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Chapter Text

July 11, 1992

The house was almost completely dark.

Few houses in the modern age are truly dark at night. Small electric lights provide at least faint illumination in kitchens. Nightlights glow in strategic places so people don’t trip and face-plant into a toilet or down the stairs. However, among those houses in Little Whinging that were almost but not completely dark, only one was a secret.

Harry Potter was hunched under his blankets in a way that made his back and neck ache. A flashlight taped to the shoulder of his tatty pajama shirt allowed him to see the heavy book spread across his lap. Its pages were covered with small, neat letters and moving pictures drawn in black ink. Its title, though unreadable because the book was open, was Moste Potente Potions. Harry had pilfered it from the Potter family library the previous summer and only now decided his Potions knowledge was advanced enough to start studying from the large and questionably legal tome. He was only twenty-three pages in and had already filled half a notebook with scribbled calculations, notes, questions, connections, and references to other potions, books, or his own experiences.

His battered old digital watch beeped at 1am. Harry made a face—he was halfway through the study of a potion that could temporarily increase physical strength at great cost later. He wasn’t sure what the cost was since that was covered in the second half of that section. But Aunt Petunia would want him up at seven to make breakfast, and he’d scheduled a minimum of six hours of sleep a night, so bedtime it was.

Harry clicked off the flashlight and threw the covers off his head. The book was held closed in a way that looked casual and was not and also managed to completely obscure the title from anyone watching, even though Harry’s window shades were drawn and his door closed. Dumbledore, the Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, had warned Harry that he’d have watchers on the Dursley home over the summer. Harry didn’t know if his watcher was wizard, Muggle, Squib, or house-elf. Of the four he was just hoping it wasn’t a house-elf; if it was, the thing could be watching his every waking moment and never be seen, which meant he’d had to restrict himself to absolutely zero wandless magic over the summer. His wandless magic was a secret from all but his closest friends and Harry wanted to keep it that way. Hidden advantages were always good. But it was starting to drive him spare. Being without his wand was bad enough, but he’d been relying on his abilities to move, ignite, freeze, illuminate, or warm things with his mind for years and suddenly being without either form of magic was giving him withdrawal.

Harry smiled grimly and lifted the loose floorboard in the corner of his room, where he stored a few things. Currently the cavity held three books, the flashlight, a notebook, and a ballpoint pen. He’d been completely isolated for nearly four weeks already, since school let out in the middle of June, and he’d torn through his school assignments in the first two. Since then he’d been reading and studying from the other books in his school trunk. Of course, the school trunk was locked away in the cupboard under the stairs where Harry used to live and he wasn’t supposed to be accessing any of his things. Little did the Dursleys know Harry could unlock the cupboard. For the sake of a potential house-elf watcher, he’d stolen a few of Aunt Petunia’s hairpins and pretended to pick the cupboard lock whenever he needed to get into his trunk. He was getting pretty good at actually picking the lock, with his hands and not his magic, in the process.

The Dursleys were easier to deal with than they ever had been before. Dudley was terrified of Harry’s magic and ran off if Harry started glaring and mumbling gibberish. Aunt Petunia seemed to have settled on a truce wherein he did his chores and hid in his room when he wasn’t doing chores, and in exchange she let him alone other than barking orders and commands to “hurry up, boy.” Uncle Vernon regarded him with a mix of disgust, contempt, and fear. The fear part probably came from Harry letting his friend Theo cast a Dancing Charm on Uncle Vernon in the middle of King’s Cross. 

Well. Harry had thought Theo was his friend, until Theo completely cut him off over the summer. Harry had sent out multiple letters with Alekta, his Taiga falcon, but she returned empty-handed each time. (Empty-clawed? Empty-taloned?)

Just like tonight, in fact. Alekta swooped in the open window and landed on Harry’s bedpost. He fed her an owl treat and held her for a moment. The fierce bird nibbled his ear and then butted her beak against his cheekbone in a rare expression of affection, albeit a slightly painful one.

“I know, girl,” he said softly. “No letters to deliver. I’m sorry. But none of them wrote me back.”

It hurt more than he wanted to admit. He’d thought he’d gotten close enough to several people at Hogwarts last year for them to write. Neville, George, Fred, Pansy, Justin, Hermione, Daphne, Anthony, Lisa, Sue—not to mention his two closest friends and fellow Slytherins, Theo and Blaise. He’d thought Hermione and the Ravenclaws for sure would write if for no other reason than to go over the summer assignments. But he’d had zero contact with the wizarding world for nearly four weeks.

If it wasn’t for Alekta and his trunk, Harry might have started to think he’d hallucinated it all.

He sighed and put Alekta back in her cage. She chittered with irritation but didn’t fight. This was their routine now—he “picked” the lock on her cage once the Dursleys went to sleep, let her out to hunt and stretch her wings. He locked her back in her cage before he went to sleep if she was back by then, or immediately upon waking up if not, because technically she wasn’t supposed to be let out at all.

Harry climbed into bed, tugged up the covers, rolled over, and reflexively felt under the pillow for a wand that wasn’t there. He scowled into the dark. It had been four weeks and he still hadn’t adjusted to being wandless again, but it was too dangerous to keep either his holly wand from Ollivander’s or the ash wand he’d stolen from the Potter family vault a year ago in his room. If his relatives found his books, he could replace them. If Uncle Vernon snapped either of his wands, Harry didn’t think he should be held responsible for whatever happened to the man afterwards. But that wouldn’t bring the wand back. So the wands stayed in his trunk’s secret compartment behind multiple layers of physical and enchanted security.

He fell asleep in a foul mood, as had been his practice for some time now.

July 12, 1992

“Now, as we all know, today is a very important day.”

Yes, we know, the stupid dinner party. Uncle Vernon had been going on about it for weeks—almost since Harry had come back. (He refused to think come home. That implied that Number 4, Privet Drive was or ever had been in any way other than physical living space a home for him.)

“This could well be the day I make the biggest deal of my career.”

Harry wanted so very badly to screw it up as much as he could, but he knew he needed to not pick fights with the Dursleys. His deal with Dumbledore had been three weeks. It was verging on four and there’d been no sign of anyone coming to get him. Harry was starting to worry he’d be stuck here until September first rolled around again, and getting increasingly angry with the Headmaster every day.

He tuned out as Uncle Vernon began going over the schedule. At least until Uncle Vernon turned viciously on him. “And you, boy?”

Harry didn’t know what point in the schedule they were at and didn’t care. “I’ll be in my room, making no noise and pretending I don’t exist,” he said tonelessly.

“Exactly.”

Harry went back to frying the bacon.

“And you, boy?”

“I’ll be in my room, making no noise and pretending I’m not here.” Merlin, I wish I were anywhere but here. Except maybe Azkaban. Maybe.

After that, the conversation was too simpering and obnoxious for even Harry to ignore.

“Precisely. Now, we should aim to get in a few good compliments at dinner. Petunia, ideas?”

“Vernon tells me you’re a wonderful golfer, Mr. Mason… Do tell me where you bought your dress, Mrs. Mason…”

“Perfect… Dudley?”

Dudley stopped inhaling his food and making disgusting noises long enough to think. It looked like hard work and resulted in: “How about—we had to write an essay in school on our personal heroes, Mr. Mason, and I wrote about you.”

Harry thanked Merlin for his time in Slytherin House and the daily exercises in self control it required, because without that practice he’d probably have burst out laughing at Dudley’s words and definitely have done so when Aunt Petunia burst into tears and threw herself at her massive son.

“Oh, they’ll love him!”

“And you, boy?”

Harry repeated himself for the umpteenth time. “I’ll be in my room, making no noise and pretending I’m not there.”

“Too right, you will,” Uncle Vernon said, whacking the table. “The Masons don’t know anything about you and it’s going to stay that way…”

Harry tuned him out again.

He’d hoped to escape to his room after breakfast, but Aunt Petunia snagged him by the collar and set him a list of chores. By seven o’clock, Harry had cleaned the windows, washed the car, mowed the lawn, trimmed the flower beds, pruned and watered the roses, and repainted the garden bench. All he got out of it was exhaustion, sunburn on his neck, and a cold turkey sandwich and a glass of water before Aunt Petunia chased him upstairs.

I wonder how the bloody Boy Who Lived would’ve done, Harry thought savagely as he climbed the staircase. He’d tried to convince Dumbledore that it was Jules’ turn to do something for keeping up the blood wards around the Dursley home. But noooo, that was too complicated, because Jules had his training and his interviews and his galas to go to, and it just wouldn’t do to be moving a wizarding child on and off a Muggle property every day for three weeks—

Harry thought Jules could definitely use the self-control that came with living at the Dursleys. He also rather thought that something would definitely get set on fire if not outright blown up if Jules had to spend any length of time here. Either option would be for the best, really. But bloody Dumbledore.

“Remember, boy—one sound—” Uncle Vernon hissed up at him, just as the doorbell rang.

Harry was already wearing his Soundless Shoes, a Christmas gift last year from Theo. He nodded with exaggerated patience, walked into his room, softly shut the door, and turned to collapse on his bed.

Only, there was already someone sitting on it.

Harry jumped violently, going for a wand that wasn’t there, but then he registered that it was a house-elf and it was just sitting there.

The creature slipped off the bed and bowed. This was not something the Potter house-elves had ever done. Harry was confused.

“Hello,” he said cautiously. “Has—has your master sent you?”

“No,” elf said, looking upset. “No, Dobby is—Dobby is being here alone, sir—oh!” It lunged and started beating its head savagely on the wall, muttering “Bad Dobby, bad Dobby, very bad Dobby, you is acting without permission—”

Harry grabbed it around the waist and sat down, holding the elf in his arms. As a test, he used a little bit of wandless magic to help him immobilize it, just to see if elf magic could detect the use of wandless magic. He was also listening very closely. The voices downstairs didn’t seem to have faltered. Thank Merlin.

“Dobby, is it?” he said, and the elf stilled, shivering, and nodded.

“May—may Dobby be put down, sir?” it squeaked.

“If you promise me to be quiet.”

Dobby nodded.

Harry let him down and scooted back, crossing his legs, so they were about the same height. “Okay, er—this is really not a good time for me to have a house-elf in my room. Can you drop off a letter, or leave a message, or—”

“No, sir. Dobby is having no messages, sir, or letters. But Dobby—Dob—”

The elf made a lunge for the wall again. Harry barely caught the back of the pillowcase it was wearing—honestly, the Potter house-elves all had soft cotton towels worn like togas with simple shoulder pins, whoever’s elf this was a nasty piece of work—and hauled him back to the middle of the room.

“If I make noise, my relatives will be furious,” he hissed, glaring at the elf. “So sit down and be quiet, okay?”

Dobby sniffled and nodded. “Dobby is sorry, sir. But Dobby should not be here.”

“Why were you banging your head on the wall?”

“Dobby is being a bad house-elf, sir.” The elf’s ears twitched, and Harry tightened his grip on the front of its tunic. “Dobby needs to punish himself for leaving his Master. Dobby is not supposed to leave the Manor. Dobby is going to have to shut his ears in the oven door for this.”

So he’s a pureblood family elf, if they have a capital-M Manor. Almost definitely. “Won’t your masters notice you punish yourself and ask why?”

“Dobby doubts it, sir. The Masters lets Dobby get on with it, sir. Sometimes they reminds him to do punishments.”

“Well, they sound like absolutely charming people. You’re certain you can’t tell me what wizarding family treats you like this? It’s not legal, technically—”

Dobby dissolved into loud wails. “Dobby has heard of the Boy Who Lived’s kindness, sir, but not of his brother, oh no, Hadrian Potter is being too kind, sir, Hadrian Potter is too kind to Dobby…”

“Merlin, would you shut up?” Harry hissed, as the downstairs conversation faltered slightly.

Dobby closed his mouth abruptly. He looked hurt. Against his better judgment, Harry felt bad for the poor thing. It wasn’t Dobby’s fault his masters were awful and had apparently conditioned him to engage in regular self-harm as punishment for wrong thoughts. The idea of not being mentally capable of breaking the rules without repercussions he was compelled to perform on himself regardless of getting caught or not made Harry almost physically ill. “Look. Sorry. It’s been… a long few weeks. Can you tell me why you’re here?”

“Dobby must warn you, sir,” Dobby said, eyes growing wide and owl-like. “Dobby cannot allow Harry Potter or Jules Potter to go to Hogwarts!”

Harry blinked. It took a few seconds to find his voice. “…why not?”

Dobby frowned. “Hadrian Potter is not angry with Dobby?”

“Why would I be angry?”

“Dobby has already been to warn Julian Potter, sir. Julian Potter grew very angry when Dobby tried to tell him to not go to Hogwarts, sir. Julian Potter refused and Dobby had to take his things.”

“His… things?”

“His school things, sir. Dobby is punishing himself very badly for that, sir, but Dobby had to do it. If Julian Potter does not have his homework, he will not be able to return!”

“Was he… done with the assignments?”

“Oh no, sir,” Dobby said. “Dobby is taking his books and quills and ink and notes from his trunk, sir. Julian Potter’s assignments weren’t started yet, but when he goes to do them he will find them gone.”

Dobby clearly didn’t understand how school worked, but Harry wasn’t going to correct him.

Harry thought quickly. He wasn’t about to stay away from Hogwarts. It was his home, and it was where he belonged, far more than here in the Muggle world. Neither was he going to tell Dobby this. The elf was clearly not above going to extremes, if misguided extremes, to keep Jules and Harry out of Hogwarts.

“Okay, so why can’t we go to Hogwarts? And why are you warning us?”

“Hadrian and Julian Potter must stay where it is safe,” Dobby said. “There is plotting. There is danger coming to Hogwarts. Julian Potter is too great, too good, to lose, and Hadrian Potter is his brother, the Potter twins will be in mortal danger if they returns to Hogwarts!”

“Why us?” Harry said suspiciously. “Does this have anything to do with Voldemort?”

Dobby let out a wail. “No, no! Hadrian Potter must not be speaking his name!”

Harry clamped a hand over the elf’s mouth. Definitely conversation downstairs had paused this time but then it started back up and he breathed a sigh of relief. “If you make another noise like that I’ll find your master and tell them you were here,” he hissed.

The elf nodded, wide-eyed.

“What’s the plot? What’s the danger? Is it involved with the Dark Lord?”

“Not—not the Dark Lord, sir—”

Dobby’s eyes were wide, like he was trying to give Harry a clue, but what it could be Harry had no idea. “Did the Dark Lord have a brother?”

“No…”

“Then I can’t see who’d have a better shot of causing danger, and I’ve already survived the Dark Lord meddling in Hogwarts once,” Harry said firmly. “Besides, there’s Dumbledore. You know Dumbledore, right?”

“Albus Dumbledore is the greatest headmaster Hogwarts has ever had, sir.” Doubtful, but okay. “Dobby knows it, sir. Dobby has heard Dumbledore’s powers rival those of the Dark Lord at the height of his strength. But, sir… There are powers Dumbledore doesn’t… powers no decent wizard…”

And with a sudden lurch, he tore away from Harry’s grip, leaped onto the desk, and started beating himself about the head with it, producing earsplitting yelps.

Conversation downstairs ceased.

“Enough!” Harry hissed. “Into the closet!” He grabbed Dobby’s pillowcase, slung the elf into his closet—there was Uncle Vernon’s pounding feet, and then his voice “Dudley must’ve left his television on again, the little tyke—he shut the closet door and hurled himself onto his bed—

Uncle Vernon slammed the door open and stopped short, breathing heavily and glaring. “What—the—devil—are—you—doing?” he growled. “You’ve just ruined the punch line of my Japanese golfer joke… one more sound out of you and I’ll lock you up for good!”

He turned to go.

Harry let the tension bleed out of his body. Uncle Vernon hadn’t hit him at all this summer but he couldn’t train himself out of the reflex.

When he was loose enough to stand, he hauled open the closet and pulled Dobby out. “Are you sure it’s safer here with him than at Hogwarts?” he asked innocently.

Dobby looked uncertain, but then he nodded. “Dobby is sure, sir.”

Harry made a show of slumping unhappily onto his bed. “Okay… okay, I guess I’d rather not die…”

“Dobby is grateful, sir. Here is Hadrian Potter’s post,” Dobby said, producing a pile of letters and packages much too large to have been stored inside his towel.

Harry’s rage flared to life again, spreading icily through his veins. “You’ve been stealing my post?” he said, voice dropping slightly. His hands fisted and he sat on them.

Dobby looked nervous. “Hadrian Potter mustn’t be angry, sir. Dobby did it for the best reason.”

It took several deep breaths before Harry was calm enough to speak without shouting. The package was large. He recognized Blaise’s elegant hand, Theo’s slanting academic scrawl, Daphne and Pansy’s neat, proper writing, and even what he thought was Hermione or Neville’s print. There were a couple of packages as well.

His friends hadn’t abandoned him.

“I suppose you took my outgoing letters as well,” he said.

Dobby produced another bundle, his ears drooping farther. Harry still felt bad for him but now he was mostly furious. Here he’d been getting more and more pissed—if this had gone on the whole summer, if he hadn’t found out the truth—Harry wasn’t sure what having a brief taste of friendship, only to have it yanked away, would’ve done to him after he’d only just started learning how to trust people.

“Dobby, have you been stealing Jules’ post as well?”

“M-maybe, sir…”

“Okay, look—how about this. You give me Jules’ post and his school things. I’ll send him his post with an explanation and I’ll hang on to his school things until after he can’t go back to school, all right? That way you’re not actually stealing from him; he’ll still have his things, just—they’re just loaned to his brother for a while.”

Dobby started wailing again, though thankfully he kept it quiet this time. “Oh, Hadrian Potter is too kind to Dobby, he is so clever, Dobby has not heard stories of Hadrian Potter’s intelligence before, no sir, it is only complaints at home…”

“Er—right,” Harry said, stuffing the bundle of Jules’ textbooks, notebooks, parchment, and ink under his bed. It was far too large to all fit in the floor cavity, especially once Harry jammed the two large packages of post in there. Not that he’d ever tell anyone, but Jules’ pile was larger than his, and it rankled. “I—thanks for the warning, Dobby.”

