Transformation


Harry breathed a sigh of relief as he closed the door behind him. After
a moment, he opened his eyes, and looked around the chamber. Where once
it had held a giant, three-headed dog, now it was empty, aside from
several stacks of chairs and desks.

He moved into the empty space and examined the floor. "Where is it?" he
muttered, scuffing his shoes on the apparently solid floor. Taking a
moment, he tucked his Firebolt, the racing broom his godfather had given
him, under his arm while he checked the Marauder's map. Convinced that
he was alone, he pulled out his wand and directed it at the floor where
he remembered the trapdoor having been.

"Finite Incantatem," he intoned. To his delight, the floor wavered, and
the trapdoor appeared. "Must not have bothered with anything strong
since no-one should know it is even there."

Reaching down, he grabbed the metal ring and pulled the trapdoor up.
Casting a simple lumos spell, he directed the wand's light into the hole
and grinned. Though it did look like a considerable drop, there was no
sign of the Devil's Snare that had met them the first time they had
dared the trapdoor, beneath the slavering jaws of Fluffy.

Incanting a quick spell to slow his fall, he dropped into the hole.
Flexing his knees, he absorbed the limited impact, and then closed the
trapdoor behind him with a spell. Unfortunately, he was not skilled
enough yet to restore the illusion that had concealed the trapdoor, but
then, he wasn't really worried about anyone looking for him.

He simply wanted to ensure that no-one accidentally came across him,
considering the illegality of what he was about to do, not to mention
the reaction of Progressor McGonagall if she found out that he was
trying to accomplish the Animagus transformation after she had
explicitly forbidden it.

So what if his visualization of his form had only caught the bat-like
wings, and not, at least in her opinion, enough detail to fully identify
his species? He did not exactly think a bat was a great thing to be, but
this was not just some whim. He did not want to face Voldemort again
with no way to get away, and there was no way he was going to give up
the chance to fly under his own power. Nothing in his life was as
fulfilling as flying on his broom, and he could only imagine how
wonderful it would be to fly with his own wings. And finally, he would
be able to stay with Lupin, to be with him in his extremity as his
father had once done. It was the least he could do, having caused
Sirius, the last of Lupin's loyal animagus companions, to vanish into
the Veil in the Department of Mysteries. Besides, if Peter Pettigrew,
spineless worm that he was, could manage it, surely he could. He had
more than reason enough, in his opinion.

Darkness fell as he extinguished his wand, a pitch blackness that
enveloped him. He closed his eyes, and opened them again, and could not
see any difference. Leaning over, he set his broom on the ground.

Welcoming the dark, he focused on the wings he had so briefly glimpsed.
He concentrated on their long, black sweep, on the flexible, leathery
skin that would bear him aloft, as he mentally chanted the spells that
would guide his change. 

He was not supposed to know them, but the Professor had allowed them to
read an Animagus text while preparing to find their inner animal, and he
had quietly skipped ahead, and memorized the actual transformative
spells. He had not, of course, even contemplated at that point the
possibility that he might fail to do what his father had done, or that
Professor McGonagall might refuse to allow him to continue, but he had
not been averse to the idea of doing a little extra practice on his own.

He felt a pain on his back, and quickly shed his cloak and shirt. The
pain multipled four-fold, then four-fold again, approaching the pain of
his scar when Voldemort was near, as he frantically skimmed out of his
other clothes, holding his wand in his teeth. Curses directed at himself
for forgetting to disrobe before starting marred his inward chant, and
he gasped as the pain jumped to Cruciatus levels. He could feel his back
warping, the skin stretching as if someone had driven barbed hooks into
his back and was pulling his skin away from his flesh.

Able to hold it in no longer, he screamed in agony as the pain swept over
him completely, exploding in an instant to cover his entire body as
his surroundings seemed to be pressing in on him, crushing him from
every side.

A fierce, piercing pain erupted at the base of his back, and he
screeched in surprise. The pain of his back, and the crushing sensation
he had been vaguely prepared for, as he knew that he would shrink
dramatically in becoming a bat, and growing his wings, but did bats have
tails? Why did his spine hurt so terribly?

The pain grew still stronger, and darkness took him as the pain finally
overcame him. He dropped to the ground unconscious, still convulsing as
his body warped and changed. A single fleeting thought wafted through
his mind before it shut down completely. "McGonagall was right."

