"The ritual of Vimana." Helena muttered. "You want to conduct the ritual of Vimana while you're this young."
Harry sensed immense disapproval coming from the daughter of Rowena Ravenclaw.
"Ritual of Vimana. Is that what it's called?"
"You don't even know about the name of the ritual, but you're willing to go through with it?" Helena asked incredulously.
"Well…" Harry coughed embarrassedly. "I know how to conduct the ritual."
"Really?" Helena eyed him sceptically. "And you have done proper research on the consequences of the ritual?"
"Umm…" Harry trailed off, looking anywhere but at the ghostly face of Helena Ravenclaw.
"Of course, you don't know. Show me all the notes you prepared for this ritual. I would like to see what I'm getting into even if you have no concern for your wellbeing."
Harry was forced to take her to the Chamber and show her all the notes he had prepared for the ritual. By the time he explained and showed all the notes, he was lucky Helena Ravenclaw looked like she was just about ready to bludgeon him to death. Since she couldn't physically assault him, she had a few choice words to say to his face. After getting an earful of colourful vocabulary from a thousand-year-old ghost, Harry decided it was better to recalibrate the design and overall progression of the ritual, even if it pushed the schedule.
It was not like he was lacking in time. He only had to complete the ritual before the next moon phase. Till then, he was free to conduct the ritual. Besides, the proposed changes by Helena were not that difficult to implement. He just had to brew two new potions and make some adjustments to the rune circle to accommodate the two potions.
With the ritual pushed to a later date, he went back to concentrating on Quidditch and schoolwork.
Angelina continued to push for more keeper trials, but no matter how far she pushed the last three keeper hopefuls, she could not pick one. On the bright side, the three permanent chasers and reserve chasers were able to get in some good practice with their shooting skills going up against three keepers. Angelina was a slave driver during practice sessions; therefore, Harry was quite happy the first two hours of the next morning was History of Magic. The physical fatigue due to Quidditch practice and the lack of sleep, thanks to patrol duties combined with his extracurricular activities the night, left him deprived of hours of sleep. He compensated for last night's lack of sleep in the history lesson, with Binns droning on about some stupid battle in the past.
"Harry!" Hermione jabbed at him with her notebook breaking him from his peaceful slumber.
"What?" he snapped awake, looking around wildly.
"The class is over." Hermione hissed, not liking his attitude.
"Oh, that's a shame." said Harry, rubbing his eyes underneath the glasses. "What do we have next?"
"Why? Are you planning to sleep through the next classes as well?" Hermione snarked.
"The thought did cross my mind." Harry muttered, picking up his backpack and following Hermione out of the classroom.
"We have two hours of Herbology and then one hour of Arithmancy in the afternoon."
"Only one hour?" Harry raised an eyebrow.
"Yes. We have an hour of Astronomy at night. So, the rest of the evening is free." said Hermione.
'Ah, an hour of studying the stars with Professor Aurora Sinistra. Now, that's something to look forward to.' he thought, the image of the beautiful Aurora Sinistra lighting up the sleeping corners of his brain.
Turns out it was not something to look forward to because he ended up being paired with Tracey for the Astronomy class out of some fluke. His plans to spend the night freely ogling Professor Sinistra came to a swift end with Tracey so close to him. He gathered it was a bad idea to act like a pig when he was so close to Daphne's bestie. But sitting close to Tracey, he felt the eyes of Goyle and Crabbe being trained on him. Upon closer inspection, he realised they were looking at Tracey instead, with a healthy dose of fear shining in their eyes.
"May I ask you something, Tracey?"
"Sure." she said merrily, adjusting the telescope on the Aries constellation.
"Why are Goyle and Crabbe looking at you like you are the incarnation of Morgan le Fay?" Harry asked curiously.
"I don't know Harry. Maybe I'm a Dark Lady in training." Tracey winked playfully.
"As a matter of fact, where are Malfoy, Nott and Zabini?"
Tracey looked around to see whether anyone else was listening to their conversation. Seeing nothing amiss, she leaned closer and whispered quietly.
