The Third Time is a Charm

Chapter 22: Packing the Chamber



It was eight in the morning and everyone was sitting around the breakfast table, everyone that is except the two soul bonded mates that were still in bed after a very exhausting early morning of sexual calisthenics. Becca sent one of the elves to bring them a tray of breakfast to their bedroom. They needed to get up soon, they had another busy day ahead and she was hoping for their help.



Kreacher popped in to the temporary bedchambers of his Master and saw him and his mate sleeping soundly. He laid the tray of food down on a conjured table and then went to the bedside to wake his masters.



“Master Severus and Master Potter, sirs” Kreacher said in a hushed voice, but received no answer. “Master Severus and Master Potter, sirs” Kreacher said in a louder voice. He saw his master’s mate stir and start to wake up. “Breakfast is ready sirs.” Kreacher said in a not loud voice but just above a normal tone. He didn’t want to be hexed for startling his masters awake but he wanted to make sure he was heard. Severus woke up fully and looked down at his still sleeping mate. He then turned to Kreacher and dismissed him with a thank you. Kreacher’s eyes grew wide just as he popped out of the room. None of his previous masters thanked him for breakfast before except Master Regulus. Severus proceeded to wake up his lover and get ready for the day.



An hour later the seven adults, seventeen house elves (there were many more on duty about the castle) including Kreacher and seven snakes were huddled around the table going over the days plans. Harry wanted to find a way to save Fawkes, Becca wanted to get the remaining horcruxes, Severus wanted to see about packing up the other basilisk and Doc thought they should brew some Werewolf’s cure. Harry was in favor of that so he could send it to Remus in this time even if he was going to die in the war or disappear, however this really worked he didn’t know but, he wanted to give him a fighting chance. Becca had already said that her arrival had changed some things, what was one more?



It was finally decided, The Seven were going to help get Nagini with Becca and Harry. This would be the fastest as the snakes could get through the wards with no trouble. Voldemort didn’t ward against snakes, and this would keep Becca and Harry from having to get anywhere near the manor, which pleased Severus greatly. Each snake would bring in its mouth a poisoned rat for the familiar Nagini, ensuring that the rat was eaten and the snake would die. While they were doing that Becca and Harry would go over to Gaunt’s shack and find the ring.



Meanwhile:



The elves would put a special small acromantula shell box under Fawkes perch so that when the phoenix died and turned to ashes, it would not touch the pan underneath but go into the box. They were hoping this would be enough of a disruption of the energy in Dumbledore’s magic to get the bird out of his clutches. The old coot received another fire call from Gorbink to come and see to the audit they were still conducting. Actually it did not take that long to do an audit but it was an excuse for Dumbledore to complain about the inefficiencies of the goblins and for the goblin to get him out of the school. The elves spoke to Fawkes when Dumbledore was out of the office, asking him if he could burn early. The magnificent bird understood what they were trying to do for him, so he forced himself to burn, his ashes falling into the box.



Another group of five elves was looking for Ravenclaw’s diadem in the Room of Requirement. Becca was as specific as she could be about the location since she had never really seen the thing, just the memories of it from another time line. They just hoped the elves would be able to find it before they had to leave.



Severus was brewing the werewolf’s cure with one of the other healers and two elves. They used ingredients from Salazar’s stores and the basilisk parts gathered the day before. In Salazar’s lab six cauldrons were set up and they would be able to make twenty doses per cauldron. That would give them one hundred twenty doses to deliver to Remus.



Severus was not happy about being separated from Harry but he did realize his young lover would be protected by seven baby basilisks and also had Becca with him and Kreacher went with them as well saying “He was to protect the Lord Black and future Lord Black.” This announcement amused several of the adults, but the house elves all bowed their heads in honor of this most important and trustworthy responsibility. The other healers and elves were dissecting the new basilisk called Father, finishing the old one called Mother and other elves were packing the entire contents of the chamber including the entire library.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Six of the seven snakes were released each with a fat young rat in their mouth, holding the rat by the scruff of its neck, and each rat was loaded with muggle rat poison. It was decided that second born would stay to help protect Becca and Harry. The other snakes were warned, very strongly, not to accidentally eat said rats as they would die with Nagini. So they set out for Riddle Manor. When the younglings started hissing for Nagini to come out,



Voldemort didn’t hear their hissing as he was ailing and in bed. Something was keeping him from draining the power he needed from Harry and at least one of his followers. A very powerful follower, this inability to drain power from his main sources caused a weakness after last night’s ‘discipline session’ when he could not replenish the power he used for the curses he threw at his faction. They did not know where that brat was and couldn’t find Severus either. The supporters, mostly inner circle, had failed to find the missing sources of power and so were punished.



