Chapter 68: De-petrified, Unknown Stabber, and Marauder's Map.

It was weird to wake up from petrification, thought Ivy Potter as she looked at the hospital wing ward from her bed. One moment she was looking around the corner through mirrors just to make sure there wasn't a gigantic snake waiting for her, but then she saw acid-yellow eyes in the mirror, and everything went black.

The advice saved her life even though she didn't like the source of the said advice.

She was miffed that she was taken out twice in a single day. Once by Quinn West and then by the Basilisk later that day. It was a weird thought to have after being petrified and coming as close to death as she had been, but for Ivy, those events were the last memories she had before the petrification.

There was no fear or dread when she was petrified as the petrification from Basilisk was instant. It didn't give Ivy a chance to feel anything at all. Sure she woke up with a slight scream of terror because she could remember the Basilisk, but what she saw was her mother standing by her bed, hugging her tightly.

Ah, she was petrified, were her thoughts. It felt almost anticlimactic, being petrified by the deadliest snake in the world. The only thing she didn't like was the stiffness in her body from no activity for weeks, but Madam Pomfrey cured it in a jiffy.

Ivy's first worry came when she remembered Hermione was with her and asked what happened to her best friend. She was told that the students were being released from their petrified state one every half hour so that Madam Pomfrey could have ample time to check if something was wrong before moving on to the next student.

Ivy was the second last to be cured, and Hermione was after her, making Hermione the last student to be given the mandrake juice.

The bushy-haired witch's first reaction was funny. She woke with a yell of "Bullocks!" That was something Ivy wasn't expecting from a person who always chided Ron for his language.

Then Ivy was told that the Heir of Slytherin took her into the Chamber of Secrets. Harry and Ron had gone in there to save her. It made her feel grateful to her brother and childhood friend.

The two dummies had ventured into the Chamber of Secrets just for her. There was no way that her heart didn't feel warm for the two. She forgave them for being so annoying all the time.

Then came the tough part where the now reinstated Headmaster told the students before them that the Slytherin's monster had petrified them for months. It wasn't a nice thing to see when Colin Creevey found he had lost a big chunk of his first year at Hogwarts or when Susanna Heselden found she missed out on crucial time in school during her O.W.L year.

Justin Finch-Fletchley yelled that they should kick her brother Harry out of Hogwarts. But the Headmaster explained to him that Harry wasn't the Heir of Slytherin and the whole incident was because of a dark magic artifact that opened the Chamber of Secrets but didn't go into detail.

Ivy thought that she and Hermione were lucky because they were only out for a few weeks and didn't lose time on the level as the others did.

- (Scene Break) -

Ivy, Hermione, Harry, and Ron sat huddled in Harry's bed in the Gryffindor boys' dormitory. The curtains around the poster bed were drawn, providing privacy to the golden squad. It was the first time since Ivy and Hermione were waken up from petrification that the four had sat down together to talk about what happened.

"Let's start," Ivy spoke to her friends. She was leaning against the headboard of the bed. "Tell us what happened down in the chamber."

Harry and Ron looked at each other before Harry started telling the events that transpired.

"We found the parchment in Hermione's clutches and immediately found the information about the Basilisk in it. Then there was the note on it which said that Moaning Myrtle knew about the location of the Chamber of Secrets."

"Then it clicked in my head," Harry explained, "That if the Basilisk could kill with its gaze, then the what if the girl who died the last time the Chamber of Secrets was opened never left the place which she died. What if she was there the whole time?"

Ivy and Hermione's eyes widened as they understood. Harry, who saw the expression, nodded.

"Moaning Myrtle was the girl killed by the Basilisk last time the Chamber of Secrets was opened," Harry recalled the conversation he had with the ghost. Ron, who was on the side, nodded. "Myrtle said that she was crying in a stall when she heard a boy making strange sounds while Myrtle was in the lavatory and when Myrtle stepped out, all Myrtle saw were big yellow eyes before she died."

Hermione had a strange thought that she decided to put out.

"Do you think glasses provide protection against Basilisk's glare?" Hermione asked, wondering about the information Quinn had given her and Ivy. "I mean, look at all of us who got petrified; we all saw the Basilisk's eyes indirectly. Shouldn't meeting the Basilisk's eyes through the glass count as looking at it indirectly?"

Ivy shook her head in disapproval, "I don't think so. In every case this time, the Basilisk's eyes were seen through reflections. Water, mirrors, and viewfinder, all of which showed reflections of the eyes. And, Creevey saw the Basilisk through a ghost; I don't think we can take ghost bodies and glasses as the same thing."

She looked at Harry and thought of something.

"And, even if glasses do provide protection against death by glare, then I don't think Myrtle was wearing glasses at that time."

