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“Purrfessor Lockclawt, we have some infurmation for you, before you go off to fight the Basilisk,” Roarn Purrsley stated.
“Well, I was honestly thinking I’d just leave for a bit and go on an adventure of sorts. I am already pawking my things, as you can see,” Lockclawt said.
“Are you kitten me? Why are you pawking your things? You need to cat to the Champurr of Secrets to save Ginny!” Roarn said distraught.
“I am planning no such thing!” Lockclawt stated fiercely.
“But you said you would!” Purry Catter insisted.
“I will not and you will loose your memeowries, before you are able to tell everyone that I left,” Lockclawt threatened. He reached fur his wand.
“Expelliarmus!” Purry roared.
Lockclawt’s wand flew away furm him, Roarn caught it with his paw and out the window it went.
Roarn then immeowdiately pointed his wand towards Lockclawt: “You have to go with us to the Champurr or else.”
Lockclawt was then, while at wandpoint, lead to Meowing Murrtle’s bathroom, that was right across furm the writing on the wall, declawing Ginny to die in the Champurr.
“Oh, hello, it’s you Purry!” Murrtle exclawmed with a purr in her voice.
“Uhm, hello Murrtle, you could really help me, by telling me how you died, if you remeowmber,” Purry said awkwardly.
Murrtle told them about the yellow eyes she had seen, when she had locked purrself in a toilet stall.
After some prodding and poking with pointed questions Roarn and Purry managed to single meowt a sink with a snake tap.
Purry meownaged to imeowgine really hard that the snake was real and was then able to hiss: “Open,” in Parseltongue, but only on the second try.
It meowpened up to a dark tunnel that went downwards like a slide.
They slid down. Lockclawt first, then Purry and then Roarn.
When Purry arrived at the bottom of the slide he immeowdiately cast a Lumos, hoping that Lockclawt hadn’t fled the scene yet.
As it furned meowt, he shouldn’t have worried - Lockclawt was just sitting on the floor, licking his paws clean.
Roarn arrived shortly after Purry did and they got going, Lockclawt tagging along behind them, since it was impawsible for him to go anywhere anyways.
Then they saw something in the distance. Was is a cucumber-snake, also know as the Basilisk?
Roarn was scared and wanted to purrn around, but Purry managed to clawnsolidate him by reminding him of Ginny,
So they clawtiously stepped clawser to the maybe-a-Basilisk. As it purrned meowt it wasn’t a Basilisk, but just its cucumber-skin.
“That’s a relief, but still scary,” Roarn said, as they figured it meowt.
Lockclawt used their distraction to make a move and toppled Roarn who yelped in purrn. Lockclawt managed to get ahold of Roarn’s wand.
“I will erase your memeowries now and no one will even question me when I tell them, that Ginny didn’t make it and the two of you got ameowsia as you saw her. Obliviate,” Lockclawt said, before any of them could react. The spell backfired and hit Lockclawt as well as the tunnel ceiling above him, which began to collapse.
Purry ran further into the tunnel, to not get purried under heaps of stone.
He eventually stopped running and furned around, as he felt it to be safe. There now was a wall of rocks separating him furm Roarn and Lockclawt.
“Are you alright Roarn?” Purry shouted in the hopes that he was heard.
“Yep, Lockclawt is here too, unfurtunately”
“Okay, I’ll be off to save Ginny. We don’t have time to loose.”
“Do that. in the meowntime I’ll see if I can meowve some of these rocks.”
Purry clawntinued walking through the tunnel until he reached a gigantic door with ornate snakes on it. He once again imeowgined really hard that they were real and hissed: “Open.”
This time it worked immeowdiately and the door slid to the side to reveal a large champurr with meowny pillars.
He clawtiously stepped through the entrance.
Meownce inside he meowticed a large statue at its end. It was a large cat, that kind of resembled a lion.
Eventually he spotted Ginny who was lion there, with her back on the stone floor.
Purry hurried over quickly. Ginny’s eyes were shut and she seemed somewhat blurry, as if she wasn’t fully real. But that couldn’t be, right?
“Ginny, wake up, can you hear meow?” he tried.
“She won’t wake,” a voice spoke.
Purry reclawgnized it immeowdiately and furned around to a dark furred cat with a clawculating look in his eyes. “Tom, what are you doing here?”
“I finally emeowged from the diary I was trapped in for 50 years. It lies over there,” Tom said.
“I’m really happy for you that you got out of that situation. You can help me save Ginny now, right?”
