Her ears were still ringing, vision blurry and unmanageable, but still Lily forced herself back to her feet, staggering into something very solid, stone-like. She froze, breathing so harsh it was hurting her chest as she fumbled around now realizing it was true and continued darkness rather than a lack of sight on her part.

She had to keep calm, she kept telling herself. Whatever was beneath her fingers didn't feel human, or snakelike for that matter, but the cold marble surely was one of their group only paralyzed and not truly dead! She was the only one proficient enough in potions to reverse-

"Lumos!" A now all too familiar voice spoke quietly from right behind her, Potter's wand revealing a solid stone wall icy smooth to the touch under her grip, the ceiling hanging low enough over their heads they could reach up and touch it. Small comfort though it was, it helped that the place was dry and stale, small and isolated, the opposite of the endless void like place from before. She turned quickly to the boy holding his wand aloft, eyes quickly scanning their surroundings. She couldn't blame him, though there were no snakes in sight, this place still seemed far too likely to hold more danger. There was nothing distinctive at all about the place, no clue where on earth they could be, and they didn't care, as she did another careful count. There were only seven people present, counting herself.

The Black brothers were still shaking from wet and fright as they sat up carefully, Lupin hovering over them both. Alice and Frank were assisting each other to their feet and keeping their wands aloft. The place was so bare, there was no way she could miss him, yet, "where's Pettigrew? Where's Peter?"

"Here," came the small voice from right behind Potter, still half crouched on the floor and remarkably pale, almost blending into the background. Lily did a double take, her eyes nearly popping out of her head as she stared at him, hard, and not entirely in relief, though it was there that he hadn't died back in the Chamber. She swore he hadn't been in this room a second ago.

"Good man Pete!" Potter declared, his voice shaking no matter how hard he tried to hitch a smile onto his face and beam around at everyone. "We all survived, I vote we not go for round two!"

"There is a first time for everything," the elder Black groaned as he took Lupin's hand and let himself be hoisted to his feet, then returned the favor and offered the same to his kid brother. He didn't take it, and hadn't yet moved to more than flip over and rest on his backside, chest still heaving as painfully as hers was.

Potter clapped his friend on the shoulder and helped him to his feet, still giving him a relived smile Lily couldn't shake. Perhaps he hadn't noticed his friend at first either? She just couldn't shake the idea-

"So where are we now?" Frank demanded, bending down and peeling the book from his shoe.

It was a fair question. Certainly nowhere they recognized, and nothing at all to indicate an answer. The only thing of note was a very sturdy door behind them the couple and even they had no urge to try it at this point. Merlin only knew what was on the other side, and for now there was nothing in here trying to kill them, so they'd take it.

"Who cares," Lupin groaned, hand still on his friend's back as he kept massaging his ribs. "We're not in the Chamber anymore, can we just enjoy this moment." He slumped back against the wall himself and closed his eyes like he was ready for a nap.

Smith returned with something and Longbottom began reading, but Sirius wouldn't even be distracted by whatever Dobby still had to do with this as the chapter title indicted. He crouched down next to his brother and quietly asked, "hey, you okay? You took a nasty hit."

Regulus didn't answer for so long Sirius started to grow worried before he finally got the answer, "it's all a lie."

"Err, yeah, most things in life tend to be," Sirius agreed with baffled chipper, anything to get his brothers eyes to focus, but they weren't. Longbottom had already read through Ginny getting to reunite with her parents and Dumbledore awarding Harry and Ron for this stupid stunt. Everybody was sinking to the floor in exhaustion and looking relived to just be able to do that for a moment. Yet Regulus still had a look upon his face like at any moment he'd turn his head and find his death.

It wasn't until Dumbledore mentioned Harry likely having some of Voldemort's powers in him that Regulus reacted again, and all he did was flinch and pull his legs into his chest, like the little kid hiding up in the attic refusing to come down until Sirius had promised their parents had stopped fighting.