Hermione frowned and questioned, "Why do you think that? Myrtle's ghost always has glasses on, which means she had glasses when she was alive."

"Harry said that she was crying when she was in the lavatory," Ivy jutted her chin towards Harry and said, "I have seen him cry. He always removes his glasses when he cries. I mean, doesn't everyone who wears glasses remove their glasses when they cry. So, it is reasonable to think that Myrtle wasn't wearing her glasses at that time."

Harry, who was telling them the ordeal he went through, was flabbergasted when the two girls started to talk about him crying. How did they go from Basilisk and Chamber of Secrets to him crying?

"Alright, stop talking about me crying. I don't cry," Harry said so that they could move on from the current topic and spoke the last words with some weight as if insisting on them. "Let's move on."

Ivy and Hermione giggled while Ron chuckled as he looked at his best mate. Harry felt heat rush to his cheeks and hurriedly spoke.

"So, when we asked about what she saw that day. Myrtle pointed at the sink right in front of the toilet she haunts. And, when we searched the sink, Ron found a tap with a snake on it."

Harry gave Ron a thumbs up before turning back to the girls and revealed.

"There is something that you don't know about this year is that I have been hearing voices." Harry winced when he saw Hermione and Ivy glared at him.

Ivy massaged her temple and spoke in a voice that clarified that she was holding back her anger. "I have said this a lot through the year, and I can stress this enough, but you are really an idiot! Do you know what you just-..! If you had just told us-..!"

Ivy and Hermione had gone into Quinn West's office and got caught by him and were blackmailed into being under his debt. Ivy was sure that either she or Hermione would have figured out the monster's identity with that piece of information.

And while Ivy didn't know if she would have broken into Quinn West's space. Ivy was sure she wouldn't have asked West for the monster's identity, and that would have saved her from doing a job for him.

Harry remained quiet for a while and observed his two female friends. He waited for them to calm down before continuing.

"Well, then I spoke to the tap in Parseltongue, and the whole sink came disappeared and left behind a huge hole which was the entrance to a tunnel that I think went down below Hogwarts."

He remembered the entire tunnel ride into the Chamber of Secrets. With him trying to stifle his screams and Ron loudly screaming as he slid behind him.

"When I reached the Chamber of Secrets, I saw an unconscious student there." Harry stopped to recall his name. "His name is Terence Higgins, a Slytherin."

Ivy and Hermione noticed Harry didn't show his usual reaction when he talked about Slytherin. Harry would show signs like a shallow frown or a wrinkled of his nose. But right now, he didn't show any of those. Even Ron didn't snort in derision or snarl things like bloody snakes.

Ivy even saw light sympathy in her twin's eyes. That was new, she thought.

"So, Terence Higgins was the Heir of Slytherin," Hermione asked the question.

Harry shook his head and revealed. "No, Higgins wasn't the Heir of Slytherin," he looked at the two girls and spoke, "Voldemort was the Heir of Slytherin."

Ivy and Hermione's eyes widen at the revelation.

"What do you mean Voldemort was the Heir of Slytherin?!" Hermione's voice fully expressed her shock.

"Terence Higgins was being controlled by Voldemort. Voldemort possessed him and opened the Chamber of Secrets and released the Basilisk."

Hermione was still frowning as she asked, "But, how did he possess Higgins?"

A haunted look flashed on Harry's face as he explained, "He used Tom Riddle's diary to possess Terence Higgins."

"What do you mean?"

Harry got up from his bed and walked to his desk. He picked up a piece of parchment and quill from his table and wrote something on it.

After staring at the parchment for a while, he returned to the bed. The parchment went to the middle of the bed.

Ivy, Hermione, and Ron leaned forward to look at the parchment.

*

[ TOM MARVALO RIDDLE ]

[ I AM LORD VOLDEMORT ]

*

Every letter of the first line was connected to the letters of the second line with arrowed lines.

Ivy, Hermione, and Ron were shocked to see the words transform into Voldemorts' name.

"An anagram," gasped Hermione.

"Yes, Tom Riddle was Voldemort," Harry's face was pale as he stared at the parchment. "There was a memory of Tom Riddle in that diary which could manipulate people who wrote on it."

The other three understood what that meant. Harry had that diary for some time, and in that time, he had become withdrawn and something of a recluse. Harry was under the control of Tom Riddle's diary, and they could see how that knowledge was affecting Harry. A slight change in events, and Harry could have been lying in the Chamber instead of Terence Higgins.

"Tom Riddle was the one who opened the Chamber the last time," Harry told them about the memories that Riddle had shown him. "He didn't want Hogwarts to close because of Myrtle's death, so he blamed Hagrid for it, and everyone believed it because of Aragog."

