After exiting the gaping wound in the girls’ lavatory, the Half-Wits of the Round Table each dragged their tired and depleted carcasses to their respective beds, where they respectively zonked out through any attempts to wake up.
“Dumbledore’s back, Harry, Dumbledore’s back!” Cedric shouted at his red-haired friend, yet received no answer.
“He’s being re-instituted as headmaster!”
Harry slept.
“Slytherin’s monster has been defeated, can you believe it? Apparently, it was Professor Snape!”
Harry slept.
Cedric, having gotten annoyed at receiving no reply, used one last-ditch sentence before seriously considering resorting to a water bucket instead.
“Professor Vector and Sinistra are streaking through the castle, they’ve only got their undies!” Cedric shouted dramatically.
“Huh!? What, where?” Harry suddenly exclaimed, shaking himself awake and looking at the world through a pair of bleary eyes.
“Screw you!” Cedric suddenly screamed and stormed off, leaving behind a confused wizard still grappling with the reality of what had transpired last night.
“Wait, he was lying?” Harry questioned softly, before shaking his head and laying back down, head on a soft pillow, body under warm cover.
A horrible racket coming from the common room suddenly became palpable to his ears. It was the combination of a hundred kids screaming, a million vuvuzelas and ten times more fireworks.
In other words, a magical party.
Harry strongly considered casting a muffling charm on himself and going back to sleep.
Eventually, however, he decided against it and dragged himself out of bed.
He felt like a wrung-out towel. The liquid that had been removed? All the blood in his body.
He slowly got dressed, for once doing so by hand instead of using one of the many household charms he’d mastered all those years ago.
The robe was rumpled, the tie was askew, and there was a suspicious blood stain on the front. Basilisk, probably.
Harry didn’t care and promptly exited the dorm room, after which he immediately stumbled into Nevill, who'd been standing before his door, hand raised to knock.
“Harry!” Neville exclaimed with a broad grin on his face. “Dumbledore called us to his office, let’s go!”
“What got you so excited?” Harry grumbled as he followed the boy who lived down the stairs into the pandemonium of the common room.
It was chaos, or at least, as much chaos as a party of under-18s only could be. There was butterbeer, fireworks and screaming. Harry was fairly sure he saw one girl wearing only a bra.
“All that energy finally came out, huh?” Harry asked with a shake of his head, a small tugging at his lips. Months of oppression and fear, only to hear the good news right before the start of the winter vacation? It was good timing, this whole basilisk business.
“Evans!” an older boy suddenly shouted, shoving a plastic tube into his hand.
“Evans!” Someone else suddenly screamed,d and Harry found himself unceremoniously lifted up by two burly guys he recognised as the beaters of the Quidditch team.
Harry looked at the tube in his hand, followed its winding length to where a seventh year was holding up the end, which had a large funnel.
“I’m fourteen, bro!” Harry shouted with a loud laugh at the guy.
The older Hufflepuff just laughed and raised the funnel into the air. “Hufflepuff Champion, Hufflepuff Champion, Hufflepuff Champion!” he started chanting loudly.
The chant was quickly picked up by several students surrounding the odd group.
“Hufflepuff Champion, Hufflepuff Champion, Hufflepuff Champion, Hufflepuff Champion, Hufflepuff Champion, Hufflepuff Champion, Hufflepuff Champion!” Slowly but surely, more and more students turned around and joined the shouts, at which point Harry did something he wasn’t entirely proud of. He put the tube ending right into his mouth and looked at the ceiling.
A second later, a rush of burning liquid rammed itself straight into his throat like a horse dick on viagra. He choked, he sputtered, but not before swallowing a significant amount of the liquid.
The tube was promptly spat out of his mouth, and he looked down to glare at the seventh year and the bottle of firewhisky in his hand. A burp made its way up his throat, at which he had to tilt his head back to release a gout of flame. Three fireballs was what it took to get the thing out of his system.
Harry looked back at the seventh year.
“That ain’t butterbeer, you dumb motherfucker!” Harry roared with a laugh. “You trynna kill me!?”
