For the Game

by Lomonaaeren

Summary:

Harry pleads with the Sorting Hat not to be put in Slytherin, but it doesn’t listen to him. With his friends in other Houses, and himself the target of bullying from other Slytherins, Harry sets out to learn how to play the game without losing his soul in the process.

Notes:

I don’t expect this story to have a much higher violence metric than canon, but the bullying in the first few chapters will be fairly severe. Keep that in mind as you read. It will update every six or seven days, with fairly short chapters.

Chapter 1

Harry blinked a little as he stared down at his wrecked trunk. It looked as though someone heavy had kicked in the sides, the way Dudley might have if he could have got to it, and his books were ripped and his robes torn and scattered all over the floor.

In Slytherin you’ll make your real friends…

Yeah, right, Harry thought, and rolled his eyes as he stood up.

“Wow, looks like you’re the careless one, Potter!”

Harry turned to face Malfoy. And yeah, he was more like Dudley than ever, down to the eager look on his face that said he was waiting for Harry to burst into tears and wail about how unfair it was.

“No, you know perfectly well that someone broke into my trunk and did this,” Harry said. “Probably you had Crabbe or Goyle do it. I assume that you’d think you were too highly-bred to do it yourself.”

Everyone stared at him.

“I’m not going to lie or pretend that I don’t know facts because it would be more comfortable for you,” Harry snapped, and bent down to pick up the clothes and books. He studied the books and decided they weren’t as bad as he’d thought. The rips were pretty clean, and he thought he had read something about the Reparo Charm before he got to Hogwarts. He could probably find an older student to do it for him.

Or just do it himself.

“You’re probably going to go and run to Professor Snape,” Malfoy said, although he sounded a little uncertain. “Whinge to him about how people are so mean, right?”

“No,” Harry said slowly. Were they just working off a stereotype of people who got bullied or something? Even Dudley had never been that dumb. He whinged to the teachers to get Harry in trouble because he thought it was fun. He knew Harry never went to them. “I think he has more important things to be bothered with than this.”

Malfoy glared at him, arms crossed.

Harry rolled his eyes at him again and dropped most of his robes in the big basket he’d seen the other boys use for dirty laundry the day before. Apparently the lid sealed shut and didn’t let anyone remove something other people had put inside, only opening so people could add their own things. Harry had thought it was just paranoia last night, but now he was grateful.

There was one robe that was less torn than the others. Harry picked it up and looked at it. Yeah, he could fold the sleeves so the rips didn’t show.

“Why aren’t you doing something?”

“I don’t know the Repairing Charm yet,” Harry said absently. He picked up the books and studied them again, then tucked the ripped corners into the books they came from and stuck them in his bag.

“No! Yelling at us!”

Harry glanced up. Malfoy was leaning a little forwards, as if he was about to punch Harry. Although here it would probably mean drawing his wand and hexing Harry instead. Behind him, everyone else was interested—well, Goyle seemed more focused on searching for a sock, but everyone else was looking at him.

“You’d just make fun of me if I did,” Harry said, and then folded his sleeves and slipped his robe on.

“Your things are torn!”

“Well, yes.”

“A stupid Mudblood like you probably likes living in filth,” Malfoy said, and his nose went up. “You have no idea how bad you look.”

Harry took a deep breath and forced himself to ignore the word, which he didn’t know anyway. It was probably bad, but, well, so were some of the things that the kids at primary school had yelled at Harry, and it had never worked when he tried to tell the teachers about them.

And from the way Professor Snape had glared at Harry last night, going to their Head of House wouldn’t do him any good here, either.

He made sure that all of his books were in his bag one more time, and then left the room without a glance back. He would just have to look up the Repairing Charm and some locking charms for his trunk.

It wasn’t great, this new world. And from the way that Ron had gone deadly white yesterday when Harry had been Sorted into Slytherin, it was probably going to get worse.

But, well, Harry had dealt with worse. Malfoy was bad, and some of the things they did to him would probably be worse, but at least they weren’t relatives who were supposed to love and take care of Harry. He had hoped Hogwarts would be an escape from the Dursleys. It seemed it wouldn’t.

He would survive, though. He always did.

*

“Why are your robes ripped, Mr. Potter?”

Harry smiled a little at Professor McGonagall, who had paused beside his desk and was staring down with a pinched expression. He supposed it was because of the ripped robes. Or because she thought that he wasn’t supposed to be in Slytherin.

Harry agreed with her, honestly. He just hadn’t paid enough attention when the Hat had said something about real friends, and he had hesitated too long.

“Carelessness, Professor. Sorry. I’ll make sure that I learn the Repairing Charm.”

Professor McGonagall blinked, and her eyebrows rose up her face. Then she said, “The house-elves will repair them, Mr. Potter.”

House-elves? But Harry didn’t want to look stupid in front of her or his classmates. There were enough people staring at him already. So he nodded. “Thank you, professor.” Maybe the house-elves were the ones who took care of the clothes people dropped in the basket.

Professor McGonagall gave him a thoughtful look and walked away, and Harry went back to trying to Transfigure his matchstick into a needle. He thought the end closer to him was a little pointier than usual.

“Why didn’t you tell her the truth, Potty?” Malfoy asked from behind him. “Too scared?”

“You’re probably the one who should have been Sorted into Gryffindor, Malfoy, not me.”

Malfoy went off into a little rant that made Professor McGonagall come over and take points from Slytherin. Harry smiled down at his needle—well, it would be a needle with a few more tries, he was sure.

Slytherin didn’t like him, didn’t want him. But Harry had more power to hurt them than he ever had to hurt the Dursleys.

*

“Why did you go to Slytherin, mate? That’s weird.”

Harry had been afraid that was how Ron would react. He sighed and leaned back in his chair in the library. “The Hat told me I would make friends there. It was lying, but I believed it just a moment too long.”

“You don’t have friends there?”

“Are you kidding? Malfoy’s there, and he’s a huge git. Crabbe and Goyle just follow him around and do whatever he tells them. Zabini and Nott aren’t much better, just silent and sneering all the time. And the other Slytherins hate me because Malfoy hates me or for being a half-blood or for being the Boy-Who-Lived.”

Ron leaned back in his chair, his lips pursing around a silent whistle. “Sorry, Harry. That’s awful.”

“Yeah.” Harry straightened his shoulders. The Hat had lied to him, but he thought it was best to ask his own questions now, and figure out whether or not he would be able to have friends outside Slytherin. “Are you going to turn away?”

Ron stared at him and then shook his head. “You were nice on the train,” he said, almost mumbling. “And I never thought I would be friends with a Slytherin, but—you’re sort of a fake Slytherin, aren’t you? You didn’t want to be there. And you’re not a prejudiced git like the lot of them.”

Harry smiled as cool relief washed over him like water. He’d hoped that Ron would still want to be his friend.

But now it was real. Now, as he shook Ron’s hand solemnly the way they hadn’t done on the train, he thought Hogwarts was better than the Dursleys’ for more reasons than just because he got a bed and regular meals.

Chapter 2

Notes:

Thank you for all the reviews!

“Our new celebrity.”

Harry stared into Professor Snape’s eyes and knew that he’d been right. This man hated him. Harry sort of wondered why, but, well, he’d never known why his primary school teachers hated him, either. It was better not to ask that sort of question. Keep his head down.

“Tell me, if you can, Potter, what are the ingredients of the Draught of Living Death?”

Harry blinked once and then saw the way that Malfoy was sniggering, and knew the game. Snape was trying to prove that he was stupid or something.

In another life, Harry might have been affected by it. But he could see Ron smiling at him from behind Snape’s back, and he knew that his real friend wouldn’t back away or think it was funny that he couldn’t answer Snape’s question.

He shrugged a little. “I don’t know, sir.”

“Perhaps your brain isn’t all it’s rumored to be,” Snape said with an unpleasant smile, and Harry felt curiosity about questions he wasn’t going to ask again. Who would be telling rumors about him to Snape? It wasn’t like the Dursleys would write to a wizard. “An easier question. Where would you find the bezoar?”

“What’s a bezoar, sir?”

“Stupid indeed. Rather like your father.”

Oh. Was that it? Snape had hated Harry’s father and so he hated him? Harry thought it was kind of a stupid reason, but then, if he grew up and had kids someday, maybe they would hate Dudley’s kids, too.

“Sorry, sir. Don’t know.”

“One more chance to prove that you aren’t stupid, Potter. What is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?”

Harry did remember reading that wolfsbane was a plant, but he didn’t know what monkshood was. He settled for shrugging.

“Really? Not even an attempt at an answer?” Malfoy laughed aloud, but Malfoy was an idiot whose opinion meant nothing to Harry. “Two points from—”

Snape shut up abruptly, his face tightening. This time, Harry didn’t have any idea about what was going on. Snape glanced quickly over at the Gryffindor side of the classroom, this time, as if he thought someone over there was doing something they shouldn’t. But it was only Granger with her hand in the air.

Snape turned back to Harry and said, “A detention, I think, Potter, for neglecting your study skills.”

“Yes, sir.”

Snape started telling them the answers to the questions then, and Harry wrote them down. He would be curious to look them up when he got back to the dormitory and see if any of them were in the first-year Potions textbook. Maybe the monkshood and wolfsbane one, since the book had mentioned wolfsbane, but Harry would bet they weren’t going to brew the Draught of Living Death in first year.

“You’re so stupid, Potter.”

Harry ignored Malfoy again as he gathered up the ingredients for the Boil Cure Potion. He didn’t think he would do it right the first time, but he would see about practicing on his own later. He would probably have to do that a lot. Quirrell wasn’t a great teacher, either.

“Harry!”

The whisper came from the side. Harry glanced over, although he knew who it had to be. He only knew one person here who called him by his first name.

“Wanna partner?” Ron grinned at him and waved Harry towards his table.

All over the classroom, people seemed to suck in and hold their breaths. Harry snorted. Was it that unheard of for a Gryffindor to partner with a Slytherin in class?

Apparently it was. But Harry still gathered up his ingredients and moved over to Ron’s side of the classroom. His back prickled, since he could feel Snape’s stare, and he was almost sure that Snape would order him to move back.

But he didn’t. Harry settled down triumphantly next to Ron, and they started working together.

It wasn’t all fun and games. Poor Longbottom managed to make boils sprout all over his face and hands and melted his cauldron. He stood there moaning, and Harry flinched. Ron put a comforting hand over his.

“Madam Pomfrey can fix him right up.”

“Madam Pomfrey?”

“The mediwitch, in the hospital wing. My brothers say she’s amazing…”

Ron chattered away to Harry, and they came up with a sort-of Boil Cure, and Harry ignored the stares from the Slytherins. They hated him anyway. They hated him as much as they possibly could. Ron and working with Ron were great. They wouldn’t take that away from him.

*

“You’re so stupid, Potter.”

Harry ignored the words coming from Malfoy, as he usually did. He was currently sprawled on his bed, working on his essay. He would carry it with him when he finished. He hadn’t left his homework anywhere for the other Slytherins to rip up. He knew Reparo now, but he didn’t think he was strong enough to reassemble hundreds of tiny pieces of paper.

“You should have known all this stuff from the time you were a baby. I thought you were being raised by people who actually cared about your education. I suppose I was wrong.”

Harry ignored that, too. He had learned by now that lots of people had silly ideas about him because of these children’s books about Harry Potter that portrayed him as some kind of dragon-riding, sphinx-taming hero.

It didn’t matter. They were all a lot stupider than he was, if they had believed that kind of thing was real.

“I wonder what would happen if we destroyed something you couldn’t repair. Your owl, maybe?”

Harry froze for a long moment. Then he looked up. Malfoy grinned triumphantly at him from where he stood by the foot of Harry’s bed, and spun his wand idly between his fingers. He hadn’t resorted to physical attacks yet, but—

“Did you just threaten to murder my owl?”

“Is it really murder, when we’re just breaking a creature owned by a Mudblood? I wonder what you would do if you found feathers and blood all over your pillow tom—”

There was a pounding and a ringing and a roaring in Harry’s head. Long streaks of red filled his vision. He had never been this angry, not even when Dudley had lied enough to get Harry locked up in the cupboard for two weeks.

He heard shrieks, but they were distant. And then someone yelled, “Potter! Potter, stop!” and Harry blinked and blinked again, and some of the anger retreated.

He was still seeing red, though. Literal red.

Malfoy was on fire.

Malfoy was shrieking and batting at the flames that were consuming his robes, but it wasn’t helping. He staggered and sat down on the floor and went on beating at them. His voice croaked like a bulldog’s.

Harry laughed.

Malfoy went still and stared at him. At the same moment, the flames died. Harry braced his hands on his bed so that Malfoy and the others, who were all staring at him, wouldn’t see how tired he was. He thought it would be a very bad thing to appear exhausted in front of them now.

They can just think I stopped the fire because I wanted to. Not because I was too tired to keep it going.

“If you hurt Hedwig,” Harry said, “you’ll regret it.”

He thought he should have thought of better words, that those were pretty weak ones, but they were apparently enough for Malfoy. He nodded rapidly, forcing himself back towards the wall, his head ducked and his arms rising as if he wanted to wrap them around his head. “Yes, yes, I get it, Potter!”

“Good,” Harry said, and then he forced himself to roll over and go back to working on his essay.

The other boys in the room stared at him, but no one actually tried to interfere. Crabbe and Goyle just seemed too confused to do it. Harry didn’t know what Nott and Zabini were feeling, but he didn’t really care.

They only stood around when Malfoy threatened Harry and tore up his belongings. That meant Harry didn’t care about them, unless they were going to do something one way or the other.

*

Oddly, it seemed that Nott had chosen to do something that evening. Harry was in the bathroom, brushing his teeth, and he saw the movement behind him in the mirrors. He promptly grabbed for his wand, which he carried everywhere with him all the time. He couldn’t fix that if they broke it.

“Potter.”

Harry couldn’t say anything with a mouthful of toothpaste. He settled for a grunt that he hoped Nott would take seriously.

“What you did…”

Harry said nothing, just brushing and spitting some more. Nott finally cleared his throat and said, “I’ve never seen someone use accidental magic that way.”

Harry shrugged and spat in the sink, then gathered his toothbrush close while watching Nott carefully. Supposedly Nott was some kind of Potions genius, even though Malfoy was the one who bragged about getting good marks in that class. He wouldn’t put it past Nott to poison his toothpaste.

Nott studied him. He had cold grey eyes that never seemed to reflect anything, not like Malfoy’s.

“No one knew you were that dangerous,” Nott said abruptly.

“If you decide to hurt my owl, you’ll figure out how dangerous.” Harry didn’t know if he could repeat what his accidental magic had done to Malfoy on Nott, but he knew he would try.

Nott slowly shook his head. “I don’t threaten owls, Potter. I just want you to know that at least one person in our dormitory respects you.”

And then he turned around and left, while Harry stared after him. A second later, he shook his head and dumped some water on his hands to try and flatten his hair, which he did every evening before he went to sleep.

No, he didn’t believe that. If Nott respected Harry, he would have tried to stop Malfoy from tearing up his books and clothes.

Harry went to bed with his wand clutched in his hand, and ignored the way that Nott and Zabini whispered together, looking at him occasionally. He also ignored the way that Malfoy smeared a salve Madam Pomfrey had given him on his hands.

Malfoy avoided his eyes. And he hadn’t said a word about Hedwig. That was all Harry wanted for now.

Chapter 3

Notes:

Thank you again for all the reviews!

“Detention.”

It had become such a common word that Harry hardly noticed when Snape said it anymore. He just nodded distractedly and went back to working on cleaning up the remains of his Color-Changing Potion.

Ron was the one who was indignant on Harry’s behalf, once they’d got out of the Potions classroom. “Why don’t you ever say anything back?” he demanded, as they walked towards the Great Hall.

“Snape hates me for some reason I can’t figure out. My roommates hate me for the You-Know-Who and blood status thing. Do you think speaking up will make a difference?”

Ron hesitated for a long moment, enough that Harry began to wonder if he had finally found the thing that his Gryffindor friend wouldn’t put up with. Then Ron shook his head with a sigh and turned around to face him in front of the Great Hall doors. “No.”

“Exactly. I can stand up for myself when I have to, but a lot of the time, it’s not worth it.”

“Even if you fail Potions?”

Harry snorted. “Failing a class isn’t the worst thing in the world. I have to worry more about surviving.”

Ron studied him. Then he smiled. “Wish someone would tell that to Granger.”

Harry smiled back. Hermione Granger had calmed down a little in class since she had managed to survive a troll by dodging and running, instead of subduing it with spells or something. Harry still didn’t know how a troll had broken into the school or how it had managed to nearly catch Granger, but it wasn’t his problem. “Maybe someone will, someday.”

They waved to each other as they entered the Great Hall and went to their own tables. As usual, Harry took a seat on the end of the bench and cast a detection charm on his food. It was the second charm he had mastered after Reparo. It would find things like food and potions, but also spit, which Malfoy sometimes still did.

“Potter.”

Harry sighed and glanced up. Nott was sitting next to him. “Yes?” he asked. At least if Nott asked him to pass the potatoes or something, he could do that.

“Blaise and I want to talk to you. Ten tonight, in the common room?”

Blaise was Zabini’s first name, Harry remembered after a moment of struggle. And then he heard the other words, and snorted a little. “Nice try,” he said, turning back to his food.

“What?”

“Snape told us that any first-year in the common room after curfew would be treated the same as if they were running in the corridors. I know you remember, Nott. Nice attempt to get me in trouble, but I’m not going to fall for it.”

Nott stared at him for a little bit. Then he leaned over to whisper to Zabini. Harry ate while considering what essay he should do that evening. He was already almost done with Charms, but Snape might check during Friday’s Potions class even though the essay he’d described wasn’t supposed to be due until next week

“We don’t mean to trap you.”

“But you might end up doing it anyway, is that what you’re saying?”

“Why are you so paranoid?” Zabini asked, leaning around Nott to squint at him.

Harry stared at him, asked, “Are you serious?”, and then realized that Zabini was. He pointed down the table at Malfoy and shook his head. “He tried to get me in trouble and destroyed my things and threatened to kill my owl, and you just stood there. Why would it be any different now?”

“We’re not Malfoy.”

“So your traps are subtler?”

Zabini made a rough snorting noise and stood up from the table. “He isn’t interested, Theo, let’s go.”

Nott eyed Harry for a long moment. Harry stared back. He hoped that they didn’t expect him to suddenly change his mind and just forget about everything Malfoy had done. Harry hadn’t disliked the kids who had been afraid of Dudley the way he had with Dudley, but he had still disliked them.

“Yes,” Nott said, although it wasn’t clear what he was saying “yes” to. “Let’s go.”

They turned and walked away, and Harry shook his head and went back to his meal, ignoring Malfoy’s whinging. Regular meals were the best part of Hogwarts other than magic and Ron.

*

“I’m—really sorry, Hermione.”

Harry paused around the corner, curious. He had been on his way to meet Ron on the Quidditch pitch. Ron’s twin brothers were going to let Ron and Harry borrow their brooms to fly a bit.

But it sounded like Ron was talking to Granger. Harry didn’t know why. Or what he had to apologize to her about.

“Are you ever going to say something like that again?”

“No. No. You’re brilliant. Not a nightmare.”

Harry reckoned that he was Slytherin enough to appreciate secrets. He slowed down and crept to the very edge of the stands the audience sat in during the Quidditch matches, then peered at Ron and Granger. Ron was bright red, and Granger looked like she was on the verge of crying.

When did he call her a nightmare?

“It’s your fault I was in the bathroom.”

“I know.”

“It’s your fault the troll almost killed me.”

“I know.” Ron sounded almost as ashamed as he had the day that he’d admitted he’d fallen for Malfoy’s attempt to lure him out past curfew, and lost Gryffindor a bunch of points.

Harry pursed his lips in a silent whistle. That was why Granger had been in the bathroom, then.

He felt a little bit of hurt that Ron had kept the secret from him. But, well…

Ron didn’t need to tell him everything. Just like Harry hadn’t told Ron that he’d set Malfoy on fire, or how bad the bullying could get sometimes, or the weird way that Nott and Zabini were acting lately. It was all right for friends to have secrets from each other.

It wasn’t the end of the world.

Because of that, Harry was smiling when he came around the corner of the stands, and although Ron turned redder and Granger took a little step away at the sight of him, everything was fine.

Granger even stayed to watch them fly, and told Harry at the end of the afternoon to call her Hermione. Harry wasn’t sure, but he thought he might have two friends now.

He could almost have flown back to the school without a broom.

*

Harry rolled his eyes when he opened his bed curtains the next morning and saw that his robes were cut and torn again. Malfoy didn’t learn.

“What are you going to do about that, Potty?”

Harry turned and watched Malfoy. Nott and Zabini were staring at him from their own beds. It looked like Crabbe and Goyle were probably still asleep.

Harry held Malfoy’s eyes as he drew his wand. Malfoy only sneered, probably because he thought Harry would just repair his clothes and nothing else. Instead, Harry aimed his wand at Malfoy’s trunk, sitting at the foot of his bed, and whispered, “Diffindo.”

Even though he was still holding Malfoy’s eyes and he’d whispered the incantation, Harry had put a lot of power into the spell. It hit Malfoy’s trunk and tore straight through the wood and the lock, landing with so much force that the trunk almost exploded. Malfoy’s robes, or at least the ones that had been folded on top in the trunk, turned into a floating mess of cloth shreds.

“Potter!”

Malfoy hopped out of his bed with his wand held at the ready, and Harry rolled out of his own bed and dodged the first hex that Malfoy threw at him. The room was a lot smaller than some of the spaces he’d run away from Dudley and his gang in, but Harry had practice dodging in small spaces, too. And he was angry.

Malfoy, it turned out, didn’t have nearly as much practice at dodging. And he was afraid.

Harry saw that the first time he accepted a Stinging Hex on his left arm and cast with the right one anyway. Malfoy yelped as Harry’s own Stinging Hex landed on his foot, and actually bent down to rub the pain away.

In the middle of a duel.

Harry charged.

Malfoy yelped again as Harry tackled him to the floor, and kicked away the leg Malfoy tried to raise to throw Harry off him. Harry sat on Malfoy’s chest and aimed his wand at the git’s throat. Malfoy was coughing and choking. “Do you yield?” Harry asked.

He thought he sounded like a prat, but he had seen a duel in the common room the other day, and this was what the older student who won had said. Of course, she hadn’t been sitting on the other student at the time.

Malfoy stared up at Harry with wide eyes and a gaping mouth. Then he nodded. He seemed too shocked to say anything else.

Harry stood up and walked over to his own bed, where he started casting Reparo as fast as he could. His arm was trembling pretty hard after breaking Malfoy’s trunk open and then the duel, but he would do this. He needed robes to wear today, and it wasn’t like any of the others would help.

“Potter.”

Harry glanced over reluctantly. Zabini was standing there with his arms folded, and Harry sighed. “Are you going to say that I have to fight you, too, or something?”

“Who trained you?”

Dudley Dursley, but you wouldn’t know him. That was on the tip of his tongue to say, but Harry knew it would only make things worse. He shook his head. “I didn’t get trained in dueling or anything, if that’s what you mean.”

“But you must have!”

“Why? Because I’m a dirty half-blood who beat a pureblood?”

Zabini opened his mouth and closed it again.

Harry closed his eyes. He was tired, and it had nothing to do with magical exhaustion, which he wasn’t even sure he was feeling anyway. “I’m going to go get changed,” he said. “Don’t touch my stuff.”

Zabini and Nott both kept staring at him as Harry gathered up the best of the robes to cast Reparo on, but they didn’t say anything else. Malfoy kept avoiding his eyes. Crabbe and Goyle kept sleeping.

Harry sighed as he wandered into the bathrooms. He shouldn’t have listened to the Hat’s words about real friends in Slytherin. It was a stupid piece of headgear. What did it know?

Chapter 4

Notes:

Thank you again for all the reviews!

“I think it would be dreadful to have to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas. Imagine having no family to go to...”

Harry rolled his eyes and kept on eating. Malfoy had mostly been taunting him with words ever since Harry had dueled him and won. It was fine, and Harry could ignore it. Dudley’s words hurt worse because he was family. Malfoy was nothing.

“Why are you staying, Potter?”

Harry eyed Nott sideways, but the question seemed pretty neutral. Harry shrugged and put more butter on his toast. “My Muggle family don’t like me and I don’t like them.”

Nott went silent and stared at him. Harry sighed into his bread. He supposed he should have known better than to think any question from one of his roommates was truly neutral. Now he had reminded Nott he lived with Muggles, and Nott would be thinking about dirtiness and dirty blood and how Harry was—

“You live with Muggles?”

Oh. Huh. Harry had thought they knew that. He took another bite of bread and nodded. “Yes. You didn’t know?”

“I thought—so many people said you grew up in the magical world, hidden for your own safety—”

“I suppose I might have been hidden for my safety.” Harry wasn’t really sure what to think of that. Were wizards more dangerous than Muggles? All the time? He could have died falling down the stairs while he was carrying a huge load of laundry or when Aunt Petunia swung a frying pan at his head, and no one would have ever known.

“You don’t know?”

“I mean, I didn’t know magic existed until I got my Hogwarts letter. Maybe someone hid me for my own safety, but then they never checked on me. I don’t know.”

“You—you didn’t—”

Harry had a hard time keeping a straight face. It was funny that he’d reduced Nott to spluttering with basic facts.

“What dearest Theodore means,” Zabini cut in, leaning over and staring at Harry, “is that we both thought you would be aware of magic.”

“Well, that was sort of stupid of you.”

Zabini bristled, but Nott put a hand on his arm. Zabini looked at him and nodded. Harry watched a little wistfully. He would probably have that same kind of silent communication with Ron and Hermione someday, but even then, they wouldn’t be sitting at the same House table while it happened.

“We expected something different from you.”

Harry shrugged and looked up to see Ron motioning to him across the Great Hall. He was staying for the holiday, too. Harry picked up a napkin and tucked away the sausages and hard-boiled eggs that he hadn’t had time to eat.

“You and everyone else who thought I’d be a Gryffindor and a spoiled hero,” he said, and then almost laughed at the looks on their faces. It seemed that Zabini and Nott were offended more than anything that he had compared them to “everyone else.”

Harry walked away from the Slytherin table, ignoring a taunt from Malfoy behind him, and caught up with Ron near the entrance of the Great Hall. “Did you want to go out to the pitch and fly around?”

“Yeah!”

Harry smiled. He didn’t have friends in his House, but he had people in other Houses he liked, and that was all he needed.
*

“Cool, mate!”

“Isn’t it?” Harry grinned and shook out the Invisibility Cloak. It draped over him and made starlight seem to shimmer and ripple up and down his shoulders. “The only thing that worries me is that the note didn’t say who it was from. I almost didn’t open the package at first.” And he’d hit it with some detection charms he’d started looking up after someone tried to poison him in the common room, but that wasn’t something he needed to worry Ron about.

“Why would someone give you something this useful if they hated you?”

Harry did have to sort of admit that, but—“It doesn’t mean that they wanted to help me. The Cloak could have a curse on it.”

“But it doesn’t?”

“No. And the note did say that my dad used to own it. I’m glad to have something my dad owned.”

Ron turned pink for a second and looked away. Harry was glad. He hadn’t really meant to say that part out loud.

“You told me about a mirror you found?”

Harry shook himself out of the daze of feeling. “Yeah. Come on. I’ll show you.”

*

Harry listened to Ron’s story about seeing himself with the Quidditch Cup and the Head Boy badge in the Mirror, nodding. It made sense with the motto that was written along the top of the mirror, about the mirror showing your heart’s desire.

He was surprised when Professor Dumbledore popped out of a dark corner and talked about the dangers of the mirror to them. Ron was red-faced and stammering by the end.

“So that—that wasn’t real?”

“It is what you really and truly want, Mr. Weasley,” Professor Dumbledore said gently. Harry looked at him. He hadn’t got a good look at the professor before, except sometimes at meals, but he seemed a lot kinder than the Slytherins tended to talk about him as. He had a sad smile and warm blue eyes. “It doesn’t mean that it will happen in the future, but it might. If you want it enough and if you work for it.”

Ron stood upright and threw his chest out a little. Harry hid a smile. “I can do that!”

“Yes, I do believe you can,” said Professor Dumbledore. Harry had to wonder; had the professor ever heard Ron moaning about homework? But before he could say something stupid, the Headmaster turned and looked at him. “And you, Mr. Potter? What did you see?”

Harry had seen his family the first night. He glanced back into the mirror now, expecting to see the same thing.

And he did. Mostly. There were his parents near the front of a crowd of other relatives, ones who had messy hair and green eyes and the thin wrists that he had. His mum and dad both had tears in their eyes, and his mum had one hand resting on Harry’s shoulder.

But Harry also saw that he was taller than he was now, and he had a bright, confident smile. He didn’t have the Quidditch Cup or the Head Boy badge that Ron had had—maybe because Harry hadn’t known they existed to want before he came to Hogwarts—but he had a shiny cloak that shimmered with spellwork. Sort of like the Invisibility Cloak, only cooler.

Somehow, Harry knew that that cloak meant no one could ever damage him with the kinds of jinxes and hexes that Malfoy kept trying. And when he looked back into the crowd of his family, he could see Ron and Hermione standing there, both smiling.

I want that.

“Yes, sir,” Harry said after a moment, tearing his eyes away from the mirror to look at Professor Dumbledore. He respected the man’s words about the power of the mirror a lot more at the moment. “My family and friends, and they’re happy for me.”

Professor Dumbledore’s smile was sad again. “I believe the mirror can at least give you a glimpse of the past, if not the future.”

So my family members might really have looked like that. It soothed something in Harry. He’d worried that the mirror showing his heart’s desire meant that it was lying.

But on the other hand, Dumbledore was pretty old, so…

“Did you know my grandparents, sir? Or any aunts or uncles of mine?”

Dumbledore blinked and blinked again. “I did indeed,” he said at last. “Any number of Potters passed through these halls while I was Deputy Head and Transfiguration professor here.”

“Could you tell me about them? I know a little about my parents, Hagrid told me they were brilliant and how they died and Mr. Ollivander told me about their wands, but I don’t really know anything about my other relatives.”

Dumbledore’s face was softening. “Of course, Harry. It would be my honor.”

Harry nodded. He thought of asking what the professor saw in the mirror, but he thought it was probably pretty personal, and Dumbledore might not tell the truth. Harry wouldn’t have told the truth if it was something sadder than what he really saw.

He and Ron got out of the mirror room, and Ron cleared his throat a few times as they went down the corridor, but didn’t say anything. Only when Harry would have to turn to go down to the dungeons, and Ron would have to go back to Gryffindor Tower, did Ron clear his throat again and say very fast, “D’you think—”

“Yeah?”

“D’you think I could really have the Quidditch Cup and be Head Boy someday?”

Harry blinked, and then smiled and reached out and patted Ron’s shoulder. “I think you can do anything you want.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You’re not your brothers. You’re younger than them, but you can be better than them.”

Ron’s face shone, and Harry went back to the dormitories and to bed feeling pretty good about himself. He hoped the possible part of the vision in the mirror came true, and he could stay friends with Ron and Hermione all his life, even when he was grown up and knew enough jinxes and curses so that Malfoy would never dare bully him again.

Chapter 5

Notes:

Thank you again for all the reviews!

“Stay after class, Mr. Potter.”

Harry hid a soundless sigh and just shook his head when Ron glanced at him in concern. Ron glared at Snape, and so did Hermione, although she was subtler about it. At least she herded Ron out of the room.

Harry turned around and looked at Snape. The professor loomed over him, and his eyes were dark and piercing and awful. Then again, everything about the way he treated Harry was awful. Harry thought he was kind of a fool for expecting anything different.

“Yes, sir?” he asked, when enough time and silence had gone past that he thought Snape might just have him stand there for years.

A sneer wrinkled Snape’s mouth up. “Mr. Malfoy told me that you have attacked him multiple times.”

“Because he attacked me, and he threatened to murder my owl.”

“What?”

“Oh, did he leave that part out? Amazing.”

Snape continued to stare at him, slow gaze tracking back and forth over Harry. Harry stared back. He had heard that if you maintained eye contact with people, they would think you were honest. No one had ever believed him when he did that, but he did want to show Snape he wasn’t afraid of him.

Snape blinked and glanced off to the side, and Harry rubbed his forehead. It felt a bit like a pressure against his mind had gone away.

“Did he,” Snape said softly to himself. He appeared to be thinking. Harry stood there with his hands clasped behind his back and waited.

Snape finally turned back to him. “I don’t like you, Potter.”

“Really? I didn’t notice.”

“Enough,” Snape snarled, and Harry relaxed a little. At least Snape was back to treating him normally now, and that should be enough to get them past the awkward moment when Snape pretended to believe Harry. “You will not be punished for your actions against Mr. Malfoy, but you have detention tomorrow night at eight for your cheek. Now, get out of my sight.”

Harry just nodded and left. Really, that had gone better than he could have expected.

He did have to reassure Ron that Snape hadn’t force-fed him any potion that would turn him into something awful later. Hermione stood by with her arms folded and shook her head while Ron questioned Harry about that. “Professor Snape wouldn’t do something so terrible,” she said.

“So what you’re saying is,” Ron said with a grin, “he would do something a little less terrible?”

“Ron!”

Harry settled back against a wall to watch Ron and Hermione bicker. Really, at this point, it was almost as fun as watching Quidditch.

*

“P-please stay af-after class, Mr. P-Potter.”

Harry concealed a sigh and shook his head at Ron, who was giving him a concerned look as he left the classroom. Hermione had already walked out with her nose buried in a book. Harry turned around to face Professor Quirrell.

He really didn’t know what to make of the man. Professor Quirrell had seemed normal enough when they met in Diagon Alley, just excited to meet Harry Potter, but he was a stuttering mess at Hogwarts. And Harry didn’t learn a lot in his class because of the piercing headache he had all the time from the smell of garlic in the man’s classroom.

“Yes, sir?”

“You must have wondered why you did not receive specialized Defense instruction.”

Harry blinked at the man. The stutter had disappeared. That was strange. Was it that the man was nervous in front of so many students, but fine if he was alone with just one?

That could be it. But his roommates could be engaging in some kind of complex welcoming ceremony by bullying him, too. Harry knew what explanation he was more likely to believe.

“No, sir.”

“Why not?”

“Why would you be giving me specialized Defense instruction, sir?”

“Why, because I am the Defense professor, of course!” Quirrell had a horrible smile. It didn’t reach his eyes. “And you are the vanquisher of the Dark Lord. Why would you not expect it from me?”

Dark Lord. That was a name that Harry heard from the Slytherins and some of the history textbooks he’d looked up when it became clear that Binns’s class was going to be a waste of time.

He gave Quirrell a little smile and shook his head. “But he’s dead, sir.”

“Wh-where did you hear that, Mr. Potter?” Quirrell asked, as though he had suddenly remembered he was supposed to stutter.

“From Hagrid, sir.” Harry widened his eyes. “I know that he was expelled when he was in third year, but he seems really smart! And he didn’t say that you would have to teach me how to protect myself. I mean, protect myself more than the other students. I’m just famous for something my mum probably did.”

“Now, why would you say that?”

Damn. Harry had assumed that his words would make Quirrell less interested, but instead, he was staring at Harry with an intense gleam in his eyes that definitely hadn’t been there a short time ago.

“Well, because it’s true, sir. I was a baby, and he killed my mum right before he tried to kill me. So she must have done something, right?”

Quirrell stared at him for a moment more, and then gave an abrupt, tinkling laugh. Harry had never heard a worse laugh in his life. “Well, you are right, of course, Mr. Potter! No one would expect you to have killed the greatest Dark Lord of our time.” He waved his hand at the classroom door. “Go on, then. Catch up with your l-little friends.”

Harry ran out with just a nod for the professor. He found Ron and Hermione waiting for him around the corner. Even Hermione looked concerned when Harry told them what his conversation with Quirrell had been like.

“We should at least try to keep an eye on him,” Hermione said, after Harry had talked her out of going to a professor. Harry knew they wouldn’t listen to him. No one ever did, except for his friends. “Figure out why he would talk to you like that, Harry.”

“He could be into Dark Arts and things,” Ron said, nodding. “He ran into vampires somewhere, and there’s a curse on the Defense post, there must be, professors don’t even last a single year…”

“What if he’s doing research to try and end the curse?” Hermione asked, and they were off.

Harry trailed behind his friends, revolving things in his head. The way Quirrell had stopped stuttering. The way his smile hadn’t reached his eyes. How he’d avoided calling Voldemort by his name, but hadn’t called him You-Know-Who, either.

Something is really wrong with him. Even if he is doing research on the curse on the Defense post.

So Harry resolved to watch Quirrell. At the moment, he didn’t know what else he could do. Coming to Hogwarts had taught him that he was a lot more limited than he’d believed he was when his wand came to life in his hand.

*

Harry waited outside the gargoyle that he knew guarded the Headmaster’s office, and tried not to be nervous. After all, the one time he had met the Headmaster, he’d been perfectly nice, if a little strange.

He just hoped that Headmaster Dumbledore wouldn’t see what Harry was going to tell him now as tattling or something like that.

The gargoyle finally leaped aside, because of some criteria that Harry couldn’t determine, and he ran up the moving staircase as fast as he could. Then he knocked on Professor Dumbledore’s door, and tried not to gasp in relief when the Headmaster spoke in a cheerful voice, asking him to come in.

“Thanks, sir,” he said, stumbling in, and then blinked at the silver instruments and the phoenix and what looked like a large stone bowl on the desk. But he shook off the temptation to ask the Headmaster about them. “Sir, it’s about Hagrid.”

“Oh? I had thought that you considered him a friend, Mr. Potter.”

Harry sighed. Dumbledore’s voice was cool, bordering on cold. Yeah, he probably was one of the Gryffindors who thought you should never report your friends to anybody. “I’m not trying to get him in trouble, sir. It’s only that he has a dragon egg, and he lives in a wooden house, and I’m really worried about him burning down his house. Or getting hurt. Or harming the dragon, even though he doesn’t mean to. He’s not a professional dragon breeder, he doesn’t know what they eat—”

“Please calm down, Mr. Potter.”

Harry bit his lip, hard, the way he sometimes did when he was suffering under some unfair punishment that Dudley got him put into, and nodded. “All right, sir.”

“I knew that Hagrid had a dragon egg, and I hoped that he would come and speak to me himself. But I cannot be angry that you did it on his behalf. You did not wish to see a friend suffer, and that is an admirable trait.”

Harry smiled at Professor Dumbledore, and didn’t resent him sounding a little surprised. It was a bit unfair to think that Harry wouldn’t care about his friends because he was in Slytherin, but, well, Harry hadn’t seen much friendship in the Slytherin dormitories, either. Only bullying, and the people who stood aside and watched it.

“I will speak with Hagrid myself this afternoon.” Professor Dumbledore stood. “In the meantime, perhaps you can spend some time outside with your friends Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger?”

“Thanks, sir. Hagrid won’t get in trouble for this?”

“Oh, no! He has not actually hatched or bred a dragon, which means that he has committed no crime.”

Harry nodded, relieved, and trotted back down the stairs. It sounded like the Headmaster was getting Hagrid out of trouble on a technicality, but what were technicalities for, if not to get your friends out of trouble?

And he was going to join Ron and Hermione, although in the library instead of outside. They were doing research on the kinds of curses that could be put on jobs and how you could remove them, to see if it would help them understand Quirrell any better.

Chapter 6

Notes:

Thank you again for all the reviews!

“You are not what I expected, Mr. Potter.”

Harry blinked and glanced up from where he’d been cutting up slugs to prepare for some kind of potion Professor Snape wanted to do with the upper-year classes. The professor was leaning against the wall of the office, staring at him.

“Yes, sir,” Harry said. He wanted to add that not many people seemed to have expected him at all, but that would probably count as cheek. He went back to cutting up the slugs.

“Where did you grow up, Potter?”

Weird topic. Then again, it was also something Nott and Zabini had asked about. Harry restrained a shrug and said, “In the Muggle world, sir.” He glanced at the cuts on the slugs in front of him and decided that he had to slice them a bit more thinly.

“In whose home?”

Really? But Snape seemed to hate him no matter what, so maybe he was asking for the name so he could hate every detail of Harry’s life. Harry simply murmured, “With my aunt and uncle, sir.”

“Their names?” There was an insult in Professor Snape’s tone, it sounded like, if not the words. He was probably a moment away from sneering “You idiot.”

“Petunia and Vernon Dursley, sir.”

There was a loud crash, and Harry spun around, falling into the defensive crouch that was already pretty natural to him after the duels and hexes he’d gone through. He stared when he saw a broken glass jar on the floor, oozing green liquid everywhere. It looked as though Professor Snape had knocked it over with his elbow from where it had been standing on a table.

“Idiot boy! You’ve cut yourself!”

I knew we wouldn’t get through this detention without an insult, Harry thought absently as he glanced down at his hand. The blade he’d been using to slice the slugs was so sharp that he hadn’t felt it go in at all. But yeah, there was the bleeding cut.

“Sorry, sir,” he said, and put the knife down, looking around for something that would do for bandages. Snape had taken his wand when he came into the detention, or he would have cast a mild healing spell, something else he’d got quite good at.

“This way, you dunderhead.”

Snape was waiting for him with his wand out. Harry controlled his instinctive flinch, and held as still as he could while Snape cast a healing spell at him with angry motions. His wound stopped bleeding and knitted back together, the skin crawling like insects. Harry shivered.

“You are an idiot, Potter. Someone who cannot handle a knife properly…”

Harry just nodded along to Snape’s diatribe, a little glad that he was just going to go back to treating Harry normally instead of blaming him for the glass jar or something. Which Snape himself had clearly knocked over.

But why? Why would hearing that Harry lived in the Muggle world—or the names of his relatives—make him react that way?

Harry mentally shrugged and went back to slicing slugs. Snape was the only one who could answer that question, and Harry knew exactly how likely it was that his professor ever would. Snape might be there for the other Slytherins as their Head of House, but with Harry, he was always going to be distant and hateful. That, or indifferent. That was just the way everyone was to Harry, except Ron, Hermione, and Hagrid.

It’s like a law of nature.

*

Harry grimaced. He didn’t like the coincidence that had left him walking up a staircase with Zabini and Nott after Potions, but Ron was sick in the infirmary today and Hermione had been helping Longbottom with his potion—Snape decided to be sadistic about assigning partners—and Harry happened to leave Potions at the same time as Zabini and Nott.

At least they were having their own conversation and ignoring him.

Harry felt the sudden buildup of subtle lightning, like static electricity, in the air around him. He promptly ducked, and the spell that was aimed at one of the three of them, he couldn’t tell who, skipped past him in a shower of red sparks and vanished into the darkness below the staircase. Harry snatched his wand and straightened up.

There were three older Ravenclaws standing in front of him. Harry thought he remembered hearing that the tall one in the middle was named Yaxley, but he didn’t know the other two.

“You can get out of here, Potter,” said Yaxley. His eyes were aimed behind Harry, astonishingly enough, at the two Slytherins Harry had been traveling with. “We’re just here for Nott, traitor that he is.”

Harry wondered on earth how Nott could be a traitor to anything, when he was a pureblood and his father had followed Voldemort around or something like that. But he knew one thing he wasn’t going to do. He wasn’t going to walk away and just let Yaxley curse Nott. The spell that had gone past Harry was the kind that could have knocked someone off the staircase.

Nott was a coward and a wanker who thought that Harry should be his good friend when he’d just stood back and let Malfoy do whatever he wanted, but he didn’t deserve to die. Or get tortured.

“No.”

“What?”

Yaxley looked genuinely shocked. Harry straightened up with a grim smile that he knew made him look creepy, because Ron had told him that. “I said no.”

“You realize that we’re going to curse you? We can curse you pretty seriously.” The slender girl behind Yaxley was trying to sound intimidating, but she wasn’t even as good at threats as Dudley.

“You’d have to catch me first,” Harry said, and then he attacked.

They weren’t expecting him to do that, and there was a lot of yelping and scrambling. Harry had jumped across the distance between their staircase and the one he’d been on, not even hesitating. He could hear Zabini yelling something behind him, but he didn’t look back. The important thing was to stop them.

Put them down, the way he’d done with Malfoy.

He crashed into Yaxley before the attempted murderer could get over the surprise and really raise his wand. Harry stuck his wand right into Yaxley’s side and used the Lightning Charm. It wasn’t like the Lightning Curse, which could kill people, but it would give you a nasty shock. Harry had started looking up charms like that after the duel with Malfoy and the weird way that Professor Quirrell was behaving.

Yaxley went down, his limbs flailing in every direction. Harry spun around and faced the slender girl and the third Ravenclaw, who looked like he might be a year younger than the others.