"They are in the hospital wing."
"Huh!" Harry was quite intrigued now. "What for?"
"They were just being a bother for the last few days, so I brought some Bulbadox powder from the Weasley twins and sprinkled them all over their robes."
"Nice." Harry was genuinely impressed and noted to himself not to annoy Tracey. "What were they bothering you about?"
"You don't need to know or fight my battles for me, Potter." Tracey scowled.
"All right." Harry raised his hands in surrender. "You made your point. You are a big girl capable of standing your ground against those idiots, which makes me wonder. How did those two escape your wrath?" Harry asked, pointing at Crabbe and Goyle.
"I prefer my enemies to have a minimum level of intelligence. There is no fun in attacking dumb people, Harry."
Harry looked thoughtfully at the two Slytherin boys. "I can see where you're coming from."
"So, what's the plan tomorrow? It's Hogsmeade weekend, after all." Tracey asked all of a sudden, her eyes focused on the star chart the telescope was tracing on the parchment.
"I suppose I should take Daphne someplace nice," Harry said thoughtfully before eyeing his partner pointedly. "You know her better than most. What does she like? Any preferences that I should know about?"
"Like most girls, Daphne likes an adventure. She might behave all prim and proper on the outside as demanded by her position as the Greengrass heiress, but she is attracted to the unknown and danger. That's one of the reasons she likes you."
"Well, I'm flattered she thinks I'm dangerous." Harry smirked.
"Pfft! Don't get too flattered, Potter. You better keep that mysterious vibe going for as long as possible."
XXXXXXX
"I was promised a very secretive and thrilling place for our date, but this is neither secretive nor thrilling." Daphne looked at him, not at all impressed with their 'date' amounting to a simple visit to Madam Puddifoot's tea shop.
"I was under the impression that you liked this place." Harry said with a slight grin as he took a sip from the teacup.
"I don't know. It just looks and feels so…so…" she searched for words for a moment until she settled on, "…tacky and asinine."
"All right. I'll take you somewhere that is not tacky or asinine. But you are not allowed to share any details of this place with anyone else. Not even Tracey."
Daphne stared at him for a long moment before reluctantly agreeing to his demand for secrecy.
A few minutes later, Harry led Daphne to the secret place he promised. He only received an incredulous stare from her when she realised exactly where he was taking her.
"This is the secret place? This is Moaning Myrtle's bathroom." Daphne deadpanned, looking unimpressed.
"Yes, it's Myrtle's bathroom, but the place we need to go lies beneath it."
"Beneath it?" Daphne was now looking at him as if he was mad.
"Yep. Let me show you." Harry walked into the lavatory until he was near the sink opposite Myrtle's toilet.
"Hey, Harry."
He nearly jumped in fright as Myrtle jumped out of her toilet and came towards him. He was not the only one weirded out by the sudden appearance of Myrtle because Daphne was holding her heart, looking frightened out of her wits.
"Hey, Myrtle. How are you doing?" Harry waved awkwardly.
"I'm fiiiine, Harry." Myrtle let out a giggle before her whole demeanour changed on a dime as she laid her eyes on Daphne. "Who's this?"
"This is Daphne Greengrass." He left the introduction at that, but Daphne suddenly skipped over to his side in fright as Myrtle suddenly zoomed towards Daphne in a hostile manner.
"Why are you hanging around with Harry? What is he to you?" Myrtle asked, mustering up an angry face.
"Myrtle!" Harry warned.
Letting out a fake pout at being denied her fun, Myrtle disappeared back into her toilet.
"She likes to keep newcomers stepping into her lair on their toes. She's friendly once you get to know her." Harry explained.
By the look on Daphne's face, she was not amused or satisfied with his explanation.
"Anyway, let's put that behind us and get this done."
Harry turned back to the ordinary-looking sink.
"Open." he hissed in Parseltongue.
The tap on the sink glowed a brilliant white colour and began to spin slowly. The sink started to move aside, and a large pipe hole was exposed right before their eyes.