“Oh, oh—Hadrian Potter is too kind to Dobby, Dobby is never being thanked by wizards…”

For just a second, Harry felt kind of bad for lying to the creature—not bad enough to come clean, but a little.

“Dobby is so sad he must do this, because Hadrian Potter is too kind and clever…”

“Dobby—wait, what?”

The house-elf was gone and down the stairs in a flash.

No no no no no—

Harry jumped up, thanking Merlin and Theo yet again for his spelled shoes, and bolted down the stairs. He still wasn’t used to the feeling of pounding down the wood structure at top speed without making a sound. He jumped the last six steps, landed catlike in the hall, and froze, listening. There was Uncle Vernon’s voice saying something about American plumbers, the clink of knives and forks, no screams, so Dobby hadn’t gone into the living room—which left the kitchen.

Heart thumping, he ran for the kitchen and skidded to a halt just inside the door, where he found Dobby perched on a cabinet pointing a long finger at Aunt Petunia’s prized pudding. Which was hovering up near the ceiling.

“No,” Harry croaked. “Dobby, please—they’ll kill me—”

He’d never needed magic more, never needed wandless magic more—and it was all but useless, because of bloody Dumbledore and his bloody watchers—

“It is for Hadrian Potter’s own good,” Dobby said with a tragic look, and dropped the pudding.

Dobby disappeared.

Harry lunged.

He managed to flip onto his back and slide underneath the pudding. The dish tilted ominously but he managed to stabilize it. A couple of the sugared violets fell off.

Harry let out a huge breath of relief and sat up as slowly and quietly as possible. He’d cracked his head rather hard on the linoleum and it was pounding already, but he ignored it and stood on shaky legs. He poked the sugared violets back onto the pudding, turned it so you couldn’t tell from in front of the fridge that it was not slightly lopsided, wiped the whipped cream residue off the floor with his sleeve, and thought that was the end of it.

Until a hoot and a scream came from the living room.

Oh no.

Harry ran from the kitchen for the stairs. Mrs. Mason fled the living room not two seconds later, shrieking something about birds in the house, ignoring him completely. He heard Mr. Mason bellowing something about how his wife was terrified of birds as he swung around the banister—made it halfway up the staircase before Mr. Mason stormed out, also not noticing Harry—and was in the upstairs hall by the time he heard the first outraged bellow of Boy!

With a sinking feeling of dread, Harry went downstairs.

Uncle Vernon brandished a letter in his face. “You just cost me what may have been the biggest deal of my career, boy,” he hissed. “Read it.”

Harry took the letter and hated that the paper so easily betrayed his shaking hands. The shaking only got worse as he read it through.

“Didn’t tell us you weren’t allowed to use magic outside school,” Uncle Vernon said, a mad gleam dancing in his eyes. “Slipped your mind, I daresay… well I’ve got news for you. You’re never going back! I’m going to lock you up you’ll be expelled!”

July 15, 1992

It was worse than Harry had even feared.

In a rare moment of sense, Uncle Vernon had taken Alekta and put her cage in the cupboard under the stairs with the rest of Harry’s things. Harry listened with his heart in his mouth to the two-hour shouting match over whether or not they’d feed her. Aunt Petunia insisted they had to feed the bird, that they couldn’t starve it if they wanted to sell it reasonably quickly—which made Harry’s limbs go numb with anger; they were going to sell Alekta and Uncle Vernon had threatened to not feed her. He barely managed to hold his tongue when coldly telling Aunt Petunia what Alekta would need from the pet store and only got a little bit of satisfaction out of the disgust on her face at the thought of buying mice.

And the new locks on his door were on the outside. Which meant that Harry couldn’t fake pick them while magically picking them. Which meant he was stuck in his room, bars on the window and door unassailable, being fed the bare minimum through a cat flap. Most of the weight he’d managed to gain during the school year was gone. He even tried calling the Potter house-elves, but none of them came, which meant either that only worked in the Manor or James had ordered them to stay away. Harry was left with only his letters and Moste Potente Potions, The Collected Strangest Recorded Potions Experiments, Explained, The Standard Book of Spells, Grade Three, and Ten Centuries: The Evolving Role of Hogwarts School in the Politics of Wizarding Britain. He resolved that if no one came for him by the time the school year started, he’d magic his way out of here and damn the consequences.

Dear Harry,

Neville tells me you are hoping to get together with all of us this summer. I’d really like to as well. I’ve been going over the summer assignments, of course, and the one for Potions looks quite challenging; I was hoping you and I could talk about that one in particular.

My parents are going on holiday in Paris, and I get to go with them! It’s set for two weeks in mid-July. I’ve heard it can get terribly hot, so don’t be surprised if you see me with a sunburn! I intend to give myself an introductory course in French before we leave, and I’m very excited to practice while I’m there. It’s such a pretty language and quite useful in Europe.

I hope your aunt and uncle aren’t bothering you too much. I caught a glimpse of you and your uncle getting into a car. He’s rather enormous and he did look a bit unpleasant. Perhaps next summer you could give me your phone number so I can contact you like a regular Muggle, if that would help ease their minds.

-Hermione

Harry,

How’ve you been? I mean, I know you don’t like to talk about it, but I’ve noticed you’re not fond of your Muggle relatives. If they’re treating you badly, you can come stay at the Manor anytime. I know Dumbledore said you’d need to wait at the Dursleys for three weeks, but Gran says you’re welcome. If you still want to come, anyway. (She said some other things about your dad, but they weren’t the sort of things I want to write down.)

Let me know if you’d like to come to the Manor and when and we’ll figure out how to get you here. I’ve heard of something called the Knight Bus? I think we’re going on holiday sometime in July, but I’m not sure when or where. If you come before then, Gran says you can tag along join us.

Would you mind writing me to help with the Potions assignment, at least? It looks like bad news. I’ll trade you help with Herbology.

-Neville Longbottom

Harry

My mum’s in a temper about the troll and the mess with Quirrell. Says Dumbledore’s gone off his rocker. I can’t say I disagree, frankly, but not to the point of not wanting to come back to Hogwarts. The point is that when she’s in a temper she does things like take an international Portkey to Tokyo and leave me in our home in London for who knows how long. Which is where I am now, with only the butler to keep an eye on me. It was a good time for a few days, but I’m beginning to get bored. Theo was over the other day. Join us once you’ve finished your stay with the Muggles and we can have some fun. You’ve never seen a magical home aside from Potter Manor, have you?

I think Theo’s father is being worse than usual. He was actually quiet for a half hour on Tuesday before Pansy and I managed to prod him out of it. It was mostly Pansy, if I’m being honest. She could start an argument with a brick. I actually think she might be better than Theo at picking fights, actually, and if you tell either of them I said that I will hex your fingers to your broom in the first Quidditch practice once you make the team.

You being you, I’m sure you’ve got the homework finished. Hermione already wrote back with four pages of anxiety about Transfiguration, Potions, and Defense. I told her that a third of what she said in the Transfiguration section went right over my head and she needs to calm down and stop worrying. Surprisingly, I think she listened. You may have a point about Muggle-borns. I’ve an idea on that front. We ought to talk about it in person, though.

Blaise

Harry,

It’s been a week. Haven’t heard from you yet so I’m assuming the Muggles are being irritating. I will quite happily hex the walrus again. I could probably convince my father to do it, actually. “Pureblood wizarding child being enslaved and starved by a family of idiot Muggles; father can we please?” But then they’d have to clean blood out of your carpets and that’s apparently very difficult without magic. If you need rescue, let me know.

The end of term was a bit chaotic and all—we never got a chance to really talk about Quirrell. Incredible, isn’t it, that he managed to undermine so many teachers’ traps? Definitely more skill than you’d expect from a man who taught Muggle Studies, took a sabbatical in Albania, and came back a stuttering wreck. Personally I think he just went loony, but I’ve heard some other interesting rumors since I came home. We can at least trade the theories to Pansy for good gossip about the upper years, or the incoming firsties.

G and L are having breakdowns about the homework. I’m betting yours is finished. Mine, too. For the sake of my time, lease write our anxious friends and tell them to calm down and not write me five pages a week about their progress; you’ve more pull with them than I do. 

See you soon.

Theo

New Business Partner,

Here are some interesting ideas we’ve been working on for a long time. Technically they’re duplicates of our notes. I’ve done my best to go through and translate some of the more arcane bits out of our horrid handwriting, incomprehensible shorthand, or explorations of magic you’ve probably not studied. And won’t ever if you have any sense, because it’s bloody frustrating and we don’t need all three of us getting frustrated and setting pillows on fire when things don’t work.

Go through the notes, see what interests you. Your investment’s already paid for some new ingredients we’re having an excellent time experimenting with. I can already tell you how to create boils in places that are unpleasant on a broom.

Don’t let the Muggles get you down.

 Gred

New Business Partner,

Have you decided to back out on our deal? If so we are keeping the money but no hard feelings.

Otherwise: here is another box of duplicates of old notes. We had to do five days of chores to convince Dad to spend an hour with the Geminio Charm since Mum’s bloody draconic about us not using magic at home, even though it’s a wizarding home and the Trace is going off left, right, and center with all the magic she and Dad bandy around. Mind, we don’t exactly follow that rule, but neither of us is good with charms in general. We didn’t want to accidentally set fire to a piece of information we needed.

Mum’s also insisted we send a meat pie. She saw you on the platform last fall and thinks you’re too skinny. It’s layered in Preservation Charms so don’t worry about the age.

Feorge

Harry,

Your uncle looked a right mess but I’m still getting concerned. Write back.

Blaise

Within four days, Harry was sick of the cat flap food, halfway through the immensely dry Ten Centuries, and seriously reconsidering his plan to wait for the end of summer before he magicked himself out. Even the entertainment of reading between the lines of Theo’s and Blaise’s letters had worn off. (Theo was clearly implying some interesting takes on the Quirrell situation coming from his particular family alliances; Blaise was suggesting they use his mum’s home, where the Trace would go ignored as the home of an adult witch, to practice magic over the summer.) Fred and George’s notes were intriguing, but deciphering their handwriting was giving Harry a headache and he didn’t have the resources to find a charm that would translate it into normal script, though he was sure one existed.

He read until he couldn’t keep his eyes open anymore, angling the book and straining his eyes to use diffused streetlight instead of his flashlight to save the batteries, and then he climbed into bed and was asleep almost the second he touched his pillow.

Useless Failed Friendless Freak, the signs read.

Harry was curled up in the back of a big cage scattered with shredded books, bits of broken wood, smashed and scattered jars and containers of ingredients whose names he couldn’t remember, filthy cloaks tossed into corners, a sad pointed hat slumping off to one side. He looked down and found three pieces of a broken stick in his hand held together by a fine gold fiber.

He recognized that stick. He knew it was broken. He knew he’d lost something. He knew that the loss left him with a feeling of panic so strong it threatened to swallow him whole. He just couldn’t remember what it was.

Desperately, he looked up and around—to see if anyone could help him figure it out. And found a crowd of people, pausing on their way by in one direction or another to peer in at him with vague disgust and mild interest. “Could’ve been something,” he heard them hiss. “So much potential.” “Such a pity.” “What a waste.” “He looks just like the other one…”

Harry looked where that person was looking and saw a taller, fitter, healthier, cleaner version of himself standing on a pedestal, waving a stick like Harry’s except whole and unbroken, and fireworks were spraying from the end, and he was smiling, and the people were cheering—

Harry shrank back, because that was—not quite what he’d lost, but close. Similar. Something. Seeing his other self so happy and famous and adored while he was here, pathetic and stinking and left to rot—the panic was swallowing him whole.

He heard a name as if from a very great distance and looked up again. A face blocked his view of his other self. A face pressed close to the bars with a lot more interest than anyone else ever showed. A face whose smile was a white sharp-edged slash against dark skin. A face that was familiar.

Chapter Text

Harry blinked, then again, harder, and sat up with a gasp. “Blaise?”

“Must’ve been one hell of a dream, mate,” Blaise said, because impossibly, one of Harry’s two closest friends was suspended by something rumbling outside the window, and leaning against the bars. “You were twitching all over the place.”

Harry launched off his bed and over to the window, and his jaw fell open, because there was a car hovering in the air outside his window, a blue Ford Anglia idling in midair.

“Hello, Harry,” the driver and passenger said in unison.

Harry squinted past the car’s internal lights. “Fred? George? What—the hell, Theo? Pansy? I’m flattered, you brought the cavalry.” As he got his shock under control, his usual defense mechanism—sarcasm and self-control—kicked right back in.

Theo squinted into the room. “I’d ask why you haven’t been answering letters, but it’s kind of obvious. Where’s Alekta? And why did the Weasley lord tell his kids you got a warning for using magic here? Tell me you hexed the muggles”

“Locked under the stairs with the rest of my things, and no, a crazy house-elf did a Hover Charm on my aunt’s pudding. I wish I could hex my aunt and uncle.” Several unsaid things passed between Harry and Theo and Blaise—mainly that Harry couldn’t magic his way out because of Dumbledore’s potential watchers, and he was in a towering rage at his relatives.

Fred and George looked at each other.

“A house-elf?”

“In a Muggle home?”

“I know what I saw,” Harry said evenly. “Are we doing this the slow legal way or the fast vigilante way?”

Pansy elbowed Theo aside to grin at Harry. “Harry, and here I thought you didn’t think I was nice enough to write to. Think about who’s in this car; do you really need to ask that question?”

“Just checking,” Harry said with a grin.

“Tie that around the bars,” Fred said, tossing Harry a rope.

“If the Dursleys wake up, they’ll try to kill me,” Harry said, knotting it tightly.

“Best go fast, then,” Theo said, grinning.

Harry stepped back. Fred deftly maneuvered the car so it was facing away from the house, revved the engine, and ripped the bars out of the window with a crunch.

No sound came from the Dursleys’ rooms.

Theo and Pansy were leaning out and bickering while they sawed at the rope with a kitchen knife. Harry waved at them and pointed. Pansy caught on quickly; with a smirk, she said something over her shoulder to Fred, who reversed with a wide smile until Pansy was perfectly positioned to drop the bars where they’d crush Aunt Petunia’s prized roses. Harry had spent a lot of time on those roses and felt bad for approximately half a second before he got over it.

Fred looped back around against the back of the house.

“Your stuff’s locked away?” Fred said.

“In the cupboard under the stairs,” Harry said, stepping back as they climbed, catlike, through the window. Blaise climbed into the driver’s seat with surprising familiarity. Harry wondered when he’d been exposed to cars. “But my room’s locked, on the outside or I’d have picked it already—”

“Lucky for you, my dad has loads of things that make rule-breaking easy,” Theo said smugly, flipping something in a case to Fred and George.

George caught it and pulled out a long knife with a slender blade. “Lock-slicer?” he asked.

“Yup.”

George slid the knife into the doorjamb and slid it up and down, once. Harry heard the quiet thump of a padlock falling to the floor and winced.

“Mind the third stair, it creaks,” Harry whispered, as the twins set off down the stairs.

Harry dashed around his room. He’d been allowed to keep his pack, mainly because it was empty and plain and the expansion charm on it was of the Undetectable variety. He crammed the books from the floorboards, the remainders of the meat pie Mrs. Weasley had sent—he’d have to thank her at some point—his letters, the bundle of Jules’ school things and pilfered post, his toiletries, and, rebelliously, the entire set of Muggle fiction novels that lived in this bedroom. Dudley thought it was a power play to store them in Harry’s room, mostly because he couldn’t fathom anyone thinking reading was fun and thought he was taking up Harry’s space with his own junk. Harry had never put up much of a fight because it meant he got all Dudley’s old books. Now he threw them into his pack, then a few sets of his less horrid Muggle clothes, and with one more glance around he decided he was done.

He’d just chucked it into the boot when a quiet chitter from Alekta alerted him to the twins’ return. Harry opened his trunk, yanked out his holly wand, tapped the trunk, and shrunk it down to pocket-sized.

Then Dudley screamed from the hall, “MUM! DAD! HE’S GETTING AWAY!”

“Bugger,” Fred said, and then he was lunging for the window. Harry grabbed Alekta’s cage and followed. The Taiga falcon screeched her irritation probably loud enough for all the neighbors to hear. Grunting and bellowing told Harry Uncle Vernon was on the way and he was not happy.

George made it through the window into the backseat, basically diving on top of the pile that was Fred, Pansy, and Theo. “Harry! Come on!” Fred shouted. “Zabini, turn the car—no, the other way—Merlin’s balls—”

Blaise was clearly not as good a driver as Fred. He was getting the car in position for Harry to get to the passenger seat, but meanwhile, Uncle Vernon was thundering down the hall—

Harry could only think one thing: I’m getting out of here.

He clambered up on his desk, dragged the cage up next to him, and took aim. “Blaise!” he shouted, and tossed Alekta’s cage—Sorry, sorry Alekta—right into the passenger seat.

She landed with a clang and a lot of high-volume irritation.

Uncle Vernon threw the door open with a roar of fury.

Harry jumped.

Uncle Vernon dove.

And in a moment that Harry would savor for years to come, he slammed onto the roof of the Anglia just as Uncle Vernon lodged halfway through the window.

Laughter and screams came from inside the car. Harry was laughing, too—the delight of freedom, the satisfaction of having beaten the Dursleys at last, the warm feeling he resented a little bit that grew and grew the more he thought about how his friends had come for him—it was all so much.

“Harry!”

He slid across the roof and clambered into the passenger side. “Sorry, girl,” he said, righting Alekta’s cage as Blaise hit the gas and the Anglia roared up into the sky, dumping everyone in the backseat back into a pile.

Blaise theatrically pushed a button. “Aaaand we are now invisible.”

Harry turned around and grinned at the rest. “So who came up with this ridiculously Gryffindorish plan?”