The response to that was naturally… “Hufflepuff Champion, Hufflepuff Champion, Hufflepuff Champion, Hufflepuff Champion, Hufflepuff Champion, Hufflepuff Champion, Hufflepuff Champion!”
The beaters holding Harry up lowered him onto his own two feet, at which point he stumbled to where Neville was looking at him dumbfoundedly, as if seeing him for the first time.
“Let’s get out of here!” Harry shouted through the racket. “They’re going crazy.”
The two of them muscled their way towards the exit of the dorms, where they finally managed to stumble out into some more fresh air.
“Bloody hell,” Neville groaned. “That was something else.”
“Imagine the party they’ll throw when they find out it was us who killed that dumb monster,” Harry retorted in a voice that was quickly becoming more and more slurred.
Neville blushed red in the face at that and looked down, refusing to meet Harry’s gaze.
“Technically, it was Professor Snape,” Neville replied in a low voice.
“Yeah, but we’re students, it’s more impressive that way!”
“You took on Voldemort, Professor Snape took on a basilisk. I was just useless,” Neville muttered.
“Neville,” Harry said, trying to be somewhat serious. The unfortunate reality, however, was that he was drunk and trippin, so what came out sounded more like. “Debille.” He continued. “You took a killinng curse to teh face, nott once, bbut twicce in your life. iLterally noboddy else could havve done that.”
“Well, it wasn’t really necessary, was it?” Neville said somewhat sarcastically.
Harry put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and shook it. “It was absolutely necessary! Do youuu have any idea how piissed OfF Voldeeeommmtr must be?” he slurred as they stumbled along, Neville supporting the older boy on their way to the seventh floor.
“I’d rather he be dead than pissed,” Neville muttered.
“dDDno't wwrory bbbaout it. YYou di What yOu aHhhhd 2 d-ddddOoo, o-orrrr wat oyyyu endeed up doing. Forgggte abOUttt iit…” Harry said passionately as he let himself get dragged more and more stairs. He was starting to dissociate from reality. Everything was blurring together. The world, the magic, the sounds. Firewhisky was a spirit. 40%. He’d drunk Merlin knows how many shots straight onto a young and mostly unburdened liver.
“I dOnnn't efe t-hAt oooooo EeeeNvIiiiillle. v-vvvvEeeeeeyrthhng Is sssspiiiinniign,” he muttered eventually, letting himself lay heavy and thus dragging himself to sit on the floor, Neville coming down right alongside him.
“Are you ok?” the boy who lived asked, worriedly as he bent down to look at Harry in his fuzzy green eyes.
“I o-ooN'T tiKkNn so…” Harry was gone, but not too far gone, before the situation could get any worse. He decisively stuck his pointer and middle finger down his throat, wearily leaned to the side and ejected a surge of foul-smelling liquid onto the stone floor of Hogwarts.
“BetTr ootuuu thAn Iiiiin!” he said loudly between barfs, burping a vomit bubble from his lips before spitting it out.
“Merlin’s balls,” Neville muttered quietly as he distanced himself, pulling out his wand to cast a scourgify.
Harry retched. “IIII shouldn'T HHhvae, AtttteeeEn thhhtttaaaa tube Neeeivlle. never... Take... tE ttubbe…”
“Scourgify, scourgify, scourgify!”
Harry was now on all fours, stomach heaving, chin wet. While his oesophagus suffered, he managed to force out a few more words. “You're a good boy, nEville. Anyyyon givee oyu sommmteeeihng a a part, youuu don't drinkk ittt. Don't drink thatt stuf.”
“Yeah, I got that one,” Neville said with a shaky voice.
Harry didn’t say anything anymore, simply looking at the stone floor beneath him as it slowly stopped spinning and began a gentle rocking motion that he could just about deal with.
“Let's geet to the hEadmasttre. Let's talk to that oldiie. What does he wwanT. A trillon billin points to Gryffindor?” he said slowly as he walked in a zig zag down the corridor, threatening to fall into the armour on the left, on the right and then on the left again.
