The tiled chamber smelled of damp stone and fear. Harry Potter stood beside the sink, wand trembling in his hand. Around him, black-robed Unspeakables formed a circle, their wands glimmering with containment light.
"Speak," one instructed.
Harry swallowed. "Open," he hissed, and the language came unbidden—hiss-tongue, serpent-song.
The sink split apart. Tiles folded inward like melting wax, revealing a dark, gaping hole that breathed ancient air.
"Step back," said another Unspeakable, already marking sigils around the rim. "Your part's finished."
Harry hesitated. "Is – is it really down there?"
"Almost certainly," came the cool reply.
Before he could move, a gloved hand clamped around his arm. The man's hood hid his face; his voice was all authority. "You're done, Mr. Potter. The Ministry will take it from here."
Harry tried to pull free. "But Ginny—she's still—"
"Enough." A woman in formal plum-colored robes stepped forward—Deputy Commissioner for Educational Oversight. Her tone was brisk, cold, final. "You have done more than enough. You endangered classmates, disobeyed orders, and violated every rule of conduct we possess. You will be confined until further notice."
She nodded once. "Take him."
The Unspeakable turned, steering Harry toward the corridor. His protests echoed off the tile, growing smaller with every step until the darkness swallowed him.
Behind them, ward-breakers in silver and grey knelt around the sink, chiseling glowing runes into the floor. Their voices rose in a measured chant—metal on stone, harmony and hum—reverberating upward through the bones of the castle until the vibrations reached even the seventh floor.
The castle shuddered.
From deep beneath its floors, magic stirred—a low, resonant hum that vibrated through the wards like the pulse of a buried heart. In the Headmaster's office, candle flames bent and steadied again. Even the portraits paused mid-conversation, eyes turning toward the tremor.
Dumbledore straightened.
"They've opened it," he murmured.
Dumbledore's gaze flicked to the levitating map of Hogwarts. The leyline channels pulsed brighter; the Chamber's node had awakened.
"They've begun," he said quietly.
Then Talora gasped.
Light erupted beneath her ribs—bright as sunrise. She staggered forward, clutching her chest as golden filaments webbed across her skin. With a sound like a sigh, the amulet emerged, sliding through her as though her body were only water and light. It hovered before her, turning slowly in the air.
Everyone froze. The office fell utterly silent.
Dumbledore approached, voice low and calm.
"Miss Livanthos, where did you obtain this?"
Talora's lips moved, but no sound came. Shya caught her by the shoulders.
"She didn't find it," Shya said softly. "Master Curse-Breaker Selene Varn gave it to her—over Christmas. Talora was … breaking down. Varn said it would steady her—that it was attuned to the castle's leylines. Life and creation bound together."
The name rippled through the room.
Flitwick's quill slipped from his fingers; Snape's eyes narrowed.
Sprout whispered, "Selene Varn—lost in the dunes of the Sahara decades ago. No one ever found what she was working on."
The amulet pulsed once, drifting toward Fawkes. The phoenix extended one talon; the relic settled against his breast in a halo of golden feathers. For a single breath the office blazed with light. Then Fawkes spread his wings and vanished down the spiral stair in a rush of fire.
When the glow faded, Dumbledore exhaled. "It seems Hogwarts remembers her own defences."
He turned. "Professor Sprout, escort them to Ravenclaw Tower. You and Minerva will remain above ground. If we fail, you'll lead the evacuation."
Sprout nodded. "Understood."
The corridors were silent but for the faint hiss of ward-light. Sprout's wand shimmered beside her, scattering pale shapes along the walls. Talora moved slowly, drained and trembling, with Shya on one side and Cassian and Roman on the other. The castle felt alive—listening.
They didn't speak until they'd turned onto the west staircase, the quiet pressing in around them.
"Talora," Shya murmured, glancing over. "How are you feeling?"
Talora hesitated. "Tired. Like I've been emptied out. But not hurt." Her hand hovered over her chest. "It didn't feel wrong—just heavy."
Cassian frowned. "Still shouldn't have happened. That thing came out of you, That's not exactly normal."
Roman snorted. "Nothing about tonight's normal. We've got a thousand-year-old snake eating leyline magic and first-years in danger."
At the mention, Shya's throat tightened. "Ginny," she whispered. "She's only eleven. I hope they find her in time."
"They will," Sprout said firmly. "Your professors are the best witches and wizards alive. They'll bring her home."
Cassian exhaled. "And hopefully kill the bloody thing while they're at it."
"Language," Sprout warned, though her mouth twitched. "Upstairs. Now."
As they climbed, the castle gave a low, distant groan—like something vast turning in its sleep. Roman glanced upward uneasily. "Feels like it's breathing."
"Maybe it is," Shya said. "Maybe it's afraid too."
Sprout didn't answer, but her grip on her wand tightened.
When they reached the eagle door, it didn't ask a riddle. Its bronze eyes flared white, and the door swung open without a sound.
Even Sprout looked unsettled. "The castle's thinking faster than we are," she murmured. She ushered them inside, conjured two sleeping bags near the hearth for the boys, and wove a lattice of humming blue wards through the air until the tower throbbed softly with protective light.