Pansy and Theo cracked up. Fred and George looked affronted. Theo elbowed George aside and sat up, finally gaining some space against the driver’s side door. Pansy was in between the twins, somehow, and Fred was directly behind Harry. Once they weren’t all on top of each other the backseat looked a lot more spacious on the inside than it did from the outside. Harry suspected magic.

“This plan worked perfectly well,” George insisted. “We got you out, didn’t we?”

Harry looked at the dash. “In a flying car. I don’t even want to know how many laws this thing breaks just by existing, let alone us using it. Whose is it, anyway? And can I borrow the Lock Slicer?”

“Our dad’s,” Fred said, passing Harry the knife. “He loves Muggle stuff.”

George chimed in as Harry cut Alekta’s lock open. “Been enchanting it since he was in school.”

“He’s got a shed full that he tinkers around with.”

“No one’s actually tested the car before—”

“WHAT?” All the Slytherins turned on Fred and George at the same time. The car jerked. Alekta shrieked one last time and vanished out the window.

“Watch it!” George yelped. Blaise yanked his eyes back front and steadied it. Harry rolled the window up and tried not to laugh.

“You mean to say you picked us up from Blaise’s in a flying car and you’d never tested it?” Pansy said in disbelief.

Fred shrugged. “We tested it on the way there.”

“We didn’t die.”

“You haven’t either.”

“So far.”

“And really, it’d be your fault—”

“—for trusting a flying car driven by the Weasley Terrors anyway.”

Pansy snarled.

“They have a point,” Theo told her.

She turned her glare on him. “But you don’t.”

“Oho, careful with that one, Nottie boy,” George said.

“It bites,” Fred added.

Pansy glowered at him. Harry was fairly sure she wanted to say “I’ll bite you” but her manners were getting in the way.

“So it was a Weasley plan,” Harry said.

“They wrote me,” Theo said. “When you weren’t answering any of their letters, asking if you’d decided not to follow through with your arrangement—”

“We actually asked him if you’d gotten too high-and-mighty to talk to us, and if his lord hineyness Potter would ever deign to actually tell us he’d changed his mind or just leave us dangling for his amusement,” George said.

Harry raised an eyebrow. “Good memory.”

Fred shrugged. “We spent a few days drafting that one.”

“Might’ve cursed your name a fair bit.”

“All forgiven now, of course.”

“So then Theo realized it wasn’t just him who hadn’t been getting replies from you,” Pansy said. “He reached out to the rest of us. Goldstein, Longbottom, Granger, even Daphne and Tracy are all anxiously waiting to hear how tonight went.”

“Well,” Blaise said. “Maybe not anxiously. Daphne at least is far too well bred for anxiety. And Goldstein’s too logical to worry.”

“You’re ruining the moment,” Pansy said.

“We all went over to Blaise’s house, supposedly to study,” Theo said, “and the twins came by in the car and picked us up. We had Tracy find out where you lived using some… Intranetwork thing, and making ‘phone calls,’ and we flew there. Easy.”

“I can’t believe we agreed to this,” Blaise said. “Still. And I’m flying an invisible car over Muggle suburbs. If anyone had told me a month ago that this is how I’d be spending my summer, I would have laughed in their face.”

“No, you’d have sneered and said something cutting, and I’d have said something sarcastic, and Harry would’ve stood there doing his silent-but-about-to-hex-you thing, and then we’d have walked away,” Theo said.

“Oh. Yeah, you’re right.”

“We weren’t exactly expecting—”

“—to end up babysitting a bunch of ickle snakes, either.”

“Babysitting,” Pansy scoffed. “We could’ve gotten him out on our own.”

“You don’t want to hear their plan,” George said. “You think this is breaking loads of laws? It’s got nothing on what they wanted to do.”

Pansy got a dreamy look on her face. “I was gathering blackmail, it would’ve involved minor torture…”

“She’s a little scary,” Fred said in a stage whisper.

Pansy gasped daintily. “Why, Mr. Weasley, you flatterer!”

“I don’t know why we haven’t hung out with Slytherins before, you lot are funny,” George said.

“Because the upper years hate us for either playing Quidditch in red and gold, wearing red and gold, being blood traitors, or because we hated them first,” Fred said.

George winced. “Right, that.”

Good one, Fred, Harry thought, as the mention of ‘blood traitor’ brought a touch of awkwardness to the car.

“What’s the story with the house-elf?” Thank Merlin Theo was quick on the uptake.

Harry told them about Dobby stealing their letters, the cryptic warnings, the self-punishment—that made the twins’ and Theo’s faces darken, while Blaise and Pansy just looked uncomfortable—and finally the pudding dropping, the letter, and the Dursleys’ reaction.

“A cat flap,” Blaise muttered. “A cat flap. Bars on the windows—”

“For someone who disdains Muggle things so much, you’re pretty familiar with how to drive a car,” Fred said suddenly.

“People don’t like my mother,” Blaise said evenly. “She has made sure I can escape pursuit in extremely weird ways no one would predict.”

“I’ll say,” Theo said.

“So,” Harry said. “What’s the plan? Are we dumping me at the Leaky Cauldron or—”

“Not hardly,” Blaise said, looking horrified. “Neville’s on holiday with his Gran, and if you want you could probably still go stay with them.”

“But until then you’ve got a room at our place,” Fred said, grinning.

Harry raised an eyebrow. “The Slytherin Potter, staying at the Weasleys’? I’m sure you’re smart enough to see all the potential problems with that. Not least, Ronald.”

“Mum will be fine,” George said, “and she can stomp on Ron and Percy’s objections.”

“She’ll love you.”

“She loves feeding people.”

Harry decided he could live with that. “Okay… wait, do I have to share a room with Ron? Because I would, I appreciate the hospitality and I don’t want to be a bother, but he wouldn’t take that well.”

“We’ve been storing our things in Charlie’s room.”

“We’ll clear off the bed for you.”

“It’ll work out.”

Harry really had not planned to end up at the Weasleys’ for half the summer, but it was better, for his father, than even Neville’s place. Although if it got around Slytherin the next year he’d have some issues. “All right. Thanks.”

Theo leaned forward suddenly. “Wait, Blaise, wasn’t that your street?”

“Oh Merlin—yeah—”

Blaise reached for the dash.

“NOT THAT BUTTON!” the twins yelled in unison. Blaise yanked his hand back so fast he twisted the wheel and sent the car into a spiral dive that he barely managed to pull out of before they took out a London townhouse.

Harry looked back at the twins as Blaise steadied the car and angled it back for the street he missed. “What does that button do?”

“You don’t want to know,” Fred said.

“We may have made some… alterations to the car,” George said.

“That Dad doesn’t know about.”

“For emergencies, mind.”

“Or annoying siblings.”

“Haven’t used it on Ron yet.”

Harry grinned. He suspected ejection seats. “If you do, I want to be there, whatever it is.”

Blaise hit the brakes. Harry dropped Alekta’s cage to stop himself flying into the windshield. “Here we are,” Blaise said.

Harry squinted at the townhouse. He supposed it’d be more impressive if it wasn’t bracketed by rows of more or less identical houses in both directions on both sides of the street, and if they weren’t all so scrunched together. “It’s nice.”

“Yeah,” Blaise said. “From out here, only nice.”

“Much fancier on the inside,” Pansy said. “Come by soon, you’ll love it. Ms. Zabini has excellent taste.”

“In bank accounts,” Theo muttered just loud enough for Harry to hear. By some effort, Harry kept his snort in.

“All right, touching, but get out,” Fred said. “We’ve got to get home before Mum’s up or she’ll go through the roof.”

Harry hid his worry. She’d baked him a meat pie and raised Fred and George and made him a knitted sweater. Probably it was just an expression.

Probably. She’d also raised Ron.

He waved to his friends, tolerated Pansy’s hug, swapped seats with George, and they were off again.

George caught his expression and winked. “You’ll see them again soon.”

“It probably wouldn’t go over well if we showed up at the Burrow with a flock of baby snakes in tow,” Fred said.

“Although the look on Ron’s and Percy’s faces would be worth it…”

“We should do that sometime.”

“Oh yeah. Harry’s bad enough, Ron’ll have a fit…”

Strangely, Harry found himself looking forward to that.

Harry had his doubts about the house.

“It’s leaning,” he said.

Fred shrugged, closing the shed on the Anglia. “It’s magic.”

“Fair enough.” Harry squinted against the early morning sunlight at the tall, narrow house. It looked like a bit of a hodgepodge of different repairs, additions, renovations.

He followed the twins across the yard. The garden was large and a bit messy but generally well-loved. Neville would’ve had a field day. Harry made a note to see if he could arrange that somehow.

“We’ll just sneak upstairs and come down like normal,” Fred murmured.

“Say you got here by Muggle transport last night and we didn’t want to wake anyone,” George added.

“This plan is terribly thought through,” Harry hissed.

The twins just grinned at him—at least until the door slammed open.

Harry tensed; he couldn’t help it. Mrs. Weasley was short and round and would probably have had a kindly face except she was so angry right now she more resembled a snarling saber-toothed tiger.

“Ah,” said Fred.

“Oh, dear,” said George.

“Told you,” Harry muttered.

“Shut up,” they said in unison.

Mrs. Weasley came to a halt in front of them. Harry readied himself to dodge or run, if he had to.

“So,” Mrs. Weasley said.

“Morning, Mum,” George said jauntily.

She glared. “Have you any idea how worried I’ve been?”

“Sorry, Mum, but see, we had to—”

“BEDS EMPTY! NO NOTE! CAR GONE! YOU COULD HAVE CRASHED—I’VE BEEN OUT OF MY MIND WITH WORRY—did you CARE?—never in my LIFE—you wait until your father gets home, we never had trouble like this with Bill or Charlie or Percy—”

“Perfect Percy,” Fred muttered.

“YOU WOULD DO WELL TO TAKE A PAGE OUT OF PERCY’S BOOK! You could have died, you could’ve been seen, you could cost your father his job—”

Harry kept his face blank and let her ire wash over him. It helped that she seemed mostly angry with the twins. He still had to jam his hands into his pockets and tangle them in the loose fabric of Dudley’s old pants to keep them from shaking.

She’d shouted herself hoarse by the time she let up on the twins and turned to Harry with a suddenness that made him flinch and stumble two steps backwards, shoulders hunched.

“And Harry, do come in, dear, you’re far too skinny,” she said with a smile, but something in the set of her eyebrows told him she hadn’t missed his reaction. “We’re pleased to see you, breakfast’s nearly ready.”

She marched back into the house.

Harry looked at the twins. “Is anyone in your family not mental?”

“Bill,” Fred said.

“That’s it?”

“Possibly Ginny,” George amended.

Fred shook his head. “She’s crushing on Julie Toons, remember?”

“Oh yeah,” George said, sniggering.

Harry followed them into the house, fingers twitching for his wand. He needed to get it out of his trunk as soon as possible. “Your sister’s crushing on my brother? Also—Julie Toons?”

“Seamus Finnegan called someone ‘loony tunes’ once,” George said.

“We adapted it.”

Harry sat down next to George at a large wooden table pocked and scarred and scorched from years of use. He looked around with interest. The kitchen was nothing like the Potter kitchen, down in the basement; this one was cluttered, crowded, but clean underneath. Loads of windows let fresh air in and potted plants were scattered everywhere along with the jumble of several lives under one roof: a wand, a rubber duck, stacks of books with magical titles, moving pictures of red-headed people, a pair of glasses, cloaks and hats tossed over chairs or hanging from cabinet hooks, herbs drying in the rafters, a strange-looking radio with what looked like an ear trumpet attached to the side playing music that was definitely not Muggle. The whole room would’ve given Aunt Petunia an aneurysm and was like nothing Harry had ever seen. Against his will, he found himself loving it.

“How does Jules feel about being called Julie Toons?” he said, turning back to the twins. Mrs. Weasley bustled around the kitchen, waving her wand; Harry watched in fascination as dishes began to set themselves out along the table.

“Oh, he hates it.”

“Drives him bonkers.”

Harry grinned.

“Thought you’d appreciate that.”

“Wait, but aren’t you friends with the Potters?” Harry asked.

Fred and George swapped a look. Fred dropped his voice. “Our parents fought in the last war, they’re still friends, and Jules and Ron are the same age, so we spent a lot of time over there growing up. Or with Jules here. But let’s just say…”

“…we have our differences with Jules Potter,” George finished.

“Namely, he’s an attention-seeking prat,” Fred said.

“He’s a decent bloke when he forgets he’s the Boy Who Lived—”

“—but that happens a lot less often the older we get.”

Harry nodded. That fit with what he’d seen of Jules last summer—when he got caught up playing with his friends, that was the nicest Harry had ever seen him. It was only when James started going on about some party, interview, or article, or once they got to Hogwarts and everyone flipped out about the Boy Who Lived being there, that Jules got really unbearable.

“But don’t tell Ginny that,” George said, “she thinks Jules is a saint…”

“Nah, she doesn’t,” Fred said. “She got over that. She’s still crushing on him but it’s not near as bad as last summer.”

“And definitely don’t tell Ron,” George said.

Fred paused. “Yeah, no argument there. Oh and not a word of our business arrangement,” he hissed suddenly.

George paled. “Merlin, no—”

“I don’t blame you, dear,” Mrs. Weasley assured Harry, appearing rather suddenly on the other side of the table and tipping sausages and fried eggs onto his plate. “The twins have said—well. If they’d mentioned that they were worried enough to steal the car, Arthur and I absolutely would’ve stepped in—are you sure you don’t want more, dear, you’re skin and bone—”

Harry assured her that he was fine with his most charming smile. “I’m very grateful, really,” he said. “It’s just—well, I haven’t been able to eat much for a while, and if I stuff myself I might get ill, it happened last year when I went to the Potters…” He ducked his head a little bashfully, doing his best to look ever so slightly vulnerable…

“Oh, you poor dear, of course,” Mrs. Weasley said, with so much kindness on her face Harry decided she could give all the Hufflepuffs put together a run for their money.

She turned back to the stove and began working on more eggs.

“Nicely done,” Fred said in an undertone.

Harry turned his best innocent face on the twins. It was a very good innocent face—green eyes dulled and wide and guileless behind his glasses, forehead smooth, eyebrows neutral, perfected with teachers and librarians when he’d been little. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said.

George and Fred both laughed into their toast.

Feet pounded on the stairs, and Harry looked up just in time to see Ron skid into the kitchen, yawning hugely. “Morning, Mu—Merlin’s balls, what’s he doing here?” he yelled, glaring at Harry.

“You watch your language, Ronald Weasley!” Mrs. Weasley scolded, brandishing a sausage at him and somehow managing to make it look threatening. “Your brothers stole the car and rescued him from those Muggles—not that I’m condoning it, mind, you’re not off the hook,” she told the twins.

Ron looked furious. “He’s a Slytherin.”

Harry bit back multiple scathing replies that came to mind. He needed to keep the high ground in Mrs. Weasley’s eyes.

“That is enough out of you,” Mrs. Weasley said, glaring at Ron as fiercely as she had George and Fred.

Looking mutinous, Ron sat down across from Harry and tore into a plate of sausage and eggs. Harry, remembering that he’d once promised himself never to sit across a table from Ron, winced and turned away from the youngest Weasley brother’s horrid manners. Merlin, he was eating scrambled eggs with his fingers.

“Ron! Silverware!” Mrs. Weasley admonished. Ron rolled his eyes and wiped his hands on a napkin and picked up a fork. Harry mentally thanked Mrs. Weasley.

There was a squeak behind him.

Harry turned around.

Ginny had been looking horrified, but then she relaxed. “Oh, it’s you.”

“Thought I was Jules, did you?” Harry said with a grin. Too late he realized it was the sharp smile he kept for the Slytherin common room or verbal sparring with the Gryffindors, but Ginny didn’t seem unnerved, which was more than Harry could say for any time he’d turned that expression on Ron. And Mrs. Weasley’s back was turned.

“You look like him from behind,” Ginny said. She sat down next to Ron and thankfully had much better manners.

The last one into the kitchen was Percy. He was obviously surprised to see Harry, but once he found out how Harry’d gotten there, he lit into Fred and George, who fought back instead of taking it as they had from their mum. Harry lapsed into silence and ate his delicious breakfast while watching the Percy and Ron vs Fred and George Show. Sparks flew. Occasionally he and Ginny made eye contact and had to choke back laughter. Mrs. Weasley jumped in every now and then to keep a lid on things but mostly let her boisterous sons sort it out.

“Blimey, I’m tired,” George said, “I think I’ll go take a nap—”

“You will not!” Mrs. Weasley snapped, and ten minutes later, after wiping a very disturbing mental image of Mrs. Weasley flirting with the wizard from the front of her household pests book from his mind, Harry found himself out in the garden with Fred, George, Ron, and Percy to de-gnome it. This involved catching small potato-looking garden creatures and hurling them over the fence into an adjacent field. Harry made a note to ask Mrs. Weasley why they didn’t just ward the garden against gnomes like the Potters did, but he didn’t ask any of the brothers because he suspected it was to give the many Weasley children something to do in the summers.

He and Ron worked on opposite ends of the garden. Percy and the twins bickered in the middle. Harry occasionally jumped into the conversation, usually on Percy’s side for the sake of throwing coal on the fire and giving George and Fred some actual resistance.

They were about done when the front door slammed. “Dad’s home!” Ron said, and jogged for the door.

Harry hung back, letting Percy and Fred and George go in front of him.

“Dad!” Ron said, sliding back into a seat at the table. Harry waited in the doorway, suddenly unsure of himself. Arthur Weasley looked completely and utterly harmless, with thinning red hair and slightly washed-out blue eyes and a completely average frame, but it was still—

Harry didn’t know him.

And he wasn’t exactly on good terms with several of these people—

“What a night,” Mr. Weasley said, sounding exhausted. “Nine raids. Nine! And Fletcher tried to hex me when I had my back turned…”

Mrs. Weasley put a kettle on the table, and he opened his eyes, sat forward, and poured himself a cup of tea. Harry eased into a seat to George’s right.