“Maybe we should wait a bit?” Neville suggested kindly, running to catch up and put a hand on Harry’s shoulder.
Harry shrugged him off. “I'mm f-fiine!” he shouted angrily. “I'm better than u, in fct! Lett's geet htis over with, I wannna get backk tot he parTy.”
“You want to get back to the party!?” Neville screamed in a high-pitched voice.
“This is what it loooks llkie to hhvvae fun Neviille, be a little british for once in your life for fecks s-sakke!” Harry screamed as the duo finally arrived in front of the gargoyle, just in time for the gargoyle to open and the dark-cloaked figure of their defence professor to step out of the spiral staircase.
Snape paused and looked down at the still wasted Harry and the worrying Neville.
He looked at them intensely, up, down, down, up. Eventually, he chose to say nothing, turned to the right and walked off.
“HHHHlaF-iwts ooff thhhheeee r-rooNd tabl!” Harry screamed excitedly as he rushed into the medieval elevator used to reach the headmaster’s office.
“I prefer the dimwands,” Neville muttered softly before shaking his head and following.
-/-
“Are you quite alright, my boy?” Dumbledore asked with a twinkle in his eye as he looked at the two students in his office.
“Never been bEtterr,” Harry answered loudly while Neville simply nodded.
“Severus did already tell me most of what occurred this early morning,” Dumbledore continued. “I must say I’m simply satisfied everyone came out unscatched.”
“We couldn’t let the ministry take over Hogwarts,” Neville blustered with a blush, which Harry soon interrupted.
“You’re welcomee!” he said a bit too loudly with a self-satisfied nod.
“I was wondering, if possible, could you give me a memory of your duel with the cloaked figure?” the headmaster continued politely.
“A memory?” Neville asked with a confused look on his face.
Harry, meanwhile, had already brought the tip of his wand to his temple, wondered for a moment if it was a good idea to do this while drunk, before shrugging.
He’d researched memory extraction, manipulation and storage and had even practised a bit of what he could. Funnily enough, the process of extracting a memory was somewhat similar to casting a Patronus. One needed to focus on a singular memory in all its detail.
A silver glow emerged from the tip of Harry’s wand, and he slowly unfurled a strand of memory from his head.
He didn’t lose the memory, of course, just copied it.
Dumbledore silently handed him a crystal vial, into which Harry quickly deposited his extract.
He furrowed his brows, feeling some of the drunkenness leave him as he cast magic. A sigh, it had been fun while it lasted. Plausible deniability and blame towards an overeager older year as the excuse.
“Blowing open the entrance, it’s funny what one doesn’t think of,” Dumbledore mused. “This time I was focused on finding the entrance because I wanted to use Neville’s assistance to gain access.”
“If all you have is a parselmouth, every problem looks like a voice-activated door,” Harry sighed dramatically.
“You showed extraordinary bravery,” Dumbledore continued. “Although Severus mentioned something about a time turner coming particularly in handy in determining risk?”
“The logic still seems tight in hindsight,” Harry muttered. “Although I wouldn’t be too interested in repeating the experience.”
“But it worked, didn’t it?” Neville interrupted suddenly. “If a time turner is so useful, why not use it to fight Voldemort?”
“If only it were so easy,” Dumbledore said with a sigh. “Alas, some fateful encounters we must brave on our own.”
“A time turner requires a stable temporal environment. Schools are one of the few places on earth with the same people having mostly the same weekly schedule. You can’t even use the time turner over the holidays, from what I understand, due to the irregularity,” Harry explained briefly.
“And due to the small number of people present in the castle. Irregular, and even if they weren’t, not enough to anchor a reality, even a local one,” Dumbledore elaborated while spreading out his arms. “Even I can’t use the time turner, after all, I leave often, and have no regular classes to teach!”
Neville scrunched up his face, looked between the two other wizards, then shook his head. “Whatever you say.”
“Now, Harry, my boy,” Dumbledore suddenly said. “I need to exchange a few words with Neville privately, but I’m sure you won’t be too stuck to that chair. After all, there’ll be someone in the hospital wing waiting for you soon.”
