3.12 Clash of titans
3.12.1 Invitation
Mac McDonald and Jim Coates walked in companionable silence through the misty pre-dawn streets of their home neighborhood on the outskirts of Hogsmeade. It was a calm sort of place with friendly neighbors and lots of children, all told, a great place to raise a family. That and its location, situated within easy walking distance of the Hogs Haulage offices and yards, made the neighborhood a favorite for company men and their families.
Such was that popularity that the disreputable appearance of the pair, trudging by in the pre-dawn twilight in their work clothes and filthy with coal dust, drew little comment even from those few awake enough to notice. Two company men trudging home after a long shift, covered in the evidence of their labors was nothing to get excited over.
"Good work today, Mac," Jim told his fireman as they came to the turn where he would break off for his house. Clapping a congratulatory hand on the man's pitch-black shoulder, the senior engineer continued, "'Specially pitchin' in t' help unload the coal wagons. Tough enough handlin' the night run, but goin' straight to extra shovelin' afterward's a real kick in tha teeth."
"'s nah problem, Jim," Mac waved off his coworker. "Weren't 'awkins' whiskey 'is father died, and ya daan't make someone come back from buryin' 'is da' ter a big pile o' work." He shook his head at the idea, then gestured to Jim's equally coal-encrusted countenance, "An' 's not like you didn't hedge in too, Jimmy." Mac chuckled, "Can't 'ave ya makin' me look sorry!"
"Right-o! Right-o," Jim laughed at that, shaking his head even as he turned to go. "Clock ya' tomorra, Mac!"
For his part, Mac walked on toward his own home. Already visible down the lane, it was a small but well-kept residence whose most important feature, in Mac's considered opinion, currently had her arms crossed over her heavily pregnant belly as she tapped her foot impatiently on the front step.
"Well, ain't you a sight fer sore eyes, luv," Mac called to his wife, Irene, hurrying as much as he was able after a very long night's work. "Wot's got you out in tha' mornin' chill?"
"Ah! No hugs 'til you shower, Mac," she fended off her husband as he made to embrace her in enthusiastic greeting. At his comically exaggerated pout, she assured him, "I'll hug the stuffin' out of you once you wash off that coal dust, Mac, don't you worry. I'd have asked what took ya' so long, but you're even dirtier than usual. Had to fill in moving coal, then?"
Mac nodded as the couple made their way inside. "'awkins lost 'is da' an' 'ad ter go ter the funeral. Didn't want 'im ter come back to a load o' extra work, so me an' Jimmy filled in fer 'im."
"You're a good man, Mac," Irene smiled proudly, eliciting a somewhat bashful smile in return from her husband. "I've got a hot meal for you on the stove, and once you're cleaned up, there's a letter you should take a look at."
Mac paused on his way to the shower. "Problem?"
"Only that if you don't get a look at it soon, your daughter may squirrel it away in her room, never to be seen again," Irene laughed. "It's not every day you get a letter from the Boy-Who-Lived, after all!"
Mac chuckled at that. He could certainly see their little Colleen hoarding such a letter to herself; the excited squeal when the six-year-old had learned her hero had purchased the train company had been deafening. He'd have to hurry and get cleaned up.
Fifteen minutes later, and what seemed like five pounds of coal dust lighter, Mac made his way to the kitchen to join his three children. From her perch on her older brother's lap, his youngest, Colleen, stared intently at the letter in question when it was laid out on the table, busily sounding out the words. His eldest son Mike, the owner of said lap, had dressed for his new job at one of the Hogsmeade warehouses but nonetheless sat patiently helping his little sister with her reading. To complete the scene, Mac's second son, Evan, sat off to the side eating his breakfast and periodically fidgeting as he glanced back and forth between the letter and the door.
Seeing that, Mac figured it'd probably be best if he went ahead and dealt with the situation right away. Evan was obviously curious, but he'd be late for school if he stayed much longer, and that was something to be avoided. The group tutoring arrangements that took the place of Hogwarts for most of wizarding Britain tended to be fairly informal affairs, but there were limits... in this case, limits in the form of Mac's irate sister coming over to rag on him for letting her nephew show up late to her lessons.
"Wot ya got there, kiddo?" he asked as he made his way to the table.