Harry heard Daphne gasp as she looked down the endless pit of a dark hole with palpable fear in her eyes.
"Wha…? What is this?" Daphne stuttered.
"It leads to a secret place that you'll find quite intriguing. Come." Harry offered her his hand, but she just shook her head and stepped back from the hole in the floor.
Harry smirked at her as he moved closer to Daphne.
"Stop looking at me like that. I'm not jumping into that giant hole with… ahhhhh!" Daphne screamed as Harry quickly caught her in a vice grip by her waist and jumped into the hole together.
The pipe was cleaned off all the filth and layered with cushioning charms making their journey smoother. That doesn't mean Daphne didn't scream all the way to the end of their journey. They twisted and turned all the way inside the pipe, with Daphne screaming his ears out. He could only laugh as she held onto him for dear life. He could feel his shoulders bleeding thanks to Daphne sinking her nails into his skin. Their long slide through the pipe ended abruptly as the pipe levelled out, and they were promptly dumped into a thick woollen carpet. Daphne was still holding on to his body with her eyes screwed shut, her nails digging into his shoulder, and her face hidden at the crook of his neck.
"Hey, it's okay to open your eyes. We've safely landed." Harry whispered.
Daphne slowly raised her head and looked around. The stone tunnel ahead was brightly lit with candles all the way to the entrance of the Chamber. But those details were not immediately noticeable for Daphne because she gave greater priority to knocking some sense into Harry. Therefore, she immediately began hitting and clawing at Harry to show her protest at being dragged through a giant tunnel without her consent.
"Hey! Ow! Stop that!"
"You idiot!" Daphne hissed, slapping again and again until her hands hurt. "Where in all the hells have you taken me?"
"This is the vaunted Chamber of Secrets created by the illustrious Salazar Slytherin. Perhaps now you might stop beating me to death." said Harry, carefully extracting himself from a mad Daphne, who had gone into stunned silence upon learning that she was in the Chamber of Secrets.
"Wait! Are you saying…"
"Yes." he nodded.
"You are not pulling my leg, are you?" she asked, her blue eyes alight with a rising sense of excitement.
"No, I'm not. This tunnel leads to the famed Chamber of Secrets."
"Oh, Harry!" she let out an excited squeal and quickly came to his side as if she used teleportation.
"All right then. Are you ready to see Slytherin's Chamber?"
"Yes. Oh, yes, Harry. Let's go." Daphne was visibly vibrating with excitement.
The tunnel remained silent except for their footsteps as they made their way forward. The candles along the tunnel lighted their way forward until finally, they stood before a solid wall with two giant statues of snakes could be seen.
"Merlin! They are beautiful." Daphne whispered in awe.
Harry looked at the girl in his arms and shook his head.
"If that's your reaction to seeing a simple stone wall, then wait till you find what's in there." Harry whispered into her ears.
Daphne visibly shivered at that.
Looking at the stone wall and the carved snakes on the wall, Harry hissed out, "Open." in Parseltongue.
The emerald eyes of the serpents came alive with light, and they slithered on the wall. The wall cracked open dramatically with proper fanfare that impressed Daphne going by her wide-eyed look.
"Welcome to the Chamber of Secrets." Harry said with a flourish and guided Daphne inside.
Bright candlelights lit the long chamber showering the whole massive structure in golden light. Massive stone sculptures of snakes and lions stood guard on the gigantic pipes that ran through the Chamber. Massive pillars and archways were a common sight inside the Chamber.
"This is so beautiful." Daphne said in awe, taking in the famed lair created by her House's founder.
"Come." Harry led her out of the long series of pillars to see the towering giant statue at the far end of the chamber.
"Is that?" Daphne whispered, too stunned to even take her eyes off the sculptured face of Salazar Slytherin.
"I assume so, yes. That might be the statue of Salazar Slytherin." said Harry, looking at the restored face of Salazar Slytherin.
