Chapter 60. A Month After

A month passed after Hermione was released from the medical wing, tricking Lucas that she had drunk his Forgetfulness Potion by saying she had no recollection of what happened in the Chamber to Harry who visited. She scoffed just remembering his relieved grin, looking at his empty bed as she sat inside the hospital wing again, waiting for the petrification potions to take their effect on Ron and Chiara together with Harry.

Hermione gasped in excitement when she heard Chiara groan. Harry and Hermione both smiled seeing Chiara slowly stretch herself awake. She then finally opened her eyes, seeing Hermione must have triggered her memory, as she suddenly jumped up in her bed. “W-What day is it? I saw-! I saw something in the lake! Is everyone else okay?” Hermione giggled, she had been missing Chiara, and finally seeing her awake again, without changing one bit from how she always was. Nervous, yet caring.

“Everything’s fine Chiara, Hermione took care of the Basilisk, stopped Voldemort and Ron is going to wake up soon as well.” “Ron?” Chiara asked, sitting up again, looking over at the nearby bed with Ron stiff with a surprised expression on his face. She then turned to Hermione with shock. “Y-You fought…H-How? Are you ok? What happened?” She then began poking and prodding Hermione, worried that she may have been injured. Hermione giggled as it tickled a bit, playfully pushing Chiara’s hands away. “I’m fine. I just can’t remember much of it.” Hermione lied with a shrug.

“Can’t-” “AH!!” Chiara was about to ask, but suddenly a yelp of fear and shock pierced everyone's ears, and they all turned over to see Ron gasping for air, looking around in shock at what was happening. “Oh… I had the worst bloody nightmare…” He muttered with a sigh, Harry laughing a bit. “Ron, you’ve been petrified for over two months.” Hermione broke the news to him, Ron just stared at Hermione and Harry, like a fish, before laying back down under the covers of the bed. “Two months of school makeup work… I’m still sick…” He mumbled, Harry laughing while promising to help Ron catch up on his missed work.

Hermione and Harry explained about the Chamber of Secrets. “H-How much did you forget?” Chiara asked, her eyes still filled with worry for Hermione’s well being. Hermione thought about how much the dose Lucas tried to pass off to her, it would have removed a day of her memory, but she could fib and say she only lost about half. “It’s all fuzzy, but I remember going into the Chamber of Secrets after Lucas.” Chiara squirmed in angst as she spoke. “Umm… D-Did Dumbledore… Explain how… You lost your memories?”

Hermione nodded, adding more lies to bury the ones before them. She didn’t like lying to her friends, but she understood werewolves were already hated, adding onto the fact that Lucas was in Slytherin would only compile to the hate from his house. She wouldn’t be able to sleep peacefully if she knew that her loudmouth was the cause for Lucas’ torment. She now knew that he was more or less a good person, and didn’t deserve his life to be turned upside down more than it already was. “Dumbledore said that the diary of, you know who, since it was already affecting the mind of someone to open the Chamber. When it was destroyed, it wouldn’t be uncommon for slight memory loss to occur.” She lied through a slightly fake smile, before quickly focusing back on Chiara and Ron's recovery.

At the same time that Chiara and Weasley woke up, I was inside the Chamber once again. After waking up beside Gaynor, and appreciating her fondness for my other half, one that I hadn't even seen myself. I was still processing the idea that there was a beast inside of me, that awoke every full moon, to do anything it so pleased.

However it seemed to hunt for the sake of Gaynor, giving her plentiful amounts of hunted beasts inside the forest. Doing research on werewolves, I quickly learned that my other form had abnormal behavior. It was supposed to angrily kill anything in its vicinity like a rabid beast, but mine clearly had higher thoughts to bring back food for Gaynor, and not attack her in the first place.

It was something that relieved me, but also worried me at the same time. I was glad I wouldn’t attack anything and everything I could, but I became worried over how or why I was different, and when that might suddenly change. I couldn’t trust my other half. But that was something for another day, right now I was mourning together with Gaynor and Valdemar over the Basilisk. Gaynor had shrunk thanks to my potion I had her drink, easily allowing her to be smuggled into the school in my hair.

Gaynor was worried, but after touching the scales of the dead creature, she soon calmed down, knowing it was truly dead. “Food…?” Gaynor asked me while skittering all around the Basilisk, leaving a trail of her webbing behind. Val slithered across the ground, tapping the thick scales the Basilisk had. “I prefer my normal food…” I scoffed at both of them, but it was to be expected. In fact I would have felt bad about leaving the creature here to slowly rot after its generations of brainwashed servitude.