A look back to Tom revealed that he was twirling a wand between his paws. It looked really furmilliar.
“Is that my wand?” Purry asked.
“Meowbe.”
“Thank you for purrcking it up, I must have dropped it at some pawnt. Can you bring it to me or use it to lift Ginny so that we can get her meowt of here and bring her to Meowdam Pawmfurry?”
“What do you think it is I am doing here, Purry?” Tom sounded lightly furstrated.
“What do you mean?” Purry said with audible clawnfusion.
”You really are that owoblivious, are you?”
“Apurrently so. Are you helping me with getting Ginny to safety or not? I’m unfurtunately not strong enough to lift her just by meowself. Or you could give me my wand back, so that I can levitate her meowself,” Purry suggested.
“You know, Ginny told me a lot about you. She had quite the crush on you. Always told her diary everything that happened, if you know what I meown.”
“Do you- do you meown- no, that can’t be-“
“Yes Purry, she wrote to me while I was trapped in that diary. She even gave a little gift to me and now I am here, almeowst as real as I was over 50 years ago, all thanks to her.”
“Did Ginny know the price she was pawing? Or did you just coax her, telling her she could do something good fur the furiend you let her believe you were to her?”
“Even better. Clawnsider where we are and think again. She did meowny things for me meowt of furiendship.”
“No, she would never,” Purry stated fiercely.
“Do you really think you know her that well? Did you even talk to her all year? No, you didn’t and she told me all about it. You left your best friend’s sister clawd in the dirt and look what you clawsed. The thought of having a furiend made her kill roosters, write bloody meowsages on walls and send the Basilisk on pawple, all for me, all fur some furiendship.” Tom spat out the last word with disgust.
“But she- she doesn’t even speak Parseltongue!”
“Just like you have no reason to speak Parseltongue?”
“No, I don’t believe you, she would never turn into a meownster, just like you!” Purry roared.
“Eh, it was worth a try. She did do all of that, but not fur my furiendship, but fur other meowns. You’ll find I can be very purrsuasive. She gifted me her soul, you know. The more she wrote, the more she gave to me. You gave me a bit too, you know.”
“Why are you doing this, Tom? What is it you think you can gain from this?”
“Haven’t you guessed it yet? I am the greatest wizard in Britain, that’s what’s up,” Tom stated with lots of clawnfidence.
“But the greatest wizard in Britain is Dumpurrdore, the greatest wizard in the world, in all of existence even.”
“You are way too much of a Dumpurrdore-fancat, please stop that or I’m gonna throw up.”
“Honestly, who do you think you are?” Purry said angrily.
“Who I think I am? You still didn’t catch on? I guess that meowns it’s anagram time meow.”
And with that, letters appawred in the air: TOM MARPURRT RIDLEO. The letters shifted and now they said: I AM LORD PURRTEMORT
Purry gasped. “You- you are him.”
“Yes, I am Lord Purrtemort - or his younger self, for that matter. And I repeat, I am way better than Dumpurrdore.”
“You will never be better than Dumpurrdore!” Purry roared.
“Well, unlike me, he just left you alone, to fight against the Basilisk.” At Purry’s look of shock he added: “What, you forgot about the Basilisk? Silly you, I guess.
“Don’t think that you being here is a good thing. And Dumpurrdore didn’t leave me here to fight on my own.”
As Purry said those words, a beautiful meowlody sounded through the Champurr. Purry thought he could cry of happiness.
Tom on the other hand growled in agony, pressing his paws to his ears and letting Purry’s wand drop to the floor Tom was now cowering on.
The song slowly faded meowt, as a mix of a lion and some kind of bird, that Tom reclawgnized as an eagle, landed right next to Purry.
“Fawkes, it’s you!” Purry realised.
“A gryffin for a Gryffindor, how fitting,” Tom, who was purrently standing on Purry’s wand, mocked.
“Actually it’s either spelled “griffin”, “griffon” or “gryphon”. Hermeowne looked it up when I told her about Fawkes.”
Tom ignored Purry’s clawment and went on: “And what did he bring you? A lumpy old hat and nothing more. You will have headwear as ugly as you are owoblivious while you fight the Basilisk. Meow, what a way to go.”
Purry looked at the hat. “I’m pretty sure, that’s the sorting hat.”
“Really? That looked way better 50 years ago. Dumpurrdore really let this place go down the drain.”
“Hey, if I’m not allowed to talk about Dumpurrdore you aren’t either.”
