"I think I know who's doing this..." Ginny tentatively said.
"How?" Amelia asked, now perfectly attentive.
"You see, it's my brother Ron..." Ginny admitted, "It was a few nights ago, I'd fallen asleep in the Gryffindor Common Room while studying late at night only to be woken up to find that Ron was trying to sneak out late at night."
"When I tried to confront him about it, he just ignored me as if I wasn't even there, it's like he was possessed or something."
"I was hoping that perhaps he was just sleep walking or something but when I stayed up late last night as well to see if he did the same thing, he just shoved me when I got in front of him, and when he finally came back a few hours later he was covered in blood. Can't you help him? He may be a jerk but he's still my brother and I don't think he really knows what he's doing."
"It would seem to match with what I've noticed about Ron, he hasn't seemed to have been around as much, I just assumed it was because he was embarrassed but now I think there might be more to it than that." Harry replied, "Come to think of it I've seen him missing quite a few times very early in the morning when I've woken up."
Amelia nodded, "I'll do my best, it certainly sounds like Ron might be the culprit, and I highly doubt he'd have been able to do this himself, the magic required to petrify someone like the victims would be far above any 2nd year's skills. Whatever is possessing him has to know pretty advanced dark magic and could potentially be very dangerous. We'll need to find Ron and prevent him from hurting himself or anyone else."
Turning to Harry and the girls, she said adamantly, in a tone that offered no argument from them, "I want you to stay here while we locate Ron, am I clear?"
Noticing that she meant business, they all promised to stay there. Amelia, hoping that they would manage to ignore their instincts to help and stay put, left them in the care of one of the Aurors to make sure they didn't try disobeying.
As having the students return to their dorms for the time being had not yet been instituted, she had her Auror force ask around among the students they found to see if any of them had seen Ron Weasley lately while Scrimgeour and another Auror went to go check in his dorm room.
Finally a girl mentioned him seeing him down another hallway, and so she headed over with Tonks, the Auror currently accompanying her, to find out if he was still there.
As soon as she spotted Ron, currently with a small blonde haired girl, she tried to coax him gently, "Ron can you please come with us? We have a few questions for you."
He seemed to recognize them, so it appeared that whatever was possessing him had already gotten strong enough to be able to tell when someone was speaking to them. Based on his currently glazed over expression, she didn't think he was currently in his right mind either.
"Stay back," He yelled, for the first time defensively, "or the girl here gets it!"
She noticed for the first time that he currently had his wand pointed directly at the girl's neck as the girl currently looked terrified. She realized that he had evidently already heard about the Ministry sending Aurors in to catch him and this was his way of protecting himself.
Now at a standoff, she and Tonks pointed their own wands at him as he cautiously backed up, using the girl as a shield. While they probably could have just hit the girl and knocked her out and then hit Ron, there was no guarantee he wouldn't try to hurt her right afterwards before he tried to make his escape. They couldn't take that chance.
At the end of the hallway, Ron paused in front of a door of a girl's bathroom, one she recognized from her Hogwart's days of belonging to Moaning Myrtle.
Ron quickly rushed inside with the girl while they approached slowly but confident that they now had him cornered, it was a bathroom and had no windows or other doors to escape through, they had him cut off or so they thought.
Upon deciding to risk entering after about a minute, they opened the door to find not Ron or the girl, but instead a huge gaping hole to the right of the room which quickly began to seal itself before their eyes and turn into a circle of sinks.
Quickly looking it over there seemed to be no quickly identifiable way how Ron had managed to open and close the door so easily.
As she tried various spells meant to open it back up she was met with little success, leaving her flummoxed as to how to follow. Finally it was Tonks that spotted something.
"There's an engraved snake on this pipe." Tonks pointed out as Amelia bent down to look it over.
It could be simple graffiti and be nothing but she decided to check just to be sure. Waving her wand over it, she found that it had some sort of magic on it that was unknown to her.
"Go get Dumbledore, and hurry." She commanded Tonks.
Hopefully his greater knowledge in such arcane magic would let them know how to open the hole back up in time for them to rescue the girl.
Dumbledore arrived 10 minutes later, obviously out of breath from likely having run very hard in his old age. Yet as he examined the pipe he said, "It appears to be parselmagic, only someone that can speak parseltongue can open it."