The least we could do to honor the poor end to a creature born to slavery was collect everything of her, and not waste all that she could give us in her death. I had borrowed the sword of Gryffindor at my request from Dumbledore, and used it to shear off the scales of the beast, leaving the pink flesh underneath for Gaynor to wrap around with her webbing, preserving it for her future meals in years to come. The fangs were removed, and the one that I noticed had hints of Hermione’s blood. Now that I had an empty spot over my chest, I instead kept that fang inside the necklace as a reminder of her moment of heroism.

It was a full day of work, but once it was done I had collected everything in a sack that was enchanted to be much larger on the inside than the outside, another token of Dumbledore’s help in my way of giving this creature my respect for its life that Hermione and I had to end. Gaynor, already eating plenty last night, was already satiated, and took more of my medicine to head back to her room that she had come to make home.

“Do you want to come with me when I leave for summer, or stay here and make this place a second home?” I asked her, I could barely hear her palpets twitch as she thought, and I chuckled at how much thought she put into it. “You don’t have to answer it now, I still have another few months here.” “It could be fun with us, but always having to hide when mom and dad come in is scary…” I pat Val’s head to ease him, and silently apologize for hiding him as he nuzzled his head into my finger. Ringing in happiness.

Outside the Chamber, I saw Pansy waiting at the top of the stairs for me. Her hands had grasped at her robes in angst, and her head was down, her hair covering her face. After that night, after I became more worried over Pansy’s reaction to who I really was, over the last month I began pulling away from her, and she could feel it. “...I’m sorry…” She muttered, apologizing once again for the beast she had released, and forced Hermione and I to slay. “It’s alright, I don’t blame you for this at all, I’ve told you that.”

As I began walking away with a sigh, Pansy grabbed onto my shoulder, her grip was like a vice, refusing to let me go. “Why… Then why are you still avoiding me!? I’m sorry! I’ve said it so many times, yet every time I do, you just pull away further from me!” She huffed, her grip on my robes weakening, before reaffirming once again. “I… I won't let go until you give me an answer!” She yelled, her conviction of her stance, rooting her into position.

Time became still as we both stood frozen in place together. My mind spun in confusion over what to do. Val slithered under my clothes, silenely chirping while patting me with his tail, like a child comforting a parent. “Fine… But not here.” I muttered with a deep frown, taking her wrist and dragging her behind me. I silently directed her to my room, sat her on my bed, and closed the door. I then looked at a vial of orange liquid on my desk in front of her.

Before she could ask, I asked her a question. “What do you want?” I asked her concisely, letting Val and Gaynor into Val’s enclosure for the time being. Pansy glanced between the vial and I in confusion. “I-I want you to forgive me…” She muttered, and I shook my head. “I have. What do you want?” I answered back, the last month of her guilty groveling starting to make me angry at her not believing I had forgiven her. It was understandable, with the way I was avoiding her, but I was avoiding her for another purpose.

Pansy squirmed in her seat, avoiding my piercing gaze. “I… I want things back to the way they were…” I sighed, wondering if that was ever possible, since I was always hiding something from her. I glanced at the orange fluid in the vial, wondering if I should tell her to see her reaction, then have her drink some to erase her memory, but gave up the idea, unable to bear the weight of knowing she would come to hate me. ‘Besides, I don’t want to make a habit of playing with other people’s memories.’

I swallowed my feelings, my worries, my fear, and focused on my friendship with her. Born under the shared secret of an illegal pet that would soon be allowed, I understood why Pansy was scared. Without the hanging idea of her blackmail to keep me close to her, I was soon to be a free man. The one tether that kept us together was soon to be gone. That was probably what Tom used as an insecurity to get her under his bidding.

I slowly wrapped my arms around her, slowly patting her back like my mother did to me when I was sad. “Perhaps this friendship may have started oddly… However, we are no doubt friends.” I sighed as Pansy hugged me back, sniffling under her breath, and buried the worry I had for Pansy’s hatred deeper into my heart. I didn’t want to lose her friendship, and that would mean continuing to lie to her. “We’ll become normal again soon enough… I just need some time.” I said, lying to perhaps the both of us.

Pansy eagerly nodded against my shoulder, instantly believing it, avoiding questions over why I would go so far for a mudblood, or my strange appearance that night. We both accepted the lies to remain close to one another as Pansy mumbled happily. “Yea…”

After my talk with Pansy, and relinquishing myself to my fate of staying close to her. It’s what she wanted, and part of what I wanted if I was being honest. I knew it would hurt in the future for the both of us, however the uneasiness in my heart was ignored as I let go of Pansy, seeing her first smile after a full month of the both of us moping. Even if this house was built on sand, I wanted to enjoy my time together with Pansy in it, before this friendship would inevitably crumble.