Memory-Harry’s voice cut through the arena like a blade.
“Now, bullying is a crime in the non-magical world.
But by the actions of the staff of Hogwarts, that does not appear to be the case in magical Britain.
Every single one of the students—apparently except for Hermione, Ron and the Weasley twins—forgot I was laid up all night in the Infirmary when Creevey was attacked only a couple of days earlier.
So it could not have been me.
Hell, pretty much the lot of you saw Fraudhart vanish the bones out of my arm and that it would mean I’d be in the Infirmary.
Idiots!”
He let the word hang.
“Within a day of the fiasco of the Duelling Club, Finch-Fletchley is attacked and petrified.
He’s the second student to have been done so.
It’s now three days before the Christmas break.
“Of course, because it’s the day after it’s discovered I’m a Parselmouth and I’m clearly now a Dark Lord, everyone pretty much accuses me of doing it.
The bullying ratchets down, but now people are scared of me.
“Things go as you would think for the next few months.
Then, in early May, Hermione and Penelope Clearwater are attacked and petrified.
Immediately afterwards, Lucius Malfoy somehow convinces—by unanimous decision of the School Board—to have Dumbledore removed as Headmaster.
“And at the same time, Malfoy also convinces Fudge to have Hagrid carted off to Azkaban.
His reason?
He has to be seen to be doing something.
“That’s three major events all on the same day, so let’s visit them one at a time.
“First, the petrification of Hermione and the Clearwater lass finally has everyone believing I’m not the one who’s doing the petrifying.
It could be because I was down at the Quidditch pitch for the entire time in front of a great many people who could all provide me alibis, or it could be because no one would believe I’d attack my best friend Hermione, or a combination of both.
Frankly, I didn’t and don’t care one way or the other.
It, at least, stopped the bullying and fear of me.
It’s a pity they didn’t think about where I was when Creevey was attacked.
“The second was the sacking of Dumbledore.
Later, after what happened in the Chamber of Secrets, I learned that it seems Lucius Malfoy extorted the rest of the School Board to go along with him in sacking Dumbledore as Headmaster.
Frankly, I really don’t give a toss about that, but you might want to look into it, Madam Bones.
“And the third was Hagrid getting carted off to Azkaban.
Now, I’m not a lawyer, I’m not a legislator and I’m not a law enforcement official.
However, it really gets in my craw how a person can be sent to Azkaban without even the decency of a trial.
In the non-magical United Kingdom, from whence wizarding Britain was born, it is a breach of the Magna Carta to do such.
And the Magna Carta was enshrined in law before magical Britain effectively seceded from the non-magical United Kingdom.
As such, unless the Wizengamot has overturned the Magna Carta since seceding, then it is still law.
“So, if that is the case, then the Minister broke one of the founding precepts of modern law by having Hagrid incarcerated without a trial.
To me, he kidnapped the man and was aided and abetted by Lucius Malfoy in the act.
“You might want to look into that, too, Madam Bones.
But please don’t take this as a direction on my part—only a suggestion.”
Up in the judges’ box, Amelia Bones leaned forward slightly.
“Oh, don’t worry about that, Mister Potter,” she muttered.
“I fully intend to.”
She glanced left at the sweating Minister for Magic and added quietly, “You and I will be having a long talk too, Minister.”
Fudge blanched and began to sweat harder.
Memory-Harry continued.
“Three weeks later to the day—twenty-eighth of May—Ron and I had just managed to work out what was going on from all the various clues.”
He snorted.
“Well, not really.
I figured it out, with Ron still trying to drag me off to play chess and otherwise skive off doing homework.
“The main one was that very day finding a torn page from a book in petrified Hermione’s hand that described basilisks.
Under that, in her own neat script, was written one word—Pipes.
“Ron had also just discovered his little sister, Ginny, had gone missing, and he was frantic to get my help in finding her.
We were down on that same second-floor corridor outside that same bathroom when we saw another message had been written below the Heir of Slytherin message: Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever.
“Ron panicked, of course.
So would you if you’d just discovered something like that about your own baby sister.
At least he’d finally decided to put in some effort to figure out what was going on.
He’d found his motivation.
To me, it was far too little, far too late.
“However, just like the previous year, we were determined to take the matter to an adult witch or wizard.
I wanted to give McGonagall the benefit of the doubt and get her help.
Maybe this time she’d do the right thing.
However, Ron forced on me the choice of Gilderoy ‘The Fraud’ Lockhart.
“When we ran to and burst into the office of The Fraud, he was in the process of packing with the intention of running away as fast as he could.
So, yes—The Fraud could now be known as The Cowardly Fraud.
“However, since he claimed to be this all-powerful vanquisher of dark creatures, as written in his novels—sorry, texts—we were having none of that.
We forced him to come down to the Chamber with us.
And I had a pretty good idea where it was.
“The final clue that gave me the probable location was that, when the Chamber was last opened in the early 1940s, a student was killed.
Her name was Myrtle.
You know her today as the ghost, Moaning Myrtle.
“We then headed for the very same girls’ bathroom once again.
Once inside I found a carving of a snake on one of the taps in the circle of sinks in the middle of the floor.
“A quick whisper of Parseltongue and I had the entrance open.
“With The Cowardly Fraud going first—whether he liked it or not—we slid down the pipe entrance all the way to the bottom.
We were now deep under the school and likely under the lake.
“With wand tips lit we walked from the bottom of the pipe in the only direction we could: through a long cave.
“Partway along we came across a shed snake skin.
It was about fifty feet long.
“While hurriedly discussing what to do next, The Cowardly Fraud had a moment of bravery and lunged at Ron, stripping him of his wand.
How about that.
For the past twenty minutes The Cowardly Fraud couldn’t even take hold of his bollocks enough to jump a twelve-year-old—until then.”
The projection held on the image of twelve-year-old Harry and Ron facing a suddenly armed and desperate Gilderoy Lockhart deep beneath the castle, the massive shed basilisk skin coiled on the cave floor behind them like a warning.
Real Harry turned another page in his novel.
The Hungarian Horntail at the far end of the arena let out a low, rumbling growl that rolled across the sand.
In the judges’ box Amelia Bones sat very still, her eyes never leaving the floating memories or the silenced Headmaster beside her.
Memory-Harry’s voice returned, quiet but edged with steel.
“And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how we ended up standing in a cave fifty feet under the school with nothing between us and whatever was waiting in the Chamber of Secrets… except a fraud who had just decided he would rather kill two children than face what lay ahead.”
He paused.
“Shall we see what happened next?”