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Harry Potter and the Cracked Reservoir
Chapter 4: Chamber Cleansing
By Musings of Apathy
Chapter 4: Chamber Cleansing
Thank you to my Beta’s Sparky40sw, Donalddeutsch and Kat Armstrong.
The next day Harry grabbed his broom and proceeded to Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom.
"Hello, Myrtle. You here?" he asked the apparently empty room.
Harry heard a gurgle from one of the bath stalls. With a sudden splash the ghost in question shot from the stall.
"Harry, is that you?" she asked in a softer than normal voice. "What are you doing here? The summer is not over is it?"
"No, it’s still summer," Harry assured her. "I’m staying here for training and practice some of this summer. I’m going down into the Chamber of Secrets, so if I’m not back in eight hours, would you go to the headmaster’s office and let him or one of the former headmasters know that I am missing down there?" Harry asked of her. "I’ll leave the entrance open for him."
"Sure, Harry," she agreed sweetly. "Don’t forget my offer from last time."
"I remember, Myrtle and thanks," Harry said with a suppressed shudder.
Harry found the tap with the snake and concentrated on it enough to say ‘open’ in parseltongue. Unlike last time, it worked on the first attempt. The entrance to the tunnel opened revealing a slick tube leading into the darkness. Harry mounted his broom and flattened himself to the wooden shaft in preparation for his journey down the dirty tube.
After some consideration, Harry removed his wand from his pocket and cast a cleaning spell at the entrance of the tube.
‘Oh boy, this is going to take a lot of scourgify-ing,’ Harry moaned to himself.
Harry sped down the length of twisting and turning tube firing spells left and right. He emerged from the end after more that thirty spells leaving behind a clean stone tunnel and less than clean shoulders where he didn’t get a spell off quite fast enough.
Harry entered the cave from the drain junction that the entrance tube had emptied into. Quickly he came across the cave-in caused be his second year Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. There was a small hole that had been cleared to allow himself and Ginny Weasley to exit the Chamber but no other means for him to travel though. The opening was suitable for a twelve year old but too small for a fifteen year old, even one as small as Harry.
Harry levitated rock after rock to allow enough space for him to get through comfortably but that still left plenty of mess still partially blocking the cave. It was a long walk before he came to the open door that was adorned with snake locks. He had left the door open in his haste to leave the Chamber and get medical attention for himself and Ginny more than three years ago and nothing since had corrected the error. That evening was difficult and not one that he would eagerly repeat, but he knew that he would have many more in front of him in his life that would make that one pale in comparison.
Inside he once again found a large chamber lined with many statues of serpents with a statue of one of the Hogwarts founders. Salazar Slytherin’s visage morphed from the respectable founder into the twisted, evil man that could plot the deaths of muggle born witches and wizards. ‘What could have made this man change so?’ Harry mused that prejudice would do nothing positive for your beauty.
In front of the statue lay the very instrument that caused much of the pain of Harry’s second year, the carcass of the basilisk. Over the three years past, the carcass had dried into a mass of bone, dried flesh and skin sixty feet long. Surely this could have some use.
Standing there, Harry could feel the thousand years of evil that permeated this space. It seemed to suck all of the happiness from him and replace it with a sense of darkness.
Instinctively, Harry cast about for happy thoughts, wanting to stave off the encroaching darkness.
Ok, Happy thought. Flying, no. First day at Hogwarts, good but no. Godfather, no, too sullied of a thought. Family, no not quite right, too general. Suddenly Harry had his thought, Ginny. He didn’t know why thinking of her made him happy, but it worked.
Harry felt his magical core, and, as the Professor had taught him, he opened his protections to increase his magic from the normal slow trickle that he left open normally to a good stream of power, sufficient for a good patronus. The Professor had told him that the only thing remaining was to practice opening and closing his core as he practiced magic. If he practiced, it would become second nature to put the correct amount of power behind a spell.
Harry raised his wand and he bellowed, "EXPECTO PATRONUM."
The white stag erupted from the tip of his wand and pushed back the negative feelings. It stood at Harry’s side cleansing the space around him. Feeling the weight lift, he directed the patronus to move about the Chamber to spread the effect.