"Where are we going to find someone else that can speak that though?" Tonks voiced aloud, "its supposed to be super rare."
"Actually we do have a student that would be able to help us, I dare say they have already told you?" Dumbledore replied, looking over at Amelia.
She shook her head, she knew who Dumbledore was implying, Susan had related the whole incident to her in a letter home about Harry being a parelmouth
"Absolutely not Dumbledore," She disagreed, "I'm not putting Harry into danger like that again."
"How else do you expect us to open it then?" Dumbledore asked, "We currently have a student in mortal danger, two if you include Mr. Weasley, we can't afford to waste time exploring other options. We'll simply have to bring Mr. Potter down with us in case we end up needing to use his ability again."
Amelia sighed, she certainly did not like this plan but she realized that she had no choice, she'd have to have Harry come with them. If Harry was hurt in any way, however, she knew she would never be able to forgive herself.
"Very well, I'll let you have a rest Tonks and I'll go get Harry myself," Amelia agreed grudgingly.
Of course Harry was more than happy to help when she got him, which did nothing to assuage her fears for his safety. Despite having already proven himself in many different dangerous situations he was still young and she still cared for him.
On the way back Harry suggested finding a couple of brooms to use to fly down the hole just in case the landing wasn't so soft or Ron hadn't set up any booby traps at the bottom, which she quickly dispatched one of her Aurors to get.
With her Auror force having already gathered inside the bathroom, she selected half a dozen of them to accompany her down while Harry got in front of the picture of the snake.
"What am I supposed to do?" Harry asked.
"Tell it to open?" Tonks suggested.
Instead of saying open a strange hissing sound emanated from Harry's lips as the snake suddenly moved as the circle of sinks began to open up to the huge gaping hole.
"I'll go first." Amelia announced, peering down the slide, still unable to see the bottom, "Tonks and Brogard, you can accompany me."
As soon as Amelia got down to the bottom she told Brogard to go back up with her and Tonks' brooms and get the others.
She allowed herself to look around and quickly spotted what appeared to be an enormous snake skin surrounded by many small animal bones, mostly rats.
As she got closer, Dumbledore finally came down next on a broom next to her and noticed the same thing.
"Extraordinary," Dumbledore breathed in amazement, "it seems that a fully grown basilisk has been living down here. Judging from its size I'd guess it has to be many hundreds of years old, it may even be a beast that lived back in Salazar Slytherin's day."
"Now we know what kind of monster we'll be dealing with, if I'm correct in assuming that whatever has been possessing Ron Weasley has been using it." Amelia concluded, even though that was not particularly reassuring, basilisks could kill you simply by looking at them.
"No indeed," Dumbledore confirmed, "I'm also afraid that any roosters we might have used to kill it with were recently killed, no doubt to protect against us using one against it."
"Is there anything else we might use?" Amelia asked. She had rather limited knowledge on basilisks, as she couldn't even think of a time that one had been known to exist, and while she and Dumbledore may have had their differences she valued his expertise.
"Fawkes might be able to help us." Dumbledore suggested, sticking out his arm as if waiting for the bird to come and perch on it.
Amelia wasn't entirely sure just what Dumbledore had in mind but was surprised when Fawkes flew all the way down there, dropping something at Harry's feet.
As Harry stooped down to pick it up she realized that it was the Sorting Hat.
"A hat?" One of the Aurors asked incredulously, "The bird thinks we can beat a basilisk with a hat?"
"Do not underestimate Fawkes," Dumbledore replied wisely, "the Sorting Hat has the ability to call forth various items once owned by the founders in times of trouble. Perhaps Fawkes thinks that there may be something that will help us."
As Harry looked at the hat, she noticed what appeared to be something golden sticking out of the brim. When Harry reached in and grabbed whatever it was, she realized it was a cup.
She noticed that Dumbledore looked shocked as he announced, "That would be the cup of Hufflepuff."
"Right, because a cup will be perfect against a giant, glare-killing snake," The same pessimistic Auror replied sarcastically.
"I think you fail to recognize its potential power." Dumbledore concluded, "Any liquid drunk out of that cup will give its drinker immunity from various spells for a limited time, including, if I'm not mistaken, the same type of magic that a basilisk uses to kill anything that looks into its eyes. It should negate at least the biggest danger that we might face against it."