Harry then proceeded to tell them about his struggle with the Basilisk and how Fawkes, the phoenix, helped him by blinding the Basilisk and how the Sorting hat gave him the sword of Gryffindor.

"... Fawkes cried on my wound and healed them and then burst into flames. I was so scared that he died, but it turned it was just a burning day. It is normal for phoenixes, and Fawkes had exerted himself enough to trigger a rebirth from ashes."

The other three listened with silent attention. Taking in every word coming out of Harry's mouth. It wasn't every day when they heard a tale from a person who fought the Basilisk and lived to tell the fable.

"What happened after that?" asked Ron, engrossed in the story.

"Oh, then I passed out."

"You passed out?!" The same sentence came from the mouth of the three listeners.

Harry scratched the back of his head and ruffled, "Well, I had just been bitten by a Basilisk after I drove a sword through its head. I think it is normal for anyone to pass out after that."

"But what happened to the young Voldemort? Did he escape?" asked Ivy.

Harry shook his head and revealed something that surprised all.

"That is the thing. When I woke up to baby Fawkes's loud chirps, I saw that Riddle's diary had a Basilisk fang stabbed into the diary." Harry said the sentence like he couldn't figure it out. "Riddle said that he was going to use Higgin to come back to life, but when I woke up, he was still alive, and Riddle wasn't anywhere to be seen."

"But, that doesn't mean that Voldemort is gone. What if he escaped?! What is he is out there right now?!" exclaimed Ivy. Voldemort being out there scared her a lot.

Harry shook his head and refuted Ivy's worries, "Professor Dumbledore told me that when the diary was stabbed with the Basilisk fang, the memory of Tom Riddle inside was destroyed. He assured me that Tom Riddle didn't return to life. He was destroyed with the diary."

Ivy, Hermione, and Ron breathed a sigh of relief at that. Dumbledore's assurance was all they needed to believe that Voldemort wasn't returning as Tom Riddle.

"What I don't understand is that who stabbed the diary. There wasn't anyone in the Chamber other than Riddle and I." Harry glanced at Ron and said. "Neither did Ron see anyone entering the Chamber."

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Ivy and Hermoine shot quick and discreet glances at each other.

Someone entered the Chamber, he says? Which meant that someone knew the Chamber's location. And, both of them knew someone who fit that description.

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- (Scene Break) -

"Hey, Ivy?" muttered Hermione as the two climbed down the stairs from the boys' dormitory to the common room. "Do you think..."

"It might be him," answered Ivy. "But we can't be sure. It could be entirely someone else."

Both girls knew who they were talking about. The person who had given them the information about the Basilisk knew the Chamber's location.

"I am sure that even if we asked him. He would deny everything," added Ivy.

Hermione nodded at that.

"What about the payment? What do we about it?"

The two girls exited the staircase as Ivy answered. "We need to get West what he wanted. I don't know what he will do if we don't get him the Marauder's Map."

She jutted her chin across the common room and spoke, "And we are going to do it now."

Hermione looked in the direction Ivy pointed at and saw the Weasley twins huddled together in one corner.

The two walked over to the twins, and Ivy spoke,

"Fred, George, we need to talk."

Weasley twins looked up from whatever they were doing and spoke in their usual twin-speak.

"Ivy," "Hermione," "What can we" "do for you today?"

Ivy wasted no time and got to the point.

"I want you to give me the Marauder's Map."

The identical twins made identical expressions of surprise. They looked at each other before staring at Ivy and asked.

"Why do you" "want the map?" "No, let us ask," "How did you know" "about the map?"

Ivy sighed as she answered, "My father is part of Marauders. He told me about the map. Now, give it to me."

The Weasley twins' jaw dropped as I stunned them at the sudden revelation.

"James Potter," "Senior Auror," "Is a Marauder?" "You must be joking!"

"No, he is Prongs. Do you know about that name?" she said, giving them proof her father was a part of the Marauders.

The twins nodded in unison and perfect coordination.

"Good, so now give me the map. I really need it."

Fred, or maybe it was George, took out a folded parchment from his pocket and handed it to Ivy.

The daughter of Prongs took the parchment and awkwardly stared at it as she didn't know what it was. She licked her lips before asking the twins."Dad didn't tell me what it was or how it works," she spoke. "Tell me about it."

'Ah, I should have given this more thought,' she thought simultaneously.

Fred took the map from Ivy's hands and laid it on the floor. He gestured his twins and the girls to stand facing towards the wall to create a barrier.

"This, Ivy, is the secret of our success," said Fred, patting the parchment, fondly.

"It's a wrench, giving it to you," said George, "but your father did make it, so we guess it can't be helped."

"Anyway, we know it by heart," said Fred. "We bequeath it to you. We don't really need it anymore."