The other boy backed away with his hands in the air, then turned around and ran. The girl, though, tossed her blonde braid over her shoulder and aimed her wand at Harry. She cast silently, meaning that he didn’t have any chance to know what it was.

It hurt like one of Dudley’s punches when it slammed into his shoulder, and Harry grunted as something pulled. A tendon, or something. But it only hurt like one of Dudley’s punches, and he ran towards her while she was probably expecting him to be panting and crying on the ground like Yaxley, and shocked her with the Lightning Charm, too.

There was a long moment when Harry stood in the middle of the two Ravenclaws and watched them, ready to shock them again if he had to. Then he jerked his head up. Rapid footsteps were coming towards them from the direction where the third Ravenclaw had gone.

“Potter! Let’s go!”

Harry didn’t really need Nott’s warning. He turned around and leaped from the staircase he was on to his original one, and then all three of them took off running to the dungeons. Harry didn’t look back.

When they got into the dungeons themselves, Harry leaned against a wall and panted. Nott and Zabini were doing the same thing. And also staring at him.

Harry ignored them for a bit, although he kept his wand in his hand in case they decided to hex him while he was distracted. But finally he straightened up, stopped breathing hard, and stuck his wand into his sleeve.

When he started to walk back to the common room, Nott stepped into his path. Harry whipped his wand out again, darting his eyes to the side. Zabini had got behind him, and he swore internally. That was carless of me.

“We’re not going to hex you, Potter.”

“Why not?”

“You saved our lives.”

Harry blinked. He knew that was a big deal to purebloods—he’d heard some people talking about it when someone else had saved a classmate from falling off a broom—but he hadn’t realized that it would count in this case. “I don’t know that the spell would have killed you,” he said slowly.

“It could at least have knocked Theo off the staircase,” Zabini said, stepping up to stand beside Nott. He didn’t have his wand out. Harry let his eyes drift between them, really not sure what they were trying to do. “Or me. Yaxley isn’t known for being sane or taking account of rules, only trying to cover up what he did afterwards. We both owe you a life-debt.”

Harry nodded slowly. “All right.”

“Do you have anything in mind to repay it?” Nott asked casually.

Harry thought one more time. Maybe he could have come up with something better if he wasn’t so tired, but maybe not. There was only one thing that Nott and Zabini could do that he wanted, anyway.

“Don’t take Malfoy’s side,” he said simply. “I don’t care if you fight for me. I wouldn’t expect you to. But don’t join in on Malfoy’s side. Or the side of anyone fighting for blood purity,” he added. Maybe that would prevent Nott and Zabini from turning on him in the future if Voldemort really wasn’t dead.

“Done.”

“Done.”

There was a shift, a click in the air around them, and Harry blinked, then shrugged. He supposed that was the life-debts being fulfilled.

He wanted to get to bed, so he started to step past Nott.

“We’re not done here, Potter.”

Harry whirled around, crouched low, wand out and aimed. Maybe this was the part where they would take out their fury at Harry seeing their “weakness” on him—

Nott rolled his eyes and said, “I know what kind of alliance I want in the future, and it’s not someone like Yaxley, or someone like Draco who thinks that everyone should just do what he tells them. If we’re not attacking you, we might as well be your friends.”

Harry squinted at him. “I didn’t think that was how it worked for Slytherins.”

“You’re a Slytherin,” Zabini said, sounding vaguely offended. “A good one.”

“I thought that you agreed with Malfoy about how I didn’t belong here.”

“We did,” Nott said simply. “We don’t now. Call me Theo.” He held out his hand.

Harry slowly lifted his hand and shook Nott’s, almost in a dream, then did the same with Zabini’s when he held it out and asked Harry to call him Blaise. He invited them to use his first name, too, because he kind of had to, and thought pretty hard about it as they made their journey back to the common room.

Was changing your mind just like that—allowed?

It seemed like it was, and he definitely didn’t want to go back to being alone and fighting off five enemies in his dormitory. With Nott and Zabini, it would be three against three.

That alone was enough reason for Harry to accept their alliance, as he supposed it would be. It was a long way from being real friends.

But it was a start.

Chapter 7: Real Slytherins

Notes:

Thank you again for all the reviews!

If you'd like to leave a prompt for my Samhain to the Solstice fic series that will be posted between Halloween and the winter solstice, feel free to leave a prompt here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1XQpLyf-_37aFnJh0-0icir18_l7la2X9h1BuaaRN9mw/

“It just feels like we’re further than ever from that mirror.”

Harry blinked and looked up at Ron. They’d met up in an obscure corner of the library to study for their exams and give Ron and Hermione some relief from the other Gryffindors who thought they were “traitors” for associating with a “slimy Slytherin.” “What do you mean?”

Ron let his head dangle for a moment. Harry just waited. Ron really wasn’t lazy or stupid, whatever he liked to imply sometimes. You only had to have patience with him and give him a chance to speak his mind.

It was a lesson that Hermione was learning more slowly, but that was all right. Harry was confident that she would eventually get there.

“The future I saw in the Mirror was me being respected and Head Boy and everything,” Ron mumbled at last. “But to be Head Boy, you have to get good marks. And it has to be in all your years. I can’t even do that well on first-year exams. How can I think that I’m going to be Head Boy?”

Harry leaned forwards and squeezed his hand. “I think you’re comparing yourself too much to Hermione.”

“Huh? I didn’t say anything about her.”

“I know, but she’s looming over you in your mind, I think.” Hermione had gone to get a book, or Harry never would have said this. “Keep in mind that she’s great and she’s really smart, but just because you won’t get the same scores on the exams as she will doesn’t mean you’re stupid. You can study in a different way, one that makes more sense for you.”

“What way is that?”

Harry floundered a bit. He had to admit he didn’t know. But he reached back into his memory of some of the Muggle students he’d been in primary school with and took a deep breath. “Well, maybe you could start outlining your essays? Writing down some of the ideas that you come up with and putting them in order? Then trying to write the paragraphs.”

“Huh.” Ron looked intrigued. “That’s an idea. I think Percy said something about it once, but, well, Percy.”

Harry nodded, amused. From what Ron and Hermione both said about Ron’s older brother, Percy sounded like he had a lot of good ideas but explained them incredibly boringly. “So you could try.”

“That’s an excellent idea,” Hermione said, coming back to the table and dropping a huge pile of books on it. “And, Harry, you could stand to do some of the same thing.”

Harry smiled at her. “I could do that!”

Hermione beamed back at him and started quizzing them on some of the Charms spells that would certainly be on the exam. Harry kept his head down as he answered, because his expression might have given away to Hermione that he had no intention of following her advice.

Or, well, he would follow it as far as was practical. But what did marks matter, next to survival? There were some classes that he would never get good marks in, anyway. Both Snape and Quirrell hated him too much.

So he would do a few things to try and make his essays better, but he would worry a lot more about learning magic, actual magic, spells that would let him survive the kinds of things like the Ravenclaw students who had attacked him and Nott and Zabini the other day.

Harry was kind of surprised that none of the Ravenclaws had gone to the professors, honestly. Yes, they’d attacked first, but the students they were bullying had been Slytherins, who were unpopular. And Harry’s use of the Lightning Charm had been worse, the Ravenclaws could have said, than whatever spells they’d planned for the Slytherins.

Maybe I should ask Nott and Zabini for their thoughts on that.

*

“It’s because of you, Potter.”

“What do you mean? You think that I caused their attack somehow?”

Zabini paused and looked up at Harry. They had their dormitory to themselves at the moment, along with Nott, who had glanced up from his own book. Malfoy and Crabbe and Goyle were down in the common room where Malfoy was “tutoring” his shadows. “You really don’t know?”

“No. How did I cause it?”

“That’s not what we’re saying, Potter. Merlin.” Nott swung his legs over the side of his bed and sat up. “You’re prickly.’

“I wonder why.”

Nott inclined his head slowly. Zabini had also laid down his quill by now, and he was the one who spoke. “No. I meant that it wouldn’t look good if it came out that they had attacked the Boy-Who-Lived.”

“You know that’s not the only reason, Blaise.” Nott rolled his eyes. “You also frightened them badly, Potter. I mean, Harry.”

That’s right, we’re supposed to call each other by our first names now. “I didn’t think I did that much. I mean, the Lightning Charm is something they should have felt before, right?”

Nott and Zabini exchanged looks that Harry couldn’t interpret. He concealed a sigh. Ron and Hermione did that too, sometimes, about things that had happened in the Gryffindor common room and which they didn’t even bother trying to explain to Harry. Harry wondered, wistfully, if he would ever find someone to have silent communication with.

Probably not.

Harry shoved the self-pity away. He was alive, wasn’t he?

“Maybe they’ve felt it,” Nott said slowly, at last, “but maybe not. It’s a spell taught in upper-level Defense classes, but students practice it on dummies, not each other. And I think it was more the way you did it.”

“What do you mean?”

“The way you went after them. Jumping between staircases.” Zabini leaned towards Harry, his eyes gleaming. “I know that you said you grew up with Muggles, but didn’t you ever fight like that there?”

Harry shook his head. He would have been locked up in the cupboard for weeks if he’d ever attacked Dudley, and anyway, Dudley was too big to be rocked by Harry’s weak punches.

“Why did you go after them like that?”

“I mean, they could have killed me? And you,” Harry added, wondering if it was a bad thing that he was bringing them up second. But probably not. It seemed like the kind of thing “real” Slytherins would have said.

“So for you, it’s different when you’re fighting for your life,” Nott summarized, a complex expression on his face.

“Of course it is!”

“But you also went after dearest Draco like that, and you can’t have thought—”

“He already threatened my owl,” Harry said tightly. Honestly, he’d thought he was understanding Nott and Zabini better, but it seemed there was always going to be a huge gap between them. “I knew I had to put him down, or he would do something even worse.”

Nott and Zabini stared at him. Harry made a frustrated sound and turned back to his Transfiguration book. “Never mind, I can’t explain it and you probably don’t want to actually hear it.”

“No,” Zabini said softly. “I actually understand you better now, P—Harry. You went after Malfoy because he threatened your owl.”

“I said that already—”

“And you went after the Ravenclaws because they said that they were going to attack me.” Nott leaned forwards a little. “You could have walked away when they said they were there for me. You didn’t.”

“Like I would have trusted them to keep their word.”

“But you did it because you were defending me,” Nott said. “As well as yourself. As well as Blaise. You went after Malfoy so hard because he’d already threatened your owl. You’ll do more for other people than just yourself.”

“They could have killed you, knocking you off a staircase like that. I don’t care what your dad did, you don’t deserve that.”

Nott lowered his eyes to the floor for a long moment. Then he looked at Zabini and they had another of those silent conversations.

And then they went back to their books.

Harry shook his head and did the same. Maybe he would try outlining his essay the way that he’d told Hermione he would.

And just accept that, no, he would never have anyone to have silent conversations with. He would have thought that Nott and Zabini would say thanks or that they understood him better or something like that, but no.

I’m really not a real Slytherin.

Stupid Hat.

Chapter 8

Notes:

Thank you again for all the reviews!

If you'd like to leave a prompt for my Samhain to the Solstice fic series that will be posted between Halloween and the winter solstice, feel free to leave a prompt here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1XQpLyf-_37aFnJh0-0icir18_l7la2X9h1BuaaRN9mw/

“Mr. Potter, if you would stay behind for a moment, please.”

Harry’s hand immediately went to his wand, and he didn’t care if Quirrell thought that was weird. He called up his magic and let it hover around him, the way he had when he’d accidentally lit Malfoy on fire. One thing Nott and Zabini had told them was that his magic had thickened and made the air hot before he did that, and he was pretty sure that he knew how to do that when he wasn’t so angry, how to keep it ready.

He was going to defend himself if he had to.

Quirrell had chased the other students out of the classroom as they finished the Defense exam, and now he stood staring at Harry. His eyes might have had a red rim around them, but honestly, Harry was too far away to see that.

It didn’t matter. Harry breathed in and out and tried to feel the way he had when he’d attacked Yaxley and the other Ravenclaws.

Of course, he knew that he couldn’t handle Quirrell the way he’d handled them. Quirrell was an adult wizard and an experienced duelist. Harry had a different plan. But thinking like the way he had to handle other enemies was a benefit.

“Here we are, Mr. Potter, Alone at last.”

Harry could have said something about how messed up that sounded, but he didn’t see the point. He wanted to save his breath. He relaxed his stance a little, though, so maybe Quirrell would think that Harry wasn’t ready to enact his plan.

It didn’t work. Quirrell drew his wand in a smooth motion and leaned near enough to whisper, “I heard you talking about the Mirror in the library, Mr. Potter. I know you have experience with it. You are going to come with me to the Mirror.”

What the hell? That wasn’t at all what Harry had thought this was going to be about.

But he was still ready when Quirrell’s eyes turned completely crimson and he fired a spell. Harry dodged and rolled, going across the classroom and underneath one of the desks. It looked like the spell had conjured a mass of ropes, which spilled messily across the floor where Harry had been.

Quirrell clucked his tongue and turned to face Harry. He didn’t look surprised, just annoyed. “Really, Mr. Potter. Are you going to try and get out of this? I suppose that you would rather I took one of your little friends instead?”

That proved Quirrell didn’t really understand Harry, at least, or he wouldn’t have threatened other people. Harry felt part of him relax, even as the rest keyed up, and he moved one hand forwards and called on the thick feeling of his magic in the air.

A desk behind Quirrell burst into flames. He started and turned towards it.

It was the only opening Harry needed. At once he was on his feet and sprinting for the classroom door, and rolling on the floor again as a spell came at him from behind. He heard Quirrell shouting for him to come back, but Harry lowered his head and kept pelting up the corridor and towards the staircase that led down towards the Great Hall.

He couldn’t stand up to Quirrell. He’d never been able to stand up to Dudley, either.

But Harry was faster than either one of them.

He skidded down the corridor, on his side or his back as often as on his feet, ducking underneath the spells that Quirrell was casting at him. Quirrell was shrieking for him to come back, with what sounded like two voices—his normal one but without the stutter, and a high-pitched one that made Harry shake with fear. But he kept coming, and Harry kept running, and then he reached the great staircase.

With Professor McGonagall standing at the bottom of it and a few older Gryffindors gathered around the Weasley twins, laughing.

A spell nearly seared Harry’s hair off. He grabbed hold of the railing and began to slide down the staircase, his feet lifted and his arms clasped around the banister. He heard someone gasp and then laugh.

And then the first light of Quirrell’s spellfire struck red shadows down the staircase, and people’s laughter turned to screams.

Harry landed near the bottom of the staircase and ran so fast down the rest of it that he felt like he was falling. He saw Professor McGonagall’s wide eyes, and ran straight to her even though he’d avoided her most of the year because she seemed so disappointed about his Sorting. “Professor!” he gasped. “Please, he’s chasing me!”

“What are you talking about, Mr. Potter?”

“Come back here, boy.”

It was the high-pitched voice that was speaking now, because Quirrell hadn’t yet rounded the corner. When he did, and found himself standing at the top of the staircase and pinned by several pairs of eyes—and more every second as more students hurried over—he froze.

Then he adjusted his robes and chuckled a little. “Mr. Potter, did you really have to make a scene?”

“You were the one who was talking about a mirror and making me come with you,” Harry said loudly. This particular part went against all his instincts. When he’d talked to teachers before about Dudley bullying him, they’d never believed him. But he was going to do this, and that meant using as many allies as his voice could make him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but your eyes were turning red, and—”

“Red?” Professor McGonagall abruptly snapped towards Harry, her own eyes wide. “Are you certain of that?”

“Yes, Professor.”

McGonagall spun towards Quirrell and lifted her wand. “I think you need to come with me, Quirinus,” she said. “Come with me and remain quiet until Albus comes back. He’ll want to talk to you.”

Harry had thought that Quirrell would try to get himself out of it, claim that Harry was mental or laugh off the spells he’d been casting as some kind of training exercise. But it seemed that the mention of Dumbledore tipped him over some kind of edge.

Quirrell gave a screech like some huge bird and spoke in that high, cold voice. “You will not conquer me!”

He started to duel Professor McGonagall, and it became clear immediately that he’d only gone so easy on Harry because he wanted him alive to take to the Mirror of Erised for some reason. The spells that charged towards McGonagall were brilliant red and green and purple, and Harry flinched from the way the air felt when they passed.

McGonagall cast a shield that absorbed most of them, probably because deflecting them would have hit the students. Her lips were bloodless, but she still snapped her wand down and stomped her foot on the ground as she cried, “Leonsortia!”

The air around her glowed for a second. Then lions were charging out of it, and up the stairs towards Quirrell.

At the same time, a targeted red light came from one of the staircases above Quirrell. Harry reckoned that one of the other professors had joined the fight, or maybe one of the older students.

“Get out of the way!”

Snape was between Harry and McGonagall suddenly, setting up a shield that glowed like gold. He roared over his shoulder, “Get out of here, all of you! Idiots!”

Harry was glad to do so. He ran towards the dungeons, and got caught up in a tide of Slytherins heading the same way. The Hufflepuffs were right behind them, sobbing with fear.

Some of the Slytherins were doing the same thing, but the rest were only pale and blank-faced, mostly the older ones. They walked at the back of the group, facing towards the duel, with their wands lifted.

Harry watched them over his shoulder, and thought that was the way he wanted to be, strong and confident, retreating when he had to, but able to defend himself.

“Harry, are you all right?”

Harry blinked and turned around. Nott and Zabini were running towards him, their faces ashen. Harry shrugged and nodded. “Yeah, Quirrell was trying to kill me, but I don’t know why.”

Nott muttered something. Zabini closed his eyes.

“What? Do you know why he was trying to kill me?”

“No,” Zabini said, turning around to walk with Harry. Nott was slightly ahead of them, glancing back and now then as if to make sure that Harry wouldn’t run away. Harry frowned. Did they think that he’d wanted to have Quirrell chasing after him? “Just that—this seems to keep happening to you. Why?”

Harry shrugged. “Malfoy hates me because of my blood, Snape hates me because of who knows why, and Quirrell—well, his eyes turned red. When I told Professor McGonagall that, she suddenly started dueling him.”

Nott and Zabini turned and gaped at him. So did some of the older Slytherins who were walking just ahead of them, and Millicent Bulstrode, who had been off to the side.

Harry gripped his wand.

“Are you certain?” one of the second-year Slytherins whispered. Harry thought her last name was Vaisey. “Are you absolutely sure?”

“Yeah. I saw that he had red eyes once before, but this was a lot closer. And he tried to kidnap me, and he talked in two voices, one of them a lot higher-pitched than the other—”

“Back to Slytherin!”

Harry would have objected that he thought they were already going there, but the older students picked up the pace then, and Harry was swept along. He did notice that Vaisey and Pucey, from the Quidditch team, had formed up into a kind of square around him, along with Nott and Zabini, and hid a sigh in his shoulder.

He wasn’t going to try and escape, for Merlin’s sake.

Probably just don’t think a half-blood can be telling the truth.

*

In the common room, a team of older Slytherins split off to guard the door. Flint and Pucey seemed to be the ones telling them what to do. Well, the Quidditch players had a higher status in Slytherin, Harry knew that.

Malfoy did try to speak up about something different as the older ones herded Harry to a couch near the fire. “Why should he get all the attention? Do you think that Potter actually did—”

“Shut up, Malfoy,” Flint snapped.

Harry blinked and fought the urge to laugh as Malfoy gaped. Even if this turned out to be a lot of pain for Harry, it was worth something to see Malfoy forced into silence by an older pueblood he had to respect.

Then Flint spun to face Harry, and Harry tightened his hand on his wand.

“Red eyes,” Flint said flatly, as if he were Snape quizzing Harry about the potions ingredients that no other students had to answer questions on. “You’re sure about that.”

“Yes.”

“Potter, do you know what this means?”

“No.”

Glances flew around the room, being exchanged over his head. Harry could feel the prickling of a blush in his face, but he ignored that. It was not his fault that he had been raised by Muggles in absolute ignorance. They could deal with it.

Flint finally turned back to him and ordered, “Tell us what happened between you and Professor Quirrell.”

Harry did, keeping his voice as flat as Flint’s. He left out some of his inner thoughts, of course, and just said that he had distracted Quirrell with accidental magic and got out of the classroom, then run towards the part of the school where he thought students and professors were most likely to be.

“Accidental magic, right,” Malfoy said.

Harry thought Flint would ignore him, but the Quidditch captain turned towards Malfoy. “What do you mean? Spit it out.”

Malfoy brightened up. Harry narrowed his eyes, but Malfoy either wasn’t looking at him or was too stupid to realize the consequences if he spoke up. “Potter went mental on me, like a Muggle, and burned me earlier this year,” he said, looking around and soaking up the attention from the others like one of Aunt Petunia’s roses drinking water. “He can call his magic on purpose. Don’t let anyone tell you it was an accident.”

That didn’t seem to have the result Malfoy was looking for, because Flint kept staring at Malfoy, but Pucey turned to Harry with an incredulous expression. “That’s what you did?”

“Yes,” Harry said, bracing himself for the attack. He knew exactly which way he would dive off the couch. “I called up my magic and lit a desk behind him on fire.”

“I don’t believe it!” Millicent Bulstrode said.

“Go on and demonstrate, Potter,” Pucey said. His expression now had turned into one that Harry couldn’t read.

Harry gathered up his magic, thinking about what he could best burn to be a distraction in case they attacked. Then he decided that maybe they would attack him more if he attacked first, so he just made fire appear above everyone’s heads, hovering under the ceiling of the common room.

Everyone gaped up at it. Harry ended the flow of magic a second later, and waited, tensely.

Pucey and Flint and Vaisey and everyone else, it felt like, pivoted to stare at him. Harry hunched a little.

“He could have,” Pucey whispered, sounding like he was continuing a conversation that hadn’t actually started.

“Yeah, he could have,” Flint said, so it must have made sense to him. He turned to Harry, his eyes squinting so hard that they almost vanished. “Red eyes was a sign of the Dark Lord, Potter. For your information.”

Harry stared at him.

“The Dark Lord is dead,” Malfoy said, in a shrill little voice that made Harry look at him. Malfoy promptly flushed, but bulled ahead in the way that Harry would have been incapable doing right now. “What? He is!”

“There have been rumors…”

“Rumors,” Nott said abruptly, and Harry twitched, because he’d actually forgotten Nott was standing that close to him. That probably wasn’t a good thing. “Of his survival as a wraith, among other things. And that means he could have possessed Quirrell.”

“But why Quirrell?”

“Would you suspect Quirrell, if you had to ask which one of our professors would get possessed?”

“That’s not the point—”

Harry sat back on the couch and let them argue around him. He was thinking, himself, how Hagrid had said Voldemort might not have enough human left in him to die.

He shivered.

The couch dipped beside him, and Harry looked up to see Nott and Zabini sitting down. Zabini was the one who leaned forwards, eyes bright and intent. “You were lucky to have survived, if the Dark Lord was possessing Quirrell,” he murmured.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Were you lucky the last time?”

“What last time?’

“When you were a baby.” Zabini clasped his hands in front of him as if he were stifling the temptation to reach out and shake Harry. “Do you think it was purely luck that saved you?”

“I was a baby. I can’t remember!”

“But you must have some theory.”

Harry shrugged, trying to hide how angry this was making him. Why did everyone think that he knew the source of Voldemort’s secret weakness, or disembodiment, or whatever it really was? Just because something had happened that had saved Harry. And Zabini and Nott even knew that Harry had lived with Muggles and hadn’t known anything about Voldemort and being the Boy-Who-Lived before this year. “For all I know, it was something my mum did that saved me.”

Nott and Zabini exchanged glances. Then Nott said, “But the older Slytherins are going to want something more than that.”

“I don’t have anything more than that!”

Their voices had risen enough to attract attention from Flint and the others. Flint turned towards them with a frown. “Is something wrong here?”

“Yeah, actually.” Harry stood up and faced the other Slytherins. They were all staring at him as if secrets were crawling under the surface of his skin and they could root them out this way. He hated it. “I don’t know how I defeated the Dark Lord, okay? I’m not here to—I don’t know, lead a crusade against him. I didn’t know anything about magic until my birthday! I didn’t know I was famous or about being the Boy-Who-Lived or anything. So stop treating me like some secret enemy or some secret source of wisdom. I’m neither.”

The older Slytherins exchanged another series of glances. Then Flint said, “But you must have some idea—”

“No, I fucking don’t!”

Harry expected one of the prefects or something to reprimand him for the language, but they just kept staring at him. Harry made a disgusted noise and turned his back.

“You were already keeping one secret, about your wandless magic,” Pucey called after him. “You could be keeping this one, too.”

“I didn’t even know that wandless magic was a secret,” Harry said, as he continued walking. “All I know about what happened when I was one year old is what you know. Probably less, since I didn’t even know that red eyes were the sign of a Dark Lord.”

“You could be keeping the secret, to have an advantage over us.”

Harry reached the bottom of the stairs that led up to the bedrooms and turned around. What felt like the whole House was staring at him, even though he knew about half the people weren’t there.

“Have you ever considered,” Harry said, the words curling like ash in his mouth, “that your focus on secrets keeps you from recognizing honesty when you hear it?”

No one said anything, except a low murmur that Harry couldn’t make out words in. He shook his head and walked away.

Chapter 9

Notes:

Thank you again for all the reviews!

If you'd like to leave a prompt for my Samhain to the Solstice fic series that will be posted between Halloween and the winter solstice, feel free to leave a prompt here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1XQpLyf-_37aFnJh0-0icir18_l7la2X9h1BuaaRN9mw/

“You must be wondering what happened, Mr. Potter.”

“Well, a few of my Housemates said Professor Quirrell was possessed by the Dark Lord, sir. But I don’t really know anything other than that.”

Dumbledore paused. He’d called Harry up to his office, and bustled around, getting tea and asking Harry what he wanted in it and explaining the purpose of a couple of the instruments that stood around the office. But now he sat down and held out the cup of tea towards Harry with a weary expression on his face.

It didn’t have sugar in it, the way Harry mostly liked his tea, but he reckoned that didn’t matter too much. He took the cup to be polite and sat watching Dumbledore. Dumbledore sat watching the fire.

At last, Dumbledore sighed and turned to face Harry. “You’ll hear more about it from rumors, I suppose. Yes, Professor Quirrell was possessed.”

Harry shuddered a little and sipped at the tea even though it tasted stronger than he preferred. “Do you know how, sir?”

“Apparently he found Lord Voldemort on a trip to Albania that he took the past year, before he assumed the Defense post. Ah, you don’t flinch at the name?”

Harry smiled a little and shook his head. “No, sir.”

“Slytherin hasn’t damaged your courage?”

“Well, I don’t think so, sir, but it’s more that I didn’t grow up hearing it. So I didn’t learn to fear it the same way.”

Dumbledore chuckled and sipped his own tea. “Lord Voldemort was after an artifact I was keeping in the school, the Philosopher’s Stone. It would make him immortal, and Voldemort desires immortality above all other ends.”

“Oh.” Harry blinked. That seemed strange to him. What would happen when you’d outlived everyone you knew?

But then, maybe Voldemort didn’t care about the people he knew.

Harry tried to push aside the realization of how few people he cared about besides Ron and Hermione. He would defend the people he didn’t care that much about, and that was all that really mattered. “But he didn’t get the Stone?”

“No. Because of you, my brave boy. He had determined that it was hidden inside the Mirror of Erised, but the enchantment I worked—a rather clever one, if I do say so myself—would only give the Stone to someone who did not want to use it. So he planned to take you as a hostage and make you get the Stone out of the mirror.”

“Oh, right. He said something about knowing I had experience with the Mirror. I suppose he overheard Ron and me talking about it.”

“A dangerous pastime, but all’s well that ends well. I hope that you aren’t too shaken?”

“No, sir. I found Professor McGonagall almost right away, and she started dueling him.”

“A most stalwart duelist, our Minerva. Yes.” Dumbledore added some milk to his tea and went on watching Harry. Harry waited. He wondered what Dumbledore was waiting for. Had he put poison in the tea after all, and wanted to see how fast Harry would keel over?

But no, Harry really didn’t suspect the Headmaster of that.

Dumbledore finally sighed and said, “I was waiting for you to ask some questions about Lord Voldemort, my dear boy, about the connection between you.”

“Oh, Hagrid told me all about that when he picked me up from the Dursleys, sir. How Voldemort tried to kill me and failed, and he would probably come back because there wasn’t enough human left in him to die.”

“Yes…have you never wondered how you managed to kill him, Harry?”

“I’ve wondered, but I reckon it must have been something my mum did. And she’s not around so I can ask her.”

Dumbledore stared at him with his eyes wide and shocked. Harry uneasily turned his cup back and forth. Should he not have said that? Really, the Dursleys had talked so often about his parents being dead that Harry had got used to the idea long before he’d found out how they really died. It was sort of habit now to talk about them not being here.

Dumbledore cleared his throat and stared down at his teacup. “Well, you are a wise young man. There are truths that you are not ready to hear.”

Harry just nodded politely. He thought that Dumbledore either didn’t know, or he might know and not want to tell Harry because he was a Slytherin or something. “All right, sir.”

“Please do keep in mind that if you have more questions, my door is always open to you.”

“Yes, sir.”

So the conversation with the Headmaster ended. Harry thought it was one of the least finished ones he’d ever had.

*

“What did Dumbledore want?”

Harry shrugged, not looking back at Nott and Zabini as he walked away from the Slytherin common room in the direction of the library. He and Ron and Hermione were going to meet there before the Leaving Feast. “He just wanted to tell me how the Dark Lord came to possess Professor Quirrell and ask why I didn’t ask more questions.”

“Does he think a Slytherin would ask questions of him?”

Harry was walking in front of them and they couldn’t see him roll his eyes, so he did it. They were the ones who hadn’t thought he was a real Slytherin at first, and still thought he was hiding secrets or something.

It became obvious, halfway to the library, that Nott and Zabini were still following him and didn’t plan to leave him alone. Harry turned around and leaned on a pillar, sighing. “I’m going to meet some more of those Gryffindors you hate, so could we finish this?”

“Finish this?”

“You tell me why you’re following me around, and I say nothing or answer your questions, and we go our separate ways.”

Nott and Zabini did some more glance-exchanging. Harry wondered, again, what it was like to have a friend to communicate silently with. Maybe he would find out, sometime in the future, but it would require him to make more friends than the two he had.

Or four, maybe. But Nott and Zabini still didn’t act anything like the friends Harry had once assumed he would have if only Dudley was out of the picture.

Zabini cleared his throat at last. “People are impressed that you survived the Dark Lord a second time.”

Harry rolled his eyes again, and didn’t care if they saw it this time. “I ran away.”

“You still survived.”

“There must be lots of people who ran away from him in the war and survived.”

“Not as many people as you would think.”

Harry sighed sharply. He was tired of this. He just wanted to go talk to Ron and Hermione, and it was harder than ever for them to sneak away to talk to a Slytherin, now. Apparently some people in Gryffindor thought Voldemort had been in the school because he hoped to talk Harry into joining him, so they hated Harry more than they used to. “It doesn’t matter. I survived because of luck. Because of things other people did. Not because of myself.”

“You truly don’t see anything remarkable about yourself?”

“No.”

More loaded glances, and Harry wondered what they would say if he made a remark about how boring they were. But just as he was about to leave and go to the library anyway, Nott cleared his throat and murmured, “You’re really powerful. A really good duelist. I thought you should know that.”

“Okay?”

“You’re more powerful than me or Blaise.”

“Uh. So?”

Nott looked as though Harry had slapped him. Harry dragged his hand over his face and wished Slytherins would say what they meant.

“It means that you would normally take the power of a commander or a leader,” Nott said at last, through clenched teeth. “Naturally, that’s what you would do.’

“But I was raised in the Muggle world, and away from notions like this.”

“You won’t do it?”

“No.”

Nott and Zabini didn’t follow him as Harry left for the library that time. Harry shook his head in wonder as he walked. Who would want to obey or follow someone just because they had more magic? Why would you want to think they were better than you?

Harry had thought Slytherins were really proud and all wanted to be their own leaders. It seemed weird to find out he’d been wrong about that, too.

But familiar, at least.

*

“Wow. The Philosopher’s Stone! I’ve heard of it, of course, it was created by Nicholas Flamel and he’s a close personal friend of Dumbledore’s, no wonder it was hidden in the school…”

Harry smiled as he listened to Hermione talk about everything she knew concerning the Stone and alchemy. He was glad that he understood the way Ron and Hermione behaved. It meant he wasn’t just stupid about people.

He just should have been in Gryffindor instead of Slytherin.

A thought occurred to him, and he was thinking about it when Ron blurted out, barely low enough to avoid Madam Pince storming up to their table, “Do you think You-Know-Who will come back?”

It actually took Harry a moment to realize what Ron meant. He was so used to either thinking of Voldemort as Voldemort or hearing people call him the Dark Lord. But then he shrugged. “He came back once. So maybe?”

Ron and Hermione both looked scared. Harry winced and added, “But he shouldn’t have any reason to come back to Hogwarts because the Stone won’t be here.”

They both looked relieved at that, and started speculating about how Quirrell would be doing in Azkaban. Harry leaned back and half-listened. He was thinking of the wards on Dumbledore’s office, and how friendly Dumbledore seemed to him. He probably wouldn’t be angry even if he caught Harry there.

Yeah. If I take the Invisibility Cloak, it’ll work.

*

Getting past the gargoyle turned out to be no problem at all. Harry had been given the password—Lemon Drops—on the day that he visited the Headmaster, and it hadn’t changed. Harry crept up the moving staircase under his Invisibility Cloak.

He paused when he got most of the way up, and took a long, deep breath. He knew that Ron and Hermione would both be upset if they knew he was here.

Well, maybe just Hermione. Ron might think it was cool.

And no one else would think anything about it at all—the Dursleys—or would only think it was bad if he got caught—Nott and Zabini. Harry braced himself against any thought that might make him turn back, and kept walking.

He arrived at the top of the staircase, and opened the door to the office. The phoenix’s perch was empty, to his relief. Harry looked up and located the thing he wanted on a low shelf.

The Sorting Hat.

Harry walked over and picked it up. The Hat made a series of snorting sounds, as if it were waking up from a deep sleep.

“Eh? Eh? What are you doing? Who is it? This is the time for sinking in deep thinking, and dreaming of my next song!”

Harry lowered the Hat onto his head. He wondered for a moment if it would work with the Invisibility Cloak in the way, but the Hat gave one more snort and then settled, swaying back and forth as if Harry had pushed it.

“Ah, young Mr. Potter.” At least the Hat was whispering. Harry wasn’t sure, but he thought the door on the other side of the office might lead to Dumbledore’s quarters. “You’ve come for—help? Advice?”

“I want to know why you put me in Slytherin.”

Harry had really wanted to ask if it would put him in Gryffindor. But he didn’t get things he really wanted.

The Hat was silent for long enough that Harry thought it wasn’t going to answer. Then it said slowly, “That is where you belong.”

“I don’t have any friends there,” Harry whispered fiercely. “Not real friends. They all think I’m lying about not knowing how I defeated Voldemort! They duel me and taunt me and spit in my food! My Head of House hates me! What, did you just want me to be bloody miserable all the time?”

By the time he finished saying that, he was panting. The Hat was again quiet. Then it said, in a questioning tone that made it sound as if it were talking to someone other than Harry, “But children should be in the Houses that can help them grow into their own?”

“Oh, good, that’s very helpful. What about if I die before I get to that potential? What about that one?”

The Hat coughed. Then it said, “Slytherin is where you belong, Mr. Potter. You may not believe it, but your spirit and skills are suited for it.”

“And if I die because someone in the House kills me?”

“They will not.”

“You don’t know that.”

The Hat gave a long sigh. Then it said, “I do not go back on my decisions, Mr. Potter.”

“As long as you know that some of them are wrong, and you’re just a stubborn and stupid old piece of headgear,” Harry snarled, and then ripped the Hat off his head before it could respond and plopped it back on the shelves.

He turned and marched out of the Headmaster’s office, back down the stairs. There were a few professors out patrolling, but not many, given that it was the last day before the train went home and they seemed to assume most students would be partying in their common rooms to celebrate the end of exams. Anyway, the Invisibility Cloak made it trivial to slip past them.

Harry got back up to his bedroom, cast detection charms on his bed, slipped in when they revealed nothing, and lay back. A few angry tears crept down his face, but not many. He should know better than anyone, he thought, that tears didn’t help.

Fine. There’s no changing it. It’s another six years that I’ll have to just put my head down in and get through. And better than spending those next six years with the Dursleys, at least.

Chapter 10

Notes:

Thank you again for all the reviews!

If you'd like to leave a prompt for my Samhain to the Solstice fic series that will be posted between Halloween and the winter solstice, feel free to leave a prompt here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1XQpLyf-_37aFnJh0-0icir18_l7la2X9h1BuaaRN9mw/

“Mr. Potter. A word.”

Harry turned around and walked over to Snape, wondering as he went if he was going to get assigned detention over the summer, or a last-minute loss of points, or something. Slytherin had won the House Cup and Snape had looked pleased by that, but his pleasure never lasted that long.

His professor stood staring at him for a minute. Harry just stared back and said nothing. He knew that he would miss the train if he didn’t leave soon, but Snape wouldn’t care about that.

Snape finally cleared his throat and said, “I assume you are going back to the Muggle world for the holidays.”

“Yes, sir.” Harry had had a faint hope that either Hermione or Ron would invite him over for part of the summer, but Hermione was going to France with her parents, and Ron hadn’t said anything about it.

Snape jerked his head down in a sharp nod and then reached into his pocket and took out a thin silver ring. “You are to wear this at all times.”

“Why, sir?” Harry asked, without touching it.

“It will cause a device in my quarters to heat up if you are in mortal danger.”

Harry raised his eyes and stared at Snape. Of course he had known that Snape had fought Voldemort, so it wasn’t like he was working with the madman, but on the other hand, he also hated Harry. Why would he care about Harry’s safety in situations where he was outside the school? At least, more than other people? Harry knew some of his Housemates had had Death Eater parents and it seemed like they could be in mortal danger if Voldemort came back, too, but he'd bet Snape wasn’t offering rings to them.

Snape shook his hand. “Do you want it or not, Mr. Potter?”

Harry slowly nodded. He supposed it would be useful if Voldemort came back and found him in the Muggle world somehow. Since Quirrell had taught Muggle Studies, maybe Voldemort would know how. “Yes, sir,” he said, and took the ring.

“How much do your relatives hate you, Mr. Potter?”

Exactly what I want to be discussing in the entrance hall where anyone could overhear. But Harry only met Snape’s eyes and said evenly, “A lot, sir.”

Snape nodded and whipped his wand out. Harry tensed, ready to move, but Snape only touched his wand to the ring and said, “This will now inform me if you are in several different kinds of danger, not only mortal.”

Harry squinted at Snape. Then he said, “Thank you, sir.”

“Mention it to no one, Mr. Potter.”

“No, sir.”

Snape was already turning as if to sweep back to the dungeons. Harry stared after him, then slid the ring into his robe pocket. He had a few bits of torn cloth left over from practicing the Reparo Charm. He would string the ring on one of those and hang it around his neck. It would be less noticeable than wearing it around the Dursleys.

He didn’t think he would ever use it. But it was a nice thought.

*

“What are they doing here?”

Harry sighed. Nott and Zabini had shown up in the compartment he was sharing with Ron and Hermione, sat down, and refused to move. It was reasonable for Ron to think Harry knew why they were there, but wrong. “I don’t know. Push off, you lot.”

“Why should we leave our friend alone in unfriendly company?” Nott was smiling, but there was a hard look in his eyes that made Harry think he was itching to start a duel.

“You know very well that we aren’t unfriendly company!”

Harry held up his hand, and was a little surprised when they all fell silent and focused on him, even Ron, even Hermione who was puffing up like a cat. “I don’t want to fight,” he said. “And you know that Ron and Hermione are my friends, Nott, Zabini—”

“I thought you were calling us by our first names, Harry.”

“Why should I, when you do shit like this?”

Nott and Zabini stared at him in what seemed to be true astonishment. Harry leaned forwards and poured enough anger into his voice that hopefully they would just bloody believe him.

“I don’t know what you game is, but I’m not playing. These are some of the last minutes I’ll have with my real friends before I have to go back to the Muggle world for months. Get out.”

Nott and Zabini didn’t even pause to have a silent conversation this time. They just scrambled out. Harry leaned back, stared at the ceiling of the compartment, and exhaled in a way that was not a scream only because he was being as controlled as he could.

“Sorry about that.”

“No problem, mate.” Ron was staring at him. “You’re right scary when you want someone to leave you alone, you know that?”

Harry gave him as small and embarrassed a grin as possible and shrugged, stretching out one foot to nudge against Ron’s ankle. “Well, I don’t want either of you two to leave me alone. If I did, you’d know.”

“Yes,” Hermione agreed, beaming at him. Harry wondered why, and then remembered what she’d said about the times that she’d thought someone wanted to be her friend in Muggle school, and then had turned out to be pretending. She would like it that Harry was straightforward and would just tell her if he didn’t feel like talking right now.

Harry relaxed further. Honestly, Gryffindors were just easier to be around than Slytherins. “Come on, let’s see if I can beat Ron at chess before we get back to King’s Cross or not.”

The answer was that he couldn’t, but he had a lot of fun trying.

*

“Harry.”

Harry rolled his eyes when he saw Nott and Zabini waiting near the door that he would have to use to get off the train. Ron bristled and reached for his wand, but Harry shook his head and nudged his shoulder into Ron’s. “It’s all right. I’ll talk to you before your parents come to get you, okay?”

“All right.” Ron still stared suspiciously at the Slytherins as he got off the train.

Harry stood in front of them and folded his arms. “What do you want?”

“We really did think you were our friend.”

Zabini sounded…hurt. Harry stared at him. Zabini met his eyes, and, well, if he wasn’t being honest right now, he was sure doing a great job of imitating it.

Harry sighed and felt as though he was being bathed in a huge blast of hot air. “Look. I just—I don’t like word games and dishonesty and you antagonizing my friends—my other friends. All right? I know you don’t like Ron and Hermione. You don’t need to come marching up and proving it. And settling a fight between you doesn’t sound like the kind of thing I want to spend several hours doing, either.”

“You don’t have different kinds of friendships?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“We know what kind of friendship Weasley and Granger have with you. It’s obvious.” Nott’s face was quiet, and he paused before he spoke, as if he were waiting for someone to tell him how to do it right. “But we thought we could have a different kind of friendship. One where we—tease you. Push you. Tell you things that you might not have known before.”

“Nowhere in there is anything about making my other friends upset.”

“We wanted to see how you would react.”

“Now you know.”

Zabini actually smiled. “Yes, we do,” he said, and put a hand on Nott’s shoulder when it seemed like he might have objected to prove a point or something. “All right. We don’t need to do that again. And you don’t want to have teasing your other friends be a regular part of the time we spend with you.”

Harry eyed them, and then decided that he was going to say something he’d carefully avoided saying all year. “No more than you want me to spend time teasing you about your mother on a regular basis. Or Nott about his dad’s past in a white mask.”

They sucked in their breaths. Harry stood and watched them, feeling more and more amusement as they just kept gaping at him. It seemed as though they hadn’t expected him to bite back.

Or maybe they just didn’t think I knew those things.

“When you said you didn’t want to play the game,” Zabini began at last.

“We thought that meant you didn’t know how to play,” Nott finished.

They really are like the Weasley twins. That made Harry wonder how well he would fit in with them even if they did manage to be real friends, but he ignored the feeling for right now. “No. You should have known better after seeing me take down Malfoy. It’s just that most of the time, I don’t see the point in saying mean things.”

“But if you could make other people laugh—”

“The ones I hear people say in Slytherin are meant to make someone laugh at someone else.”

“And you don’t want to do that,” Zabini said, as though talking to someone in a language that wasn’t English.

“No. I had it done to me enough growing up. Why would I want to do it to other people except to get them to back down?”

Nott and Zabini swapped a whole mix of complicated looks back and forth. Sometimes just looking at their faces made Harry tired.

“I think we do understand you better now,” Nott said at last, and he took a deep breath and thrust out his hand towards Harry. “So why don’t we start over again? Theodore Nott, I prefer Theo, I won’t antagonize your friends. Nice to meet you.”

Harry flicked an eye at Zabini, but he didn’t seem inclined to shake Harry’s hand right now, so Harry reached out and slowly grasped Nott’s hand. “All right,” he said. “Harry Potter, not a typical Slytherin, had no idea about my fame or magic growing up, if you hex Ron or Hermione I’ll hex you.”

Nott—maybe Harry could think of him as Theo—nodded. “Fair enough,” he said, and then he turned expectantly to Zabini.