"Daddy!" the excited six-year-old looked up at the sound of her father's voice, immediately climbed out of her brother's lap, and ran over to give Mac a hug. "Did you see? We got a letter from Harry Potter!"
"'s 'at so?" Mac asked. "An' what did Mister Potter 'ave t' say t' us?"
"He's inviting us to his Christmas party!" the small girl gushed, hugging her father again out of sheer exuberance.
Mac returned the hug even as he looked over her head to his eldest for an explanation.
"Looks like he's havin' a company Christmas party, Da'," Mike relayed to his father. "Barbecue and such o'er at the company offices according to 'is letter." The young man in his early twenties gestured to the paper on the table. "'Says he's lookin' ter meet all o' 'is new workers, now that 'e bought tha company an' all."
"Can we go, Daddy?" Colleen asked from her position hugging her father, looking up to deliver a dangerously cute look. "Please?"
"I'll 'ave ter take a look at the invitation, sweetie," Mac temporized, gesturing to his son to hand over the letter for his perusal. "Daan't kna if tha invitation extends ter family."
"It does, Da'," Mike volunteered even as he passed over the letter. "Says so specifically, just asks us ter tell 'im how many yer bringin'. I'd like ta go, if yer gonna'."
Mac looked from the cautiously hopeful look on his eldest's face over to the quietly hopeful face of his second son, who was trying not to look eager with all the subtlety a teenager could muster. His daughter's ever tightening hug was a constant reminder of her opinion, so there was only one left to check, and Irene's approving nod decided the issue.
"Well, I guess we're goin', then," Mac said, unfolding the letter to look for himself. "When is this fin' 'appenin', anyway?"
3.12.2 Christmas plans
"What do you have there, Sharon?" Tony Granger asked.
His wife had just come in the front door of their modest home in Crawley carrying a handful of envelopes from the daily post, staring intently at one item in particular.
"I'm not entirely certain," she replied, looking up from her examination with a puzzled frown. "It's addressed to us from Hogsmeade, but it came through the normal post rather than by owl like Hermione's letters always do."
"Who do you think it might be from?" he asked as he walked over to join her. "The school always uses the owls."
"Well, Tony, I suppose the only way to tell for certain is to open it and give the letter a read, now isn't it?" she said, setting down the rest of the post and opening the letter in question. As she freed the missive from its containing envelope, the Sharon's eyes narrowed as she took in the unfamiliar handwriting.
"So, who's it from?" her husband prodded.
"It's a letter from Harry," she said absently as she continued to read. "It seems he has invited us to several of his Christmas events this year."
"Judging by last summer, I doubt we'd be able to pry Hermione away to come home, so there's that to consider," Tony mused, thinking back on the festivities almost a year past. "That, and I suppose last year wasn't too bad. Decorating the tree was kind of fun; you never appreciate how awkward ladders are until you don't need to use one, that kid could reach everything."
"That happens when you can palm the entire tree, I suppose... and yes, he's invited us to celebrate Christmas at the Lair," Sharon relayed, "but apparently we're also invited to a Christmas party he's throwing for his new company, Hogs Haulage..." the woman trailed off before turning to her husband. "Did you know that our daughter's friend had purchased a railway company?"
"I can't say that I was aware of that, no," her husband replied. "I'd picked up on the materials business before, but that one is news to me. We might be able to find out more by attending the party, I suppose. When is it scheduled?"
"This Friday, it seems," Sharon relayed, sounding amused. "Do you think Harry realizes just how far we have to travel in order to visit?"
"I rather doubt it," Tony chuckled himself.
Magic seemed to twist perspectives about some things, travel times among them — he'd noticed the same tendency in his daughter as well, what little he'd seen of her over the past year, anyway.
"In any case, we've got the Johnson appointment scheduled for that day for late morning," he shook his head sadly. "There's no way we can reschedule, not after how long we've been trying to set it up."
"You have an excellent point there," his wife agreed reluctantly. "I suppose we'll have to ask about it at Christmas proper."
She paused to shake her head in disbelief. A boy her daughter's age not only owned his own company, but he apparently actively participated in running it. The magical world was a very strange place, indeed. She turned back to the letter and read further.
"Hmm, he asks that we not show up before Monday," she relayed. "It seems he's planning to be out doing something away from home during the weekend. I wonder what he's up to?"