Harry went over and handed the cup to Dumbledore, who immediately pointed his wand at the cup which began to fill with water.
Draining the cup himself by drinking it all down, Dumbledore said, "It appears to be fine and to be in working order, everyone get a drink before we continue."
After they had all taken a drink, Amelia led them further down the tunnel to where there were a couple of statues of snakes.
"If you would please, Harry?" Dumbledore asked him. Harry nodded and hissed at one of the statues, causing the door to open.
Inside they found a large open space and in the center of it lay the girl that Ron had kidnapped while Ron stood over them.
"I think you had better go find some place to hide," Amelia cautioned Harry, "we'll take it from here."
Although Harry wasn't happy about being left out, he backed up and went and found a room off to the side to slip into and wait for the fighting to stop.
As Harry went inside the room, he was surprised to find that it had a few books lying on a dusty bookshelf and as he opened one was surprised to find that it was in a weird language that he didn't immediately understand, yet in looking at it more closely he found that it was rapidly turning into English,
The Parselmagic Spell Book, he read. Evidently this was written in Parseltongue which is why he understood it. He would have never guessed however that it had its own written language.
Examing it further it appeared to be a book that described various parselmagic spells. Since he had nothing better to do, he continued to look through it, hoping that the others would be all right, feeling that somehow he should be involved, helping in some way but knowing that he had already promised Amelia.
A few minutes later, however, he heard a scream and a crunching sound, prompting him to open up the door a peak to find that the basilisk had been set loose and one of the Aurors had unfortunately been a victim of it. He'd peeked his head out just in time to watch as the basilisk swallowed him whole.
Dumbledore was alone, currently dueling with Ron, who was displaying far greater dueling skills than Ron would ever be capable of, a complete 180 from his duel with Pansy. While Dumbledore was no doubt more than a match for him, his age appeared to be slowing him down against Ron.
Meanwhile, the Aurors as well as Amelia were trying various spells on the basilisk, none of which seemed capable of piercing its magic-resistant hide.
Amelia hit one of its eyes, likely permanently damaging it, and another Auror, seeing her example hit the other.
The beast roared in pain as its head smacked right onto the Auror that had just hit it in retaliation, causing him to collapse onto the ground and likely killing him in the process via a pulped ribcage. At any rate, he did not get back up again.
He saw the basilisk now using its sense of smell to try and locate the Aurors and saw it slithering towards Amelia.
Harry felt that he could no longer stand idly by as he pulled out the two daggers that Su had given him for Christmas, having taken them with him just in case.
He ran right up to the beast just as it was about to go down on top of Tonks, who had gotten too close to it and was desperately trying to get out of its way.
Pushing Tonks out of the way, the basilisk struck just to the right of him, and, seeing his chance, he stuck his first long dagger deep into its already damaged eye.
It roared in pain and attempted to open its mouth and come down to swallow him whole, but before it could he threw his other dagger deep into its open mouth, causing it to clamp down and shove the dagger deeper in until it pierced its brain. It was pure luck that he'd managed to hit the small area of it's mouth that was thin enough so the dagger would pierce the brain, but he'd done it and the beast writhed in pain before it collapsed dead onto the ground.
"Is it really dead?" One of the Aurors asked cautiously.
Amelia went over to inspect it and confirmed, "Yes it's dead, go check on Pucey and see if he's still alive."
One of the Aurors went to go check and reported, "He's dead too I'm afraid."
Amelia grunted, obviously unhappy about losing two lives.
Dumbledore then came over with Ron's currently floating body suspended in front of him, "I just took out young Mr. Weasley and whatever was controlling it. It appears to have been controlling him with this."
He held out the remains of what appeared to be a heavily burnt and damaged black book but gave no clue as to how he had destroyed it.
"Come on, let's get out of here." Amelia suggested, still looking disgusted at even being in such a place.
"Wait." Harry said suddenly as he ran back to the room with the books. He grabbed the few books that were there and took them with him, returning to the others to find Dumbledore currently examining the dead basilisk.
"We can go now." Harry told them all as they gratefully all headed back, not wanting to spend anymore time in such an awful place.
With the body of the dead Auror, along with Ron and the girl, who were still unconscious, they headed back up through the tunnel, flying up the hole and finally all getting back into the bathroom.
As the Aurors all tried to leave, Tonks, Harry, Amelia, and Dumbledore lingered back.