“Find anything, Dad?” Fred asked.

“A few shrinking door keys and a biting kettle,” Mr. Weasley said with a huge yawn.

“Why would anyone bother making keys shrink?” Ron said.

Harry answered without thinking. “They’d shrink when you looked for them so you could never find your keys—but I guess you’d just use alohomora anyway—”

“Well, see, it’s Muggle-baiting, not done to wizards—hang on—” Mr. Weasley squinted at Harry uncertainly. “Jules? When did you—”

“Dad, glasses,” George said while Fred sniggered. “No, that’s Jules’ twin. Remember?”

“Great Scott!” Mr. Weasley said, fumbling his glasses on and peering at Harry with interest. “You were raised by Muggles, weren’t you?”

Harry felt his face harden. If this was going to turn into a Pity the Poor Abused Harry Party—

“Yes,” he said stiffly.

“Tell me,” Mr. Weasley said, all trace of exhaustion gone. “What is the function of a rubber duck?”

Harry blinked. “Er—what?”

“Dad’s obsessed with Muggles,” Percy said with his nose in the air. “He works in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office.”

“It’s bloody difficult to get a conviction, since no Muggles will admit their keys keep shrinking,” Mr. Weasley sighed, seeming to have forgotten the rubber duck thing for the moment. “Bless them, they’ll go to any lengths to ignore magic… But the things our lot have taken to enchanting, you wouldn’t believe—”

“LIKE CARS, FOR INSTANCE?”

Mr. Weasley jumped as his wife reentered the kitchen, bearing a plate of sandwiches—Harry was surprised to find it was already near noon, they’d been out in the garden for ages—and a furious expression. Mr. Weasley just looked guilty.

“C-cars, Molly, dear?”

“Yes, Arthur. Cars. Imagine a wizard telling his wife he only wanted to take it apart to see how it worked when really, he was enchanting it to make it fly.”

“W-well… there’s a loophole in the law, you’ll find… as long as he isn’t intending to fly the car, it doesn’t matter that the car could fly…”

“You left that loophole on purpose when you wrote that law!”

Huh, Harry thought, reevaluating the Weasley patriarch. That was… actually fairly clever. He must’ve skipped giving those genes to Ron.

“And for your information, your sons stole that car and flew it halfway across the country last night to fetch Harry!”

“Did you really?” Mr. Weasley said eagerly. “How’d it go? I-I mean…” Sparks were flying from Mrs. Weasley’s wand. “That… was very wrong, boys… very wrong indeed…”

Mrs. Weasley swelled like a bullfrog.

“Aaaand that’s our cue,” Fred whispered. He and George grabbed two sandwiches apiece; Harry copied them—one would go in the potions section of his trunk, where preservation charms kept his food stash fresh. They led him out of the kitchen, down a narrow hall, and then up a twisting staircase.

“Bill’s and Charlie’s rooms,” George said on the second landing. “They’re both gone right now, Mum uses them for storage.”

“We’ve taken over Charlie’s room,” Fred added. “She never notices when a few extra boxes show up. Here—”

He stepped around Harry and shoved the door open.

The room was indeed full of boxes and stacks and piles of stuff, but it was also clean and there seemed to be some kind of pattern to the storage. The walls were plastered with posters of the Tutshill Tornados and various magical creatures, especially dragons.

“Dragon fan?” Harry said, grinning.

“He’s studying them in Romania,” Fred said darkly.

Harry reviewed what he knew of the Weasley family. William had been Head Boy a few years back, with loads of NEWTs and an excellent job as a curse breaker for Gringotts; even the Slytherins spoke respectfully of him. Charlie had been the best Seeker Hogwarts had seen in a good long time, a prefect, a good student as well, and Harry remembered hearing he’d turned down Puddlemere United, apparently to work with dragons. Then there was Percy, who got almost perfect Os in every class and was a Prefect and on track for loads of OWLs and NEWTs and Head Boy and a Ministry job to boot. Fred and George were brilliant but they seemed determined to be as different from their older brothers as possible. And then there had been Ron’s vision in the Mirror of Erised—to prove himself in his family by doing everything his brothers had done in pieces. It seemed there was some dissonance between the younger set of Weasleys and the elder. Not to mention within the younger set.

“I get the whole room?” Harry said instead. Because—they didn’t know him. And Mrs. Weasley was apparently willing to let him have a whole room and a bed to himself—

“Yeah,” George said.

“Sorry for the mess.”

“We’ll help out.”

And to Harry’s surprise, they actually did, spending thirty minutes helping him shift boxes around to clear off the bed, put clean sheets on it, and make a space for his trunk.

He looked slyly at them once they were done. “So. Your letters said something about flying?”

Fred and George smiled identical delighted grins.

Harry wrote Jules that night, explaining what had happened and mailing him his post. If the elf comes back, pretend I’ve convinced you to stay home, he advised. I’m already looking into what family he belongs to. You’ll need to buy more books, but I’ve seen the vaults. It’ll be fine. If the elf notices I’ve sent your things back, he could cause problems. I’ll give the bundle back at school.

He wrote James, too—just a short letter explaining the Dursleys in as detached a tone as he could manage and expressing a hope of getting dinner or something soon.

July 1992

Living at the Weasley’s was like nothing Harry had ever experienced.

In the Slytherin dorms, there were loads of people in one space, but most of the first years and to some extent the second years got ignored by everyone else. They all did their own thing and sorted out their internal hierarchies and generally regulated themselves. The Potter household, with Harry there, had been three people living in a big empty mansion with almost no rules and James working from eight to six most days with occasional odd nights thrown in when something nasty cropped up. The Dursleys were—well, nothing pleasant, but controlled and disciplined and not a thing out of place except (always) Harry.

At the Burrow, it was never quiet, never calm, existing in a state of controlled chaos. Two days in and Harry still wasn’t used to how involved everyone was with everyone else. The kids bickered, the parents argued, Molly Weasley ruled her kitchen and her children with a firm but loving hand, Mr. Weasley asked questions and talked about his work day, Percy would occasionally sit down with Ginny and ask her about what she was reading, Fred and George retreated to their bedroom and occasionally caused explosions that no one seemed to find odd—they were a family in a way Harry had never seen before.

He did his best to charm the parents, portraying himself as a clever, polite, reserved boy, careful to say thank you and compliment Molly Weasley on her cooking and her garden and ask her about whatever potion was brewing in the cramped but well-used potions laboratory in the back of the house. She invited him to help her brew and expressed delight that she finally had a child in her house who was interested in potions. Harry smiled back and couldn’t wait to see what he could learn from a home-style experimental potions-brewing system. Mr. Weasley got back around to rubber ducks and it took Harry two hours to convince him that they were just toys and did not in fact have some kind of deep religious significance. He also made Harry demonstrate how to use a telephone, a fax machine, and a water purifier. It took all of two days before Harry was pretty sure he had two staunch allies in the Weasley house.

Four, counting Fred and George, which he did. After getting Mrs. Weasley to show him a handwriting translation charm, ostensibly for a letter Neville had written while on a boat—technically this was true, but that wasn’t the only reason—he went through the twins’ notes and then made them explain the more complicated magic. Most of it Harry never would’ve thought of. “I was right,” he told them frankly after a few days of this. “You guys have some brilliant ideas—for now it’s just experimentation, right?”

“Mostly,” George said. “We’ve got this—”

“Boil Bites,” Fred added, tossing Harry a box of small sweets. “They give you boils in unfortunate places.”

The twins made a show of getting distracted by their turtle tank. The turtles were doing nothing particularly interesting. Harry took the hint. By the time they turned back around, the box of Boil Bites was tucked away in his pack and his face was perfectly blank.

“I’ll definitely keep funding your research,” Harry said. “Five galleons a month?”

“Oh yes,” George said, looking like Christmas had just come early.

“We’ll let you know if anything comes up that’s more than that,” Fred added. “Explain why we want it and so forth.”

Harry nodded slowly. “Where are you planning on going with this?”

Again, that loaded glance as they decided how much to share.

“Can’t tell anyone this,” George muttered, even though the door was closed and Harry’d thrown a colloportus at it once the twins admitted they regularly broke Molly’s no magic rule when none of their siblings were around.

“We want to open a joke shop,” Fred said.

“Like Zonko’s, only better.”

Fred looked dreamy. “Zonko’s hasn’t got any imagination anymore… they’re just turning out mostly the same old stuff with little tweaks and new branding.”

“It’ll be a new era of mischief.”

“Give Filch a coronary.”

Harry grinned. “For an extra Galleon, it comes packaged as something like hair potion or textbooks so no one knows who’s ordering your products.”

They looked impressed. “Clever,” George said.

“I’m in Slytherin for a reason. Speaking of which, I assume you have ways in and out of the castle?” Harry said.

When they nodded, he showed them a gel pen. “It looks nearly the same as ink and quill,” he said. “If you’re not looking for the difference, no one’d spot it, and it’s far more convenient. Hermione charmed a couple pens for me last winter to pretend to be quills when you tell them “I’m a wizard.” If we could do the same, the Ravenclaws and probably Hufflepuffs would pay a decent price for spelled pens. More balanced, never have to worry about ink…”

“Refilling Charm,” George said suddenly. “Put one on the pens so they refill when they get low; we could make them refill up to probably three times before the charm wore off.”

“For an extra galleon,” Harry added, grinning.

Fred’s eyes gleamed. “It’s brilliant.”

“I expect you have Ravenclaws you could talk to about buying?” Harry said. “And NEWT students in general.”

They nodded.

“Excellent, so have I. I’ll trade some galleons for pounds at Diagon Alley and swing through Ottery St. Catchpole and buy a load of gel pens after we go shopping for our school things,” Harry said.

“We’ll do the Refilling Charms and the disguises,” George said.

Harry nodded. “I can’t do spells that advanced.” Yet.

“And we’ll smuggle them in,” Fred said. “What’s our cut?”

“Say half for me, half for you two?” Harry said. “Since I’m putting up the front money, and it was my idea.”

The twins looked at each other. “Done,” they said.

Harry spent another hour with them, watching as they bantered and worked and set George’s bed on fire and scribbled down the results of their experiments with birch peels and bowtruckle saliva, and then they headed out to fly.

Fred and George were menaces on brooms. For them all to practice, Harry hopped on an older Cleansweep model, the twins on their Cleansweep Eights, and the twins took turns smashing a Bludger at him while he rocketed all around the field trying not to die. They only did this when Ron was busy, or over the hill in a different field, because Harry wanted to keep his skill level from Ron and therefore Jules. He held back just a little with the twins, too—they were friends but they were on a different House team.

July 19, 1992

The third day, he took the Floo to Blaise’s.

“Potter,” Daphne said coolly as he stepped out of the fireplace, brushing ash off his robes.

“Daphne, a pleasure as always,” he said. Her family was the definition of high society and she appreciated manners.

She inclined her head. “Everyone’s in the kitchen.”

Harry looked around and raised his eyebrows.

“It’s impressive,” Daphne said, a bit reluctantly. “My mother would like it, even.”

“High praise.” The house was gorgeous, all sleek black and silver and white marble, somehow neither modern nor old. Timeless and minimalistic. Even the fireplace, black marble set in white, didn’t disrupt the look.

Daphne showed him into the kitchen, which was also made of gleaming marble.

“He lives!” Blaise said with exaggerated relief.

“Good to see you,” Anthony said, smiling at Harry from across the marble tabletop. “I thought you were ignoring me on purpose.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Harry said. “Apparently my dad thought the same thing. He was pretty mad, actually, according to Jules.”

“Livid,” Hermione said. “Jules invited a bunch of people over there—Harry, your family library is amazing—and I overheard James ranting about you to someone named Ethan.”

“Charming,” Harry said.

Theo met his eyes with a grin. “Welcome back, mate.”

“Glad to be here,” Harry said. “How’s everyone’s summers been?”

They talked for an hour, eating snacks Blaise’s butler Jorden made for them, and then retreated into an upstairs room with their wands and piles of books.

Hermione bit her lip nervously. “But the Trace—”

“You know why it’s not a problem,” Blaise said impatiently.

“It’s not legal.”

“No one will know,” Harry said.

“Think about how much farther ahead you’ll be than the others when we go back,” Pansy said. “You can bet all the pureblood or halfblood kids practice in the summers when their parents aren’t watching.”

Harry almost winced, but it turned out to be the perfect thing to say. Daphne sneered slightly, but Hermione’s expression firmed and she drew her wand. “All right. Let’s do this.”

“We spent all last year with a terrible Defense professor who turned out to be a raving lunatic,” Anthony said. “Can we focus on that?”

Behind him, where only Harry could see, Theo and Blaise both grinned evilly.

“Great idea,” Hermione said, “I do feel ever so worried about this year, since we’re probably so far behind…”

The Slytherins avoided eye contact with each other and readied their wands.

“Okay,” Harry said. “The Trip Jinx, the Stinging Hex, the Full Body Bind, Jelly-Legs and its variations, the Knockback Jinx, the Tickling Charm, and the Dancing Curse are all useful and can be cast by dedicated first and second years. Anyone not know any of those?”

As it turned out, Hermione and Anthony knew the Body-Bind, the Knockback Jinx since they’d studied it in Quirrell’s class, and the Tickling Charm, but none of the others. The Slytherins knew of all of them but only Daphne and Theo could cast all of them. Harry could handle all of them with ease except the Tickling Charm, which only worked about half the time for him. He hated Charms.

“How do you know all this?” Hermione said, looking annoyed as she tried for the fourth time to cast the Stinging Hex.

Harry looked at Theo.

Theo shrugged. “The Slytherin common room is an educational environment.”

“He means, you either learn fast or you find another way to settle squabbles,” Pansy said.

Harry wasn’t about to tell Hermione he’d gone and looked up Gardus, a single-use low-power blocking charm, in the second week of term. Protego had left him dizzy with exhaustion for a day when he tried casting it. He’d probably make another attempt sometime this year. It would be useful in Slytherin, where Rule 6 often got ignored as long as no damage was done, and petty duels erupted all over the place. 

“So you fight for dominance? Like—like a flock of chickens?” Hermione said in outrage.

Pansy laughed at her expression. “Calm down, Granger, it’s not like we have a dueling stage and if you can’t keep up you get locked in a cupboard.”

Harry flinched. Miniscule, but Theo caught it, and aimed his wand at Pansy’s back. “Volculeus!”

She yelped as the Stinging Hex—a specialty of Theo’s—nailed her spine. “Theo! That’s it.”

“What are you going to do?” he taunted. “Duel me?”

They all knew Pansy wouldn’t beat Theo in a quick duel. Daphne and Harry and Theo were the best duelers in the group (Harry because he got challenged most often in the common room), and Pansy’s wandwork was the weakest. But she didn’t seem thrown. She just winked at Theo. “I’ll tell them about that letter you got last week.”

Theo paled. “How do you know about that.”

“I have my ways,” Pansy said, tucking her black bob cut behind her ear. “No more hexes to the back, Theo.”

He scowled at her.

Hermione stared between them. “Aren’t you friends?”

“Yes,” Pansy said at the same time as Theo said “No” in a flat tone.

Harry laughed—he couldn’t help it.

“Pansy, can you show me the wand movement for fambulare again?” Anthony said from by the window, where he was looking at a book. “The diagram’s confusing—”

Pansy grinned at them and sauntered away.

Hermione huffed. “Slytherins are irritating.”

“Rule one,” Theo said. “Irritate everyone else.”

Harry thought about it. “That’s kind of the effect, actually…”

Hermione pointed her wand at Theo. “Volculeus!”

He leaped back with a wince. “Bugger. Yes, you got it.”

“Let’s duel,” Hermione said, eyes gleaming.

Theo raised an eyebrow. “That’s not a good idea.”

“Why not?” Her face was set. “I’m as good a witch as you are a wizard. Better in most classes.”

“Yes, but dueling’s not a class,” Theo said.

Hermione resolutely pointed her wand at him.

Theo sighed. “Fine.”

Harry was aware that Blaise, Daphne, Tracy, Anthony, and Pansy had all stopped what they were doing to watch.

Hermione cast volculeus. Theo dodged and returned petrificus totalus. She barely stepped out of the way of it, then of the Tickling Charm that followed, and got off a Body-Bind of her own that Theo almost took to the chest. He had to sit down to avoid it. “Ventus!” he said, Hermione stumbled as the Wind Charm sent a blast of air straight at her.  Theo took advantage of her loss of balance and hit her with tarantallegra, a little vindictively; Hermione’s legs started spasmodically dancing before she could even get back to her feet.

“Finite,” she said, and her legs relaxed. She glared at Theo. “You cheated.”

Theo grinned down at her.

“All’s fair in love and war,” Blaise said, propping an elbow on Theo’s shoulder.

Hermione scowled as she climbed to her feet. “Well, this is neither love nor war. Besides, I’d like to see you try.”

“Don’t be mad you lost,” Blaise drawled.

Hermione looked about ready to hit him with a convexo strong enough to knock him into the wall, but Tracy intervened with an explanation. “He means you did better than anyone else our year would have. You just learned some of these spells today. And it was your first duel. It wasn’t Theo’s.”

“You lot just practice dueling on your own time?” Hermione said skeptically.

“Malfoy picks fights with us in the common room,” Harry said. “Or in the dorms. Or in the halls sometimes if he’s having a bad day.”

Theo smirked. “You’d think he’d have gotten sick of losing by now.”

Hermione’s irritation was almost completely gone, replaced by curiosity. “Let’s see, then.”

“What?”

“Whoever’s as good as Theo. Can I see a full duel?”

Harry and Daphne looked at each other; they’d both sustained their fair share of challenges, and while they’d never truly gone against each other, they had a good awareness of relative skill levels and knew they and Theo were the most skilled.

“Go for it,” Daphne said, sounding bored. “I’ve no reason to break out a sweat.”

“You’d lose before you had time to sweat, Daphne darling,” Theo said.

She just looked down her nose at him.

Harry spun his wand—he’d chosen the ash for today—and grinned at Theo. “Guess it’s us.”