“You don’t want me to talk? Fine.” He furned around to the giant statue and hissed: “Ssspeak to me, Ssslyhterin, greatessst of the Dogpawtsss Four.”
The cat statue’s meowth opawned and as if it had been waiting for just this meowment, only seconds later a Basilisk slowly lowered itself to the ground.
The Basilisk looked like the most mix of snake and cucumber anything could be. It was green and seemed to have the general texture and colouration of a cucumber, but its shape was certainly that of a snake.
It scared Purry so he made a run for it. He had never felt such panic before in his life, not even in his first year at Dogpawts when he had to face off Purrtemort at the back of Purrfessor Purrel’s head.
He really thought he could escape, just right back through the Champurr door, but then he saw lifeless Ginny meowt of the corner of his eye and just halted. She needed him to do this. Roarn needed him to do this.
Unfurtunately fur Purry the Basilisk made use of his moment of distraction to catch up to him and slam him against a wall, furlowing right after, ready to pawson him. Purry closed his eyes, so that there was at least one less pawsible way to die for him.
There however still was a gryphon with only one task: ensuring Purry’s survival.
Due to that task Fawkes attacked the Basilisk’s eyes with his claws, thus rendering the Basilisk unable to see and further pawtrify pawple.
Purry used the opawning he was given, to make a run fur the sorting hat, that didn’t know why, but he felt like it was impawtant that he stuck his paw into it and wished really hard for something to help him fight off the Basilisk so that he could get Ginny meowt of here safely.
And his paw actually felt something. Purry clung to that object as good as he could and pulled it meowt. It was a red-grey sword.
It was really furtunate that he had a sword now, beclawse the Basilisk was appurrching him once again, apurrently having reclawvered from the pain of its eyes being stung meowt by Fawkes.
Purry furned around and the Basilisk was already in front of him, ready to strike. He had just enough time to pawsition the sword in front of him so that he could easily sting the Basilisk, should he clawm clawser.
The Basilisk lunged at him and Purry pawnicked and just wildly swung the sword. He actually somehow meownaged to injure the Basilisk gravely. The life slowly faded meowt of it, until its head was only a dead weight on Purry’s lower body.
“Nooo!” Tom roared, moving clawser to the scene now.
Only as Purry tried to move away, did he notice that he had been bitten. He dislodged the fang from the roof of the Basilisk’s meowth. It was still stuck in Purry’s front leg, though at a bit of an angle now.
Tom was now close enough to see Purry’s purrdiclawment,
“Oh, did I win after all? Basilisk venom is strong, you know.” Tom was clearly happy about this development.
Well, if Tom really wanted him to die Purry could do that to him too, right? He carefully pulled the fang out of his front leg, with the help of his meowth - no blood ran out, which made no sense at all. And oh, now Purry noticed how dizzy he was. He couldn’t even stand up right, let alone move forward at all.
“And don’t even think to stab me with that - I’m very immune to it, so you will only waste your energy trying.”
Was Tom bluffing?
“Hey, what’s the gryffin doing here?”
Purry did indeed see a blurry something come clawser. It sat down next to him and he felt tears fall into his fur, right where he was injured. It wasn’t his own hears.
“Aw, are you crying over his death?” Tom mocked the gryffin.
“Still a gryphon, griffin or griffon,” Purry choked meowt.
Weirdly enough he didn’t even feel that dizzy anymore. Was that a bad sign? Was he dying already?
Eventually Purry was able to stand up. He took a step. And another one. And then he was slowly over to Tom, fang in his meowth.
“Wait, how did you-?” Tom wondered, but then realisation hit him: “Oh, oh no. I forgot that gryffin tears have healing purrpawties!”
Tom ran, furgetting about his apurrently there immunity to Basilisk venom. Purry just catted towards Tom’s diary instead, seeing as it was clawser now.
Once he was there Tom realised that he himself wasn’t the target he should have purrtected more.
Purry put the fang over his head to gain some meowmentum, aiming the fang at the diary.
“Wait, no, you can’t do this!,” Tom roared.
And Purry struck, the fang burying itself within the diary.
Tom roared in pain, writhing on the ground, before he dissolved into black smoke. A dark liquid oozed meowt of the diary. It was purrbably just ink, Purry reassured himself.
“P-purry, is that you?” a weak voice uttered.
It was Ginny. She had woken up. Purry left the diary with the fang behind and hurried over to Ginny.
“Are you alright?” Purry asked.
“I don’t know.. Where are we?”
“We are in the Champurr of Secrets. I met Tom. He is gone now. See, I would help you up, but there’s purrbably a bad idea.”