"I just wanted to say thank you, Harry, for saving my life, I won't forget that," Tonks said gratefully, planting a kiss on his cheek in gratitude before heading off to join the rest of the Aurors.
"It appears that Mr. Potter is indeed full of surprises today, killing a basilisk and producing this." Dumbledore said holding up Hufflepuff's cup, "It looks like the hat may have been wrong about you at first."
"What do you mean?" Harry asked.
"It looks like it chose the wrong house for you." Dumbledore told him simply.
Harry was dismayed, evidently Dumbledore had somehow learned of the hat wanting to put him into Slytherin, he supposed it was too much for him to hope, being a parselmouth after all. "Does this mean that I have to be in Slytherin?" He asked glumly, not looking forward to sharing a room with Malfoy and his cronies.
"On the contrary it appears that you need to be in Hufflepuff." Dumbledore argued.
"How is that possible?" Amelia demanded.
"Only a true Hufflepuff could have pulled that cup out of the hat." Dumbledore countered, "I'm not sure of the Hat's reasoning why it put you into Gryffindor in the first place, but fortunately we have the Hat with us here right now to decide which House you truly belong in." He said, handing Harry the Sorting Hat
Harry jammed it onto his head, now slightly easier to keep from slipping over his eyes.
"Don't worry," The Hat immediately told him, as if immediately reading the first thought that had been in his mind, "whatever you say to me will only be heard by you and me so you don't need to worry about them overhearing."
"What House am I really supposed to be in?" Harry demanded of it.
"I told you when I Sorted you that you would do well in Slytherin." The Hat told him, "You have many of the same qualities that Salazar Slytherin would have admired. I also knew that you were a parselmouth, a trait that Salazar valued above all others and would have likely insisted that you join Slytherin for that very reason.
"So I really should be in Slytherin then?" Harry concluded morosely.
"If I had acted as Slytherin would have wanted me to you would have been sorted there," The Hat told him, "but I sensed that there was a lot more to you than that and had traits that were truly far more valuable. Gryffindor courage and strength for one, enough to make even Godric think you should be in his House."
"Then am I really supposed to be in Gryffindor?" Harry asked, far happier.
"I chose Gryffindor for you in your first sorting because where you should go was so evenly matched and you were already biased towards Gryffindor because of your time spent with Mr. Weasley and Hagrid."
"I would say that I'm no longer biased towards any of the Houses though," Harry said truthfully, he had friends and fiancees in every house now, and while he now happily spent much of his time with Gabrielle who was now in Gryffindor, he would be happy to spend it with each of the girls.
"That thinking of equality and friendship are very strong traits found in Hufflepuff."
"Then Dumbledore was right, I am supposed to be in Hufflepuff?" Harry replied.
"Dumbledore does not fully understand the intricacies of the power that the Founders gave me." The Hat told him, "Anyone with strong enough Hufflepuff traits as you do might have summoned the cup. However your good thinking leads me to the last House and how you exemplify the traits there: Ravenclaw. Since you match so well the traits found in each house I have to once again leave it up to you and your decision."
Harry thought about it and he realized that the answer was not really so easy since he had friends and girls that he was now betrothed to in each house. He knew that such a decision meant that he would be favoring one girl above another as to which he wanted to spend the most time with. Each girl had different traits and personalities, as well as things that he liked about each one. He knew that he couldn't with a good conscious, choose which one.
"Can't you somehow decide for me?" Harry asked the hat.
"I already did that once. Now it is your turn to truly decide who you really are."
This was proving to be very hard, even harder than the basilisk he had just got done fighting.
Which house would he choose?
He must have sat there for who knows how long already and Amelia and Dumbledore were no doubt getting anxious.
Trying to reflect more upon which traits he valued most in each house, he couldn't help but first think of friendship and just how many good friends he had made in each house. However as he did so, he thought of Susan and how she tried to be a good friend to everyone, just how loyal she had been to him, especially when everyone thought he was the heir of Slytherin.
Trying to dispel Susan from his mind as it wasn't really helping him decide, he thought of the traits of Slytherin, which only reminded him of Pansy, who while not the bravest of people or the best fighter, more than made up for it with her cunning, coming up with brilliant ways to get things to work for her such as when she had used Peeves to stop Quirrell for them.
