Harry looked around once more for any sign of danger or activity on the rocky outcrop of the shore, once he was satisfied that there was nothing he turned to Draco "Okay, I'm going to take this back. Draco go ahead and apparate back. Kreacher, you stay with Regulus. If anyone comes you take him somewhere safe and then come find me. Otherwise just stand guard."
Kreacher nodded emphatically, while Draco cast a frown at him, before Draco shrugged and turned, disappearing with a soft crack.
Harry sighed, hoping Draco remembered to disillusion himself when he got back to Hogwarts, and then disappeared in a flash of flame.
Harry reappeared in the foyer of the Flamel's house.
A few seconds later, Nicholas poked his head out of the study. He had been up doing some reading and was alerted when Harry flamed politely into the entrance way of the house. He grinned as he greeted Harry politely. "Harry, welcome back. I wondered if we might see you tonight."
Harry nodded and held up the box he had conjured. "I broke into Azkaban and got what I was looking for."
Perenelle chose that moment to join them. "What did you do with the prisoner?" she asked curiously.
"At the moment?" Harry asked. "He's on one of the cliffs about five miles from the prison and overlooking the Auror transport station for the ferry that takes the prisoners to and from Azkaban."
Perenelle rolled her eyes at the avoidance of the question, "And? Where will the boy be taken next?"
Harry chuckled a little bit at Perenelle's habit of calling nearly everyone besides Harry himself "boy". She had taken Harry's demand of Nicholas to heart and had never slipped in calling Harry that, and Nicholas had only done so once or twice. "The only place which I can keep him close and keep him perfectly safe. Hogwarts."
She raised her eyebrows, "How are you going to do that with Dumbledore there?"
Harry smirked a little bit "The Chamber of Secrets."
Her eyes widened at that statement and then narrowed in thought as she considered it. She sat down in a nearby chair, and leaned back, completely lost in thought, "You must be cautious. Have you studied the wards in the Chamber?"
Harry nodded a little bit, "Yes but only preliminary. The wards in the Chamber are not part of Hogwarts' wards. They operate completely independently of the rest of the wards. The Headmaster tacked on some alert wards to the bathroom entrance. I moved them to a window."
Perenelle nodded, "That's a good step... but there's no telling what truly is down there."
Harry snorted and nodded, "Yeah we discovered that today."
Nicholas made his way over to the seat next to Perenelle as she sat forward at that statement, "What do you mean?"
Harry frowned, "I wanted to examine the Chamber, and discovered that Iris apparently did kill the basilisk there. It's there and very dead. So is another one. A very alive and apparently very young one."
Nicholas frowned, "Did you kill it?"
Harry shook his head, and actually look abashed for a moment, running a hand through his hair. "Uh… no. It sorta… thinks I'm its mother."
There was silence for several seconds before Nicholas started to chuckle, a chuckle that turned into a full blown laugh.
Harry huffed in faux irritation, "Go ahead, laugh it up. You try explaining to a 10 foot long baby snake that your name isn't 'Mommy' and that he can't eat people."
Nicholas just laughed harder, and even Perenelle was laughing at the mental image, though she calmed herself first. "It didn't try and attack you?"
Harry shook his head, "It said that I smell like a snake."
Perenelle frowned a little bit and then nodded slowly, as she considered it "Probably the venom in your body. It didn't kill you but it's saturated your body. So I'm unsurprised that snakes think so. I admit I can't say I'm exactly surprised that Salazar left some safety precautions in his little hideaway."
Harry nodded a little bit and then looked thoughtful, "You know, that reminds me. I need to talk to you about what happened with the Sorting Hat. But I don't want to leave Regulus there alone too long. I have to flame him to Hogwarts and get him in the Chamber."
Pernelle frowned and then nodded, "Okay, just remember. I don't know what kind of wards or anything else is down there. Nicholas and I were never able to find Salazar's chamber. He probably got a kick out of it. He was very noble when it came to honor and history has treated him far worse than he deserved, but he had a streak of mischievousness in him. Possibly bigger than my husbands, only it was...a somewhat… perverted sense of humor. Who knows what that pervert probably had hidden under the castle. I always thought the 'Chamber of Secrets' was probably a bad name for a brothel anyways."
Harry resisted the urge to laugh at her casual appraisal of historical figures, and prepared to leave, when Perenelle caught his attention with a final comment. "Just be careful. I never explored the Chamber so I don't know anything about the wards, anything that might alert the Headmaster if it's put to extended use, though I confess I doubt it, Salazar probably meant it to be an absolute secret and he was one of my best ward students. So just be cautious."
"And you can't just leave the boy down there with a week's worth of meals and forget about him in between," added Nicholas. "You do have plans for amenities, and things to keep him entertained with, yes?"
Harry frowned. "Probably to get him healthy and caught up on current events first. Then we'll go from there. I figure the fallout when they realize he's gone will make sure that we have to keep our heads down. Though…" Harry paused and grinned at Nicholas, "I think you'll enjoy it."
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