At Ginny’s shocked look he added: “Don’t worry, Fawkes healed me. He is Dumpurrdore’s gryphon.”
“Oh, wait, I think my wand is still somewhere here,” Purry realised. He looked around.
“There.” He walked over and picked it up. Then he walked back to where Ginny half-lay, half-sat.
“Do you maybe want me to levitate you?” Purry asked.
“Sure.”
Purry pointed his wand at Ginny. “Wingardium Leviosa.”
He then clawfully walked back to the still open exit of the Champurr, leaving the diary behind for now. He got back to where the ceiling had collapsed and there now was a small tunnel within the rocks.
“Roarn, are you still there?”
“Purry, is that you?” That was Roarn’s voice.
“Yes, Roarn, I’m here with Ginny. We’ll come to the tunnel, alright?”
“Ginny is here too? Is she- does she still-” Roarn’s voice cut off.
Purry levitated Ginny in front of him and led them through the tunnel.
“Roarn,” Ginny croaked.
“Ginny, you’re alive!”
Purry slowly levitated her so that she was upright again.
“Can you hold her?” Purry asked. “I would have, but I’m unfurtunately mildly clawvered in Basilisk venom. But don’t worry, I am alright now and the Basilisk won’t harm anyone anymore.”
“Bloody hell mate, you and me have different definitions of what is alright and what isn’t.”
Roarn held Ginny and pawmtly hugged her.
Purry lifted the levitation spell he had on Ginny, now that Roarn held her.
“ Oh, a reunion, how sweet,” Lockclawt clawmented.
Purry had clawmpletely forgotten about him. Too bad he had already killed the Basilisk.
“We could hug too, you know?” Lockclawt went on: “I don’t know if we are friends or anything since Roarn did not want to talk to me about anything, but the offer stands.”
Oh, right, the Obliviate that Lockclawt had shot himself with, by accident.
“I don’t think that that’s-” Purry started.
“Let me just..” Lockclawt said and just hugged Purry then and there.
”..a good idea. Let me go Lockclawt, you’ve already been poisoned, don’t make it worse.”
Lockclawt relented, but only beclawse Roarn and Ginny had stopped hugging and were just looking at the scene unfolding in front of them.
“I feel dizzy,” Lockclawt stated.
“It kind of serves you right fur just hugging me without purrmission and fur attempting to owobliviate us.”
Lockclawt slowly sank to the ground. “Why is everything so blurry, I don’t even have glasses that I could have lost. Or do I?”
“Fawkes!” Purry shouted. “Are you anywhere here? Someone needs your help!”
Fawkes flew meowt of the tunnel that Purry and Ginny had exited mere meowments ago and landed next to Purry and Lockclawt.
“Fawkes, can you heal him?”
The griffin shook his head.
“You don’t have any tears anymore, do you? Did you use all of them on healing me?”
The griffon nodded sadly.
“Can you at least bring Roarn and Ginny upstairs and meowbe someone pawsibly qualified in this field down here?”
Fawkes nodded and went over to Roarn and Ginny who had been just watching the situation in furnt of them, not knowing what else to do.
“You can ride on his back,” Purry offered
.
The gryphon lowered himself to their height and Roarn and Ginny got on Fawkes’ back.
Purry looked after them, as they disappeared down the slide.
Lockclawt in the meowntime had paled significlawntly and had been loosing some of his fur. He was clawly unwell.
Purry mostly looked at the slide in desperation and only threw spare clawnces at Lockclawt.
Time seemed to move through a gelatinous substance, yet Lockclawt’s transfurmation was purrgressing meowtside of that.
Lockclawt turned greener and greener while loosing all of his fur. And once he didn’t have any fur anymore and was fully green, like the inside of a cucumber, his limbs slowly shrank until they weren’t there anymore. And his neck got thicker and meowged his head and his body into one clawntinous mass. A horrid sight if you asked Purry. Made him actually feel sorry fur Lockclawt fur once.
Then Lockclawt’s body slowly widened at a radius. And once that seemed to be finished he elongated. That one seemed to take furever.
And there still wasn’t anyone else in sight. Where was everyone? Why was no one here? Were Roarn and Ginny okay? Did they safely make it meowt? Did they meownage to alert someone? Purrbably not. Why else was no one here. Or was something stopping them furm going in here?
Purry worried while Lockclawt’s body elongated. Not about him though. Lockclawt had it clawming fur him anyways.
Meowbe he should leave, but he couldn’t let other pawple he didn’t dislike endure the same stuff that Lockclawt purrently was.
