderss from man next to me. Explore areass you are asssigned, and report back to him."

As Severus began to give the snakes orders, Harry began to contemplate another matter he hadn't thought of. It was not a pleasant thought, but it had to be considered: the few left-over dementors locked in the Department of Mysteries. They would be a powerful weapon against Voldemort.

Harry gritted his teeth, and called Madam Bones into the circle of privacy. "Madam Bones, I wonder if you could get two or three dementors ready for transportation. And Headmistress McGonagall, could you let the dementors in once they are needed? If my guesses are correct, the Dark Lord is quite vulnerable to dementors, so they might be useful to partially incapacitated him."

Minerva gasped, and nodded reluctantly; while Madam Bones gave a wolfish smile.

As the adults started the search, Minerva went to work on the wards to let dementors in, and Harry, Hermione, and Draco were guarded by Madam Amelia Bones and a number of top aurors in the headquarter office. Seeing how upset Hermione and Draco were, Harry suggested that some aurors should be sent to guard Dr. and Dr. Granger, and Lady Malfoy. Hermione and Draco became calmer after that.

In the meanwhile, Hagrid was arrested by the aurors. As Veritaserum and legilimency were used in the following interrogation, within an hour, Harry was notified the result: the gamekeeper had raised hundreds of acromantulas in the Forbidden Forest for more than forty years, because he considered the human-language speaking giant spiders as harmless fluffy pets. Unfortunately, those "lovely" animals listed human beings on the top of their favorite prey list. And the only reason that nobody in the school with hundreds of children had been eaten yet was that the dying acromantula patriarch named Aragog had some verbal agreement with Hagrid not to harm any human. Moreover, if it were not for the sudden increase of snakes in the Forbidden Forest during the past year, some spiders that were no longer under Aragog's control might have began their preying practice on human beings already.

If Harry were to hear the interrogation report at any other time, he would be outraged. Now, the presence of acromantulas just created a perfect excuse in front of the world for the sudden commotion in Hogwarts; and Rubeus Hagrid just became another example of how reckless people could be.

Harry could see that Draco refrained from commenting on the unwitting reproductive choice Hagrid's father had. Although Harry didn't consciously hold any prejudice on half-giants, but he did agree with Draco on a certain unspeakable level, for Harry wouldn't want his child to inherit genes that might cause cognitive deficiency, either. Normally, Hufflepuff might berate Harry for his hypocrisy, but all parts of Harry were too busy to care.

At around ten o'clock, two snakes found a pile of acromantula limbs in a narrow tunnel in the Chamber of Secrets. Several minutes later, Severus' patronus reported that those looked like vomits that came from, not a human being, but from huge and highly venomous snakes, and they were relatively new.

Then Harry generated a hypothesis that could connect the dots: perhaps one of Voldemort's horcruxes resided in a snakes, lurking in the Forbidden Forest for a year, calling for basilisks to give him a better body and/or knowledge, and he just occupied Bellatrix tonight. But then, there is something still not quite right…

Twenty minutes later, Mad-Eye found signs of newly-shifted walls near the vomit. By this point, Headmistress Minerva McGonagall had to leave the three "children" to the care of aurors, and went to check the newly-shifted walls. The result was as expected: it was moved by some forces higher than the current Headmistress.

-Salazar's monster might have had children, and its children came to Hogwarts as ordered, and might have taught Voldemort knowledge, and …

Harry know what was going to happen, and what might have already happened. Harry clenched his fists.

Then, again, there was something not quite fitting. Therefore, Harry had to turn to his friends. "Draco, Hermione, and Madam Bones, please help me think of this. If Salazar Slytherin's monster was assigned some higher power than Hogwarts Headmaster or Headmistress by Salazar Slytherin, would you think that he would assign the same power to the kids of the monster?"

Draco thought for a while. "If every baby basilisk was assigned the same power, it would be a flaw in the plot. But since Godfather can open the Chamber of Secrets by learning Parseltongue, I am not sure."

-Well, that could be some inherent flaw in Salazar's plots, that he didn't consider the multiplication of offsprings. But still…

Harry's inner critic offered, there might be a third plotter in the scheme. Parseltongue wasn't as rare as we thought. Plus, there were other Founders. We know the Weasley twins are the Heirs of Gryffindor, and people rumored that Cedric to have found the Chamber of Hufflepuff, so maybe we shouldn't confine ourselves in our thinking.

-But if it is related to other Founders, why snakes? It's more likely to involve other Heirs of Slytherin. And since we already knew Salazar had two plots to bypass Interdict of Merlin, maybe he had more plots. Hmm.

"Do any of you know some rare stories about Salazar Slytherin? There might be something important hiding there." Harry asked.

Harry was then bombarded with quite a number of stories from Hermione, Draco and Madam Bones. The problem was, there were too many stories, and Harry didn't have enough time to discern the truth from hundreds of possible lies.

When it was half past twelve, Severus' patronus reported that the snakes found a large area in the tunnels were scorched by Fiendfyre many years ago, and a certain wall near there would lead to a larger area which was almost completely melted as well.

No more interesting things were discovered in the Chamber of Secrets later, except several scraps of recent snake sloughs and bones of rats and other small animals here and there. Severus had dispatched the snakes to enter the pipelines and conduits to check for further signs, and continued to lead the search in the castle; and Mad-Eye led a number of aurors to the Forbidden Forest to catch acromantulas in the hope that the spiders might know something, and also in the dim hope that the enemies might be hiding in the Forest.

When the discussion of Salazar's secrets began to dwindle into circles around three o'clock, Harry decided that they were going to sleep for a while.