Theo grinned back.

The others cleared aside. Harry held his wand ready.

Theo moved first. “Volculeus!”

Harry took the Stinging Hex, knowing he could handle the pain and Theo’d be expecting him to move. “Convexo! Fambulare!” he cast.

Theo dodged the Knockback Jinx straight into the Trip Jinx and landed on the floor. Harry cast a Body-Bind.

“Gardus! Tarantallegra!” Theo said.

Harry barely ducked the Dancing Curse—Theo was back on his feet—Harry had to dodge a Knockback, and returned a Body-Bind—Theo cast a Wind Charm, and Harry staggered back beneath the force of it, but he’d been waiting for the trick and managed to avoid the follow-up Jelly-Legs—he flicked his wand at the marble beneath Theo’s feet in a set pattern. “Commuto!”

Theo stumbled as the marble was Transfigured into sand, a fairly basic process they’d covered last February. Harry nailed him with tarantallegra while he was down and kicked Theo’s wand out of his hand.

“Okay, fine,” Theo said, “you win,” and Harry cast finite and pulled him to his feet.

“Good show,” Theo said.

“You, too, you nearly had me with that first Dancing Curse,” Harry said as the others came back from where they’d withdrawn to the edges of the room.

“Wasn’t expecting you to just take the Stinger—”

“Great use of Transfiguration,” Anthony said.

Daphne nodded. “I wouldn’t have thought of that.”

It was about the closest to a compliment she’d ever given Harry.

“Put it back, though,” Blaise added. “My mum will be furious if she comes home and her marble floors are full of sandy pitfalls.”

Harry grinned at him and changed the sand back, which was a little more difficult since he had to make it a perfectly smooth surface, but he managed.

Hermione had a steely glint in her eye that Harry recognized. “We’re going to keep practicing, right?”

“Don’t worry,” Harry said, grinning at her. “By the time we go back to school, you’ll be able to handle Ron or Malfoy just fine.”

He and Tracy helped Hermione with the spells, and then Hermione beat Anthony and eked out a narrow win against Blaise, who promptly insisted on going again and then beat her. It didn’t seem to bother the Gryffindor girl. Her eyes only got harder and Harry had a feeling she’d be practicing wand movements in her room until the next time they met up. Anthony dueled Daphne and lost, dueled Tracy twice with a win and a loss, and Harry and Theo and Daphne went around in circles until they were all too tired to keep casting.  They left tired but exhilarated and promised to meet up again soon, hopefully roping Lisa, Sue, and Justin in, and hopefully doing something along the lines of homework.

He got back to the Burrow at six and discovered that Jules, Finnegan, and Ernie Macmillan had come over for dinner.

“Potter,” Finnegan said.

Harry nodded at him. He was on worse terms with Ron than Finnegan, but only barely. Macmillan would be an unknown except Harry knew he and Justin didn’t get along.

 “Finnegan,” he said as politely as he could manage. “Macmillan.”

“Oh, no need for the formality,” Mrs. Weasley said. “Sit down, sit down.”

They settled in at the table. Harry somehow ended up with Ginny and then the twins on his right and Finnegan and Jules to his left, with Ron, Macmillan, and Percy across from them. Mr. Weasley had the head of the table and Mrs. Weasley the seat by Percy. Harry supposed it could’ve been worse—Ginny was a neutral party—but he still didn’t like having people he wasn’t comfortable with all around him.

Mrs. Weasley was still grumbling about schools convincing children they had to use last names as she levitated platters of food out onto the table. Harry’s mouth watered. Malfoy could mock the Weasleys’ money situation as much as he wanted; it didn’t seem to matter to any of them, and the food was as good as anything the Hogwarts house-elves put out.

Ron and Finnegan and Macmillan promptly started arguing about Quidditch. Harry didn’t understand. He’d thrown himself into research about the wizarding world the previous year, but it had all been etiquette, culture, history, politics, government, and law instead of sports. He concentrated on cleaning his plate. He’d started adjusting to full portions of food again and was able to more enjoy Mrs. Weasley’s excellent cooking.

Eventually, though—about the time Mr. Weasley went to do paperwork and Mrs. Weasley to feed the chickens—the Gryffindorks exhausted their Quidditch argument and focus turned to Harry. “Ron said you got to ride in the flying car,” Finnegan said. “Tell us about it!”

“And the rescue,” Macmillan said.

Harry blinked at them. It couldn’t hurt not to be a git to Jules’ friends. For now, anyway. “Er—it—they woke me up. We grabbed my stuff and climbed out the window into the car—Fred and George had to go get my trunk out of the cupboard downstairs—and my Uncle Vernon tried to grab me, and he got stuck in the window.”

“How big is he?” Finnegan said.

“He’s like a walrus,” Harry said flatly.

Fred leaned over to them. “I’ve never seen anyone fatter.”

The other boys looked awed.

Are you serious? That’s the part of this story that fascinates you?

“How’d he get stuck?” Jules asked. It was the first time he’d spoken directly to Harry all evening.

“I had to get out of my room before he grabbed me, but I was still holding Alekta in her cage,” Harry said. “And the passenger door was open, but they didn’t have the car in position yet—”

“Are you not as good a driver as you say, Fred?” Ron said, grinning at his brother.

Harry looked at the twins. George shook his head minutely. They weren’t telling about the other Slytherins, then. Harry’s real friends.

“He was probably distracted by George trying to get my trunk into the back of the car,” Harry said. “I had to throw Alekta’s cage in, and then there wasn’t room for me if I jumped for the passenger seat—so I jumped on top of the car.” It was exactly the sort of thing that would impress the Gryffindors.

“Wicked,” Ron said, eyes wide.

“Uncle Vernon dove for me right then, that’s how he got stuck,” Harry said. “I climbed into the car, and then we drove off.”

Ron turned on the twins. “You should’ve brought me!”

It seemed that he was a lot more interested in the story now that his friends were, too.

“Would you have wanted to come? Given who we were picking up?” George said, a bit nastily. Percy shot him a glare.

Ron opened his mouth, shut it, and opened it again. “Yeah,” he said.

Just to get to ride in the car, though, right?

“I heard something about bars on the window,” Jules said.

Harry looked to his left. Jules was leaning forward a bit; he and Harry made eye contact in front of Finnegan. Harry was surprised to see that Jules actually looked angry. On his behalf. Maybe there was some brotherly feeling lurking in there after all. “Yeah… they were really set on not letting me go back to Hogwarts. They hate magic.”

“All Muggles aren’t like that, though,” Macmillan said pompously. Clearly he thought to go to bat with Slytherin prejudices. Because Slytherin equaled Muggle hater. Harry choked his irritation. This was a golden opportunity. “One negative experience doesn’t mean that all—”

“Why in Merlin’s name would I extrapolate my bad experiences with three horrible people to an entire population constituting billions?” Harry said, doing his best to portray absolute confusion, and was rewarded when Macmillan sputtered.

“No, really,” Harry said, still perfectly confused. He channeled Crabbe and Goyle when McGonagall talked about Transfiguration theory. “That doesn’t make any sense—it’d be like judging all Gryffindors based on a few people who’re prats. Why would you think I would think all Muggles are bad because my aunt and uncle are terrible people?”

Fred and George were trying not to laugh, and mostly succeeding. Percy’s expression was deciding whether to be impressed or disapproving. Ginny’s head was down and focused on her plate, probably to hide a smile.

“Well—because—well, you—some of the people around you are—hold certain prejudices,” Macmillan got out. His cheeks were burning red.

Harry angled his head. “What, Finnegan? And Ginny?”

“No! You know…”

“I don’t, actually, that’s why I’m asking.” Harry hadn’t expected to have nearly this much fun at dinner tonight. It was hard to not smile.

“Leave off!” Ron burst out. “You know bloody well it’s because you’re in Slytherin!”

Harry’s face was a portrait of someone having an epiphany. “Oh,” he said. “Of course. Because the beliefs of some can be used to judge everyone as long as it’s not you being judged, right?”

“You’ve made your point,” Jules said with a lot less anger than Harry would’ve expected.

“No, he hasn’t,” Finnegan said.

“Enough,” Percy said. “This is getting out of hand.”

“Shut up,” the twins said.

Harry raised an eyebrow at Finnegan. “Why not?”

“The Death Eaters were all Slytherins,” Finnegan said, clearly confident he’d just won the argument.

“First of all, even if that were true, not all Slytherins go on to become Death Eaters,” Harry said. “Second, it’s not. Several of the Death Eaters—a smaller percentage, true, but a decent one—came from Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff. Barty Crouch Jr. –Ravenclaw. Rookwood, one of the most dangerous of the lot—Ravenclaw. Moresey—Ravenclaw. Antonin Dolohov’s lesser known but equally deadly cousin Barclay was a Hufflepuff. And you ought to know all about the most famous Gryffindor Death Eater.” He looked pointedly at Jules. “Sirius Black, who betrayed our parents and got our mum killed. Slytherin’s hardly got a monopoly on pureblood bigotry.”

“You’re friends with them though,” Macmillan said. “When we see you lot you’re all clustered up, you walk together—”

Well, damn. Harry was no more friends with Malfoy’s crew than he was this lot, but he couldn’t break the golden rule of Slytherin politics: house unity above all. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Malfoy’s a git,” he said flatly. “We’re in the same House. That doesn’t mean I want to be next door neighbors when we grow up. You’ll notice I came to the Burrow instead of one of my housemates’ family homes.”

Ringing silence descended on the table.

“So if you’re all done being prejudiced prats, I’m going to bed,” Harry said, shoving back from the table. “Goodnight, Fred, George, Percy, Ginny.”

“Harry,” Jules called.

Harry glanced over his shoulder, wondering—

But Jules only said, “Dad wants you over for dinner on Tuesday, does that work?”

“Yeah,” Harry said. “I’ll Floo over at six.”

Jules nodded. No one said anything; Fred and George both looked like several Galleons had fallen into their laps and Percy was still blinking off shock. The younger Gryffindor boys all looked massively uncomfortable and Ginny’s head was down.

Harry shook his head and left.

He’d thought he was magically exhausted after the day of practice with his friends, but apparently either anger or food or both gave him enough fuel to slash his bedcover to bits with repeated diffindos and then painstakingly repair each rip with reparo when he’d finished venting. Harry was really magically exhausted then, and knew he’d feel it tomorrow, but otherwise he was still buzzing with leftover adrenaline.

He needed an outlet. He wanted—

The broom shed, backlit by the setting sun, caught his eye.

Harry clenched his fists. He wanted to be high above the world, no magic and no spells and nothing between him and the hard ground but air and a broom. He wanted the bite of chill air on his face and in his hair to drive thoughts from his head. He wanted to do the crazier intermediate-level drills from the book Wright had given him last Christmas—to challenge himself, to get better so he could prove them all wrong—

Later, he told himself. They weren’t his brooms. It wasn’t his house. Which all just meant he had to be careful and not get caught. Later.

To distract himself, Harry dragged a book of hexes out of his trunk and started practicing a new one, the Hair-Growing Hex, to show his friends the next time they hung out. Only the wand motion for now. Then the Tooth-Growing Hex, the Nail-Growing Hex, and the Scale Jinx that turned the top layer of your skin flaky and scaly and dry. He tried not to let himself see Jules and Ron and Finnegan and Macmillan’s faces as he practiced, but failed.

The whoosh of the Floo sounded three times. The other guests were gone, then. Stairs creaked, footsteps passed his door—that was one, two, three, four, five, Ron and the twins and Ginny and Percy—then downstairs, the shuffle of feet and murmur of voices that were Molly and Arthur in the kitchen, putting things away and talking about who knew what. Harry put the book of hexes aside and started flipping through his trunk’s library section at random.

The Animagus Transformation.

Harry paused. He’d forgotten about this book—the one Theo told him was of very questionable legal status, the one he’d borrowed/stolen from the Potter family vault last year. He hadn’t known what an Animagus was then, but they’d mentioned them in McGonagall’s class and would be studying them more in third year. It was immensely difficult, especially without Ministry registration and babysitting, but when Harry thought about the potential advantages of being an unregistered Animagus…

He’d configured his library to have two settings, which he labeled public and private. The books under private would only appear in searches if he wrote a password before his search term, and he could make the three shelves show the most recently accessed private books instead of the public set if he wrote private and then the password. He slotted the Animagus book into the “hold here indefinitely” section of the private library’s default book display so it would stay even if he didn’t get around to it for a few weeks and read other things in that time. That was something to come back to.

For the first time, it occurred to him to wonder why James Potter had an illegal book on animagery in his vault.

Harry’s eyes narrowed. All the stories he’d heard indicated James and his friends had had very little respect for rules as students. They’d also been successful; Remus Lupin in particular got excellent grades and apparently the other three did as well. They were Gryffindors who loved pranks and mischief that bordered on bullying if you read between the lines.

In other words, the exact sort of people who might try to become unregistered Animagi, and actually have a shot at success.

Harry listened, and realized everything was quiet downstairs.

He was too wired to sleep. He paced in circles, wearing his soundless shoes to keep anyone from hearing he was still up, for another thirty minutes, until he thought the Weasley parents were almost definitely asleep and couldn’t bear it any longer.

It was the work of just a few minutes to ease his door open, go down the stairs heedless of creaks thanks to the shoes, slip out the back door, and with a quick lumos from his wand, find his way to the broom shed. He still wasn’t certain Dumbledore didn’t have a house-elf watcher on him and pulled out several of his makeshift hair pins to pick the lock; this time, he actually did it the Muggle way instead of pretending while using his wandless magic. He’d had plenty of opportunity to practice this summer but he was still surprised when it worked.

Fred and George had the best brooms of the lot, but it was better to fly on a variety, and if you could get through Quidditch drills on a Dragonflye 4 you could do them on anything. Harry grabbed the Dragonflye, whispered “nox” and sheathed his wand, mounted the broom, and kicked off.

It was glorious. His night vision goggles, ordered from Quality Quidditch Supply at Wright’s suggestion last year, lit everything as if it was twilight instead of full dark. Harry missed the feeling of wind in his eyes but knew it wouldn’t be safe to fly without the goggles at night.

He lapped the field four times at the Dragonflye’s top speed, which was actually decent—it was the turns that gave it such a bad reputation, a rumor that Harry discovered was entirely justified when he tried to turn and slammed into a tree.

“Bugger,” he hissed, shaking leaves out of his hair, and rebalanced.

He wouldn’t be doing any of the complicated intermediate drills tonight, that was for sure.

Harry launched into some of the beginner drills. On the Dragonflye instead of a Slytherin team Nimbus 1950 or a Weasley or Potter Cleansweep, they went from old hat to wickedly complicated. He skidded out a few times on the grass and got scrapes on his palms from the rough handle and slowly started learning how to handle the finicky, difficult broom.

About forty minutes in, he paused in midair, because someone had just opened the back door.

Harry squinted. A small figure slipped out the door, eased it closed, and hurried down to the broom shed.

Curious, he leaned forward and drifted closer…

Ginny?

He’d locked the shed behind him. She managed to pick it faster than he had and get inside.

Harry grinned.

Ginny

She slipped out of the shed, easing the door shut behind her, mind already full of the Sloth Grip Roll she’d seen Fred helping Jules with a week ago. She’d swiped a few of the twins’ Quidditch training books and looked it up; she thought she could do it, and if not, well—she’d stay close to the ground until she figured it out.

“Running away?” someone said.

Ginny jumped about a mile, spun around, tripped, and fell flat on her bum. She blinked and glared—a dark silhouette peeled away from where it had been leaning against the shed, next to the door—somehow she’d missed him—and resolved into Harry Potter once he stepped into the light from the back porch. Harry Potter, who was holding their ancient Dragonflye 4.

“That was graceful,” he said, sauntering over and standing above her. Not close enough to be threatening, but—well, there he was.

Ginny sat up and glared up at him. Jules made her flustered. He was the Boy Who Lived. But his twin was easy. Harry was—sharp-edged in a way Jules wasn’t. She didn’t have to be anxious how she came across—didn’t have to worry about her temper or her tongue or any of the things Jules’ friends looked at her weird for.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“Same as you, I reckon,” he said, voice unreadable and face cast mostly in shadow—except the bright green of his eyes, which seemed to catch and return a bit of the back porch light. “Quidditch drills.”

“On the Dragonflye?”

He shrugged. “Someone told me if you can get a Dragonflye through a drill, you can do it on anything.”

Ginny considered that. It was true. She’d ridden the Dragonflye for ages and the Cleensweep Seven had felt like a dream afterward even though most people mocked it. “The tail slews left if you put your foot too far towards the inner edge of the right footrest.”

Harry blinked—the first sign of, well, any reaction she’d seen from him. “Thanks.”

Ginny kept glaring. He was using their family brooms. But she really didn’t have a leg to stand on here. She was sneaking out and breaking all her mum’s stupid rules about Ginny flying. It wasn’t fair—Ron had gotten to start on the Dragonflye when he was nine, and Ginny wasn’t allowed on anything faster than the family Bluebottle, and that only with supervision. She didn’t know why exactly Harry was being so sneaky but she figured it had something to do with him and Ron not liking each other.

“I won’t tell if you don’t,” she finally offered.

His smile was sudden and sharp. He held out a hand.

Ginny let him pull her to her feet. “Up,” she said, and the Cleensweep smacked up into her palm.

Harry

They worked at opposite corners of the field. Ginny was mostly outside the range of Harry’s goggles, and he outside hers, unless they veered towards the middle. He caught glimpses of her practicing the Sloth Grip Roll with surprising skill.

Harry put the broom away after another half hour, leaving Ginny to her flying, and went back inside. He filled a glass of water with a whispered aguamenti and drank it down. Then, after a moment’s thought, he filled another glass and left it on the table before he went upstairs.

Harry and Ginny’s nighttime flights became a habit. At first, they stuck to their respective edges of the Weasleys’ back field, Harry on the Dragonflye and Ginny on a rotating cycle of different family brooms. He got better on the Dragonflye and she worked what he recognized as Seeker and Chaser drills.