The six of the Seven lured Nagini into a far off corner of the Manor and presented their offerings to her. She promptly ate them and within an hour she was dead. The six of the Seven, with First Born in the lead, then left Nagini’s corpse there and went to find Becca and Harry. Just as they had slithered about a kilometer away to the Gaunt shack, Becca and Harry had finally found the ring. Knowing not to touch it, they put on gloves used yesterday for the basilisk dissecting and picked up the ring and put it into a secure black box. While the box was still open, Harry took a basilisk fang and jabbed it into the center of the ring. A puff of smoke slithered from the ring and then with a tormented scream descended into the ground as if it was on its way to purgatory. Becca closed the box and locked it with a parsletongue password.



First Born then hissed to his master. “Yes Master that is what happened with Nagini as well. She was a bad snake; we could taste her lies when she spoke with us. She said her master was honorable and true but she knew he was not. The piece of soul left her body when she died.” Harry bowed to the snake in respect of the act they had performed. It was unusual for a magical snake to kill another but they knew it had to be done and this one had belonged to the man who cursed their mother and killed their father.



“Thank you, First Born. You have done a great deed for the magical community.” Harry hissed to his new familiar.



“Now,” Harry said as he looked around, “let’s get back to the others and get finished so we can leave and go to our next adventure.” He was chuckling as he said it, remembering the activities that precipitated Severus saying the same thing just hours ago. There were an awful lot of details in getting ready to leave and he was beginning to think they would never be finished.



When he had said as much to Becca earlier in the day as they were making all these plans, she had responded “The more work a painter does before he paints, the better the picture.” He wasn’t sure what that actually meant, but it insinuated that there was much preparation to be done before you could paint a picture or in their case change the world, at least for one infant Harry James Potter in another time line.



In some ways, Harry was absolutely awestruck at the amount of trouble and planning anyone would go through to see that he was raised happy and healthy. This was more than anyone ever had done for their own children and most certainly more than anyone went through for an orphan. He knew that Severus had said that he was worth it, that the wrong people had gotten hold of him and the others didn’t realize what was happening or how he had to live. It was still something to behold every time they had a meeting or talked about another task to be completed that most of this was for him or the younger him.



Becca interrupted his thoughts when she said “Come on Harry, it’s time to get back to the castle. We will portkey straight to the Chamber.” With that said she pulled out a long scarf and had each snake bite part of it with Harry grabbing one end and Becca on the other. Kreacher looked a little hesitant with seven snakes so close, but he also took hold of the same end Harry had and they were all whisked to what was left of the chamber library. They were not sure about Kreacher being able to pop back into the chamber from this distance as he was not a Hogwarts elf so they took no chances and made him use the portkey.



Harry stood there in awe; the house elves had completely emptied the chamber library and packed all the books that were from floor to ceiling. The bookshelves were now bare and there was only some furniture left. He watched as elves and humans were working together all moving around going to do some task or other. It was like a train station where over a hundred elves and a few people were scurrying around to get somewhere or do something. Harry had further learned that Severus had sent more elves to Spinner’s End to pack his house and even more to Prince Manor with a missive for his elves there to pack the entire house and to come to Hogwarts. Harry was very grateful for magic as it would have been an impossible undertaking to gather all this in one place the muggle way, especially undetected. As he stood there an elf brought him a box of ashes and bowed leaving to do some other task that was underway. Harry looked at the box of ashes and saw them move. He immediately understood that he had Fawkes in his hands. He was so happy tears were silently leaking one by one down his cheek. He didn’t notice Severus walk into the room looking for him.



Without delay Severus sought out Harry as he heard that his lover had returned. The Potions Professor saw what he thought was distress on Harry’s face and the tears so he immediately was looking for someone to hex for hurting his Harry. As he got closer, he noticed the ashes in the box in his young lover’s hands and immediately knew it was Fawkes. At least they were able to save the phoenix. It would be another strike to Dumbledore and a good one too. Last night they had all heard the old coot tell the phoenix he was chained forever. It was a wonder that they had come up with such a simple plan. The spell the headmaster used tied Fawkes to the perch as every time the phoenix had a burning the chains would burn away. So when he did burn, as soon as the ashes hit the pan in the bottom of the perch, he was automatically chained again. Becca’s theory was that if there was in interruption of the magic signal then the bird would be free. Her theory of electro magnetic interference was quite useful for this and Severus wondered where she got her knowledge from. It was exceedingly Slytherin of her using muggle means for a magical solution. He was extremely proud of her.



