raised by dementor

chapter 33

It was nearly dawn by the time Harry left the forest, he was tired but his mind was alive with knowledge, Aragog had told him a lot of things and he also revealed the identity of the monster in the chamber of secrets. A basilisk, a giant snake thousands of years old and all spiders feared it, to Harry it added up. He could hear it because he could speak to snakes in the same way he could speak to spiders, it also meant maybe part of the journal was in Parsletongue but the bad thing was only the snake could read it. So he had to negotiate with a giant snake that was going to end well as Draco would say
"Your late!" the boy's voice sliced through the air like a knife and Harry jumped, it was dark and he was close to the castle but Draco's voice was unmistakable and suddenly Crabbe, Goyle and Draco appeared in the clearing. They did not look pleased
"We told you not to go," Draco sighed sadly but Harry got the idea that he was not sad due him going, something else had happened. Crabbe and Goyle were looking at the ground too
"It's bad news!" Draco confirmed without his usual traces of sarcasm and irony, no his voice was quiet and almost hoarse
"What's going on," Harry asked obviously worried, whatever was going on was very bad indeed.
"They got the girls," Draco supplied and Harry's eyes widened in fear.
Later
Hermione, Luna and Cho were all laid out on the beds, all were petrified and were found on the third floor. It was as if they had gone for a midnight walk and had found something, all girls seemed blank as if they knew what had attacked them and were determined not to show fear or were trying to find a way out. Harry would have said something if not for the teachers surrounding the bed
"Where were you?" Dumbledore asked, obviously when they had been found Dumbledore swarmed to find his "prime" suspect and when they had realised Harry was missing it just gave the man more of an excuse.
"I went for a walk," Harry responded knowing he had no excuse, this was bad
"Why?" McGonagall asked, Harry did not need to look into her mind to know she was conflicted, on one hand she had stopped trusting Dumbledore's judgement when she met Lucy but there was a lot of evidence pointing Harry's way.
"I was feeling stressed," Harry responded, it was the first thing he could think of.
"I see, Harry you must admit that this does not look good for you," Dumbledore murmured but Harry saw a sadistic gleam in his eye. He was enjoying beating Harry and at the moment he was
"And yet I didn't do it," Harry told the man with sheer ice in his voice, the room was suddenly very cold and the lights flickered.
"Harry is there anything you wish to tell us?" Snape asked gently, he did not believe it was Harry, ever since last year when they had argued he viewed the boy with something akin to trust. He doubted this was Harry but he had no evidence while Dumbledore had something
"No," was all Harry said and the old man nodded.
"I see, you four are excused from morning classes and you may visit Miss Lovegood, Chang and Granger but I will be looking over this matter very carefully!" Dumbledore informed them wanting to seem grandfatherly but also so Harry would detect the threat in his voice. Then the teachers left the room and Harry glared at Dumbledore's back.
"They found out," Harry realised when he saw the mirror, judging from the glittery metal it was Cho's but it was cracked and separated into three pieces, they had been using the piece because when they found out about the Basilisk they became targets. Someone had been following them and had set the monster on them, they had tried to get back to the dormitory's and had been intercepted. Harry suspected they had gone to the library but it didn't really matter.
"Can you do anything?" Draco asked hopefully but Harry shook his head, his powers worked on the mind not the body.
"So what do we know? We know what the monster is, we know someone is framing us well now it's only you but we also know that your mother wrote a journal in different languages, you can speak to snakes so maybe part of the journal is in snake language. Now I don't know about you but I don't think most garden snakes can read so if she wanted to learn to write in Parsletongue then I think a two thousand year old snake would be best," Draco announced suddenly putting the pieces together, Harry's eyes lit up.
"So maybe she knew where the chamber is, but unless we can read the journal we have no clue," Harry sighed realising the only lead they had was wrapped in a language they couldn't read.
One week later
For Harry the Quidditch game was going to be his escape, he had been questioned all week by various people and had ignored them all, He, Draco, Crabbe and Goyle had been pouring through books looking for anything connected to the chamber. They had found nothing and so the game today was going to be his escape
"Ok people we're going to do this and we're going to do this well!" Michael announced strictly, the Quidditch captain had not even mentioned the chamber to him and had left one of his star players alone. He mourned the loss of Cho and grumbled about their temporary replacement was awful but nothing else could be done. The game against Gryffindor had to go well and Harry had some person incentive, they had a new seeker and it happened to be Ron Weasley. So when the infuriating boy appeared on the pitch Harry gritted his teeth and ascended into the air, soon he lost himself in ducking and dogging through the chasers, grabbing the Quaffle whenever he could and scoring with it. Soon Ravenclaw were up ninety points, Ron turned out to be a thoroughly incompetent seeker and Harry wondered if he had been given the position in exchange for something else.