It was the latter that drove him to action—it was hard to practice passing, catching, and stealing the Quaffle with only one person. He drifted over and asked her if she’d be willing to run a few two-person Chaser drills with him. Ginny eyed him for a few seconds before agreeing.

After that, they didn’t discuss it. They called out advice, corrections, or questions, or the occasional “nice one” when one of them did something either particularly well or particularly poorly. Occasionally a conversation would occur as they were putting their brooms away; Harry told her funny stories about his friends on the days he’d been at Blaise’s, and Ginny told him about Luna Lovegood, who lived nearby and was sweet if a bit odd—Harry had met her the previous summer—and Megan Jorkins, daughter of an old friend of Mr. Weasley, who irritated Ginny to no end but who she had to be nice to because of their parents.

Ginny was really an excellent flier for being eleven. Harry had a very good feeling she wasn’t supposed to be flying at all and that Molly Weasley would have a conniption if she knew.

July 23, 1992

This guess was confirmed two weeks into his stay at the Weasleys’. Harry had just gotten back from the second day at Blaise’s, with just Theo and himself over this time, the three of them practicing some more permanently damaging spells that their non-Slytherin friends would probably hesitate to learn and talking for an hour and then poking through Blaise’s mum’s library for another two. He was in Charlie’s room for all of two minutes when the twins burst in.

“Oliver Wood’s here,” Fred said.

“Our Quidditch captain.”

“He’s Percy’s roommate.”

“They don’t get along.”

“Both completely obsessive and manic—”

“—but about completely different things.”

“It’s bloody hilarious.”

“Come down and watch.”

“Why’s he here then?” Harry said, getting to his feet and joining them.

Fred and George shrugged. “Dad likes him, we like him, Percy wants to talk about the summer reading with someone from his year and all the rest are on holiday or sick, somehow.”

Harry found a tall brown-haired boy in the kitchen, already arguing heatedly with Percy about something to do with scheduling conflicts. Percy was sixth-year Prefect and Wood was the Quidditch captain. It had the tone of an argument that had been repeated many times in many different forms. Harry sat down with Fred and George.

“—is just as important as academics, Percy, you know what bad morale does to grades—”

“—yes, well, I fully support physical exercise to stimulate the brain, but when it begins to cut into study time—”

“—everything cuts into study time, you probably write the sandman every other week to complain that you’d rather be studying cauldron regulations than doing something so time-wasting as sleep—wait, Jules? No—”

“Harry,” Harry said, highly amused. “Potter. Which is… probably obvious, actually.”

“Right, sorry,” Wood said, looking suspicious. He glared at the twins. “You’ve been careful, I hope. Can’t have a Slytherin seeing our maneuvers.”

“I’d be offended, except I know our team’s the same way,” Harry said, helping himself to some bacon. “No worries. They’ve been very bland.”

Wood nodded.

Mrs. Weasley and Ginny and Ron came in at the same time. Ron held a basket of eggs, Ginny an empty bucket, and Mrs. Weasley a whole dead chicken.

“Oh! Oliver, welcome,” she said, smiling at the sixth year. “Good to see you.”

“Hi, Molly,” Wood said, smiling. “You as well. Ron, Ginny, hey—Ron, are you ever going to try out for Quidditch?” he asked with a sudden interest.

Ron shrugged. “I’m best at Keeping, I think.”

“So not until I’m gone,” Wood said. “Fair enough. Ginny, how about you? You’re starting this year, right? Won’t be long before Gryffindor has the whole set, I suppose—can’t wait to see you try out if you’ve got the Quidditch genes your brothers have—”

“Ginny won’t be trying out any time soon,” Mrs. Weasley said instantly. “She’s not flown a racing broom yet and won’t for a good few years if I have anything to do with it.”

Ginny looked mutinous. Harry deliberately didn’t look at her.

How interesting.

Harry,

I hear you’ve been broken out of the Muggles’ house. I’m glad to hear it. I told my gran about Dumbledore making you go back and she was right furious. If we weren’t on holiday I’d ask you to join us, but it might be complicated at this point. We’re traveling a lot in some really rural areas. Owls have a hard time finding us. (People keep asking Gran if she’s too old for this—not usually that bluntly, but it’s not subtle—and she keeps either hexing them or tearing them to shreds verbally. Sometimes I wonder how she was a Gryffindor.)

Staying at the Weasleys’ will be good. Your dad can’t argue with that. I know you’re on good terms with the twins but I hope the rest are treating you well. I’m not sure when Gran and I are getting back but if you need you can come to our place as soon as we’re home.

Tell Theo I don’t care if he doesn’t like writing letters, he’s not getting cuttings of any plants we find unless he bothers to write me back and actually talk about them.

-Neville

July 31, 1992

The morning of Harry and Jules’ birthday dawned bright and beautiful, typical July weather.

Harry woke up at his usual early hour, went for a quick jog around the field, slipped back in just as Fred and George were heading out to get some exercise in before the party, dodged a glowering Ron on the stairs, and settled in Charlie’s room to mentally prepare himself.

Two days ago he’d gone over to Potter Manor for an afternoon. Jules had actually been… decent. Harry had suggested they go pass the Quaffle around, and they’d spent an hour messing around on brooms—an hour in which they could forget to argue and bicker; an hour in which they were just kids. They walked back inside with messy hair and good moods. Harry’s was immediately shattered when James Flooed into the front hall from work and made a dramatic show of hugging and greeting Jules before turning to Harry.

They’d eaten dinner and planned the party and made polite conversation. Harry wanted to scream after two hours of this. Jules was clearly uncomfortable with the rift between the brother he didn’t hate and the father he idolized. James’ smiles got more and more forced. Harry just kept a pleasant expression up, went back to the Weasleys, and resorted to his old shred-the-bedcovers-and-repair-them method of emotional coping.

It probably wasn’t the healthiest, but it worked.

There’d be more people today. Hopefully that could translate to Harry not having to interact much with James. If he could keep it to his own friends, and keep his friends and Jules’ from attacking each other—

It might actually be fun.

 Harry put on black trousers, a tunic in Slytherin green, and a light summer robe in a soft silvery white color. He hated wizarding hats and left his in his trunk. That of course meant he had to spend thirty minutes trying to tame his hair since it wasn’t going to be hidden under the hat and no way was he going to walk in there with hair like Jules and James.

“Harry? Dear, we’re leaving in ten minutes—”

“I’ll be right down, thanks, Mrs. Weasley,” Harry called.

Her footsteps retreated downstairs. Harry slid his holly wand into his holster, checked his appearance one more time, and followed.

“Morning, Harry,” the twins chorused. Ginny nodded at him, clearly not fully awake yet, and Ron ignored him completely, which was probably the best possible outcome. They’d settled into an uneasy truce that involved not speaking unless they had to and never being in the same room unless Percy or one of the Weasley parents was there to keep a lid on things, for which Ginny was no help and the twins were actually detrimental, since they seemed to take Harry’s self-control as a personal challenge.

“Good morning,” he said, leaning on the wall. “We waiting on Percy?”

“He’s probably still looking for his prefect’s badge,” George said.

“Why does he need it?” Harry asked. “It’s just a birthday party…”

Fred grinned. “Yes, but he likes to have it with him.”

Harry’s eyebrows climbed toward his hairline.

“Fred! George!” Percy bellowed.

Fred made a choking noise while George clamped a hand over his mouth to contain laughter.

“Give—me—back—my—badge!” Percy burst into the kitchen on the last word, glaring.

“We haven’t got it,” Fred said innocently.

“Like hell you haven’t,” Percy said. “I know you took it—”

“Boys, give him the badge back,” Mrs. Weasley said in the tone of voice that let everyone know not to argue.

“We can’t,” they said in unison.

Mrs. Weasley glared. “And why not?”

Cue identical canny grins. “We don’t have it at the moment,” George said.

Fred propped an elbow on George’s shoulder. “It’s currently in an envelope flying to Lee’s place.”

“He’ll mail in back in a few days.”

“Probably.”

With modifications, I’m sure, Harry thought drily.

Percy’s mouth opened and closed a few times before he found words. “Why—you—little—”

“Not now, boys,” Mrs. Weasley snapped, “we haven’t the time—Fred, George, we will talk about this later. Harry, dear, would you like to go first?”

“Thank you, Mrs. Weasley,” he said with a charming smile, and grabbed a pinch of Floo powder. The fireplace smelled strongly of ash. He hurled the powder at his feet. “Potter Manor!”

With a whoosh, he was sucked down a drain. Flashes of green flame and empty fireplaces spun before his eyes fast enough to threaten dizziness. Harry stubbornly kept his eyes open. He wasn’t going to lose his balance and stumble out of the Potters’ fireplace, dammit—

He hit the ground with a thump and stepped out of the fireplace. It was the first dignified Floo exit he’d ever managed.

To his horror, he saw almost immediately that the Weasleys’ general lack of punctuality had actually put him behind his own guests, which meant Jules, Finnegan, Brown, Macmillan, Thomas, and Bones were facing off with Theo, Daphne, Blaise, Pansy, Tracy, Anthony, and Sue. Hermione was trying to moderate. Her relief was plain when she saw Harry.

It disappeared when he inserted himself easily and firmly at Theo’s side instead of taking the middle ground with her. “Jules,” Harry said. “Glad you’ve all met. I think Ron and Ginny are right behind me—”

“What are they doing here?” Seamus said, glaring at the Slytherins.

“They’re my friends,” Harry said firmly.

The fireplace whooshed again, and Ginny was the next out. Her semiformal summer robes were a shade of pink that clashed horribly with her hair and seemed to have put her in a horrible temper. “Seamus, shut up,” she said. “Shall we all go get punch?”

“Excellent idea,” Blaise said crisply, and sauntered for the doors to the backyard, hands in pockets. Harry followed. Hermione and Theo fell in with him, and the rest of their friends followed, leaving Jules and the Gryffindors to wait for Ron.

“Justin?” Harry asked. “And Hannah?”

“Coming. Along with several of Jules’ Ravenclaw friends and the Gryffindor Quidditch team,” Theo said in an undertone.

“Thank Merlin Ginny’s more mature than her brothers,” Hermione said. “Harry, I seriously thought hexes were going to fly.”

“I’m insulted,” Daphne said. “As if we’d be so undignified as to fire first.”

“I never said I was worried about you starting the fight,” Hermione said. “I was worried about you finishing it.”

Daphne actually looked impressed. Maybe that chasm had the beginnings of a bridge growing over it.

Harry braced himself for a long afternoon. 

Neville,

It was good to get your letter last week. I hope this finds you quickly, but Alekta might have trouble if you guys are moving around a lot. I promise I haven’t been ignoring you. Happy birthday! Gifts are enclosed in the package from Theo and Blaise and me.

Jules’ and my birthday party was today. I wish you could’ve come. Things would have been a lot easier. I met the Minister of Magic, Madame Bones, Head of the DMLE, several Aurors—Mad-Eye Moody is nuts but interesting—and a bunch of others from the Wizengamot and the Ministry. Rufus Scrimgeour is… I don’t know. I’m not sure what I think of him. And there’s a Junior Undersecretary to the Minister who’s all kinds of unpleasant and creepy. She looks like someone did a bad job transfiguring a frog into a human and then dressed it all in pink. Apparently she used to work in the Department of Education. I’m just glad they transferred her out of there; imagine if she had any say at Hogwarts. She talked to me like I was five years old. I wanted to hex her.

Everyone was very interested to meet the newly discovered Potter heir, as you might imagine. I charmed the pants off the lot of them, shook hands, made a good impression, and hopefully kept anything James has been saying about me to his colleagues to a minimum of damage.

Once all the adults left and the press conference was over, it was just the kids hanging out in the Potter Manor basement. I have a feeling it used to be dungeons with actual cells, but James or his dad converted it into what’s actually a really fun place to have friends. Couches and torches and food and drinks and loads of games and such. It was hard to really enjoy it because I spent the entire time keeping Theo and Daphne from manipulating the Gryffindors into calling them a nasty name and giving them an excuse to fire off some hexes. Blaise helped. (Don’t go thinking I’ve grown soft. If hexes broke out, James might kick me out of the Manor entirely for the rest of the summer. We’ll wait until the school year.) Pansy just sat back and watched. I’m pretty sure she was figuring out how to manipulate everyone later once she gets blackmail on them if she hasn’t got it already.

Anthony and Hermione got into a row with Ron and Finnegan. Sue disappeared into the library for thirty minutes. James had to send a house-elf after her when it was time to leave.

All in all, it could’ve gone worse, but it wasn’t especially fun, either. I wish you could’ve been there. You’d have loved watching Hermione put Finnegan in his place. Plus, obviously, it’s not a real birthday party if you’re missing one of your friends.

Blaise and Theo say hello—Blaise wrote his own letter, it’s in this envelope too, and Theo says there’s no point in all three of us making our hands sore, and that I should just pass on his greetings. I think he just doesn’t like letters in general. We’ve started using Blaise’s mum’s place to practice magic. It’s a wizarding home, and the Trace doesn’t bring Ministry officials down on us. (Burn this letter once you’ve read it so there’s no evidence of me admitting to a crime.) Most of us have finished the summer homework and those who haven’t are only not quite done because we keep getting sidetracked with random other spells. We found one that turns someone’s hair into antlers and this other one that can be used to make things shoot up into the air. We’ve been making pens go flying up into the ceilings and stick there. And dueling practice, of course.

Write me when you think you’ll be home. Blaise and Theo and I are meeting at Diagon Alley on the 10^th if you’re back by then. I know Hermione’s excited to see you.

-Harry

PS I wasn’t kidding; burn the letter.

Harry slipped the envelope with his and Blaise’s letters into the waterproof package that already contained their gifts for Neville. Theo had found another pair of soundless shoes, Harry a cutting of an extremely odd plant from the Potter greenhouse smothered in preservation charms courtesy of Mrs. Weasley, and Blaise an unpublished manuscript written by a great-uncle of his who’d gone on expedition for magical plants and creatures in the Amazon.

Alekta bit him on the nose.

“Yeah, yeah, calm down,” Harry said with a smile. After so long with nothing to do earlier in the summer, she was eager for excuses to get out and fly. “You’ll get to absolutely exhaust yourself on this trip, Neville’s in Africa somewhere—don’t get yourself eaten by a rogue hippogriff, okay?”

She made a trilling kree that was her special name for him. Harry petted her head and spine gently and knotted the package twine to give her a good place to grip with her talons. “Go on, girl,” he said.

Alekta kreeeed one last time and took off, wings beating furiously.

Harry flopped back on his borrowed bed. His own birthday gifts had been a surprise even though he knew rationally that he’d be getting them. Books from Blaise, Theo, Anthony, Sue, and Hermione; proper Quidditch gloves from the twins; more clothes from Daphne; a wand care kit from Tracy; an enchanted collapsible telescope from Justin. He’d even gotten things from James and Jules. Which was good, because Harry had ordered a high-quality heavy winter cloak in Gryffindor colors for his brother. James gave Harry a pair of thin gloves charmed for Everlasting Warmth, which were a bit useless in light of Harry’s ability to just imbue items with warmth at a touch, but James didn’t know about that specific ability.

It was far from the worst birthday he’d ever had, he supposed.

And he’d managed to get James to lift the orders forbidding Harry access to any of the Potter house-elves, though he was only supposed to call one of them to him if he absolutely had to. Harry didn’t intend to do so after tonight. They reported to James, after all. He just had a theory he needed to test.

“Marnee!”

With a crack, the elf appeared on the floor. She was the youngest of the Potter house-elves, with a canniness to her eyes that was rare among the elves Harry had met. It made Jules call her ‘odd.’ Harry trusted her more than he did either of the others. “Master called?”

“Yeah,” Harry said. “I need you to answer some questions about elves.”

“Marnee will answer what Master Harry asks.”

Harry cocked his head. “Can you sense other elves around?”

“Yes, Master Harry.”

 “Can you tell me if another house-elf has been spying on me?”

“Yes, Master Harry.”

His stomach lurched before he realized what she’d said and narrowed his eyes. “Has another house-elf been spying on me?”

“No, Mast—”

“You can just say yes or no,” he said. “No need for ‘Master Harry’ in every sentence.” Fascinating. He hadn’t realized house-elves had the capacity or inclination for clever wordplay. It seemed outside their natures. Then again, James had said Marnee was a bit odd.

Marnee bowed. “Marnee will do as Master Harry wishes.”

He groaned internally. Conversations with elves were a pain with all the formalities, but none of them seemed able to grasp the concept of first or second person pronouns when speaking. “Is there a way you can prevent other house-elves from spying on me?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me.”

“House-elves may not encroach on another’s territory without permission. If Master wishes, Marnee can claim him and his possessions with elf magic so that no other elf can be in his presence or watch him unless the other elf reveals themself to Master Harry. Will that be suitable?”

“Very much so,” Harry said, immensely relieved that he didn’t have to hide his wandless magic from a potential house-elf spy anymore. Blaise’s house had wards that would keep out all unknown elves, Blaise had assured him, but nearly everywhere else was vulnerable. “Please do so as soon as possible.”

Marnee snapped her fingers. “Will that be all for Master Harry?”

Harry paused. If James had ordered her already to tell James anything Harry tried to keep secret, then ordering her silence would result in her immediately going to James. On the other hand, if he hadn’t thought that far ahead, not ordering her silence was going to be the riskier option.

He decided to gamble on James not having had the forethought. “Do not tell James Potter anything that might hint I was worried about a house-elf spying on me, understood?”

“Marnee understands, sir.”

“Very good. You may go.”

Marnee bowed and Disapparated.

Chapter Text

3

August 10, 1992

Harry stumbled out of the fireplace in the Leaky Cauldron, the designated Floo connection for Diagon Alley, with a scowl. He’d spent long enough with horrid clothes and now that he had decent robes—better than decent, if he was being honest—he hated getting soot on them every time he traveled.