Someone came rushing into the room, as they looked it was Doc calling from the room of mirrors as they had dubbed it. “You’ve got to come see this. Dumbledore just walked into his office and I think he is going to explode!”



As no one had deactivated the mirrors yesterday, one of the elves had been continually monitoring the goings on of the castle after Becca and Harry had changed some of the mirrors to see other parts of the castle. They had seen when Dumbledore returned yesterday and McGonagall later that day. Then Flitwick had come and left again. Now Dumbledore had come after more auditing at Gringotts and found his phoenix gone. They all rushed to sit in front of a mirror. “This is better than television.” Harry said as he sat down. Some of the others looked at him like he was crazy and he was reminded of the fact they probably didn’t know what a television was.



They all stood around, adults, snakes and house elves all together watching the mirror. If Severus had ever dreamed of this, he would have said it was the craziest thing he ever saw. It seemed normal and surreal at the same time. He would never have thought that house elves and wizards would sit and watch a mirror. As they stayed there watching Dumbledore go from mad to angry to outraged to throwing things, to throwing curses everywhere, to destroying the perch where Fawkes used to be… more and more elves came into the mix. They watched him destroy his office, then his living quarters, then start bellowing for the elves to come and serve him. Of course the elves were already in the chamber and were not under his control anymore as Hogwarts herself was not under his control anymore. Whenever a headmaster was proven to not have the children’s best interest at heart, they lost the control of the school. A new headmaster would have to be chosen before the next school year or there would be no school. Most of the elves would be gone so there would not be much help either.



Harry did not feel sorry for the old coot losing his temper at all the inanimate objects in the rooms of his office and living quarters. He felt some justice was served and he was just glad that he and most of the creatures were going to be out of here and the old coot could not do a thing about it.



“I wonder what he is going to do when he finds out everything in his office is fake and cannot be repaired.” Becca looked at Harry. “The elves told me that when they packed, they just copied everything in his office as I instructed them and packed everything of value. It seems that he either used your money to buy the item, or owed you the money the item could be sold for, or it belonged to the founders. When the elves told the room to back everything belonging to Harry Potter the whole office, desk and all, forced itself into the trunk.” Becca and Harry laughed together as if it were a private joke until Harry had to catch his breath.



“Yeah? Well now we also have his phoenix too. No wonder he is going apocalyptic.”



Becca got up from the scene of the mirror and started to address everyone there. “Everyone, I think we need to finish up here and get moving. I don’t want to be here incase he tries to curse the school into oblivion. To me, he looks furious enough to tear down the entire castle looking for our new group members. Every one has worked really hard and we appreciate everything you have done. We now need a brief meeting to see what else there is left to do.” She turned and whispered into Harry’s ear. “We need to discuss on how to find Remus. It was not in my plan to give him the werewolf’s cure in this time line and I don’t know how to get to him.”



“That’s easy; just send a note with Hedwig. She should still be here in the castle owlery and…” Harry’s heart dropped like a stone in his chest. “Oh Merlin, we have to find and save Hedwig. She will be his next target!” Harry jumped out of his seat and started to yell, “Severus, come quick, Hedwig, he will go after Hedwig now. We have to stop him.” Then he looked at the mirror and hissed “Show me owlery.” His heart was pounding so fast he was almost seeing spots in front of his eyes. Not his beloved Hedwig, he couldn’t stand it if something happened to her because he had been too busy to pay attention. He should have gotten her as soon as they arrived. Just then one of the mirrors changed to show the school owls and there among them was Hedwig sleeping in one of the highest most nests. Suddenly she woke up and looked around as if she had heard or had seen something and then took off in flight.



Harry stood there panting as if he were about to explode and hissed to the mirror again. “Follow Hedwig.” Harry directed the mirror in snake language, but the mirror could only see as far as the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Harry was glad Hedwig went to the forest but he was worried about her. She was his first friend and he had almost forgotten about her, but he didn’t know how to get to her now. Unexpectedly about five agonizing minutes later another mirror turned to a spot in the forest that had a strange looking rock in the ground. Harry looked at it and tried to think of where it could be. He looked at Becca to ask her but she was looking at the same thing with a perplexed expression on her face. Then she turned to Harry as they moved closer for a better look.