"I suppose we'll have to find out when we get there," Tony shrugged.
It couldn't be that important could it?
3.12.3 Pantry raid
From Harry Potter's perspective, the latter part of the fall term had been characterized by a series of quite amazingly dull weekends. This one, the last of the fall term, had been no different thus far.
The day had begun in the manner of every weekend for the past several weeks, with the young dragon stooping low to allow his centaur allies to tie green branches onto him as a disguise. Then he had lain in wait within sight of his acromantula preserve, standing vigil in search of the nefarious snacker who had raided his pantry to such devastating effect. Acromantula were in short supply these days, and he didn't want to lose the last of his spider-snacks!
Saturday had passed uneventfully, and with sundown approaching, Sunday threatened to end similarly, when suddenly there was movement in the brush! Harry stilled completely and watched.
The leaves parted to reveal a reptilian snout — even larger than his own! — covered in scales of a green so dark as to appear almost black in the fading sunlight. Above and behind the snout, a pair of forward-facing eyes shined a sickly yellow as they emerged from the brush. At their appearance, Harry noted an odd sort of sensation wash over him, akin to the feeling when the professors tried to cast on him before he was ready but amplified several hundredfold.
It kind of tickled... just a little.
Harry shivered slightly, brushing off the feeling with about the same level of effort a human might use to brush off a cobweb, as the massive snout and strange eyes were followed by the rest of an utterly enormous snake. By the young dragon's estimation, the thing had to be at least half-again as long as he was... and that was just the part he could see so far!
The revelation was a bit of a shock; it was the first time since Avebury that Harry had seen any living creature larger than he was! His leafy camouflage rustled slightly as he shook off the momentary surprise. Big or small, magical or mundane, it was still just a snake, Harry reasoned with an inward shrug, and he was a dragon, so there was really no contest.
The important bit was saving his livestock! To that end, Harry stood up, still covered in branches, and barreled into the clearing like a battering ram.
"Hey you!" Harry hissed loudly in parseltongue. "What do you think you're doing stealing my spiders? Don't you know you're supposed to ask first? You're being rude!"
The gargantuan snake reared back, head towering at half-again Harry's height as the young, camouflaged dragon came to a stop in front of it, the branches of his disguise rustling about him as they shook from the rough handling.
"What is this?" the snake hissed, taken aback. "A Speaker? But you are a bush! Can bushes Speak?"
"Hey! I'm a dragon, not a bush!" Harry protested, sounding thoroughly miffed at the misidentification.
"You do not look like a dragon, Speaker," the snake said, cocking its massive head to one side and looking quite decidedly puzzled. "You look like a bush, or perhaps a short tree?"
Realizing the problem, Harry turned his head and let out a stream of fire, torching his leafy disguise.
As the burning foliage fell off revealing Harry's dark silver scales, the snake exclaimed, "You are a dragon, Speaker! And you can turn into a bush? How remarkable!"
"But I didn't turn into… oh never mind," Harry sighed as he gave up on trying to explain to the rather dull beast. It seemed pretty smart for a snake, but the fact remained: it was a snake, and that was a very low bar to clear. "Anyway, I wanted to tell you to stop eating my spiders! If you keep eating them and killing off all the little ones there won't be any left to make more to eat later."
"Speaker, I am the Greatest of Serpents," the snake hissed, rearing back threateningly. "I answer only to those of the Master's blood, and you are not of his kin. You may not command me! I hunt where I wish."
"You'd better listen, or I'll have to do something unpleasant to you," Harry warned, not intimidated in the slightest.
"You threaten me?" the snake reared up even higher, its back end coiling in preparation to strike. "You have already forsaken your advantage by revealing yourself, Speaker. How do you intend to hunt me? Turning into a bush once more will not help you!"
"But I didn't turn into a…" Harry's protest was interrupted by the snake's powerful strike.
Caught by surprise, Harry failed to react in time to prevent the snake's jaws from closing on his neck. Envenomed fangs smashed against Harry's silvery scales, grinding with a terribly jarring clangor. The serpent bore down with the full strength of its jaw, releasing a rush of caustic venom which bubbled and hissed against the metallic scales. Its great teeth ground harder against the dragon's unyielding metal hide, straining harder and harder until eventually something had to give...