---

"Idiot," Harry muttered to himself, as he groggily pulled himself up
from the floor, looking around at darkness so complete that he
momentarily feared blindness, before he remembered. He had neglected to
do anything about providing the room with lighting or a mirror for after
his transformation. Of course, he had not expected such a complete
transformation the first time. Wasn't it supposed to take a long time to
get it to work?

Wait a minute. Why did he understand what he just said? Was this like
Parseltongue? Was he going to hear himself speak even when he was really
emitting inaudibly high-pitched whistles? His voice had sounded normal
to him, if maybe a bit high.

He flexed his hand, paw, or whatever it now was, and ran it down his
face. His skin tingled where his fingers had passed, and he swayed as he
fought to keep his balance. He felt top-heavy, though it was not as
biased towards the back as he had expected, and he could feel something
moving behind him.

He dropped his hand and squeaked in startlement as it brushed something
on the way down that sent a jolt of heat through him. What was that?

"Too much," he whimpered, as his mind tried to deal with the shifting
weight on his chest, the movement behind him, the fire racing through
him, and the almost frightening intensity of the movement of the air on
his skin.

Scrambling for sanity, he focused desperately on the chant and focus
exercises to reverse his transformation, picturing himself as he knew he
was in his mind.

He could feel something changing, his wings seeming to almost slide into
his body, as a wave of pleasure swept through him, bringing tears to his
eyes. But something was not right. He did not feel like he was
expanding, or changing size at all. A stuttering, bumpy sensation swept
over his rear and he wondered if the unexpected tail was gone now.

Finally all the changes stopped, but Harry was worried. He still had not
felt himself get any bigger. He flexed his hand. It felt like a hand,
but then, it had when he was transformed, too. His wand had still not
reappeared and Harry felt a sudden blaze of fear. "Accio wand!" he cried
out, holding his hand out desperately, but nothing happened.

"Come on," he cajoled, trying to psyche himself up, to convince himself
that he could do this. "Wandless magic can't be that hard. You did it
before. You blew up Aunt Marge. You lit your wand when the Dementors
attacked on Privet Drive and you weren't holding it then. Come on . . .
Lumos!"

A light burst from his fingers and he gasped in relief. He looked at his
clothes and grinned when he realized they did not look huge, nor were
they at the same level as his eyes. He must just have not felt the pain
of changing size the second time, that was all.

He grinned as he looked at his hand, where the light was shining from,
then he frowned, turning it this way and that. Last time it was still
his wand that had lit, not his hand, and besides his hand wasn't always
this slender and well . . . delicate-looking, was it?

His eyes drifted further down, and he shrieked in surprise, then clapped
his hand over his mouth in shock at the high pitch of the cry. There
were two mounds of flesh on his chest . . . breasts. He had breasts!
Honest-to-goodness female breasts! The Animagus transformation was not
supposed to do anything like this, he was sure.

He leaned over a bit, peering past his new chest at his pelvis, and
sucked in a pained breath. He saw nothing but a triangle of black curls.
With a fearful whimper, he brought his hand down, and brushed it through
the curls. It had to be there, right? The touch to his lower hair sent a
shuddering burst of pleasure through him, and his legs suddenly felt
weak. They folded beneath him, and he found himself sitting on his
discarded cloak.

A mirror, he needed a mirror, he had to see for himself what had
happened. Before he could jump up and start searching, a hazy reflection
appeared in front of him, firming quickly until it seemed to snap into
solidity, a full-length dressing mirror appearing out of nowhere, framed
in gold and standing on four gold-plated lion's paws.

What it reflected completely pulled his mind away from where the mirror
had come from. Looking back at him was a puzzled but beautiful naked
girl with wavy black hair and green eyes that seemed unusually bright.

His hand was still tangled in his nether curls, and after the jolt that
went through him when he shifted it, he was afraid to move it, much less
just pull away, but he could not help wondering what he had looked like
in his Animagus form. What could it have been to leave him looking like
this?

