Chapter 191: Lockhart's Adventure, and I've Got Mandrakes
Harry took several deep breaths, fingers closing around the quill in his pocket.
Knock, knock.
He lifted his hand and rapped on the door of Lockhart's office.
"Oh, is that Harry? Come in, come in."
Harry pushed the door open and stepped inside. Lockhart was seated at his desk as usual, using that flamboyant peacock-feather quill to sign his name across books and sheets of parchment.
Lockhart put on his trademark smile and beckoned Harry closer.
"This should be your final detention task, shouldn't it? We've had such a delightful month together. If you ever find you rather enjoy the experience of being famous ahead of schedule, you're welcome to come back any time to help me reply to my devoted readers."
Harry felt sick. If he hadn't caused such a mess at the start of term, he wouldn't have been stuck with detention for so long, and most of it had been this. Signing and replying to fan mail, over and over, until the name Gilderoy Lockhart made him want to be ill.
He forced a smile that looked shy if you didn't know better, then sat down opposite Lockhart.
He took the quill from his pocket and relaxed a fraction. It was a copying quill he'd gotten from Leonardo, simple but brilliant at one thing: mindless, repetitive writing. Perfect for the tedious work of signing Lockhart's books.
All Harry had to do was hold it in place and look busy. The stack of books on the desk conveniently blocked Lockhart's view, and the quill would do the rest.
Then Harry noticed something new on top of the book pile: an hourglass. Lockhart hadn't had it before.
Seeing Harry's eyes linger, Lockhart chuckled and explained, "You know how it is. There are simply too many admirers. When I'm reading letters, I sometimes lose track of time. After all, one mustn't neglect fan devotion, must one?"
He tapped the hourglass lightly. "This helps remind me."
As he spoke, he flipped it over, and the sand began to run.
Harry gave a muffled hum. The fine, soft hiss of sand filled the air as he lowered his head to the letters, each one more cloying than the last.
"Harry, fame is like a fickle friend…" Lockhart went on.
"A celebrity must maintain a proper air…"
Lockhart's rambling and the whisper of the hourglass overlapped in Harry's ears. For no clear reason, a heavy drowsiness rose up and swamped him.
Clunk.
Harry's forehead dropped straight onto the desk.
Lockhart's eyes brightened the instant he saw Harry slump.
He reached out and lightly touched the hourglass. The sand inside stopped at once, frozen mid-fall.
From a drawer, Lockhart pulled out an old, battered diary and slipped it inside his robes. He glanced back at Harry, still deeply asleep, then hurried out of the office.
He was going to the Chamber of Secrets. Right now. He was going to release the basilisk.
Following "Tom's" advice in the diary, Lockhart had arranged an alibi for himself.
Harry Potter.
Harry came by his office often enough, and no one would question it. A child was easy to manage.
As for the hourglass, it was one of Lockhart's "souvenirs"—a magical item he'd collected along with other people's achievements. Sometimes he didn't just "borrow" a wizard's deeds. He took the proof as well: trophies, keepsakes, anything that made the story look real. The original owners wouldn't notice. They didn't remember any of it anymore.
The hourglass's effect was simple. If you listened to the sound of sand running while the owner spoke to you, you would sink into a deep, unnatural sleep.
Lockhart had done the maths. He would go to the Chamber, release the basilisk, and return to wake Harry. It wouldn't take long. Then he'd keep Harry there a little while longer, use the paused hourglass to blur the timeline, and it would be easy to muddle the details. It was only a child, after all.
He made his way quickly through the castle, never once noticing the small bat that had been quietly tailing him. At this time of year, seeing bats was hardly strange. Halloween was close.
He reached the girls' lavatory, the one haunted by Moaning Myrtle. It was empty.
Following the method Tom had given him, Lockhart sprinkled a potion that would muddle a ghost's senses, just in case Myrtle happened to see him at the wrong moment. Then he took out the diary and pressed it close to a particular tap.
Seconds later, a black, yawning entrance to the Chamber revealed itself.
Thinking of the fame within reach, Lockhart swallowed hard and jumped in.
In the shadows, the bat revealed itself, then smoothly shifted in mid-air into a moth and slipped into the opening after him.
Following the route that appeared in the diary, Lockhart quickly arrived before a great door carved with bas-reliefs. He pressed the diary to the door again.
The same familiar process. With a deep rumble, the door swung open.