...and give, something did.
With a cascade of sharp cracks, the snake's fangs broke, splintering the young dragon's neck.
"Hey, that was rude!" Harry complained as the snake muttered sibilant curses around a mouthful of broken teeth and undamaged dragon neck. "We were in the middle of a conversation — you don't just go biting people in the middle of talking to them!"
He then brought one paw up to push the snake's head off of him, finding purchase on the massive lower jaw and giving a heave. Hooked around Harry's neck and unable to move freely, the snake's jaw first dislocated and then snapped under the pressure.
That proved to be too much for the basilisk.
Somewhat used to broken fangs — an injury which occurred with reasonable frequency during normal hunting — the additional pain of a broken jaw was something it had never encountered before. The giant snake recoiled, writhing across the forest floor, smashing trees to splinters, and crushing the undergrowth into the dirt.
Watching as the gigantic reptile writhed in shrieking, inarticulate agony, Harry considered what to do. He was rather curious as to where the large serpent had come from as it seemed like the sort of thing that Bane would have known about if it were a normal denizen of the forest, but Harry kind of doubted it'd be particularly eager to answer questions. The young dragon shook his great head, dismissing the idea. It probably wasn't worth the effort; he'd never found snakes to be good conversationalists, anyway, even when their jaws were intact. And speaking of broken jaws, he thought, it was probably best to put the poor screaming creature out of its misery.
Harry's great green eyes hardened with resolve, and wind whistled as his powerful wing sliced through the air. The wing knuckle, claws fisted, slammed into the massive snake a meter or so back from the head, and the reptile's half-yard-thick spine snapped with a tremendous, wet crack. The shockwave from the impact rippled along the body in both directions, separating scales from skin close to the point of collision in a shimmering greenish shower with the hydrostatic shock rupturing organs even farther away. The snake fell silent, a splash of blood and venom cutting off its final scream abruptly as its eyeballs first bulged, then popped from the overpressure.
Harry reflexively went for the bite to make sure of it only to rear back just as reflexively as he caught a whiff of the venom smoking on the ground as it dissolved the dirt.
"Huh," the dragon mused, looking down at the spilled venom curiously.
It seemed those biting instincts weren't insurmountable after all — or at least there was a counter-instinct tied to his sense of smell. Either way, it was probably a good thing in this case. That stuff smelled nasty, even to him, and after his last bout of severe indigestion, he was not eager to risk a repetition.
Harry looked over massive carcass stretching off into the splintered wreckage of the surrounding trees. That smell was not a good indicator for the general palatability of the creature, but that was a lot of meat, and it seemed a shame to let it go to waste. Maybe there was a way to process the carcass so he could eat it safely?
Harry frowned. Returning to the Lair to try to look it up would take too long. The spiders would eat the carcass before he could even find the right book; it didn't matter if it was poisonous, the young ones would eat anything. That left asking somebody, but who? Harry's green eyes narrowed speculatively — who did he know that would know how to process highly magical creatures into usable... Green eyes lit with realization.
"I know!"
3.12.4 What the dragon dragged in
Decorated with all the flamboyance typical of most magical celebrations, the Great Hall made for a spectacular sight during the final meal of the term. Evergreens lined the walls at regular intervals, splitting the distance between the hanging braziers providing the bulk of the illumination in the room. Garlands adorned the stone walls with massive wreaths above the twin fireplaces. Behind the staff table stood the focal point of the festive decorations, a monstrously large tree reaching nearly twice the height of its smaller brethren and stopping just short of disappearing into the illusion used to make the roof seem transparent.
In an unusually well-coordinated effort which had been organized by Gilderoy Lockhart of all people, every inch of the room had been decorated in a unified theme. The effect was both quite lovely and a sharp contrast to the normal cacophony of conflicting styles that typically resulted from skilled spellcasters working 'together' on a project.
The trees sported illusory icicles and silvery ornaments to go with the dancing fairy lights in all the shades of a moonlit snowy evening. The wintry theme carried through the rest of the room, from the garlands and wreaths to the stonework itself. Even the flames roaring in the braziers and fireplaces had been charmed to provide an enchanting white light more reminiscent of starlight than their usual fiery hues. In the considered opinions of the students, however, the unquestionable crowning feature of the display was the illusory snow falling gently from the ceiling only to dissipate just as it reached the heads of the students.