“Harry, I think she found the chambers exit. The one that is hidden and cannot be found so you can’t enter. Look, at the top of the rock, it looks as if a snake is carved into the stone. She is a really special owl to have found it. I wonder if we can open the stone.” She twisted back to the mirror and said in parsletongue “Open the chamber exit.” They all watched in amazement as the rock moved up out of the ground to reveal an entrance and Hedwig swooshed into that entrance as if she new her master was waiting for her. A few minutes later, she was hooting outside the library doors. Another mirror had changed again to show the outside of the library chamber where the mother basilisk had been dissected. There was the owl walking on the floor waiting for her master.



“YES! YES!” Harry shouted as he jumped in the air and ran to open the door where Hedwig was waiting for him. “Severus, she is here! We have her!” Severus followed his exuberant mate a little more sedately with an unusual smile plastered on his face. Sometimes things did work out the way you wanted and fate smiled down and said yes you may have good fortune. His Harry was so excited. He just hoped the owl didn’t present a problem with the snakes. The next thing would be Harry starting a magical menagerie or some other pet shop for exotic pets, snakes and owls that live together, oh and not to forget the phoenix, but of course they didn’t know if Fawkes would stay, the phoenix was just a baby now and may leave when he was full grown..



Harry threw open the doors and Hedwig flew into the air and landed on Harry’s arm. Severus saw he had transfigured a glove onto his right hand and arm to accommodate the bird. His mate was stroking the bird and talking to it as if no one else was in the room. Severus closed the doors and headed back to the room of mirrors again to see what else Dumbledore was doing, just happy that Harry was in such high spirits. He really deserved some good news with everything that he had been through.



Severus arrived in the mirror room where the rest of the group was. It seemed so strange that they worked together so well for not knowing each other but for a few days. Then he remembered that they all had worked together before, he and Harry were the interlopers. They had accepted the two soulmates as long lost friends and they worked with them just as they did amongst themselves. He looked forward to his new life with Harry where he was not branded a Death Eater and Harry could walk a street without fearing for his life.



The group together watched as the headmaster screamed and wailed his existence and how his plans had been ruined. Then, sure enough, they watched as he started to head to the owlery. Severus shouted for Harry to come in and watch as the old fool tried to climb up the stairs at a run. Harry came in to watch with Hedwig still on his arm. He placed his other arm around Severus as the old coot was just making the top of the stairs to the nests of owls. He appeared to be looking for something then called for Hedwig. Harry was right; his beloved owl had been next on Dumbledore’s list of things to use for revenge.



Becca spoke with Harry and said “Do you think Hedwig can find Remus before the headmaster does? We could perhaps use a Hogwarts owl to try to get a coded message through. I don’t want to risk your Hedwig and we will be leaving soon. It may take her more than one day to find him.”



“What do we have left to do?” Harry asked her, he knew Hedwig could find Moony but he didn’t know how long it would take her. “There is another owl I use sometimes from the school. She is pretty good and should be able to find him, and then we would not lose Hedwig.” Severus picked up on the conversation from Harry’s side, as he still had an arm around him, said.



“Don’t worry about Hedwig Harry; we will use my eagle owl. He is not my familiar and I have only had him a few years. I am just happy we are together; I don’t really care about leaving him here. In fact, I will make sure that he knows he can be Remus’ owl and that the wolf can keep him.” Severus went quiet for a while and then said, “Actually, I think we can reset the wards at Prince Manor and allow Remus to use the place. The elves left some of the furniture, and we can ask them to restock the kitchen and let Remus use it. Most of the books are gone but Dumbledore does not know about the place and has never been there. It would be a perfect place for him to use as a base. Maybe he can save this time line or something.”



For the first time since Becca came, Harry was sad to be leaving someone behind.



Becca noticed the look on Harry’s face and decided to change the subject. “Hey guys, I hate to interrupt, but we have the diadem the elves found in the room of requirement. Who wants the honor of destroying it?” Then she used a little sing song voice as if she were a child, “It’s the last one. The final revenge on Voldemort.”



Harry chuckled at her little girl face with the batting eyelashes and small squeaky sing song voice. “I vote Severus be the one to destroy it, we have already had fun, and it’s his turn now.” It was true, Gorbink had destroyed the cup, Harry had destroyed the diary and the ring, Becca had destroyed the locket and the part of the soul in Harry’s head, and The Seven had destroyed Nagini.



“Why, thank you, Harry, it’s nice to know you can share.” He gave his soulmate a quick kiss and a hug and followed Becca to the other room where the diadem was located. Harry continued to watch the headmaster as he was now cursing the owlery. At least the birds had flown away before he killed them.