Zabini paused as if composing his introduction in his head, then held out his hand to Harry in return. “Blaise Zabini, I won’t antagonize your friends, if you want to talk about my mother in front of me again a duel is the least of what you’ll be facing.”

“Blaise,” Theo hissed, apparently scandalized.

But Harry appreciated honesty in all its forms. He took Blaise’s hand and gave him a pleasant smile. “Harry Potter, I only use my weapons to defend myself, but if you do attack me, then you should think about what I’ve done already.”

Blaise’s hand tightened as if he wanted to squeeze Harry’s bones. But Dudley had given Harry lots of more painful squeezes and Harry just met Blaise’s eyes and held them until he blinked and turned away.

Blaise abruptly laughed. Then he said, “You can play the game. You just don’t see the need to, all the time.”

“No.”

Blaise stepped back and nodded to Harry. “I do think that we’ll get along fine, as long as you don’t mention my mother. And if you need help during this summer, I want you to write to either me or Theo.”

Harry felt a sharp pain in the center of his chest. He ignored it. “Don’t you live in Italy? A little far for Hedwig to fly.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Looking at the way Blaise was standing, Harry supposed it didn’t, even if he was really promising his mother’s magical strength instead of his own. Harry inclined his head. “Thanks, then.”

“No problem,” Blaise said, and turned away and melted into the flow of wizards and witches leaving the platform.

Theo lingered behind. “I’m less able to offer you help, because of Father.”

“I know.”

“And you don’t hold it against me.”

“You sound as if you already know the answer.”

“And you’re giving us another chance, despite the stupid thing we did by showing up ready to fight with Weasley and Granger.”

“Are you ever going to do anything besides state facts?”

Theo laughed and said, “I think we’ll be good friends, Harry. Good-bye. Have a good summer.”

Harry shouldn’t have let the words matter so much to him, he thought as he rode in Uncle Vernon’s car to the Dursleys’ house and saw the locks on the door and had most of his things, except his wand and Hedwig and her cage, locked in the cupboard. But words were what he had of his friends now, and he lay on the bed in Dudley’s second bedroom, thinking about them.

Maybe life in Slytherin wouldn’t be so intolerable after all.

Chapter 11

Notes:

Thank you again for all the reviews!

If you'd like to leave a prompt for my Samhain to the Solstice fic series that will be posted between Halloween and the winter solstice, feel free to leave a prompt here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1XQpLyf-_37aFnJh0-0icir18_l7la2X9h1BuaaRN9mw/

Harry buried his head in his arms.

He should have known better than to think he had friends.

No one had replied to his letters when he sent them off, even though Hedwig always came back with empty claws. No one had sent him a letter, either. When he’d told Hedwig to wait until she could get a reply, she’d just always hooted sadly at him.

Something was going on that Harry didn’t understand, but he thought he knew. The realization moved inside him, thick and bitter.

I didn’t really have friends. I’m a burden and too hard to write to in the summers. Or Nott and Zabini were lying all along. I bet they’re laughing to themselves every time they get a letter from me. They probably spend all their time together and share jokes—

Harry’s magic exploded from him in an uncoordinated burst and rattled the door and the locks. In response, the thumps of his uncle’s footsteps came up the stairs.

Harry turned to face the door. Honestly, it would feel good to argue with someone right now. At least that person would acknowledge he existed.

Even the silver ring hanging around his neck on a strip of cloth repurposed from his satchel hadn’t done anything.

*

“Hello, Harry Potter.”

Harry stared with his mouth slightly open at the strange creature who had appeared in his bedroom. It was bowing and scraping, and it had huge eyeballs and ears that stood straight up and green skin—

“Are you a house-elf?” Harry asked, remembering references to those mysterious creatures. He had never seen one, but he knew they supposedly took care of all the cleaning in the Slytherin dormitories.

“Dobby is being a house-elf indeed! Dobby is serving bad masters who are telling him to keep quiet about the plots in Hogwarts—”

Dobby darted abruptly towards one of the walls, but Harry flung his magic out and caught him. He’d got good at doing that since the day he’d used his magic to rattle the door. Wandless magic apparently didn’t trigger a letter from the Ministry the way that his Housemates had warned him using his wand during the summer would, and now Dobby floated in a stringy net of power, gaping at him.

“The Great Harry Potter is being very powerful,” he whispered.

Harry just nodded tightly and kept Dobby in the web. With the Masons downstairs, his relatives would get upset at any noise. “What do you want?”

“Dobby came to warn Harry Potter!”

“Of what?”

The conversation that followed wasn’t enlightening. Dobby rambled, hinted, and dropped words about Darkness and evil and plots. But he wouldn’t say who was doing them, or who his master was, either.

When Dobby started to wail about how his masters would punish him for coming here, Harry flexed his magic again, wrapping a strand of the wandless web around Dobby’s mouth and silencing him. Dobby goggled at him above the makeshift gag, his eyes standing out more than ever.

Harry sort of felt bad for the house-elf, but he was not going to let Dobby make things worse with the Dursleys.

He said sharply, quietly, “I’ll let you speak again if you promise not to shriek like that. Do you agree?”

Dobby nodded eagerly. Harry floated him back to the floor and released him, but he kept the web hovering, ready to wrap again if he needed it.

“Harry Potter is being more powerful than Dobby knew,” Dobby said. There was a thoughtful look on his face now. Harry still kept a close eye on him. So far, Dobby’s plans didn’t seem to require that much intelligence. Who knew what else he would do if Harry just stepped back and let him do what he wanted? “Is that because he is in Slytherin?”

Harry blinked. “What does my House have to do with this?” But he did note to himself that Dobby had known his House. That strongly suggested that his masters were probably from a family with a kid in Slytherin at school right now.

Of course they are. Of course all of the Death Eaters were in Slytherin.

“Slytherins are being more powerful. Slytherins are being bad, Dark wizards—like masters! Oh, bad Dobby, bad Dobby—”

Dobby tried to dash at the wall again. Harry bound him again. Honestly, this was getting ridiculous.

“Dobby needs Harry Potter to stay away from the school,” Dobby said, when he had stopped struggling and looked resigned to dangling above the floor like someone’s jacket on a hook. “Otherwise, he will be caught up in the plot.”

Harry sighed. “There were plots last year and I survived them, Dobby. I don’t think that whatever’s going to happen this year is going to be worse than the Defense professor literally being possessed by Voldemort—”

Dobby shrieked. Someone made a questioning sound downstairs.

Harry wrapped Dobby’s mouth up again, staring at him. Dobby waved his hands and pointed to his mouth and waited, so Harry slowly, slowly ungagged him.

“Harry Potter is saying the name.” Dobby sounded as if he were half-going to faint from fear and half-ecstatic that Harry hadn’t been corrupted by his time in Slytherin or whatever the elf had been thinking. “Harry Potter is not being afraid of his enemy!”

“No. But if it has something to do with—the Dark Lord, then I can’t stay away from Hogwarts. I have to be there to fight him. And all my friends are there.”

“Friends,” Dobby said, and sprouted a jagged grin that made Harry abruptly a little wary of him. “Friends who don’t send letters to Harry Potter?”

Harry stared at Dobby. Fury dashed through him like flashfire, and he barely kept it from bursting into open flames. Instead, he channeled it into the web around Dobby, and watched him start sweating and flopping back and forth.

“What did you do with my letters?” Harry hissed. Dobby only stared at him in fear and didn’t seem to understand, so Harry lifted his voice and repeated it. “What did you do with my letters? My friends have been writing to me?”

“Dobby was only—gathering them—keeping them safe—”

“You were not.”

“Dobby was—Dobby was—”

Dobby looked on the verge of fainting, so Harry gritted his teeth and pulled his magic back into his body. If could do it with Malfoy when he’d wanted to murder Hedwig, then Harry could do it with Dobby, who hadn’t threatened anything nearly as bad.

Except for making me think that I didn’t really have any friends.

“You’re going to give me the letters,” Harry said.

“Dobby—Dobby will only if Harry Potter will promise not to go back to Hogwarts!”

“Didn’t I tell you why I need to go back there?”

“But the Great Harry Potter would be in danger! And house-elves would be in danger if he died!”

Harry took a deep breath, and then stilled as he heard what seemed to be Blaise’s voice whispering into his ear. Persuade him. You can’t make any impression by yelling at him or using your magic on him. He’s probably used to worse. But he’s giving you a line of argument. What does any good Slytherin do with a line of argument?

In reality, Harry had never heard Blaise say anything like that, and he probably wouldn’t. But he forced himself to stop huffing and puffing, and turned to consider Dobby with a slight headshake.

“Dobby, did you consider that I have to go back to Hogwarts to fight the Dark Lord? That it’s the next step in my campaign to keep people free and safe?” He dropped his head and sighed a little, watching Dobby from beneath his eyelashes. “I can’t do anything to help people if I just sit in the Muggle world.”

He felt rather like Dudley manipulating Petunia into giving him a second piece of cake, but Dobby visibly wavered. Harry hid his smile and just continued watching him, while he said softly, earnestly, “Voldemort was at Hogwarts this year, and he tried to kill me. But even some of the Slytherins were impressed when they heard that I’d managed to survive him. I could continue impressing them and turn some of them to our side if I went back. But if I don’t go back, then I’ll look like a coward, and they’ll probably become Death Eaters.”

Dobby stared at him with his mouth hanging open. Then he burst into noisy tears. Harry barely managed to silence him in time.

When Dobby finished crying, he waved his hands again, and Harry slowly released his mouth. Dobby whispered, “Dobby—Dobby never knew—how brave Harry Potter is—how selfless—to care for the Dark wizards as well as house-elves and himself—”

“Why do I matter so much to house-elves, Dobby?”

The stories Dobby told about how other house-elves had been treated, and how some of it had got better since the Halloween night when Harry had confronted Voldemort, made an angry rhythm take up a place in Harry’s chest. It wasn’t right, what they had done to house-elves in the name of pureblood nonsense.

It wasn’t right, either, what he was doing to Dobby.

But Harry really did believe that he was doing it for the best, and when the story finished, he said gently, “Do you see why I have to go back? But I do appreciate that you came to warn me, Dobby. Thank you.”

Dobby teared up again, but luckily managed to control himself, nodding and wiping his eyes with one hand. Then he reached out and snapped his fingers, conjuring a thick stack of post from midair. Harry barely managed not to hurt Dobby snatching them away.

“Thank you, Dobby. Come and see me again, all right, when I’m in a safer place? I hope that we can work together to make sure house-elves are treated better.”

Harry wasn’t even lying. He might not be able to do anything about it right now, but he did intend to work on the freedom of house-elves. They might be annoying, but there was no way they deserved to be mistreated or ordered to hurt themselves, which was beyond terrible.

“Dobby will do that, Harry Potter,” the little elf said, and stared at Harry with worshipful eyes before he turned and vanished.

Harry sighed and picked up the post, sorting through it with one hand while he flicked his other at the useless ring hanging around his neck. Surely it ought to have reacted in the presence of a house-elf who had had the power to hurt him.

But it hadn’t. It was still a nice gesture, but a useless one.

*

“Boy.”

Uncle Vernon’s voice was quiet and deadly. Harry turned towards him as much as he could without completely taking his attention off the bacon. “Yes, Uncle Vernon?”

“What do you have around your neck?”

Harry’s heart thumped oddly. He’d thought he’d slung the ring on its strip of leather down inside his shirt, but it seemed he hadn’t. Or maybe it was just that Dudley’s shirt was huge and always slipped off him.

He kept his voice as dull and calm as he could. “A ring, Uncle Vernon.”

“What.”

Uncle Vernon lurched towards him and reached out for the ring. Harry dodged. He had no desire to be pinned against the hot stove, and in any case, he wouldn’t put it past Snape to have added a trap to the ring that would only activate if a Muggle touched it.

“Did you just back away from me, boy?” Uncle Vernon stopped walking and stared at him. He seemed more incredulous than anything.

“Yeah.”

Harry’s heart was still giving odd thumps, and his ears were full of buzzing. He found that he didn’t want to back down and give in the way he always had with his relatives. The way he had all summer, letting him assign him chores and lock him in his room and starve him without complaint.

He had done it because he’d thought that maybe someone would come get him if it got too bad. But now he knew better. Even though it turned out that his friends had written to him, he was still on his own through the worst of it.

“What did you just say, boy?”

Harry lifted his head. He was alone. In the most important parts of his life, he was alone. Once he’d dreamed of his parents coming to get him even though he was also sure they were dead, and now he knew that he was alone in the face of a Dark Lord stalking him, too. No one would help him.

He had to help himself.

“I said that I backed away from you, and I’m saying that I’m not going to allow you to take the ring from me.” Harry didn’t think it was his imagination that the kitchen was rattling a little from the force of the magic beating around him. “Let me finish making breakfast, and we’re not going to have any problems.”

Uncle Vernon gaped at him for so long that Harry thought he might actually get away with it. Then he laughed, a little ugly chuckle that frightened Harry more than any other laugh he’d made, and stepped forwards, reaching out.

“Let’s discuss what’s going to happen to you for your disrespect.”

Harry was cornered after all, not against the stove but against the wall between the stove and the refrigerator, and he couldn’t escape. But he thought, as Uncle Vernon’s hand closed on his arm, Heat.

It worked just as it had when he’d used fire against Malfoy. Uncle Vernon screamed and jerked his hand back. Blisters were already popping up on his fingers.

He was burned.

Harry smiled and met Uncle Vernon’s eyes. The man lurched again, but this time away from him, not towards him.

“Leave me alone,” Harry said, very quietly.

He never knew how it might have worked out. Dudley came into the kitchen and stared at his father, then at Harry, and laughed himself, a wavering, uncertain sound. “What are you doing with the freak, Dad?”

Vernon might have backed down if they were alone, Harry thought, but not in front of his son, not when he wanted to show Dudley how much of a man he was. He stepped towards Harry again, although his eyes were cautious.

Harry raised his head and his hand. Flames blossomed into being along his arm, up his shoulder, down his fingers. They didn’t burn him, but Harry could feel the piercing heat from them. He knew they would burn anyone else.

Vernon stopped and stared at him. There was fear and rage and hatred and several other things Harry didn’t think he could name in his eyes, because Uncle Vernon had never looked at him like that before.

“You’re a freak, boy.”

“Yeah, I know.” A freak who has to live with Muggles, a freak even an enchanted ring doesn’t work for. “But I’m a freak you’re not going to hurt.”

Uncle Vernon trembled and shivered with rage. Harry kept him at bay with the fiery hand, and ignored the way that Dudley trembled and shivered with fear. He could hear Aunt Petunia coming down the stairs, and he wanted to say this to all of them at once.

“Vernon? What are you—” Aunt Petunia shrieked as she stepped into the kitchen and saw Harry holding her husband and son at bay.

“I was just telling Uncle Vernon that he’s not going to push me around anymore,” Harry said pleasantly, trying to imitate the way he had heard Theo telling an older Slytherin to back off. “And the same goes for Dudley and you.”

“We own this house!”

It was so ridiculous that Harry laughed. “But you don’t own me.”

“You ungrateful little bastard! After we provided you with the clothes on your back, all the food you’ve ever eaten—”

“You’ve starved me on a regular basis,” Harry snarled, and then plucked at the shirt hanging off his shoulder. “And these clothes? You should be grateful that all your neighbors believe you about me being a criminal, or they would think you were poor.”

Aunt Petunia’s expression flickered. Harry leaned towards her. “Yeah, you did starve me” he said. “You’re lucky that you can lie so well. But I’m not going to take it any longer.”

“You can’t do anything about it!”

“Yes, I can. You’re going to feed me properly and give me proper clothes, or I’ll—” Harry hadn’t actually known what he would end the sentence with, but now he was inspired. “I’ll tell the neighbors that you’ve been stealing money from me all along and starving me and giving me only a pittance. That all your money actually comes from my rich parents who left it to you to take care of me when they died.”

“That’s not true!”

Harry widened his eyes. “But I have proof. I have the statements and the papers. It’s so sad, what you did to me.”

“You just said that we lied better than you, boy!”

“Yeah, but I have magic,” Harry said, ignoring the edge of a bellow from Uncle Vernon when he said that forbidden word. “I can make ordinary pieces of paper look like whatever I want.” He was bluffing now, but Aunt Petunia’s eyes darted to the fire coating his arm, probably thinking about how he’d made that appear from nothing. “What if I show them the papers and act like a pitiful orphan?”

There was a long, trembling moment when Harry thought things could have gone either way. Then Aunt Petunia spun around and glared at Uncle Vernon. “Leave him alone,” she hissed.

“But Pet—”

“I told you, Vernon! I told you that someday this would backfire on us!”

Harry didn’t actually believe she’d ever said that, but she was bewildering Uncle Vernon so much that he just spluttered wordlessly and threw his hands up. “All right, Pet, all right! We’ll leave the little freak alone! But who’s going to do the cooking around here?”

“I will.” Aunt Petunia spun to look at Dudley. “And you’ll do the gardening.”

“What? Muuuuum!”

“You heard me, Dudley.”

Harry kept his fire burning, but it seemed he hardly needed to. Maybe Aunt Petunia had always had this reserve of strength inside her. Maybe it was just because she was the one who’d had a magic sister and knew the consequences of magic. She yelled Uncle Vernon and Dudley into submission and made them leave the kitchen. Only then did she turn to face Harry. She was shaking.

Harry felt a little bad. But then he remembered being locked into his room and how hungry he was this morning. He lifted his head and narrowed his eyes.

“You won’t do any of the chores except cleaning up after yourself in the bathroom and the kitchen,” Aunt Petunia whispered.

“Okay.”

“You’ll eat, but you’ll take your plate up to your bedroom.”

“Fine.”

“We’ll take you to King’s Cross on the first of September and you—you won’t try to change anything else about our house while you’re here.”

“Does that mean not defending myself? Because that’s what I’m going to do if your son or your husband try to beat me up again, or grab me, or shove me around.”

Harry meant it. Maybe Aunt Petunia could tell that, because she shook her head quickly. “I’ll—tell them. None of that. Don’t touch them.” She was whispering by the end of that declaration, with her hands trembling.

“Fine.”

Harry finally let the fire drain away. He was shaking himself, with exhaustion rather than fear, but he held Aunt Petunia’s eyes until she turned away and left the kitchen, calling to Vernon and Dudley on the way.

Harry closed his eyes, and then picked up and ate an entire strip of bacon, ignoring the way that it burned his lips.

He was going to live.

Chapter 12

Notes:

Thank you again for all the reviews!

If you'd like to leave a prompt for my Samhain to the Solstice fic series that will be posted between Halloween and the winter solstice, feel free to leave a prompt here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1XQpLyf-_37aFnJh0-0icir18_l7la2X9h1BuaaRN9mw/

Special Note: This story will be going on temporary hiatus until after the winter solstice so that I can finish my seasonal stories.

“Are you okay, Harry?”

Harry smiled a little as he hugged Hermione. “Yeah, why?”

“You look—pale. As if you haven’t been eating right.” Hermione bit her lip and scanned him for a second. “Did your relatives not feed you?”

“They were all right,” Harry said, with a shrug. It was a good way to sum up the combination of so little food for the first weeks of summer and as much food as he wanted for the last month. “It wasn’t great. But I’m here now.” He sat down and clasped hands with Ron briefly. He thought Theo and Blaise would probably get another compartment, but that was all right. He would see them tonight in the dormitories, and for more time than Ron and Hermione throughout the year.

“You said a house-elf prevented you from writing back to us?”

“Yeah, it was the weirdest thing…”

Harry told them about Dobby, but not exactly about how he had kept Dobby from hurting himself. He thought Hermione might disapprove. Hermione looked highly interested in what he’d said about helping house-elves find freedom, though.

“I never considered what impact You-Know-Who might have on the magical non-human population! Do you think house-elves were kept from choosing their own partners and having families by their masters?” She practically spat the word. “Just abused more in general? How many elves worked for his followers?”

Since these were questions Harry didn’t know the answer to, he just had to listen, but he did so with a fond smile. Hermione was really great, and Harry was completely past the slight feeling of uncertainty he’d had last year when she seemed more like Ron’s friend. He was glad that he had someone to help balance the perspective he got from Slytherin and remind him of what was really important.

Probably end up obsessed with the state of my hair and robes if Malfoy was my main influence.
*

“Mr. Potter.”

Harry contained a silent sigh as he turned around and saw Professor Snape staring at him. He hadn’t done anything! He’d literally just walked into the entrance hall with Ron and Hermione, after riding the horseless carriages up to the school.

Ron and Hermione looked back and forth between him and Snape with wide eyes. Harry waved a hand at them behind his back. They couldn’t do anything to help him, and they would only get in more trouble if they tried.

In the end, Hermione bit her lip, nodded, and dragged Ron away. Harry followed Snape’s curt gesture into a dark corner near the entrance of the Great Hall. He kept his hand casually down at his side, but ready to go for his wand if he had to.

“Why did the ring not warn me that anything happened to you during the summer?”

Harry blinked. It sounded like Snape had expected the ring to work, which was…strange. “Because nothing happened to me, sir.”

“I received a letter from Mr. Zabini that argues otherwise.”

Harry stared. Had Blaise written to Snape when Harry couldn’t reply to him because of Dobby? Probably. But that had been more than a month ago, and Blaise hadn’t said anything about it when Harry wrote back. “No, sir.”

“You are saying I did not receive the letter?”

“I’m saying that someone interfered with my post for a while, so that’s probably why Blaise got worried. But the situation is resolved now. Sir.”

Snape leaned close enough to make Harry want to step away, except his back would have banged into the wall. “Someone interfering with your post is something happening, Potter. Explain it to me, now. Did you relatives take the ring from you?”

“No. I had it right here, all summer.” Harry lifted the strip of leather from around his neck to show the ring to Snape. “It just didn’t affect me the way it was supposed to.”

Snape shut his eyes. Harry had exactly one moment to wonder if he was chiding himself for his own stupidity, before he hissed under his breath, “You were supposed to wear it, Potter, you dunderhead. Then I would have felt you being in danger.”

“Oh.”

“That is all you have to say?”

It sounded like Snape was going to start breathing fire like a dragon any second, so Harry got there first. “Listen, sir, I couldn’t have worn the ring,” he snapped. “My relatives would have taken it from me right away. As it is, when my uncle finally saw it hanging around my neck, he tried to take it away.”

“And what happened then?”

Harry smiled. “I stopped him.”

“You should not have had to.”

Harry laughed before he could stop himself. “Well, I’ve always had to. Why should this be different?”

“Because you are in my House now.” Snape took a step towards him and lowered his voice. “You should have been able to depend on others, but you have not been able to. Now you can. Wear the ring.”

Harry simply stared at him, and wondered what he should say. Ask Snape how he planned to come up with a way to keep the Dursleys from noticing and taking the ring, if Harry wore it during the summers? Ask him what kind of help he could provide if his relatives locked him in the cupboard again or stopped fearing him?

But in the end, it wasn’t worth making a fuss over things that probably wouldn’t change.

Harry nodded sharply and slid the ring onto his right ring finger. It tingled for a second, and then he shuddered and stepped back from Snape as the tingle seemed to run right through the middle of his body.

“What was that?”

“That was the ring attuning itself to you and to the instrument in my office.” Snape slowly swept his eyes up and down Harry as though thinking someone else had appeared in his place. “You felt that?”

“Yes,” Harry said, and didn’t say that it would have been hard not to.

“I see.” Snape’s face was inscrutable again. “You may go in and sit down. I believe your Slytherin friends may have some questions for you.”

Harry just nodded and waited until it became obvious that Snape wouldn’t walk into the Great Hall ahead of him. Then he turned and did it, feeling his spine prickle. He hadn’t been that suspicious last year about thinking someone would hex him in the back.

But, well. It had been a spectacular end to the term, last year.

“Where were you during the train ride?” Theo asked, the instant Harry sat down next to them. The Sorting was about to begin, and Harry lowered his voice, since some of the professors got upset when students talked during the Sorting.

“Rode with Ron and Hermione.”

Theo looked upset about something, but then the Hat started singing, and it was too loud to talk, anyway.

*

Harry went to bed early, irritated. The common room was full of people either staring at him because of what had happened at the end of last year, or because they were firsties and awed at being in the same House as Harry Potter. At least Malfoy was strutting around trying to impress people, so Harry didn’t have to worry about him being in the bedroom.

Theo and Blaise were, though, and they promptly cast a Locking Charm at the door as he walked in. Harry tensed, muscles jumping, even though he tried to calm himself down by thinking about what Theo and Blaise had said.

They were friends. They were.

“Tell us what happened to you during the summer and why you didn’t sit with us on the train ride,” Blaise demanded at once, leaning forwards. He looked like he might try to leap off his bed and shake the truth out of Harry if Harry didn’t tell him. “You said in the letters you wrote back to us that someone had been interfering with your post, but you didn’t explain what that meant.”

“I didn’t know exactly what to say,” Harry hedged, sitting down on his own bed.

“You could start with the truth.”

“I didn’t want to lie to you. It’s just—what happened was so weird that I thought you might not believe me.”

Blaise stared at him in silence. Theo leaned forwards and spoke into that silence. He was resting on the bed with his elbows beneath him and looked eager in a more restrained way than Blaise. “Then tell us now, when we’re face-to-face.”

Harry nodded and told them that a house-elf had been stopping his post, although he didn’t use Dobby’s name. For all he knew, Dobby worked for either Theo’s family or Blaise’s and their parents were involved in this plot even though they weren’t.

Harry didn’t particularly want to think like that, but he had to.

Both Blaise and Theo looked disturbed when he finished. “The Dark Lord was here last year, but I thought that was a one-off,” Blaise muttered, lying back and staring up at the ceiling. “And you’re telling me he might come back?”

“I suppose so. I don’t see what other kind of plan could concern a house-elf for me specifically.”

Theo was quiet. Harry glanced at him, and then winced at the intensity of the look Theo was pinning him with. “What?”

“I think that you’re still hiding secrets,” Theo said softly.

“I told you, I don’t know how I defeated the Dark Lord—”

“Not about that. You said you persuaded the house-elf, which I can believe, but how did you keep him from punishing himself?”

Merlin. Harry had mentioned that the elf was trying to hurt himself to emphasize how serious the part about the plot was and why he had believed Dobby, but of course Theo had picked up on the lack of details. Harry grimaced.

Blaise joined in on the staring.

Harry decided the simplest way was just to show them. He reached out and picked up one of the small pillows from the head of his bed, then tossed it into the air. Both Blaise and Theo flinched and scrambled for their wands, and then paused and watched as Harry immobilized the pillow with a net of wandless magic, the way he had for Dobby.

“What,” Theo whispered.

“That’s incredible, Harry,” Blaise said. “You realize that not one in a hundred magicals can do that?”

Harry shrugged uncomfortably and dropped the pillow to the bed. “It just makes me stand out more, and I don’t like it. I have enough fame. I don’t want any more of it.”

“You realize we won’t betray you.”

Theo’s voice dragged Harry’s gaze reluctantly back to him. Theo was once again leaning forwards as if he might leap off the bed.

“I know.”

“Then why keep the secret?”

“I told you. I don’t like the attention.”

“And I think it’s reflexive by now,” Blaise added unexpectedly. “In the Muggle world, you didn’t have anyone to tell the truth to, or they thought you were lying. And here, you distrusted everyone because of being Sorted into Slytherin.”

Harry thought about it, then shrugged. That was probably a likely explanation. He kept to himself what he thought was the likeliest, that no one would have cared about things like this if he hadn’t been the bloody Boy-Who-Lived.

“No more secrets,” Theo said, softly, intensely. “We aren’t going to use them against you. Tell us.”

Harry smiled at him. “I trust you a lot more than I did last year, that’s for sure.”

But he still wasn’t going to tell them Dobby’s name, or that he would be working with Dobby and Hermione to free house-elves. They would disapprove of that, as purebloods used to the services of house-elves. They might not even see anything wrong with the way Dobby had been treated. Neither of them had commented on it when Harry told that part of the story.

And Dobby might still belong to one of their families or another.

And while they wanted his secrets…

It isn’t like they trust me with everything, either. It’s only smart to keep something in reserve.

Chapter 13: Friendship Conflicts

Notes:

Thank you again for all the reviews, and welcome back to this story!

“Come over here, Harry.”

Harry blinked at Theo. They’d come into Potions, and just like normal, Harry had turned towards Ron. He always partnered with Ron in Potions. Hermione would probably have worked with them sometimes, but Snape had pretty much assigned her permanently to poor Longbottom.

“What?”

“Come. Over. Here.” Theo set his cauldron down on his own table with a pointed thunk and raised his eyebrows at Harry.

“No, thanks,” Harry said lightly. He reckoned that Theo was just trying to flex his mental muscles or something because he was still upset that Harry had sat with Ron and Hermione on the train. He shook his head as he sat down next to Ron, who was watching them with rapidly blinking eyes.

“Why not?”

“Because Ron and I are partners in Potions.”

Ron beamed and patted Harry’s shoulder. “That’s right, Nott.”

Harry set out his tools, ignoring the way that Theo and Blaise were regarding each other. They had their silent conversations, and Harry had his ploys. It wasn’t equal, but it was something they both had.

“Mr. Nott, what are you doing?”

Snape had swept into the classroom silently, which wasn’t unusual, but the focus on Theo was. Theo stood up, though, and formed his face into a determined expression. “I just think it’s strange that a Slytherin is always sitting over on the Gryffindor side of the classroom, Professor, and helping a Gryffindor.”

Snape’s attention swung to Harry. “I must admit I find it a little strange as well,” he said softly. “Mr. Potter, why are you not helping a Slytherin partner?”

Snape hadn’t phrased it as a demand for Harry to move away from Ron, so he still had a chance to make things go how he wanted them to. Harry chewed his lip and cast his eyes down and fidgeted a little.

“Mr. Potter?”

“Because I think that I learn better with Ron,” Harry said, willing his face to turn red. He wasn’t sure how well it was working, but right now, he wasn’t going to look up at Snape. “Nott and Zabini are so much more skilled than I am, and there’s just no comparison between me and Malfoy. I’d—hold them back.”

He made that last confession in a rush, as if it were something he didn’t want to say, and hid a smile as he felt Snape sneer. Yes, he’d soothed Snape’s suspicion of him and told him something he could well believe.

“Poor Potions students must learn to improve,” Snape said softly. “You will remain with Mr. Weasley for this term, Mr. Potter.”

It wasn’t the same as a permanent assignment all year, but Harry elected to ignore that. The important thing was that he’d got his way. “Yes, sir,” he mumbled, aiming for a mixture of relieved and disappointed.

Snape put the instructions for the first potion on the board, and Harry went to the supply cupboard to get the ingredients he and Ron needed. Theo was there, glaring at him while his hands flew among the ingredients.

“What are you playing at, Harry?”

“What are you?”

“Blaise and I want to spend some more time with you,” Theo said, as if that were obvious.

“Then you could have told me that, instead of springing it on me.”

Theo stared at him, but Harry had already turned away with the glass flasks of salt and lavender petals in his hands. Ron leaned forwards as Harry sat down beside him again. “What did Nott want?”

“To play some game,” Harry said. “But I won’t let him play it when he tries to use my friends as pieces.”

Ron smiled. He might take that as an implication that Harry wasn’t really friends with Theo, which was fine. Harry just didn’t want to get into an argument about it in the middle of Potions, and it wasn’t like he intended to spend time with all four of them at once.

“Good. You know, mate, I wish there was a way that you could ask the Hat to let you be Sorted into Gryffindor. You really don’t belong in Slytherin at all.”

Harry smiled tightly as he began to cut up the spotted slugs that he had already had in his Potions kit. “You have no idea.”

*

“You have no idea what you’re doing in Potions, Potter.”

Harry ignored Malfoy. He’d got better at doing that lately. Compared to Uncle Vernon, Malfoy really had no ability to get under Harry’s skin.

And if Malfoy got better at it?

Well, Harry had managed to get Uncle Vernon to leave him the fuck alone. He would manage the same thing with Malfoy if he had to.

“I would like to know the real reason that you always partner with Weasley,” Blaise drawled, from where he was lounging in the middle of his bed apparently waiting for something to entertain him.

“Because he’s my friend.”

“We’re your friends, too.”

“Speak for yourself, Blaise,” Malfoy snarled, and started some diatribe that Harry didn’t pay attention to. He was too busy making sure that he had all the books he had checked out from the library about house-elves in his satchel.

Not that there were that many. The school library seemed to contain mostly books that applied directly to homework, or maybe to some of the upper-level subjects that the OWL and NEWT students studied, even if they weren’t offered as classes at the school. Harry had looked through them carefully and learned little about house-elves.

But Hermione had scoured the library, too, and she had somehow managed to blackmail the Weasley twins into telling her the location of the kitchens. She and Harry were going there today to interview house-elves.

Ron, not unsurprisingly, had begged off. But Harry did feel like Hermione was his friend now, not just Ron’s, and they could spend time together by themselves.

They just needed to—

Harry felt the thickening of magic in the air and raised a wall of fire between him and Malfoy with a twitch of his finger. He looked up to see Malfoy’s hex, whatever it had been, dissolving into the flames. There wasn’t enough of a trail, or even sparks, left between Malfoy and the shield for him to be sure of what it had been.

Malfoy was gaping at him. Blaise’s face had gone back to studied neutrality. Crabbe and Goyle were ignoring everything, as usual, and Theo wasn’t there.

“That was stupid, Potter,” Malfoy eventually chose to say, although his eyes were uncertain. “You raise a Shield Charm when you want to prevent someone from hexing you, not just stupid fire.”

“I do what works,” Harry said coolly, and swung his satchel over his shoulder.

“I find myself curious how you knew dearest Draco was going to hex you,” Blaise said.

“He hasn’t mastered wordless magic yet,” Harry said, and slipped away as Malfoy went on another rant.

Blaise’s eyes remained on his back. Harry’s eyes remained on the path in front of him.

*

“It’s terrible.”

Harry nodded as he sat beside Hermione at a table in the kitchens. The elves rushed around them, squeaking and calling to each other as they dashed puddings and potatoes and bread and sandwiches for the students’ lunch from hand to hand. They seemed happy when they spoke with Harry and Hermione, insisting they were treated well at Hogwarts.

But they also seemed frantic now, as if they thought they’d be punished like Dobby if a single student reached for something they wanted and it wasn’t there. And there was—

Harry leaned back and squinted. Yes, the elves’ magic was jagged and dancing around their bodies. Harry couldn’t really see it as much as feel it, pressing against his skin in sudden spikes that would disappear a few seconds later. And Harry couldn’t feel it as well as he could feel another wizard or witch’s magic when it was something like Malfoy getting ready to hex him.

But it didn’t feel as though the elves’ magic was happy.

“Harry, can I ask you something?”

Harry blinked and turned his attention away from the elves’ magic to his friend. “Sure, Hermione.”

“You’re—you manipulated Professor Snape the other day into leaving you and Ron together.”

Harry smiled. If a Gryffindor was going to see what he was doing, he should have known it would be Hermione. “Yes, I did.”

“Why do that, instead of just asking Professor Snape to leave you there?”

“Because Snape—”

“Professor Snape, Harry.”

Harry ignored that. “Hates me. He wouldn’t deliberately do anything that he thought would make me happy. So I gave him a reason he could believe. He probably wanted to anyway. He doesn’t lose anything from making me work with Ron, and he knows that all the Slytherins in my year except Crabbe and Goyle are better than I am at Potions.”

“Why do you think he didn’t make you work with Crabbe or Goyle, then?’

“It wouldn’t be enough of a punishment for me. They’re so thick that they would just do as I said instead of sabotaging their potions, and Snape would have messes to clean up instead of being able to even take points.”

“He does take points a lot when you work with Ron.”

“Right, but he has the excuse that I am working with a Gryffindor then. And they’re all from your lot. He wouldn’t really be able to have an excuse for that if I was just working with a Slytherin.”

Hermione’s mouth opened a little, then closed. She finally said faintly, “You like that sort of thing?’

“No, I don’t like that Snape hates me, Hermione. I’m not mental.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Hermione bit her lip, while the elves bustled around them and Harry felt the jagged press of their magic against his skin again and again. “You enjoy—the game of manipulating him?”

“No,” Harry said, and he knew he was being honest. “I would much rather just be able to work with who I want to work with and have Snape ignore me the way he does Crabbe and Goyle. But I don’t have that, so I’ll manipulate him if I have to.”

“That’s terrible!”

“But it’s the way things are.”

“Someone ought to intervene!”

“Has Professor McGonagall intervened on Longbottom’s behalf?”

Hermione opened her mouth, then closed it. Then she said, uncertain, “I’m not sure Professor McGonagall knows how Professor Snape treats Neville.”

“You should tell her.”

Hermione flushed, and then firmed her jaw and nodded. “You’re right. I should. Thank you, Harry. I’ve been remiss in my duty.”

Harry blinked, because he didn’t know about that, but he decided to simply accept the compliment. “You’re welcome, Hermione.”

“And what do you think about the house-elves? How can we help them, if they think they’re happy, and if no one here is punishing them enough to make them want to change?”

Harry smiled a little. It was terrible, but he knew, like Hermione, that the house-elves probably wouldn’t change unless they saw a reason to, like Dobby, or had terrible masters. “We can talk with a few more of them. When they aren’t so busy. And ask them about how their magic feels.”

“How their magic feels?”

Harry hesitated, because he hadn’t intended to tell anyone about this, but he didn’t think Hermione would gossip with people in Slytherin, so he thought he could tell her. “I can feel the magic around them. Or around a human using a spell. The elves’ magic is really jagged now that they’re working, even though they would probably say they’re fine.”

Hermione’s eyes narrowed, and Harry tensed. But Hermione just nodded and whipped a piece of parchment out of her satchel. “This is really useful, Harry! We can find out…”

And Harry relaxed again.

*

“Why do you spend so much time with your Gryffindor friends?”

Harry rolled his eyes. He and Blaise and Theo were sitting in front of the fire in the Slytherin common room, and they’d been working on a Transfiguration essay that required a lot of checking the book’s footnotes and further chapters for answers to tricky questions. Harry hadn’t really wanted to be dragged away from it. “Because they’re my friends.”

“So are we, but you never spend any time with us.”

Harry looked at them, and then around the common room.

“That doesn’t count. We spend time studying, but you don’t spend time outside of that with us.”

“I must have imagined our conversation at lunch this afternoon,” Harry muttered, flipping a page and wondering if his obvious lack of interest would give Blaise a clue.

“That was about Quidditch.”

“So? Half my conversations with Ron are about Quidditch, and pretty much all my time with Hermione is spent studying. Or my time with both of them, because she drags Ron into it.”

That wasn’t entirely true, but Blaise and Theo didn’t need to know that, and Hermione’s reputation for fanaticism about her marks was well-known enough that Harry didn’t think either of them would question it. Theo leaned forwards. “We want to talk with you about other things.”

“Oh? Like what?”

Theo flailed about, visibly. Harry set aside his book and regarded him, because this was more interesting than the Transfiguration book, if not as productive.

“I—well, I don’t know. But we want you to feel that you can talk to us about anything.”

They want more of my secrets.

Harry swallowed his disappointment. He’d been hoping that Theo’s offer was even halfway sincere. But maybe it was just a little under halfway there, and he would take what he could get. “Well, come up with a topic, and we can talk about it. Quidditch and homework are most of my conversations with Ron and Hermione, like I said.”

“You and Granger have a research project?”

Harry glanced at Blaise. “Yeah.”

“You go to the kitchens.”

Harry nodded. “We talk to the house-elves.”

“What? Why?”

“Because they’re interesting.”

Blaise and Theo stared at him, then exchanged glances. Harry just sat looking at them, and Theo was the one who gave his head a disgusted shake and said, “House-elves. I suppose two people new to the magical world can find anything interesting, but really?”

“I wanted to know more about them after the crazy one who showed up at my relatives’ house this summer. And Hermione just wants to know more in general.”

“Never mind,” Blaise said, snatching up his own essay. “That isn’t interesting.”

Told you, Harry thought, and looked at his own parchment again.

He did sense Theo watching him for most of the afternoon, as if he wanted to suggest another conversation topic, but didn’t know how. Harry refused to help him out. He did want to be friends with Blaise and Theo, but if they were dissatisfied with the conversations Harry had with them on a regular basis, then it was up to them to suggest new ones.

Chapter 14

Notes:

Thank you again for all the reviews!

“And Potter…”

Harry grimaced as he entered the common room and heard that little snippet of conversation. Malfoy was whispering with Graham Montague, one of the older Slytherins on the Quidditch team, who wielded a lot of power over other Slytherins’ opinions. And they were both glaring at him.

Harry decided that he would ignore it as long as he could. Malfoy was stupid enough to have let some of the lessons he’d learned last year fade. But Harry would still catch unpleasant attention if he attacked first.

Including from Snape. The man had given Harry the ring but still regularly glared at him in Potions, assigned him detentions for things like working with Ron too much, and questioned his intelligence.

Harry didn’t understand much that Snape did, honestly.

Busy thinking about his Head of House, Harry didn’t respond fast enough when Malfoy stood up in front of him. But Malfoy didn’t aim directly at him. He pointed his wand at the floor in front of Harry’s feet and yelled, “Serpensortia!”

Harry dodged, his hand already snatching out his wand. So many Slytherins were leaning forwards that it seemed like a lot of them had known about Malfoy’s little plot. Harry grimaced and focused on the floor.

A black snake had appeared there, almost a meter long, tongue darting out. It looked at Harry and hissed threateningly.

“Someone has brought me here! Someone will die for this!”

Harry frowned. He could understand conjuring a venomous snake to scare your opponent, maybe, but what was the point of conjuring a magical talking snake that could be reasoned with? It would be easy to turn it to your side. “I didn’t conjure you,” he told the snake. “I can turn you in the direction of the one who did, though.”

The snake focused on him in a different way, tongue darting so fast that it reminded Harry of someone blinking their eyes. “You speak!”

“Yeah.” Maybe Malfoy had used this spell because people didn’t try to reason with the snake. Harry had already seen how stupid some magical humans were with that, given how they responded to house-elves. “Like you. Do you want me to show you the one who brought you here?”

“Show it to me, Speaker.”

People really are stupid if they don’t try to talk to the snakes they conjured themselves, even if it’s just to command them to attack.

Harry looked up, and found the audience who had been watching before still watching. But now they seemed frozen. Maybe Malfoy had conjured the snake as a test of whether Harry could handle it like a “real” Slytherin—that seemed likely—and Harry had failed by not acting like a berk.

Harry rolled his eyes and turned to look at Malfoy. “The pale one with the wand in his hand.”

The snake turned around with a hungry hiss and began slithering towards Malfoy. Malfoy promptly yelped and scrambled backwards, then conjured a wavering shield. It broke in front of the snake’s poking snout.

Harry smiled.

“Potter! Potter, call it off!”

“Why don’t you just talk to it and do that yourself, Malfoy? You were the one who conjured it.”

The attention sharpened. Harry shook his head. He didn’t think he would ever understand the Slytherins, either. But as Ron had said, he was sort of a fake Slytherin.

“I can’t speak to it like you do, Potter!”

“It’s called opening your mouth and treating the snake like it’s intelligent, Malfoy.”

“It’s called Parseltongue,” Montague said abruptly. Harry glanced at him. Montague’s face was a pale grey, and his hands were shaking. He avoided Harry’s eyes to stare at the floor. “The language of serpents. No one can speak it except the descendants of Salazar Slytherin’s line. The Heirs of Slytherin.” He tried to say something, and ended up shaking his head and backing away a little from Harry.

What?

Harry stared at the snake. If he was speaking some secret magical language, that made sense of why the snake was impressed and why everyone else was treating him like he had taken a shit in the middle of the common room.

But he still didn’t think it was all that special. Not if a half-blood orphan who had grown up in the Muggle world could do it.

“Call the snake off, Potter!”

Malfoy’s voice was rising, and Harry realized abruptly that the snake was wriggling enthusiastically after his roommate. Harry sighed and raised his voice a little, so that even if the others couldn’t understand Parseltongue, they would hopefully be able to tell something was different. “Could you please not attack him?”

The snake paused, then swung its head back towards him. The tongue was darting out rapidly to test the air again. “Why not? He is the one who brought me here. You said so, and I would smell deception.”

Harry briefly wished he was a snake. It would be useful to smell lies. “Because if you bite him, then people will blame me, and I don’t want to be blamed.”

The snake considered that, then gave a discontented hiss that didn’t seem to have any words in it and moved back towards Harry. Harry picked it up, and ignored the gasps around him. Honestly, people were just going to have to get over finding him so interesting.

“Will you give me something to eat?”

“I don’t know what you eat.”

“I want rats. There are fat rats nearby. I can smell them.”