The evening meal was winding to a close, and conversation in the Great Hall had died down to a dull roar as the students began to consider wrapping things up and going to bed. They might not have class in the morning, but it would be a long day of travel on the Express for winter break. The children knew they would be well served by a good night's sleep; however, they also knew this was their last chance of the term to catch up with their friends... and their last chance to catch up on the latest Hogwarts gossip.
And there was a lot of that to catch up on. The autumn term had been a productive season for the Hogwarts rumor mill, a circumstance aided in no small part by the mystery of the petrifications and the revelation of Harry Potter's linguistic talents. Aided by his conspicuous absence the past few weekends, the rumors about the resident dragon continued to flourish despite the best efforts of the Hufflepuff students to quash them, and with his absence on this last day of the term, Harry's friends among the student body feared that they would just have time to fester over break.
The call of "Professor Snape?" that rang out from the doorway to the Great Hall thus came as something of a welcome relief to the young Potter's defenders.
The loud scraping sound interrupting the ensuing deafening silence was less of one.
"Professor Snape?" the small boy called again, dragging the scaly head of a mammoth creature behind him by means of an oddly-textured milky-white rope of a size that would not have looked out of place attached to an anchor on a large sailing ship. "Look what I found!"
All the while, Harry had been walking steadily forward towards the staff table, dragging more and more of what was slowly resolving itself to be an utterly enormous snake behind him, step by unlabored step. The thing was as wide as one of the House tables, including the benches, and it was very nearly as tall as it was wide. As more of the critter passed through the doors, it became obvious the snake had died from a tremendous blow just behind the head, one that had shattered the thing's spine, judging by the sharp kink when that part had rounded the door frame. With that bit of evidence, the more perceptive students reassessed the broken and missing scales, the burst eyeballs, and the blood on the thing's chin in a new light, revising the strength of that killing blow upwards by a wide margin.
"Mr. Potter," the potions master said in a long-suffering tone, "why did you deem it appropriate to drag that thing in here?"
"Um, I found it raiding my pantry, and I was wondering whether it was safe to eat. The meat smells pretty tasty, but something... I think it's the venom, anyway something smells kinda off, and I figured I should ask," the young dragon explained. "And, well, I guess I was just kinda excited, y'know? I've been trying to catch this thing for like five straight weeks now! Plus, I didn't want to leave it near the spiders, or they'd have eaten it before I got back, so I ran over and asked Mr. Bane for some rope so I could get a good grip. When I tried to pull it on my own, it just broke," he finished, sadly gesturing to the upper lip of the snake's mouth which had a large chunk torn out of the edge.
"I see," Snape sighed as he rose to his feet. "Very well, Mr. Potter. It so happens that I do know how to process this beast, which is a basilisk, for reference; however, the Great Hall is not an appropriate venue for such activities. Drag it back to the clearing behind Hagrid's hut, and we will see about cleansing it of any harmful substances so that you may consume it without danger."
"Right!"
Harry started to drag it around to go back out the door only to encounter the Gryffindor table, filled with students staring at him and the wall of scales stretching out the door with looks of awestricken horror.
"Um, Mr. Snape?"
"Yes, Mr. Potter?"
"I don't think I can get it turned around."
"Then drag it by the tail," Snape snapped as his rather limited supply of patience ran out abruptly.
"Right!"
And with that, the small boy quickly hauled himself up onto the carcass, loosening and then removing the smooth white rope, and leaving the massive basilisk's head to loll to the side as every student in the hall stared at it in trepidation. Quickly gathering up the now-detached rope, Harry scampered back to the door, hopped lightly up on the carcass in order to squeeze through the door frame and disappeared from view. The hall remained utterly silent for nearly a minute before the scraping began again as the snake slowly inched its way back out the door, its dreadful head flopping limply with each tug.
As the terrifying visage of the basilisk rounded the doorframe, leaving only a three-meter-wide blood smear as evidence that it had ever been there, Snape shook his head in exasperation, turning back to his plate he quickly finished the last few bites of his meal before sweeping out of the still shocked-silent Great Hall in a billowing cloud of dark robes.
