Chapter 203: Fawkes Reborn, Newt Comes to Help
"You're not the Heir of Slytherin, are you?"
Draco's question rang through the Room of Requirement, sharp enough to freeze the air.
It hit Harry like a Bludger to the ribs. Blood rushed up so fast his ears rang. He had been trying for days to catch the real culprit, and now, in the space of a heartbeat, he was the one being pointed at.
"I…" Harry choked on the words, fury clogging his throat, cheeks burning.
Ron spoke first, quick and blunt.
"Malfoy, use your head. If Harry really were the Heir, you'd have been in the hospital wing ages ago."
Draco swung on him, eyes blazing, voice low with anger.
"Weasley, I'm not joking."
But Ron's remark cut the tension all the same, like a knot sliced clean through. The room felt a fraction less suffocating.
"Enough."
Leonardo's voice was calm. He looked at Harry, still simmering, and pulled him back onto solid ground.
"Harry, breathe. Think back. You said you heard a strange 'whisper' near Lockhart's office, and later near several of the attack sites too, didn't you?"
Harry blinked, frowning as he dug through his memory. A moment passed before he answered, uncertain.
"You mean… that might have been a snake as well?"
Hermione whipped her head towards Leonardo at once, words tumbling out.
"I went to the Restricted Section to look it up, Leonardo, do you already know…"
She did not get the chance to finish.
The air in the centre of the room suddenly warped and heated, as if the space itself had been bent. A burst of blazing scarlet flame flared into existence.
In the next instant, a bird burst from the fire, wings beating hard.
It looked young, almost clumsy, like a chick that had only just learned it could fly. And yet it glided unerringly straight to Leonardo.
Leonardo lifted his arm without hesitation, and the small bird settled into the crook of his elbow as if it belonged there.
Its body was covered in orange-red down, fluffy and awkward, like something halfway between a hatchling and a proper bird, still in that ungainly stage of growing into itself.
"Cheep. Cheep cheep. Cheep!"
It chirped urgently, and in doing so, yanked everyone's attention away from the Parseltongue argument in one clean sweep.
On the floor, the snakes reacted instantly. The moment the little bird appeared, the whole lot of them recoiled, scrabbling and sliding over one another as they fled to the farthest corner of the room, coiling into a tight, trembling mass.
Leonardo listened, then nodded, as if the message were perfectly clear.
"The Headmaster needs me urgently? And he says an old friend has arrived. Who is it?"
"Cheep!"
The bird bobbed its head hard, emphatic.
Leonardo stroked the soft down, thoughtful.
"A surprise?"
"Fine. A surprise it is. Then you'd better take me there, Fawkes."
Fawkes.
Harry and Ron looked at each other, and both of them let out the same long breath at once.
At the start of term, when they had "parked" the flying car in the Headmaster's office, they had been convinced they had frightened Dumbledore's phoenix to death. The guilt had been horrible. The fear had been worse.
So Leonardo had been right after all.
It really had just been a normal rebirth.
As if sensing their thoughts, Fawkes twisted in Leonardo's arms and aimed his tiny head straight at Harry and Ron, letting out a rapid string of sharp chirps.
"Cheep. Cheep cheep cheep. Cheep cheep!"
Both boys stared blankly, then looked helplessly at Leonardo.
"Leonardo," Harry began, hesitant, "you can understand a phoenix?"
"What's Fawkes saying?"
The question hit everyone else a beat later. How was Leonardo speaking with a phoenix as though it were the most ordinary thing in the world?
Under the weight of everyone's curiosity, Leonardo's expression turned slightly strange, edged with reluctant amusement.
Because Fawkes had, frankly, said something filthy.
"Well," Leonardo said mildly, "Fawkes sends his warm regards to your families."
"What?"
Harry and Ron hadn't even processed what that meant when Fawkes erupted into flame again, brilliant and sudden, swallowing both himself and Leonardo whole.
The fire flickered, then vanished.
One boy and one phoenix were simply gone.
Harry stood there for a few seconds, stunned, then finally blinked and turned back to Hermione.
"Er… Hermione, what were you about to say? About the monster in the Chamber…"
He absolutely did not want to be branded with Heir of Slytherin, mastermind, cruel descendant of Salazar Slytherin. Any of it.
Hermione drew breath to answer, but Daphne cut in softly, pointing towards the corner where the snakes had begun to stir again.
"I think we should deal with those first. Leonardo left in a hurry. He didn't change them back."
With a collective sigh, they all raised their wands, staring at the mass of moving coils.
"Potter," Draco snapped, "since you can talk to them, why don't you tell them to slither off?"
Ron gave a short, sharp laugh. "Where to? Your common room? You can tuck them in and sing them to sleep."
Draco shot to his feet. "Shut it, Weasley."
"Make me," Ron said, stepping forward.
Draco's eyes flashed. Then he looked past Ron, straight at Harry. "Fine. Potter. You and me. Now."
Ron snorted. "Since when do you play fair?"
Draco rounded on him and jabbed a finger in his direction. "You stay out of it, Weasley. This is between me and him."
Watching the three of them slide straight into bickering and shoving, Hermione and Daphne exchanged a look.
Somehow, without meaning to, they both felt as though they'd finally found something in common.
…
Elsewhere, Fawkes carried Leonardo straight to the Headmaster's office.
The flames melted away, and Leonardo steadied himself on the carpet. The first thing he saw was Dumbledore behind the enormous desk, smiling as if none of this were unusual.
A figure who had been facing away from him turned slowly.
The man looked a little younger than Leonardo remembered, but he recognised him at once anyway, surprise brightening his voice.
"Mr Scamander?"
Newt Scamander smiled, a little shyly.
…
"Good afternoon, Headmaster. Mr Scamander."