Focusing on his wings again, he felt changes start before he even began
the chant. His hair gleamed in the light as his skin took on a dusky red
hue, as if he was blushing strongly over his entire body. Midnight-black
wings peeked out over his shoulders, sliding out of his back, painlessly
this time. The bumpy sensation on his rear came again, and a red tail,
tipped by a black wedge-shaped point, passed briefly through his view.

His mouth gaped in surprise, and he noticed his eye-teeth and canines
were longer and sharply pointed, and his incisors now came to a sharp
point as well. He did not notice that his glasses were missing, and had
been in his other form as well.

Bracing himself for the pleasure, he pulled his still glowing hand away
from his curls even as his hand felt a sudden dampness. He sobbed at the
intense pleasure and pain as the claws he had not noticed before slid
across his inner thigh, and the curly hairs caught against each other
around his fingers and pulled against his sensitive flesh.

He brought his hand up to touch his smooth face, and a new, powerful
scent caught his nose. Before he knew what he was doing, his fingers
were in his mouth, his tongue laving them as he sucked off the faint
traces of moisture. He moaned involuntarily, his eyes closing, and felt
a new surge of wetness down there.

A shiver passed through him and he felt a sudden tightness on his chest.
He forced his eyes open, staring at the mirror, not noticing his hand
drifting downward as he stared at his breasts. Where they had looked
smooth, now they looked shiny, and his nipples were crinkled and hard,
standing out from breasts that themselves felt harder then they had
been. He groaned as his involuntarily questing hand slid through his
curls to the source of the dampness and swirled about, setting off
sparks in his mind.

As his other hand rose up and slid deadly claws gently around his
sensitive left breast, he wondered if Professor McGonagall could
possibly have had anything like this in mind when she had warned about
instinctive behavior following the transformations, and the need to
learn to control it.

His talon slid across his left nipple, sending a shock through him as it
seemed to harden still further. His fingers slipped around it and
tugged, and Harry sobbed, falling back to lie on his cloak. His right
hand came up for a moment as he avidly sucked off his juices, then it
went right back down, sliding along the curious folds of flesh he had
down there now. It glided between them, parting them smoothly, and Harry
felt a surge of new heat as his fingers found his inner lips, stroking
them and then sliding between them to swirl around the opening he found
there.

He lifted his hips when a pain made itself felt on his spine, and felt
his tail flip around to lie down between his legs. As his hips dropped
back to the cloak, his tail came up to rub sensuously across his inner
thigh. His eyes fixed on it in the mirror.

"So beautiful," he murmured, pinching his nipple tightly and tugging on
it. He was not sure whether he was referring to his appearance in the
mirror, or the feelings that were overcoming him.

His left hand swapped places with his right, as he rubbed his juices on
his neglected right nipple before sucking them off of his fingers. His
right hand took up the proper treatment of his right breast, even as his
left ring finger slid inside him. A sobbing cry escaped again as his now
moistened finger found his clitoris, and rubbed the soft hood, exciting
his center still further, as it hardened and lengthened, peeking out of
his folds.

His hand moved instinctively, finger sliding back in to fill his
emptiness while the heel of his hand pressed rythmically against his
mound, stimulating his clitoris. His moans and cries grew and filled the
room, joined by the wet squelching of his hand in his cunt. He sobbed
and gasped, twisting his nipple as he rode his hand hard and ever
faster.

Finally he shuddered and screamed as he came, eructing a surprising
volume of ejaculate several inches out, soaking his hand and thighs.
With languid pleasure interspersed with gasps as occasional aftershocks
hit, Harry consumed the fluid that covered his hands, then scraped his
thighs and consumed that as well.

Sitting up with some effort, Harry laughed bitterly when he saw himself
in the mirror, his breasts reddened from his glossy black claws, his
nether hair moist and matted, his lips shiny, his eyes dilated as wide
as he had ever seen them, tears running down his dusky cheeks.

"I guess there's no question as to what I am," he said, his voice
quivering. "A succubus. A freak, just like the Dursleys said." His tears
flowed faster, and he sniffled. "They nearly abandoned me just because I
could speak Parseltongue," he stated quietly, thinking of his friends
now. "They'll drop me like a hot rock if they find out I turned into a
Dark creature. A demoness. Especially after I got them all hurt in the
Ministry." He lifted his bangs and stared at the now red-on-red scar
that still marred his forehead. "Not like I could pass myself off as
someone else, either. Damn scar."