"Argus," the Headmaster spoke from his chair at the center of the staff table, breaking the silence and drawing the attention of the castle Caretaker, who had been staring at the blood trail with shock slowly giving way to ire. "I strongly suspect that that beast was responsible for your pet's unfortunate predicament. Basilisks normally kill with their gaze, but if eye contact is interrupted — such as through a reflection in a mirror, or more cogently, through a reflection in a puddle of water such as the one filling the hallway on that night — petrification can result."
"Really?" the perpetually bitter man perked up, irritation at the bloody mess clearing. "I suppose the thing got what was coming to it, then."
"Indeed," the elderly wizard nodded gravely.
The Hall quietened for quite some time as everyone struggled to process the incredible sequence of events, until the silence was eventually broken by a certain Hufflepuff rumor-monger, the very same one that had put forth the idea that Harry was a honey-badger animagus.
"See? I totally called it!"
Then, one of his housemates threw a roll at him, and the spell was broken.
3.12.5 Raising a glass
"Thank you all for taking time away from your winter activities to attend this meeting," Albus began. "As you all know, there is much to discuss."
The Hogwarts Express had left earlier that morning carrying most of the student body off to their homes for the holidays, and the Hogwarts staff had taken advantage of the lull in activity to gather once more in their customary conference room. The meeting was just as well attended as usual, though the reason for that attendance was no longer primarily the top-shelf open bar.
As the Headmaster had said, there was much to discuss... though none of the attendees were about to pass up the booze.
Filius stepped smoothly back into his unofficial role as bartender, making his rounds. As Albus accepted his own portion, a lowball glass of an icy blue liqueur going by the name Winter Campfire, he proposed a toast.
"In light of recent, rather disturbing events, I would like to raise a glass to Mr. Potter's prodigious appetite," the elderly wizard began, "without which we would have faced the truly unenviable task of rousting an absurdly large basilisk from the school."
The old man joined his staff in drinking to that in a wordless affirmative. The affirmative noises turned appreciative as they took in the taste of Pomona's latest brewing efforts. The icy blue liquid felt frigid going down, only to be slowly overtaken by a swelling fiery sensation and a subtle smoky aftertaste as the ice faded. It was an interesting combination to say the least.
"I suspect the task would have proven quite startlingly difficult," the elderly wizard quipped, prompting a titter of nervous laughter from the younger members of his staff. His beard shifted as the old man smiled, after the spectacle at the feast the previous night, a little levity was overdue. Even dead and being dragged as a trophy, that basilisk had cut a thoroughly intimidating figure.
"You've not lost your knack for understatement Albus," Minerva quipped wryly as she sipped again from her own glass. "That beastie was far larger than anything I would care to tangle with."
"Come now, Minerva, where is your sense of adventure?" Filius chimed in. "Basilisks aren't so bad. Bring a few roosters along to the fight, and they die easily enough."
"Oh, aye, they do at that, Filius," Minerva allowed. "And I am sure we would have been able to handle the beastie easily… had we known what the monster was beforehand, a luxury we did not have, if you will recall." The Scotswoman paused to shake her head and take another sip of her drink. "Finding out would have been a world of trouble if not for young Mr. Potter's efforts."
"Indeed," Pomona spoke up, her own glass in hand. "And trying to do so in a school full of children would have been asking for tragedy, no matter how many roosters you enchanted."
There was a general murmur of horrified agreement as that concept percolated through the room, which made the sense of relief all the more palpable. While the ludicrously dangerous beastie did have a rather well-known and easily procured weakness, it was still a massive magical super-predator. It could kill at a glance, had venom deadly to almost every known creature, and was of a size such that even its death throes would likely have killed several people by accident, even if the staff had managed to kill it.
Harry Potter's appetite had done the school a great service, indeed.
"Speaking of the basilisk," Sprout asked as she finished her glass, "how did your efforts at butchering the carcass go, Severus? I am rather surprised to see you up and about so soon after processing something like that basilisk. Merlin knows how tired I get when harvesting some of the more difficult plants; that sort of magic resistance is a real pain to work around."
"Mr. Potter is a surprisingly quick study when spells are able to properly take advantage of his tremendous reserves," the potions master offered in an unusually free bout of praise. "Despite his typically abominable control, the harvesting charms are forgiving to being overpowered, particularly when used on a subject as recalcitrant as that basilisk. In the end, I did little more than demonstrate the spells and guide the dratted lizard's efforts. It was actually quite a relaxing evening."