A whoosh from behind told him the next Weasley was coming through. Harry stepped out of the way and ordered a butterbeer from the barman, Tom, and sipped it while George, Fred, Percy, and finally Mr. and Mrs. Weasley joined him and Ron and Ginny in the pub.

“We’ll see you back here at five, dear,” Mrs. Weasley told Harry kindly as the rest of her family headed for the door. He noticed Fred and George lingering to eavesdrop.

He let himself wince a little. “Mrs. Weasley, honest—I appreciate everything you’ve done for me more than I can say, but I don’t want to be a burden—I was thinking I could just let a room here for the next two weeks—since Neville’s gran’s ill—”

“Nonsense,” she interrupted. “Just because your father—well. I’ve had words with him, I can say that much—” maybe that was why James had been so stiff and awkward at the latest of their three uncomfortable family dinners of the summer so far— “but he’s insisting on this feud between you and that’s no reason for a child to be out of house and home. You’re a joy to have around—the farthest thing from a burden—I won’t hear of you spending weeks in an inn.”

He ducked his head. His embarrassment wasn’t faked. She was just so nice. He liked both Weasley parents a lot, against his own will and despite the fact that they had created the human equivalent of a canker sore and named it Ronald Weasley.

“Thank you,” he said quietly. The gratitude wasn’t faked, either.

“Of course,” she assured him. “Five o’clock.”

She moved in for a hug. That Harry did have to fake. He hated hugging and doubted that would ever change. It felt too much like being trapped.

He waited a few minutes to let the Weasleys get ahead of him and finish his butterbeer before he went out back and tapped the brick that would let him into Diagon Alley.

The shifting bricks and the first vision of the wizard street hit Harry with a wave of fierce affection. This, more than anything else, had been the moment he stepped well and truly into the wizarding world. The moment he knew for certain it was all true and not just a convincing fake of Hagrid pulling tricks. The moment he knew he’d found a place he could love and belong.

He was outside the ice cream parlor when he heard his name shouted.

Neville and Blaise appeared, hurrying towards him. Neville was still sunburned even though he’d come home from Morocco a week ago talking endlessly about the fascinating magical plants of the Sahara. Blaise had his default laughing-at-a-joke-you’re-too-stupid-to-get face on, which Harry was used to, and ignored.

They met up with Theo and wandered about Diagon Alley for a bit. Harry and Blaise spent a solid twenty minutes searching through Quality Quidditch Supplies before their friends dragged them off to restock their potions kits; Harry especially needed to do so after a few weeks of brewing practice and help in Mrs. Weasley’s potions laboratory. They all swept through Gambol and Japes Wizarding Joke Shop, and then Harry and Neville needed new robes and went to Twilfitt and Tatting’s while Blaise and Theo went next door to Scribbulus Writing Instruments.

Harry and Theo then lost Blaise and Neville along as they trawled through Whizz Hard Books, the Good Book Café: Used and New Books of All Types, Obscurus Books, and Slugg and Jiggers’ Potions-specific book section. Both boys spent far more galleons than they’d been expecting to and finished their bookstore spree with significant increases to their personal book collections.

They rejoined Blaise and Neville, who’d found Pansy and Hermione, and all headed to Flourish and Blotts together for their actual school books.

“There’s a huge line,” Pansy warned. “Someone’s doing a signing today—”

They turned the corner. Harry took in the massive banner and his eyes flicked up. “It’s the one who wrote almost all our new textbooks.”

“Lockhart?” Hermione said, suddenly sounding excited. “We can actually meet him!”

Blaise eyed the crowd of people pushing and shoving to get in the door. “I am not joining that crowd.”

The crowd seemed mostly made of up of witches around Mrs. Weasley’s age. Blaise, being the tallest of their group, sighed heavily and led the charge; Harry and Theo and Pansy quickly lost all hesitation about throwing elbows to get through.

A harassed-looking wizard was manning the doors. “Just here for school books, sir,” Blaise said with a smile that rivaled Harry’s best for charm.

“Right, of course… please, ladies, no pushing… go on in, kids—no, no, they’re schoolchildren, calm down…”

Once inside, Harry made a beeline for the Hogwarts book stands, which had prudently been moved away from the book signing area. He saw Jules, Ron, Finnegan, Macmillan, Susan Bones, Lavender Brown, Ginny, Luna Lovegood, and a girl Harry thought was Megan Jorkins in line for book signings with Mrs. Weasley. Ginny waved and Luna gave a vague sort of smile, but the rest ignored Harry and he was happy to return the favor.

“This is pathetic,” Theo said, flipping through Gadding with Ghouls. “Absolute tripe. We’re expected to learn from this?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Hermione snapped, turning slightly pink. “Lockhart’s accomplished incredible things—”

“If half of this is true, I’ll eat it,” Theo said flatly.

Hermione glared.

Harry grabbed one of every book and flipped through Break with a Banshee. It looked like Theo wasn’t far off but for the sake of not starting an argument in the already chaotic bookstore he refrained from saying anything.

Mrs. Weasley spotted him then and waved him over.

Harry heaved a sigh. “I should go greet my host,” he said. “Anyone up for it?”

“Hardly,” Theo said. “I’m going to go comb the shelves.”

“Grab me a copy of anything interesting,” Harry said, and headed over to the Weasleys with only Neville and Hermione as backup. Pansy and Blaise chose Theo’s absent-minded focus on books over playing nice with the less pleasant Gryffindors. Harry wished he could emulate them.

“Harry, dear,” Mrs. Weasley beamed. “I see you’ve already got the lot—we’re so close to the front of the line…”

That was when Harry got close enough to see James Potter standing on her other side, chatting with Mr. Weasley, whose bearing was decidedly chillier than Harry would’ve thought him capable of. “I wish I’d gone with Theo,” Harry hissed.

Neville sighed. “Me too…”

James looked up, saw his older son, and tried a smile. “Harry,” he said. “Good to see you.”

“You, too,” Harry said, with about the same level of sincerity.

Neville made a slight coughing sound.

Hermione ignored both of them and sidled over to say hello to Ginny and Luna where they stood off to one side by three new cauldrons. Megan Jorkins scowled at Hermione and turned to Lavender instead.

“Have fun?” James said, nodding at the books in Harry’s arms. “Quite a load of books this year, I’d have gone mad if they tried to make me read that whole lot…”

“It’s a lot of books for one class,” Harry said neutrally.

James nodded. “Did you see the new Nimbus Two Thousand and One at Quality Quidditch?”

“I did, yeah,” Harry said. “It looks fast.” It did—sleek and black and silver. They cost one thousand seven hundred and twenty galleons each. He was thinking of buying one if he made the Slytherin team this year.

Their awkward conversation was thankfully interrupted. “Move aside, now, this is for the Prophet,” a reporter said snidely, stepping on Ron’s foot in the process of positioning his camera.

“Big deal,” Ron snarled, rubbing his toes on the floor.

Lockhart heard him. Looked up. And Harry could see the greed light up his eyes when they landed on Jules Potter.

“Well if it isn’t Jules Potter!” he shouted.

The crowd whispered and parted excitedly. Jules squared his shoulders and lifted his chin and stepped forward to meet Lockhart with a smile. “Pleased to meet you,” he said, holding out a hand, but Lockhart ignored it completely and dragged him to the front of the book display. “Together we make the front page,” he said in what was clearly supposed to be a whisper;

Jules grinned at the camera without prompting, clearly taking all the attention as his due.

“Merlin, he’s conceited,” Harry muttered.

“This much attention your whole life would make anyone conceited,” Neville pointed out.

“Fair point…”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Lockhart said loudly, “I must say, this is the perfect moment for me to make an announcement I’ve been sitting on for some time! Young Jules and his friends came today to buy copies of my autobiography, Magical Me—they certainly weren’t expecting to get the actual magical me! That’s right—I am proud to announce that this fall, I will be starting my tenure as Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts and Hogwarts School of Witchraft and Wizardry!”

The crowd applauded. Harry did his best not to laugh.

“We’re pleased to hear it, sir,” Jules said when the applause died down. He was starting to look a little annoyed, though he did a decent job hiding it. Probably because Lockhart had even less class than the Potters about his fame. Which was saying something.

Jules was then presented with a free set of Gilderoy Lockhart’s collected works and staggered out of the limelight with them wrapped in his arms. “You can have these,” he said to Ginny, tipping them into her cauldron, “I’ll buy my own…”

“Harry,” Neville hissed, and pointed.

Harry followed his finger and grinned. “Oh, this’ll be good, let’s go watch the drama.”

“Don’t hex him,” Neville said.

“Of course not, we’re in public,” Harry said. Neville snorted. They arrived at the girls, Jules, and the cauldrons about the same time Malfoy did.

“Bet you loved that,” he said with a sneer. “Famous Jules Potter, can’t even go into a bookshop without making the front page.”

“Lay off, he didn’t try for that to happen,” Ginny snapped.

Malfoy laughed unpleasantly. “Look, you’ve got a girlfriend. Oh—it’s the sensible Potter.” His eyes glinted. “Harry, hello.”

“Malfoy,” Harry said, walking the line between cordial and frosty.

Ron arrived at that moment. “Oh, it’s you,” he muttered, glaring at Malfoy. “Bet you’re surprised to see Harry here, eh?”

“Not as surprised as I am to see you,” Malfoy retorted. “I suppose your parents will go hungry for a month to pay for all those.”

Ron’s cheeks turned as red as his hair. Harry thought this was the height of comedy, but Neville crossed his arms. “Don’t you have enough money to know it doesn’t buy everything?” Neville said. “There’s things the Weasleys have got that you never will.”

Malfoy looked irate. Harry’s left eyebrow ticked up.

A crowd of people jostled into them and separated Harry, Neville, and Ginny from the rest.

“Nice one,” Harry said appreciatively. “Where’d that come from? Last year you clammed up whenever Malfoy went at you.”

“I spent the year hanging out with you and Theo and Blaise,” Neville said with a grin. “And I’ve been writing them this summer a bit, and hanging out with your lot at Blaise’s—I know how you Slytherins think.”

“Better than Weasley does, anyway,” Harry said.

“Hey,” Ginny said. “That’s my brother.”

Harry raised an eyebrow. “But was I wrong?”

She glared. He laughed. Neville shook his head.

They managed to shove back to the rest of the group just as screams, people shoving away, and the shop assistant’s panicked yells heralded Mr. Weasley tackling Mr. Malfoy into a bookshelf.

“What in Merlin’s name—” Neville said.

“I take it back,” Harry said. “I’m so glad we didn’t follow Theo.”

Hagrid showed up out of nowhere and pulled the brawling fathers apart. Mr. Malfoy was holding a battered secondhand copy of A Beginner’s Guide to Transfiguration; he spat “Take it, girl—it’s the best your parents can afford—” and dropped it in one of the cauldrons.

“Dad!” Jules said, sounding immensely relieved.

Harry saw James approaching with a face like a thundercloud.

“Lucius,” James snarled. “What in Merlin’s name do you think you’re doing?”

“Defending myself,” Mr. Malfoy said icily. “This… heathen attacked me—”

“You’d do well to not spew your blood purist nonsense in public!” Mr. Weasley returned.

Hagrid stepped between them. “That’s enough, gents.”

“I quite agree. Draco, come along.” Mr. Malfoy’s gaze landed on Harry for a brief pause, and then he swept away with his son in tow.

Hagrid and Mrs. Weasley simultaneously started scolding Mr. Weasley for letting Mr. Malfoy get to him; James jumped in on Mr. Weasley’s side, Fred and George were commentating in a way perfectly tailored to add fuel to the fire, and it was looking to turn into the icing on Harry’s drama cake before the reporter appeared and raised his camera to snap a picture of the row.

“Bugger off,” James snarled at him, “I’m Chief Auror, you idiot—”

“Right, let’s go,” Harry said. “Before anyone gets a picture of this that includes us.”

“Oh no,” Ginny said, and dragged her cauldron towards her. “Yes—please let’s go.”

Hermione managed to worm her way out of the group with Luna in tow. Harry and Neville led the way over to where Theo, Blaise, and Pansy were emerging from the shelves with wide eyes.

“I can’t believe you have to share a dorm with Malfoy,” Neville said suddenly to Harry.

Harry shrugged. “He’s a git, but mostly he’s harmless if you ignore him. And there’s things that make up for it.”

Theo focused on Harry. “Did I or did I not just see Lucius Malfoy and Arthur Weasley get in a brawl?”

Lockhart turned out to be right. He and Jules, together, made the front page of the Daily Prophet. Harry petted Alekta when she delivered it to his room at the Burrow the next morning, glared at the paper, and set it on fire.

September 1, 1992

“Everyone ready? Ron! Put that rat in his cage! Fred—George—no, don’t you dare—”

This was followed by a bang, a shriek, and a slightly higher-pitched Mrs. Weasley yelling at the twins for setting off fireworks in the house.

Harry shook his head, alone in Charlie’s old room. He’s been neatly packed the night before, except for his toiletries, a book, his wand, and the clothes he’d be wearing to King’s Cross today. His stomach was growling but he waited until most of the shouting died down and Mrs. Weasley seemed to have gotten all her children plus Megan Jorkins and Luna Lovegood, who were coming to King’s Cross with them while their parents was busy, mostly in line.

Trunk in his pack, Harry padded down the stairs and took his usual seat at the end of the table next to George. Only he and George and Ron were actually sitting at the table. Ron and Percy were having a row a few flights above and Mrs. Weasley was dashing about the living room in an obvious bad mood. Harry bolted down his toast and eggs and joined the rest in the yard.

He didn’t see how nine people, six trunks, three owls, and a rat were going to fit into one small Ford Anglia, until Mr. Weasley showed him how the trunk and backseat had been magically expanded. “Not a word to Molly,” he whispered. Harry bit back a grin and nodded earnestly.

Mrs. Weasley climbed into the front with Megan and Ginny and looked in the back, where Harry, Fred, George, Ron, and Percy sat comfortably side by side, although Harry and Percy had their owl cages on their laps and Ron’s rat’s cage was on the floor under his feet. “The Muggles really do know what they’re doing, don’t they?” she said happily.

Harry met Mr. Weasley’s eyes in the rear view mirror and had to look away quickly before he burst out laughing.

Mr. Weasley turned the key and they trundled out of the yard. Harry barely had time to be excited that they were 0ff before they turned around—George had forgotten a box of Filibuster’s fireworks. Ten minutes later they skidded to a halt in the yard once again so Fred could run back in for his broomstick. They’d almost reached the highway when Megan shrieked that she’d forgotten her book bag.

Everyone was in a foul mood and by the time they arrived at the station. “Everyone out—grab carts—no, hurry up, Ron, for goodness’ sake leave the treats if they’re stuck, I’ll owl them to you—”

Harry was last out of the car, just in time to see Jules running up to them. “Ron!” he said. “There you are, we’ve been looking—you’re nearly late!”

“We know,” Ron snapped, wrestling his trunk onto a cart and balancing the rat cage on top.

Mrs. Weasley hurried them towards the barrier. Fred said something Harry didn’t catch that set her off and she followed the twins through the barrier, her scolding cut off abruptly as they vanished through it. Mr. Weasley followed close behind her. Then Percy, then Megan, and then Jules, who had no trunk, jogged at the barrier—

Harry would treasure the memory of this moment for a good while. Jules ran headfirst into solid brick, broke his glasses, and fell back with a yelp. Ron swerved to not run him over, tipped his cart, and dumped his rat cage, his trunk, a backpack, and himself all on the ground by Jules.

People stopped and stared; a guard nearby shouted “What the blazes d’you think you’re doin’?”

“Lost control of the trolley,” Harry called out. He walked up to the barrier while Ginny set her trunk down and pulled Ron’s off Jules’ legs. Luna hummed and looked around as though nothing about this was odd.

Harry leaned on the barrier. It was very obviously not working.

“Why can’t we get through?” Jules hissed.

“I dunno—”

Ron cut himself off and pointed, stricken, at the clock. “We’re going to miss the train—and if the barrier’s closed—mum and dad can’t get back to us—”

“We need to get to Hogwarts,” Jules said instantly.

“We should just wait by the car,” Harry said firmly.

“The car!” Ron said suddenly. “Jules—we can take the car!”

Harry stared at them. “You’re—yes, that’s bloody brilliant, Ron, steal the illegal flying car, that is absolutely the smartest thing you could do in this situation—”

Ron stared at him. “Wait, you’re agreeing with me?”

“Oh Merlin’s balls, no,” Harry sighed. “You’d think you’d understand sarcasm after this long in the same house as Fred and George—”

“It’s brilliant, Ron,” Jules said. “No one’d expect that—imagine how it will look—”

“Your concern for my well-being is greatly appreciated,” Harry said snidely. He couldn’t help it. Being sarcastic and snarky was a defense mechanism that kicked in automatically around this much absolute stupidity. “There’s more sensible ways to do this—”

“Predictable, though! Ron—come on—”

Ron glared at Harry. “You’re a prat,” he said. “Ginny—Luna—wait for Mum and Dad, okay, you’ll be safe—”

He hurried off after Jules.

“How dare he,” Ginny hissed, “he’s an idiot, Mum’s going to be furious—”

“What are you doing?” Luna said, studying Harry with the level of interest one usually reserved for a slightly pretty rock on the ground.

Harry knelt and pressed a bit of parchment and a pen against his knee. “Writing a letter,” he said, scribbling down a few quick sentences. He opened Alekta’s cage. “Take this to Mrs. Weasley, okay?” he said, stroking her head. “She’s on the platform—they might not be able to come back. Then you’d better just head to Hogwarts—”

Alekta kreeed, grabbed the paper in her beak, and launched into the air in a flurry of wings that drew cries and curious stares from the Muggles.

“Do you have a plan?” Ginny said, looking at Harry uncertainly.

“Of course I have a plan,” he said irritably, grabbing her trunk and Luna’s and heading back for the curb. “And if your idiot brother and the Prat Who Lived had waited another few minutes, they might actually have realized it’s much more logical than stealing the car. Gryffindors.”