With a heavy sigh, he once more focused on his normal appearance. His
view of the mirror was occasionally obscured by a teardrop spreading
over his eye before he blinked it away, but he could see enough to know
that though his wings and tail were gone, and his skin once more had a
human tone, he was also still undeniably female. "And smaller than I
was," he groaned as he listened to his voice. At least his voice was
husky, roughened, only a little higher than it had been, like a sexy
whisper in the dark rather than high and clear like most of the other
girls he knew. Granted, it had reached much higher when he had cried out
upon seeing his new breasts.

With faltering hope, he mentally chanted the phrases that should lead
him back to himself, but nothing changed. He tried again, saying them
aloud this time, with no result. "What am I going to do?"

"Hermione would know what to do," he told himself, blushing as he
pointed his hand at the damp spot on his cloak and murmured,
"Scourgify." His mind's eye saw her, sitting over her books, her bushy
hair shaking as she turned her head back and forth, paging through in
search of answers to one of the many problems they had faced over the
years. She would know, or be able to find out something about what had
happened to him, but could he tell her?

Shaking his head, he looked up, and gave a high-pitched yelp. "'Mione!
How?!?" After the initial startlement, he realized that he had not in
fact seen his friend, but rather his own reflection in the mirror. "Oh
my god, I look just like Hermione," he said, staring at his now bushy
brown hair. "Eep, I sound just like her, too!" He touched his cheek,
then turned his head, blushing furiously, but not before he noticed the
scar visible on his forehead. It felt wrong to be looking at a naked
copy of his best friend, and doubly so when her image bore the scar of
Voldemort's curse. He never wanted to think of her hurt by anyone. He
focused on his own image again. Finally he glanced back at the mirror,
and sighed in relief when he saw himself . . . or rather, herself,
again.

"What just happened?"

Shaking off the disturbing images that ran through his head, he quickly
got dressed. If he changed again, involuntarily, at least he would not
be looking at one of his friends naked.

Looking himself over in the mirror, he was somewhat surprised to realize
that he did not look all that different. His robes hung a bit looser, as
he was now both smaller and shorter than his already small frame had
been. The swell of his hips were fairly well-hidden by the loose robes,
but the front was visibly lifted by his new breasts, which tingled as
they were rubbed by the rough fabric. They were especially visible when
he shifted to look at his side profile.

Realizing that his new female-Harry form must be an ability of the
succubus, and nothing to do with changing back from his animagus shape,
given that he had also turned into Hermione, he focused on the mirror.
He grinned as his breasts visibly shrank, then winced as a dull ache
spread through his chest.

"What's wrong?" he muttered. "It didn't hurt when I turned into Hermione."

As soon as he stopped concentrating, his breasts swelled back out, the
sensation of the fabric rubbing across his nipples causing his knees to
buckle. He caught the floor with his hands as his legs gave out.

Glaring at the mirror, he focused on the youngest Weasley in one of her
own tempers. Immediately his hair lightened to a gleaming red, his face
shifting, and it was a scarred Ginny scowling at the mirror. He felt no
pain. He deliberately turned his mind away from Ginny, and thought about
the OWL's.

There was no change when he looked back into the mirror. He was still
facing Ginny Weasley's likeness. Heaving a sigh, and ignoring the
protest of his nipples at his chest's resulting movement, he returned to
his Harry form.

"This sucks," he whined, once more trying to shrink his breasts down
enough that his robes would hide them. It was easily done, but again it
came with a painful ache that left him struggling against nausea. He
gave up, his eyes crossing as his nipples were yet again abraded by the
hard cloth. "I have got to get a bra," he complained, and then a moment
later, "I can't believe I just said that."

Trying something that he hoped would be easier, he focused on getting
his hair back to its usual short length. Thankfully, that went much more
smoothly, his locks seeming to flow back into his head, leaving him with
a short thatch of typically unruly hair.

He tried to square his face out a bit more, to get more of a male look.
He succeeded, but his face ached, and he could tell that once more he
would have to hold his concentration to maintain the illusion.

"Oh, man, how am I gonna get through even one day of classes? I won't be
able to concentrate on anything! And what if something distracts me? And
even worse, I've lost my wand!" He felt a wave of panic hit him when he
realized that he had already lost his concentration and his more
masculine face, without even needing any external distractions.

Harry thought frantically, trying to come up with some way to get the
teachers to change him back without revealing what he had become. He
felt certain that he would lose all respect in their eyes when they
learned that his inner being was a demon. Oh, they probably would not go
so far as to kick him out; but they would probably have even fewer
qualms about locking him up somewhere until he could do his part against
Voldemort, then getting rid of him once that was done.

"I've got no choice," Harry muttered, staring at the closed trapdoor
above him. "I'll probably die the next time I face Voldemort, anyway.
There'll be no Priori Incantatem thing to save me this time, with my
wand gone, but even that is better than dying after being locked in a
cupboard for another ten years."

The thought of losing his wand hurt more than he thought it would, but
it couldn't be helped. He attempted to summon his wand once more, with
no success.

He lifted his glowing right hand and looked around the room. There was
no sign of his wand, nor anything else that he had left behind, other
than the mirror, and his broom. He pointed his hand at the mirror,
intending to banish it, but it wavered and faded from view before he got
the chance. "Okay, that was weird," he muttered, "guess it fits the
theme. I wonder if this is really a Room of Requirement type thing?"

"Well, now what?" he pondered. He could no longer pass as Harry Potter,
and while he could mimic a different female likeness, his scar would
still give him away. Leaving Hogwarts did not seem like a good option,
as it would put him in Voldemort's path unprotected, nor did leaving the
Order with no clue what had happened to him, since that would probably
cause them to search for their weapon slash savior all over, putting
themselves unnecessarily in harm's way. But at the same time, he could
not put himself back in their hands, only to be locked away somewhere.
He would go mad if they did that to him, and probably turn into another
Voldemort.

After all, if his transformation said anything, it was that Dumbledore
was not altogether right about choices being everything. Clearly, there
was something in him that was inherently Dark.

"I've got to find someplace in the castle to hide, where the ghosts and
portraits can't give me away. I'd stay here, but they'll think to look
here eventually. And the only place the ghosts don't go . . ."

Harry shuddered, looking at the floor, but he could see the sense of it.
The only other parseltongue in this time was Voldemort, and there was no
way they would let him into the castle, so the one place that only Harry
could get to in the castle was the Chamber of Secrets.

He wondered if Dumbledore would be able to get there somehow. Fawkes had
lifted them out of the Chamber, but Riddle and Slytherin had to have
some other means to exit the Chamber, which probably meant there was
another entrance hidden somewhere. 

Harry wondered once more just how real Dumbledore's apparent omniscience
truly was. If there was a second entrance, would Dumbledore know about
it? Would Dumbledore have some secret means of opening the main
entrance, in spite of not speaking parseltongue?

Finally Harry decided it did not matter. He simply had to bet that
Dumbledore did not know everything, or it was already over, and he would
soon be buried in some closet somewhere to await the final confrontation
with Voldemort.

He summoned his broomstick and mounted it, rising shakily into the air.
The broom lurched and he barely kept it from sprinting forward. As it
was, he lost his position under the door, coming to a stop a mere metre
from the stone wall. Harry quickly dropped back to the ground, his brow
shining with perspiration as he shook with the nearness of disaster.

"What the hell just happened?" Harry wondered, staring at his broom.
Flying on a broom had felt natural ever since the first time he had
ridden one, facing off against Malfoy to retrieve Neville's Rememberall,
but this time, he had felt as shaky and uncertain as Neville himself had
looked when his broom took off with him, just before it dropped him to
the ground, breaking his wrist.

Looking down at his broom brought his new 'assets' into sharp relief,
backlighted by the glow from his lowered hand, and he realized what his
problem was. He was in a wholly new body, one he had not yet learned and
become comfortable with. His balance had changed, and he did not yet
have enough experience to compensate.

"Bloody hell," Harry groaned. "Ron's going to kill me if we lose the
Quidditch Tournament because of this, even if he could get past the
whole demon bit!"

Harry stared up at the door high above him. How was he to get out, now?
He thought of his animagus form's wings, but he knew that he did not
have enough room here to be able to learn to fly using them, assuming
they were even capable of true flight, much less making his first attempt.

It took his mind several moments to realize that the way the door seemed
to be growing in his vision was not merely an artifact of his
concentration. He looked down and blanched. He was floating upward, held
up by nothing, his broom was merely hanging limply, and he had no wings!
Almost the instant he realized that there was no reason he should not be
falling, he was. He screamed involuntarily, and felt a sudden pain in
his back and rear, and a sharp jerk against his shoulderblades, as he
reverted to his full animagus form in his terror. Now instead of
falling, he was sweeping with disturbing speed towards a stone wall that
looked to be in no mood to get out of his way.

A moment later, Harry discovered that in fact his seemingly natural
talent for flight had not vanished with his change of form, but rather
had been redirected, for, with perfect instinct, he banked, shifting his
wings into the turn and stabilizing the motion with his tail, in a
coordinated use of limbs he had not had but an hour before, and had had
no time to learn to use.

After several more swooping turns, Harry managed to gain sufficient
conscious control of his flight to make for the doorway in the ceiling,
though he had little clue what he would do when he got there. His broom
was capable of hovering, and he had intended to use it as a support
while he pushed the door open. He rather doubted that the large wings he
now possessed would be any good at hovering, much less giving enough
lift to push up the heavy trapdoor.

He grabbed at the wood of the door to stop his momentum, his clawed
hands digging instinctively into the wood. His shoes scrabbled uselessly
against the wood for the briefest instant, as he realized with a start
that he was fully clothed, before the force of his momentum brought his
legs and torso down, leaving him hanging from his embedded claws. His
fingers ached from the twisting of his claws. Harry had a moment to
wonder about the state of his shirt and robe, given that his wings had
clearly managed to escape their confines, before the wood around his
talons gave way, and he dropped yet again.

His wings snapped wide, and he circled the room again, before finally
dropping to the floor to reconsider his plans. He saw his broom several
feet away, and realized that he had dropped it when he grabbed at the
trapdoor. "Glad I didn't make it out," he muttered, summoning his broom
back and checking it for scratches. "Ron'd never let me live it down,
leaving my broom in a place like this."

Frustrated, he concentrated once more on abandoning his winged form, and
felt his wings and tail sliding back into his flesh. He shivered at the
feel, then set his broom down and doffed his cloak to look at the
damage. Much to his confusion, there did not seem to be any rips or
tears in the cloak at all, and when he pulled off his shirt in
disbelief, it too was whole and undamaged.

As he put his shirt back on, he pondered this new mystery. Somehow, his
wings had been sufficiently free to allow flight, yet they had not
damaged the shirt and cloak that had unquestionably been between them
and free air. He had not felt any sort of constriction on his wings when
they burst forth, but now that he thought about it, he had felt no such
constriction when he first began to change. He had discarded his clothes
because he had intended to do so, and forgotten, and because the pain
reminded him, but the pain remained, and even intensified after he
removed his clothes, so it had not been a pain caused by them.

He stared at his cloak for a moment, then, focusing on not wanting to
damage his cloak, but intent on putting his arm through it, he held it
up and slid his hand towards it. He felt nothing, not even a tingle, as
his slender fingers blithely ignored the cloak's presence, continuing on
through as if he were a ghost, even though the cloak was being held up
by his other hand. He curled his hand back, and to his further shock, he
was able to feel the far side of the cloak with his fingers, even as his
wrist was passing immaterially through it.

Shivering in confusion and uncertainty, Harry pulled his hand abruptly
back through the cloak and swung the cloak around his shoulders. He
picked up the broom, and looked at it for a moment. "Okay," he stated.
"I can pass through things. That's great, definitely, if I can take
stuff with me. If I can't, this will be about as pointless an ability as
being able to talk to snakes when all it does is make everyone see me as
a dangerous freak."

As he walked to the wall nearest the hallway entrance in the currently
inaccessible room above him, Harry pictured himself trying to go through
a wall and ending up naked on the other side, in Professor McGonagall's
class, and the expression that would be on her face. No, this would
definitely not be a much used ability if he could not at least bring his
clothes through things with him.

He was somewhat surprised, actually, that he could pass through things
without taking on the full winged and tailed form. That implied
once again that his reverse animagus spell was in reality doing nothing
of the kind, and that some other facility, similar to his ability to
look like Ginny or Hermione, was responsible for his female Harry Potter
appearance.

Taking a deep breath, crossing his fingers, and saying a quick prayer to
whomever might be listening, pointless as that seemed for someone so
clearly condemned by the light, Harry focused on being completely
immaterial, along with everything he carried, picturing himself passing
unhindered through walls like Peeves or Nearly Headless Nick, then
reached out with his broom, as if to tap the wall.

He crowed with delight as the tip of his Firebolt passed through the
wall and came out again, soundlessly. Feeling momentarily euphoric, in
spite of the problems he knew he still faced, Harry strode forward,
passing through the wall, and into the hallway beyond. He stopped as
soon as he entered the hall, then took two steps back. This confirmed
for him the puzzling but gratifying oddity he had noticed on passing
through. 

He had expected to see utter blackness while passing through the wall.
After all, there was no light there to reach his eyes, within the depths
of the stones. Instead, he had seen merely a darker, dimmed view of the
hall he had then entered. He stepped back again, and again, until he was
once more in the chamber below Fluffy's one-time home.

Murmuring "Nox," he extinguished his hand, sending the room into utter
blackness, the very sort of blackness he had expected to see, then,
without moving forward at all, he tried . . . well, more like wished,
really, to see through the wall as he had while his face was within the
stone.

To his immediate gratification, the blackness eased, and he could once
more see the hallway beyond. "This is so cool!" he gloated. At least his
problems had come with a few perks. Delighted at the ghostly vision, and
the ability to pass immaterially through walls, Harry wondered if there
were any other similarities between a succubus and a ghost. Could he
become invisible? He was not sure how to test that, just yet, since
using a mirror might just confirm that he could prevent mirrors from
reflecting his image.

There was one potential similarity he definitely could test, however.
Focusing on what he thought it might feel like, and particularly
remembering how he had found himself unexpectedly in the air only a few
minutes before, Harry tried to float like a ghost.

Sure enough, the hallway, the only thing visible in the otherwise nearly
tangible blackness, drifted downward in his vision. This success lead to
a moment of contemplation. Harry at first thought that this indicated
that it would be very easy for him to get into the Chamber of Secrets .
. . he did not see how it could be otherwise, since he could simply pass
through all the levels between this room and the Chamber. 

Yet if that were true, why then did none of the ghosts tell the teachers
or the Headmaster where the Chamber was, or how to get there? Professor
McGonagall had indicated that the Chamber had been searched for
meticulously, multiple times. Harry had at first believed that it had
been reasonable for it to be missed, requiring a Parseltongue password
as it did, but that did not make sense unless there was something else
there that either prevented the ghosts from noticing it, or prevented
them from speaking of it.

Unliked a certain bushy-haired friend of his, this curious little
mystery did not occupy Harry's thoughts for long, nor did it inspire any
form of research or intention to gather clues to solve it. Rather, he
put it from his mind, dismissing it as simply obvious that Slytherin had
in fact done something to solve the ghost issue when he first created
the Chamber.

It really did not matter to him, once he had conceived of at least a
possible answer. Now he only had to get there unseen, and then figure
out what the devil he was supposed to do! Not to worry about that just
yet, though. One problem at a time, after all.

The solution came to him after only a moment's puzzling. Rather than
pass through the open halls where he could be seen, he could make his
way through the entire route keeping within the thick stone walls of
Hogwarts, where neither ghost nor portrait nor wandering student or
teacher would be likely to see him.

Concentrating on being both immaterial and invisible, just in case it
helped, Harry renewed his grip on his broom and holding it carefully to
ensure that it did not sweep out into the hallway or the rooms on the
other side, he entered the wall again, and began moving along it.

As he walked, he noted that he could hear sounds from either side,
particularly when he passed an unsleeping portrait, in spite of being
hidden in the wall, but he paid no attention to this. His attention was
focused on the path he needed to take, and not allowing any part of
himself, his clothing, or his broom to exit a wall.

In this fashion he made his way through the halls to the bathroom where
Moaning Myrtle made her home. To his surprise, she seemed to sense him.
"Why isn't she sleeping?" he wondered, but he paid no attention to her
querulous demand that whoever it was that had come to disturb her show
themselves. He passed beneath her, hidden in the paving stones of the
floor, and found the hidden tunnel, and drifted down it.