Harry spent that afternoon in the library, as had become a habit of his, although more suited to his bushy haired friend than himself. His topics of research included the uses of a Basilisk and how to cleanse dark magic from an area. He believed, on the second topic, that he already had a good method, but didn’t want to rule out a better way without checking first. The patronus seemed to already have made progress on the dark feelings of the Chamber, but would take many more sessions to make a lasting change.
Harry quickly found a potions reference book for ingredients. The entry that he needed read:
Basilisk Powder: A very rare ingredient used to strengthen many potions and may be used in developing curatives for various maladies. Its usefulness is not fully known due to the rarity of its source. A Basilisk snake has not been hatched in the past five hundred years.
That was what Harry needed. He found it curious that it seemed to be useful as the powder of the whole, rather than individual pieces as separate ingredients, but shrugged it off as his lack of common potions knowledge. There must be an explanation, but it was one that he could do without. Now all he needed was to find how you turn a Basilisk into Basilisk Powder. At the end of the day he gave up on that question. He would ask Dumbledore if he had any more books that may tell about the manufacture of the powder.
The question of how to cleanse the Chamber of dark magic was answered easily the next morning. It seems that the method that he started with was indeed the best method. He planned to visit the Chamber in the mornings and afternoons and spend as long as he could using his patronus to just hang out and leach away the dark feelings. While he was down there he started to see the possibilities. He looked at the statues of the serpents and decided that he needed to check the castle book and see how you transfigure or morph the solid rock as it said you could so that he could change most of the serpents into the other house mascots. He wanted to end up with this not being such a prejudiced area. The rock of the ceiling and walls was the same mat finish stone the castle sat upon, the entire chamber carved from its depths. He could use the spells from the book to change it to polished quartz or marble with a bit of practice.
Harry looked at the ceiling and noticed that it was nothing to write home about. He wanted something to improve the room, to make it a place that he could spend time in without feeling hemmed in. He decided that this would be the ceiling that he would practice the sky illusion charm he needed in order to repair the great hall.
At the end of the Chamber was the most problematic part of the venture. The evil sculpture of Salazar Slytherin stood in a dominating position with the mouth open revealing the passage for the serpent to its inner lair. Harry would eventually have to do something to the statue and the snake den beyond, but those plans would have to wait for another day as his patronus was reaching the end of its life after thirty minutes. Harry noticed the dimming of the room and the darkness creeping back, both into the room and as a weight on his soul. He sighed. He would be continuing with the treatments for a long time.
"Professor Dumbledore, who will be the new defense teacher?" Harry asked.
"I have not finished securing the services of one yet," the Headmaster said as he ate his chops. "I have a couple of options available but I do not want to say anything until I have approached one of them with success."
"Well, anything would be better than the one last year," Harry said. "I would rather face Tom then have that woman be in any power over me ever again."
"Well," Dumbledore said, "I am afraid that you may just have to put your money where your mouth is on that one."
"Professor, I’m surprised," Harry said after hearing the Headmaster so casual. "Hermione and I always have to explain muggle saying to Ron. It’s surprising that you know that one."
"I try to pay attention to the students, both purebloods and muggle born," the Professor said. "I find it both entertaining and educational. At any rate, Madame Bones of the Magical Law Enforcement Department will be by tomorrow evening to interview you to see if you may have a waiver to practice magic. Minister Fudge has decided that she will make that decision."
"I’m shocked," Harry said. "Seems like the minister would want to have that power himself."
"He thinks," the Headmaster said with a smirk through his beard, "that if he rejected your application he would find himself in political trouble."
"Maybe," Harry said, "’course he knows that I would use magic if it were necessary anyway. I won’t be attacked without defending myself for anything."
"As it should be," the Professor agreed. "If you are granted this waiver, I would expect you to use it responsibly just as all witches and wizards are expected to. Harry, you have to realize that at the same time your fame will make some feel that you should have more liberties, while others believe you to be already taking such privileges that others do not receive and you have not earned or require. This is something that you require, Harry."
"Yeah, I’ve already got a taste of public opinions. I don’t think that I like either side of that part of fame. Of course," Harry joked, waving his fork, "I don’t think that I have seen the positive side of fame. I am sure that there are good things about it, for so many to want it, but I haven’t seen any."