Once again, trying to focus on just traits he thought of bravery and intelligence, traits found in Gryffindor and Ravenclaw. However he didn't get far before immediately thinking of Fleur, Gabrielle, and Su who had all of those traits.
Indeed he had enjoyed being able to go to all of his classes with Gabrielle, and wouldn't mind continuing to do so with her. Perhaps he could simply tell the hat to keep him in Gryffindor and ask Amelia and Dumbledore not to mention this impromptu Sorting to any of the girls? They would never know and he wouldn't have to choose between them.
However just as he thought this, he realized that this would be dishonest, he could never keep such a lie from them. He valued each girl and her traits equally and he realized he would not, could not choose between them.
"I won't!" Harry yelled, pulling the Hat off of his head and tossing it onto the ground.
Without waiting for either Amelia or Dumbledore to ask what happened, he ran out of the bathroom not sure where exactly he was going, but he didn't feel it mattered.
He knew he was acting childish, refusing to choose and running out like that but he didn't care at the moment.
Finally heading out of the castle, he found himself walking the somewhat familiar path to the owlery. Perhaps going to see Hedwig would give him some clarity.
Spotting his white snowy owl, she swooped down over to a ledge just level with his eyes.
"Hey Hedwig," He said glumly as he went to go pet her, "you wouldn't happen to know which house I belong in would you?"
Hedwig gave a loud hoot which was indiscernible to him and thus did him no good.
"Thanks anyway..." He said.
Continuing to pet Hedwig until his pet owl finally got bored and flew off, he watched the other owls trying to decide what his decision should be.
It wasn't until a few hours later that he was finally discovered as Gabrielle peeked her head in.
"Girls, I found him!" She called, beckoning the others over.
"What happened Harry?" Fleur demanded, "You go fight a basilisk and then don't bother to go see us afterwards and let us know you're all right?"
"I'm fine." He announced.
"You don't look fine," Susan noticed, looking concerned.
"Its not the basilisk, it's what happened after." He admitted.
"My aunt already told us about that part, about you running off," Susan said, "She said you just ran off after the Sorting Hat tried to put you in a different House."
How could he really express to them what he was feeling?
"The Sorting Hat decided that I was strong in a lot of the traits of all the Houses, and so he decided to make me choose." Harry told them, "The problem is whenever I do that I think of each of you and how much I would like to be able to spend the extra time in classes with each of you. I value each of you for your traits and personalities equally and I feel like if I choose just one House it would be sort of like favoring at least one of you over the others. I just can't do that to any of you."
Each of the girls paused to allow that to sink in, not really sure how to reply.
Finally it was Susan that spoke first, "While I would love to have you in my House and be able to attend all of my classes with you I can't really blame you for not wanting to choose Hufflepuff, I've already had plenty of time to make peace with the fact that I'm going to have to share you."
"I also couldn't ask you to be sorted into Ravenclaw," Su told him, "it would only be selfish of me to ask you to join a House you wouldn't necessarily choose if I didn't push you to."
"I don't want you staying in Gryffindor on my account." Gabrielle claimed.
"Same for me, but I think Slytherin would be a bad idea anyway." Pansy admitted, "I don't think that you staying in the boy's dorm with Malfoy would be a safe idea for anyone involved."
"We'll support you and not be upset at any decision you make." Fleur added supportively.
He watched as each of the girls all nodded.
"Well that still leaves me not knowing what I should choose, I know that Dumbledore and the Sorting Hat are most likely waiting for an answer," he concluded.
"You shouldn't have to make a decision right now." Susan answered, "Come on, let's at least go up to the castle and let you get cleaned up. A basilisk den and an owlery really doesn't make you smell very nice."
Laughing as he probably did smell pretty rank, he went back to his dorm to go take a shower and change while the girls waited just outside the Gryffindor Common Room for him.
As he did so, surveying his room, he thought about; if he should really leave it or not. The answer was a definite yes, it wasn't like he enjoyed sharing a room with Ron and his group, but he knew that it wasn't so bad that he would automatically want to leave. He still had a decision to make, but he figured he still had plenty of time to do it, surely he did not have to make a decision right now.
DUELDUELDE
Dumbledore was still searching for Harry. He needed the boy to be sorted and quickly, he simply did not understand just how important it was that he be sorted into his correct house Hufflepuff.
