Holly Potter: The Bookish, Burgling, Badass (Hp x Mcu) by Personfour

Chapter 4: Year Two (II)

Summary:

Holly reflects on what she's learned, schemes several schemes, and the Defense curse strikes again.

To say Albus Dumbledore wasn't expecting to be woken up hearing that the Chamber of Secrets threat was solved was an understatement. And yet, somehow, it seemingly was.

He looked at the helpful but ominous note on the wall then the ruined diary in his hand. Tom Riddle's diary and, unless he was much mistaken, a destroyed horcrux. It was proof of his long-suspected horcrux theory.

The Diary was clearly the cause of the Chamber being opened once more, making it the "heir". With it destroyed, Albus supposed that did make the heir "handled". The fact it was a destroyed horcrux confirmed there was a basilisk present. The only unconfirmed portion was the basilisk being dead. He had found an irritable rooster nearby which certainly suggested it true but there was no hard proof.

It begged the question: who found the Chamber and killed the beast? Certainly, it was not a professor, no matter what Gilderoy may say. That meant a student was responsible. But who was capable of such a feat? They would certainly need to be a parselmouth.

Perhaps it was unsurprising then that they stayed hidden rather than revealing such an ability. The only student he suspected of being one was Holly Potter and she seemed much too studious to do such a thing. She was, however, quite an enigma with her self-imposed social isolation and frequent disappearances. Perhaps he should finally meet the girl soon.

After asking, Severus informed him his Dark Mark was still present, proof Tom still lived. It was horrifying but proved that Tom had made multiple horcruxes. It also supported the unfortunate likelihood that Holly Potter herself was an unwitting horcrux. Lily's protection would keep it suppressed and, while he was researching for a solution, it was an unfortunate reality that she was tied to Tom's life. Still, he would keep looking for a cure.

Holly woke up hours later than usual to her aching body, still in her tattered robes, and thoroughly questioning her life choices. She hadn't known it was possible to be so sore that even breathing hurt but apparently it was.

'Did I seriously duel a horcrux and kill a basilisk while delirious? If the Sorting Hat ever finds out it'll sort me again into Gryffindor for sure.'

Holly sat up with a groan and vanished her ruined robes. Her body was littered with dark bruises and her palms scraped. Somehow she had no broken bones or any serious injuries. The only visible blood was from the rooster peck. That hardly counted. Considering what she'd done, it was a shockingly good outcome.

Too bad that didn't make her body hurt any less.

She ducked her head out to ensure her roommates were gone and stumbled off the bed. After a few quick spells to remove the grime, she achingly pulled her robes on. She slowly made her way to the Great Hall for a quick breakfast, ignoring the frantic conversations. She needed to plan but was in too much pain to focus. That made things simple.

First things first, she needed some bruise cream and pain relief potion. Any more plotting would come after that.

Holly made her way through the day's classes with the minimum effort to keep up appearances and retreated into the Room of Requirement afterwards. After brewing and drinking a pain potion she bottled the leftover before applying Room provided bruise cream. With that done she sighed in relief and laid down on an extra comfy couch.

Then came the more complicated task: going over what she learned from Tom's horcrux.

Tom Riddle, aka Voldemort or Diary Tom, was only 16 at the time but his mind was already packed with knowledge, vile goals, and an impressive number of mental issues. They said, "know you enemy" and well, Holly knew everything about Tom. His thought patterns, dueling habits, magical knowledge, fears, everything.