"Rest," she told them. "Let the grown-ups handle the monsters."
The door sealed behind her with a gentle click of metal and magic.
Ravenclaw Tower shimmered faintly, candles burning with glassy steadiness. Talora lay down first. Within minutes her breathing slowed, color returning; the faint aura across her skin faded to nothing. She looked peaceful, almost luminous.
Shya sat beside her, watching the fire dwindle. Far below, the castle's heartbeat thudded—a slow draw of magic into the deep. Her eyelids grew heavy. Sleep came softly, then not softly at all.
Sleep seized her like a drowning hand.
She fell into a world without light. The air was thin and freezing — so cold it hurt to breathe. Ash drifted through the darkness like slow, gray snow. Beneath it, something vast and unseen exhaled in time with her pulse.
Then the noises began.
Tearing. Crunching. The wet drag of meat on stone.
Shapes moved at the edge of the gloom — too many legs, too many mouths. Wolves, deer, foxes, birds — twisted beyond sense, dragging what was left of themselves toward her. Their bodies were split open, ribcages yawning like cages. Eyes hung by threads. Some still breathed, wheezing as they tore at one another with claws and teeth.
One wolf sank its teeth into the neck of another and pulled until bone cracked. The sound echoed like a scream. The broken creature didn't fight back — it crawled toward her, entrails spilling behind it like an offering.
Another followed. A stag gored a fox, antlers splitting fur and flesh, then turned those same antlers on itself. They all did — killing, collapsing, clawing their way closer to her feet. The ground shook beneath the weight of their ruin.
And all the while, they looked at her — hollow eyes, endless and worshipful — as though she was the only thing that mattered.
Shya stumbled back, but her feet slid through the ash. It was warm. Wet. Sticky. When she looked down, the ground pulsed like skin, veins glimmering red beneath the gray. Her reflection wavered in it, pale and terrified — a child's face in a nightmare.
"Stop," she whispered, voice shaking. "Please stop."
But the creatures only pressed closer, limbs folding and reforming. They began to whisper—not in words, but in breaths, in the rasp of torn throats, in the grind of bones against stone. Take. Take. Take.
The air thickened. The smell — copper and rot — filled her mouth. Her lungs burned. She wanted to wake up. She wanted to scream. She couldn't.
A bird with no beak crawled up her leg, wings shredding as it moved. A serpent coiled around her ankle, skin peeling away in strips. Every place they touched her went numb. Cold.
And then the numbness crept inward.
Her pulse slowed. The world dimmed. The animals fell still, bowing their heads as if awaiting her command. The ground itself began to breathe — up and down, up and down — until she realized it wasn't the earth moving. It was her. The air trembled with her heartbeat.
Something inside her uncoiled — black, vast, bottomless — and the creatures began to dissolve into dust. Their bodies broke apart, atom by atom, drifting upward into her chest. Every breath she drew tasted of decay and silence.
She wanted to gag. To cry. But all that came out was a sound she didn't recognize — a low, soft exhale that wasn't quite human.
The plain went still. Only the cold remained.
And then, beneath it all, she heard it — faint and endless — the sound of stone cracking. The slow, deliberate crumble of the castle's heart. Each break echoed like a heartbeat, whispering her name between the walls.
Her body shivered, though the cold was inside her now — ancient, patient, alive.
Far beneath the castle, the Unspeakables worked in silence. The basilisk's lair throbbed with residual magic; the air shimmered with black mist that refused to settle.
Meters flickered. "Death energy's dropping," one reported.
"Steady bleed. The anchor's pulling it away."
Dumbledore's eyes followed the golden pulse of the amulet resting against Fawkes's breast. "Good. Let it take what it must."
The phoenix's feathers burned faintly blue, shedding light over the slick stone as the darkness thinned—so thin it seemed to breathe a last time before dissolving.
No one saw that the runes nearest the floor pointed not toward the bird, but upward, as if the castle itself were drawing breath.
Both girls slept.
Talora's color had returned, her pulse slow and even.
Shya lay utterly still. Frost rimed the window; the fire sank to a red coal and then to shadow. The wards around the tower vibrated once, softly, like a chord resolving.
Through the walls, invisible to any eye, filaments of darkness climbed—fine, silken threads winding up from the depths, through corridor and stair and stone. They entered the tower like a sigh, coiling over the two sleeping girls.
Talora's blankets rustled; warmth gathered around her, a faint shimmer of gold.
Beside her, Shya's breath fogged the air, the temperature falling by degrees. The shadow curled through her hair, into her fingertips, and vanished beneath her skin.
Down underneath the girls bathroom, surrounded by stones and old bones the readings stabilized.
"Containment complete," said the lead Unspeakable.
"The amulet has done its job," Dumbledore answered quietly.
The phoenix gave a single, low cry—half grief, half warning—and the sound rolling upward through every hall disappeared quickly, startling Flitwick and Snape, "Fret not, Filius, Severus." Dumbledore comforted.
In the tower, Shya did not stir. The frost melted, the embers faded, and Hogwarts, newly lightened of its burden, settled into a hush that felt too deep for peace.