Leonardo nodded to both wizards. He gently placed the newly reborn Fawkes onto his perch, then crossed the room and sat near Newt.
Newt looked healthier than the last time Leonardo had seen him. Even the lines at the corners of his eyes seemed less heavy.
Leonardo suspected the Vigor Draught he had sent had done its job. It replenished vitality slowly and steadily, the kind of strength that sank in over time rather than flaring and fading.
Dumbledore inclined his head and went straight to the point.
"Blaise Zabini has woken after taking the Mandrake Restorative Draught. Like Penelope Clearwater before him, the last thing he remembers before losing consciousness was a 'great yellow light'."
Dumbledore's eyes sharpened slightly.
"This time, however, Zabini added a crucial detail. He caught a glimpse of green scales, gleaming brightly, just for an instant."
He gestured towards Newt.
"So I asked Newt to come."
Newt picked up the thread at once.
"There are several magical creatures known to cause petrification. Gorgons, for instance, and certain other species."
His brow furrowed, and his tone became more careful.
"But in these attacks, the victims show no sign of actually turning to stone. It resembles their living state being forcibly 'frozen'. And a ghost, the Bloody Baron, was affected as well. That is… extremely rare."
Leonardo added, "Harry has confirmed he can understand Parseltongue. Near several of the attack sites, he heard broken whispers that no one else could hear."
"Parseltongue?" Dumbledore and Newt said at the same time.
Newt looked to Dumbledore, speaking faster now.
"You said before that there was often water, mirrors, or other reflective surfaces at the scenes, didn't you?"
At Dumbledore's nod, Newt's expression turned grave.
"Then I believe the creature in the Chamber is a basilisk. Sometimes called the King of Serpents."
Dumbledore repeated the name softly, blue eyes narrowing a fraction as he laced his fingers together.
Newt continued, precise and clinical.
"Any creature that meets a basilisk's yellow eyes directly dies instantly. But if the victim sees its gaze indirectly, through water, a reflection, or something similar, the lethal effect is greatly weakened. What remains looks like petrification, a suspended state."
He paused, then added, voice lower.
"As for the Bloody Baron, he is already dead. He cannot die again. Even a basilisk's gaze cannot destroy a ghost, so the result is this unusual condition instead."
Leonardo asked, "Mr Scamander, basilisks are frightened of roosters, aren't they?"
"Yes," Newt said at once. "A rooster's crow can do a basilisk enormous harm, even kill it."
Leonardo took out a small cage. Inside was a rooster, half-asleep, ruffling its feathers.
"Hagrid mentioned that several of his roosters have been killed. He thought it was foxes or vampires, but I checked the area around the coop carefully. There were no signs of either."
That last detail clicked into place like the final piece of a puzzle. Newt looked at Dumbledore, certainty settling in.
"A fear of roosters, a gaze that petrifies through reflections, the pattern of the scenes. Everything points to a basilisk."
Dumbledore nodded.
"Thank you, Newt. You've lifted a great weight from us."
Newt waved a hand, embarrassed.
"Please. It's only that you already had strong clues, and this happens to be my field. If I can help Hogwarts, then I'm glad."
Dumbledore's gaze turned to Leonardo.
"Leonardo, do you have a suspect in mind for the one directing it?"
Leonardo answered as though he had been waiting for the question.
"Headmaster, I've spoken privately with Professor Snape about this. And if we're following Hogwarts' recent… traditions, the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor is always the most suspicious, isn't he?"
Dumbledore adjusted his glasses, a flicker of helplessness in his eyes.
"I know Severus has never been pleased about it. Which is why, this year, I did not ask him to take on that particular burden."
Leonardo leaned in slightly. "And you, Headmaster? Have you never suspected Gilderoy Lockhart? Or conducted the necessary… investigation?"
"I have," Dumbledore said, unexpectedly plain.
"But I did not see any memory fragments connected to the Chamber, or the attacks."
Leonardo's mind sharpened. So Dumbledore had used Legilimency on Lockhart.
Lockhart could not possibly repel it with Occlumency. Not at his level.
Memories.
Unless Lockhart had used Obliviate on himself, or something adjacent to it. Not a clean erasure, but a rearrangement. A careful hiding-place built out of his own skill.
Or Tom had helped him do it.
"I see," Leonardo said, thoughtful, then asked something that seemed, at first glance, unrelated.
"Headmaster, have you found someone willing to take over as Defence Against the Dark Arts professor yet?"
Dumbledore's expression became a quiet picture of suffering, as though a sigh were trapped behind his teeth.
"That post is… difficult. Finding a candidate both suitable and sufficiently brave is never easy."
As he spoke, his eyes drifted, almost of their own accord, towards Newt, who immediately tried to shrink into the chair.
Newt began waving both hands at once, words tripping over themselves.
"No, no, no. Teaching is really not for me. I don't know how to manage that many students, not at all. And Tina absolutely would not agree to me teaching here."
Leonardo hid a smile. If it involved Dumbledore, Tina tended to assume it would involve trouble.
And did Tina even know Newt had been summoned to Hogwarts by an urgent letter?
Dumbledore chuckled and soothed him gently.
"Relax, Newt. I am not trying to force you into anything. I only wish to ask whether, with the connections you have built travelling the world, you might know someone who is capable enough, and willing to take the Defence Against the Dark Arts post."
Newt finally lowered his hands, though his brow creased again.
He sat in thought for a long moment, fingers worrying at the edge of his sleeve. Then his eyes lifted, as if something had just occurred to him.
"Well… there is someone I can think of. But that person's identity is rather special. Not something that can be made public easily."
He looked at Dumbledore and added, quietly but clearly.
"And in fact… you know them too."