Harry blinked. He didn’t know who would have rats in the Slytherin common room, given that most people had owls or cats, but then again, maybe one of the upper-years was keeping them for Transfiguration homework. He raised his voice and turned away from the snake to make sure that he was speaking in English. “He’s hungry. He wants a rat. He says he can smell one.”

Montague nodded frantically at someone standing behind Harry. Harry didn’t turn around. He thought it might make him look weak, at this point.

A sixth-year whose last name Harry thought was Jugson came hurrying up a minute later with a hand extended and a ghastly pale face. The rat in his hand was immobilized, apparently, but still alive; Harry could see its whiskers trembling. Harry took the rat, wondered if he should thank the boy, and then decided, as Jugson all but tripped over himself backing away, that it might make things worse.

“Here.”

The snake lunged without moving from its position coiled half around Harry’s right arm and half around his right shoulder. Harry jumped; he had never imagined something could be that fast. The rat thrashed and squeaked as it died, and the snake haughtily directed Harry to put the rodent in the right position so the snake could swallow it.

Harry kept his eyes on the other Slytherins instead of watching how the snake got the rat down its throat. They were staring at him with what seemed to be sick fascination, although some of that might have been more focused on the snake.

There were three exceptions, though. At least three that Harry could see without turning around. The first was Malfoy, who was pale and shaking with fear.

And the others were Blaise and Theo, who stared at Harry with betrayal.

They thought I didn’t have secrets. And here was this one.

But Harry looked back without more than slight boredom in his expression, and if Blaise and Theo followed him when he went up to the second-year boys’ dormitory, that was their choice.

And so was the common room exploding into furious buzzing behind them.

*

“You didn’t tell us you were a Parselmouth.”

Theo seemed to have found something he wanted to have a conversation about. His arms were folded and his brow furrowed. Harry just shrugged at him as he sat down on his bed, ignoring the snake’s irritated hiss.

It was kind of strange that the snake was still here. Harry had thought conjured things disappeared shortly after being conjured, but maybe not.

“I didn’t know.”

“How could you not know?” Blaise interrupted whatever Theo was going to say, and ignored the way that Theo was glaring at him, kind of the way that Harry was. Blaise waved a hand through the air and then collapsed on his bed, burying his face in his pillow for a moment. “Do you think every magical person could talk to snakes?”

“Why not?”

“Why not—”

“I grew up with Muggles,” Harry interrupted to remind them. “And I only remember talking to one snake before. Even then, it didn’t really talk back to me the way this one did. I thought that I’d partially imagined it.” He sighed and touched the snake’s back. It had coiled around his arm and gone to sleep. “So, no. I didn’t know.”

“You weren’t deliberately keeping it from us?”

“I wasn’t deliberately keeping it from you.”

“People are going to ask us if we knew, and we’ll look stupid if we say that we didn’t.”

“I’m pretty sure that the way you looked in the common room already showed you didn’t. You should have practiced the cool, distant expressions if you wanted to pretend that.”

Theo and Blaise gave each other another silent conversation through their eyes. Harry leaned back on his pillow and stared at the snake. He had no idea what kind it was, or if it was male or female.

Then again, that wasn’t really his problem. The snake would probably either disappear soon if it was just made of pure magic, or Harry could set it free in the Forbidden Forest some time after it woke up.

“Do you know why Malfoy cast that spell at you in particular?” Blaise asked, and now his voice was heavy.

Harry turned his attention back to them. “I assume because he thinks the same thing Ron does. He just doesn’t think it’s a compliment.”

“What?”

“Ron thinks I’m a fake Slytherin, because I don’t really belong here.”

Theo and Blaise stared hard at him. It felt like they were trying to have the silent conversation with him this time, but Harry really didn’t speak that language. He snorted. “I thought Malfoy cast the spell to show that I would fail to handle a snake, which a real Slytherin ought to know how to do. Is that wrong?”

“No, it’s right.” Theo’s voice was low and subdued. “I had no idea that you felt you didn’t belong here.”

“It’s like some people tell me that every chance they get, and I end up believing them.”

“You belong here more than a little shit like Malfoy does,” Blaise said, and Harry blinked, trying to remember if he’d ever heard Blaise swear. “Parseltongue? Of course you do. I can’t believe that you didn’t know, but Malfoy didn’t know, either. And now he looks extremely stupid for having come up with this particular challenge.”

“So he’ll try another one,” Harry muttered. “Ugh.”

“You really think he will?”

“Of course. He didn’t learn last year, why would he learn this time?”

“You’re a Parselmouth. The most well-known Parselmouth was Salazar Slytherin, but the last one was—the Dark Lord.”

Harry grimaced and barely managed not to reach up and touch his scar. The last thing he wanted was another connection to that stupid bastard. “Okay. Fine. So you think Malfoy will be scared of me?”

“You’re lounging there with a venomous snake wrapped around you and no sign of being afraid yourself,” Theo said. “Of course he will.”

“But I’m only not frightened because I can talk to it.”

“It doesn’t matter. Of course Malfoy will be frightened of your pet snake.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “It’s not my pet snake. If it’s made of magic from the spell, I reckon it’ll vanish in a few hours. Or days, maybe. And if it’s real and Malfoy pulled it from somewhere, I’ll set it free in the Forest.”

“You won’t keep it?”

“No. I’d get in trouble.”

Theo and Blaise exchanged another glance.

Harry shook his head and reached over to put the snake on the pillow. Well, he tried. It tightened around his arm without waking up and shifted so that its triangular head rested on his shoulder.

“I think you might not be getting rid of it, mate.”

It was still strange to hear Blaise calling him mate. Harry shrugged, ignoring the way that the snake’s weight pulled on his shoulder. “Well, I’ll have to. Maybe there are some Slytherins who get exceptions to the pet rule made for them, but Snape hates me enough that I won’t be one of them.”

Another shared glance. Harry was starting to reconsider whether he wanted someone to have silent conversations with after all. They could be bloody annoying.

*

The snake did not vanish in a few hours. It also didn’t want to be released into the Forbidden Forest, even though Harry told it that the Forest was probably crawling with rats and mice and other delicious things to eat.

“Forests are cold. I will stay with the warm you.”

“I can’t keep you as a pet.”

“What is a pet?”

Harry attempted to explain that, while Theo and Blaise sat on their beds and watched in obvious fascination. Crabbe and Goyle were lingering at lunch, their usual practice on a weekend, and Malfoy had left the dormitory the minute Harry started speaking Parseltongue. Harry still hadn’t figured out why Malfoy seemed to have more of a problem with it than anyone, when he was the one who had cast the spell in the first place.

“I do not like the idea of being kept in a small place and touched whenever you want to touch me,” the snake said.

“Good, then I’ll take you to the Forest when—”

“I shall stay with you, but not in a small place, and you shall only touch me when I touch you. Then I am not a pet.”

Harry closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. The snake’s “logic” wasn’t making his head hurt as much as the garlic in Quirrell’s classroom, or maybe the presence of the Dark Lord, had last year, but it was close. “No. You can’t stay with me.”

“Why not?”

“Because other people—humans—would get upset and afraid of you. They would think you were going to bite them.”

“I would not bite them unless they attempted to harm me.”

“But they would try, because they would be afraid.”

“They should not.”

“I think you have a pet snake, Harry,” Theo said, with a sound in his voice that made Harry glare at him suspiciously. Only when he saw the way Theo’s eyes were shining and his hand over his mouth did Harry realize it was suppressed laughter.

He didn’t think he had ever heard Theo really laugh before.

Harry had lost track of his place in the argument with the snake, which made it announce in satisfaction, “I shall stay with you, and I will hide when I must, and I will bite when I must, and you will keep me warm, and you will feed me rats. You shall be my pet human.”

“I can’t keep you secret all the time, though!”

“You told me what a spell is. Cast them to hide me.”

Harry paused. He had to admit that some of the illusion spells and the like that he’d been studying probably would work to do that. And he—

Well, he wouldn’t have a secret friend, exactly, since all of Slytherin knew about the snake, and it might not last very long, since he thought someone would probably tell Snape or another professor soon. But he would have a friend who was just for him and he could have a variant of silent conversations with.

“I don’t know if I can get rats all the time.”

“You will find them.”

Harry sighed. It was true that he could probably buy them from people, or go out on the grounds and catch them, or maybe even ask Hedwig to catch some extra. “You need a name.”

“What is a name?”

“It means that I speak to you, and I’m talking to you, instead of someone else.”

“I am the only snake here. Who else would you be talking to?”

“Well, there are snakes on the walls and the chairs and the like, because Slytherin’s House emblem is a snake…”

“But they will not answer you. I will. I am the only snake who matters.”

Harry sighed and lowered his head into his hands. Theo was laughing softly as he watched him, and Blaise shook his head before he picked up a book and apparently lost himself in it.

I suppose Theo is right, and I have a pet snake.

Chapter 15

Notes:

Thank you again for all the reviews!

“And you really don’t know anything else about your parents?”

“I only learned that they didn’t die in a car accident when I got my Hogwarts letter. Why would I?”

The Slytherins who had taken to “subtly” asking Harry about his bloodline had to either admit that they didn’t know what a car was or retreat, and so far, they had all chosen the second course of action. Ron shook his head as he watched Jugson walking away and shooting glances over his shoulder. “Why do they keep asking you that, mate?”

“I think they hope that they can prove I’m a secret pureblood or something. It would make them less uncomfortable about having a half-blood in their House.”

Ron snorted, and they resumed their walk to the Quidditch pitch, where they were going to watch the Slytherin-Gryffindor game. Malfoy had evidently become Seeker, which didn’t surprise Harry at all. He’d bought his way onto the team. “You can tell them what I told you, if you want. That you’re a sort of fake Slytherin.”

Harry smiled at him. “Thanks, Ron.”

He hadn’t told Ron and Hermione about his Parseltongue, or the snake. It didn’t seem like it would make them comfortable, and—

In the end, Harry just wasn’t sure it mattered that much. Sure, being able to speak to snakes was sort of cool, but what use was it, outside of very specific situations like someone casting Serpensortia on you? And apparently it was associated with Dark wizards.

Harry didn’t need that.

They had to separate when they got to the pitch, but Harry sat in the part of the Slytherin seats as close to the Gryffindor ones as he could, and he caught Ron’s eye and grinned every time Gryffindor scored points.

“You know, that isn’t going to make anyone any more fond of you.”

Harry shrugged, keeping his eyes on Malfoy as he dodged a Bludger and swooped down. Harry had thought he’d seen the Snitch, but he came back up without it. “Maybe not, but they don’t know how to feel about me anyway. I’m not going to pander to them.”

Silence, which meant Blaise and Theo were exchanging glances, of course. Harry continued to watch as Malfoy avoided another Bludger and then dodged beneath the Gryffindor Seeker, Cormac McLaggen.

“It doesn’t bother you, what they think of you?”

“If it makes them attack me, sure,” Harry said absently, craning his neck. He thought that one of the Bludgers was behaving strangely, corkscrewing around Malfoy as if its enchantments had failed. “But they attack me for being a half-blood anyway, so—”

The Bludger turned and shot towards the stands.

Towards Harry.

Harry leaped to his feet and raised a curl of fire in front of himself. The Bludger swerved to avoid it, trying to come around the side and hit him. Harry rolled, and the Bludger smashed into the stands amid a lot of angry shouting.

“What—what’s going on, it shouldn’t be over here—”

Harry ignored that, too. He didn’t think the Bludger cared about what it was supposed to do. He scrambled out from beneath the cracked part of the stands and saw the Bludger aiming right back at him.

It could crush his skull. It could break all the bones in his body.

Harry glared at it and felt the same fear and rage that he’d felt around the Dursleys rise up. He pointed his wand at the Bludger and just let magic flow out of him, not knowing what it would do, not caring.

The Bludger exploded.

Harry ducked again from all the falling pieces, and heard someone shout. He looked up in time to see that Malfoy had caught the Snitch, or at least he seemed to have from the way that he was holding up his closed hand, and that the other Bludger was also heading straight for Harry.

Harry rolled again. This time, someone must have got control of the Bludger, because he heard it screech to a halt in the air. And then people started shouting, and more than one person was pulling at Harry’s shoulder.

Harry grimaced and stood up to face his fate.

*

“You understand that this is a matter of points in the Slytherin-Gryffindor Quidditch game. Professor McGonagall maintains that Gryffindor would have won the game if not your interference with the Bludger…”

Harry sat in a chair in front of Professor Dumbledore’s desk, staring vacantly at the wall behind him. Professors McGonagall and Snape were arguing in low, vicious voices behind him that Harry didn’t bother listening to.

He didn’t care about Quidditch. He thought it might have been another attempt from the Dark Lord to kill him, but McGonagall seemed to think that Harry had taken control of the Bludger to make sure Slytherin won.

Harry had tried to say he didn’t care, but no one had believed him.

Because all second-year students care about Quidditch? Or all second-year boys?

Harry sighed, loudly enough to bring Dumbledore’s attention back to him again, and away from the two arguing professors. “Is there anything you wanted to say, my boy?” Dumbledore asked, his eyes twinkling.

“Is there some magical means you can use to tell whether I’m lying?” Harry demanded. “Because I didn’t take control of the Bludger, I don’t know who did, and I didn’t interfere in the game.”

“We all know that Slytherin would cheat to—”

“I wouldn’t,” Harry said, and spun around to face Professor McGonagall, who blinked at him. “I don’t care what you think! I didn’t cheat, and I don’t want to spend more hours sitting here while you argue about stupid things! Someone tried to kill me! That’s what’s important to me, not a stupid game of Quidditch!”

McGonagall blinked and then shut her mouth and studied him for a moment. Then she said, “There is a potion, Veritaserum, that will pull truth from the one who drinks it, but we cannot give it to a child.”

“So you’ll just spend the rest of time thinking I cheated?”

“No,” Professor McGonagall said, in a softer voice than Harry had thought she could use. “No, Mr. Potter, I—I believe you. And I will talk to the Gryffindor team so that they accept this as a Slytherin victory.” She turned to Professor Snape. “Although what they will say if they learn that—”

Harry rolled his eyes and glanced at Dumbledore. “May I leave, sir?”

“Yes, of course.” Dumbledore was studying Harry in a way that made the inside of Harry’s head feel as if it had been scraped bare. “You will let me know if you think of any way that someone could have interfered with the Bludgers?”

“Yes, sir.” Although Harry thought they should just ask the actual Quidditch players, he was too glad to get out of the Headmaster’s office to argue about it.

He walked down the moving staircase and then sped through the corridors and other staircases as quickly as possible. He didn’t know why, but the castle seemed more deserted than usual, even though it was only early evening. He wanted to get back to the common room, and he’d probably have to face an interrogation by his roommates.

Harry was grimacing at the thought when he came around the corridor and nearly slipped in a puddle of water.

He blinked and glanced up, then stared. He was in front of a girls’ bathroom, and there was a cat—Mrs. Norris—hanging by her stiff tail next to a message that appeared to be written in blood.

THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS IS OPEN! ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE!

Harry felt for a moment as though he were short of breath. And then he turned around and ran as fast as he could, back the way he’d come, towards the Headmaster’s office.

Snape and McGonagall were standing down the corridor from the gargoyle, still talking to each other in soft sniping tones. Harry nearly ran them down as he tore around the corner. Snape whipped at once into a crouch with his wand out, and Harry rolled back and came up with his own.

“Severus, it’s only Potter,” said McGonagall, with a shake of her head, as if to say that she didn’t know why they were both so ridiculous. “Mr. Potter, is something wrong?”

Harry forced back the temptation to gasp for air and said as steadily as he could, “There’s—Mrs. Norris, near the girls’ bathroom on the second floor—paralyzed or something—and a message in blood.”

Snape and McGonagall promptly snapped into grim adult mode, and accompanied him down the stairs. Harry walked beside Snape and noticed that the man was scanning the walls and floor, his wand darting back and forth. If Harry squinted, he thought he could see a blob of blue light bobbing around in front of Snape’s wand.

Harry didn’t know what it meant, but he memorized the color of the light. Maybe he could ask Hermione later.

“Merlin!”

Professor McGonagall seemed to have found Mrs. Norris. Snape stood looking down at Harry for a moment before he went around the corner to join her, and his face had a complicated expression on it that made Harry narrow his eyes.

“You don’t know what caused this, Mr. Potter?” Snape asked softly.

“No, sir.” Harry tried not to feel resentment. This felt like all the times in primary school when Dudley had claimed that Harry had caused trouble and the teachers had just believed him. Soon they hadn’t even needed Dudley’s stories to suspect Harry of things. They just did, because he was a “troublemaker.”

Snape blinked and looked away, and Harry breathed out a little. Why had he been remembering the incidents with Dudley so clearly? It felt like someone had dragged them to the surface of his mind in a net.

“Keep near me, Mr. Potter,” Snape murmured as he walked towards the place where Professor McGonagall seemed to be holding Mrs. Norris hovering in the air with a charm. “We will clear your name, if anyone gets upset, but we must make sure that you have an alibi at all times.”

Harry followed, but he felt a prickling unease creep up his spine. Snape was talking like he knew about those incidents with Dudley.

But how could he? It wasn’t like Harry had told him.

It was something Harry supposed he would have to think about later, because McGonagall was already saying they needed to tell Filch, and Harry knew he would need Snape’s protection for that conversation.

Chapter 16

Notes:

Thank you again for all the reviews!

“You were the one who found Filch’s cat?”

At this point, Harry supposed that he shouldn’t be surprised Theo and Blaise would have heard the gossip and would want to confront him about it. He just grunted and nodded, paying more attention to the snake wrapped around his arm.

“It would be easier for me if I could give you a name.”

“I am not interested in making it easier for you. Hold the rat.”

Hedwig seemed, at least so far, fine with catching extra rats for the snake, and Harry had learned quickly how to immobilize them. He sighed and held up the rat, and the snake grabbed it and then began rearranging its jaws and the rat so it could swallow the thing.

“I don’t know how you can be close to it when it’s doing things like that.”

Harry could have said something cutting about how it was easier to be close to the snake than it was to be close to most people, but he didn’t see why he should. He just did more grunting and nodding.

“It is good. I am satisfied.”

Harry touched the snake’s scales, but it flowed off his arm and curled up on his pillow. It was doing that a lot, but with the winter closing in, Harry couldn’t blame it. There were times that he wished he could curl up and sleep the winter away.

“Harry.”

Like now.

Harry sighed and turned to face Theo and Blaise. “Yes, I was the one who found the cat,” he said. “I don’t know what else you want me to say about it. There was the message in blood and the water on the floor and the cat being Petrified. Those are all things that you confirmed you already knew about.”

“You are making the bed tremble by thumping it.”

Harry blinked. He hadn’t even consciously realized that he was tapping his foot in agitation and making his bed sway. “Sorry.”

“I am going to sleep.”

“Are you the Heir of Slytherin?”

Harry’s eyes might have hurt with how hard he rolled them, but he considered it worth the risk. “No,” he said, as clearly and emphatically as he could, making sure it was in English. “You know that I was surprised I was speaking to snakes.”

“That doesn’t mean that you couldn’t be Slytherin’s Heir. Just that you weren’t aware of your heritage until now.”

“So in your experience, do people who don’t know that about themselves usually go around Petrifying cats and writing messages in blood on the walls?”

Theo and Blaise looked at each other. Then Theo shook his head. “Not as such, no.”

“I’m not.”

“You know that a few people outside our House think you are? Longbottom and Thomas were whispering about it the other day.”

“That’s just because I’m in Slytherin and they think that being the Boy-Who-Lived should make me insanely powerful. It’s not because they know I can speak to snakes or really know anything about me.”

And it made Harry sore, honestly. He expected Slytherins to gossip about him at this point, but Gryffindor was supposed to be the House that didn’t have stupid blood prejudice. Harry supposed he was unlucky no matter what, though.

As long as Ron and Hermione didn’t start believing the rumors, then Harry could bear it. He just didn’t like it because he’d never done anything to Longbottom or Thomas, and yet they were whispering like he was a villain.

“You haven’t told them that you can speak to snakes.”

“I was under the impression you already knew that, Theo.”

“I knew it.”

Theo went back into silence again, the kind of evaluating silence that was Harry’s least favorite mood to spend time with him in. Theo was thinking deep thoughts of the kind that Harry couldn’t possibly understand, or something.

Blaise was the one who got up and went down with Harry to the common room, where half the conversations died as the people there saw Harry. Then they started up again, more trenchant and ferocious than ever.

Harry kept his head down, and worked on his Charms essay, and wished that he was less interesting to everyone alive.

*

“Stay after class, Mr. Potter.”

“Yes, sir.”

So we’re back to the games with Snape again, Harry thought crossly as he used his wand to clean up a spill near his cauldron. It had come from Ron’s cauldron, honestly, but Harry was pretty good with Cleaning Charms, and Ron had done his best.

“You all right, mate?”

Harry gave Ron a faint smile. Ron was lingering behind as if he intended to grab Snape if he were too mean to Harry, and Harry appreciated it, but he also didn’t want to get his friend in trouble. “I’ll be fine.”

Hermione grabbed Ron and pulled him out, although not without a concerned glance of her own in Harry’s direction. Harry thought she was more likely to assume a teacher had good intentions, but also wary of Snape for his obvious unfairness.

“Mr. Potter.”

“Yes, sir?”

Snape didn’t say anything else, so Harry turned to face him instead of staring after his friends. He kept his eyes on Snape’s robes and boots, though. It seemed to him that meeting Snape’s eyes was actively painful lately, maybe just because Snape seemed to suspect him for the bloody message about the Chamber.

He gave me the ring to protect me from my relatives, but he still thinks I’m up to no good.

“Has anyone accused you of being the Heir of Slytherin?”

What, you want to find out if you have company? But Harry wasn’t stupid enough to say something like that, and wouldn’t have been even before his first year at Hogwarts. He said passively, “A few of the Gryffindors seem to think I am, sir.”

“And the Slytherins?”

“A few have mentioned it.”

“Why is that?”

“They seem to think that because I’m the one who found the cat and the message, I must be responsible for them.”

“And what do you think?”

“I think they probably believe that I did it in hopes of fitting into Slytherin, sir.”

Snape paused long enough that Harry wondered if the professor would dismiss him. But instead, Snape said, “Do you have anything you want to tell me, Mr. Potter?”

“No, sir.”

And that was true. There might be some things that Harry wished he could tell Snape, if the professor would have supported him. But Harry had known that was hopeless even before the end of last term. Why should he expose himself to whatever insults Snape would heap on him just because things could have been different, in some other life?

They stood there, with dislike and weariness stretching between them, and then Snape sighed. “Go.”

Harry left the classroom, and shook his head a little at Ron and Hermione when he saw them waiting for him. “Snape just wanted to know why people think I’m the Heir of Slytherin,” he said. “Probably thinks that Slytherin will be shamed if they don’t have a bloodthirsty enough Heir or something.”

“Harry!”

Hermione’s scolding was reassuring, in its own way. Harry listened to what she said, and nodded. She could think that he agreed, if she wanted to.

Ron could think so, too, since he was nodding along to Hermione’s speech with a lot more enthusiasm. They both believed that the professors would protect the students. Neither of them had been brought to Dumbledore’s office and accused of cheating when a Bludger was stalking them.

But Harry shook his jealousy aside. In a way, he should be happy that Ron and Hermione were innocent enough that they thought Snape and McGonagall and Dumbledore were always really trying to protect the students instead of blame them. Harry hoped they never had to learn otherwise.

*

“You don’t have to really be the Heir of Slytherin to take advantage of the fact that they think you are.”

Harry sighed and drew a line through the paragraph he had started to write for Snape’s essay. Turning the page in his book had made him realize he was wrong about the significance of powdered sunstone to this potion. “What do you mean, Blaise?”

Blaise was silent.

Harry finally peered at him over the top of his Potions book, and found Blaise smiling at him. Harry swallowed, a little cautious. Blaise was more intense in some ways than Theo was, quicker to suggest painful curses and ways to hurt people. Harry thought it probably had something to do with his mother and the way he wanted to curse anyone who talked about her.

But it didn’t matter. Harry just needed to know when he should listen and when he should refuse to listen. Right now, he thought refusing would be more dangerous.

“What do you mean?” he repeated.

Blaise inclined his head shallowly. “You could command the other Slytherins to leave you alone, and they would. I think even Malfoy would. He’s a lot more cowed now that he knows you can speak to snakes.”

“And what happens when they find out I’m not the Heir?”

“Would they have to find out?”

“Of course they would. I’m not a good enough liar to keep a lie like that going for years—what?” Harry added, because Blaise’s mouth had opened a little and his hands had tensed around his own book.

“I thought you would say something about how you’re honor-bound to tell the truth. Or something equally ridiculous.”

“No.”

“You spend so much time with your Gryffindor friends that I thought for sure you would be influenced by them.”

Harry rolled his eyes, and didn’t try to conceal it. “People are more complex than their House stereotypes, Blaise. I’m half-convinced that the only reason most of us act brave or cunning or loyal or like studying is our life is because the rest of the people in the House do it, too. And some people don’t want to disappoint the Sorting Hat.”

“What about you?”

“There are certain things I have to do to survive. Maybe I would lie about being the Heir of Slytherin if I thought it was the only way I could survive. But I don’t think it is, and I still think people would be angrier when they found out than it’s worth.”

Blaise tapped his fingers on the cover of the book. Then he said, “I should go talk to Theo,” and got up and stalked out of the common room.

Harry shook his head as he watched Blaise go. He hoped his Slytherin friends hadn’t constructed some elaborate plan that depended on him being a good liar.

Although they should know me well enough to know I’m not that.

People who had been looking in his direction hastily shifted and glanced in another direction when Harry faced forwards again. Harry ignored them. People were always going to stare; he had come to expect that, at least. And also to think that he would just have to put up with it.

Chapter 17

Notes:

Thank you again for all the reviews!

“It really does seem like they don’t understand the concept of freedom.”

Hermione sounded so frustrated that Harry reached out and squeezed her hand in response. They had just got through with their second interview with the house-elves in the kitchens, and not much had gone differently from the first one. The elves Hermione wanted to talk to frowned or squeaked when she asked them about freedom, and shook their heads and didn’t answer directly. And their magic still felt jagged to Harry when they worked.

“I think they might, enough to be upset about it. That’s not the same thing as wanting to be free themselves.”

“But everyone wants to be free.”

“Well, maybe magical non-human people think about it differently. And anyway, if you’d never been free, would you know exactly what it meant?”

Hermione hesitated. “I think I could imagine it.”

“But it would be more difficult.”

“Yes.” Hermione frowned down at the pile of books she carried. She looked upset and tired. “I can’t believe that no one has ever questioned this. I mentioned house-elves in front of Ron, and he just looked wistful and said he wished his family could afford one!”

“So you can buy them?”

“Yes, Harry, that’s what being slaves means.”

“It’s just that none of the elves or the few books we managed to find said that. They talked about binding them, and about freeing them by giving them clothes, but not about buying them.”

Hermione gasped a little. “You’re right, Harry! How did I miss that? I’m going to go to the library to look it up and then go back to Gryffindor Tower with the books I find.”

Harry smiled. “All right. I’ll see you later?”

“You could…come with me.”

“I don’t have any materials with me to work on homework or anything. And there are some essays I ought to get done.”

“I meant. I meant.” Hermione hesitated so long that Harry stared at her and wondered if someone had been making fun of her, because it seemed like she wouldn’t have stopped speaking otherwise. “You could go to the library with me to work on house-elves, and then come to Gryffindor Tower?”

“Don’t—the Slytherin common room has a rule against bringing in people from other Houses. Don’t the Gryffindors?”

“If we do, no one’s ever mentioned it to me.”

Harry had to grin at the way Hermione’s chin was tilting upwards, so like the way that she looked when she was talking about freedom for house-elves. “Well, all right. Just keep in mind that it probably won’t make you any more popular.”

“As if I care about being popular.”

From the way Hermione’s eyes glazed over a little and her magic danced, Harry was sure that part of her could imagine it and want it, just like house-elves might be able to want freedom. But God forbid he discourage her from being his friend. “All right.”

*

The noise volume of Gryffindor Tower was loud, but collapsed the instant Harry stepped through the door after Hermione. The woman in the portrait hadn’t wanted to let him in, complaining and grumbling the whole time, but Hermione had marched straight at her in a way that said she might actually break through paint and canvas if the woman didn’t cooperate. In the end, they’d got in.

Now someone said, “A Slytherin? What are you doing, Granger?”

“He’s Harry Potter, and he’s my friend.”

Hermione’s voice was trembling a little. Harry moved up beside her, while trying not to blink at the abundance of red, gold, squashy chairs, students sprawled all over each other, and parchments on the floor. It was completely different from the way that the Slytherin common room looked. “I really didn’t come here to spy on secrets or something. I keep thinking that maybe I should have been in Gryffindor instead, so I wanted to see what it was like.”

There was a moment when everything felt as if it were hovering on the edge of violence, and Harry thought that he might have to draw his wand. Then Ron stood up from his armchair and glared around at people.

“Harry is my friend, too. So if you don’t like him here,” and Ron took a deep breath as though he was about to declare war, “you can bugger off.”

“Ron! Language!”

Either Ron’s words, or his presence, or the fact that Hermione was scolding him for language, broke the tension. Harry heard laughter and saw the Weasley twins getting up from their own chairs to walk over to him. He tensed a little as they put their arms around his shoulders, but they didn’t try to blow up his hair or anything.

“If Ronniekins says Harrikins here is all right—”

“Then he’s all right. And besides, who could fool the smartest witch in the House?”

That started an argument who was really the smartest witch in Gryffindor, and Harry relaxed. He was able to slip over to a corner with Ron, Hermione, and the twins, who simultaneously tried to involve him in a game of chess and ask him questions about Slytherin Quidditch team moves. Harry avoided answering those, but answered a few about what the common room looked like and what his House was doing in response to the Heir of Slytherin idea.

People argued around them, shouted, played Exploding Snap loudly enough that Harry quit jumping in five minutes, and somehow buried themselves in books like Hermione, ignoring the chaos. Harry didn’t want to ignore it, though. He looked around and felt a great wistfulness well up in him.

He thought he was learning to understand Slytherin friendship like the kind Blaise and Theo could offer him, but he also felt as though this was real friendship. The kind he had always pictured when he thought about getting away from the Dursleys and finding people who liked him for him.

He missed it.

*

“Heard you were in Gryffindor, Potter.”

Harry eyed Marcus Flint over the top of his book. Flint had just walked up to him and sat down next to him in the empty chair Blaise had left when he went to the dormitory for something. Across from Harry, Theo sat up, his eyes fixed on Flint.

Well, Flint was a sort of leader for the other Slytherins because of his position on the Quidditch team, so Harry supposed hat made sense.

“Yes,” Harry said.

Flint waited. When Harry said nothing else, Flint leaned towards him, a mighty frown on his face. “Maybe you haven’t heard that we don’t visit other Houses’ common rooms?”

“I know that no one from another House is supposed to be in Slytherin, but the Gryffindors welcomed me.”

People were turning towards them, as usual. Harry wanted to roll his eyes, but that would probably get Flint angry. Still. He was so irritated that so many of them would gape at anything to do with him, whether or not it concerned them.

“Maybe you really don’t get it,” Flint said slowly, as if he were considering that. “We don’t visit other Houses’ common rooms, Potter. It doesn’t matter how much they would welcome us. Hell, the Hufflepuffs would probably throw a party. We keep to ourselves.”

“I don’t.”

Flint leaned closer to him, while Theo sucked in a breath. “What was that, Potter?” Flint asked softly. “It almost sounded like you were challenging me to a duel.”

“A duel? What are you on about? I was just making a point that I have Gryffindor friends, I had Gryffindor friends all last year, and even if everyone else only has friends in Slytherin, that’s not me. I thought you knew that already.”

“That sounds like an invitation to a duel to me.”

Harry glanced at Theo for help, but Theo was just sitting still with very wide eyes, no help. Harry turned to Flint. “I don’t know why. I didn’t say that I want to fight you. I don’t. I’m just saying that I thought you already knew I had Gryffindor friends, and so it isn’t a surprise that I got invited to their common room.”

There was a grim little smile on Flint’s face as he drew his wand. “Defend yourself, Potter. The first to give up loses.”

People started scattering. Harry rose to his feet, staring at Flint. That was apparently serious. Even though he’d never done anything to Flint and he was five years younger and Flint knew a lot more spells—

Surprise gave way to anger.

This was just like Malfoy all over again, wasn’t it? Or people not believing him when he said that he didn’t know how he’d defeated the Dark Lord or that he wasn’t the Heir of Slytherin. People still wanted Harry to fight and stand up for himself even though no one else in Slytherin had to do it half as often.

Fine. Harry had learned the rule of how to fight a Slytherin last year. Win the fight as fast as possible, make them hurt as much as possible.

He opened his mouth and hissed while Flint was still using his wand to move couches out of the way. “Someone is trying to kill me, and if he does, there will be no rats.”

The snake had been sleeping underneath the couch, although Harry hadn’t warned anyone about that, because they didn’t need to know. The snake would just crawl up his leg and into his sleeve again when Harry left the common room, mostly, and it was easy to cover Parseltongue under the sound of moving and the fire crackling.

“No rats?”

“None, if the big one curses me.”

The snake reared up with a hiss. Now it had come fully out from under the couch. Now Flint could see it. He froze, and then his eyes flickered up and landed on Harry. “No snakes in the duel.”

“Why not? I didn’t know that someone could make rules like that.”

“It’s a rule.”

“Why?”

Flint shifted from foot to foot, and then he seemed to glance around and realize that everyone else was watching to see what would happen next. Harry could see the moment his face hardened and he decided that he wouldn’t back down. It would cost him too much in pride.

What goes before a fall?

“Because you can only use your wand in a duel like this,” Flint said, and then he lifted his wand and cast a silent curse, bright red, at Harry.

Harry rolled and dodged on the floor. He’d got a lot of practice at that with Dudley, and it was still one of his most useful skills. He heard the spell smash into and splinter a chair, and he came up on the other side of it, already casting.

“Impedimenta!”

Flint laughed as he conjured a shield that bounced the hex. “Did you think you could get to me with that little spell, Potter?”

Harry gave him a hard smile. Maybe it would have made someone smarter than Flint pause, but he was too busy advancing with his wand held out, his eyes trained on Harry, and if a few people shrieked, none were using words to warn him.

Not going to hurt you d with the spell.

The snake bit Flint in the back of the leg with a triumphant hiss. “You shall not kill the rat-killer!”

Flint staggered with a yell, and to the accompaniment of more shrieks from the watching Slytherins. Meanwhile, Harry dashed in. There was always the chance that Flint would try to ignore it and keep casting, and so Harry had to make sure that he stayed down and the duel was really over.

He extended his hand towards Flint’s forehead as Flint bent double with the pain from the poison, and concentrated on his rage.

He set Flint’s hair on fire.

Flint yelled again and staggered, and then he went down on one knee, gasping out, “Potter…Potter, what are you doing…?”

“You wanted to duel me,” Harry said, and he pushed his hand, with flames dancing over it that didn’t burn him, closer to Flint’s eyes. “You haven’t given up yet. Are you going to yield or not?”

Maybe Flint would still have let his pride take over if he could have seen the other Slytherins gaping at them, but he couldn’t see them past the flames dancing around his eyes, and maybe past Harry’s firelit face.

“Potter,” Flint whispered, and then seemed to give up on reasoning with Harry. He bowed his head. “I yield! I fucking yield!”

Harry let the flames burn one more second to prove his point, and then stepped back and swept his hand around in front of him. He didn’t really need to do that to make them stop burning, he just needed to extinguish his will, but it would look more dramatic and powerful to the people watching.

“You can stop trying to bite him,” he added to the snake.

“He will not kill you?”

“No.”

The snake gave a last, menacing hiss at Flint, and then slithered away from the Quidditch Captain and towards Harry. Harry picked it up. “You should tell them not to get into fights with you. Then I would not have to bite them.”

“I think he’s regretting getting into the fight with me,” Harry said, watching with interest as Flint collapsed.

“Get him to Pomfrey!”

Harry ignored the people running over to collect Flint. He ignored the whispers of “Heir of Slytherin” and “killer.” He ignored Theo’s wide eyes and the way that he could see Blaise standing perfectly still on the stairs leading up to the dormitories.

He turned around to face the common room, and the crowd fell still.

“You want to think I’m holding secrets and I’m the Slytherin Heir and I’m lying about everything,” he told them. “That’s fine. But when you attack me, then I’m going to defeat you, and maybe you should think about what that means.” He glanced over at Flint, who appeared to be having convulsions. “Just in case.”

The snake reared up on his shoulder and hissed, proving it had a fine sense of drama. Harry shook his head when people just kept staring at him, even leaning around their neighbors’ shoulders to do so, and walked up the stairs.

Theo and Blaise followed him into the room, but remained talking quietly on their own beds, glancing over at Harry without approaching. Harry dressed for bed even though it was early in the evening and pulled his curtains shut emphatically.

“I stopped him from hurting you.”

“Yes, you did. Thank you.”

“You still smell angry.”

“Yes.” Harry stroked the snake and looked up at the canopy of his bed as the snake curled up between his neck and his shoulder. “But just at how stupid people are, and no venom can fix that.”

Chapter 18

Notes:

Thank you again for all the reviews!

“Can we talk to you, Harry?”

“You have been all morning.”

It was true. For some reason, Snape had assigned Harry to work with both Blaise and Theo in Potions, and then had kept his back to them for most of the class. Blaise and Theo had tried to tell Harry all about how and why they hadn’t intervened to stop Flint, but Harry had kept them focused on the potion.

They were out of the class now, and Theo and Blaise both turned and looked him in the face. Harry sighed and folded his arms. He was going to be late to lunch at this rate.

“It didn’t sound like you were apologizing,” he added, as they continued to stand there in silence. “And that’s really the only thing I would be interested in hearing from you.”

“It’s—we were afraid.”

Harry waited for a second, and then sighed through his nose. “What were you afraid of?”

“That Flint would attack us,” Theo said, giving Harry a strange look. Was Harry that different from other Slytherins? From his friends? Maybe he was. “He’s so much older and stronger, he knows so much more magic…”

“And he apparently challenges people to random duels,” Harry said, understanding a bit better. “You thought he would challenge you if you tried to stand up for me or even just say that it wasn’t a proper duel?”

Theo looked at the floor.

“I wasn’t in the room,” Blaise said softly, shooting Theo a look that made Harry wonder what they’d discussed in private. Or silently, that way they had. “But yes, Flint does do this kind of thing. No one says anything because he’s Quidditch Captain and can essentially do what he likes. Although that’s changed now.”

“Flint got kicked off the Quidditch team?”

“No. He got defeated by a second-year.”

Blaise smiled at Harry for what felt like the first time since the “duel” with Flint, and Harry blinked. Blaise’s smile was sharp and delighted, and he reached out to put a hand on Harry’s shoulder.

“Malfoy thought he could win a duel with you because he’s rich and pureblooded. Those Ravenclaws who went after us last year thought they’d win because you’re young and they thought you wouldn’t have any loyalty to us. And we thought you would lose to Flint. It turns out that all of us were wrong.”

Theo kept his head ducked, but he swallowed and said, “I’m sorry. I thought Flint would come after me. I should have known that if he did—you would protect me.”

Harry nodded slowly. He wasn’t going to argue that Theo should have known he’d win, because Theo’s skills did seem to lie more in slow magic like Potions and Transfiguration than the quick hexes and curses of a duel.

And he could understand fear (or not being in the room, as Blaise would doubtless point out) better than he could just refusing to engage with the duel because Flint had a higher social standing, or whatever.

“Fine,” Harry said. “I forgive you. But you should know that next time, you can at least tell me something like whether my opponent is known for calling stupid little fights duels instead of just expecting me to know.”

Theo gave Harry a tentative smile. “I will. Thank you.”

“And it helps that now we know you don’t lose.”

“I would have lost fighting the Dark Lord. That’s why I ran.”

“But anyone would have. I’m talking about fights with other students, where we might have thought you’d lose, but we know better now.” Blaise leaned forwards a little. “Do you mind telling us why you set your snake on Flint and used fire instead of just dodging out of the way and trying to wear him down?”

Harry wasn’t about to give an honest answer to that one, which was that he had never known Dudley to get tired or worn-out, despite his size, when he wanted to cause Harry pain. “I wanted to make sure that he would never come after me again.”

“Mr. Potter.”

Harry glanced over his shoulder. Professor Snape was standing behind them in the doorway of his classroom, his arms folded. Harry sighed. He supposed that this was his fault, in some way, just like everything else was.

“I’ll see you later,” he told Blaise and Theo, and then turned and went in to see what his bully of a professor wanted.

*

“Sit down.”

Harry had expected to be told to stand in front of Snape’s desk like the naughty boy that Snape undoubtedly considered him, and he hesitated a little. But he took the chair at the front table when Snape glared at him.

“I want to know the details of your duel with Mr. Flint.”

Harry wanted to object that it hadn’t been a duel, but he supposed that if Flint had got away with challenging other students to stupid “duels’ for years, it was partially because Snape backed him up. So Harry fastened his eyes on the wall behind Snape’s shoulder and droned through a recitation of the duel.

“The snake?”

“Malfoy conjured it a few weeks ago with Serpensortia. I took it away from him and made it my pet.”

“How did you do that?”

“I’m a Parselmouth.”

Snape’s hands slammed down on his desk as he gripped the sides. Harry tensed, but didn’t let himself flinch or run from the room, the way he would have liked to do. That would satisfy Snape the bully far too much.

“And you did not think to inform me of this?” Snape asked in a whisper-hiss Harry might have liked trying to translate into Parseltongue under different circumstances.

“I didn’t even know what Parseltongue was until Theo and Blaise explained it to me, sir. I thought the snake was speaking because it was magical, and that Malfoy was stupid not to try speaking it to it and bringing it back to his side.”

Snape closed his eyes and pinched his nose for a moment. Harry looked back at him without meeting his eyes directly. It didn’t seem like a smart idea to do that much anymore, not when he got headaches when he did.

“There are people who will be very upset at the idea that you are a Parselmouth, Potter, because the Dark Lord was one.”

“Yes, sir. That’s why I didn’t tell anyone in another House.”

“You should have told me, so that I could be prepared to protect you when the secret was revealed.”

Harry didn’t mean to, but he laughed. Snape at once leaned in and stared at Harry like he was about to spring on him. Harry stared back without meeting his eyes and wished for the snake.

“Do tell me what amuses you so much, Mr. Potter.”

“You gave me the ring because you wanted to protect me, sir. And I know that I didn’t use it the right way and so I’m responsible for the alarms never telling you I was in danger. But in the end, you didn’t protect me. I protected myself. And you didn’t protect me from Professor McGonagall and Dumbledore thinking I cheated, and you didn’t protect me from Malfoy last year, and you didn’t protect me from yourself. I can’t count on you. I can’t count on anyone but myself and Ron and Hermione.”

In reality, Harry wasn’t sure how much that last part was true. He hadn’t told them about his Parseltongue for a reason, after all. But he thought Snape would probably say something snide if he didn’t mention them.

Snape stared at him with very wide eyes. Harry just stared back and waited for Snape to find a way to blame this on him again.

Snape flowed to his feet with a snap of his robes. “Get out of my sight.”

Which was about what he’d expected. Harry just nodded, not mocking because he was plain tired, and then turned around and walked towards the door of the office.

“Mr. Potter.”

Harry glanced over his shoulder. Snape was standing behind him with his hands folded into the sleeves of his robe, and his gaze fastened on Harry, complicated and heavy.

“Have you considered,” Snape murmured, “that there may be factors beyond a simple desire to protect you influencing my behavior?”

Harry blinked. “Of course, sir. You have to protect other students. I know that.”

“That is not what I meant, Mr. Potter.”

“Then what did you mean, sir?”

Snape refused to answer. Harry shook his head and turned away. He waited to roll his eyes until he was sure that Snape wouldn’t see him do it.

Of course Snape hadn’t replied to the question. Of course. Harry was getting heartily sick of cryptic silences and people not telling him the truth because of some hidden requirement or fear or alliance or secret from the war.

At least Ron and Hermione were always honest, because they were blunt and wouldn’t know how to be anything else. Even if Harry wouldn’t fit into Gryffindor with them because he was a liar like other Slytherins, he knew that he would have been happier in Gryffindor than he was in Slytherin.

Then again, he had always known that his happiness wasn’t a priority.

*

“Are you sure that you aren’t the Heir of Slytherin?”

“You’re an idiot, Theo.”

Harry could feel the way that Theo was bristling and Blaise was paying sharp attention without looking up from his book. After all, this was the first time that he’d called one of them an idiot.

“But you can speak Parseltongue,” Theo said at last.

“And I have such motivation to go around setting a monster on cats. And Muggleborns like Finch-Fletchley, when I’m all but a Muggleborn myself.”

“You’re a half-blood. And it’s not unknown for people to be ashamed of their heritage, to seek to fit into the world that rejected them by doing something drastic…”

“Do you see Harry even trying to fit in with purebloods?” Blaise demanded. “Merlin, Theo, maybe you are an idiot.”

“Blaise, you know why you I need to know.”

Harry glanced up—his Charms essay wasn’t that fascinating—and watched Blaise and Theo face off over the ends of their beds. Silent conversation, he thought again, idly, and less bitterly than he once had. He just wasn’t meant to have it.

“I know,” Blaise said at last, turning his head a little to the side, and some of the tension drained from the air. “But that doesn’t mean Harry has the answers.”

“He could be the answer.”

“To what question?”

Theo turned around and stared at Harry as if he hadn’t expected Harry to be listening even though the conversation was clearly about him. “The question as to what I’m going to do,” he said at last.

“Going to do when you get out of Hogwarts?’

“That exactly. Yes.”

Blaise was watching Harry intently, which let Harry know that this conversation was more important than it seemed. Again. He hid an impatient sigh with a slight shrug. “Well, that’s pretty far away.”

“I have to decide sooner than that.”

“Why?”

Theo looked away.

“Fine,” Harry snapped, his irritation overflowing fast enough to make the snake stir under his pillow, “don’t tell me why. Hint and hide things and get angry at me for not knowing things like that I’m a Parselmouth, but don’t be surprised when I stay closer to Ron and Hermione than I am to you.” He turned huffily back to his essay.

There was probably more silent conversation behind him in the form of eyebrow raises and eye contact, but no one said anything, and Harry lost himself in the essay perforce. Then he heard the whisper of a Locking Charm, and whipped around with his own wand raised.

“It’s all right,” Blaise said softly, lowering his wand. “It’s just that if Theo is finally going to tell you the truth, then I want to make sure Crabbe and Goyle and Malfoy stay out in the common room where they belong.”

Harry didn’t say anything, just waited. Theo sat up and glared at Blaise. “You kept it quiet, too.”

“Because it wasn’t my secret to reveal. But you know that I’ve thought for a while that Harry is what we need, and you just keep pushing for more and more evidence.”

Harry sighed. “So you want me to save you or something? Look, I’m going to defend your lives from things like those Ravenclaws who cast at us no matter what. So you can count on that. But I’m not interested in—debts and balances and all this careful Slytherin bollocks. So you might as well give up on thinking of me as a friend if that’s what this is based on.”

Theo closed his eyes. Harry glanced at Blaise. Blaise made a little sawing motion with his hand, so Harry waited, as difficult as it was.

“I need someone who can make sure that I’m not forced into the Dark Lord’s service,” Theo finally whispered.

“Your father would do that to you?”

Theo gave a bitter laugh and opened his eyes. “I know that you know my father was a Death Eater, Harry. What makes you think that kind of thing would be beyond him?”

“I would have thought he’d want you to serve the Dark Lord willingly, not be forced into it.”

Theo paused. Then he said, “All right, there’s some merit to that. And so far, he does think I’m willing. But he won’t believe that forever. And he loves me, but the Mark on his arm means he loves the Dark Lord more. I need someone who can stand up to him, someone who can shelter me from his demands.”

“Sure.”

Theo’s eyes widened to the point that it looked like it might hurt. Selfishly, Harry hoped it did. “What?” he croaked.

“I’ll do it not because I want something from you, but because it’s the decent thing to do. So there. You can stop worrying. Problem solved. Tell me what you need, and I’ll do it.”

Theo stared at him with his mouth slightly open this time. Blaise laugh-groaned. “I told you, Theo.”

“But it—no one else would do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because they’d want something for it, or they wouldn’t care enough.”

“I think Ron would do it. Or Hermione. They might not have the power to do it, but they would.”

“Weasley would demand something from me. He wouldn’t trust my allegiances without some sort of oath. And Granger would—she would say that I ought to go to Dumbledore or something. She wouldn’t just offer her help.”

“I think you’re wrong.”

Theo shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. The problem is that I wanted someone who would protect me because it’s the right thing to do, as you phrase it, and wouldn’t ask for much in return. But they also had to be a Slytherin or someone I could trust would be honest with me and not try to take advantage of me.”

“And that description doesn’t fit a lot of Slytherins.”

“No.” Theo stared at him intensely. “And then I found what I seemed to need, but—no one is like you.”

“Honest?” Harry wanted to roll his eyes, but, well, he had used to think like that, when he grew up with the Dursleys, who lied all the time. It took him a while to see that some others just believed their lies, instead of lying themselves.

“Protective and keeping your word and straightforward and practical and powerful and—” Theo waved his hand. “I couldn’t afford to be mistaken, in case it turned out that you were pretending and you managed to trick me.”

“I have never wanted anything less than I wanted to trick you.”

Theo gave him an unhappy smile. “I know. But that’s the way I felt.”

Harry nodded slowly. All right, he could understand that. “So are we real friends now, or whatever?”

“Yes,” Theo said. His eyes were burning with something Harry couldn’t put a name to. Maybe more evidence that he was on the outside when it came to Slytherins. “I trust you. I trust that you are who you say you are.”

Harry glanced at Blaise. Blaise lifted his hands. “I trusted you months ago. I wanted Theo to trust you. But he insisted on pursuing this absurd course.”

“It is not absurd. Not for what’s at stake.”

Harry just nodded, finally. He could sort of understand if he thought of what would have happened if he had trusted someone to get him out of the Dursleys’ house and then it hadn’t worked out. It had been years since he’d trusted that someone would, though. He had just always thought it would be up to him.

“You thought someone you trusted and couldn’t trust would betray you to your father?”

“Or give me back to him.”

“It’s all right, Theo. I wouldn’t do that.”

“I know that now.”

And going back and arguing about what had happened in the past wouldn’t solve the problem, Harry thought. He sighed and stood up to cross the distance between their beds. He clasped Theo’s shoulder and said, “Fine, we all know that now.”

Theo said softly, “I’m sorry that I was too scared to stand up for you in front of Flint. And I’m sorry that I accused you of keeping secrets from us when you didn’t even know about your Parseltongue.”

Blaise clapped his hands, a sharp sound that echoed the way the door had begun to rattle, probably from one of the other boys who had been locked out. “So! Now we’re real friends, and we can get on to discussing something more interesting, like why Weasley is obsessed with the worst Quidditch team to ever exist.”

That startled a laugh out of Harry, and by the time Blaise released the Locking Charm on the door and Malfoy strutted in, both Harry and Theo were arguing about whether Ron’s obsession was worthless or not.

Malfoy tried to say something loud about how Ron himself was worthless, but Harry turned and looked at him while lazily stroking the snake’s head, and Malfoy turned and stomped into the bathroom.

“Not the least of your good qualities,” said Theo, with a faint smile in Harry’s direction, “is that you put him in his place.”

Harry just smiled, because he didn’t know how to answer that. Or how to answer the snake’s hissing complaints.

“You can change things into things. Change that one into a rat and let me eat him.”

Harry had to admit that that would at least solve the Malfoy problem.

Chapter 19

Notes:

Thank you again for all the reviews!

“We’ve got to find out. It was a Gryffindor this time.”

Harry hid a sigh. He could see why a Gryffindor would matter more to Ron than a Hufflepuff, and he also didn’t think tiny little Colin Creevey deserved to be Petrified, any more than anyone else. But the plan Ron and Hermione wanted him to agree to wasn’t going to work.

“I don’t know why you think anyone in Slytherin is likely to know more than anyone else,” he said, and finished the last sentence of his Potions essay. Snape would glare at it, of course, but at least it was done. “It isn’t like any of them have been going around bragging that they know who the Heir of Slytherin is.”

“Yeah, but Malfoy’s been cheering him on,” Hermione said. “I personally think it’s Malfoy.”

Harry snorted. “Malfoy is weak and stupid. If he was the Heir, he would be bragging so hard about it that you couldn’t walk around the school without hearing echoes of it.”

“But what if he’s keeping quiet because his father told him to?”

“Nothing can keep Malfoy quiet.”

Except the snake and my Parseltongue, maybe.

“I just think you’re wrong about that, Harry,” Hermione said, with the kind of sweet earnestness that Harry found endearing when she was talking about ways to free house-elves. It was grating otherwise, though. “We have to find out. Get him to talk about it when he doesn’t know who he’s talking to.”

Harry blinked. “Exactly what are you thinking about?”

Hermione beamed at him.

*

Theo eyed Harry when he put his cauldron down next to Theo’s in Potions, but didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then he nodded to Ron and Hermione across the classroom. “Had a fight with your Gryffindor friends?”

“Yeah.”

Theo didn’t say anything else as they worked together for a while. Blaise was partnered with Malfoy today, which pleased neither of them, Harry thought, Blaise for obvious reasons and Malfoy because he liked being able to order other people around. But it wasn’t Harry’s problem, and he kept his head down and worked until they had about five minutes before the potions were supposed to be turned in.

Theo cleared his throat. “What about?”

“Not here.”

Harry wanted to grimace at himself a second later. He sounded all gruff and demanding, like Flint when he ordered people around in the common room. Who did he think he was?

(Well, Flint used to order people around in the common room. Most of the time now, people just avoided Flint’s eyes or pretended not to hear or laughed at him. It was—sort of an interesting result of their “duel.”)

But Theo just accepted that with a nod, and waited for Harry after they got out of Potions. Blaise was waiting, too. Harry half-smiled at him. He’d wanted to wait so they wouldn’t get in trouble for talking in Snape’s class, but it was nice that he would only have to tell the story once.

“I didn’t think you could do anything that would make Weasley or Granger upset with you.”

Harry scratched the back of his neck and led them down the corridor a little ways away from the Potions classroom. Probably no one would come up behind them since it was lunch next, but Harry had learned the hard way not to take his safety or privacy for granted.

“They came up with a plan to spy on Malfoy,” Harry said, turning around and leaning against the wall once they’d found a little side corridor that petered out in a dead end. “They think he’s the Heir of Slytherin, and they wanted me to help trap him. I said no.”

“You did?”

Blaise sent an elbow into Theo’s ribs without looking away from Harry. “Of course you did,” he said softly. “You’re a true Slytherin.”

Harry grimaced. “No one else thinks I am.”

“Including you?”

Harry knew he had paused a moment too long.

“You are,” Theo said, and exchanged a glance with Blaise. “I understand that it might take you a while to think that…”

Harry gave an impatient little jerk of his head and nodded. “Yes, fine, it doesn’t matter that much. But anyway, I told them that I wouldn’t help them sneak into the Slytherin common room under Polyjuice.”

“Polyjuice?” Theo’s voice soared, and Harry was doubly glad that he’d found an out-of-the-way place to have this conversation. “Do you—where do they think they’re going to buy or steal Polyjuice?”

“Hermione was sure she could brew it.”

“She’s probably right. Granger is smart,” Blaise said, although he was looking at Theo in a way that made Harry sure they were having a silent conversation right in front of him, which he thought was rude. “Although that leaves the question open of where she was going to get the ingredients.”

“She was going to steal them from Snape.”

This time, both Blaise and Theo gaped at him. Harry shrugged. “I know, but she seemed to think she could come up with some kind of distraction that would allow her to steal them during class. And that Snape would probably blame me, but he would do that anyway, so I should just take that blame so they could investigate Malfoy,” he added grumpily. That was what made him more upset than Hermione’s plan to invade the Slytherin common room.

“That’s ridiculous,” Theo whispered.

“I know. Malfoy is not the Heir of Slytherin.”

“No. I mean, that she would try to set up a theft like that during Snape’s actual class, and expect you to cooperate with it and get in trouble just because she has this mad theory about Malfoy.”

Harry blinked. Then he shrugged a little. “It’s driving her mad that no one is investigating the Petrifications properly. And it probably feels more than a little personal that the latest victim is another Gryffindor Muggleborn.”

But he felt a warm current moving through him. To see that Theo and Blaise were outraged on his behalf was…

It was something.

“Well, we’ll make sure that doesn’t happen,” said Theo, with a nod to Blaise. “We’ll warn Professor Snape that someone would be trying to steal ingredients for Polyjuice Potion, and he’ll lock down those stores. They’re not the kind of ingredients that we would use for brewing potions in this year, anyway.”

“You can’t!”

“Why not?”

“Then Hermione would know that I told!”

Theo rolled his eyes. “We’re not going to reveal the source of our information, Harry. And really, Granger should know better than to try it, anyway. There’s no saying that it would be you who prevented her from doing it. It could have happened just because it’s really bloody stupid to try and steal anything from a professor, but especially Snape.”

Harry opened his mouth, then closed it again.

“What?” Blaise asked softly.

“Whether or not she knows that I told you, she could still blame me.”

“Then she’s not a very good friend,” Blaise said, and shook his head when Harry glared at him. “I’m willing to believe that she’s smart and that her blood doesn’t matter, Harry. But not that she’s a good friend because she blames you for not going along with this stupid plan.”

Harry took a deep breath and nodded a little. It was a stupid plan. Even if Hermione didn’t believe Harry about Malfoy not being the Heir of Slytherin—which was a little hurtful in the first place—she couldn’t think that Malfoy would admit it if she just sneaked in and questioned him.

“Thanks, Blaise.”

“Don’t mention it. Real friends know each other’s worth.”

“Like the worth of being the butt of funny stories,” Theo said, faux-innocently.

“Theodore, if you are going to tell that story—”

“You can’t hex me if I just drop hints about it. You said.”

Harry trailed behind Theo and Blaise as they went to lunch. His Slytherin friends were bickering and pushing each other, but they were also laughing, and at the moment, Harry had to admit that he felt more at home around them than he did Ron and Hermione.

Ron and Hermione, who he still hadn’t told about his Parseltongue and the snake.

Harry sighed. He would worry about it later. Merlin knew that he had a full plate to worry about, right now.

*

“Why do you have so many things? I should have things, too.”

“I already gave you a rat yesterday,” Harry said, although in truth he was staring in shock at the pile of gifts at the foot of his bed. He honestly hadn’t thought he would get anything from anyone except maybe Hagrid. After all, Ron and Hermione were still angry at him, and Theo and Blaise were…

Harry had got them gifts, but that didn’t mean they would return the favor.

“Give me another rat.”

“I can still see the lump from the other one in your middle.”

The snake argued in tones that Harry didn’t bother to listen to. He sat down and tore into his presents. Malfoy was bragging about how he had more than Harry but so what? His gifts couldn’t possibly mean as much to him as the ones at the foot of Harry’s bed did to Harry.

Ron give him a bunch of sweets that Harry could see casting Preservation Charms on to save for months, and Hermione gave him a homework planner that had bright flashing dates in many colors. Harry smiled at it and put it down next to the gift from Hagrid, a huge teacup that Harry would shrink to a smaller size.

Then Harry took a deep breath and faced the gifts from Blaise and Theo.

He hadn’t got anything from them last year, of course, but they hadn’t been friends then. Now he ran his fingers gently down the collar of the green cloak that Blaise had got him, and picked up the thick green scarf from Theo.

It wasn’t the most thoughtful or personalized gift ever, but the collar was of a size that could hide the snake, and the scarf would help, too, in case Harry gave in to the snake’s pleas and brought it outside the Slytherin dormitory. And anyway, Harry had got them not the most personalized gifts ever, either, with a silver-colored quill for Theo—who’d complained when the one he had broke in the middle of term—and a blue shoulder bag for Blaise—who had complained that he didn’t have one in a color he liked.

Harry had owl-ordered both the quill and the bag, and then sent Hedwig and a school owl off with them. He hoped that Blaise and Theo had got them in Christmas, but he thought they probably had, since Hedwig had come back already.

“Just going to gape at your gifts like you never got any before, Potter?”

“Do you think you could eat Malfoy if I made you bigger?” Harry asked the snake casually. Even though Malfoy couldn’t understand Parseltongue, of course, he spluttered and sank back, turning his shoulder to Harry with a hasty nod.

“Could you make me bigger? Then you can make the rats bigger.’

Harry wrapped the scarf around his neck and the snake curled underneath it, and they argued amiably about whether the snake would ever want to come outside with him while the snow lasted. Harry did leave the snake in the dormitory when he went down to the Christmas feast, but Malfoy didn’t bother him, and that was fine.

What happened the next day was not fine.

*

Harry rubbed irritably at his eyes. They always itched and burned when he’d spent too long looking at homework, but he thought it was stupid that it was happening in the middle of the common room when he’d just been reading a book and sometimes looking up to gaze into the fire.

“What are the strange scents?”

Harry looked around. Not many Slytherins had stayed for the holidays, and there were none very close. “What do you mean?” he asked the snake.

“There are strange scents that came in through the door of the common room.”

Harry looked up with a little intake of breath. He’d been looking towards the common room door when his eyes had started to burn and the air had seemed to waver, but he’d just assumed it was his eyesight as usual.

Now that he was watching, he did see a few blurry patches of air that had come in behind Malfoy. They stood in the middle of the common room, or the blurriness floated, and then they separated and went towards the couch where Malfoy had sat down.

“Do you know the scents?” Harry asked softly as he drew his wand. His first thought, which was probably stupid, was that they were Slytherins who were planning to do something to Malfoy and then accuse Harry of doing it.

“Yes. They are the boy and girl I have smelled on you before.

Harry might still have wondered what the snake meant, but there was only one girl Harry regularly spent time with.

Ron. Hermione.

Harry stood up and cast in the direction of the couch that Malfoy was sitting on, because he’d lost track of the blurriness in his shock. “Finite Incantatem!” he cast as hard as he could, and there was a distinct snapping sound.

What must have been Disillusionment Charms faded as Harry stared with numb shock. That was an upper-level spell—but of course, if Hermione had been confident that she could brew Polyjuice, she was probably also confident that she could learn to Disillusion herself and Ron.

Hermione screamed a little as she and Ron appeared in the middle of the common room. “Harry!”

“Potter?”

“Mate!” Ron was rapidly turning so red that it looked as if all his freckles were dissolving.

Harry was breathing fast. He didn’t even know why. He just stared at them and then blurted, “I told you that Malfoy wasn’t the Heir of Slytherin! I don’t know why you can’t bloody believe me!”

“You let them in here, Potter?”

“They followed you in, actually, Malfoy, shut up,” Harry snapped, and turned back to his Gryffindor friends. “If Malfoy was the Heir, he would brag about it endlessly. I told you that. He can’t ever shut up about even minor secrets like that duel he tried to bait you into last year, Ron, why do you think he could keep quiet about something as major as this?”

“Potter!”

“Harry.” Hermione was white instead of red. “Why is there—why is there a snake on the floor beside you?”

“Pick me up.”

Harry closed his eyes for a moment, and then he bent down and picked up the snake. He’d brought this situation on himself by not telling them. “Because I’m a Parselmouth,” he said. “Malfoy conjured the snake a month or so ago to try and attack me, and I adopted it.”

Ron and Hermione just stared at him and gaped. Malfoy was spluttering stupid things off to the side, but none of them paid him any attention. Harry faced his friends and saw their expressions shut down.

“Come on, Hermione, let’s go,” Ron whispered, and they turned and walked towards the door out.

“Yes, get out, Weasel, before I tell Professor Snape that you were here,” Malfoy sneered.

Harry watched the look Hermione cast at him over her shoulder as they left, and thought he’d probably lost their friendship. He felt exhausted and very old.

“You do not smell happy.”

“No.” Harry tilted his head so that his cheek touched the snake’s scales. “I’m not. I’m not very much.”

Chapter 20

Notes:

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Harry wasn’t happy, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that he only had a few friends, and he was going to make sure that he could hold onto them.

So he waited under his Cloak near the bottom of the stairs up to Gryffindor Tower, and he whipped it off when Ron and Hermione came down by themselves after the rest of the House had gone to breakfast, whispering busily to each other.

“Harry!”

“What are you doing here?”

Ron was standing between Harry and Hermione, and Harry took a long, deep breath. He didn’t want to look as though he were trying to hurt anyone, but they were going to have this conversation. “I want to talk to you.”

“You’re a Parselmouth,” Hermione whispered. “You didn’t tell us.”

“Much like you didn’t tell me that you were going to try and sneak into the Slytherin common room under Disillusionment Charms after I refused to help you with the Polyjuice plan,” Harry retorted. He watched as Hermione swallowed a little and kept his attention on her. She was the softer target. “We can keep secrets from each other, Hermione. And this was one I thought you would get upset about.”

“Parselmouths are like You-Know-Who and Salazar Slytherin! They’re Dark wizards!”

It seemed that he would have to deal with Ron after all. Harry shifted around and stared at him. “Name one terrible or evil thing you have ever seen me do.”

“You didn’t tell us you were a Parselmouth!”

“Because if I had, you would have reacted just like this!”

Hermione took a step forwards and got in between him and Ron. “Can we go somewhere private to talk about this?” she hissed, glancing from one face to another. “Somewhere not out in the open where anyone could find this out if they just happened to come along at the right time?”

Harry restrained his temper and nodded. He looked at Ron, who seemed as if he wanted to go on shouting. But after a long moment, he got his temper visibly under control and nodded, too.

“Good.” Hermione turned on her heel with a little flip of her robes. “Come on. I know a place.”

*

The “place” turned out to be the second-floor girls’ bathroom where Harry had found Mrs. Norris Petrified. He wrinkled his nose but didn’t say anything when Ron and Hermione turned to face him. Of course they would want to make sure that no other Gryffindors saw them talking to the nasty evil Slytherin.

Harry pushed that thought away. That was the sort of thing they might be thinking, but he wasn’t going to indulge them. He didn’t have so many friends that he wanted to lose any of them.

“Why didn’t you tell us you were a Parselmouth and had a snake?” Hermione asked.

“Why didn’t you tell me that you were going to sneak in under Disillusionment Charms when your Polyjuice plan failed?”

“It only failed because you refused to help!”

“You wanted me to take the blame from Snape, someone who already hates me. Of course I refused!”

“Okay!” Hermione thrust herself in between Harry and Ron, waving her hands around, as their voices echoed off the bathroom walls. “The important thing is that we get answers to our first questions. Harry, why didn’t you tell us that you were a Parselmouth and had a snake?”

Harry took a deep breath. “You’ll answer the one about the Disillusionment Charms?”

“Of course.”

“I thought you would react badly. That you would decide I was Dark and evil without giving me a chance to defend myself.”

“But you kept it a secret!”

“And you reacted like that anyway,” Harry said, keeping his voice calm and even with an effort. “It seemed to me that I’d have to deal with this reaction no matter what, so I might as well take the course that gave me peace for a little while.”

“Why do you have to talk to it?”

“Because it would have bitten a bunch of people otherwise and might have killed them.”

“But then you could stop talking to it after that.”

“Not when it won’t let me get rid of it.”

Harry stood staring at Ron, who stared back. Then Ron made a little angry noise and turned his head away. “Does Slytherin know all about this?”

“Yes, because Malfoy conjured the snake to attack me in the middle of the common room and I spoke to it because I thought it was a magical snake who could communicate with anybody. I didn’t even realize that I was speaking a language other than English until the other Slytherins started to react to it.”

That brought a reluctant laugh out of Ron. Harry perked up while trying to look as if he wasn’t. This probably at least meant Ron could be brought around, although he wasn’t sure about Hermione yet.

“Only you, Harry. I suppose you didn’t know anything about Parseltongue because you grew up in the Muggle world?”

“Yeah. I only spoke to one snake before, and I thought that snake was magical, too. Or that I was just sort of understanding what it said to me because of my freakishness.”

“It’s awful that your relatives called it that,” Hermione broke in.

“I agree. Your turn. Why didn’t you tell me about the Disillusionment Charms plan?”

Hermione hesitated, long enough that Harry started to open his mouth. But then she took a breath and shook her head. “The Heir of Slytherin has to be a Slytherin, Harry. Nothing else makes sense. And Malfoy is the most prejudiced wanker in this school.”

“Has it occurred to you that he might be the only one who expresses it that openly?”

From the way Hermione flushed, it hadn’t. She opened her mouth, and then said weakly, “But it makes sense that it would be someone in our year, doesn’t it?”

“Why?”

“Because—well, if you aren’t the Heir, then it’s probably an attempt to target you, and you said Malfoy hates you!”

“Given that he hated me last year, too, that doesn’t make much sense.” Harry rolled his eyes a little when Hermione crossed her arms. “You might as well say that it was a first-year since it only started after they were Sorted.”

“You don’t have a suspect, either, do you?”

“Neither do you!”

“We haven’t proved that Malfoy isn’t the Heir,” Ron said. He had calmed down, but he was still watching Harry in a shrewd way that made him uncomfortable. “Just that you don’t think so.”

“I told you why I don’t think so.”

“You have as much evidence excluding him as we do including him,” Ron said, and rolled his eyes when Harry glared at him. “Come on, you have to admit that he’s the one prancing around whinging about Mudbloods and how he hopes the Heir finishes his work.”

“Yeah,” Harry said, because he did have to admit that, and talking about how some of his other Housemates felt would probably involve him in an argument about how he could listen to that kind of thing and not talk back. And then he would have to explain about how tired he felt all the time.

“So help us think of another plan to exclude him from consideration.”

“As soon as Hermione keeps her promise and tells me why you didn’t tell me about the Disillusionment Charms plan.”

“I did, Harry!”

“No, you just said that Malfoy was prejudiced and it has to be him. Which is something I already knew you thought and not an answer to the question.”

Hermione turned a slow, bright red that made Harry think he’d never really seen her blush before. She looked at Ron. Ron looked at her. Harry leaned on the wall with his arms folded and sort of wished he’d brought the snake, so there would be someone here who was fully on his side.

Hermione finally swallowed and said, “We thought you would try to stop us, the way you did with the potion.”

“Do you know why I stopped you then?”

“No.”

“Because you would have blamed it on me and made Snape hate me even more than he does. Not to mention that doing it in the middle of his class, even if you didn’t blame me, would probably make him suspect me just because that’s the way he does things. I shouldn’t have to get in trouble because you can’t think of a better plan.”

“The Polyjuice would have worked.”

“Are you listening to a single word I said, Hermione?”

She stared at him. Harry folded his arms harder. He could feel his heart aching in his chest again, but this time, he didn’t have a snake to rest his chin on. “It doesn’t matter whether it would have worked or not. The problem is that you thought I should get in trouble instead of coming up with something else.”

“There was nothing else!”

“You thought of the Disillusionment Charms after the Polyjuice, right?”

“Yes, but at the time I talked to you about the Polyjuice, I didn’t know I would think of another plan!”

“In the future,” Harry said, as carefully and precisely as he could, “I would really appreciate if you tried to think of a plan that didn’t involve throwing blame on me and making a professor hate me. Okay?’

“Oh.” Hermione blinked. “I didn’t—I didn’t think you would mind, Harry.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re always involved in something,” she said with a little shrug. “Running away from You-Know-Who last year and finding the cat that the Heir of Slytherin Petrified and now this Parseltongue thing.”

Harry thought of several responses he could say, and discarded them all. In the end, he just shook his head. “I mind a lot, Hermione. Please don’t ever come up with something that casts blame on me again.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

From her wide eyes and earnest voice, Harry thought it would probably be a promise she would keep. He turned to Ron. “And are you so angry about me being a Parselmouth that you’re not going to be my friend anymore?”

“No.” Ron gave him a shaky grin. “As long as you don’t speak it around me, and you won’t, right?”

“No.”

No. I can trust Ron and Hermione with things like freeing house-elves that I would never trust Theo and Blaise with. And it’s more than clear that there are things I can trust Theo and Blaise with that I would never trust Ron and Hermione with.

*

“Potter.”

Harry looked warily at Malfoy. It was the last night of the Christmas holidays, and the other students would be coming back tomorrow. Harry could admit that he was looking forward to it, and not just because he had missed Theo and Blaise. Being the only other boy in the dormitories with Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle had been awkward as hell.

“Yeah, Malfoy?” Harry asked, when the flurry of insults he’d expected about his blood status and his friends didn’t come.

“I didn’t report your Gryffindor friends being in the common room to Professor Snape.”

“Okay. Why?”

Malfoy paused a long moment. Harry drew his wand, but kept it down near the side of his leg so that Malfoy wouldn’t know he’d done it.

“You’re scary,” Malfoy whispered at last. “No one else in our year could have won that duel with Flint. And I don’t want to get on your bad side.”

Harry again thought of several responses, the way he had when he was talking with Ron and Hermione, and threw them away. He nodded. “That’s fine. Just continue not reporting me for things like that, when I didn’t even know they were going to do it anyway and I exposed them, and we’ll get along fine.”

“Are we allies?”

“I wouldn’t go that far, Malfoy,” Harry said, bluffing a little, since he didn’t really know where Malfoy drew the line between allies and friends. But he certainly wasn’t going to be friendly to Malfoy, even a little bit. “But maybe we can be something other than enemies in the future if you play your car—Gobstones right.” It was a saying he had heard the other students use, so he thought it was real and not just something they might have done to confuse the Muggle-raised ones.

Malfoy nodded, looking relieved, and turned back to his own trunk as if he had never spoken to Harry in the first place.

Harry stared at the wall for a moment, and then shook his head. Well, at least he would have plenty to tell Theo and Blaise when they asked how his holidays had been.

“I deserve a rat.”

“Why?”

“Because I am hungry.”

Harry went to get one of the rats that he’d caught earlier that week and put under a Preservation Charm, reflecting as he did that things would be simpler if all his friends were as straightforward as snakes.

Chapter 21

Notes:

Thank you again for all the reviews!

“You had a lot of fun without us.”

Theo’s voice was so soft and neutral that Harry just rolled his eyes. “Yes. Fun. Having to argue with two of my friends and talk with Malfoy about things I have no interest in.” Malfoy appeared to have taken the idea that Hary might be his ally to mean that he could babble at Harry about Potions ingredients and the like and Harry wouldn’t kill him. Which was true, but it didn’t meet Harry’s standards of friendship.

“So they know about your Parseltongue now.”

“Yeah.”

Theo studied him in a long silence that got to the point that Harry turned his attention back to his Charms book. He wasn’t really getting the theory behind Color-Changing Charms. It ought to be simple, or it seemed like that, but it wasn’t.

“Keep talking to us, Harry.”

“I told you everything that happened, Blaise.”

“But not how you felt about it.”

Harry raised his head and eyed Blaise. Blaise was sitting up with his own Charms book spread in front of him, and smiling, unlike Theo. But that smile was sharp-edged, and Harry wasn’t sure if he should trust it.

Harry shrugged a little. “I was upset when I thought Ron and Hermione would turn against me. But I managed to argue them into accepting that I had a reason to not want them to use the Polyjuice plan, and we agreed that it’s unlikely Malfoy is the Heir of Slytherin.”

“Extremely unlikely.”

“Not true.”

Harry nodded. “So that was what I felt.”

“It must have been deeper than that.”

“Why do you care, Blaise?” Harry shut his book and saw Blaise’s eyes widen. “I told you what I felt. I’m not lying. I’m not keeping secrets from you, the way you seem to think I am all the time. I’m being honest. I don’t know what to tell you.”

Blaise tapped his fingers on the edge of his leg and, unusually, did not glance at Theo. “We just wish we could have been here for you, is all,” he said in a muffled voice. “That we could have shared the—conflict.”

“And fanned the flames?”

“We wouldn’t do that.”

Harry stared at Blaise. He had heard once that it was an effective technique for shutting up or shaming someone who was lying, but it had never worked on Dudley. Then again, Dudley wasn’t subtle or cunning in the way Blaise was.

And it did appear to be working. Blaise shifted in place within seconds. Then he blurted, “We would be pleased if your Gryffindor friends were gone because they’re inept idiots, but we wouldn’t try to take them from you.”

“There’s two of you to make that promise.”

“I wouldn’t try to take them from you, either.” Theo flopped back on his bed, stared up at his canopy, and sighed. “I just—things are more intense around you, Harry. All Blaise and I did was open gifts and talk with our families.”

“I would give anything to do that.”

“Oh,” Theo said, after a long, silent, and profoundly uncomfortable moment. “Right.”

Blaise didn’t say anything at all, keeping his eyes averted. Harry stood up, grabbed the snake from beneath his pillow, and went out into the common room.

He was going to keep being friends with Blaise and Theo the same way he was going to keep being friends with Ron and Hermione, but honestly, sometimes all of them were too much and he wanted to be alone.

*

Harry banged on the door of Snape’s office and ignored the way that the snake hissed in discontent on his shoulder. Yes, they had gone to a private place Harry had found in the dungeons where he could clear his head and the snake could eat rats without disgusting the other boys in the room, but this was more important than that.

“There must be rats later.”

“There will be rats later,” Harry hissed in response just as Snape’s door swung open.

The man looked thunderous, but that didn’t matter. Harry gasped out what he had to say. “Sir, there’s a huge snake in the school. I heard a voice speaking Parseltongue in the walls. That must be what the beast in Slytherin’s Chamber is. A gigantic snake.”

Snape grabbed his arm and dragged him into the room. Harry went limp and started to swing around to the side, prepared to move so that Snape couldn’t hit him. But the professor released him and moved back with his hands raised.

“I will not harm you,” he breathed. “But I must know what you are saying. Where did you hear this—serpent?”

“In the depths of the dungeons, sir. Moving around inside the walls.”

“How near the common room?”

“Probably six or seven corridors away. I don’t remember. I wasn’t really counting, and then when I heard the thing—I ran.”

Snape nodded, his eyes distant. Harry watched him, wondering what he would do next, but wasn’t that surprised when Snape strode to the fireplace and cast in some Floo powder. “Headmaster Dumbledore’s office!”

Harry hoped he was controlling his grimace. He didn’t want to somehow be blamed for hearing the snake the way that he had been for breaking the Bludger.

“Yes, Severus, what is it?”

“Mr. Potter has uncovered a clue that might help lead us to Slytherin’s Chamber.”

It abruptly occurred to Harry that he would have to reveal to the Headmaster that he was a Parselmouth. He winced, and then bit his lip and stood straighter. Well, it was spreading outside his House, and if people hated him for it, that was not his fault. He would just need to get used to being sneered at and stared at.

“I will bite them! The ones who are making you tense!”

“It’s all right,” Harry whispered to the snake, and saw the way that Snape’s foot twitched a little even though he was kneeling with his head in the fire, talking to Dumbledore. Harry shut up, and only petted the snake when it twined around his neck. It went under the collar of his robe, grumbling all the while.

Harry couldn’t make out everything the professors were saying to each other, but Snape finally stood up with an incredibly sour expression and twitched his head at Harry. “Professor Dumbledore says that we’re to go through.”

“Yes, sir,” Harry said, and hesitated. “How do I use it?”

“You’ve never used the Floo before?”

Harry met Snape’s eyes and held them, contrary to what he usually did now. He wanted Snape to see that he was telling the truth. “No, sir. It’s not exactly common for people who grew up in the Muggle world.”

Snape’s face cleared of all expression. He reached for a cup on the mantel and took a pinch of green powder out of it, the same kind that he’d thrown in to contact Dumbledore. “You are to throw this in the fire and say Headmaster’s office. The Floo will cause you to experience an intense spinning sensation and come out of the fireplace in Professor Dumbledore’s office.”

It sounded a bit daft to Harry, but he nodded and reached out for the Floo powder bowl when Snape offered it. “All right, sir.”

It turned out that intense spinning sensation was an understatement for what could have been a vertical rollercoaster. Harry stumbled out into the Headmaster’s office and nearly hit his desk. He bent over and thought he was going to vomit for a moment.

“Ah. Perhaps a Stomach-Soother for young Harry, Severus?”

Harry managed to straighten up before Snape could reach him with a potion. He didn’t want to look weak. “No, thanks, sir. I’m all right.”

“Then perhaps a lemon drop?”

Harry wondered why a sweet would be soothing to the stomach of someone who had been about to vomit, but he just shook his head tightly and took his place on the chair in front of the Headmaster’s desk. Dumbledore stared at him and gave a little sigh.

“We have not been good friends, have we, Harry?”

“You, ah, you helped Hagrid when I asked, sir,” Harry said, because it was the only thing he could think of to say. “I thought that was good of you.”

“But you did not feel that you could come to me about your Parseltongue.”

“I thought you would blame me. The way you did with the Bludger.”

That was part of the reason, of course, but Harry also just didn’t assume that he could go to the Headmaster about it. Why would he? It wasn’t something Dumbledore could have done anything about, and he’d only spoken to the Headmaster a few times.

“I hold myself responsible for your safety. With you being who you are, and Sorted into the most difficult House for you…”

“That’s because the Sorting Hat is stubborn.”

“Be that as it may, I do want you to know that you may trust me with secrets like this in the future.”

What other secrets like this could I have? But Harry just nodded, and bit his lip, and stared at the floor. “Are you going to send people to look for the snake that I heard sliding through the walls, sir?”

“Of course. We do need to pinpoint the exact area, and I don’t know that we will be able to locate the Chamber from there. After all, people have already searched for it many times and haven’t managed to find it. But we will do our best.”

So I can’t blame him if they don’t find it or something?

Harry just kept his eyes down as he nodded. “Thank you, sir. I hate living in fear, and I know the other students do, too. It’ll be good if we can find and stop the beast, even if we don’t catch the Heir.”

“I suppose that you don’t have any suspicions of who it is, Harry?”

“No, sir.”

“You haven’t been approached by any other Parselmouths in the school?”

Harry wondered for one moment what they would say if he called the snake another Parselmouth. But he just shook his head. “No, sir. I didn’t even realize that I was speaking a magical language at first. I just thought there are magical talking snakes and I couldn’t understand why no one else was talking to it.”

Dumbledore laughed. “What a delightful introduction to such a gift!”

Harry smiled, but kept his eyes aimed at the floor. “I don’t really know why I’m here, sir,” he said, in as respectful a voice as he could. “Was there—was there something you wanted me to do, other than tell you about the corridor where I heard the snake?”

“In fact, Mr. Potter, I was wondering if you knew much about the history of Parseltongue.”

“I know that mostly Dark wizards speak it, sir, and that Salazar Slytherin and the Dark Lord did. I’m trying to prove that I can be a good person and speak it anyway.”

In truth, that wasn’t one of Harry’s main goals, but he didn’t know why he couldn’t say it. After all, he was trying to act enough like a good person that people would leave him alone and stop suspecting him of everything, and to do that, he had to be calm and boring on the surface.

Mostly boring, honestly.

“I wondered if you also knew that people will try to use you because of it.”

“Use me, sir? Speaking to snakes doesn’t seem very useful.”

“It is very useful! The most useful thing that can be done!”

Harry stifled a groan. He hoped that neither Snape nor Dumbledore would hear the snake, and decided that he would demand it not speak in front of people again.

And he did have to take note of the fact that it seemed to understand more English than he’d known. He wondered when that had started happening.

“I mean that they might use you to rally around as a substitute for Voldemort,” Dumbledore said. His eyes flickered to Harry’s robe collar, but he didn’t say anything about it, or about Snape flinching so hard that he almost fell off his chair. “I hope that you would never allow yourself to be taken in by such claims, or that you deserve some kind of special treatment because you are Slytherin’s Heir.”

“No, sir.”

“Excellent, my boy! I am refreshed to find you so humble. It is not often my experience with people who have special magical gifts.”

Harry just blinked, mostly at his hands. Why would he think that he deserved better treatment? He’d been at Hogwarts almost two years now, and if anyone was going to treat him better because of it, like the professors, surely they would have done it by now.

Dumbledore chattered on about lemon drops for a while, and told Harry that he could go back through the Floo, and the professors would certainly “do their best” to find the snake and stop it. Harry held in a sigh as he went back through the Floo again (which was just as awful as before). That didn’t mean they would stop it.

“Mr. Potter.”

Harry glanced up reluctantly. Snape was leaning forwards with his nostrils slightly flared and his arms folded.

“Yes, sir?” Harry asked, when it seemed clear that Snape wouldn’t speak as he did.

“I want to know why you think I took you to the Headmaster.”

“Because you wanted him to know about my Parseltongue, sir.”

“And why is that?”

“You think it’s the sort of thing he should know, sir.”

Snape made an irritated little hissing noise. “And why would that be?”

Harry’s patience broke abruptly, although he had learned to control his voice and his anger enough in Slytherin that he just spoke coldly. “I don’t know, sir. Maybe you want him to know who to blame when people find out about it and start spreading it around the school that I’m Slytherin’s Heir and should be strung up for Petrifying people.”

Snape’s eyes widened for a moment. Then he said, “No. It was to protect you, Potter. To show Albus that you barely knew what Parseltongue was yourself. Now you have a level of protection if people do try to blame you, in that you told us.”

All that Harry could think was that it couldn’t be that simple, not when Dumbledore had told Harry that someone could try to use him as an icon for Dark wizards, and not when Snape had known for a while but not told Dumbledore until he had to. But he nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“You do not trust me to protect you.”

Harry just looked at him.

“The failure of the ring was none of mine, Potter.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What would make you trust me?” Snape abruptly ran a hand through his hair and turned away, leaving Harry to stare in bewilderment at his back. “You know that there are certain other people I must protect, certain instructions I must obey. But I wish to build a relationship of trust with you as much as possible.”

Harry just stared at him. He thought of asking Snape to explain those instructions and people, but he was sure that the man would refuse. Just the thought of asking made him tired in the way that he’d been complaining about to the snake.

But he had to say something, it was clear, or Snape wouldn’t stop staring at him with those deep black eyes that seemed to be asking…

What? It was almost as if Snape were asking for forgiveness, as if he meant that bit about building the bond of trust, but Harry knew that he couldn’t really be. People didn’t do that for Harry.

He cleared his throat when Snape made an impatient move. “I suppose—if you just tell me next time before you take me the Floo and tell something about me to the Headmaster, sir. If you explain that you’re doing it.”

“You think there will be other things about you that the Headmaster needs to know about?”

“I hope not, sir. But the Parseltongue was a surprise. Something else could be, too.”

“It does not sound as if you trust me much, Potter.”

“I don’t trust anyone very much, sir.”

And it was true, Harry thought, even as Snape stared at him with narrowed eyes. The professors did strange things and didn’t treat him the way they should. Blaise and Theo were convinced he was keeping secrets. Hermione and Ron would have sacrificed him to their plans to find the Heir of Slytherin.

True, Harry trusted the snake to be a snake, honest in its own way, but not to help him or really look out for him.

Snape turned away with his jaw working for a long moment. Then he nodded. “You are dismissed, Mr. Potter.”

“Thank you, sir,” Harry said with genuine relief, and left. The snake slithered out from beneath the collar of his robe the moment they were clear of the man’s office.

“I do not like them. You should let me bite them.”

“No, we don’t need to do that,” Harry said, and wondered for a moment why Snape hadn’t kept him so that he could take Harry to the corridor where he had heard the snake. But then he dismissed that as unimportant. The important part was that he had been let go.

“Why don’t we need to bite them?” The snake nudged Harry hard with its triangular head. “It would make them stop annoying you.”

“Well, yes, because with your venom they would probably be dead.”

“That is a good reason.”

Harry gave up, and just listened to the snake’s hissed suggestions for revenge most of the way back to the common room. He had to admit, if he didn’t care about his future at Hogwarts at all, he might have taken some of them.

And in the meantime, he would put his head down and endure.

*

“Did the investigation into the corridor where I heard the snake find anything, sir?”

“No visible entrances.”

Snape didn’t look at Harry as he spoke the answer, busy as he was with rearranging the vials on the table in front of him. Harry sighed and turned around to leave, shaking his head a little when the snake suggested biting the professor. The snake was coming with Harry on a regular basis on his trips to class and out of the common room now.

He didn’t know how much of this was Snape’s disappointment that Harry didn’t trust him, and how much was something else. But he didn’t really expect the professors to do anything.

Which would have left it up to Harry, if he’d any idea who the Heir to Slytherin actually was.

Chapter 22

Notes:

Thank you again for all the reviews!

“Do you think that your snake could sense the snake that you heard?”

Harry glanced up from the book of children’s tales, Beedle the Bard, that he was reading. He’d borrowed the book from Blaise when he’d demonstrated ignorance of some common children’s tale and Blaise had been horrified and decided that Harry needed to read them right away. “I don’t know. Maybe. Why?”

“Then we would have a way to track the Heir of Slytherin.”

Harry rolled his neck, thinking about it. He’d heard the snake in the walls a time or two since, and whether the professors hadn’t been able to locate it or just hadn’t looked, it was still making him steadily more afraid. From the pale, pinched look on Theo’s face, he wasn’t the only one, even if the snake did supposedly only Petrify Muggleborns.

“We can try working on it, I suppose,” said Harry slowly. “But I don’t know if the snake would even want to try.” He turned to where the snake was lying on his pillow, half-asleep, digesting the remains of its latest rat. “Could you use scent to follow and find the snake I heard in the walls?”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“I would give you a huge rat. Or another thing to eat. Maybe you’re getting tired of rats? You could have something else to eat.”

The snake hissed low and thoughtfully. Then it butted him with its head. “I ate a young clutch of birds once. They did not have feathers to irritate me and were delicious. I wish a young clutch of birds.”

Harry swallowed and nodded. He would make sure that he could get hold of one, even if he had to go to Hagrid and lie pretty hard about what he wanted them for. “All right. And then you’ll track the giant snake?”

“I will track the giant snake.”

Harry turned back to Blaise and Theo, who were watching him with no attempt to hide their fascination. Harry didn’t really get it, but he supposed growing up hearing stories about Parseltongue made it different for them. “He said that I have to give him a young clutch of birds without the feathers, but then he’ll track the other snake.”

“Brilliant,” Blaise breathed.

Harry gave him a tense smile, and turned back to the stories in front of him. The Tale of the Three Brothers was kind of horrifying.

Although probably not as horrifying as hunting a giant snake with a small one.

*

“Hold me up to the wall.”

Harry held up his arm with the snake wrapped around it so that the snake could dart its tongue at the stones. Harry couldn’t smell or hear anything himself, but the snake hissed in what sounded like surprise.

“What is it?”

“I can smell magic. Not the snake itself, but the magic. It is a powerfully magical creature. I have not smelled anything so overwhelming before.” The snake twisted its head from side to side. “Not even the Potions ingredients in the courtroom with the sulky one.”

Harry held back a choke at the image of Snape’s face in his mind if he knew that a snake called him “the sulky one.” “Well, we knew that it was probably magical since it was Petrifying people.”

“Find it yourself if you know everything.”

“You become more sarcastic every day,” Harry murmured, lowering his arm back to his side and moving down the corridor. It was the one he had first heard the snake in, the day he had gone to Snape. He was certain of it. Sharp shivers raced up and down his spine.

There were Blaise and Theo, Blaise scouting behind him and Theo scouting ahead, but Harry didn’t fool himself into thinking that they would be able to do much if the beast attacked. Harry was on his own as usual.

Except for the snake.

“What kinds of magical snakes are there?”

“Shouldn’t you know that?”

“I am not magical.”

Harry couldn’t really dispute that. He sighed a little. He had been reading more about snakes since he found out he could speak Parseltongue. “Well, there’s the ashwinder, but they come from fires and they don’t live very long. This snake obviously lasts a long time and retreats to the Chamber of Secrets when it’s not out Petrifying people.”

“Tell me what it is, not what it is not.”

“I don’t know, that’s the problem. A runespoor is really venomous, but I don’t know how magical they are, and I don’t think they’re capable of Petrifying people. And there’s an Occamy—that’s a sort of winged snake with legs—but why would one be creeping around inside the walls? And then there’s the—”

Harry stopped. The snake butted its head against his cheek hard enough to hurt. “You shall tell me. You shall not stop speaking.”

“A basilisk,” Harry whispered. “A giant, venomous snake that can kill with a look. If something interfered and kept it from staring people in the eye, then maybe it would Peterify them instead.”

He was remembering the puddle of water on the floor when he had discovered Mrs. Norris, and hadn’t someone else said that Colin Creevey had been carrying a camera when he’d been Petrified? There had been a ghost nearby with Finch-Fletchley, and even the ghost had been Petrified. He could have seen it through the ghost—

“Harry.”

Harry turned around as he saw Theo walking towards him. “Basilisk,” he blurted.

Theo’s face turned the color of Dudley’s when someone told him he had to eat fruit. “What?” he whispered.

“Basilisk. It has to be. Magical, its gaze is lethal—”

“Lethal, not Petrifying.” Blaise had joined them.

“But what if you saw a reflection? All the people and the cat and the ghost did. In water, or through a camera lens. Or through a ghost. And I suppose that it couldn’t kill the ghost even if he saw it, he was already dead. And it’s a giant magical snake that could be found in a place as big as the Chamber of Secrets probably is.”

“We have no idea how big it is,” Theo whispered, his voice shaking. From that alone, Harry would have known how desperately he didn’t want this to be true. “Harry, think about it—who would leave a basilisk in a school full of children?”

“Salazar Slytherin.”

“He couldn’t have been that bad. He was the Founder of our House.”

“It was a thousand years ago, Blaise, who knows?” Harry scratched at his scalp, because it was that or literally tear his hair out. “We have to make the professors listen somehow.”

“A basilisk can be killed by the crow of a rooster—”

“And if it was one, that would explain why someone killed all of Hagrid’s chickens,” Theo said. His eyes glittered feverishly, and he made a complicated little motion with his hand that Harry hadn’t seen before. “That’s more evidence that it really is a basilisk and not just some weird intuition of Harry’s.”

Harry felt something inside him freeze and crack. Blaise turned around in time to see his face, and blinked. “Uh, Harry?”

“Yeah.”

“Why are you looking at Theo like you want to kill him?”

“Harry Potter is just so weird,” Harry said, in a voice that even he had never heard before. “The Dursleys’ freak nephew. The Boy-Who-Lived Sorted into Slytherin. The Parselmouth who didn’t even know he was one. I should have known you weren’t really my friends.”

“Harry, wait.”

Harry turned his back and walked up the corridor in the direction of Snape’s office. He was glad that Theo had talked about the rooster. The chickens being killed might provide Snape some evidence where Harry just thinking that he knew and reasoning it through wasn’t enough.

But he didn’t have to associate with people who thought he was weird. He got enough of that at “home.”

*

“You have no proof that it is a basilisk.”

Harry stared at Snape and controlled, as best he could, the impulse to scream. Snape’s face was folded in angular, bitter lines, and he would probably start talking about other duties and people and instructions if Harry said something.

“Okay,” Harry said.

“Explain to me what that means, Mr. Potter.”

“You won’t listen to me no matter what I say. You won’t act to protect students because why should you. You’ll talk about other people being important no matter what.”

“Mr. Potter—”

Harry turned and walked away. At least he knew what he could do. The way he had made a name for himself in Slytherin when he hadn’t even intended to do it had to be good for something.

“Detention, Potter, Saturday at seven, for ignoring a professor.”

Harry wondered if he would be alive to attend the detention. Maybe not. Maybe that would get Snape’s attention.

If anything can.

*

“You want me to get you a—a rooster?”

“Yes.”

Marcus Flint eyed Harry cautiously. Harry stared back. He knew that he probably looked strange, with the snake rearing and hissing on his shoulder and his face doing something he couldn’t even picture, only feel. The confirmation that he really had no real friends, only conditional ones, had done something to him.

“And—you’ll consider the debt paid?”

Honestly, Harry had intended to tell Flint that he didn’t owe a debt, just that Harry would hurt him again with the snake if he didn’t do this. But why not? “There’ll be no debt between us. As long as you don’t attack me again.”

Flint jerked his head hastily up and down. They were in a darkened corner of the common room, with people ignoring them. Flint had fallen so far from grace that apparently there were rumors he would be replaced as Captain of the Quidditch team.

It was so stupid to Harry. If they’d put up with Flint forcing people into stupid “duels” for years, then they should have put up with him losing one, as long as he remained good at Quidditch. But all he had done was lose to a second-year, and people had decided that he was worthless or something.

“I’ll get you one in a few days.”

Harry nodded. He knew there was a Hogsmeade weekend coming up, and probably a place in Hogsmeade where Flint could buy chickens. That was good enough for him.

He walked up to the dormitory. Theo and Blaise were already there, whispering to each other, but they stopped when they saw him.

Harry ignored them. The only thing that mattered was talking to the snake, which wanted its clutch of young birds.

Snakes made so much more sense than humans.

“Harry. Can we talk to you?”

Harry turned to Theo, who recoiled at the sight of whatever was on his face. Theo, who thought he was weird, and had almost made Harry believe that was really a good friend and worth talking to.

“No.”

Harry climbed into his bed and shut the curtains.

“Where are my birds?”

“You’ll get them tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow is a human thing.”

Yeah, it really is.

Chapter 23

Notes:

Thank you again for all the reviews!

“No questions asked, Potter.”

“None, Flint.”

Harry studied the rooster that Flint had brought him. He supposed it was an ordinary-looking bird for a species Harry had never really had anything to do with. It was long-legged and had white feathers and a red comb.

“The owner was suspicious.”

Harry lifted his eyes from the rooster, which was strutting and pecking in the shadow of the corridor near the edge of Slytherin territory where they’d arranged to meet, and saw Flint shifting back and forth. Harry lowered his voice. “And you managed to put him off, of course.”

“Of course. Of course.”

It was sort of funny how terrified Flint was of him, but Harry had no time to think about the humor. He cast a Silencing Charm on the bird and muffled the claws with a fold of the Invisibility Cloak that he wrapped around both the rooster and himself. Flint gasped audibly when he disappeared.

Theo or Blaise would probably say that vanishing like that was a good thing, that it would encourage Flint to be more respectful of him.

Harry didn’t want to make Flint do that. He didn’t want to think about what Theo and Blaise would have said.

He vanished down the corridor in the direction of Myrtle’s bathroom, where he’d found the cat and where at least one of the other victims had been close to. He was going to start the search for the Chamber of Secrets there.

Not that it would matter to anyone but him. But at least he was doing something.

*

Once Harry started to look around, it honestly didn’t take him long to find the tap with the little carving of a snake on it. He stared at it, his heart pounding, and wondered why none of the professors had done this.

How could no one care? At least the parents of the Petrified students should have cared.

Then again, they hadn’t shown up to protest nothing being done or transfer their children to St. Mungo’s, so maybe they didn’t.

Harry hissed several words in Parseltongue at the snake. It turned out to be Open, the simplest one, that made the sink grind and shift into the wall, revealing a dark, slimy tunnel into the depths of the school.

Harry took a deep breath and clutched the rooster closer. It wasn’t struggling, maybe just bewildered by everything Harry was doing.

Then Harry ducked into the pipe, ignoring the way that Moaning Myrtle shrieked behind him, demanding that someone close the wall right now and tell her who was there.

The pipe curved several turns and draped his robes with slime. When it shot him out of the end, Harry had to roll hard to land on his feet. The rooster did flap its wings and cackle then, but Harry still had it Silenced, so it couldn’t warn the basilisk they were coming.

The basilisk.

Harry closed his eyes and waited for a long moment. This was—not the way he had wanted things to work out. He didn’t really want to go up against a basilisk himself.

But someone had to do something. And it had become obvious that no one else would. And Harry couldn’t depend on the people who should have had his back, either.

He walked further into the corridor, ignoring the basilisk skin and the crunch of small animal bones under his feet. They weren’t what he was here for. He occupied himself wondering what Ron would have said, how Hermione would have gasped, how Blaise would have commented on the size of the skin to disguise his own fear, how Theo—

Well, Harry didn’t need to wonder how Theo would have reacted. He would have denounced Harry as weird and walked away long before.

Finally, he reached a pair of high stone doors carved with snakes. Harry stared at them, mildly disturbed. Sure, Slytherin must have liked snakes if he could talk to them and had made them the symbol of his House, but did there have to be so many? And so big?

And with emeralds for eyes? That was just gaudy.

Harry half-smiled in the next moment. Sometimes at the Dursleys, when he was lying in the cupboard and wondering if he would starve to death this time, he had wondered what his thoughts in his last few minutes of life would be. Thinking about gaudy emeralds had never crossed his mind.

But it had to.

He looked at the snakes and hissed, “Open,” on the chance that Slytherin was a wanker who didn’t change a good thing.

Sure enough, the doors shuddered and slid back. Harry ducked, shielding his eyes, in case the basilisk was waiting right on the other side.

But nothing happened. Harry moved slowly forwards into the damp Chamber of Secrets, staring at the snakes (of course) on the wall, and snakes (of course) on the pillars, and slowly rippling water that covered the floor.

It was empty. Harry hadn’t expected that. Oh, maybe he hadn’t really expected the Heir or the basilisk to be here, not if he thought about it, but he’d thought he’d see the places where they’d been.

Biting his lip, he stepped slowly forwards into the center of the Chamber. There was an enormous ugly statue of a man who was probably meant to be Salazar Slytherin. Harry shivered a little as the cold began to get to him. There wasn’t a breeze, exactly, but a draught appeared to be blowing from somewhere.

Or maybe that was an enchantment. Slytherin seemed contrary enough to everyone Harry had ever met that he might have liked cold air blowing on him.

If the basilisk isn’t here, then I’ll have to bring it out.

Harry had learned in the reading he’d been doing since Malfoy had conjured the snake that Parseltongue was a purely magical language. Snakes could only respond to it because of that. They couldn’t hear most sounds normally. Harry could yell in Parseltongue all he wanted and probably not attract the basilisk’s attention if it wasn’t close enough to hear him.

But they could feel vibrations.

All Harry had to do was make a thump big enough, and the basilisk would come to investigate.

Harry took a deep breath and closed his eyes. The sense of loneliness hadn’t really abated since he came down here, but it had changed. He was calmer about it, he thought. He hoped he survived, but he didn’t really mind if he died.

He sort of hoped that other people would miss him, though.

Enough. This isn’t getting rid of the basilisk or waking the Petrified people up.

Harry set the rooster on the floor and cast another Silencing Charm on it, followed by a Body-Bind, just in case it decided to run into a corner of the Chamber and get lost. Then he turned to look up at the nearest pillar. This one had a snake (of course) curled near the top, with its head projecting out. Harry thought it might be meant to be a cobra. It had a pale green hood flaring around its head, and extra-long fangs.

Harry aimed his wand at the hood and emptied his mind of all thought, the way he’d got used to doing when he did self-study for Defense. Then he hissed, “Reducto!”

The spell flew up and hit the cobra’s hood. For a moment, the chunk of rock teetered back and forth as though it didn’t want to fall, and then it broke free and crashed down with a thump that seemed to shake the whole Chamber.

The rooster seemed to be struggling against the Body-Bind. Harry renewed it, moved them both out of the way of the chunk of stone, and then cast another Reducto at it. Soon he had a whole bunch of fist-sized stones.

And he was panting in exhaustion.

That wouldn’t do. Harry closed his eyes and stood still for a long second. Then he aimed his wand at his chest and cast a spell he’d seen an upper-year Slytherin use after a whole night of studying before an exam.

“Repossum.”

The spell hit him with a wild surge of energy, and Harry gasped, feeling as though he’d taken a dozen Pepper-Up Potions at once. He had to wait maybe another five minutes before his shaking calmed down enough to aim his wand, but he managed to do it.

Then he whipped his wand and sent the stones he’d made from the larger chunk flying around the Chamber.

They slammed into the walls and bounced like Bludgers, twisting and turning and trying to break each other. Harry ducked down to the floor and grabbed the rooster, holding it close. The stones ignored them, though. Harry had enchanted them to fly at a certain height, and that was what they did.

They hit the pillars, the walls, the floor, the statue, the puddles of water that lay on the floor. Harry yelped and cast a Shield Charm above him and the rooster when the water started splashing all over them. It was the best Shield Charm he’d ever done, probably because of the extra magical energy buzzing through him.

And then he heard it. The sliding of a great body behind the statue. At the same moment, the awful voice he’d heard in the walls spoke.

“Who has come to disturb my rest? I will kill you! Kill you and tear you!”

Although it was the hardest thing he had ever done—probably because of that energy, too, which made him want to leap up and run around—Harry stayed crouched under the Cloak, his arms around the rooster. He waited. He didn’t really think the Cloak could protect him from the basilisk’s gaze, but it only had to shield the rooster.

“I will rip you! Rip into your sweet flesh and devour it!”

The statue slid open with a grinding noise worse than the flying stones striking chunks of it off, and Harry closed his eyes after a single glimpse of huge coils so dark a green that they made the emeralds on the door of the Chamber look like glass. Then he removed the Silencing Charm and the Body-Bind on the rooster with a little whisper and a slash of his wand, and hit it with a poking charm at the same time.

The rooster threw back its head and crowed.

Harry felt more than heard the anguish coming from the basilisk. There was a clash in the air like two kinds of mighty magic meeting, and the basilisk was screaming for something like warmth and food in Parseltongue. But its voice had warped, and Harry had no idea if that was what it was really saying.

And then it fell dead.

The floor shook beneath the great bulk. The rooster decided this would be a great time to claw Harry’s eyes out, and Harry let it go and rolled back on the floor, still keeping one hand mostly across his eyes. Maybe the basilisk’s gaze would be the last thing to fade. He didn’t want to die just when he was in the middle of killing the thing.

He waited for long moments, shuddering a little as he imagined what would happen if the basilisk woke up.

But nothing sounded except a few clicks and clacks as the rooster scrambled about in the corners of the Chamber, probably looking for something to eat. Harry slowly lowered his hand.

The basilisk was enormous. Harry swallowed through a dry throat as he slowly worked his way around to the head. He could understand better now why the professors might have been reluctant to face such a thing.

But it was still their job. Anger burned through Harry when he thought about that.

The head was motionless, the eyes dull yellow and glazed. Harry stared at it. He thought he would probably need proof to bring back that he had actually killed the thing, and for a moment, he had a wild idea that he should cut off the head and bring it back with him. That was what they did in some of the stories he’d read.

But he would never manage the head. And…

Did he want to bring anything back? He’d been blamed for things like the rogue Bludger when that wasn’t even his fault. Did he want to bring back proof that he’d gone after a basilisk himself when Snape would probably get angry?

Then Harry shook his head. It didn’t matter if the professors got angry. Their disapproval really didn’t matter to him that much anymore. What mattered was that other kids could know the basilisk was dead and they could stop being afraid.

He bent down and wrenched on one of the fangs he could see sticking out of the corner of the basilisk’s mouth. He had to wriggle it back and forth and hit it against some of the other teeth, but at last, it broke loose. Harry stood up, holding it very carefully. He would bet the end was venomous like anything.

There. That ought to be enough proof.

*

“Harry!”

“Mate!”

It was Blaise and Theo who came running up to him when he walked into the common room. Harry blinked at them. He hadn’t realized they would notice he was gone.

Then part of the reason they probably had came streaking like an arrow across the common room and swarmed up his leg. “You are back! You are alive! The great snake did not eat you!” The snake paused and then hit Harry’s cheek hard enough with its head that Harry gasped in pain. “You did not take me with you.”

“The basilisk could have killed you.”

“It could also have killed you, and then where would my chances of small birds be?”

Blaise waved his hands while Harry was still trying to answer the snake. “Where did you go? Why didn’t you tell us? Why didn’t you take us with you? Flint said something about how you wanted a rooster, and—”

“You went after the basilisk.”

Theo’s voice was grim and disapproving, but that didn’t surprise Harry at this point. He held up the fang. “Yeah. I took a rooster down to the Chamber of Secrets and killed it.”

Maybe because some other people who had been talking and playing chess had fallen silent to watch them, his words dropped into silence, too. Harry could see a few people staring at him with their mouths open. Then a wave of whispering spread around the common room, and someone darted down the corridor that would lead to Professor Snape’s office.

Harry sighed. There would probably be lots of uncomfortable explanations.

But at least the basilisk was dead. And even if Theo was looking outraged and opening his mouth to probably say Harry was weird again, they didn’t have to be afraid of it anymore.

*

“You went after a basilisk by yourself.”

“Not by myself, sir.”

“Oh?” Snape whirled around at the far side of his office, his cloak whipping behind him so fast that Harry waited to see if it would knock anything over. Disappointingly, it didn’t. “Tell me who you took with you, pray?”

Pray? “A rooster, sir. I did say.”

Snape stood in silence for a long time, looking at him. Harry looked back, his chin propped on his fist. The silence grew thicker and thicker between them, even thicker than it had been when Harry first walked into Snape’s office and put the basilisk fang down on the desk near the front, but that wasn’t Harry’s problem.

Snape could be as uncomfortable as he liked, him and the other professors. They were the ones who had refused to conduct a proper hunt for the basilisk. If Harry could find the entrance to the Chamber at twelve, they should have been able to find it.

“Your mouth may very well be the end of you,” Snape breathed at last.

Harry just sat there, and Snape took a long, threatening step forwards. “Did you think us incapable of finding and stopping the snake?”

“Well, yes, sir. Since you’d had months to do it and hadn’t managed.”

“And you thought you were the best one to do it. The celebrity. The Boy-Who-Lived. Amazing how I used to think you free of that arrogance.”

“No,” Harry said, and maybe it was the cold tone in his voice, but Snape actually paused and listened to him. “I decided to do it because we had evidence as to where the basilisk was, and you and the Headmaster randomly refused to do the investigation for some reason. Because I was tired of people being afraid and Petrified. Now the basilisk is dead. You’re welcome.”

Snape looked at him in silence. Then he said at last, his voice calm and low, “I told you that I was not able to discuss things with you when it comes to the orders and allegiances I am laboring under.”

“Yes, sir.”

“One of those is the reason that I was not allowed to investigate more closely into the matter of the basilisk.”

Not allowed? But in the end, that was only a little interesting. Harry shrugged. “Well, I investigated and took care of it for you.” He glanced up as the Floo flared to life. “That’s probably the Headmaster looking to blame me, right?”

“He would not blame you.”

“He did for the Bludger.”

Snape looked at him, and then his eyes dropped to the silver ring that Harry wore. “I will have to make some adjustments to the ring,” he breathed.

Harry shrugged again and watched Snape go over to the fire. He knew that he would be in the Headmaster’s office soon enough, and that there would be blame passed around. More of it if McGonagall or one of the other professors was there. They would probably prance and fuss about how terrible it was that he’d been the one to face the basilisk.

And it was true that he hadn’t caught or stopped the Heir. But he couldn’t do everything.

*

“Never…never in my life…”

McGonagall had been there. Harry slumped back in his chair and listened in silence as she ranted and paced and yelled at him without raising her voice. She could do that all she wanted. Harry was hardly going to apologize for surviving, or for doing something productive instead of sitting around with his thumb up his arse.

Dumbledore and Snape both seemed content to let McGonagall rant, for now. Dumbledore kept peering over his glasses at Harry, and Snape had taken up a position in the corner near the hearth and just stood there with his arms folded, staring.

Harry thought he could have done that in his office, honestly.

McGonagall finally ran down and scowled at Harry with her hands on her hips. “What do you have to say for yourself, Mr. Potter?”

“No one else was doing anything.”

“You should have reported it to the professors! Not taken on a centuries-old basilisk by yourself!”

“I reported it to Professor Snape and Professor Dumbledore, though, and they didn’t do anything. This was me doing something after the reporting didn’t work.”

McGonagall turned to scowl at Dumbledore. “You didn’t do anything, Albus? Did Mr. Potter give you a clear enough direction to search for that you should have done something? Been able to find something?”

“We made a search, but we were unable to find the entrance of the Chamber. As you know, Minerva, it has been lost for centuries.” Dumbledore peered at Harry again. “But Mr. Potter seems to have known where it was. Can you tell me, Mr. Potter, why you did not come back to us and report your suspicions as to the entrance?”

“You didn’t do anything the first time, sir. Why would I think that you’d do anything this time?”

There was a sound suspiciously like a muffled snort from Snape. Harry glanced over his shoulder and found the professor shifting so that he could direct an even darker scowl in Harry’s direction. Harry had probably imagined the laugh.

“Why did you suspect that Myrtle’s bathroom was the entrance, Mr. Potter?”

“Several of the victims were found near there.”

“And that’s it?” McGonagall’s voice soared. “You couldn’t have known that you would find the entrance there!”

“But I did. Did you want me to be stupider than I am or something?”

Another probably-not-a-snort from Snape’s direction. McGonagall swelled up. “You are a careless and irresponsible young man! What would have happened if you had been killed by the basilisk, pray?”

There it is again. “Then I would have come back as a ghost and haunted you until someone did something.”

Harry hadn’t really meant to yell those last words, but he did. Dumbledore and McGonagall exchanged glances. They probably meant to do it in a way that would be opaque to Harry, but he could read how “difficult” they thought he was. He rolled his eyes, unimpressed.

“You realize that your going down into the Chamber of Secrets and confronting the basilisk was irresponsible?”

“Sure.”

“Mr. Potter, this is something you must listen to…”

Harry just leaned back in the chair they’d given him in front of Dumbledore’s desk and listened to McGonagall’s rambling monologue. Then Dumbledore took over and lectured him for a while. Neither of them actually said what their plan would have been if the basilisk had killed someone or Petrified someone else, though. And neither of them actually seemed to disbelieve him about killing the basilisk.

They just want me to have done it in a better way. Maybe one that didn’t embarrass them so much.

“And now we do not know who the Heir of Slytherin is,” Dumbledore finished. “There might have been a way to stake out the Chamber of Secrets and see who entered, but if they do not know of the basilisk’s death, they will shortly. They will not return.”

“You think they’ll try something else to Petrify the students?”

“Or to kill someone. Given that we do not know what their agenda was in the first place?”

Harry shrugged. “I can’t do everything, sir. You could at least set up alarms on the entrance to the Chamber, right? Since you know where it is now, and you know that the Heir probably isn’t there yet.”

Dumbledore and McGonagall exchanged glances yet again. The glances didn’t seem to include Snape. Harry wondered idly if that had something to do with the other responsibilities and instructions Snape had.

“Yes,” Dumbledore said, looking as if the words were pulled from him. “We can do that.”

It must be physically painful to protect students the way he’s supposed to. But Harry just kept a calm, polite expression on his face as he nodded. “Thank you, sir. That should catch the Heir, at least.”

“Indeed. And have you thought about what we told you, Mr. Potter?”

“Yes, sir. It was irresponsible and reckless of me to go after the basilisk by myself. I won’t do it again.”

That got him another lecture for not listening and not caring about his own life, which Harry listened to with perfect indifference. It seemed that no one else really cared about his life. Why should he?

Well, it was true that other people probably wouldn’t feed the snake. But Harry’s so-called friends distrusted him and thought he was as much of a freak as the Dursleys ever had. And Harry’s relatives didn’t care if he lived or died. The other Slytherins were afraid of him, and most of the other students just didn’t care. Why should he?

They finally let him go, maybe because Dumbledore could tell that Harry wasn’t going to listen no matter what he said. They had walked most of the way down the corridors towards the Slytherin common room when Snape cleared his throat.

Harry glanced up at him. The professor halted in the middle of the corridor and watched him with black, black eyes.

“There are people who would be upset if you died, Mr. Potter.”

“Maybe for a little while. But they don’t care that much.”

“You are wrong about that. Mr. Zabini and Mr. Nott both came to me when they couldn’t find you in the common room or the dormitories. They were most upset that you had apparently vanished.”

Harry shrugged. “Theo thinks I’m weird. Maybe Blaise cares. But probably not. They have silent conversations with each other.”

“What?’

Harry flushed. He should have known better than to say something that weird aloud. “I mean they’re better friends with each other than they are with me, sir. Same with Ron and Hermione. And no one else cares.”

“Speak to them.”

Snape walked away. Harry watched him go, then shook his head and walked up to the common room door.

Snape was mistaken. Or maybe Theo and Blaise had panicked a little because they’d thought the basilisk had killed or Petrified Harry, but it would wear off once they realized that Harry was in no immediate danger. Harry was under no illusions that they cared.

Chapter 24

Notes:

Thank you again for all the reviews!

“Harry, can we talk to you?”

Harry sighed. Blaise and Theo had stalked him to the library, and apparently intended to hover there until he said yes. He turned around to face them. “Can you make it quick? I have to study for Transfiguration.” McGonagall was being harder on him now, as if she thought keeping him busy with homework meant he wouldn’t have time to go after any more basilisks.

Theo swallowed. Then he said, “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“You arse, it’s obvious for what,” Theo snapped. “I called you weird, and I shouldn’t have done that, and I’m sorry. But I never meant for you to go after a basilisk by yourself! If you’d died, I would have—” He cut himself off.

“You would have what? Had a moment of sadness before you started worrying if you had to admit to Snape that you’d played a part in my death?”

“Harry,” Blaise whispered. His eyes were enormous. “You think—if you’d died, would you have—”

“I’d have done my best to come back and haunt you as a ghost until I drove you mad.”

Blaise and Theo both stared at him. Harry looked back. He sort of wanted to turn around and start working on his Transfiguration essay again, but he also wanted to talk to them. Have this out.

Find out if they were ever going to be his friends again.

“I knew you were scary, but I didn’t think you would turn it on us. Theo didn’t know that you would react that badly.”

Harry felt a moment of impatience, the desire to turn back to his book again. There were just so many things they didn’t know, didn’t understand, and wouldn’t understand even if he explained them.

But he would have to try. Otherwise, he did think that he would lose his friends forever, and he—didn’t want to. Even though he also thought it would probably happen. At least it wouldn’t happen because he hadn’t tried.

“The Muggles called me a freak all the time. My aunt and uncle knew about magic even though they never told me until they had to, until Hagrid showed up. They told their neighbors that I was a criminal and blamed me for everything that went wrong, and the neighbors believed them and shunned me. I thought it was going to be different at Hogwarts, but—”

His voice cracked. Horrified, Harry cast a Privacy Charm around himself quickly and then rushed on. He had to finish this, but he wasn’t going to give them the chance to laugh at him. He was going to run the minute he was finished.

“I’m different, weird, freakish. Because of my fame and my Parseltongue and my blood status. All I ever wanted was people who would be friends with me and wouldn’t laugh at me, and—I thought I found them. I thought you were two of them. But now I know you aren’t, and—just leave me alone from now on, all right?”

Harry spun back to the table and snatched up his book. Then he tried to grab his scroll and his inkwell, but the ink spilled, and a black tide flowed down onto his chair and the floor, and Madam Pince was going to kill him—

“Scourgify.”

Blaise’s gentle spell cleaned up the ink, and Harry turned back, his shoulders hunched, fearing the blow that would follow them. But Blaise just shook his head and put his wand away, and Theo raised his hands in front of him as though trying to calm a frightened animal.

“I promise, we aren’t going to hurt you,” Theo whispered. “Please, can we go somewhere and talk about this?”

Harry closed his eyes. He still vibrated with the need to run. All he could imagine doing was leaving them behind.

Then his mind served up what would happen next. Theo and Blaise wouldn’t chase him the way Dudley and his friends had. They would stay behind, and they would probably never approach Harry again. Or at least they would be more cautious about doing so.

That’s what I want.

But it wasn’t what Harry wanted, not in his heart of hearts. He wanted to have friends. He wanted to laugh and joke with them. He wanted to hear more about what really drove Theo and Blaise, the way that Theo had told Harry he wanted someone strong and sincere to protect him.

But can I trust them?

Harry took a long, deep breath, and managed, he thought, to push some of the coldness forwards in himself that he had felt when he went down to face the basilisk. When he opened his eyes, both Blaise and Theo stepped back.

“I’m going to give you one chance,” Harry said, and made his voice as sharp and icy as he could. He would conjure icicles and stab Blaise and Theo with them if they betrayed him. He would. “And that’s all. If you laugh at me or you mock me, I’ll hurt you.”

He didn’t really want to hurt them, either. But he had to protect himself, because no one else was going to do it.

“I promise, mate,” Blaise said, his voice soft and hoarse. “All we want is to be your friends and talk about this.”

Harry glanced at Theo, who hadn’t said anything about that. Theo promptly nodded quickly, so quickly that it looked like he’d hurt his neck.

“I promise,” he said. “No calling you weird ever again.”

Harry thought that a promise like that wouldn’t solve the problem, not the whole problem. But he wanted to be with his friends again. He was sick of being alone, with Ron and Hermione avoiding him because they seemed embarrassed about their plan to find the Heir of Slytherin failing and the professors staring at him like he really was a freak.

He turned and walked after his friends. His maybe friends. His used-to-be, maybe-someday-again friends.

He was so sick of being alone.

*

“No one will disturb us here.”

Harry looked dubiously around the classroom that Blaise had led them to without a word. It was deep in the dungeons, but it also had carvings on the walls as though it were a place the older students used for Ancient Runes practice.

“How can you be sure?”

“Because of the charm that I just put on the door.”

Blaise was tucking his wand away as he came back to the center of the room. Harry bit his lip, hard, But either he trusted Blaise enough to talk to him behind what was probably just a Privacy Charm, or he should have run away back when they were in the library.

“Why did you go after the basilisk by yourself?”

It was Theo who asked the first question, kind of contrary to what Harry had thought would happen. Harry turned to face him. Theo had looked pale against the dark grey stone of the classroom when they first came into it, but now his cheeks were flushed as if he had a fever.

“No one else was doing anything about it.”

“But that doesn’t make it your job.”

“Doesn’t it? No one else was standing up to Malfoy, either. Or preventing the snake from attacking someone in the middle of the common room. Or facing down the Dark Lord during the first war, if you want to go back that far. It kind of is my job. It always has been.”

“I don’t want it to be.”

Harry blinked at Theo. “What?”

“I don’t want it to be your job,” Theo said, slowly, every word as precise as if it were a nail he were hammering into a piece of wood. “I want you to feel free to relax and run away and leave things up to someone else. I want you to feel free to lean on us and trust us to help you.”

“It would have been too dangerous for you.”

“Bollocks,” Blaise drawled, standing near the wall of the classroom with his arms folded.

Harry turned to glare at him. “It would have!”

“We’re the same bloody age as you, Harry!” Theo yelled, and it was the first time that Harry had ever heard that. He hadn’t thought Theo could yell. Theo’s face was red down all the way to his robe collar, and he was waving his arms back and forth as he paced around in a circle. “Even a little older! Why would it be too dangerous for us and not you?”

“You’re not Parselmouths.”

“And you fought the basilisk with your Parseltongue, right?”

“Not exactly. But I needed it to get into the Chamber.”

“Then you could have opened the doors, and you could have taken us with you.”

“But I didn’t want you in danger!”

“And we didn’t want you in danger, either!” Theo yelled, looking as if he would truly turn as purple as Uncle Vernon always did any minute. “You absolute fucking idiot!”

Harry stared at him. Opened his mouth. Closed it.

“You truly don’t get it,” Blaise whispered. He was all cool softness while Theo was still panting with anger, but Harry didn’t make the mistake of thinking him less dangerous because of it. “Do you? You think that we’re different from you, somehow. That we shouldn’t be exposed to danger, but it’s fine for you.”

“You have people who will miss you. I don’t.”

There. It was out, the most freakish thing about him. Harry waited for their response.

“I think I’ve proven conclusively that we would miss you, you absolute fucking—”

“What dearest Theo means to say,” Blaise said, turning a glare on Theo that shut him up immediately, “is that we would miss you. Because we’re your friends.”

“You might think you would, but you wouldn’t.”

Blaise tilted his head and lifted his eyebrows, and Harry flushed. He had seen Blaise look at people like that in the common room, all cool disdain, and he hadn’t known how it would hurt to have it turned on him. “Allow us the courtesy of knowing our own emotions,” Blaise said, at his most distant. “Yes, we would miss you.”

Harry couldn’t help what he asked next. “Why?”

“Why?” Blaise echoed.

“Yeah, why. You must feel that you’ve long ago paid back any debt you could have owed me for saving your lives in first year. So, why?”

Blaise stared at him, and Harry was a little glad to see that he had shattered his friend’s, or “friend’s,” composure after all. Then Blaise let out a long breath through his nose and turned to Theo. “Do you want to handle this one?”

“Fine.” Theo’s eyes were pointed chips of ice, and Harry braced himself for words like a winter wind. But instead, Theo just took a step towards him, a little paler than he had been before, and said sharply, “Because we like you. Because we laugh at how you handle Malfoy. Because we admire the way that you adapted to being in Slytherin when you couldn’t possibly have thought the Hat would put you here. Because we asked to know your secrets, and we couldn’t have known how fascinating they would be.”

Harry blinked several times. Then he said weakly, “Well, being interested in what I’ll do next isn’t the same thing as friendship.”

“Did you ignore the part where I told you why we like you?”

“But that’s not a reason to like me!”

Theo spread his arms. “It’s what we have. Take it or leave it.”

Harry stared back and forth between Theo and Blaise. Theo seemed weary. Blaise had retreated behind a cold mask that Harry knew well. It might be days or weeks before that mask cracked again.

Could it really be that simple?

Harry had seen Dudley with his friends, and yeah, a lot of it just seemed to come from liking to do the same things, like chase smaller kids around. And Ron and Hermione bickered half the time, but they liked investigating mysteries and protecting people.

Could it really be that simple?

I think it is. I think—maybe what I was looking for isn’t the same thing as what exists.

Harry breathed out slowly, shakily. He glanced at Blaise. Blaise nodded. “That goes for me, too,” he said. “We’re your friends, and we would miss you if you died.”

“And—you don’t think I’m weird.”

Blaise gave a sharp laugh, cut off in the middle. Harry blinked at him. Blaise just shook his head.

“If you knew anything about the way I had grown up,” he murmured, “you would know that my standards for weirdness are quite high.”

Harry winced a little. The rumors that went around Slytherin about Blaise were wild, but he was so sensitive about his mother that Harry had never asked for confirmation. “Ah, right.” He turned and glanced at Theo.

“I was joking,” Theo explained.

Harry swallowed. “All right.”

“Are you going to get upset again if I say something careless?” Theo studied him with eyes that seemed to pierce Harry the way he had imagined piercing Theo earlier. “Because I might. I will. I’m—not the best when it comes to normal friendships, either. It’s inevitable that I’ll mess up. I don’t want you to go off and face a basilisk or something every time you get upset with me.”

Harry studied him in return. Then he asked, “Were you really upset when I went after the basilisk?”

“Yes!” Theo said, and suddenly he was back to shouting. “Of course I was! When I thought that one of my best friends might be dead—” He shook his head and shut his eyes. “If you really can’t accept that I was, Harry, this can’t work.”

“I just—needed to make sure.”

Blaise cleared his throat. “Did you really think that no one would care if you died fighting the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets?”

“I thought that you didn’t care about me, and Ron and Hermione were upset with me, and Professor Snape had had the chance to go after the Heir and didn’t. And then the professors just seemed more upset when I came back because I might have defeated the basilisk, but I hadn’t captured the Heir. So yeah, I thought no one cared if I lived or died.”

“The snake?”

“It wants me to give it food. That’s all. Someone else could do that as well as I could, or it could go off and become a wild snake. I don’t deceive myself into thinking it cares about me.”

“Well, we do,” Blaise said, and he closed his eyes. “Harry, in my life I’ve only allowed myself to trust two people, and you were the second. All right? So stop saying that no one would care and no one would—be upset. Theo and I might not be the best at expressing it, but we would be very fucking upset if you died.”

Harry wanted to ask all sorts of things, such as why they hadn’t said this before, and why Blaise didn’t seem to trust his own mother. But he knew that he had pressed matters as far as they could go, and it was a big deal that Blaise and Theo had expressed themselves as openly as they had.

“All right,” he whispered. “I—thank you.”

Theo abruptly lunged forwards, and despite everything, Harry almost drew his wand. But then Theo was hugging him, and Harry could do nothing but stand there and stare with wide eyes over Theo’s shoulder at Blaise, who just looked amused.

“Don’t expect a hug from me. Sorry, I don’t do them.”

Theo broke away from Harry, flushing, and cleared his throat. “Most of the time, I don’t, either. I don’t know what came over me.”

“I’m glad it did, whatever it was.”

Theo looked at him with soft eyes, or as soft as they would probably ever get, and smiled. “No more basilisks.”

“I don’t think there are any more left.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah,” Harry said.

And he walked back to the common room with his two friends, almost floating, and ignored the strange looks that they got when they walked in together. He ignored the peeved tone of the snake when it demanded more young, featherless birds.

He was alive. He had people who cared that he kept being so.

Maybe he would never make the professors care, and maybe Ron and Hermione wouldn’t exactly, either, but right now, he felt alive.

Chapter 25

Notes:

Thank you again for all the reviews!

“Is it really true that you destroyed a giant basilisk?”

Harry gave Ron a tense smile over the rim of the cauldrons they sat between. They were brewing a particularly nasty potion that day, and Harry hadn’t objected to partnering with Ron, but he’d thought they would just be concentrating on ingredients. “Yeah.”

“How?”

Ron was whispering, but not softly enough to escape Snape’s attention. Snape swept past, gave them a remote look, and said, “Five points from Gryffindor for talking, Mr. Weasley,” before he sailed away to another part of the classroom to prey on someone else.

“Slimy git,” Ron muttered under his breath as he tossed a leaf of spinach towards the cauldron.

Harry nodded in response, but prevented the leaf from going in. They wouldn’t need it until later in the recipe. “Marched a rooster down to the Chamber and let it crow at the basilisk,” he said.

Ron eyed him for a long moment. Harry eyed him back, and picked up the spinach leaf to drop into the cauldron after a moment when he realized that Ron wasn’t going to do it himself.

“That’s mental.”

“Basilisks are vulnerable to a rooster’s crow. Everyone knows that.”

“I didn’t know that!”

“I was reading about snakes,” Harry said, which at least ought to make sense to Ron now that his friend knew he was a Parselmouth.

Ron turned a sort of sickly hue and swallowed. For a few minutes, they worked in silence, and their potion edged towards the green-grey color it was supposed to be. Harry watched it and thought it was still off enough for Snape to take points, but not enough to explode and shower them with slimy stuff, which was all he cared about.

“Can we talk, mate?”

“Thought we were,” Harry said lightly, as he picked up a vial of moondew and scattered in a few drops.

“You know what I mean. You and me and Hermione.” Ron’s voice quivered a little, but his jaw was firm in the way that Harry knew meant he would have trouble talking his friend—if Ron was still his friend—out of it. “I think we need to—to talk to each other about things like this.”

Harry eyed him skeptically, but Ron seemed to be sincere in asking. He finally shrugged and nodded. “All right.”

“Potter. Get back to work.”

“Knew he was going to say that,” Harry said, under his breath, for the benefit of making Ron smile, and went back to stirring.

*

“So are you angry at us?”

Harry sighed a little. Days had passed since he’d spoken to Ron and Hermione about his Parseltongue. Days had passed since the basilisk, for that matter, and since he’d returned to the Slytherin common room with the knowledge that he had Blaise and Theo beside him, come what might.

“No,” he said. And if that was because time had outworn his anger, he didn’t think he needed to make that distinction.

But Hermione was biting her lip and shifting her weight, as though she were worried that he might snap at them. “Are you sure?”

Harry shrugged and leaned back in the comfy chair they’d found for him in the Gryffindor common room. This time, Harry’s intrusion had caused nothing but a couple stares and some applause from Gryffindors who believed the rumor about Harry killing the basilisk. “Sure, I am.”

“But you were angry.’

“Yeah, but friends don’t have to stay angry at each other forever, Hermione.”

She smiled at him in relief. Harry smiled back. He didn’t regret their argument, not really, even though he’d felt so lonely afterwards. It had given him a better understanding of Ron and Hermione, and even of himself.

Now he knew exactly how far he could depend on them, and what he wouldn’t be able to trust them with.

“Does this mean that we can start working together on the issue of freeing house-elves again? They were more reluctant to talk to me when you weren’t there.”

They’d probably thought that it was some kind of trick if two humans showed up and then only one did, Harry thought. He nodded. “Sure.”

“Can we talk about something more interesting now?” Ron broke in. “Like Quidditch? Why don’t you want to play Quidditch, Harry?”

“I wouldn’t really want to have to watch my back around the Slytherins who would be jealous of me if I did.”

Ron started ranting about that, and Hermione broke in to try and redirect the conversation, and Harry held back a laugh with effort. It was as if nothing had changed, as if he’d never been gone.

But he had. And now he knew more than he used to. So it wasn’t a waste.

*

“Come with me.”

The voice was a low hiss, and the wand that had jabbed into the middle of his back as Harry walked down the corridor away from Potions was hard and kept him from turning to look. Harry marched with the person who must be the Heir of Slytherin towards what he only needed a few corners to identify as Myrtle’s bathroom.

Then he filled the air behind him with fire.

There was a scream and a shriek, and Harry rolled and ducked and came up with his own wand in his hand. He almost lost it again to a Disarming Charm while he stared at the person behind him.

A short, red-haired girl—in fact, her hair was the exact same shade as Ron’s. His sister? His little sister, Jenny something?

But her distorted face and the hissing that emerged from her mouth brought Harry back to reality. He ducked under another curse and came up clutching his wand and backing away until his shoulders touched the stone beside what he knew was a tapestry covering a secret passage.

“Why couldn’t you just die?”

Harry didn’t bother responding, watching Jenny’s hands and face. He didn’t know how she was a Parselmouth, or how she knew the curse that had flown over him and had been cast silently. It didn’t matter. What mattered was making sure that she couldn’t hurt him.

“Die!”

Jenny hurled another curse. Harry dropped smoothly to her knees and held out his hand, willing power to coalesce around it as hard as he ever had when Malfoy threatened Hedwig.

Fire.

Flames sprang into being around Jenny’s legs and licked and bit into her skin. She shrieked in horror and flailed around, and Harry took the chance to get back to his feet and fire a Stunner at her.

Jenny jerked back, so it missed, and glared. “I am going to kill you!” she snapped in Parseltongue.

“You’re already not doing very well.”

Blaise and Theo would probably have something to say about him taunting the Heir of Slytherin, Harry thought, while Jenny responded with a wild scream and a Stunner of her own that Harry ducked. But it was worth it. Her movements kept getting more and more uncoordinated, and Harry was pretty sure that he could make her curse her own face in a moment.

“Coward!”

“Bold to say when you’ve been hiding behind the mask of a little girl.”

Strangely, that made Jenny stop screaming. She stood with an unnaturally calm expression on her face instead, staring at him. Harry stared back.

“You do not know who I am.”

“No. You’re not important.”

Fury built in the girl’s eyes for a moment and then as quickly disappeared from her expression. Yeah, this was creepy. “I am the true Heir of Slytherin. The shadow that looses the basilisk in the night. I am Lord Voldemort.”

Harry felt hair rise on the back of his neck, and controlled the urge to run away the way he had with Quirrell. He controlled it even harder when her eyes turned red in the next second. This was probably a case of possession.

But she would curse him in the back if he ran. And if she was possessed by Voldemort, she probably knew all the secret passages.

“You’re not very impressive. And your basilisk is dead.”

Abruptly Jenny was screaming with rage again, and this time she caught him with something that made his ribs break the way they had when Dudley had punched him one time. It gave Harry access to his own rage, though.

He flung out his hand in front of him, and the net of power he had first conjured when he’d trapped Dobby spread out like a flower, winding around Jenny and lifting her from the ground. One strand tore the wand from her hand.

“Let me go!”

“Self-evidently, that would be a stupid move.”

She called him some more terrible names in Parseltongue as the strands wrapped around her. Harry stood, breathing hard and watching her, while she tried to hurt him with wandless magic. Something about Harry’s own wandless power got in the way, though. She was helpless.

“Mr. Potter! What are you doing with Miss Weasley?”

Harry just rolled his eyes, although he smoothed his face out before he turned around to look at Professor McGonagall. Of course she blamed him. That was what professors did, it seemed. “She attacked me. I was keeping her from doing it again.”

“What could she possibly have done to you?”

“Spoken in Parseltongue and proclaimed herself the Heir of Slytherin.”

At least it was satisfying to watch Professor McGonagall pale dramatically, although it wasn’t as fun to watch her dismantle the net of magic holding Weasley hostage. McGonagall escorted them to the Headmaster’s office.

Harry wondered idly if he could coax Dumbledore into telling him the password to the gargoyle, given that he seemed to visit every other day or so.

*

“And he confirmed she was possessed?”

Harry nodded, leaning back against his pillow. The snake had eaten a rat and was asleep in the middle of Harry’s stomach with a bulge in the middle of its stomach. “Yeah. He cast some spell that could tell it. Apparently, she came into contact with a Dark artifact. She tried to lie and say she hadn’t, or maybe the spirit possessing her did. But Dumbledore wasn’t fooled.”

“And they took the artifact away?”

“I assume. But McGonagall took Weasley back to the dormitories in Gryffindor Tower, so I didn’t see it happen.”

“And Dumbledore kept you for scolding.”

Theo’s voice was cool in a way that made Harry glance at him curiously. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “I expected it, really. Apparently I could have damaged a fragile younger student by catching her the way I did.”

“Let me guess,” Blaise said. He was lounging, or at least so it looked like, in the middle of a mess of parchment that had Transfiguration notes on it. But his voice was just as cold as Theo’s. “He said that you should have gone and got a professor when Weasley appeared behind you and tried to take you hostage.”

“Yeah.”

Theo rolled his eyes enormously. “Is it because Weasley’s a Gryffindor?” he demanded. “Is that it? Is that all it takes to be a coddled and spoiled professor’s pet? Or is it something else?”

“I think it’s me.”

“You did nothing wrong!”

Theo half-surged off the bed as he shouted the words. Harry blinked, and then half-smiled. It was nice to have friends who would get angry on his behalf. “No, I mean, I think it’s the combination of my fame and their somehow expecting better of me.”

“Better.”

“Right, but I can’t give it the emphasis you do, Blaise. They think I should be a Gryffindor. They think I should find ideal and non-violent solutions to problems. I should protect other students, but not by putting myself in danger. That’s what they think.” Harry thought a moment, then added, “Except Snape. He has his own reasons for hating me, but he does seem to think I ought to behave differently.”

“They’re mental,” Blaise said. Because he wasn’t speaking as passionately as Theo, his words sank down like stones on Harry’s skin, and made him shift a little uneasily. Even Theo looked at Blaise with his head tilted. “They don’t want to solve problems in the school, but they don’t want you to solve them the way you do, either.”

“They want someone perfect.”

“Which means they’ve fallen victim to the legend of the Boy-Who-Lived like anyone else.”

“I reckon,” Harry said, and then sighed. He had almost decided not to tell Blaise and Theo this, because it would just make them angry, but there was nothing they could do about it. But from the way they were staring at him, they already knew he’d been keeping something back. “Dumbledore decided he had to talk to me after McGonagall took Weasley back to the Tower.”

“About what?”

“Apparently the Dark Lord’s real name was Tom Riddle. That’s the name of the shade that Dumbledore thinks possessed Weasley. And he was a Parselmouth, of course, and a Slytherin. And he could practice wandless magic.”

“And…?”

“Like me. Dumbledore wanted to give me some kind of caution about letting power tempt me to become like the Dark Lord.”

Blaise and Theo just stared at him. Harry nodded and leaned back with his eyes closed. He was getting used to the professors’ suspicions, he thought, at least somewhat. He didn’t like it, he would never like it, but at least this made sense of some things that just hadn’t made sense before.

“They’re so stupid,” Theo whispered. “You’ve stood up to the Dark Lord twice now. Three times if we count…” He let his voice trail off in dismay. “And they think this?”

“Some people have always thought that Harry Potter defeated the Dark Lord because he was like the Dark Lord,” Blaise said, his voice precise. “I don’t want to say that everyone thinks that, but it’s a suspicion I’ve heard discussed among—people in my mother’s circles.”

Harry took a deep breath and opened his eyes. He wasn’t going to ask about Blaise’s mother, even though he was curious, since Blaise so rarely spoke about her. “Yeah. I think Dumbledore is afraid of that. Maybe doesn’t suspect it, but he really expected me to Sort into Gryffindor.”

“I just don’t know why. You’re the perfect Slytherin.”

“That’s silly, Theo.”

“It is not.” Theo leaned forwards and waved his arms at Harry, luckily not as vehemently as he’d done when he and Blaise were speaking to Harry the other day. “You’re powerful and cunning and you seize the advantage. You don’t bother competing for those things that you don’t want. You don’t want power, but that’s fine, because you already have it.”

Harry opened his mouth, then closed it. He hadn’t thought about it that way.

“I don’t know if I would say the perfect Slytherin,” Blaise murmured, with a glance at Theo that just made Theo roll his eyes. “Snape is my idea of the candidate for that. But it’s true that they expected you to be something you aren’t. And now we have to make sure that they can’t get in your way.”

“What?”

“Whatever you want to do, we’ll make sure that you can do.”

“Why’s that?”

“Wouldn’t friends do that?”

“Maybe, but would Slytherin friends?”

Blaise half-smiled himself. Then he said, “It’s true that we’d like to come along with you on whatever climb to power you manage to make, Harry. It’s also true that we’ll help you there because you’re our friend, and not in spite of it.” He leaned back on the bed. “And you’re honest enough to tell us if you find something we do offensive, or if our goals ever conflict.”

Harry bit his lip hard enough that he was a little surprised he didn’t draw blood. Then he nodded, slowly. This was conditional. Every relationship he had was conditional.

Except—it wasn’t really conditional in the same way that Ron and Hermione’s friendship was.

And he thought that Blaise was right, and they could trust each other to be honest. And Blaise and Theo were no longer going to be going around whispering about whether he was a real Slytherin, or mocking him for his blood status.

Or wondering about whether he was going to turn into Voldemort.

Harry smiled at Blaise and Theo, and they smiled back. And maybe it wasn’t that conditional after all. At any rate, Harry felt his heart calm down in his chest.

I can do a lot, with them at my side.

Chapter 26

Notes:

Thank you again for all the reviews!

“You didn’t receive even a potion?”

“No, Madam Pomfrey.”

“Those people,” Madam Pomfrey muttered beneath her breath as she bustled around the hospital wing, tapping and pushing and waving her wand at various vials in a pattern Harry couldn’t figure out. “Albus should have known better! At his age! And as for Minerva…”

Harry lay back in the bed and obediently drank the potion she offered when she offered it to him, gagging a little on the thick chalky taste. It amused him to hear Madam Pomfrey acting as if she would scold the robes off either Dumbledore or McGonagall if they showed up in the hospital wing.

He didn’t expect they would, didn’t expect anything would really be done. But it was funny to pretend.

The aching in his ribs eased, and he took a deep breath without pain for the first time since yesterday. “Thanks, Madam Pomfrey.”

“You’re welcome, dear boy. I swear, Albus should learn a lesson or two!”

Harry lay and listened, contented, to her ranting, until she seemed to remember that she had an audience and sent him (regretful) on his way. Harry walked slowly back to the Slytherin common room, enjoying the sensation of being free of his broken ribs and grateful that Theo and Blaise had convinced him to go and ask for healing.

“Um. Harry. Can I talk to you?”

Harry turned and sighed a little. Ron was lurking in a side corridor. Harry had expected Ron to come find him, of course, but the conversation was bound to be an awkward one considering what Jenny had done.

Not that she was going to be punished for that, either, Harry thought. McGonagall had whisked her away without a word, and there had been a rumor or two that she wouldn’t be attending classes because she’d got sick and had to go to St. Mungo’s. Nothing more than that.

“I didn’t know that my sister had anything to do with the Heir of Slytherin business! I swear.”

Harry blinked back to reality and found Ron staring at him desperately. That hadn’t been the reaction he’d expected. He’d thought Ron would be defensive about Jenny’s actions and demand that Harry not tell anyone.

And because this was something that Harry hadn’t expected…

He could manipulate it.

“I didn’t think you did, Ron,” Harry said, and smiled a little at him. “You wouldn’t have been so desperate to find the Heir of Slytherin if you’d known that Jenny was possessed by them.”

“Ginny.”

“What?”

“Her name is Ginny. Not Jenny.”

Harry hesitated, then shrugged. “Ginny, then. I didn’t think that you had anything to do with it.”

“And you don’t blame her?”

That was going a little too far. Harry stared unblinkingly at Ron, who soon began to blush and look down at his feet.

“I do blame her,” Harry says softly. “For not telling someone the truth about the thing possessing her when she could have. But not really for what she did when she was casting spells at me, no.” He didn’t need to say that he intended to avoid Ginny whenever possible, because he was pretty sure Ron would get that.

“She was possessed,” Ron mumbled. “It wasn’t her fault.”

“So she couldn’t fight the possession? Even though the Petrifications didn’t start until October, and I doubt she got the diary in the school?”

“We don’t know yet!” Ron said hotly, jerking his head up. “They took her to St. Mungo’s, and she hasn’t been—she hasn’t talked about it yet. We won’t know until she tells us, and I’d think you could wait until then.”

“Maybe if one of my best friends hadn’t thought that I was the ultra-evil Heir of Slytherin, I could.”

“What do you want from me, Harry? I apologized!”

Yes, he had. Harry took a deep breath and held it. Ron glared at him in the meanwhile. Harry held his breath some more, then released it in a whoosh. “I just don’t want to forgive your sister for making my life hell for months and making the professors engage in multiple rounds of scolding me,” he said at last. “That’s all.”

“They—what, they scolded you? For what? That’s mental.”

Harry felt his chest warm with Ron’s instinctive defense. At least he was still willing to do that for Harry. But he ended up shrugging. “I didn’t defeat the basilisk the right way. I shouldn’t have risked my life. I shouldn’t have cast back at Jen—Ginny when she started cursing me. All sorts of things.”

Ron gaped at him in silence, and then burst out with, “But you saved the school!”

“Apparently,” Harry said, “that doesn’t matter to them. I should have done it the right way. Or something.”

“I—” Ron ran a shaking hand through his hair. “I knew Snape hated you for whatever mental reasons he has, but how could the others hate you? Who were the ones who scolded you?”

“Dumbledore and McGonagall,” Harry said, and did take some pleasure in watching Ron’s face crumple. Besides McGonagall being the Head of Gryffindor, he knew that Ron practically hero-worshipped Dumbledore.

Although Hermione might be worse about it.

Ron took a deep breath and shook his head. “That’s mental,” he repeated. “And I’m going to make it right. I’ll make sure of it, Harry. You watch.”

He hurried away down the corridor, leaving Harry blinking after him. He didn’t think Ron would be willing to explain to everyone that Ginny deserved the fear or scoldings, so he had no idea what Ron’s plan was.

Then Harry shrugged and put it out of his mind. He had end-of-term exams to study for, and there was almost no way to tell for certain what would end up in Lockhart’s stupid head and therefore on the stupid parchment.

*

“Professor Dumbledore? Sir?”

Harry stared at Ron. It was the end-of-year leaving feast, and Ginny—whose name, Harry had still had to remind himself several times, was not Jenny—sat at the end of the Gryffindor table and ate and chattered with the rest. Harry had had to work to keep himself from glaring at her.

But he hadn’t known anything about the way Ron would rise to his feet, pale and nervous.

Professor Dumbledore blinked several times. He’d just stood up himself and begun an announcement, something about how he was so pleased to have the Heir of Slytherin situation resolved and a good ending to the year. Blaise had snorted when he’d said that, and Harry had grinned back at him.

But now…

“Yes, Mr. Weasley?” Professor Dumbledore asked at last. He sounded vaguely perplexed, but mostly disapproving.

Ron took a deep breath, and Harry knew what was coming. He slid down a little in his seat, while Blaise and Theo stared at him.

“Sir,” Ron said, and his voice squeaked. He cleared his throat and started again. At least no one can doubt that he deserves to be in Gryffindor, Harry thought, half-hysterical. “I just thought it would be nice if you gave some credit to the one who actually defeated the Heir of Slytherin.”

“Mr. Weasley?”

“My friend, Harry Potter.” Ron turned and looked straight across the Great Hall at Harry, and Harry smiled back, a little helpless. “He was the one who defeated the basilisk and—caught the real Heir. So he deserves some credit. Not just—not just talking about it as if someone else h-happened along and stopped it.”

Ron sat back down abruptly, his face as bright a red as his hair. Theo and Blaise were blinking. Malfoy looked as if he might explode. And Flint, further up the table, was flinching, maybe because he now knew that the second-year he’d lost to had also defeated a basilisk.

“Mr. Weasley, what you ask is impossible for several reasons…”

“What are they, sir?”

And that was Hermione, on her feet as well, blushing and clenching her hands down by her sides as if she wanted to grip something and swing out of sight, but speaking nonetheless. “Why can’t we honor the person who actually defeated the basilisk and stopped the Petrifications? Harry went down there on his own and did it!” She glared at Harry in a way that somehow managed to convey admiration and anger at the same time. “He’s as brave as any Gryffindor.”

“Of course they have to bring House prejudices into it, the idiots,” Theo muttered.

Harry shrugged and turned to face Dumbledore. He didn’t know for sure what expression was on his own face, but he didn’t think it mattered. The Headmaster would probably come up with some way to squirm out of this.

It would be interesting to see him do it, though.

Instead, Dumbledore sighed and straightened his shoulders. “Thank you, Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger,” he murmured. “I have been unreasonable.” He turned towards Harry and gave him a long look, as though trying to see into his soul. Harry raised his eyebrows back. It wasn’t his fault Dumbledore had been unreasonable.

Dumbledore nodded slightly as though receiving the message, at the same time Harry felt a light scrape across his thoughts. He frowned and looked at the table, massaging his forehead. It was blooming into a headache.

I have to look into that.

“I have been unreasonable,” Dumbledore announced, “and that is an unfair thing to do when Mr. Potter saved the school the way he did.” So he can be unfair at other times? Harry thought crossly. “Mr. Potter did indeed defeat the basilisk and expose the Heir of Slytherin. One hundred points of Slytherin for entirely unexpected bravery.”

The rest of his Housemates broke into cheers as the banners on the walls turned green and silver, and Professor McGonagall, her face looking constipated, had to hand the House Cup to Professor Snape. Snape shot Harry an unreadable look, and Harry felt the little scrape again.

Ouch.

“Slytherin wins the House Cup!”

Malfoy actually clapped Harry on the back as he whooped with excitement. Harry smiled tightly at the boy and asked Theo softly under the chorus of cheering, “What would make your mind feel as if something had scraped across it?”

“What?” Theo sounded sharp, but Harry had the feeling it was because he knew, not because he didn’t know.

“Both Dumbledore and Snape. When they looked at me, it felt as if they were scraping my brain with their eyes, and now I have a headache.”

Theo and Blaise shot each other tense, worried glances, and then Blaise shook his head. “Not here.”

Harry must have scowled, because Blaise added, “We’ll discuss it back in the dormitories, Harry, I promise.”

Harry nodded, and tried to enjoy the celebration exploding around him. Slytherins he had never spoken to before, or who had been nervous about his Parseltongue, were coming up to talk to him. Harry, meanwhile, raised his goblet in a toast to Ron and Hermione.

They were the ones who had really made sure he got what he deserved.

Chapter 27

Notes:

Thank you again for all the reviews!

“That was brilliant.”

Ron was flushed and smiling as he shook Harry’s hand. Hermione crowded in close beside Ron, although with a suspicious little glance at Blaise and Theo, who were hovering just behind Harry’s shoulders.

“You deserved it,” Hermione said firmly. She flinched as someone in the group of Gryffindors behind them gave an ugly laugh, but kept a determined smile on her face. “You saved the whole school, and they were trying to punish you!”

Her voice soared up. Harry heard even more mutters break free from the Gryffindors. He glared at them in turn, and they decided they had an urgent appointment elsewhere. Harry faced Ron and Hermione again. “What you did was really brilliant, but—you know what it’ll cost you?”

“We didn’t deserve to win if the points we got were falsely gained,” Ron said. He looked as though he might be fighting with himself to believe it, but he still said it, which made Harry’s respect for him shoot up. “We’ll handle it.”

“But you’ll tell me if it gets too bad?”

“Yeah, mate. Of course.”

From the way that Ron stood holding his shoulders proudly, Harry thought he probably wouldn’t. But at the moment, he couldn’t do much more than sigh, nod, and turn to walk back with Blaise and Theo to the common room. The corridor was full of people casting them speculative looks, and he didn’t want to remain outside too long.

Someone might try to finish what Ginny—it was still strange to call her that—had started.

*

“The scrape you felt against your brain was probably a mind-reading art called Legilimency.”

It felt as though every cell in Harry’s body had shuddered to a halt where he sat on his bed, staring incredulously at Blaise. He waited for a long moment, for Blaise to say that it was a joke, but his friend just stared at him and nodded solemnly.

“You’re joking,” Harry whispered feebly. “You must be joking.”

“No.” Theo was lying facing Harry on his bed, his elbows planted in the sheets. His expression was somber. “Father can’t do it, but a few other people he knows can, and I’ve had my mind read. That’s what it feels like. I don’t think I’ve ever had Snape or the Headmaster do it to me, or I haven’t noticed if they have. But that’s what it is.”

Harry closed his eyes and leaned back in his bed. He was thinking of the time that his head had hurt the day that he’d found Mrs. Norris hanging in front of Myrtle’s bathroom.

The times that Snape had seemed to know exactly what Harry felt or what someone else did, even though Harry had seen no reason that he could be so certain.

He breathed. In and out.

“Harry? Are you okay?”

Harry opened his eyes and stared bleakly at Theo. Theo shifted a little uneasily in response.

“I’m just thinking back to the other times they did it,” Harry whispered. “Times they must have known I was innocent of what they were accusing me of, and they did it anyway.” He became aware that his voice was rising, and that Blaise had locked the door to the dormitory, but he didn’t feel as if he could stop. “Why did they do it? Why?”

Blaise hit him with a Silencing Charm.

Harry glared at him and broke the charm with a quiet pop of his magic. From the way Blaise and Theo stared at him, they felt it, even if they couldn’t hear it. And they cast a silent, speaking glance at each other, too.

Harry closed his eyes again. He knew Blaise had just meant to keep him from shouting his private business all over the common room, and he did appreciate that. But he didn’t mean to let anyone control him, either.

“I assume they think that you’re the Boy-Who-Lived and they need to keep track of you at all times,” Theo said carefully. “It would make sense of why they wanted to make sure they were in contact with your thoughts, anyway. Never mind that anyone with half a brain should have been able to tell you weren’t the Heir of Slytherin.”

“Parseltongue and all?”

“Slytherin wanted to cleanse the school of Muggleborns. Of course you don’t want to do that. One of your best friends is a Muggleborn, for Merlin’s sake!”

Harry relaxed a little. At least Theo could acknowledge that Hermione was his friend, which was progress Harry hadn’t thought he would make any time soon. He turned to Blaise. “So I know what they were doing and maybe some reasons for it. How do I stop it?”

Blaise cocked his head. His eyes gleamed in a way that made Harry imagine he might be sorry he had asked. But at the moment, he couldn’t imagine regretting anything more than leaving his mind open to Snape and Dumbledore, so he just waited.

“You need to learn an art called Occlumency,” Blaise murmured at last. “It’s the opposite of Legilimency, the ability to defend the mind. It takes time and study and will and ideally a practicing Legilimens to help you learn it.”

“That last is out of the question.”

“Even if someone other than Dumbledore or Snape was doing it?”

Harry leaned back and said nothing. Blaise continued to watch him, and his fingers flickered and tapped on the bed. Harry, meanwhile, listened to his own churning thoughts and his own instinctive disgust.

“I couldn’t trust them not to tell other people my thoughts,” Harry said at last. “The temptation to betray me for money or the like would be too great.”

“So you would rather your mind went unguarded?”

“I would rather learn Occlumency on my own.”

“You won’t be able to. You have to have a Legilimens to teach you—”

“Blaise.”

Theo’s voice was stern and quiet. Harry rarely heard him sound like that. Blaise turned to face Theo, but didn’t stop talking. “You know it’s true. A Legilimens is the only one who can teach him to recognize the feel of Legilimency.”

“Harry’s already done that on his own.”

Blaise paused. Then he said, “Well, all right, but only lately. Who knows how many times Snape and Dumbledore read his thoughts before that when he didn’t sense anything?”

Harry felt another shudder of disgust. It was—it was horrible to think that he had been victimized so many times by those men who called themselves professors and he couldn’t have done anything about it.

But now he could. He leaned forwards, interrupting the argument that seemed to be starting between Blaise and Theo, and said quietly, “I want you to tell me about some books on Occlumency. And whether I can owl order them.”

“I’d wait until you’ve left for the summer. You don’t want the Headmaster noticing that you’re reading books on Occlumency.”

Harry paused, wondering if Blaise was being paranoid, but ended up slowly nodding. If nothing else, Dumbledore probably wouldn’t want Harry to know about Legilimency.

Even if he’s only reading my mind to keep me safe or whatever he thinks, though, he shouldn’t. No one should do anything like that.

“Thank you.”

“For telling you the truth?”

“Yes. And for recommending me the books on Occlumency that I’m sure you’re going to recommend me any second now.”

Blaise blinked a little, and then his face relaxed into a smile. “Of course. And now, we should go down to the common room.”

“What for?”

“You and your Gryffindor friends won us the House Cup.” Theo stood up with a smile of his own. “I imagine that there are a lot of people who want to thank you, and even more who want to get into the good graces of a student Dumbledore himself favors.”

Harry rolled his eyes, but he could see Theo’s point. And appearing at a party in his honor didn’t sound like the most horrible thing to do with his evening.

It actually wasn’t. It was even funny with Malfoy trying to imply to everyone in sight that they were friends and had been for months.

And no one tried to read his mind.

*

“Mr. Potter, if I could have a moment of your time?”

Blaise and Theo both hesitated on either side of him. However, Harry couldn’t see a good reason for them to stay here. It would only bring them to Dumbledore’s attention. He nodded to them, and they went on towards the train, although with lots of backwards glances.

Harry was the one who had to face Dumbledore and smile in a way that he hoped didn’t crack. “Sir.”

“I trust that you are looking forward to going home?”

Harry studied the little butterfly-winged bats flitting around Dumbledore’s robes as if they were fascinating. Blaise had only given him a small book on Legilimency so far that was easy to conceal in his bag, but one of the biggest tips in it was not to look a Legilimens in the eye. “Yes, sir.”

“You do not sound enthusiastic.”

“I imagine that I’m still worn out from the party last night. Sir.”

“Ah, the party.”

Dumbledore said nothing more. Harry didn’t offer anything, either. They stood there, and the Headmaster was finally the one who coughed and broke the silence, which Harry was meanly glad about.

“I hope that you do not blame me for my understandable caution in wanting to make sure that you were not the Heir of Slytherin, Harry.”

“Sir.”

“It was understandable,” Dumbledore went on, his voice softening and darkening, “because you are so very much like Tom Riddle, Voldemort, the original Heir of Slytherin, and the one who possessed our dear Ginny Weasley.”

“She’s not going to have any points taken for putting people in the hospital wing, is she?”

“She was possessed, Harry.”

Harry supposed that was as good an answer as he was liable to get. He nodded and stood there some more, and Dumbledore finally sighed and murmured, “You are a difficult boy to apologize to.”

“I do accept your apology, sir.”

For what it’s worth. Another tip the Legilimency book had given him was that adding on to his statement in his thoughts could make what he said aloud sound less like a lie to a Legilimens.

“Wonderful! I do hope that we will be able to cooperate in the future, especially when fighting the Dark Lord Voldemort.”

Harry just nodded. He thought not flinching at the name earned him more points in Dumbledore’s eyes, but the man didn’t actually award him any. He just nodded back, beaming, and then walked away.

Harry stood where he was for a moment, and then darted into a secret passage.

He was just in time to avoid Snape, who swept around the corner and then paused and glanced at the corners. Harry ignored him and kept moving. Maybe the man wanted to threaten him, or snarl at him, but it didn’t matter.

Harry was going to learn Occlumency, and he was going to put his trust in his real friends, and he was never going to be caught unawares again.

Chapter 28

Notes:

Thank you again for all the reviews!

If you would like to leave a prompt for my Litha to Lammas stories, here's the link to a Google form to do so: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1k2bEZdrW4nsKqbfOwe-o9e9WDXfHnQeSLEVeh_u0DQ8/

*

“No, Dudley. Don’t touch him.”

Aunt Petunia had only needed one demonstration of Harry calling flame to his hand that he wasn’t hurt by and stepping towards Dudley before she decided that all contact between Harry and his cousin should just stop. Uncle Vernon had needed his own separate demonstration. What Harry did to him last summer had faded in the ten months since they saw each other.

But it didn’t matter. They left Harry alone now, and if they never offered him the food Aunt Petunia cooked or that they got as takeaway, they didn’t protest when Harry came down to the kitchen and claimed his fair share, either.

Harry still spent most of his time in his room. He wrote letters to his friends. He did his summer homework.

And he read and read the books Blaise had slipped to him, and he practiced and he practiced Occlumency.

As Blaise had warned, it wasn’t easy. Harry would think he’d achieved a perfect meditative state, and then his concentration would splinter and slide at a random yell from Dudley’s room or a hoot from Hedwig. But it didn’t matter. He would go back to it, and slowly, slowly, he hammered his mind into shape.

He started seeing visions of a vast dark plain, with only a few stars in the sky overhead. The plain seemed to glow with its own light, though, and Harry could make out thick grass growing on it, seeming to thrive even more in the darkness than it would in the sunlight.

When he touched the grass, he found it was woven of memories.

He watched himself get beaten up by Dudley, chased by Dudley’s gang, hit with Aunt Petunia’s frying pan, yelled at by Uncle Vernon. He watched himself go down into the Chamber of Secrets and despair that he had no real friends. And there were the disgusting moments when he’d thought he’d lost his friends and when he’d discovered Dumbledore and Snape had been reading his mind.

It was sort of the opposite of what Blaise’s Occlumency books said was supposed to happen. They said a Legilimens would try to find Harry’s worst memories and he had to hide them. He was supposed to use neutral or happy memories for that.

But after a while, Harry supposed that it didn’t matter. He could hide the most important memories in one blade of grass among millions on the plains, and fill the others with neutral ones or negative ones that he didn’t mind a Legilimens seeing.

It also solved another problem he’d been worrying about, which was how to deal with Dumbledore and Snape finding out he knew Occlumency. They would still see memories, after all. It should be enough to keep them from going looking.

Harry chose one particular blade of grass that was neither taller nor longer nor shorter than the others, in an area of the plain that was neither near the corners nor near the center. He laid his hand on that blade and poured in all the most disgusting moments of weakness, self-hatred, and self-delusion.

His thinking that he had lost his friends forever counted among those. He knew now that he’d misunderstood Theo calling him weird, and—

Well, maybe not misunderstood Hermione saying that he should be willing to take Snape’s punishment to cover up the theft of the Polyjuice ingredients, or Hermione and Ron getting upset because he was a Parselmouth. But he understood that this was just the way his friends were.

He had to put up with their limitations to have them as friends, the same way they had put up with his paranoia and weird reactions.

Harry wove the grass around that blade with some neutral memories of sitting in the park and attending Muggle primary and Hogwarts classes. Then there were more negative ones, more neutral ones, a few that approached happy, some that were confused like his arguments with the snake, and some laden with distrust. Anything Snape and Dumbledore already knew went near the tips of the grass blades.

It took hours. But what else did Harry have to do with those hours, trapped in a Muggle home as he was?

*

Well, he did do one other thing: finding food for the snake.

The snake had been content to accept the rats and mice that Hedwig brought back at first. But it seemed that she never hunted enough to feed it for long, and soon it was demanding eggs and baby birds and the like, things that Harry didn’t know how to give it.

“I can’t help you,” he finally snapped at the snake when it repeated the whining about baby birds for the fifth time. “I can’t leave the house, and I don’t even think that there are any baby birds like that around anymore. The summer is advanced enough that they’ve probably all grown up.”

“Why can’t you leave the house?”

Harry paused. He hadn’t actually tested it, he realized slowly. He’d just tried to stay out of his relatives’ way, and he knew that Dudley roamed around outside with his gang, so he was in the house.

“You smell foolish.”

“You don’t even know that that smells,” Harry said, but weakly.

Yes, he probably could go outside. And he could avoid Dudley and his gang easily enough. Even if he did get caught by them, Aunt Petunia’s terror of Harry was so extreme right now that she would probably punish Dudley instead.

“You can go and find me baby birds.”

“It’s still true what I said about the baby birds,” Harry muttered, but he swung his legs off the bed. “But I can find you eggs.”

“Eggs are somewhat acceptable.”

“They’ll have to be, because that’s all I can get you,” Harry said darkly. “Unless you want to go back to eating the mice and rats that Hedwig brings.”

“She resents me for eating them, and a resentful owl will take me in her claws.” The snake lifted its head abruptly and flicked a tongue like a gentle breeze across Harry’s cheek. “We will work together, and you will get me eggs, and I will teach you something.”

“What?”

“You have been calming and cooling your mind like one of my kind headed for hibernation. I will teach you how to bring yourself the rest of the way.”

*

Ron’s letters were frequent until about the middle of summer, when they stopped, but Hermione wrote Harry a letter that explained. Apparently Ron and his family had won a huge sum of money and gone to Egypt on holiday to visit his brother Bill.

Hermione had gone to France with her parents. Blaise had traveled around Italy with his mother. Theo had only sent one letter every fortnight, and he hadn’t said anything about traveling, but he hadn’t said anything about much in particular.

Wish I could go traveling, Harry thought, as he closed his eyes and slipped into the grassy black plain of his Occlumency.

But this would have to do.

Thanks to the snake’s teaching (and the careful use of some wandless magic and stolen money to get eggs from the shops), Harry could now enter a state that was sort of like hibernation. The snake didn’t think it was good enough, but the snake never thought anything Harry did was good enough. Besides, Harry didn’t want to go all the way into hibernation, tempting as it was to sleep through the summer. He wanted to walk around but with his mind calm and cool.

He was getting closer and closer to that.

Sometimes it seemed to him that something in his own brain was fighting against him. Harry didn’t know what it was, though. It would just strike like a bolt of black lightning and interrupt his Occlumency practice. But Harry had got good at pushing it to the edge of the dark plain and going on with his training.

He wondered if it was one of the difficulties of Occlumency that Blaise had warned him about. He wasn’t going to ask in a letter, so he supposed he would have to wait for the autumn.

But every night, every day, every morning, his vision of the black plain sharpened, and the snake hissed soft instructions that made more sense to Harry than some of the techniques in the books.

*

“And Marge is coming for a visit…”

That was the hardest test of Harry’s Occlumency yet. He had heard Vernon talking about it when he went down to the kitchen to get his breakfast of toast and bacon, and he froze for a long moment before he went back to packing his plate.

Unfortunately, Uncle Vernon turned around in time to see Harry pause, and it had been long enough since his last “lesson” that he’d recovered a little. He gave Harry a nasty smile. “And none of your freakishness while she’s here, do you hear me, boy?”

Harry looked calmly at Vernon from within the dark plain that had almost instantly snapped together around him. He saw the kitchen through a mass of dusk and starlight, and he was silent long enough to make his aunt swallow.

“If you have any sense,” he said at last, calmly, “you’ll keep her from bothering me.”

“Now, see here, you ugly little freak!” Uncle Vernon lurched to his feet. “I won’t have you dictating my sister’s behavior in my house! We’ve put up with you long enough, we’ll have no more of—”

He reached out, and the snake snapped out from under Harry’s collar with a threatening hiss.

“Touch him, Muggle! Try it!”

Granted, none of the Dursleys could understand the snake’s speech, but they reacted as if they could. Dudley cowered back in his chair with a frightened yell. Aunt Petunia shrieked and clutched at her throat as if she were going to faint. Uncle Vernon just froze in place the way Harry had a minute before, his hand almost within the snake’s reach.

“I’m going to tell it to bite you if you say anything else about me being a freak,” Harry said softly. “And if you allow Aunt Marge to taunt me. I’ll have it bite you. Not her. You.”

Harry understood exactly what motivated his uncle. He would never be as upset about the thought of a threat to his sister as he was to himself. Slowly, ever so slowly, Uncle Vernon pulled his hand back.

“We—can’t keep Marge from saying anything,” he said hoarsely.

“Sure you can,” Harry said cheerfully, and smiled at Vernon in a way that had him recoiling. “You’ve just never bothered. Do it, or remember what I said.”

“Vernon.”

Aunt Petunia was probably thinking that Harry might set his snake on Dudley if Marge said anything. Harry honestly didn’t know if he would or not. He was pretty bloody tired of everything to do with the Dursleys and staying here, but he didn’t really want to kill his cousin, and he thought the snake’s venom might do it.

“Yes, all right,” Vernon said hurriedly. “We’ll keep Marge from saying anything, keep her out of the way.”

“Good.”

“And you stay out of the way,” Uncle Vernon added, maybe thinking he could get some self-respect back like this.

Harry turned his head and stared into his uncle’s face with dead eyes, his mind almost fully in hibernation. Uncle Vernon recoiled.

“Don’t worry,” Harry said, when the kitchen had gone silent enough that he thought his relatives might have stopped breathing. “I will.”

He turned and walked back up the stairs with his plate of toast and bacon, while the snake hissed triumphantly on his shoulder.

“I stopped them. I would have bitten them. I made them afraid. They smelled so frightened!”

“Yeah,” Harry said absently. He sat down on his bed and ate his breakfast, while he thought about the expression on his uncle’s face.

It wasn’t really one he enjoyed causing. He thought about the way that he had made Malfoy look sometimes before they found a sort of truce and felt a little sick.

But it was better than Malfoy or Uncle Vernon attacking him. Or Aunt Marge saying terrible things that would break up Harry’s Occlumency.

He was doing what he had to do to survive. And he could depend on his friends, but none of them were here right now, except the snake.

So he would keep going.

*

“Where do you think you’re going, boy?”

Harry turned around slowly. So far, Uncle Vernon had kept his promise to separate Aunt Marge and Harry. And maybe Aunt Marge had still said awful things, but Harry was never in the room to hear them, so it didn’t matter.

Now, though, it seemed that none of the Dursleys were in the house. Harry had heard Dudley scream, and Aunt Petunia saying something about taking him for medical treatment. He hadn’t realized that Uncle Vernon had gone with them, though.

Now he stood outside the house, having been about to walk to the shops for eggs for the snake, and Aunt Marge stood in front of him.

“Speak when you’re spoken to, boy! Or don’t you understand what I’m saying?”

Harry felt his lips pull up into a cold smile. He doubted Marge would notice, or say anything if she did, but he reached into his collar and pulled out the snake.

Marge faltered. The snake was snapping at her with its fangs bared, which was undoubtedly part of the reason.

“Back off, Muggle! Leave my pet human alone!”

But Marge was even more stubborn than Uncle Vernon, and it wasn’t much of a surprise to Harry that she didn’t give up. Instead, she reached down and waved her hand at Ripper. “Ripper! Sic him!”

The dog dashed forwards with a bark. Harry thrust out a hand without even thinking about it. The same web of power that had trapped Dobby last summer descended on the dog and flipped him end over end. Ripper got up howling and holding his right front paw out as he limped on three legs.

Marge stared at the dog, then at Harry. Her face turned so red she looked like she might burst a blood vessel as she screamed, “What did you do?”

Harry was aware of the neighbors watching. They wouldn’t be sympathetic to him, but at least it was some satisfaction to know that the Dursleys would return and find out Marge had made a scene.

Harry just smiled at Marge and replied, “I think that he tripped.”

“No! You did something, you awful boy!”

Harry shrugged, tucked the snake back under his collar, and turned away. Marge might have tried to go after him when he was younger, but she had just seen that he had a snake and she had always been more than a bit of a coward. She stayed in place, yelling, as Harry walked away with the snake coiled back under his collar.

“You should have let me bite her.”

“Think of it this way. Do you really want that taste in your mouth?”

The snake weaved back and forth for a moment. Then it tucked its head down and said, “You have a point.”

Harry smiled a little. He felt very light and free, the anger distant from him. His Occlumency was probably doing something to hold it at bay.

“What are we going to do now?”

“I’ll sneak back and get my things out of my room. Then we’ll go to Diagon Alley and tell Hedwig to meet us there.”

“Why there?”

“Because it’s close to Knockturn Alley and we can find a room there without people paying attention to us. I think I still remember the train that took me back in my first year. And there’s no need to stay here any longer.”

“Why couldn’t you have remembered that during the part of the season when there were still baby birds for me to eat?”

Harry listened to the snake’s complaints, breathing in the air and exhaling it out. He turned around and made his way back to Privet Drive, ducking behind hedges and houses, as soon as he thought Marge would have exhausted herself and gone back inside.

All the time, the grass of his dark plain swayed in front of him, and he embraced it in silence.

Let them find out. Let them.

Chapter 29

Notes:

Thank you again for all the reviews!

If you would like to leave a prompt for my Litha to Lammas stories, here's the link to a Google form to do so: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1k2bEZdrW4nsKqbfOwe-o9e9WDXfHnQeSLEVeh_u0DQ8/

“Harry.”

Harry lowered his book and raised his eyebrows as Theo slipped into the seat next to him. He wasn’t really surprised to see Theo in this tiny shop off Knockturn Alley, he supposed. The shop didn’t truly advertise itself other than a listless-looking cup of tea on the signboard, but if you knew you could come here for undisturbed quiet after paying a few Sickles, you knew.

“Hi, Theo.” Harry kept his voice low. The dim room was full of scattered round tables, most of which had people sitting at them with their heads in books. Harry wasn’t sure what happened to people who broke the silence, but he didn’t want to know, either.

“What are you doing here?”

“My relatives got intolerable, so I left.”

Theo paused. Harry kept his hand resting on his book and a blank expression on his face. A few people were glancing over at them, but they glanced away again, probably because of the snake coiled drowsily in the middle of Harry’s table.

At least Harry was able to buy baby birds in Knockturn Alley, and having lived with the Dursleys was excellent practice for not asking where they came from.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t know how safe your situation was. Or whether it would be a good idea for someone near you to intercept the letter.”

Theo paused again. Harry was kind of glad he was here, and kind of wished he would go away so Harry could go back to reading. The book was a more advanced Occlumency practice tome than the ones Blaise had been able to give him, and really interesting.

“I’m sorry for that,” Theo finally said. “I assume you’ve heard about Sirius Black now?”

Harry nodded. Of course, he had listened to conversations about that with his face obscured by a cloak or a glamour charm—once he’d figured out that he could cast spells in Knockturn without the Ministry hunting him down—but he knew enough to estimate the risks.

Staying here was still less risky than what he thought he might have done to Aunt Marge.

“Do you—need anything?”

“No, thanks, Theo.” Harry dredged up a smile that he hoped was sincere. It wasn’t like he’d had anyone to smile at this summer other than the snake. “Other than maybe some company if you can? Sometime in the next few days?” It was the twenty-eighth of August, and they would be going back to Hogwarts soon.

“Of course.” Theo gave him a bright smile. “My father told me I could stay in the Leaky Cauldron for the next few days. I have a huge bag of Galleons. I’m shopping for school supplies.”

His eyes had shadows in them, but he didn’t need to worry. Harry wasn’t about to ask anything concerning horrid relatives. He just nodded.

“Great. We can buy the same books.” He and Theo were both taking Arithmancy and Ancient Runes. Theo was also taking Care of Magical Creatures, but Harry honestly hadn’t felt like subjecting himself to a third extra class on top of the other seven.

“Yeah, we can.” Theo leaned nearer and breathed the words so softly that Harry felt them more than heard them. “Are you sure that you don’t need help?”

“Not the kind of help you can give me,” Harry said, with a soft smile. Theo was the only one of his friends he might have spoken those words to.

Theo studied Harry’s face for a long moment instead of replying. Then he nodded and leaned back in his seat with a resigned expression. “All right.”

*

“Mate! What are you doing without a guard? Don’t you know that Sirius Black is hunting you?”

Harry turned around with a smile that he didn’t have to fake—much. The cool Occlumency of his mind was such that he sometimes felt unreal behind his expressions, that he was painting over the dark grass of the plain with them instead of feeling the emotions. But it was good to see Ron and Hermione again as they dashed madly down the middle of Diagon Alley towards him, even if he didn’t like Ron’s scolding.

Ron came up and threw his arms around Harry. Blaise sighed loudly from Harry’s left. Theo wasn’t with them at the moment, having gone into the Magical Menagerie to see about a pet, so at least Ron was spared cutting remarks.

Harry patted Ron’s back and ignored Hermione’s worried chorus about Black and guards and how Harry shouldn’t be wandering around by himself. He did snort when Hermione said something about how his Muggle relatives should have come with him.

“What?” Hermione put her hands on her hips. “You need to stay safe, Harry!”

“They hate magic, Hermione. They wouldn’t come to Diagon Alley, they would have just driven up and thrown me out of the car. I’m safer without them here.”

Hermione’s mouth hung open a little. Harry cocked his head. Had he really not said anything about the Dursleys to her? He thought that he must have, but parts of the last year really did add up to a blank in his head.

Quite a lot of it, in fact.

Harry frowned a little at that, but Hermione interrupted before he could think about it too much. “Oh, Harry, I’m so sorry!” she said, in a whisper loud enough to be heard at Gringotts. “Is there anything I can do? Do you want my Mum and Dad to talk to them? Mum and Dad are Muggles too, maybe having normal people—”

“Excuse me,” Blaise said.

“I didn’t mean that witches and wizards aren’t normal! Just that Muggles like Harry’s relatives don’t think so!”

“That’s not what it sounded like.”

With an effort, Harry turned his head and raised a hand. Both Blaise and Hermione fell silent, looking at him. Maybe it was an odd gesture to make, Harry thought, from somewhere deep within the dark grass. But he couldn’t really think about that right now.

“Nothing would persuade them, Hermione,” he said. His lips were numb, his tongue thick. The snake hissed softly from around his neck. Harry stroked its head. “I tried being good and I tried just acting like I wanted to. They hated me for years before Hogwarts started. They knew about magic but didn’t tell me. It’s best to just keep away from them.”

“But someone needs to talk to them and tell them they’re wrong!”

Harry almost smiled. Maybe he wouldn’t have been such a good fit for Gryffindor as he’d once thought. He completely lacked this righteous outrage that Hermione felt at the thought of his relatives hating him.

That’s just the way it is.

“I appreciate your concern, but I only want to keep away from them,” he repeated. “Come on, let’s shop for our school supplies.”

“Let’s.”

That was Theo, coming out of the Magical Menagerie with a small cage draped in cloth. His eyes darted back and forth between Ron and Hermione in obvious distrust.

“We need to talk about this, Harry!”

“Later.” Harry turned to Theo. “What did you get?”

Theo raised an eyebrow, as if he would have liked to continue the conversation along with Hermione, but he only whipped back the cloth. The bird within the cage immediately started hopping around and croaking as if the light had brought it to life.

“A raven,” Theo said, smiling down at the cage with the closest to tenderness that Harry had ever seen from him. “Isn’t he gorgeous? And smarter than any owl.”

“Some owls are very smart,” Hermione began.

Harry inserted himself into the conversation again. “What are you going to name him?”

Theo opened the cage, and the raven emerged, somehow much bigger in the open air than it had been in the cage. Or the cage was just charmed to be bigger on the inside than it appeared, Harry thought clinically as he watched the raven stretch its wings.

“He’s Midnight.”

The raven turned his head to look at Harry, and the snake lifted its head in response, hissing. “It is not to hurt you or me! It is to leave us alone!”

“You’re more bothered by the raven than you are by owls?”

“Your owl does not look at me as if she wants to eat me. Only as if she wants to defend herself if I attack.”

Harry could see the difference. He nodded. “The snake is upset that Midnight might want to eat it,” he told Theo.

“I’ll just tell him that your snake is off limits. He’s smart enough to understand that.”

Harry nodded, content, and faced his friends. Blaise was looking at him with an expression of alarm—not that it might look that way to a Gryffindor. But his eyebrows were raised and his eyes a little wider than usual.

Harry met his gaze blandly and asked, “Shouldn’t we go on with our shopping?”

*

“Harry. I need to talk to you.”

Harry turned around with a sigh. He had thought he would leave Blaise in the Leaky Cauldron, where Hermione and Ron and Theo were all staying. Blaise had said he would need to Floo home.

But Blaise had followed him, silently, stubbornly, back into Knockturn Alley instead, and now stood with his arms folded near the entrance of the little flat that Harry rented on the ground floor at the back of an apothecary shop.

“What, Blaise?”

“Have you been learning Occlumency?”

“Of course.” The black grass swayed in Harry’s vision, rustling back and forth. “Did you think I would ignore the books you picked out for me?”

“It’s not that. Not at all.” Blaise swallowed. “But Occlumency has some risks when you’re studying it alone.”

“I know. You said. I really should have a Legilimens. But I haven’t found one I trust yet.”

“Not only that. Did you read all the books I sent you? The whole of each book?”

“Not the boring parts.”

Blaise clenched his teeth. “Harry, those boring parts tell you that one danger of Occlumency is the temptation to maintain that state all the time. To only think about defending your mind. It means that emotions and knowledge and even other kinds of dangers don’t make much impression on you, because they can’t sink through the surface.”

Harry frowned. “You make that sound like a bad thing.”

Blaise looked at him without expression. Then he abruptly reached out and slapped Harry’s cheek.

Harry gasped, staggering backwards. The vision of the black plain wavered and vanished. The snake reared up on his shoulder, hissing, swaying back and forth with drops of venom glistening on its fangs.

“I will destroy him! I will bite him!”

“No, it’s all right,” Harry whispered, and stood back up. They were in a small alley off Knockturn Alley, dirty and dark, and at least no one had seen what had happened. He didn’t have to worry about other residents here sensing his weakness.

“Do you see my point?” Blaise asked.

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

“And not just because you want to be able to protect yourself against physical threats? You see how distant you were getting from all of us?”

Harry bit his lip until he thought it might start bleeding. He didn’t want Blaise to think him weak. He didn’t want Theo to think he was weird, either. Or Ron and Hermione.

But it seemed that he would have to relax some of his Occlumency around his friends. He nodded. “I see what you mean.”

“Good.” Blaise’s eyes turned hard, and Harry braced himself. But Blaise just shifted a step nearer. “What did the Muggles do?”

“I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

Blaise gave him another sharp glance, maybe because Harry’s voice was so flat. But he finally nodded. “All right. You know I am here if you wish me to be.”

“I do know.” Harry hesitated, because it seemed like a risky thing to do, and then reached out and clasped Blaise’s arm. “Thank you.”

Blaise looked down at Harry’s hand on his arm, and Harry tensed to snatch it back. But then Blaise covered Harry’s hand with his own.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “I can’t remember the last time someone who isn’t my mother or Theo touched me.”

Harry closed his eyes, trying to deal with the weight of the pain in those words, and nodded. “Right. Well, just remember…”

“What?”

Harry kept his eyes closed, because otherwise he wouldn’t be able to force out the words. “You matter, too. You’re important, too.”

There was silence, and then Blaise pulled back his hand. Harry opened his eyes, disappointed but also relieved. At least Blaise wasn’t yelling at him about saying something so sappy—

No. Blaise was lingering in front of him, and his smile went all the way back into his eyes.

“Thank you, Harry.”

Harry cleared his throat, not knowing how to deal with the way Blaise was staring at him. “Thank you.”

Blaise gave him the faintest of smiles and turned to melt back out of the alley. Harry didn’t watch him go. Blaise was smart enough to take precautions and not stand out in the environment of Knockturn Alley.

“Why are you happy when he attacked you?”

“He was doing it to show me that I was getting too much into my own mind,” Harry said, stroking the snake’s back absently as he stepped into the little flat and closed the door behind him. “I can forgive him for that.”

“I cannot..”

“Don’t bite him.”

“I will not. But only because you would not feed me birds if I did.”

Harry found himself really smiling as he sat down for lunch. The snake’s uncomplicated morality was the best sometimes.

*

“Mr. Potter.”

Just like last year, Snape was waiting for him in the entrance hall. Harry rolled his eyes and saw the professor’s face tighten. It didn’t matter. If Snape had wanted Harry to trust him, he shouldn’t have read his mind.

Blaise and Theo paused, but Harry shook his head a little. He’d shared a compartment with them for the last half of the train ride and with Ron and Hermione for the first half. He thought his Slytherin friends didn’t need to be subjected to their Head of House any more than they did to his Gryffindor friends.

Blaise and Theo still kept glancing backwards as they left him, though. In their own way, Harry thought as he turned to face Snape and Occluded fully for the first time since the day Blaise had spoken to him about it, they were sweet.

The notion of their sweetness faded into the rustle of the black plain. Harry met Snape’s eyes calmly and waited.

“I felt no twinge from the ring this summer.”

“No, sir.”

Both their voices were distant from Harry right now, soft winds striking his ears and no more. He waited, swaying a little in place, back and forth.

“Why is that? You were in no danger at all from Sirius Black? Or your relatives?”

“I didn’t wear it, sir.”

Snape hissed beneath his breath. “You idiot boy! What else can I do to enforce the fact that I am here for your protection?”

“Not read my mind. Sir.”

Snape recoiled. Harry watched him calmly from behind his Occlumency shields, feeling more than hearing the little pleased hisses from the snake on his shoulder. Then Snape tilted his head, and the first Legilimency probe Harry had really felt as more than pain glided into the grass of his mind.

It found nothing. Harry stood there, and the grass sang and the darkness danced around him, and Snape’s mind lost itself in the intricacy of his defenses.

When the professor pulled back a second later, he was extremely pale. “You are—you should not have been able to achieve such fortitude in Occlumency at your age,” he whispered. “What have you done?”

“Suffered under the hands of a professor and a Headmaster who could read my mind but still never believed me. Suffered from a student who got excused because she was possessed and treated like an outcast in my House for my blood. Been feared because of my Parseltongue among wizards and because of my magic among Muggles.” The words echoed in Harry’s head and rolled off his tongue smoothly, held at a distance by the shining plain. “That’s all, sir.”

“You—I read your mind for your safety.”

“That’s like saying you hit me to keep other people from hitting me.”

Snape stared at him, and then said quietly, “You have learned Occlumency too young. You will come to regret this. Your mind will be deformed by it.”

“I learned it because I had to.”

“I was trying to protect you, you foolish child.”

Harry’s emotions welled to the surface, and he looked out through cold enough eyes at the professor that Snape took a step back from him. “And what a job you made of it, too,” Harry said, not surprised when a bit of ice formed in the air.

“It is cold.”

The snake’s complaint was enough to pull Harry back from his focus on Snape. Honestly, he couldn’t see why he would need to be concerned about the man again except in class and when writing his essays. He turned his back.

“I did not dismiss you, Mr. Potter.”

“Then take points from Slytherin.”

Harry kept walking, and listening. Snape said nothing. He slipped into the Great Hall and sat down next to Theo and Blaise with a hard smile.

“What did he want?” Blaise asked in a whisper as they watched the Sorting take place and the shabby professor who had supposedly cast a spell against the Dementors that had invaded other train cars take a place at the table.

“Nothing important.”

Chapter 30

Notes:

Thank you again for all the reviews!

“You are not to go to Hogsmeade.”

“I never planned on it.”

It was Harry’s first detention of the year with Snape, and he had been working at cutting apart the plants that Snape had tossed at him in silence since the beginning. Snape was the one who had chosen to break that silence.

Snape paused. Harry ignored him and kept working, although he felt a violent, grim satisfaction curling around the inside of his belly.

Didn’t expect that response, did he?

“Why didn’t you plan on it?”

“The Muggles I live with would never have signed the permission slip.”

More silence, while Harry worked on separating the leaves from the stem in front of him. Then Snape gave a long sigh through his nose.

“Mr. Potter, why do you maintain this state of warfare between us? As the Head of your House, I am responsible for your safety. All the decisions I have made in regard to you are predicated on that fact.”

“With respect, sir, not all of them. Not going to look for the basilisk and standing by while Dumbledore scolded me were made because you didn’t care enough about me to insist that Dumbledore listen to you.”

“Professor Dumbledore.”

Harry rolled his eyes. He was facing away from Snape, but he honestly didn’t care if the man did see. This just proved that the professors were focused on the form and the surface of things, not the depth.

“Mr. Potter, you will answer me when I speak to you.”

“Yes, sir,” Harry droned. “I’ll call him Professor Dumbledore while he yells at me for nothing and doesn’t protect the children in the castle. I understand perfectly, sir.”

“You understand nothing.”

Harry ignored him and continued cutting plants. And Snape continued watching him now and then, if the pauses in the scratching of his quill were any indication, but Harry didn’t pay attention.

Snape had chosen his side. He had no right to be bitter over Harry having done the same thing.

*

“Welcome to your first practical lesson in Defense Against the Dark Arts.”

Harry subtly watched Lupin as he stood at the front of the classroom, beaming. One thing he had noticed was that Lupin kept looking at him, although he always glanced away as soon as he saw Harry staring back. Harry didn’t like the implications.

Either he follows the Dark Lord or he’s like the rest of the professors and disappointed that I’m not what he expected.

“…who can tell me what’s likely to be in this cabinet?”

Harry blinked and came back to reality. The rattling cabinet in front of him jumped and banged against the wall. Parkinson squeaked and pressed backwards as if she were going to run away from it.

“A boggart, Professor,” Blaise said coolly.

Lupin paused. “Indeed. In the future, please raise your hand, Mr. Zabini.”

Blaise narrowed his eyes. Harry moved a little, attracting Lupin’s attention, which promptly darted away like a moth from a flame.

“But yes, it is a boggart. Who can tell me what a boggart is and does?”

They weren’t sharing the class with the Gryffindors this term, so there was no Granger to raise her hand and rattle off the answer, but the Ravenclaws competed by waving their hands around. Lupin chose Terry Boot.

“A boggart is a shapeshifter,” Boot said, his eyes locked on the cabinet. “It takes the shape of what you most fear. If there’s more than one person present, though, it can become confused.”

“Excellent! Take two points for Ravenclaw.”

Did Boot really only get those points because he raised his hand?

Blaise shifted, as if sensing Harry’s question and answering it. But they both remained quiet as Lupin explained a little more about boggarts, how no one knew what they looked like when they were alone and how there was a special spell to defeat them.

“Raise your wands, please, and repeat after me. Riddikulus!”

Really?

But Harry supposed he should have got used to the ridiculous (ha) names of spells by now, so he did it along with the rest of the class. Lupin made them repeat it several times, louder and louder, like a primary school teacher conducting a singalong. By the end of it, Harry was ready to face the boggart, if only to stop the chant.

“I will invite you forwards one by one,” Lupin said, his hand on the cabinet door. “Remember, the boggart will take the form of what you most fear, but it is not real. Use the spell to make it funny. Ready?”

He didn’t actually wait for an answer, but pulled the door open, calling, “Mr. Zabini, you first!”

Blaise seemed to take a deep breath, but he moved towards the cabinet readily enough. The cloud of dark smoke that snapped out from inside it formed into a silver sword hovering in midair, the black hilt ornamented with rubies.

Harry blinked.

Blaise’s face was ashen, his wand steady, as he raised it and incanted, “Riddikulus!”

Rust spread over the end of the sword and all down the blade. It wobbled in the air and clattered to the ground. A few people shrieked, but no one laughed, including Blaise, who turned and walked back to the end of the line.

“Now you, Mr. Nott!”

Harry glanced at Blaise as Blaise stood behind him again. Blaise shrugged.

The next time they tell me I have too many secrets, I’ll just remind them of this.

Harry turned back in time to see Theo facing a tall, dignified wizard in black robes with white hair that fell down his back like a wave of moonlight. He looked at Theo with absolute contempt. His hands were clasped on a cane in front of him, and he shook his head slowly back and forth.

“Weak blood will tell,” he said.

Is that his father? Or another relative? Harry reckoned that it didn’t really matter that much, not when he knew a little about Theo’s background.

“Riddikulus!” Theo snarled.

The wizard wavered back and forth, and abruptly lost his cane, which turned into a whip that curled around him and began to hit him. Theo was the only one to laugh, sounding like a crow.

“Yes…well…” Lupin cleared his throat. “It did work,” he added, as the boggart turned into smoke and fled back into the cabinet. “Next!”

Harry watched the other Slytherins and Ravenclaws stepping forwards, not eager to volunteer himself. It seemed likely he would get a scolding of some kind from Lupin for not being the kind of boy savior Lupin had probably been trained to expect, and he was eager to delay that for as long as possible.

Mummies, banshees, wizards and witches, dragons, shadowy clots of darkness that hid under the bed—most of his classmates’ fears struck Harry as childish. Then again, he might have felt the same way about Blaise’s and Theo’s if he didn’t know them and didn’t know there was something far worse behind those apparently simple fears.

“Mr. Potter!”

Lupin’s voice had steel in it. Yeah, he hated Harry already. Harry stood up, shrugged lazily, and stepped forwards to meet the boggart.

It boiled for a moment, a dark cloud. And then it turned into Blaise and Theo, both with sneers on their faces.

Damn.

Harry took a deep breath. At least Blaise and Theo had already known that Harry feared being left behind. They’d lived through it last year. Harry could have done without his worst fear being exposed to the rest of his classmates, admittedly, but he would get through it, too.

For the first time in a few weeks, he completely subsumed himself in the rich, cold plain of his Occlumency, and watched dancing grass appear across the faces of his insubstantial friends. His fear cooled.

“Did you think we were really your friends?” boggart-Blaise asked.

“Why would we be friends with someone so weird?” boggart-Theo added.

Harry laughed, which made a couple of people who had been whispering behind him shut up. And then Harry aimed his wand, strong and sure, the vision of what he wanted to happen stirring through his mind like a wind among grass blades.

“Riddikulus!”

The spell slammed into the boggart, and the shadow versions of his friends sprouted bright red hair, obnoxiously big glasses, and feet and hands that looked like inflatated balloons. They stumbled in circles, trying to speak, but only squeaky noises came out of their throats.

Harry wasn’t the only one to laugh this time, but he could still feel Lupin’s eyes on him, and it wasn’t a huge surprise when he was asked to stay after class.

“That was an extraordinary spell, Mr. Potter.” Lupin smiled, but Harry couldn’t take the praise seriously because of the shadow in the man’s eyes. “I’d like to talk to you about your fear.”

“Why, sir? You didn’t talk to the others about theirs.”

Lupin hesitated. Then he said, with the air of someone deciding he had to be honest despite not wanting to, “Well, I almost didn’t let you face the boggart because I assumed your fear would be You-Know-Who, and that it would panic the class.”

Harry blinked. “Why the Dark Lord, sir? I was only one when he attacked. I don’t remember him.”

“You call him the Dark Lord?”

“Yes? Why?”

Lupin looked a little ill. “Traditionally, that name was used by his followers.”

“Well, I’m not going to use his real name and panic half the people in my House on a regular basis, and I’m not going to call him You-Know-Who or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. That’s pretty childish, don’t you think?”

Lupin stared at him. Harry stared back, ready to call up his Occlumency any moment, but he didn’t feel the scrape against his mind that would have announced Lupin was a Legilimens.

“It’s…you need to think about what people will think of you, Mr. Potter.”

“Oh, I know already that a lot of people hate me, sir. Mostly for things I can’t help.”

“No, I mean…”

“Yes, sir?”

Lupin looked as if he were longing to say something but couldn’t get it out for some reason. He finally looked to the side and whispered, “Dismissed.”

Harry left, shaking his head. He found Blaise and Theo waiting for him in the corridor.

“I know it wasn’t you,” Harry said, before either of them could open his mouth. “It wasn’t real.”

“Of course it wasn’t,” Blaise said.

“I know better than to call you that again,” Theo added.

Harry smiled, and pretended not to notice the way they shadowed him to their next class. He really did have friends, as much as he had to remind himself of that sometimes.

*

“Do you think you can teach me Occlumency?”

Harry blinked at Theo. They were the only ones walking back to the Slytherin common room currently, since everyone else had wanted to stay at the Halloween feast. But Harry didn’t have much stomach for sweets or celebration tonight, and Theo had said he would go with him.

“I don’t know if I can,” Harry said slowly, turning to face Theo. They were in the flickering light and shadow under a torch sconce, and Theo’s face looked as if it were changing several times. “I’m not a Legilimens, which Blaise said you need to be. And the snake taught me using some methods related to snake hibernation. I don’t know if those work if you’re not a Parselmouth.”

“But you could try?”

“I could try.”

“You sound like you’re still hesitating.”

“I have secrets in my mind that I’m reluctant to show to anyone else. You’re probably the same.”

“Our friendship isn’t close enough?”

Theo sounded injured, which Harry never knew what to do with. It was still a novel thing to him to have someone care about his opinion. The snake certainly didn’t.

“You could still think about them around Dumbledore or Snape, and they could read your mind until you get good at Occlumency. And the same thing might happen with me and your secrets. I think my Occlumency is pretty good, but they could get lucky.”

“Oh.” Theo straightened his shoulders and smiled. “I never intend to look either of them in the eye again. That will be okay.”

“And the chance that I could betray something of yours?”

“I trust you.”

Harry had to look away then. He hadn’t thought he would get a declaration like that, even after last year, even after knowing that Blaise and Theo were his friends. He had thought he might get something more complicated and subtle and meaningless, but not that.

Now who’s stereotyping people?

Harry slid away from that thought with a wry grimace and faced Theo. “All right. We’ll start with some of the meditation exercises in the Occlumency books, and we can talk more about the specific features of your mindscape after that.”

“Will I create the same one you do?”

“Oh, I doubt it. Mindscapes are individualized things. You have to think about the kind of place you’re comfortable in, and then really delve into creating it…”

Theo listened with a happy smile as they walked to the common room. Harry wondered if he was relieved to be learning Occlumency, or if it was something else that was inspiring the smile.

Only much later did it occur to Harry that it might just be that Theo was getting to spend time with him, and to have some of Harry’s undivided attention.

*

“Did you hear that Sirius Black broke into the castle?”

“Yes. Several times.”

Malfoy didn’t pay any attention to Harry’s tone, and just kept chattering away as he spread marmalade over more than one scone. “He apparently went to Gryffindor Tower. He’s like everyone else who thought you would be in Gryffindor.” Malfoy rolled his eyes, seeming not to remember that until last year, he had been one of those people. “And he menaced Weasley! What could Weasley have that he wanted?”

Harry blinked, because he hadn’t heard that last part. He looked across the Great Hall and found Ron in the center of a cluster of Gryffindors, all of them talking about the Great Sirius Black Scare, probably.

At least Ron didn’t seem hurt or particularly worried, Harry thought. More as if he were enjoying his newfound popularity.

Well, good for him. Harry was willing to admit that fame could be good in some circumstances. Those just never seemed to apply to him.

“What do you think he wanted in Gryffindor?”

Harry blinked when he realized Malfoy was addressing him. He shrugged. “I don’t know. I think that Black himself probably doesn’t know what he wants. He’s mad, right? He must be, to have followed the Dark Lord and spent so much time in Azkaban.”

“Not everyone who followed the Dark Lord was mad.”

Malfoy spoke in a shy little voice, eyes half-lowered, attention on Harry. Harry wrinkled his nose.

“You can say that, but I’ve read about him torturing his own followers and calling for the extermination of Muggleborns. And then he got defeated by a Muggleborn. Do you really think that he was wise?”

“He didn’t get defeated by a Muggleborn!”

“Of course he did, Malfoy. I was one. I had nothing to do with it.”

“But you stood up to him in other circumstances,” said Flint, who had apparently failed his exams yet again and was now sitting closer on the other side of the table than Harry had realized he was.

“What are you talking about?”

“You encountered him possessing Quirrell and lived to tell about it.”

Harry stared blankly at Flint, his mind locked in place. It was so quiet that the snake hissed from under his robe collar, “Make yourself useful and let me try those fluffy yellow things you say are eggs.”

Flint shifted uneasily, reminding Harry of how frightened he had been of Harry last year. It was enough to snap Harry out of his trance. He shook his head. “Standing up to him would be fighting him. I’m not stupid enough to do that.”

A wave of light laughter broke out among the Slytherins, along with speculative looks. Harry ignored them and went back to eating.

And serving the scrambled eggs to the snake, who haughtily declared, “I do not know how you humans can eat such terrible things,” while swallowing three helpings.

Chapter 31

Notes:

Thank you again for all the reviews!

“Did you want to do some dueling practice, Harry?”

Harry blinked at Blaise, who had suddenly stepped up to the bed where Harry was studying and addressed him. “Huh?”

“I asked you if you wanted to do some dueling practice,” Blaise said. His voice was gentle, but his fingers tapped for a second against his leg as if Harry’s answer was more important than Harry thought it was. “Since Sirius Black broke into the castle and all, and you might feel better if you knew more offensive spells.”

“I don’t think I’ll be able to duel him if he finds me.”

“What was your plan?”

“Running away.”

“That might not work, either.”

“It did against the Dark Lord.”

“In his weakened form, possessing Quirrell.” Blaise’s voice had spiked for a second, as if he were frustrated that Harry didn’t plan to throw Black to the ground and hold a wand to his throat, but now he sounded calm again. “It’s best if you know the curses and the powerful spells that will protect you against foes like that.”

“And you think you’re the right one to teach me.”

“Would you rather find a different teacher?”

Blaise’s voice had cooled now. Harry fought the temptation to simply disappear into the plain of his Occlumency where he wouldn’t care about anything. “No,” he said. “Just that I want to know why Theo isn’t joining us, and why you think I should learn now when before you didn’t seem to care.”

Blaise’s posture eased. “There’s too much chance that someone would manage to find out about Theo training with us, no matter how secret we are,” he said, leaning against the post of his own bed. “And his father would take exception to that.”

“Oh.”

Harry scowled. Someone would have to do something about Theo’s father, and even though he didn’t know if it would be him, Harry wanted it to be him.

“And Black was supposedly going to be kept away by the Dementors and the wards on the school, but obviously, that didn’t work.” Blaise leaned forwards, his eyes intense. “You’re one of my best friends, Harry. I don’t want to see you killed by a madman when there’s a chance that I could help keep you alive.”

Harry fought the temptation to disappear into his Occlumency again. He sat there and forced himself to meet Blaise’s eyes without the fear of Legilimency—because Blaise wouldn’t use Legilimency on him, not because it was impossible—and consider it.

Yes. Practicing curses and other spells with someone was probably a good idea. Harry could only get so far with shooting spells at the wall or in class, and with his accidental magic. For all he knew, Black would grab him from behind and slit his throat before Harry could roast him with accidental magic.

Harry swallowed against his own anxiety and nodded. “Okay.”

“Excellent.”

“Want to teach me curses that much?”

“Want to keep you alive that much.”

Blaise turned and strode out of the room while Harry was still gaping.

*

As it turned out, working with Blaise to learn curses and defend against them was surprisingly like working with himself. But a version of himself that was faster, stronger, more determined, crueler.

Blaise was the sort who would cast a Choking Curse on Harry and then stand there, watching it hurt him, for a few moments before he cast the counter. And who would insist that Harry drill again, and again, and again, with the counter until casting it was so instinctive that Harry’s wand snapped up the moment that Blaise moved.

Blaise was the sort who would hit Harry with a version of the Body-Bind that made him unable to even blink or breathe and then stand there and watch him try to writhe in place before releasing him. And do it again and again until Harry could shield, before Blaise started teaching him the counter.

More painful spells than that weren’t out of the question, either, although Blaise only broke Harry’s arm once, because he didn’t know healing spells powerful enough to fix it and they had to go to Madam Pomfrey with a story about having a private broom race that got out of hand. And because Blaise gave Harry a weird look when he grunted with the pain.

“You should have screamed,” he’d said afterwards.

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why?”

They’d looked at each other in mutual incomprehension for a few minutes until Blaise looked away, turning his wand over in his hand, and said quietly, “Most people would have screamed, Harry. I don’t know if you didn’t just to show that you’re trying to impress me or—for some other reason. But you can do it.”

“I don’t do it because of my pain tolerance. And because screaming wouldn’t do any good, would it? Would screaming in front of an enemy who breaks my arm persuade them to stop hurting me?”

“With most people, no.”

Blaise said it very slowly, as if attempting to think of someone who would stop. Harry nodded. “So we just keep going. We shouldn’t use any spells like that again that we can’t heal because of Madam Pomfrey. But we keep going.”

“Have you ever thought about what we’re going to be when we learn all this?”

“What do you mean? Skilled duelists?”

“No. What—what you’ll do with the knowledge?”

“Defend myself? Defend you and Theo?”

“I—” Blaise shook his head and glanced away. Harry waited, quiet. If Blaise was reconsidering his decision to teach Harry curses, then Harry had to let him come to that conclusion on his own. Although Harry intended to continue learning on his own even if Blaise did stop teaching him.

In the end, Blaise just turned back to him with a slightly unhappy smile. The torches on the walls of the classroom where they practiced made him look as though his eyes were pools of shadow. “You don’t have any greater ambitions than survival, do you?”

“To protect my friends.”

Harry said that as sincerely as he could, staring into Blaise’s eyes, and Blaise looked at the floor and nodded. Then he asked something so strange that Harry could only stare at him. “What did you think of Malfoy asking you about Black’s tactics and the reason he might have gone to Gryffindor Tower?”

“That he thinks I know things I don’t?”

“But why do you think he asked you that?”

“Because people think I have some kind of unparalleled insight into the Dark Lord’s tactics because of my mum defeating him when I was a baby. Because they’re honestly kind of weird about the whole thing. Or because maybe he wanted to see what I would say because Black was after me.”

“Yeah,” Blaise said a minute later, as if talking to himself. “That’s probably it.” He raised his wand. “Ready?”

“Sure,” Harry said, and wondered for a second why Blaise had wanted to bring up Malfoy at all.

But then he put that out of his head, as just the way that his friends could be sometimes, and settled down to continuing the duel.

*

Ron had been, happily, completely unaffected by the way that Black had confronted him other than having a cool story to tell. For the past several times they’d met up, that had been the story. Harry had been content to listen, because, after all, Ron wanted distinction, and this was the one that had come his way most recently.

This time, though, they were sitting in the Gryffindor common room, and Ron abruptly broke off the story to stare at the fire. Harry blinked at him. After a long moment of silence, Ron turned to Harry and asked, “Do you think I’ll ever amount to anything other than this?’

“You mean—” Harry groped for words, feeling irritated at himself. With Slytherins, he was often left without them because their minds raced too fast and subtly for him to grasp. With Gryffindors, he felt as though they were being too direct. I don’t belong anywhere. “You think that the only reason people are paying attention to you is because you survived Black?”

“Yeah. Do you think I’ll ever be able to make people pay attention to me for other reasons? That I’ll ever achieve something great?”

Why me?

But at least it was more obvious why Ron would ask his friend that than it was why Malfoy would ask Harry about Black’s actions. So Harry stared at Ron and said with all the sincerity he could muster, “Ron, you’ve told me that you have a lot of talents. They’re just—not developed as far as they could be right now.”

“Like what?”

“Chess. You’re a great chess player. And Quidditch—”

“But there are other people better than me.”

Harry sighed and leaned back on the couch. “Ron, there are always going to be people better than you. Not just your brothers. Professional players. People who have some kind of inborn natural talent for it. People who’ve played on Hogwarts Quidditch teams for six years. That kind of thing. It doesn’t mean you have to give up on it.”

“But I would look stupid next to them…”

“Do you automatically think that any beginning Quidditch player looks stupid?”

“I just don’t want to look stupid.”

“You have to go through that phase before you get better,” Harry said, and reached for an example that didn’t involve a game when Ron looked at him skeptically. “Do you think that anyone looks great the first time they pick up a wand? All of us were flailing around last year and didn’t know what to do.”

“Except Hermione.”

Harry made his sigh louder this time. “And she had almost a whole year to practice before she came to Hogwarts because of when her birthday is. So you can’t compare yourself to her. Or you can ask her what the first few spells she cast were like. I don’t think she was good at them, either.”

“But what if she was?”

“Fine,” Harry snapped, loudly enough that a few Gryffindors turned to look. “Be that way.”

“Be what way?” Ron was sitting up with a look of vague alarm on his face.

Harry ignored the way that people were staring at him and muttering. Yeah, maybe they’d ban him from Gryffindor Tower for being the Slytherin who caused a scene, but at this point, he couldn’t think that was a bad thing. “Be the way that means you come up with reasons to give up instead of try.”

“I’m not that way!”

“Then prove it!” Harry yelled over his shoulder as he marched to the door of the Tower. Hermione wasn’t around—it seemed she never was, with her strange schedule and the constant homework for all her classes—but he knew that Ron would probably tell her what had happened. Harry hoped she would be wise enough to understand why Harry had said what he’d said.

He stepped out into the corridor beyond the Tower and breathed.

Maybe I don’t belong anywhere, but at least I’m not giving up before I try.

*

“Mr. Potter.”

Harry glanced up. He’d been working on a charm that made all your hair stand straight up on end and not managing it very well. That was probably what Professor Flitwick had come over to talk to him about. “Sir?”

“If I could speak with you after class?’

Harry checked a sigh. Great, another professor pretending to be concerned about him. “Yes, sir.”

“Excellent!” The little Charms professor gave Harry a smile and moved off to help Crabbe with pointing his wand in the right direction. Harry shook his head and bent over his arm to cast the spell again.

“What do you think he wants?”

Theo’s voice was low, and he kept looking at his own arm. Harry hated that even in this class, there might be Slytherins who would report back to their parents about Theo’s behavior. Harry muttered back in the same way, without looking up. “I don’t know.”

“Something about your class performance?”

Harry shrugged. He had been struggling a little at the beginning of the year with adding Runes and Arithmancy on top of his other classes, but that was all right, he could do it now. And at least he hadn’t taken Divination. And he had never slipped in his essays on Charms or turning in his work on time. It was only the actual spells that he struggled with a bit to make perfect the first time.

Theo turned back to raising the hair on his arm without a word, and Harry did the same thing.

*

“Please do have a seat, Mr. Potter, it’s nothing bad.”

Professors only said that, in Harry’s experience, when it was extremely bad. He sat back down, but kept his hand on his wand.

“I don’t know if anyone ever told you,” Professor Flitwick said, turning around from straightening a pile of books to smile at him, “that your mother was a Charms prodigy? And that I lent her books on the subject?”

Harry opened his mouth, then closed it. His first impulse was to ask why anyone would have told him that and why he should care, but he was a little dazed. He only ended up saying, “No, sir.”

Professor Flitwick nodded. “She gave me back most of the books with notes in the margins arguing with me and with the common theories about how to cast the spells.” He chuckled, his eyes sparkling. “She was something else. A true genius at Charms. I was wondering if you would like the books?” He spoke very gently.

“Yes, sir,” Harry whispered. Or thought he whispered. He honestly didn’t remember hearing the words come out of his mouth.

But he felt the books and saw them, cradled in his hands. He opened them and traced a shaking finger down a long line of spidery writing that he’d never seen before, with t’s so crooked that it looked as though his mother had turned the page sideways to cross them and big flourishing loops on the l’s.

“You deserve to have them, Mr. Potter.”

“Thank you,” Harry said. At least he felt the words in his throat and managed to look up to meet Flitwick’s eyes this time.

The professor’s smile was gentle. “You’re very welcome, Mr. Potter.”

*

“So those books were your mum’s?”

“They were really Professor Flitwick’s, but she wrote notes in them.”

Harry hadn’t been able to bring himself to look up from his mum’s handwriting since he’d come back to the dormitory. Malfoy had tried a few questions and then left quietly. But Blaise and Theo seemed more interested in hanging around for some reason.

“So she was a genius?”

“Yes.”

In truth, Harry hadn’t read much of his mum’s writing yet. He was just too overwhelmed in looking at the actual letters and comparing them to his. He hadn’t known that she wrote her letter r like he did.

“Can we see?”

Harry froze. He stayed that way for a long minute before he looked up.

Theo stood in front of him with a solemn face. Blaise was quieter, behind him, but Harry had spent enough time with him lately to see the lines of uncertainty in his face.

“I promise that we’ll be gentle with them,” Theo whispered. “I just want to see. It’s—I’d really like to see.”

Harry nodded slowly. He knew that Theo’s mother had died under mysterious circumstances that Theo would probably never feel like talking about. “Okay,” he whispered, and held out the nearest book, which seemed to be about magical theory, to Theo.

Theo sat down and turned the pages with reverent fingers. Blaise, meanwhile, came over and sat beside Harry with his legs crossed. Harry eyed him.

“I’d like to see whatever you would like to show me,” Blaise said.

Harry had never heard his voice so gentle, as if Blaise were approaching a wild creature he thought might attack him. And that irritated Harry a little. He wasn’t a wild creature, and he was perfectly capable of showing these books to Blaise.

It still took more effort than he thought it should to turn the book to face Blaise.

“Her handwriting looks like yours.”

Harry swallowed through the lump that he would never be able to resolve, and nodded.

“And I’ve never heard of this variation for the Hair-Raising Charm before. I wonder if that’s what reminded Flitwick of the books today. Do you think he would get upset if we tried it in class?”

Little by little, word by word, Blaise pulled Harry out of his shell. And when Harry turned his head to watch Theo, it was to see him staring down at the book he held with something like awe.

Because it was from Harry’s mum, or because Harry’s mum had been a smart Muggleborn who had turned some of Theo’s prejudices on their heads?

It doesn’t matter, Harry thought, and went back to explaining his mother’s innovations to Blaise, enjoying the feeling that, for once, he belonged.

Chapter 32

Notes:

Thank you again for all the reviews!

“Mr. Potter, please stay after class.”

By now, this was more or less a regular thing with Lupin. Harry just nodded at him politely and turned to clear away his notes. Theo hissed at his left side, one hand forming into a fist for a moment.

“What?” Harry asked Theo out of the side of his mouth.

“I don’t like the way he keeps keeping you here. Like you did something wrong.”

“As long as I’m on time to my next class, I don’t care.”

Theo studied him with narrowed eyes for a moment, then jerked his head in response to something unclear to Harry and marched out. Harry didn’t turn to stare at him, because he wouldn’t do anything so obvious, but he wondered a little.

“Yes, sir?” he asked, as he turned to face Professor Lupin.

“I wanted to know how worried you were about Sirius Black.”

“Oh. Not really, sir.”

“Not really? When he’s—out for your blood?”

“Well, I don’t go to Hogsmeade because my relatives wouldn’t sign the permission slip, sir. And I don’t play Quidditch or have Care of Magical Creatures class or do pretty much anything else that would take me outside the school. The only times I’m outside are when I’m watching the Quidditch games. I can stay indoors if you’ll think it’ll help.”

Harry thought that was a perfectly reasonable compromise, but instead, Lupin looked a little ill. “You’re not afraid of him even though he broke into the school?”

“If he killed me by sneaking up behind me and doing it before I could stop him, then I would be dead anyway, sir,” Harry said steadily. “And when he did break into the school, he went up to Gryffindor Tower. It’s an odd destination if he actually meant to come down to the Slytherin common room and kill me.”

“But you’re not afraid.”

“Do you want me to be more afraid of him, sir? I’m not sure what your point is here.”

Lupin, as often happened when Harry asked him a question that he thought perfectly reasonable, turned red and waved a hand at Harry. “Nothing, Mr. Potter. Dismissed.”

Harry left, shaking his head. Half the time Lupin seemed to want Harry to confide in him, and half the time he acted as though Harry was guilty of some mysterious sin that he could only get rid of by admitting to it first.

So like most of the other professors, really.

*

But Professor Flitwick remained an exception to that.

After he had given his mum’s books to Harry, he had answered questions Harry had about Charms, and other questions that Harry came up with about some of the material in other classes and how it intersected with Charms. He was patient and never told Harry he should go ask his other professors who taught the different classes instead. Maybe he already knew they were useless.

So, late one evening when Harry had visited the professor of his own free will to talk about some spells that could be used both offensively and defensively, he took a deep breath and made the push.

“Could you tell me about my mum, sir?”

Professor Flitwick had been filling a cup with tea and chattering like a magpie, but now he stopped and looked at Harry thoughtfully. “You didn’t hear stories about her growing up, then?”

Harry flinched a little at the thought that the professor would know even as much about his childhood as this revealed, but he’d have to get used to it. He shook his head and whispered, “No.”

“All right.” Professor Flitwick gave in surprisingly easily, settling back into his chair. “I suppose Lily Potter the woman rather does disappear under Lily Potter the martyr.”

Harry sucked in his breath. Professor Flitwick blinked at him. “I’m sorry, did I say something wrong?”

“No. Just—it’s a thought I’d had before, but I’d never been able to put it into words, sir.”

“Yes.” Flitwick’s face softened a little. “And no one really wants to speak of her as a woman because of the fact that she was a martyr who ended the war. As if they believe the war will return if they talk about her as an ordinary woman.”

Harry nodded rapidly, blinking a little to get the tears out of his eyes. He didn’t want to cry in front of anyone, even someone who seemed as sympathetic as Flitwick. “Yes, sir. That’s exactly it.”

“So that is probably why some people who knew them well, like Professor McGonagall, have not spoken of your parents to you.” Professor Flitwick hesitated, then sighed and put down his teacup. “And there is another reason as well, I believe. I would be willing to reveal that to you, because I could not live with myself if I did not. But it is a hard truth. Are you sure you want to hear it?”

Harry swallowed, and had to swallow again, because this kind of consideration was more than anyone else had ever given him. “Yes, sir. I need to.”

Professor Flitwick nodded once. “The end of the war also made them envision you, as the Boy-Who-Lived, in a certain way. And they probably subconsciously fear the return of the war if you don’t act the way they think you should.”

“Like a martyr. Like someone willing to be a martyr.” Harry gave a harsh laugh. “You’d think that going after the basilisk would confirm for them that I can die to save people, sir.”

“But you didn’t do that to die to save people. You didn’t care if you lived or died.”

Harry froze. Then he said, “Sir, how did you know that?” His eyes were measuring the distance between his chair and the door.

“The way you speak of it has made it obvious to me.” Flitwick sat with his hands open in his lap, not reaching for his wand. His gaze was steady and gentle. “It’s all right, Mr. Potter. Harry. You don’t need to speak of it to me, and you can leave and never come back if you want to—although I hope you don’t. But you are in control of the conversation.”

Harry wished for a single, fierce moment that he’d been Sorted into Ravenclaw. He didn’t really wish it, because then he wouldn’t have had Blaise and Theo, but Merlin, why couldn’t his Head of House have been like this?

“Is that reasoning the same for Professor Snape, sir?”

Professor Flitwick’s answer was slow in coming. “I doubt it.”

“Why not?”

“He hated your father,” Flitwick said, with a sigh, as if he had accepted that he would have to tell Harry the truth. “And he was friends with your mother, but he lost her friendship in their fifth year in an incident I don’t know all the details of. So I doubt he sees you the same way.”

Harry opened his mouth, then closed it. That hadn’t been what he’d expected the professor to say, but then, he didn’t know what he’d expected.

“He wouldn’t tell me more details, would he?” Harry whispered.

“No, I’m afraid not. I’m sorry, Mr. Potter.”

Harry hesitated. He didn’t know if he should do this, and it might result in some trouble he wasn’t smart enough to see coming, but—

“You can call me Harry, if you want. Sir.”

Professor Flitwick’s smile brightened like a candle being lit. “I would like that very much, Harry.”

*

Harry was walking back to the Slytherin common room when it happened.

He’d taken to practicing some spells on his own, partially because it seemed that Lupin was going to concentrate on Dark creatures only and Harry needed some defensive ones that weren’t illegal, and partially because he thought it might be a good idea if even Blaise didn’t know everything he was doing. Maybe Blaise’s mother would try to manipulate him like Theo’s father was manipulating Theo, someday.

Best to be prepared.

So he was tired and not feeling his best, but he was still more than alert enough to recognize someone trying to grab him from behind.

Harry whirled and ducked, then lashed out with one leg. He kicked something, although it wasn’t a kneecap that could collapse or lock, and heard a groan. He kept rolling to the left, grunted as he hit his elbow on the floor, and scrambled back to his feet with his wand in his hand.

Mad eyes looked at him. Harry recognized Sirius Black from the papers, and part of him wanted to freeze and squeal.

But that last part hadn’t spent two and a half years in Slytherin for nothing.

Black opened his mouth to say something, maybe a spell, and Harry charged him. Black gasped and held up his hands. Harry didn’t care. Black was probably trying to make himself look harmless so that he could grip Harry and hurt him again.

Harry wasn’t going to let that happen.

He slammed into Black, and they went to the floor together—Black still trying to say something, Harry not giving a shit. Black was bigger than he was, but Harry was faster. He kicked Black in the knees and the ribs and the chest and the head, pure Muggle fighting, before he jumped back and cast one of the curses he had been practicing by himself.

“Sanguis ignis!”

Black screamed as the curse it him. It was weak, or it would have killed him immediately, but at least some of his blood had been heated unbearably. Harry dodged and darted back and forth, waiting for Black to stand up.

He didn’t stand up. He was writhing in pain.

Then the rest of Harry’s instincts slammed into being, and he turned and ran, madly ran, out of the corridor and towards the populated part of the dungeons as fast as he could go.

He was rounding a corner when he slammed into someone solid and heavy, which made him a little woozy, but he was going so fast that he knocked them to the floor, too. Harry promptly bounced back to his feet, ready to keep going.

“Potter. Potter, wait.”

It was Flint. Harry stared at him with eyes he knew were wild and waited, poised to run.

“What happened? Why is there blood on your face?’

Harry didn’t know if he’d been cut or if it had happened because he’d been kicking Black and some of Black’s blood had splashed on him. But there was only one answer that mattered. “Sirius Black,” he gasped. “In the school—again. A few corridors away from here. Grabbed me. I had to get away.”

Flint’s eyes widened, and he darted a glance in the direction Harry had come from. “Do you think he’s chasing you?”

“I wasn’t looking back, Flint.”

“Come on. I’ll get you to Professor Snape.”

“Let’s go to Professor Flitwick instead.”

Flint opened his mouth as if to argue, but Harry cocked his head and looked at him. Flint deflated at once. “Yeah, yeah, Flitwick’s office is closer to this part of the dungeons anyway,” he muttered, and led Harry.

That last statement wasn’t true, but Harry didn’t care. The last thing he was going to do was show up to Snape’s office with blood on his face and having seen Sirius Black, when he would get scolded again.

Even if the scolding was only deferred, because Flitwick would probably have to take him to the Headmaster too, Harry still preferred that.

It was only when he was walking beside Flint and his heart was slowing a little that some of his curiosity woke up in place of his fear.

I wonder what Black was trying to say? Why he tried to grab me instead of kill me?

Harry shook his head. He would probably never know. And it might be just as simple as Black wanting to make some speech about how he was justified in betraying Harry’s parents and Harry himself, or working for the Dark Lord. Villains in books always wanted to make big speeches, and some of the history about the Dark Lord indicated the same thing.

The important thing is that I survived.