Having Harry pull the cup out of hat seemed to be a godsend, it was exactly what he and Snape needed for their project, it would speed up the process immensely using its great powers. However if Harry remained in Gryffindor or still refused to be sorted for too long the cup would end up disappearing again in a few days. Harry needed to be a true Hufflepuff in order to keep the cup around for at least long enough for Snape to be able to take full advantage of its powers and bring back his sister and Lily Potter. Otherwise he'd have to track down the cup again and he'd already spent the last decade searching for it. Harry had pulled out the cup so of course he was really Hufflepuff, but was evidently refusing to go there. Hufflepuff was usually full of a bunch of ninnies and weak wizards and most wizards didn't want to go there for that very reason but surely Harry wouldn't think that badly of it? After all one of his girls was in that house.
He'd tried not pressuring him as much at first, assuming that Harry would simply accept his fate, but he was apparently being difficult and needed a little prodding in the right direction. If he could just force Harry to get the hat back on his head, he was sure that the hat would sort him into Hufflepuff, he'd even had a short conversation with the hat himself after Harry had left seeming to confirm that. The hat would only tell him that he would be sorted into the house he belonged in, and that was enough for him, Harry was most definitely a Hufflepuff.
Deciding to see if perhaps Harry had returned to his dorm room since the last time he had checked, he went over there to find his girls currently congregated in front of the portrait hole. He'd just have to convince them that Harry needed to be sorted.
DUELDUELDE
After showering and getting dressed in fresh clothes, Harry headed out again to meet back up with the girls who were right now arguing with Dumbledore who had the Sorting Hat in hand.
"He should be allowed time to make his decision." Susan argued, "I really don't see why you have to rush him."
"I'm well aware of that but I do believe he's had long enough," Dumbledore replied in that annoying sagely tone he seemed to love using so much.
Each of the girls looked prepared to argue further but Harry finally said, "No, girls, its all right."
"Thank you Mr. Potter," Dumbledore said, looking satisfied, "if you would please put the hat back on and we'll get this squared away.
Jamming the hat back on, Harry told the hat, "Pick a number between 1 and 4."
The hat seemed to laugh as he replied with, "You know I'm not going to do that Mr. Potter and I also know that you aren't any closer to making a decision as when you threw me onto the floor."
Harry instantly felt guilty about that.
"It's all right," the hat answered, "now since you still haven't decided, I'm going to do something unique, I'm going to ask each of the girls that you keep thinking about to come up here and give me their opinion on where you should be Sorted."
Now said out loud so that everyone could hear the hat said, "Would Gabrielle Delacour come talk with me?"
Wondering just what it was about, Harry handed the hat over to her so that the hat could talk to her in relative privacy.
After a minute, he called up her sister Fleur, going down the line until he had spoken with each of them before asking Harry to put it back on his head.
"It appears Mr. Potter that each of them are of like mind as you, they all chose, instead of their own Houses, the one that they believed would make you most happy, whichever one that might be." The hat informed him.
This really touched him deeply that they would all care about him enough to so unselfishly make such a request.
"That leaves me with only one option open." The hat told him before announcing to all of them, "I have decided to put all of them in one house and so as to be fair I've chosen none of the 4 houses."
"Come now Flopsy," Dumbledore argued, stating the apparent name of the sorting hat, "they simply must go somewhere, perhaps Hufflepuff since they are so set on being so loyal and friendly to one another."
"You are exactly correct, they have been rather loyal but that doesn't mean they all belong in Hufflepuff," Flopsy answered, "which is why I've decided that it is now time for the 5th founder of Hogwarts to be represented. Back during the time when the school was being built they needed to find a sufficiently magical spot in which to build it. They found such a spot but soon discovered that it was already inhabited by something else, a being who even offered to help them build the school in exchange to be allowed to live in it as long as it remained a school. In times of danger, such a being as always helped protect the school. This is why he is the unknown 5th founder of Hogwarts. Therefore I am within my right to open up a new house, House Peeves!"
Dumbledore looked dumbfounded as if completely unable to believe what he was hearing. Indeed Harry himself wasn't sure if he had heard right, he was now in a house named after Peeves?
"Did Peeves hear what he thought he just heard?" Demanded the poltergeist gleefully, materializing just in front of them.
"No Peeves, I'm sure that Flopsy here is making a practical joke." Dumbledore tried to tell Peeves.