A scraping sound that chilled the blood echoed through the chamber. A huge snake, so vividly green it seemed to glow, began to slide out. It was fifty feet long, and cold sweat broke out across Lockhart's skin.
Lockhart snapped his head down at once, not daring to look into the basilisk's eyes. He lifted the diary over his head with trembling arms and waited, tense and rigid, the seconds stretching painfully long.
But it was fast. The slick, green basilisk slithered away and vanished into a pipe with barely a sound.
Lockhart sucked in great gulps of air. He wiped his forehead and fled the Chamber.
Minutes later, silence settled over the Chamber of Secrets once more.
A moth drifted down, wobbling in the still air. In the blink of an eye, it became a teenage boy with dark green eyes.
Leonardo summoned Aurelius. The moment the little qilin appeared, it seemed to drive away the surrounding chill and darkness.
"Master, this place is filthy."
Leonardo patted the little qilin's neck. "It's all right. It can be purified later." He glanced around, calm and precise. "Leave a spatial mark here first. It'll make it easier to come straight back when the time comes."
Once Aurelius set the mark, Leonardo had it carry him away at once.
⁂
Defence Against the Dark Arts office.
"Harry, did you fall asleep? Have you been studying too hard lately?"
Hearing someone call him, Harry stirred and woke groggily.
"What? I fell asleep?"
He sat up quickly and pushed his glasses into place. His eyes landed on the hourglass. The sand had only moved a tiny amount.
"I only looked away for a moment, and you were already face-down," Lockhart sighed. "Young people should take care of themselves, you know. Once you're famous, you'll still need a strong body…"
Harry's ears burned. Nodding off in front of a professor was humiliating, no matter how much he loathed the man.
Then a cold, vicious voice crawled into Harry's ear, making his skin prickle.
"Let me… tear you apart… kill you…"
⁂
"It wasn't me!"
Harry stood in the corridor, protesting as he pointed at a torch bracket. Hanging from it was a stiff grey cat, rigid as stone, its yellow eyes wide and unblinking like glass lamps.
Harry felt wretchedly unlucky and utterly wronged. He'd finally finished his detention and was on his way back to the dormitory for a proper rest when he heard that icy, poisonous whisper again, identical to the one he'd heard in Lockhart's office.
The voice kept repeating threats of blood and killing and devouring, and Harry had been terrified that some unknown monster was hunting in the castle. He followed the sound, only to stumble into the corridor and find Filch's cat, Mrs Norris, hanging there.
She looked dead. Her body was so hard, and still it made Harry's stomach turn.
But what truly made his blood run cold was the writing on the wall, scrawled in red.
"The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the Heir, beware…"
"You'll be next, Mudbloods!"
The red liquid reeked, and it looked exactly like blood smeared across the stone.
Filch stood beneath his cat and wailed into his hands. Mrs Norris was his only companion. As a Squib, someone who didn't belong in a wizarding school, he had only an ordinary house cat that listened to him.
More and more people were drawn in by Filch's grief. Harry wanted desperately to explain, but he didn't even know where to start. That cold, twisted whisper seemed like something only he could hear. He'd asked Lockhart about it earlier, and Lockhart had only said there was nothing.
"Why?" Filch sobbed. "Why would someone do this to my cat? Why would someone do this to me?"
Just as Filch seemed on the verge of breaking completely, Dumbledore arrived with several professors.
The blood on the wall and the unmoving cat made something sharp flash in Dumbledore's eyes.
Seeing him, Filch's voice turned frantic. "Headmaster, I, someone, my cat, she's been murdered, and it was, it was Harry Potter, he was right…"
Dumbledore was already examining Mrs Norris. Behind his half-moon spectacles, his blue eyes brightened slightly. He lifted a hand to stop Filch's babbling.
"Argus. Mrs Norris is not dead."
Filch stared at him, disbelieving. "But, but she's not breathing, there's no heartbeat, she's so stiff. She was, she was lively, she was always…"
His voice broke again, and he began to cry harder. Around them, the students exchanged awkward looks. Filch was usually snarling and vicious, as if he hated the lot of them. Seeing him like this over a cat felt strangely unsettling.
"Yes, yes, Harry Potter," Filch choked out, turning back on Harry. "You say it wasn't you, but you were right here. Did you see…"
Before he could finish, someone cut in.