Said Purrfessor was really not reclawgnizable anymore. His elongation had finished and he was currently really really long and deforming some more.
And then at last he grew scales, like the outside of a cucumber.
It was then and only then that Purry realised: Purrfessor Lockclawt was turning into a Basilisk!
Clawd he clawmand him, like Tom had clawmanded the purrvious Basilisk? Could he purrvent him from harming anyone else? Hopefurly so.
The silence was broken by a: “Hello, new Heir of Ssslytherin. Do you mind helping me get into the Champurr, by clearing the way there? Thessse ssstonesss are rather closssely together.”
Purry looked around himself, hoping to spot at least two other people, but there was no one. Was he going crazy? It had been a while now. But meowbe it was adressing him. He had destroyed Tom after all. But where was that voice, that somewhat familiar voice, clawming furm? The only being in here with him was- the new Basilisk! Of clawse.
“Am I really the Heir of Ssslytherin now?” Purry asked, clawtiously clawncing at the Basilisk.
“Yesss. And you can look at my eyesss without being pawtrified, sssince you are the Heir of Ssslytherin now.”
“I don’t trussst you enough for that yet.”
“That isss acceptable. Can you levitate thessse ssstonesss meowt of my way to the Champurr for me now?”
“Okay, but only if you’ll anssswer my quessstionsss.” There were meowny questions in Purry’s head now. He was eager to get to ask them all.
“That sssoundsss meownagable.”
Purry started clawfully levitating some rocks meowt of the way and bit by bit the space was beclawming more meowpen. Not everything went perfect - a clawple times everything clawlapsed some more after he levitated stones away, but it was meowstly fine.
And while he was doing that, Purry also asked his questions:
“Are you ssstill Lockclawt or ssstill partially Lockclawt?”
“Not really, who my body clawmesss furm doesss not affect me at all.”
“How isss it that you are so big already?”
“Sssince my body wasss clawated furm a fully grown clawdult I am more grown than a newly hatched Basssilisssk.”
“How old are you?”
“My body isss asss old asss Lockclawt’sss body wasss, but my mind isss meowch older than that.
“How doesss that even work?”
“Each new Basssilisssk may have a new body, but ssstill the knowledge of every Bassilissk before it. I am ssstill the firssst Basssilisssk, but my experiencesss in varoiusss new bodiesss have changed me over the yearsss.”
“If you are ssstill the sssame Basssilisssk asss the purrviousss one, are you gonna have the urge to further pawtrify pawple?”
“I wasss only pawtrifying pawple becaussse the purrviousss Heir of Ssslytherin ordered me to do that. I wasss jussst sssleeping peacefully before he awoke me and can go back to that anytime you are not visssiting me.”
“That sssoundsss good at leassst.”
“Is the venom on my fur going to turn anyone elssse into a Basssilisssk, if they touch it?”
“No, itsss clawpawbilities for that have worn off now. It doesss that once enough time hasss pawsssed.”
Once Purry had levitated enough rocks away, they went into the Champurr together.
After they had entered, Purry spotted Tom’s diary on the floor, not that far from the still there carcass of the purrvious Basilisk that Purry didn’t even notice.
“Oh, I forgot about the diary. Do you have any idea what I ssshould do with it?”
“Jusst leave it here, I can sssafekeep it, in casse you need it anytime in the future. I can bring it to my nessst.”
“Okay, thank you for taking care of thisss. I will go back to my friendsss now, that everything is taken care of, but don’t worry, I’ll return.”
“Farewell then,” the Basilisk said.
“Bye, oh wait, I think I have another quessstion.”
“Yesss?”
“What isss your name?”
“The present Heir of Ssslytherin alwaysss getsss to choossse my name.”
“I will have to think about that. Bye, my Basssilisssk furiend.”
“Farewell, Purry, my furry furiend.”
Purry left the Champurr and hissed: “Clossse,” at the door. It slid shut again. Then he went past the rubble and wondered how to get out. Maybe he could try to reach Fawkes.
“Fawkes!” he called out, “Fawkes, can you hear meow, I need your help again.”
Purry waited a bit and eventually Fawkes actually came down the slide.
“I’ve taken care of everything down here. Can you take me up the slide?”
Fawkes nodded and lowered himself, so that Purry managed to get on his back.
Then Fawkes flew into the slide and upwards they went.
Purry was already wondering, how he was going to explain, what happened, to Dumpurrdore and his own friends, but he was clawnfident that he would meownage somehow.