Sirius could barely fathom himself what all they'd heard, that everything they'd ever been told about the Dark Lord was false. The man, the mortal who claimed to be more, was in fact trying to purge the world based on a big fat lie. Sirius would have laughed under any other circumstances, but apparently his little brother didn't seem to be finding it as funny.

He tried to imagine it from the kids point of view, but the problem was he'd never given in to believing such a thing as what their parents had wanted of the world, what Regulus had readily adopted. He was only thirteen and everything he'd ever known had been shattered, and Sirius was helpless to offer anything because he no longer knew anything about this boy. He knew more about his three best friends than his own brother.

Turning instinctively to them for help, he saw that Moony really was fixing to fall asleep, barely keeping his eyes open and slumped against the wall like he was. The sky above must be housing a moon not long after it was full. Even not having experienced the change with it would cause his friend to feel the exhaustion it should have. James was watching him with a puckered brow and clear worry, but was also taking the time to engage Evans while she was in a sociable mood, apparently living through a life or death situation had put her in a better mood towards him. She hadn't sprinted to the opposite side of the room yet at least, even if she was keeping an arms distance from him and he didn't seem likely to increase that. Peter still looked shell-shocked, which Sirius couldn't blame him for. Wormtail deserved bloody two hundred points to Gryffindor and more for what he'd pulled, he hadn't needed to see the act to hear what was going on and what gave them the chance to get out of that place.

Lucius Malfoy and Dobby arrived back on the scene as some kind of distraction, and that all made a sickening kind of sense as the little house-elf made it perfectly clear what was going on. Sirius was forced to watch again as Regulus recoiled into himself, and he refused to just sit around and let his little brother dwell on all things pure-blood going on around him, so he spit out the first question that came to mind as loud as he could, "speaking of things hiding in plain sight, exactly who was carrying around Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder and not sharing such a thing? I mean, I'm not criticizing the use, but come on, that's a rather significant detail to share don't you think!"

Silence for a moment, as everyone looked at everyone else waiting for the crack, until finally the last person Sirius expected to spoke up, "it was mine."

"Where did you get that? Without me knowing about it?!" Sirius demanded of his kid brother.

"Father bought some for me over the summer in Knockturn Alley," Regulus murmured without looking at any of them. He said nothing more, and Sirius bit down on his lip to stop himself demanding more of this explanation. Like why he was carrying it around with him today( yesterday?) during class.

Alice sensed the awkward silence lingering, and really she didn't want anybody else to ask what else was being hidden on their persons, so cleared her throat awkwardly and spoke up, "well, I think I've sussed out where we might be. I'd hazard a guess this is where Dobby sleeps. Makes sense doesn't it? The Malfoy's would have him down in the dungeons when he wasn't running their house. We seem to pop up where ever something's happening in a persons life to do with the story, apparently it doesn't always have to be Harry."

Lily's hand tightened along her wand in frustration as Malfoy took out his loss of not being able to murder an entire school and a little girl out on Dobby. The chapter title still lingered in her mind, distracting her from everything else now. Dobby may have gone about it in the wrong way, but he certainly did deserve a reward for all he'd tried to do in helping Harry!

Then he got it, and they all worried that somehow Harry had made things incredibly worse. Freeing a house-elf was not in fact a reward at all to those creatures, but the truly baffling part was Dobby's reaction. He actually seemed happy! It made no sense to any of them, from reputation and whispered stories any other house-elf would be having a nervous breakdown. Dobby was all but cheering. None of them could really complain of the development, when it possibly saved Harry's life from a vengeful Malfoy. They all suspected that little critter was going to make another appearance though, how could he not after such an event?

The last really eventful thing was the all around cheer of Hagrid being rightfully returned, and Percy acting like an idiot all year because of a secret girlfriend of all things. Frank reached the end, back to Harry having to go with those bastard Dursley's again, and all anyone could really hope was that they wouldn't be sent to Privet Drive again.

HPHPHPHP

Whoo! Another book down! Hope you enjoyed! I did set up some really important themes for future books and I still hold how much I genuinely enjoy this one in general, but we all know what we've really been looking forward too!