Chapitre 20: Chapter 20-
While this was happening, in the Griffindor common room however things were different.
"Padfoot! Have you seen the map and my cloak, I can't find it," James said digging through his trunk where he had locked it.
"Maybe Ricky took it," Remus offered, not looking up from his book.
"He couldn't have," James disagreed, "You can't steal something you don't know exists and I never told Ricky about them."
Sirius shook out his pack and the James' on the floor, pens, wrappers, and random strips of paper fell scattered across the floor. "Maybe it was Wormtail," he said, squinting at the pile on the floor and reaching for Remus' bag, Remus zapped him with a stinging hex.
Sirius yipped and backed away from the werewolf's book laden bag.
"It better not have been," James growled.
For his part Sirius was already devising a plan in order to get back at that rat, until a sound broke him out of his thoughts and turned to fund the source.
Suddenly they're door of the room bursted open revealing a young man with light brown hair and forest blue eyes. He was rather tall, but also rather skinny.
His name was Lawson Whittaker, to be honest nobody really knew much about the bloke. He was a rather quiet and withdrawn guy, since first year nobody got close to him, nor did he go out of his way to do so either.
The Whittaker's were an up and coming family, they can barely be counted a pure blood one since they've blood can only be traced back for only eight generations.
But one thing was for sure, they were filthy rich. Both in the muggle side and as well as the magical side.
He can recall many days noth his father and grandfather complaining about how ruthless that bloddy family was when it came to business, and to quote the words of his grand uncle 'only those bloddy goblins are worst'.
As a whole the family also kept to itself, as a matter of fact none of it's members had ever married a pure blood woman from Britain.
No the Whittakers had purposely married outside of the UK, they reson was that the pure blood gene pool in the UK are to connected.
Sirius however was broken from his thoughts when Lawson spoke.
"Let's keep this short and sweet fellas, that rat you kicked out is now buking in my dorm. And I do not want to associate with him, he snores, he smells bad, and he is a creep. Every time I look at him I want to throttle him, so here is the deal. I will move into your room, and before you protest I would like to remind you that I know your little secret."
The three looked at him with a blank mask on, doing their best not to show the panic that they were no doubt feeling right about now.
Rolling his eyes Lawson pointed his finger at Remus before he continued to speak, Remus is a werewolf, and you lot are animagi's, and for your information I've known since first year about Lupin and I don't care, now than which bed is mine?"
The three Marauders stood there dumbfounded, it was Remus who pointed at the empty bed in the corner.
Setting his trunk on the bed, Lawson Whittaker proceeded to unpack completely ignoring the three frozen teenagers behind him.
Elsewhere in Hogwarts, Andromeda was quite confused.
This was not how she expected the night to go. Perhaps they might have found an empty classroom, or even a broom cupboard, but sneaking into Moaning Myrtle's bathroom under an invisibility cloak hadn't made the list.
She walked behind him, because as she a bit taller, especially in her boots, she could see over his shoulder easily. His hair really was wild, and it smelled floral as if he used some type of hand soap on his hair.
"Why are we here?" she whispered in his ear, delighting in the full body shiver she caused him.
He reached his left hand back to touch her arm and led her to the sinks, he stopped at one and bent forward a bit.
He hissed at the little metal snake. Said little metal snake came alive and things in the wall began to move. He stepped back and she stepped with him. A tunnel appeared and Moaning Myrtle cried out into the room,
"Who's there!?"
Ricky ducked out from the cloak and slipped down the tunnel, not waiting for her.
Andromeda stared into the dark abyss, her thoughts muddled, and she couldn't place exactly what she had gotten herself into. She stood there for a minute, the invisibility cloak draped over her like a veil, putting it together that this must be the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets.
Bella would be so jealous.
She sat down on the lip of the tunnel and pushed forward.
In a rush of air, she sped down the tunnel and was propelled forward into Ricky's waiting arms. It would have been perfectly splendid if it wasn't for the crunch of small animal bones beneath her feet or the cloak between them.
Once she caught her balance, he released her and swept the invisibility cloak over her head, folding it into his pack.
"This way," he said, picking a seemingly unmarked tunnel, "Watch out for the ceilings, they aren't all stable."
"What do you mean they aren't stable?"
"I am pretty sure we are beneath the lake, you can touch the cave walls and what not, you could probably withstand you punching or kicking them if you feel the need, but they won't withstand a blast from a spell."
"Noted," she said blandly, becoming less impressed with the 'Chamber of Secrets' by the minute.
That was until they came to another fancy door with a rather impressive relief of several serpents.
Again, Ricky hissed at them, and this time she recognized it for what it was.
The door opened and he went in, only to pop his head back around the entrance to look at her where she had been frozen on the stopped.
She couldn't keep the astonishment on her face.