"Lost without your seeker?" Ron taunted suddenly zooming above him, Harry swerved away but the boy persisted. Instead of doing what he actually was supposed to he followed Harry and continued with occasional insults but then he said something interesting
"Well I suppose Snakes always lose in the end, you should have been a Gryffindor but as you're a," he continued but the word snake suddenly sparked something in Harry's mind. Dumbledore had been involved with Ron from the start, trying to get him to be friends with him. Unlike Dumbledore his mind was weak and if Harry wanted to find out what he boy then all he needed to do was. Harry scanned his memories, his thoughts and then he struck gold and in one moment he saw a book that Ron had seen Arthur Weasley give to Ginny. The sister Harry had seen at the station and the same girl who had been trying to work up the nerve to talk to him, but even in memory his inner Dementor could sense something was in that diary. It was alive or part of a soul was contained within and Harry suddenly realised that it was not this foolish boy he needed to find out about, it was the girl. Then before he could think further he saw a bludger soaring towards him at twice the normal speed, he dived out of the way but it had not been aimed at him, no someone had targeted Ron and the round ball narrowly missed his heads before spinning round to attack again.
"Duck!" Harry told the boy sternly not wanting to allow his death, Ron however froze in fear and the crowd watched with bated breath as the ball edged closer to him, Harry had no choice and extended his arm.
"Ahhh!"Ron cried out as a force he had experienced once before knocked him off the broom, the bludger which would have killed him missed and Harry sent that away with a second wave of power. Then with no idea as to why he was helping Ron he grabbed the Weasley by the collar and dropped him on the ground, he was unhurt except for his pride and dignity. Teachers rushed over to him but most just looked at Harry; to some he was now a hero but to others he had shown another power. A power overlooked by his ability to fly but wandless magic was a feat and some were now sure he was the heir, Dumbledore looked surprised and conflicted but there was one face who did not show any of these emotions. The person behind the stands who had realised what Harry was doing to Ron's mind, a person who knew what the moronic boy may have overheard but what angered the person most was that Harry Potter saved Ron Weasley.
Later
"So we have a suspect," Draco stated as Harry explained to the three what he had found out, without the girls they had lost their usual chemistry. Draco did not make as many comments because there was no one to respond to them in the same way, Crabbe and Goyle did not speak as much and Harry too felt the incompleteness of them all.
"Yes we do," Harry confirmed, they were walking towards the Gryfindor common room knowing she would be in or around the area and if need be they would break in, Harry had no time to think but all he knew was a soul contained in a book was a horcrux. During the wizarding war Azkaban had been used to store vast amounts of evidence due to the overwhelming amount of it, once he had found some of the evidence and one item was a large black book. Long story short it had ended with Harry being grounded for a few weeks and Lucy burning the book but last night when Aragog mentioned a horcrux bond it had got him thinking. A man like Voldemort wanted immortality and perhaps that was how he had decided to do it, it was a theory but that knowledge was now driving him towards that book and hopefully that would lead him to the chamber.
"So how are we intending to get in?" Draco wondered as they approached the portrait who looked at all of them with disproval, Harry looked to the left with a slightly apologetic look. Then he turned to see a man with shiny blond hair marching down the corridor,
"You didn't!" Draco hissed but Harry waved to Lockhart who beamed, he obviously thought this was some kind of way of mentoring Harry
"Ahh so Harry you ready to do this?" he asked in a smug self satisfied way, Harry had told him that a student was keeping a very dark object in their possession and he thought it was the heir, Lockhart had seen a way to help Harry and either get credit for finding a "dark" student or claim he was trying to mentor Harry and the boy had got the wrong student, that was if he was wrong. Harry nodded, the man said a few words to the portrait who moved aside,
"Ok then maybe we should..." Lockhart began but he never managed to finish. He was intending to go first and deal with the student but Harry however spoiled his plans ans did not wait for the man he had tricked, instead he shot through the portrait hole and into the lion's den so to speak. If he had cared even for a moment he would have admired the common room but instead he ignored both the room and the shocked students. His feet did not touch the floor and the stairs which would have collapsed for any boy had no effect on him and he instead walked into the girl's dormitory, only one person was in there and they were looking at him with wide terrified eyes. It was not Ginny but he could see the book on her bed, the book which had all the answers and he reached for it, however the moment his fingers touched the soft leather cover he felt as if a rope had been tied to his hands. His inner self was hungry and was propelling him forward while whatever was in the diary was pulling him in, the soul inside had no idea what it was getting into but for the first time he welcomed it. He did something he never thought he would do; he dived straight into the trap headfirst knowing with certainty it was a trap.