The Last Sanguimagus

Sarah carefully turned the talisman over in her hand. The creation was done well, but the student had erred in the purposing stage. An A for Miss Brown, who spent far too much time giggling with Miss Patil. Sarah noticed that the Granger girl was watching her clandestinely, no doubt wondering if her amulet was being marked yet. No doubt it would be O-level work.

It was Thursday already. Another evening meeting for Mr. Potter's organisation...the DA, as they called themselves. The spells they had practiced at all of their gatherings so far seemed to be Defence Against the Dark Arts spells, and she had to admit that Silas was correct. It did seem quite odd that she was monitoring it. But her timetable was fairly free, and, the day after she had been asked by Mr. Potter to be their chaperone, she had received an owl from Dumbledore in which he had intimated to her in a roundabout way that it would be very helpful if she would host the group.

She resisted the urge to yawn. The weekend had been a blur of pain and Painstone usage, and only today did she feel like she had regained her balance. A flash of motion caught her eye, and she looked up just in time to avoid a Stunning Spell that had erroneously been sent in her direction. It struck the chalkboard behind her with a resounding crack. She winced.

"Sorry," said the Weasley boy sheepishly. The students' attention went back to their little group, practicing their Shield Charm in pairs, and Sarah absently repaired the chalkboard. She watched for a moment.

"Mr. Potter," she said, gesturing to the black-haired teenager. He obediently came closer. "I don't mean to pry...but have you taught any other types of spells?"

He looked confused, but also a bit wary. "What do you mean?"

"You seem to be teaching a lot of...well, offensive and defensive spells. Have you ever thought of teaching medical spells? Healing spells? They might come in handy," she said. "I'm not fully certain what your organisation is for, but from what I've seen it sounds like...well, an Auror programme, to be honest. And they often have to do things of a medical nature in the field, from what I gather."

He looked interested, until another Stunning Spell whizzed past them. "Ron..." he said, walking towards his friend. "You need to aim a little more to the left..."

Aurors. He had not argued with her. So the teen wanted to create his own little set of Dark Wizard catchers. Well, no one could accuse him of lacking courage. She knew firsthand what Dark Wizards were like, and from what she had heard from the Headmaster, so did he.

Her back was paining her, but she had definitely noticed a difference after the last application. Severus's potion was working. Where other Potions Masters had failed, he had succeeded...though he did have the advantage, as he had created the original solution. A pity that they would have to skip this week, but she could not reasonably recover well enough to teach that quickly. Besides, after sixteen years, she was not going to lament over another seven days' delay.

She looked down at the next talisman. Another misapplied purposing. Of course, as it was Miss Patil's. She marked it with an A.

***

Hermione was helping Harry and Ron float the last few desks into place. "I've heard something interesting about her," she said quietly to them, nodding towards Professor Tanner, "from Ginny."

"And Fred and George owled me," said Ron. "They have news."

"Tomorrow," said Harry. "We need to catch up...Myrtle?" The other two nodded.

"It's almost as if we have to have separate DA meetings just for us," said Hermione.

"Like a Department of DA Administration," said Ron.

"There isn't much choice, though," said Hermione. "We can't trust her just yet, and the common room has too many people in it lately to have a private conversation."

"Good thing we have Myrtle to scare everyone off," pointed out Ron.

***

Harry wished for the hundredth time that the bell signalling the end of Potions class would ring. Snape was in a terrible mood, leaning over everyone as they worked, pointing out the tiniest mistake, and lashing out with nasty criticism over every detail. He was in rare form, and Harry had noticed that Neville's absence in class meant that much more negative attention thrown the way of the remaining Gryffindors. Snape had even made disparaging remarks about Hermione's solution, even though it looked absolutely perfect. It was wearing on Harry's nerves. He wanted no more trouble, however, especially after the detention that he had served earlier that week with Snape, so he kept a tight rein on his anger.

Finally they were free to go to lunch, and he sighed in relief. His potion, while not as textbook-perfect as Hermione's, was still better than average, and he felt it deserved an E. He had nearly forgotten about meeting at Myrtle's bathroom until Hermione had nudged him and whispered a reminder.

He shovelled in lunch as quickly as possible, but Hermione refused to let them go at once. "Too suspicious," she said. They waited until the rest of the students had dispersed to their afternoon classes before taking off towards the second floor.

"Tanner wasn't at lunch," remarked Ron. "Wonder where she gets to? And what did Dumbledore say, mate?"

"He said that as long as we had a teacher chaperoning us we can continue to have the DA meetings as long as we want," answered Harry, feeling a little giddy.

"What about Marten? Can he just go and wander in whenever he feels like?"

"Dumbledore said that as it was Tanner's classroom, she can decide who to allow or not allow in."