He had, in his infinite wisdom, decided to transfigure the statue into a lion head out of some misplaced notion that Slytherin was the cause of all things wrong in his life. But after reading through some of the scrolls and books in Slytherin's collection, he could not see a Voldemort-like figure when he thought of Salazar Slytherin. There was no doubt Salazar was a well-accomplished dark wizard capable of great evil acts, but so were the other Founders of Hogwarts. The first millennium of the Common Era was rife with battles, genocide, and large-scale wars. Britain was not exactly a peaceful land during that time period. The Roman Empire was cutting a bloody swath through Celtic Europe during that time period, and anyone would be an idiot to think the four founders of Hogwarts had squeaky clean hands. He was pretty sure the Founders had seen their share of blood.
Anyway, the point was he now knew better than to take out his frustration with the situation surrounding Voldemort and Death Eaters on the footprints left by Salazar Slytherin. It also helped that all the records he had gone through so far never indicated that the Basilisk in the Chamber was meant to kill Muggleborns. There was a scroll written in Ancient Greek that spoke of a giant serpent guarding the secrets to Elysium. He had yet to find whether the scroll was necessarily talking about the Basilisk and the Chamber, but he would soon find out with more research.
"Why are there so many lions in here?" Daphne asked with a scrunched-up nose.
He didn't want her to find out the lion statues were a recent addition.
"Perhaps, they are a tribute to the friendship between Slytherin and Gryffindor." Harry suggested.
Daphne looked at the lion statues and then at him with suspicion.
"Come now. Our table awaits." Harry said, snapping his fingers.
Suddenly, a table appeared with all sorts of food neatly arranged on plates courtesy of Dobby and Kreacher. The two elves also appeared beside the table with two ornate chairs from Grimmauld Place. Even the silverware came from the House of Black, seeing as the Black crest etched on the plates and other utensils. The air smelled of cinnamon thanks to air freshening charms that swept away all the smoke from the burning candles. Then again, these were magical candles. Not the mobile cancer factory that goes around in the Muggle world that looks like candles.
Even as Daphne took her seat graciously, she was still looking around the Chamber with awe and unbridled curiosity.
"Harry."
"Hmm?"
"Wasn't there supposed to be a monster of some sort in the Chamber?" Daphne asked, her eyes darting around with a touch of fear.
"Oh, yes. You want to see it?"
"It's nearby?" Daphne asked worriedly, chewing her bottom lip.
"In a way." Harry said with a secretive smile.
Daphne frowned at him and thought it over for a time before expressing her wish to meet the 'monster' of Salazar's Chamber.
Harry took great pleasure in bringing down the notice-me-not charm on the Basilish skeleton hung from the ceiling before he directed Daphne's attention upward. The shrill girlish scream Daphne let out was quite entertaining. He had to dodge a curse later down the line, but it was still worth it as Dobby managed to capture that moment using a magical camera.
XXXXXX
A perfect half-moon was visible in the night sky. The runic circle was drawn on the forest floor without any blemishes. He had triple-checked the runes, and the arithmancy also checked out. The potions were all brewed as per the requirement, and so were the special items required for the ritual, like Thestral hair and a single white feather of a lolaire suile na rein(eagle with a sunlit eye).
"Has Pluto come to the position as per the star chart?" Helena asked.
"No, not yet." Harry answered, looking at the current pattern of the nine celestial bodies orbiting the sun. "It needs one more minute for the perfect alignment."
Harry looked around the dark forest, and in the distance, he could see the lights coming from Hogwarts. They were not too deep into the Forbidden Forest, but at the same time, they were at the edge of the boundary between the Acromantula-controlled area and Centaur land. Curiously enough, there was no sign of the Centaurs.
'Maybe, my warding skills have gone up a notch if even the Centaurs have not noticed intruders in their territory.' Harry thought.
There could be another reason, though. The presence of Helena Ravenclaw might've given him a free pass from the Centaurs. He knew ghosts were a particular subject of interest in the Centaur community for some reason. The Centaurs, for whatever reason, give a lot of leeway to ghosts, no matter their race.
"I was meaning to ask. Why are you helping me?" Harry suddenly sprung the question on Helena.
The ghostly face of Helena Ravenclaw didn't so much as twitch despite his intent to put the Ravenclaw ghost on the spot.