Dumbledore chuckled, "I am sure that at least a few of your colleagues in school would like the idea of being able to romance as many women as they desire. I think that you would find a great many women would let you exercise your fame."
"Professor!" Harry exclaimed, aghast. "I can’t believe that you would suggest that. I would never want that. It…a relationship should be more."
The professor laughed, "I am very pleased that you feel that way. I was, of course, testing you. I had no doubt that you would react as such. With all of the trials that you have gone through, I am sure that you will choose love over temporary pleasure each time."
"Love," Harry said quietly, "that’s a hard one, Professor."
"Hard how?" the Professor asked.
"What is it?" Harry asked philosophically. "I think that I’ll have to figure what love is before I can be in it."
Dumbledore chuckled again, "I think that you will find that you have the order wrong. You will certainly be in love long before you figure out what is happening to you. But don’t worry, you have enough love in your heart to meet any challenge, including ‘until death does us part.’"
"Marriage, yeah," Harry scoffed, "I think that I’m a millennia away from that ever happening. With my life expectancy, that is a far away dream. I have to survive school first. Heck, I don’t even have any prospects yet."
"And yet your fame and your inheritance will both make this easier and harder all at once," the Professor said, ignoring Harry’s assessment of his life expectancy. "There will be many more vying for your attention and that will make it easier to find someone and harder to find the right one."
"But how will they know about my inheritance?" Harry asked, concerned.
"Well, both the Blacks and the Potters are very powerful, famous families," the Professor explained. "The monies that you have received in your vault at the beginning of your schooling is only a portion of their total fortune and I am afraid that the content of wills are public knowledge."
"Does that mean that they will know that I inherited all of that money?" Harry asked.
"They will when they have a reason to look," the Professor said. "I do not believe that they have sunk so low as to trawl the recorder’s archive of the ministry as of yet."
"Can you get me what they publish when they do?" Harry requested. "I would like to know what they’re saying about me. I hate it when everyone knows more about me than I do."
"I will," the Headmaster said. "I hope that you have not bothered to read any of your biographies. All of them that I have browsed have not been in the least bit accurate."
"Nope, and no such plans," Harry said. "Professor, do you know any methods of discovering a person’s loyalty. I think that it may be important in the future."
"Quite correct, but I have not learned any fool proof methods as yet. There are a few magical arts, but they are rather obscure and difficult."
"Oh, well, I’ll see what I can find," Harry said. "Oh, and professor, you might want to know, I have made progress in the Chamber. When I went down there I discovered a feeling of darkness, so I cast a patronus and it seems, on repetition, that this is a good method of removing the darkness. I plan to repeat casting it to remove the darkness and make it usable."
"What have you thought of doing with the Chamber?"
"I thought that it would be a good chance to practice some transfiguration and charms," Harry said. "I needed some place to practice the ceiling illusion charm before I try it in the great hall."
"That sounds like a good idea, Harry," the Professor said.
"One question, Professor," Harry said. "How do you turn a basilisk into basilisk powder?"
The Professor considered the answer for a second before he recalled some of his time on alchemy with Nicholas. "Just like all other powders, you have to simply grind it up, but as it needs to be thoroughly mixed so I would recommend a grinding spell."
"What’s the spell?" Harry asked, moving on to his treacle tart.
"I don’t know one off the top of my head, but I think that I know the book to use," Dumbledore said. "Find ‘Mining Methods and Magics’ in the restricted section, It should help you. I assume that the basilisk is still down there and that is why you are asking."
"Yeah," Harry said with relish, "can you imagine Snape’s face when you give him that much basilisk powder?"
"First, it is Professor Snape and second, you are going to the effort, so I think that you should be the one to give it to him."
"I guess," Harry said, not particularly liking the idea of any one-on-one time with the Potions Professor. "I wonder what he will do with it."
"Well, as an ingredient it has never been around in sufficient quantity to discover its full properties. It is known to be powerful enough to only be needed in pinches," the Professor said.
"Wow!" Harry said, his desert forgotten.
"In fact," the Professor said, "just a small quantity would suit our potions master for a long time to come. It may be best to keep the bulk in your own control."