The redhead raised an eyebrow. “Headmaster?” he asked.
The old man’s blue eyes twinkled. “It just so happens that Severus did not leave for his quarters, but rather to the infirmary. A batch of mandrakes has mysteriously arrived at our dear castle. I imagine that they will soon be processed, brewed, and used.”
Harry sprung up from his chair, causing a scraping sound as the wooden structure flew backwards and almost tipped over.
“Depetrified?” he asked loudly, at which the headmaster only nodded.
Harry returned the gesture and turned to Neville. “Try not to jump in front of any more killing curses in the future. Merlin knows when it will stop working,” he said, hinting that he knew what the two wanted to discuss. He turned around and made to storm off.
“Oh, and Harry?” Dumbledore said softly, causing the boy to pause. “For the somewhat inappropriate annihilation of the girl’s lavatory, I would generally need to take at least twenty points. However, in this case, since it was for a good cause, I’ll instead give you 100.”Harry nodded and left, points being the furthest thing from his mind.
“I’m proud of you for doing not what was easy, but what was right.” He heard Dumbledore say behind him before he fully exited the headmaster’s office and ran off towards the Room of Requirement.
He was one slide away from seeing his friend, who’d been petrified for nearly two months, who cared about some stupid points?
-/-
Harry was ejected from the slide that had brought him right in front of the infirmary, and he stumbled to a stop in front of the door before gently pushing it open.
The cheerful atmosphere of the infirmary hit him like a slap in the face.
The last time he’d visited the place had been gloomy, storing several petrified students.
Even the sky had seemingly agreed back then, casting the whole place in a dark cloud.
Now, the sun was shining through the large windows, and the air smelled like hope.
Harry quickly found Snape, who was talking with Madame Pomfrey in front of one of the curtained-off beds.
Irrelevant, Harry remembered exactly where his friend was, and it wasn’t there. He walked to the fifth bed on the left, pushed back the curtain and entered, the smile on his face immediately getting brighter.
“Hey, buddy,” he said softly at the blonde girl lying on the bed, head elevated by a group of pillows.
“Harry,” Penny said roughly, voice weak from disuse.
“Passion for potions got you in the end, uh?” Harry asked sarcastically.
“I was being a poophead,” the girl said with a sigh. “At least subconsciously, I thought being a half-blood would protect me.”
“Well, you’ve learned your lesson now,” Harry said with a sigh as he went to sit beside the bed, putting a hand under the covers to grasp Penny’s calloused fingers.
“Don’t mess with mythical monsters,” Penny said weakly with a nod, but her blue eyes were twinkling.
“You missed two months of class, we’ll catch you up,” Harry promised.
“What happened?” the girl asked curiously. I see it's winter out, but mandrakes aren’t supposed to be able to grow in this weather.
“Well,” Harry said, not really understanding that part himself. “How about we just call it a Christmas miracle?” he proposed jokingly.
Penny laughed weakly. “I don’t feel like a miracle right now.”
“You look great,” Harry reassured her. She hadn’t changed at all, after all, the body was in a sort of status while petrified. There was just a weariness to her.
“Thanks,” Penny answered with a wan smile. “Pomfrey shoved so many potions down my throat my stomach feels like a cauldron. Said the tiredness would go away in a few hours.”
“Magic, what can I say?” Harry answered with a sigh. A light punch suddenly hit his shoulder, and he looked down at his friend, grinning at him mischievously.
“Come on, tell me what happened while I was out, I want to know!”
Harry smiled, thinking back to his unification of the Deathly Hallows, meeting Grindelwald, taking Felix Felicis, searching for the chamber, Neville being a parselmouth, and exploding a girl’s bathroom.
“Well,” he started slowly, carefully picking out the details he could tell and those he’d better keep to himself. “The solution, believe it or not, started with blowing up a female lavatory.”
Penny gave a disbelieving laugh.
The tale didn’t get any more believable after that.
-/-
AN: The tale of the basilisk comes to an end... Or does it? There's still a retroactive interlude incoming lol