Ivy and Hermione noticed that the twin-speak had gone down. Even though they spoke in turns, they weren't completing each other's sentences.

'The map must be genuinely important to them,' she thought.

"Ah, we got emotional," said George, wiping an imaginary tear with his finger. "Explain, Fred."

"Well... when we were in our first year, Ivy - young, carefree, and innocent -"

Ivy snorted. She doubted whether Fred and George had ever been innocent.

"-well, more innocent than we are now - we got into a spot of bother with Filch."

"We let off a Dungbomb in the corridor, and it upset him for some reason-" "-So, he hauled us off to his office and started threatening us with the usual -." "-Detentions, disembowelment. It was then -," "- we couldn't help noticing a drawer in one of his filing cabinets marked Confiscated and Highly Dangerous."

"Don't tell me -" gasped Hermione. Ivy gave her friend a side look, the rule-abiding witch had stolen from Snape; why was she acting so shocked now.

'Not that I am the one to talk,' thought Ivy, having stolen from Filch.

"George caused a diversion by dropping another Dungbomb. I whipped the drawer open and grabbed - this." pointing at the folded parchment.

"It's not as bad as it sounds, you know," said George. "We don't reckon Filch ever found out how to work it. He probably suspected what it was, though, or he wouldn't have confiscated it."

"And you know how to work it?" asked Ivy, getting curious about the parchment's functionality.

"Oh yes," said Fred, smirking. "This little beauty's taught us more than all the teachers in this school."

"Get to the point," sighed Ivy.

George smiled as he took out his wand, touched the parchment lightly, and said,

"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

And at once, thin ink lines began to spread like a spider's web from the point that George's wand had touched. They joined each other, they crisscrossed, they fanned into every corner of the parchment; then words began to blossom across the top, great, curly words, that proclaimed:

「Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers are proud to present -」

「THE MARAUDER'S MAP.」

It was a map showing every detail of the Hogwarts castle and grounds. But the truly remarkable thing was the tiny ink dots moving around it, each labeled with a name in minuscule writing.

Astounded, Ivy and Hermione bent over it.

A labeled dot in the top left corner showed that Professor Dumbledore was pacing his study; the caretaker's cat, Mrs. Norris, was prowling the second floor; and Peeves, the Poltergeist, was currently bouncing around the trophy room. And as Ivy's eyes traveled up and down the familiar corridors, she noticed something else.

This map showed a set of passages she had never entered.

"Hidden passages are littered around Hogwarts," said Fred and George continued for him, "Passages that go out to Hogsmeade, or passages that connect different parts of the castle."

"Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs," sighed George, patting the heading of the map. "We owe them so much."

"Noblemen, working tirelessly to help a new generation of lawbreakers," said Fred solemnly.

"Right," said George briskly. "Don't forget to wipe it after you've used it -" "- or anyone can read it," Fred said warningly.

"Just tap it again and say," "Mischief managed!" "And it'll go blank."

Ivy traced her finger on the map as if trying to find someone, and finally, her finger stopped on the fifth floor, in the West corner, at a certain classroom.

「Quinn West」

George saw Ivy's finger stopping on Quinn's name. "Ah, little lord West -" "- the information broker, the all-knowing Ravenclaw." completed Fred.

"Now that I remember, he knows about the map, doesn't he, my less handsome twin?"

"Yes, he does. It was a big surprise, wasn't it?"

Ivy looked at them with shock and said, "You two know that he knows about the map?"

"Oh, yes. We don't know how West knows about it -" "- but he does. It was a surprise back then, but now?-" "- now it just seems normal given that he seems to know everything."

Fred and George had plenty of interaction with the Quinn West. They regularly employed Quinn West for testing out their trick potions. It was a boon for them because they didn't need to check the trick/prank potions on themselves.

The twins didn't know how he did it, but Quinn West would modify the potion recipes and return recipes that would be better than before and perfectly safe to consume with no lasting effects. Perfect for prank potions.

"We occasionally have tried to follow him -" "- but he would always slip away from us." "He probably knows the castle-" "-as well as we do."

The twins saluted and said in unison, "We can respect that."

"So, young ladies," said Fred, in an uncanny impersonation of Percy, "mind you behave yourself."

"See you girls later," said George, winking.

The twins bounced away, leaving behind Ivy and Hermione with the map with them.

It was time to go back to the place they were held captive and talk to the devil.

Harry Potter - Boy-who-lived - After being bitten by the Basilisk, that is.

Ron Weasley - Didn't do much - But, props for bravery.

Ivy Potter - Nani Intensifies! - Obtained [Marauder's Map] x1

Hermione Granger - Un-petrified - Bullocks!

Fred and George - Weasley Twins - ... Goodbye, map - Man, they are superb guys, aren't they?!

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