kbinnz - Harry's New Home

"Harry. He said he wanted to go the Chamber? The Chamber of Secrets?" Dumbledore leaned forward urgently.

Harry shrugged. "He just said 'the chamber'. I'm not sure which one he meant."

Dumbledore and Snape exchanged a look. If the Dark Lord knew where Salazar Slytherin's hidden Chamber wasтАж

"So then Quirrell tried to grab me, but when he touched me, it burned his skin," Harry continued, oblivious to the looks on the adults' faces. "Voldevont said that it was something to do with my mum and told Quirrell just to AK all of us."

This time it was Arthur who whimpered and dragged Ron away from Molly and onto his lap. "Dad!" Ron protested, happily indignant.

"But I figured that if it hurt him when he touched me, it would hurt him when I touched him, so I grabbed him," Harry explained simply.

"He started to burn up," Hermione added. Ron was being held too tightly to speak. "You could smell it тАУ I mean, he smelled awful even before that тАУ"

Dumbledore nodded. "He had been using garlic to try to mask the odor of death and decay that clung to the remnant of Voldemort's soul."

"- But after the turban came off, it was just disgusting. Then when Harry grabbed him, you could smell the burning flesh." Hermione looked ill, and everyone in the room independently decided to have a salad for dinner that night.

"It was working. He was screaming and he fell to one knee," Harry put in.

"And it didn't hurt you?" Snape demanded.

"I wasn't burned," Harry answered cagily.

"No, but there was something wrong," Hermione butted in, oblivious to Harry's groan of annoyance. Why did girls always have to ruin your story?

"I could see that he was hurting Harry, so I тАУ erm тАУ I ran forward and, uh, I sort ofтАж kicked him?" she ended uncertainly.

"Oooh, did she ever!" Harry crowed, his moment of pique over. "She kicked him right in the bollocks!"

"Blimey, did he yell!" Ron managed to put in.

"Boy Who Lived Saved by Girl Who Kicked You-Know-Who You-Know-Where," Skeeter hissed.

Hermione beamed, rather taken with this new title.

"And that pulled him away from me, an' I was feelin' kinda dizzy," Harry took up the tale again, "so it was a moment before I could grab him again."

"He was draining your magical core," Snape said furiously, giving Harry's shoulder a little shake. "You foolish, idiotic child!"

"Is that what it was?" Harry asked in surprise. "It felt like there was a part of me that was getting pulled into Him."

Hermione continued, "So I called to Ron to do something, and тАУ"

"- And I saw the pumpkin. I thought maybe Harry could use it, so I levitated it, an' then he yelled for me to send it over, so I grabbed a piece of the broken chair an' I pretended it was a bludger an' knocked it to him."

"Quidditch Prodigy Helps Boy Who Lived Defeat Dark Lord," Skeeter whispered to her busy quill.

"And 'Mione Stuck him to the floor an' he was so busy insulting her, he didn't see what I was doing. So I brought the pumpkin over on top of his head and then I let it drop," Harry finished quietly.

There was a moment of silence as they all pictured that in their minds. Then "Pumpkin Power тАУ The Boy Who Lived's Secret Debt to Vegetables."

"Oh, for тАУ " Minerva had had enough. "One more absurd headline out of you, Miss Skeeter, and I will transfigure your chair into a cactus!"

"Hmf!" Skeeter sniffed in outrage, but Snape noted she cast a silencing bubble around herself.

"It was at this point that the faculty and I arrived, having been summoned by the castle's wards," Dumbledore explained to Fudge. "I believe that the moment the turban came off, Voldemort was revealed and our newly strengthened wards were triggered. No one but a Dark Wizard of enormous power тАУ that is to say, Voldemort тАУ could have engendered a reaction quite so strong, so of course most of the faculty rushed to confront him. A few seconds after Quirrell's demise, Voldemort's shade, for lack of a better term, left the body. I don't know if it was looking for a new host, but with all of us right there, it fled."

Fudge puffed out his breath, eyes big. "This тАУ this тАУ"

"- Is extremely concerning," Bones cut in smoothly. "Though it would seem that, with the departure of He Who Must Not Be Named, the issue is moot, at least for the moment."

"Yes!" Fudge grabbed the lifeline. "Exactly! Be sure you put that in the paper," he said to the reporter. "You Know Who is gone. The public need not worry. We have everything under control."

Skeeter nodded and mumbled тАУ inaudibly тАУ to herself, as Dumbledore got to his feet, signalling the end of the meeting. The rest followed the Headmaster's example and as the handshakes and farewells took place, Snape glanced over at Lucius. How would these events sway the man's allegiance?

Lucius contented himself with giving Snape inscrutable looks while Fudge and Bones took their leave of Dumbledore. Soon the others were gone, leaving only Hogwarts staff, students, and parents behind. Lucius had, predictably, declined the opportunity to speak with his son, claiming an important business meeting back in the city.

"Perhaps your parents would like a tour of the school, Miss Granger? And Mr Weasley, a few things have changed since your parents' days тАУ why don't the three of you accompany the Grangers? Then perhaps you can join the school for lunch before you depart," he suggested to the adults.

The Grangers and Weasleys agreed, and Minerva offered to take them around. Albus escorted a still-convalescent Poppy back to the Infirmary, leaving Snape and Harry alone.

"Are you really mad?" Harry asked unhappily.

"What do you think?" Snape retorted. "Pranking the Dark Lord, indeed!"

"I didn't know it was Him," Harry protested.

"Oh, so pranking a professor is acceptable behavior?" Snape sneered.

"No," Harry admitted, flushing, "but it's not dangerous. It's just тАУ y'know тАУ naughty."

"If you imagine that you are not going to be disciplined for your outrageous conduct тАУ"

"But I didn't mean to do anything dangerous. I mean, it was Quirrell," Harry argued. He didn't want his professor to think he had deliberately defied his most important precepts. "We thought he was just strange and stinky. You didn't know he had Voldevert in his head, did you?"

"Of course not!" Snape huffed, insulted. Did the brat imagine he would have allowed such a threat to remain in his vicinity?

"Well then I don't see why you're mad that I didn't." Harry felt rather bold, arguing with his guardian like this. He would never before have dared to protest, but he had a suspicion that Snape wouldn't mind.

"I suppose you'll again suggest the Headmaster is to blame?" Snape demanded, privately rather pleased that Harry was no longer behaving like a whipped puppy, cowering away from punishment. Obviously those impudent Gryffindors were rubbing off on him.

"Well, isn't it his job to make sure we're safe? An' to pick the professors who teach here?" Harry pointed out reasonably.

"You are trying to obfuscate matters," Snape declared. "The issue before us is your atrocious behavior. How do you think your friends feel, knowing that you used Miss Granger's indisposition as an excuse to attack Quirrell? Don't you think she feels hurt by your mendacious expressions of concern?" Harry's lack of reaction convinced him that his suspicions were well-founded. The whole thing had been a set up and the other two had been co-conspirators right from the start.

Snape felt a bit misty eyed тАУ his ward's first plot, and it was quite the Slytherin one. Nothing like the 'in-your-face' antics of his father and godfather. This was sneaky and subtle and Harry had even managed to fool both Dumbledore and McGonagall as to his motives and confederates. The boy had real potential.