"Oh, Harry's been helping me reply to fan letters," Lockhart said. He tugged Harry to his side as he spoke. For once, he didn't wear his trademark smile. Instead, he looked solemn and righteous, as if he were staking his reputation on Harry's innocence. "He only finished a little while ago. I suspect he's simply had dreadful luck, poor boy, to come upon such a distressing sight."
After that, Lockhart fell oddly quiet. He did not leap forward as usual to proclaim that he knew exactly what curse this was, and how to lift it, and what heroic adventure it reminded him of.
Harry's arm hurt where Lockhart gripped him. The man was holding far too tightly.
Snape seemed faintly disappointed by Lockhart's sudden defence of Harry. He turned away and went back to studying the cat's strange condition.
Leonardo, standing in the crowd, watched the whole scene with a cold, assessing gaze.
The performance was passable. It could have been smoother. If Lockhart had lied and boasted the way he normally did, dragged in one of his ridiculous "adventures", it would have sounded more natural. More like what everyone expected from him.
It looked like he was proving Harry's innocence. In reality, he was using Harry to prove his own.
Tom's suggestion to Lockhart had been adequate.
That hourglass, though, was interesting. Hypnosis, was it?
In the brief time it took for everyone to argue and stare, Dumbledore had already reached a conclusion.
"Mrs Norris has been Petrified."
At those words, Filch looked as if he'd been struck again. "Petrified? Then who did it? Which student? They wrote those words in blood. Do they hate Muggle-borns? Do they hate Squibs? Why, why…"
Dumbledore sighed softly. "It will be all right. We can cure her."
He looked around at the gathered students. "Do not accuse one another. This is a rare kind of Dark magic. It is not likely that any student could manage a curse of this level."
Then Dumbledore turned to Professor Sprout.
"I know a potion that can reverse this Petrification. We need only wait for the school's Mandrakes to mature. Professor Sprout has grown quite a number of them."
Lockhart, who seemed to remember his usual persona now that the immediate panic had eased, hurried to speak, forcing himself to act as if nothing about this was suspicious.
"I can brew it," he said quickly. "Oh, I've made that potion more than a hundred times. I could do it in my sleep…"
Snape, who had been irritated with Lockhart from the moment the man arrived at Hogwarts, narrowed his eyes. Lockhart had stolen the Defence Against the Dark Arts post, and now he was trying to talk over the actual Potions master as well.
"I am the Potions Master," Snape said, his voice silky and dangerous.
Lockhart went stiff, then shut his mouth and retreated into silence, suddenly very small.
Just as Dumbledore was about to dismiss everyone, a hand went up in the crowd.
"If it's Mandrakes you need," Leonardo said evenly, "I have some."
Dumbledore looked over, and his gaze landed on Leonardo's face, unexpected and yet, in a way, not unexpected at all.
Leonardo growing Mandrakes did, somehow, feel entirely plausible.
"That is excellent," Dumbledore said, and there was real approval in his voice. "Leonardo, you've done the school a service."
He beckoned Leonardo forward. Dumbledore's expression remained calm, as it always did, but something like this happening in Hogwarts was serious. He clearly wanted the problem solved as quickly as possible.
"Professor," Leonardo said, turning to Sprout, "would you like to check whether this Mandrake juice is up to standard?"
He took a large glass jar from his pocket. It was filled to the brim with thick, purple-green liquid: Mandrake juice.
At the sight of that much of it, Sprout's eyelid twitched. How many Mandrakes had this child been raising?
No wonder he handled Mandrakes so confidently in class.
She opened the jar and began to inspect it, speaking in a lower voice as she did. "Leonardo, if you're keeping that many Mandrakes, you must be careful. You know what their mature cries can do."
Leonardo nodded. "Of course. Don't worry. I've been working on a few potions and small tools lately, and I've needed certain plants. I'm always careful."
In truth, he'd started out curious about the sheer power of a fully grown Mandrake's scream, enough to knock someone out, and in some cases kill.
After all, biting cabbages, Mandrakes, and Venomous Tentacula were the classic cornerstones of a certain kind of magical plant combat.
It was a pity that, without special cultivation or magical reinforcement, most of these plants were better as support than as true weapons in a fight.
Sprout finished her inspection quickly.
"This Mandrake juice is excellent," she said, sounding genuinely impressed. "Top quality. It will more than meet the brewing requirements."