"Andromeda?" he asked.
"You're a parselmouth," she stated.
He nodded.
"My parents are going to adore you," she breathed.
He raised a brow at her tone, "Is that a problem?"
She shook her head, then laughed, "No, no. I just thought it would be an impossibility. Why weren't you sorted into Slytherin? Every Parselmouth, ever, has been sorted into Slytherin House."
He shook his head, "I'm here to kill Salazar's Basilisk, not make friends with it. I'm all for scary, dangerous, magical monsters, but this thing was made by wizards to kill children."
Her eyes widened, "A Basilisk?"
"What did you think the rooster for?" he asked as if she were the crazy one in this equation.
"Indeed," she said dryly, "naturally, rooster, Basilisk, never one without the other."
"First time I did this was with a sword, this will be far safer," he said, then he bit his lip, and his eyes slid away from hers, as if he had something he shouldn't have.
First time.
She narrowed her eyes at him. Sweet, little, muggle-raised, Hufflepuff her arse. But she wouldn't push, not here, not now.
Ricky Potter wasn't escaping her, he was hers whether he knew it or not, whether he accepted it or not. She had time to strip him of his secrets.
And she would savour every reveal.
They walked side by side into the antechamber that was both magnificent and egotistical.
Did Salazar have self obsession complex? Who made this many sculptures of themselves?
Men. She nearly rolled her eyes as they walked closer to the statues.
Ricky had them hide around a corner and she couldn't help but ask, "Won't it be able to smell us?"
He nodded, "It will, but it won't think to at first. You need to wait until it slithers out onto the floor before making a rooster, I do not want to crawl into that secondary hidey hole."
He pulled out a clean looking kerchief from his bag and doubled it with a charm. He held one out to her, "Just to be safe, I have bezoar if we get a bite but the gaze of it is instantaneous death."
She knew that, but didn't chastise him for the reminder. She took the kerchief, but instead of putting it on herself, she reached forward and gently removed his glasses. His eyes flickered shut, waiting.
He was pretty for a man, more than handsome, his features were graceful, something his glasses had distracted her from noticing.
She folded them and hung them on the collar of his robes. She brought the blindfold up and tied it behind his head, running her fingers through his curls.
His mouth parted in a soft escalation, and she couldn't help but lay a kiss those soft lips. He didn't fight her, and he kissed her back as sweetly as she kissed him.
She had kissed boys before, mostly Ravenclaws who she had helped distract as Bella sabotaged their homework.
But those boys had been slobbering, breathy idiots, too astounded to being kissed by one of the Black Sisters to think or respond as a partner.
They just took what they had thought they wanted.
In the end, none of them had taken anything, and what she and her sisters had given them they found out they hadn't wanted.
But Ricky was different, not quite passive, just highly responsive, waiting for her lead and giving as good as he got.
She was never going to let him go. She pulled back and put a hand to the side of his throat, feeling the rapid flutter of his heart beat.
She smiled, who she could learn to like this one.
He pointed his wand to his throat, performing some charm. He offered her the second kerchief, but she didn't take it, wondering what he would do. Blindly, he fumbled as he raised the cloth to her face, once his hand bumped her face, he seemed to steady. Deftly, he tied the blindfold behind her head, returning her gesture by running his hand through her hair. It was her turn to shiver.
When next he spoke, his voice came from the opposite side of the chamber, his hissing filling the darkness.
The sound of stone shifting over stone grated against her senses. She had a moment to wonder how they would know when the snake touched the floor, but after a few minutes, she heard the sound of scales moving across stone. It was as if somewhere were dragging large matt.
The thing hissed and Ricky hissed back, it touched the ground.
In English, he called, "Now, Andromeda!"
She pointed her wand toward the wall where she had seen a small pile of rocks, and visualized a rooster. She knew she had succeed but the useless creature didn't caw, the snake was moving toward where Harry's voice had been project to, further into the room.
Andromeda transfigured more rooster, none of the buggers made so much as a garble.
Furious she tried to think of what made them caw.
"Lumous," she whispered, raising her wand.
The snake seemed swoosh around, if the sound of rain on a metal roof was any indication.
Ricky began to hiss rapidly, and she realized how stupid her reaction had been.
Luckily for them both, several roosters cawed.
The Basilisk let an almighty screech, it hit the ground like a tree falling on the forest floor.
She ripped off her blindfold and looked at the monster she had just killed with a cock.
The thing was huge, and Harry approached it like it was just par for the course.
He slipped on a pair of dragonhide gloves one used for potions, an extra strip of leather. Out of his pack, he pulled out six hand held makeup knits of different colors and a journal, a quill, and an ink bottle.
Harry sat beside the head of the slain snake, opened the journal and the ink bottle, dipped his quill into the well, and began to write.