"I wish to assure you Dumbledore I am very serious," Flopsy informed him, "but of course it's all up to Peeves whether he wants his own House or not and wants to accept these students.
Peeves seemed to look each of them up and down, saying odd things like "too skinny" and "could stand to have a bit more fun" before finally deciding, against every comment he'd just made, "Yep, they'll do!"
"Then its settled, their House founder has accepted them which means that the castle will as well." Flopsy replied, "I believe you'll find that there are rooms now available just to the right of the kitchens."
"Peeves has his own House! Yahooooooo..." Peeves cackled gleefully, sounding like he was on his way to inform the whole castle.
"This could either be the best or worst thing that ever happened." Su said, voicing perfectly what they were all feeling and sounding somewhat afraid of what being in House Peeves would be like.
"At least I won't have to listen to Ron's snoring anymore." Harry concluded, thinking of at least one positive.
While Dumbledore continued to have an argument with the Sorting Hat, they traveled down to where their new dormitory was supposed to be located. They found the rooms okay behind a portrait of a court jester, naturally.
Upon noticing them, the jester asked, "Well, it appears that someone has finally seen fit to have me be the portrait for a House. I always rather liked Peeves. What would you like the password to be?"
"How about password?" Peeves suggested, suddenly appearing just in front of them again.
Harry suddenly realized that there could be a problem, he didn't exactly fancy having Peeves be able to enter his dormitory whenever he wanted, as it being his House he was now likely to be able to do.
"How about something less conspicuous?" Suggested Susan.
"Peeves if we give you the password you have to promise not to come in and burst in on us without us knowing." Pansy told him.
Peeves replied, "I've never been allowed inside the dormitories before anyway. The Founders made it so I couldn't, the spoilsports." He grumbled.
"How about you can come in every Tuesday and Saturday at 7:00 and we'll give you a list of pranks that you can pull as part of our House meetings." Pansy suggested, "We'll even let you pull them all and get all the credit."
Peeves adopted a mock bow, "You have a deal milady."
Harry noticed that being in House Peeves now extended certain benefits as the poltergeist was now acting much more respectful towards them all than normal. He wondered if it was some kind of loyalty compulsion magic or just the spectral being taking pride in his House and not wanting to spoil relations with them.
They finally selected a password – zippity - and making sure that Peeves knew what it was.
Glad that the matter was settled, or so he hoped, they entered the room to find that it had a dormitory as well, only much smaller than the Gryffindor one, but still more than adequate for all of them. There were two rooms, one to the left and right of them and he quickly found a much much smaller room with a small bathroom and shower to the left that he assumed was just for him, he being the only male member of House Peeves. The room to the right on the other hand was far bigger, with 5 different beds and a huge bathroom. In every case, their things were already laid out for them where they had had them up in their old rooms.
"Not too bad..." Gabrielle commented as she looked around, "It looks like the castle's already made up its mind at least."
"I imagine that Dumbfounded is still arguing with the Sorting Hat though." Su replied
"Welcome to House Peeves everyone!" Susan said to everyone.
DUELDUELDUEL
Meanwhile Dumbledore had just gotten done with his very angry conversation with the Sorting Hat, leaving him wishing that he could somehow burn it and replace it with a less stubborn one, House Peeves indeed! What a complete load of nonsense. Harry was supposed to be a Hufflepuff and anything else was just wrong, he convinced himself. He now had only days before the cup disappeared, which would hardly give Snape time to really do much with it but he would still get a lot done nevertheless. With quite a bit more time there was still a good chance that they might not even need the cup on a permanent basis, he already had everything he needed.
Pulling out the vial of basilisk venom he had secretly collected from the basilisk while pretending to examine it along with a vial of phoenix tears he had collected from Fawkes he dropped each of their contents into the cup and watched it work its magic.
Basilisk venom was some of the most powerful stuff in the world but was unfortunately extremely deadly. The only way to counteract it was phoenix tears, which now mixed in with it would help make it inert. Both now inside the cup, the cup was now mixing both of them together and adding its own magic to it, creating the most powerful substance that had ever been created, the venom no longer a great power of death but of life. So great in fact that it should be able to even bring back someone from the dead. They had a long way to go yet but this was a huge step.
Carefully pouring it into two different vials, he took them both and the cup and prepared to bring them all to Snape.