"At least we don't have to worry about facing that monster anymore," Septima Vector offered from her usual chair, the relief in her comparatively young voice almost palpable. "Maybe we can go back to a more normal school term after the Christmas break."
"I would not be so quick to relax," Snape warned his younger colleague. "There remains one final issue."
"What do you mean?" she asked, sounding puzzled. "The snake is dead, right?"
"While the basilisk itself is quite thoroughly deceased, we are still short the perpetrator of this debacle," the potions master pointed out. "Even should we assume the basilisk managed to wake up on its own and begin terrorizing the school, we still must account for whoever wrote that threatening message on Halloween. While the abilities of a basilisk are formidable, they do not include writing, lacking as they do opposable thumbs... or for that matter, hands."
"Yes, you have a point, Severus," the headmaster reentered the conversation. "And it is a point I had intended to raise myself. Despite Mr. Potter's decisive termination of the villain's main weapon, we are still left with the unenviable situation of facing an unknown perpetrator, presumably still in the school. I implore you to remain vigilant."
"Of course, Headmaster," Vector offered automatically before looking around as if noticing something for the first time. "Um… not to change the subject, but given all the talk about remaining vigilant in the face of continuing threats, shouldn't our defense professor be in on this meeting?"
The question prompted several of her less-observant colleagues to notice that absence themselves. It seemed a fair question given the current holder of the title's rather lofty reputation.
"I already took the liberty of informing young Gilderoy earlier today," Dumbledore offered, sipping at his drink.
"And why did the popinjay choose not to attend this meeting with the rest of us?" the potions professor's acidic voice chimed in with the obvious question. "After our experiences with Quirrel, I should think that should require investigation, at least."
"Unlike our unfortunate colleague's absences last year, this one is neither unexpected nor unwarranted," the elderly wizard explained. "Gilderoy had a prior commitment away from campus, a book signing in Glasgow, if I recall, which had already been arranged long in advance of accepting his teaching contract. He departed shortly after the Express."
"An acceptable excuse, I suppose," the dour man grudgingly allowed. "In that case I would propose that we move on to more immediate concerns. The time for our grand experiment at Stonehenge approaches. How fare our preparations?"
"Mr. Potter is the picture of good health," Poppy spoke up for the first time in the meeting. "As his primary Healer, I have no objections to his participation. In fact, I suspect his ability to absorb magic has only increased after his ordeal at the beginning of the summer; the increased magical capacity seems to have remained stable."
Filius spoke up in turn, the half-goblin practically dancing in eager anticipation. "Between Nicholas and myself, I believe we have worked out a sufficiently comprehensive and durable sensor system to monitor the discharge process. When are we due to start?"
"I believe Mr. Potter has scheduled the event for next weekend," Albus offered.
"I suppose that's it until the end of the week then," Septima spoke up in the ensuing silence, raising her mostly empty glass to Sprout in salute. "At least we have some excellent drinks to take the edge off the waiting."
That was a sentiment everyone could agree with.
3.12.6 Ophidian charcuterie
"That's a lot of meat," Harry marveled, standing next to Suze and taking stock of his newly excavated cold-room.
Under the direction of Mr. Snape and aided by both Hagrid and one of the centaur patrols who had passed by in the normal course of their rounds, Harry had dressed the basilisk. First, he had gutted the snake to remove the viscera, separating almost the entirety of the bloody mess into specimen jars helpfully provided by Mr. Snape. Oddly enough that had included the remnants of the snake's eyes; Mr. Snape showed him a neat trick to pull them out without damaging them further. Then Harry had skinned the carcass and set aside the massive hide, which Hagrid had volunteered to tan for him.
Harry thought that was very nice of him, and the young dragon had made sure to tell him so.
Finally, he had to chop up the remainder of the snake into reasonably sized pieces, carefully removing all the bones — so many ribs, it took forever — and setting them aside as he went. Harry had some vague hopes of setting them up in a display like the one he dimly remembered from a long-ago field trip to the Natural History Museum back before Avebury. He'd have to go visit again some time.
At that point, he was left with the meat.