"What are you doing?" she asked, crouching beside him so she could read what he was writing.
It read thus:
I've slain your pet Basilisk. Now, I am going to kill you, you stupid Horcrux and all your friends. Die Tommy Boy, die.
The words faded into the page and the words emerged on the page that Ricky did not write.
Who are you?
Ricky's response was short: Your worst nightmare.
With that, he closed the journal, laid it on the ground beside the others. He turned, wrenged one of the snake's fangs out of its mouth, which explained the dragonhide gloves, with his full body weight, and brought the fang down in a stabbing motion.
Wailing filled the chamber, as black smoke was released into the room.
He didn't waste time in stabbing the next one, it too, wailed with a release of black smoke.
He proceeded to do that for all six makeup kits, and they all had the same reaction.
When she looked in his pack, a silver gleam caught her eye. In it she saw a tiara, a locket, and a cup.
The tiara somehow looked way too familiar, and soon she realized what it was.
"Is that Ravenclaw's Diadem?" she asked suddenly, realizing that locket must have been Salazar's and that the cup had been Helga Hufflepuff's.
"Yep. I am a collector of sorts, well anyways help me put this basilisk in the trunk"
Looking down she saw him unshrink a large trunk with an expanded space inside of it.
"You so weren't muggle raised," she muttered as she pointed her wand at the founders artifacts.
He cocked a smile at her, "Sure, I was. My bedroom was the cupboard under the stairs. My old best friend used to be terrified of spiders, but I had to sleep with them, as long as I didn't try to squish them, they didn't bite me. Not even in my sleep."
She stared down at him where he rested on his knees prepared to move the dead body of a sixty foot basilisk.
He was a conundrum.
"Ready?" he asked.
She gave a short nod.
It took almost an hour or so to get the body inside the trunk, since basilisk hide is extremely magic resistant.
"Well," he said, "that wasn't so bad."
She let that pass. "At least that is the last of those nasty Horcruxes."
"Nope, there's another one that I don't know how to get rid of without getting myself killed."
"So, one more, plus the dark lord himself. How do you know all this?"
He shrugged, stood, and brushed the dust off himself. "Thank you for your help," he said.
She frowned at him, "You will have to tell me what's going on at some point."
He smiled at her, "Do I?"
"Yes."
He stepped toward her, and for the first time, initiated a kiss, a kiss bold and as lovely as his smirk.
When he pulled back, it was her who was at a loss for words.
"I'm not the only one with secrets, Ms. Black."
He wasn't wrong.
After walking her to the Slytherin common room where he proceeded to snog her senseless once more he made his way back to the Owlery, before making his way to his own common room and retiring for the night.
The next day Albus Dumbledore received a very odd, a very worrying package.
Inside the small package was a bezoar, a Basilisk fang, along with Hufflepuff's Cup, Ravenclaw's Diadem, Slytherin's Locket, all three in pristine condition an old journal with the name Tom Marvolo Riddle on it with a hole in the middle, and oddest of all, set inside a protected smaller box, was a pair of socks with phoenix's on them, next to that was small block of fabric.
Albus rather liked the socks.
All of the objects had been presumably stabbed by the Basilisk fang -aside from the bezoar and delightful magenta socks, with red and orange phoenixes on them.
A note that had been spelled to be untraceable, the letters were written with a self writing quill so not even the handwriting could be traced.
Dear Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore,
One might suggest you research a book by the title 'Secrets of the Darkest Arts' and one might also suggest you look into the doings, whereabouts, and associates of one Tom Marvolo Riddle.
The bezoar is just in case you cut yourself on the fang -one would suggest you don't cut yourself on said fang, seeing as Salazar's Monster's poison is, in fact, quite poisonous. Although, your familiar could save you with a bit of sorrow.
Anyway, please enjoy the socks, the only thing magical about them is their fantastic design. They seemed very you, thus why they were included.
Also give Fawkes a treat, he's a good a bird.
Stay Safe,
Antiochus Themistocles Peverell
P.S. Quid pro quo Albus, please keep that wand safe for a whilel onger, i shall come to collect it soon. After all it is high time she returns home.
Albus felt profoundly confused, and for the life of him, he could not begin to guess how a Peverell might could have remained unknown for so long, or how they might know he had the elder wand, nor his favorite present was socks.
He steeled himself for the inevitable show down he and the man will have soon, but when he looked at the socks he could not help but smile.
Whomever he was, he sure had a sense of humor. The Phoenix on the socks were batting their wings, and purple flames were dancing around them.
When he picked the piece of fabric he quickly realized what it was.
It was a shrunken robe, it was the color of the socks with the same design on it. The Phoenix flew all over it leaving streaks of purple flames all over it.
Albus lost himself in glees after seeing this, and the entire room was filled with laughter.
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone