Here you go! Another chapter! Hope you like it! We'll get into the thick of things soon enough, promise!

Chapter 3

Daphne was discharged from the infirmary and, like he promised, Professor Snape accompanied her to the Slytherin Common Room.

There, waiting for her, were Harry and Draco. Daphne reassured them that she was perfectly fine and then, in the privacy of their dormitories, under a privacy charm inside the curtains of Harry's canopy bed, she told them what her mother had revealed to her. Like she was expecting, both Harry and Draco had no problem with it, and Draco himself admitted that, yes, one of his ancestors married a Veela centuries ago.

"What were dementors doing on Hogwarts' grounds anyway?" Draco complained. "Did they really expect Sirius Black to be at Hogwarts?"

"Well, to be fair, he did get into Hogwarts. Remember Halloween?" Daphne asked rhetorically.

"I guess. Still, isn't he supposed to be looking for Harry? Why did he try to enter the Gryffindor Common Room then?" It wasn't the first time they had wondered about this.

The general belief was that Sirius Black simply hadn't known Harry wasn't a gryffindor.

"Maybe he's not looking for Harry." Daphne said, just to put that idea in their heads.

"Then what does he want?" Harry asked.

Daphne shrugged but said, "I don't know. He could be after something else, or someone else. I would wonder, instead, if he knew how to escape from Azkaban, why didn't he do it before? Why now? Harry is in his third year already. If he really was after Harry, why didn't he escape before?"

Both Draco and Harry assumed a pensive expression. "That's true. It's weird, isn't it?"

"Hum." Daphne made a noncommittal sound and changed the subject. "Doesn't matter now. The Aurors will catch him, eventually. Still, what we should be worrying about are the dementors. Both Harry and I, and even you Draco to a lesser extent, have a really bad reaction to them. We have to do something about it."

"Like what?" Draco asked.

"There's a spell that works against Dementors." Daphne said.

"Right, the one Lupin used on the train. Maybe we could ask him to teach us." Harry said.

Daphne smiled at Harry. "Yeah, the Patronus Charm. And that's exactly what I was thinking."

"Do you think he would agree? The Patronus Charm is supposed to be really complicated." Draco said.

Daphne shrugged. "We could try, at the very least. And if he doesn't accept, we'll try to learn it on our own. There must be some books on the subject. We need to learn to defend ourselves against those creatures. I can't become catatonic every time I'm faced with them. And Harry even faints when they come close. That's a big weakness, for both of us. And we can't afford that."

Harry looked ashamed at the reminder that he tended to faint every time he was close to those things. "Why do they affect me so?"

"The dementors feed on bad emotions. Pain, grief. And you witnessed your parents' death when you were one. I would be more worried if they didn't affect you as they did."

Harry nodded but he didn't look completely convinced.

They kept talking for a few hours yet before finally deciding to go to bed.

Daphne laid in bed that night but it took a lot of time for her to fall asleep. She had so many thoughts clouding her head and though she knew she could close them off with meditation if she wanted to, she needed to think about them. She needed to plan.

The first thing was, of course, Sirius. She had lost Sirius in her old life and she won't let that happen a second time. What was worse was that Sirius had never regained his freedom and had never been found innocent until after his death. Pettigrew had gotten away, and with that the proof that Sirius was innocent. But not this time.

Technically she could simply take the rat from Ron but who would listen to her? And how could she explain how she knew about Pettigrew? No, too dangerous. She needed to plan this carefully.

The last time, they were about to bring Pettigrew to Dumbledore, but Remus had turned because he had forgotten to take his Wolfsbane and Pettigrew had turned into a rat and escaped. Remus had known about them being at the Shrieking Shack in the first place because he had the Marauders' map with him. And Snape had seen the same map and followed them there.

So, first things first, she needed to get the Marauders' Map from Fred and George. Or, at least, make sure that Remus would confiscate the Map from the Weasley twins, so it would be in his possession when Sirius would 'kidnap' Ron and therefore Pettigrew.

The first year in this reality went pretty much the same as hers, but not the second. So, she couldn't bet on things happening the same way as her reality this year as well.

The scene at Flourish and Blotts, for example, never happened here, and therefore Lucius never put the diary in Ginny's cauldron and the diary never arrived at Hogwarts and the Chamber of Secrets was never opened. Therefore, Lucius probably still had the diary in his possession, unless he had gotten rid of it.

But no, she remembered the conversation between Lucius and Mr. Burke. At the time she hadn't understood what was going on but now it was obvious. Lucius wanted to give the diary to Burke, but Burke must have seen the name on the cover of the diary – T. M. Riddle – and realized whom it had belonged to. Burke must have known that Tom Riddle, the young man who had once worked in his shop, and Lord Voldemort, were the same person. No wonder he hadn't wanted to take the diary.

She only hoped Lucius hadn't found someone else to leave the diary to. It would be much easier to get the Diary from Lord Malfoy than trying to find it and take it from someone else.

Still, the diary could wait. There was another Horcrux she could reach much easily since it was here at Hogwarts. The problem was how to destroy it. The basilisk was still alive in this reality. Was she supposed to kill it again?

She could perhaps ask for Snape's help this time. She didn't trust Dumbledore, not after what had happened in her old life. She knew Dumbledore was just trying to do the right thing, but the way he went about things, manipulating people around like chess pieces, that wasn't right. And he knew that he would be willing to let Harry die just to get rid of Voldemort. He would let anyone die just to see Voldemort dead, even himself. But she wasn't. She would try to save as many people as possible or defeating Voldemort wouldn't be worth it.

Snape, on the other hand, she knew, would do anything to save and protect Lily's child and, in this reality, the two of them even got along.

And the potions ingredients one could obtain from a basilisk were numerous and extremely valuable as well. Someone like Snape couldn't pass that up.

But she had no intention of letting Snape know about the Horcruxes. Dumbledore had been right about that. Snape was too close to Voldemort for comfort – if Voldemort ever found out Snape was a spy, he would torture him for information, maybe even break his mind like what Voldemort had done to Bertha Jorkins, and he would find out that someone else knew about the Horcruxes. That couldn't happen.

Also, as much as she admired Snape now, she wasn't oblivious to the fact that Snape was ambitious and he had been a loyal death eater once. He wasn't above murdering someone for his own gain, and immortality was something that would tempt a lot of people. Better not to risk it.

There was also the fact that she couldn't exactly explain how she knew about the horcruxes in the first place.

Explaining about the Chamber of Secrets and how she had found out about it was easier. She could say that she had read about it in 'Hogwarts: A History'. That she had also heard about the rumours that the Chamber had been opened fifty years ago. That she was a Parselmouth and that she wanted to try and find it, but since there was a monster there, she didn't want to run the risk of freeing it. Therefore, why, she would ask for Snape's help.

Still, she couldn't do it anytime soon. She already knew she was a Parselmouth, of course, but nobody else knew. She needed to pretend to 'find out' that she was a Parselmouth now because of the whole Lamia inheritance thing – the real Daphne hadn't been a parselmouth.

And, of course, something like the Chamber of Secrets couldn't be found in a few days. Maybe the end of the year could work, or even the fourth year.

And thinking about the Fourth Year, would the Triwizard Tournament happen here too? And was she supposed to let the fake Moody aka Barty Crouch Jr put Harry's name in the Goblet or was she supposed to unmask him early so that Voldemort's plan would be stopped?

Harry wasn't a Horcrux in this reality. She knew that because this Harry wasn't a parselmouth. That meant that this Harry didn't need to sacrifice himself to kill Voldemort and he didn't need for Voldemort to be reborn with Harry's blood in his veins. That also meant that Lily's protection, if Voldemort didn't use Harry's blood for his resurrection, would still work. That could be a good advantage. Unfortunately though, in this case, Harry would still need to live with the Dursleys for a few weeks every summer, instead of with Sirius if Daphne could manage to position things just so for Sirius to get a trial and finally prove his innocence.

Still, Sirius could put the fear of god in the Dursleys like probably no one else could, since he was both a wizard and a convicted murderer as far as they knew. He could probably intimidate the Dursleys into treating Harry like a king. That could work.

Also, with Sirius free, it would mean having access to Grimmauld Place sooner – hopefully – and, therefore, the Locket. The Ring was still hidden underneath the Gaunts' shack. Easier to get than most. But could she really leave the school without anyone noticing? She could apparate from Hogsmeade maybe during one of the weekends in the village. Away from Hogwarts' wards and, if she disappeared for a few hours no one would notice, probably. Except Harry and Draco. But Harry didn't have permission to go to Hogsmeade anyway.

The Hufflepuff cup would be a problem. How to get that? She couldn't rob Gringotts a second time, could she? And this time the stakes were even higher. If she got caught, she could end up in jail. She couldn't exactly explain that she was stealing from a vault at Gringotts because inside there was an artefact that was absolutely necessary to kill Voldemort, could she? If only the Cup was in one of the Black vaults instead. It would be so much easier.

Also, Nagini. Voldemort had made Nagini into a Horcrux sometimes after Harry's first year, after escaping Hogwarts following his failure to get the Philosopher's stone. Though it was more probable to think that he made it the summer before Harry's fourth year because Pettigrew had escaped Hogwarts and went to him, and so did Barty Crouch. It was thanks to these two Death Eaters that Voldemort became stronger, strong enough to make another Horcrux. Could she get to Nagini before that, somehow? Was it worth it? Would killing Nagini before she was a Horcrux mean that Voldemort would create another Horcrux, one she didn't know about? It was better not to risk it. And anyway, she had no way of knowing where Nagini had been before rejoining Voldemort anyway – or joining, really. Where did exactly Nagini become Voldemort's familiar? Not that it mattered, of course.

Daphne sighed and decided that it was enough planning for now. She would figure it out. She had to.