The basilisk had been a big one, and a big snake could be upwards of ninety percent lean muscle. Now all of that lean muscle now hung from the rough stone ceiling of his new larder using yet more of the rope Harry had ordered just a few weeks prior. Mr. Snape had demonstrated a clever series of charms to drain the foul-smelling blood out of the cut pieces which Harry had eagerly used. Unlike the venom, the blood was technically edible — for Harry at least — though it was certainly not tasty. The potions master had then assured Harry that hanging really was the only way to regulate the humidity and temperature of such large cuts of meat even after they had been drained, and thus there were now about five hundred slabs of basilisk meat hanging in his Lair. At a quarter-ton apiece, they made for an impressive sight; though to be honest, a quarter of a million pounds of meat would make for an impressive sight no matter how it was sliced.
The problem remained, of course: what to do with it?
Harry knew he averaged several tons of food intake a day, but most of that was in mineral form, primarily scrap metal and coal. He rarely ate more than the equivalent of two or three deer per day in actual normal-people-food. Two to three whole deer were about as much meat as three-quarters of one of those magnificent steaks, and including food for his damsels into the mix hardly changed things. Their dietary needs were barely a rounding error on his own. That meant the basilisk represented almost two years' worth of meat, even if he ate no other meat at all!
"That might actually be too much food," in an awed whisper, the young dragon voiced words no one would have ever expected to hear. "I don't think I can actually eat all of that before it goes bad."
Well, not unless he had another growth spurt in the next few months, then all bets were off.
"That might actually be a problem," his centaur damsel agreed with a slow nod. "Even salted or smoked, I am unsure if it will keep long enough. Perhaps the wizards have a method?"
"Well, I suppose I can ask," Harry said with a shrug, then called in a loud voice. "Frizzy! Can you come here a minute, I've got a question for you."
There was a soft pop of displaced air as the Hogwarts elf who usually handled food deliveries to the Lair arrived. She was also the only Hogwarts elf who made it a point to listen for him while he was in the Lair; the others were still terrified of catching his attention.
"What does the young scary master need?" Frizzy asked in her squeaky voice.
"Um, well, I got all this meat, you see," he indicated the cold-room with one talon, "and I was wondering how long it would keep, 'cause I figure it's about two years' worth of meat for me if I don't eat any other kind."
The elf turned her bulging eyes to take in the sight. "Young master's eyes is bigger than his stomach!" she chided with a sigh. "You should not order so much meat at once; is wasteful!"
"Um, I didn't buy it," the young dragon clarified. "I got into a bit of a fight with a snake, and I won, but I didn't want to waste the meat, so Mr. Snape helped me butcher it. Now I've got a whole bunch of meat, and I wanted to see if you knew any other ways of preserving some of it so it would last long enough to eat before it went bad."
The diminutive elf simply nodded at that and considered the problem. "You is right. Even the young scary master would be eating this for two years... five if you pay attention to a proper diet. Eating different foods is important!" she wagged a finger at the dragon before settling in for a bit of a think.
"Cold will work for a while," Frizzy nodded to herself. "Maybe one or two out of every five, so you can eat them before they's not tasting so good. Frizzy can use salt and smoke for some — maybe another one in five — and about that many more making sausages and jerkies." The house elf frowned thoughtfully, "After that… no, everything will be tasting bad and starting to grow fuzzy stuffs then."
"I guess four out of five isn't bad," Harry said thoughtfully. "Maybe I should invite more people over to eat?"
"You might give some away as gifts," Suze suggested. "I know you always have trouble coming up with ideas for the winter holiday."
The young dragon's big green eyes lit up at the suggestion. "That's a great idea, Suze!" He began counting off on his talons, "Some for Mr. Dumbledore, some for Mr. Slackhammer, some for the Sergeant Major, some for Mr. Snape... maybe a bit of venom and other stuff for him too…" He frowned thoughtfully, "Hey, Suze, I know your family doesn't celebrate Christmas, but do you think they'd like some?"
The centaur maiden smiled, "I am certain the Clan would accept your gift in the spirit with which it was intended."
"Right!" Harry decided. "We'll do that, then. Frizzy, can you help with preserving the meat like you described... or maybe at least show me what to do if you don't have time?"
"Frizzy will do," the house elf nodded. "Other elves may help, is good work."
The dragon nodded his great head in gratitude.
"Thanks!"