Ron thought about that for a moment. "I hope she decides to let him gripe in the corridor!"

They were nearly there, and Hermione was full of nervous energy. Obviously she couldn't wait to tell her news. "You won't believe it..." She opened the door, and cast an Anti-Eavesdropping Charm on it after they had entered Myrtle's bathroom. "Ginny saw Snape--aaaaaah!" She yelled in shock.

"What?" asked Ron. Both of the boys turned to look.

The Chamber of Secrets was open.

They all looked at each other. "Who...could have opened it?" said Hermione, looking pale. "There aren't any other Parselmouths here at Hogwarts...The only other one that I know of is..."

Ron swallowed audibly. "I thought they closed it for good!"

There was a noise, then, a kind of scraping, muffled clanging, and they all drew out their wands. "This can't be," Hermione kept saying.

The sound was growing louder. Harry licked his lips nervously. He had killed the Basilisk, really he had. There was no way that it could come back. And it just couldn't be Voldemort. That was impossible. He stared at the hole behind the tap.

"We need a mirror," said Hermione suddenly. "Oh--if all of us get petrified no one will be able to get help--Ron, you'll have to go get McGonagall--"

"And whatever would you need a mirror for?" asked Professor Tanner tiredly as she emerged from the pipe. "Much less McGonagall...I doubt she'd be happy that you interrupted her class to let her know that a fearsome Talismans instructor was prowling a defunct bathroom." She looked awful. She was filthy, and some dark substance matted the lower portion of her robes.

"Professor Tanner!" said Ron and Hermione at the same time, shocked.

"At least your identification skills are still in good order."

"What are you doing here?" asked Harry curiously. He put his wand away. Ron and Hermione followed suit, though Hermione did so with noticeable reluctance.

"What is it you are doing here yourselves?" she asked.

"Er..." Ron turned red. "We were just..."

"Ah, it is none of my business," she said with a touch of slyness. She was attempting to wipe her hand off on her robes, but as her robes were even filthier than her hands, it was a losing battle. "The same applies to you."

"Wait," said Hermione, looking suspicious. "If Salazar Slytherin was a Sanguimagus, and he created the Chamber of Secrets..."

There was a faint smile on Tanner's lips. "Certainly you have lived up to your reputation as a brilliant witch."

"But I thought there was nothing left down there," said Hermione.

Tanner looked at her with an inscrutable expression. "Perhaps. Perhaps not."

Hermione looked rebellious.

"Do not forget that I could just cast a Memory Charm on you and be done with it," said Tanner evenly. "You must trust me that whatever it is that I found--or did not find--will be reported to the Headmaster."

"There's blood all over your robes," said Harry.

"Yes," she said reluctantly. She turned and levitated a round piece of wood out of the pipe. It floated across the room to the door of one of the stalls, which had a large round piece missing from it. A white light flared around the edge, and the door was whole again. She must have used it as a platform and levitated it through the pipes while standing on it, Harry thought. That explains how she got back up to the entrance.

"That's Basilisk blood," said Harry, who remembered vividly what it looked like.

"Yes."

"There's another one down there?" said Ron, horrified.

"Until very recently." There was an odd expression on her face.

"You're not petrified," said Hermione curiously. "Did you use some sort of special amulet?"

Tanner looked at them levelly. "This is to remain between us, correct?" They all nodded. "It was a very young Basilisk. Killing it was not difficult. I daresay that even Mr. Crabbe would have dispatched it with ease."

"Either there were two of them to begin with or..." Hermione had a thoughtful expression on her face.

Tanner wiped her face with the back of a dirty hand, apparently not realizing that she was leaving a large smudge on one cheek. "There is powerful blood magic at work here. The Basilisk will continually be reborn until the last Heir of Slytherin is no more."

"Reborn?" asked Hermione. "Oh, I see...if the creature accidentally perished for some reason...the Heir would have another to take its place..."

"Yes. Now go, I must close this."

"I can do that for you," said Harry. He concentrated carefully, imagining a snake. "Close," he ordered in Parseltongue. Obediently, the sink slid back into place, covering the large pipe.

"Impressive," she said. "I've never heard Parseltongue spoken before...but I am afraid that what I meant was that I must seal the opening. I cannot risk anyone else wandering in...or out. The magic there is too powerful to contain for long...another Basilisk will be born there soon."

"Oh," said Harry. "But there are other exits...the lake..."

"I've taken care of those," she said simply. "This is the last one."

"How are you going to seal it?" asked Hermione.

"You know perfectly well the answer to that question," said Tanner, who looked exhausted. "Enough. Leave before I take House points away."

They began to walk away reluctantly. Harry saw a flash of silver in her hand as they closed the door behind them.

***