"Why? You do not like my help?" Helena asked, raising a delicate eyebrow.
"Oh no. I'm quite flattered and thankful for your aid. It's just that you said your mother's knowledge is not meant for others."
"And I didn't lie. Those who sought my mother's knowledge have perished or become corrupted by it. I don't need to depend on my mother's knowledge to assist you in this ritual." said Helena.
"Hmm…" Harry grunted, eyeing Helena like a puzzle.
"You need not worry, Harry Potter. I'm unlike my mother, who hoards her knowledge inside a tiara of all things. What good is knowledge if it is kept in darkness and away from the light of the world? If my knowledge serves in aiding you against Tom Riddle, then so be it. My knowledge will serve a greater purpose."
Harry could detect a lot of hostility for Rowena Ravenclaw in that short monologue from Helena. But he was not complaining.
"I made the mistake of trusting my mother's knowledge and legacy with Tom Riddle because he was a bright student. I saw so much of myself in him and the potential good he could have become for the wizarding world."
Now, he could feel a great deal of disappointment and pain from the ghost. Perhaps, it was the resentment towards her mother and the attachment that she holds to her mother's legacy that tethers her to the world of the living despite her death thousands of years ago.
"Oh, look! The alignment is complete." Harry crowed happily.
Helena quickly took her position in the portion of runes assigned to her. Her spectral body pulsed as she touched the ground riddled with runes.
"Do it now, Harry Potter." said Helena.
Harry placed the tip of his wand against the sun rune and energised the moon runes to absorb the light of the half-moon in the sky. The moon runes glowed silver white, and then the runes representing the nine celestial bodies came alive with magical energy as they absorbed the properties of the potions and other vital pieces of the ritual. The magic in the runic circle reached a tipping point before it coalesced into a wave of energy that washed into his body.
Unlike other rituals he had engaged in, this time, he didn't feel heavy with magic. In fact, he was feeling lighter with each passing second.
"I can feel it now." Harry whispered.
He first lost feeling in his legs, and then one by one, he lost feeling anything from the rest of his body. He could feel no pain or earthly worries. It was as if he was in an entirely other realm, separate from the earthly realm. The deafening silence that surrounded him was so peaceful that he felt like he could sleep peacefully for a thousand years. Then, there was a flash of light, and Harry felt like getting reoriented on the planet. His senses suddenly snapped back into place, and a rush of emotions and alien feelings flooded his mind.
When he looked down, he was floating a good five feet from the ground. His body was gone, and in its place, there was a grey spectral smoke akin to a ghost.
"Wow!" Harry willed himself up, and he flew up towards the sky.
He quickly flew straight into the clouds at a speed that didn't feel any sort of air friction because he lacked a body. His material body was converted into a mass of grey ghostly smoke that allowed him magically sustained flight. He was now a formless mass of energy which should theoretically allow him to bypass most wards and material obstacles.
"Woohoo!"
Harry excitably yelled as he twisted and turned among the clouds to his heart's content until finally, he landed back on the ritual ground. It was all-natural as his body materialised on his will as his feet touched the ground. The grey spectral form disappeared altogether, and he was back to his normal self.
"It was a success. We did it." Harry said, smiling wide at Helena, who gave him a slight grin before promptly turning away.
"You need to get back to the castle Harry Potter." said Helena.
After thanking her a few more times, Harry made his way back to the castle, leaving Helena alone in the forest.
"It is curious to see that you've taken an interest in the Potter boy Lady Ravenclaw. Do you not see Mars and Saturn moving in the heavens to shine their light upon the boy." A centaur spoke as it slowly walked out of the darkness.
"Do you not see the light of Jupiter making its presence known with the boy?" Helena asked back.
"Hmm. I suppose you must have a reason for helping him." the centaur muttered.
"Reason. Ah, yes. The thing that gives meaning to all life. You forget Wesgrexie that I exist beyond the edge of all reason." said Helena before turning into wisps of white smoke and disappearing into the Hogwarts grounds.