“What’s your plan? And give me back my trunk, I can pull it on my own—”

Harry gave her the handle, changed his mind, grabbed a trolley abandoned nearby, and helped the girls lift their trunks onto it. “My plan is to use Slytherin common sense instead of Gryffindorish jumping to conclusions and attention-seeking impulsivity,” he muttered. “I wrote your mum you’d be coming with me and where we’re going, but if you don’t want to come I’ll understand—”

“No, I’m coming,” Ginny said. “I’d never hear the end of it if Ron flew the car to school and I got stuck waiting for Mum and Dad like a baby—”

Harry laughed.

“This all sounds very exciting,” Luna said. “I should like to come, too.”

“Great, then you will,” Harry said, grinning at her. He wasn’t sure about Luna yet—she was really pretty odd—but she was also a nice girl and didn’t seem to care about his Slytherin-colored tie, so he was inclined to like her.

They reached the curb. He guided them around a corner to a less crowded drop-off point, pulled his wand, and raised it.

“What—” Ginny began.

BANG!

A massive purple triple-decker bus appeared out of thin air down the street, careened towards them, and screeched to a halt in front of them. Muggle cars and pedestrians somehow ignored it completely.

“Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transportation for the stranded witch or wizard,” a scruffy man droned. “Just stick out your wand hand, step on board, and we can take you anywhere you want to go. My name is Stan Shunpike and I’ll be your conductor this evening.” He looked up from the bit of grubby paper he’d been reading from and squinted at them. “’Ey, you two are young… Well, climb on board, we haven’t got all day! Here, lemme help wi’ that—”

He jumped down and took the trunks and Alekta’s cage and wrestled them into the luggage compartment while Harry, Luna, and Ginny climbed on board.

The bottom level of the bus was crowded with two dozen or so harried-looking witches and wizards at chairs and low tables scattered randomly about. They paused by the driver.

“Eleven sickles each for anywhere in greater London, twenty-two for anything else, twenty each for Hogsmeade,” he said boredly.

Harry fished a galleon and sixteen sickles out of his money pouch. “Leaky Cauldron, please,” he said.

“Why there?” Ginny hissed.

Luna looked interested. “Oooh, I’ve never been…”

Harry beckoned them along with him as he wound his way towards the stairs. “We don’t need to spend an extra thirty sickles for the Hogsmeade trip when we can Floo there for one each from the Leaky Cauldron,” he said, reaching for the banister. Hopefully the second or third level would be less crowded. “We’ll just walk to th—”

He was cut off as the Knight Bus launched forward with another BANG! It hurled Harry into the back wall and Luna into Harry. They staggered fell over in a tangle. Ginny had managed to catch herself on a railing.

Luna picked herself up.

“What is this thing?” Ginny demanded.

Harry rubbed his elbow. “Hang on—”

They struggled up the steps. Thankfully the second level was a lot less crowded. Harry grabbed three chairs and dragged them near the wall just in time to be able to grab the windowsill as the bus banged again and jumped from downtown London to a rural country road.

They sat down, clinging to the wall.

“Knight Bus,” Harry said, looking out the window with wide eyes. Cows and fences seemed to dodge the bus’s chaotic travel. “Stick out your wand and it comes—I’ve only read about it, they said it was interesting but I didn’t expect—”

The bus screeched to a halt. They both grabbed the windows to keep from flying into the front of the bus. A wizard up front didn’t grab onto anything in time and slammed into the wall with a yell.

Ginny craned her neck. “There, look—that old witch is getting out—”

“She looks very sweet,” Luna said. “I wonder how many kneazles she keeps.”

Harry looked. A short old woman was tottering away from the bus towards a small farmhouse. He only had time for a second’s glance before the bus was off again, nearly hurling them into the back.

“Ron’s going to be so jealous,” Ginny said with a grin. “This is fantastic—”

“It’s insane,” Harry said. “How anyone gets anything done on here—”

“Oh shut up, this was your plan.”

“Thank Merlin I decided not to take this thing all the way to Hogsmeade—”

“I wonder what spells it uses?” Luna said, which was how Harry discovered she knew a lot of very odd charms and resulted in a thirty-minute conversation about the bus’s magic.

It turned out that the bus had made a Leaky Cauldron stop not long before they got on, putting their destination near the bottom of the priority list. Harry’s hands were tired from keeping himself from being thrown into walls by the time they screeched to a halt and Stan Shunpike yelled “THE LEAKY CAULDRON!” for the whole bus to hear.

They hurried down the stairs. Stan passed them the trunks and the birdcage and they found themselves outside the Leaky Cauldron, blinking fumes out of their eyes along with fifteen other passengers while the bus roared away. Harry watched two mailboxes, three cars, and a building jump out of its way before it jumped a curb and disappeared.

“…did that just happen?” Ginny said.

Luna was smiling widely.

A nearby wizard laughed. “First time on the Knight Bus, then?”

“Yes,” Harry said.

Ginny turned on him. “You’ve never ridden that thing before?”

Luna laughed.

“I’ve read about it,” Harry said, “and I know people who’ve ridden it…”

“Some plan.”

“Better than stealing the car.”

She sighed. “Fine.”

Harry paid three sickles to Old Tom and grabbed a handful of Floo powder. He grinned at the girls from inside the fireplace. Luna gave him a little wave. “See you on the other side. Hogsmeade!”

The green flames whooshed up around his feet—Harry had the odd Floo sensation of spinning down a giant drain—roaring filled his ears—he closed his eyes against the ash—

And then it was over, and he stepped out into an unfamiliar pub.

“Welcome to the Three Broomsticks—hang on, you’re a bit young, don’tcha think?” a pretty young woman said, peering suspiciously at Harry.

He stepped out of the fireplace, brushed off his robes, and turned a winning smile on her. “Yes, I know—we’re off to Hogwarts. Bit of trouble with the barrier, we had to get creative…”

She shrugged. “All right, then. I’m Madam Rosmerta, owner and proprietor. Oh, another one.”

This was because Ginny had just popped out of the fire. Somehow she’d stayed clean and organized.

“You look like a Weasley, dear,” Madam Rosmerta said.

Ginny scowled. “Yes, Ginny.”

Luna stepped out of the fireplace like it was simply a doorway, more comfortable with the Floo than Harry thought he could ever be. Some Muggle instincts he suspected just couldn’t be trained out of you, and feeling uncomfortable about green fire swallowing you was one of them.

Harry checked his watch. The pub was empty. “Ginny, we’ve still got a good five hours before the train arrives—want to just sit in here until then? We can join the rest from Hogsmeade station.”

“Sure,” Ginny said, looking around with intent curiosity.

Luna didn’t seem to care, so Harry bought them butterbeers and they settled in a corner booth. He pulled out Theory and Application of Cutting and Severing Spells transfigured to look like A History of Goblin Rebellions. Ginny eyed it with distaste and started reading Elementary Hexes and Jinxes. Harry started laughing when he saw the title and just shook his head when she squinted warily at him. Luna ignored them both and began reading a book written in runes.

They read for a while. A few unfamiliar faces trickled into the pub as the sun crept down the sky. Ginny got bored and suggested they play Exploding Snap. Harry pulled out a deck of cards and they played until any remaining discomfort between them evaporated and all three of them had scorched fingers.

Madam Rosmerta was nice enough to let them know when the train pulled in. The girls got their trunks, Harry got his birdcage, they thanked her for being so accommodating, and went out the back door, which led to a magically shortened underground passage between the Three Broomsticks and the Hogsmeade train station.

They traversed half of the passage before Harry broke the silence with something he’d been wondering for a while. “What House are you hoping to get sorted into?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Luna said. “They all seem nice in their own ways. Though I don’t think I’m much of a Gryffindor or a Slytherin…”

Ginny was quiet for a few steps. “Everyone in my family’s been Gryffindor for ages.”

“So has mine,” he pointed out in as neutral a tone as possible. The twins both had a Slytherin streak but were still Gryffindors at heart, and Ron was about as Gryffindor as anyone could get. Harry had a strong feeling that Ginny wasn’t as Gryffindor as the rest of her siblings, and he hoped to at least get her wondering about other Houses if he could. Harry was a firm believer in not following family sorting traditions just because.

“Where else would I go? Not Ravenclaw. Hufflepuff?” Ginny made a face.

“Don’t fall into the “Hufflepuffs are useless duffers” trap,” Harry said. This made Luna look at him with a sharper interest than she’d shown in anything all day. “There’s a reason we’ve had loads of Hufflepuff Ministers in the last ten centuries, and a majority of Chief Aurors and Chief Warlocks of the Wizengamot have been either Hufflepuff or Slytherin. They just don’t go looking for recognition as much as the other Houses and it means they get passed over sometimes. Besides, the H—well. When you get sorted, you’ll see, but—the way they do it… listen. It knows what it’s talking about. That’s all I can tell you about the ceremony.”

“You know a lot about history for being Muggle raised,” Luna said. “You actually don’t seem very Muggle at all.’

Harry couldn’t find any trace of suspicion in her, so he shrugged. “I’m curious. I looked it up. And being in Slytherin means I had to learn fast. There’s still some etiquette things that go over my head, but I’m lucky; my friends are good at catching me up on the rules if I miss one.”

 “I’m excited to see how we get Sorted. Ron was going on about wrestling a troll,” Ginny said. “I don’t think I believe him.”

Nice evasion. Harry decided to let her redirect the conversation. “Don’t, he’s full of it. I think Fred told Ron the same thing last year. It’s nothing dangerous.”

“I thought you couldn’t tell us anything more,” Ginny said.

Luna hummed, and Harry was actually startled into a laugh. He cut it off quickly, annoyed at himself. His self-control was usually better and he disliked laughing in front of people. His amusement was his own and could be conveyed by a smile; he wasn’t obligated to share it with other people so obnoxiously.

“Whatever House you end up in, you’ll do fine,” he told Ginny firmly. “Your parents’re great. I’d bet my wand they won’t care where you end up, so don’t worry about that.”

Ginny peered at him with the kind of clever expression that reminded Harry she had grown up around Fred and George. “Not like your dad, you mean?”

It was Harry’s turn to be quiet for a few steps. “No,” he said at last. “Not like my dad.”

“It seems rather silly to dislike you for being in Slytherin,” Luna said. “Green is a lovely color.”

Okay.

Ginny was more concise. “He’s a git.”

“How about Jules?” Harry said with a smirk.

She flushed and glared.

“Ohoo, okay, point taken,” Harry said, raising the hand not holding a birdcage and stifling a laugh. Apparently the crush hadn’t worn off yet.

Luna cocked her head. “I think I hear the train.”

Harry listened—she was right.

The door came into view a second later. It swung politely open when Harry reached it, and they stepped out onto the Hogsmeade platform into a swarm of students in Hogwarts robes. No one even noticed their abrupt appearance. Torches flickered around the edges, people chattered, and Harry could hear Hagrid bellowing “Firs’ years! Firs’ years this way!”

“Go throw your trunks on the train and follow his voice,” Harry told the girls, “the elves will bring them up to your dorms later—see you on the other side.”

Ginny squinted at him, and smiled. “See you.”

“Thank you for the adventure,” Luna said solemnly. “You have nice Guspels.”

Harry decided to roll with it. “Thanks.”

She smiled. “You’re welcome.”

“Luna, come on,” Ginny said, and the girls vanished into the crowd.

Harry ended up in a carriage with a few Hufflepuff fourth years who talked about their private House start-of-term party and ignored him aside from a few curious looks. He’d have waited and tried to find his friends, but he had to get up to the castle as quickly as possible. For the sake of being a responsible older brother.

It pulled up to the courtyard and Harry was off like a shot. He skidded to a half, walked into the Great Hall with as much decorum as he could manage, and sidled up to the high table.

“Professor Snape?” he said politely.

Snape looked at him as if wondering what Harry was doing on the bottom of his shoe. “Yes, Mr. Potter?”

“I thought it would be prudent to inform you that Ronald Weasley and Julian Potter stole an enchanted Muggle car and flew it to Hogwarts upon finding that the barrier to the platform wasn’t letting us through,” Harry said evenly. He knew he wasn’t imagining the vicious smirk that crossed Snape’s face. “It has an Invisibility Booster. I’ve notified the Weasley parents, but have yet to hear back.”

“Us?” Snape repeated. “Am I correct in assuming you were also locked out of the platform?”

“Yes, sir. Myself, Ginny Weasley, and Luna Lovegood were caught on the wrong side as well, and missed the train. I thought it best to take the Knight Bus to the Leaky Cauldron, Floo to Hogsmeade, and rejoin the rest of the students once the train arrived. Ron and Jules didn’t listen. I believe I heard the phrase “imagine how cool it will look” when they were making their decision.”

“Five points to Slytherin for solving a problem with ingenuity, efficiency, and class. You may retake your seat. I shall... handle this.” Harry knew he wasn’t imagining the vicious smirk that crossed Snape’s face.

“Thank you, sir.” Harry dipped his head respectfully and headed back to the Slytherin table, pleased to scoot a little farther away from the High Table in the second-year section. He purposefully chose a seat near where second year faded into third; it was a status thing to sit nearer the form above yours, and he was on decent terms with Noah Bole and Jordan Harper of the third years.

Sure enough, Harper and the younger Bole slid into seats to Harry’s right and struck up a conversation about their summers. Harry mentioned the dueling and magic practices in Blaise’s house and they got off on a tangent about rare jinxes and hexes in which Harry learned a few new ones and managed to teach two little-known jinxes in return that lasted until Blaise, Theo, Pansy, Daphne, and Tracy arrived.

“Where were you?” Theo demanded. “We didn’t see you on the train—”

Harry grinned. “Sit down already, you’re looming—I got locked out of the platform with Ron Weasley, Ginny Weasley, Luna Lovegood, and my brother.”

Daphne sat across from Harry; Theo to her right; Blaise and then Pansy to Harry’s left; and Tracy on Theo’s other side. “How’d you get here, then?” Tracy said.

Harry was aware of Bole and Harper paying attention, too. Smirking, he told them about the Dumbass Duo’s decision to steal a flying car and get to Hogwarts that way while he took the smart way. “Shocking,” Daphne said, “a Weasley with any sense, who’d have thought,” and Theo looked at the High Table, from which Snape was conspicuously absent, and smiled predatorily. Bole and Harper laughed and promptly began spreading the story up the table. Harry knew it’d be all over Slytherin by the end of the feast and probably reach through Ravenclaw to Hufflepuff as well.

They moved on to speculating about the Sorting. Tracy, Theo, and Pansy all knew someone coming into the school this year—Tracy a halfblood witch named Demelza Robins, Theo a young girl from a Pureblood family named Evalyn Travers, and Pansy a boy named Terry Boot—and they happily placed bets on who’d go in which House.

Neville and Hermione waved from the Gryffindor table when they came in. Harry waved back. A second later, Neville stood up and walked across the Hall with a half-determined, half-terrified expression. There were enough people in the Hall by now, and enough of them were mingling between House tables, that he went unnoticed until he arrived in Slytherin territory.

Harry ignored the curious looks from the upper years. “Neville, hi,” he said, making room.

Neville perched on the bench between Harry and Blaise, still looking terrified. “Er—hi. You… weren’t on the train?”

Thought so.

 “Neville,” Blaise said solemnly, “you are about to hear the best possible start to this term.”

Harry told the story again.

“That’s brilliant,” Neville said.

“It was stupid,” Theo said.

“Well, yeah,” Neville said. “But still awesome.”

“Gryffindors,” Pansy snarled.

That was about the time Malfoy and Bulstrode and the beefcakes came into the hall. Tracy spotted them first. “Neville, not that we don’t like you, but you might not want to stick around,” she said, nodding over his shoulder.

Neville spotted the other half of the Slytherin second-years and paled. “Right. Okay, I’m gone, see you guys.” He stood up and hurried away.

“Too good for the train, Potter?” Malfoy sneered as he sat down, clearly annoyed Harry and Daphne and the others had taken the more prestigious places by the second years.

Harry grinned unkindly back at Malfoy. Wasting no time on starting the games, then. “Why, Malfoy, were you looking for me again? Just can’t stop trying to make me like you, can you?”

Malfoy flushed and sat down, predictably grumbling something about his father. Daphne nodded appreciatively.

Professor McGonagall, in yet another example of excellent timing, chose that moment to open the door and lead the new first years out onto the dais to thunderous applause.

McGonagall snapped open her scroll. “Boot, Terry!”

Pansy grinned up at the dais. A small boy with a riot of dark brown curls and pale freckled skin and glasses stepped up to the stool and jammed the hat on his head.

“RAVENCLAW!”

“Bryant, Dean” became the first new Hufflepuff, then Michael Corner went to Slytherin, and then “Cross, Aria” got “SLYTHERIN!” Harry clapped enthusiastically with the rest of his House. The Sorting was much more enjoyable from a House table than it had been to stand up on the dais with everyone staring at him. Theo and Tracy made room for Aria Cross between them.

The incoming class this year was a bit smaller than Harry’s had been; he remembered reading somewhere that the birth rates among wizarding Britain had fallen significantly around the later years of the war, and as a result there were likely to be fewer students for a few years until those born two or more years after the war started hitting the school. Harry and Blaise had scooted over to let Finn Sullivan and Alex Rowle sit between Blaise and Pansy; Evalyn Travers was between him and Blaise, and Natalie Nielsen was between Malfoy and Tracy. They were the only other new Slytherins by the time Ginny Weasley, the last student to be Sorted, sat down on the stool.

Harry watched with intense curiosity.

The hat slipped over her head.

Ginny

“Ahhh… another Weasley.”

Irritation jolted through her. Always, to everyone here, she was just another Weasley.

“Oho, you don’t like that much, do you? I see… no, you’re hardly just another Weasley, girl… quite a bit of ambition, I see, strong independent streak, certainly plenty of courage and fire, a willingness to think for yourself, now that’s a pleasant surprise… and you’re hardly slow...”

I should think not.

The hat snickered. “Not Hufflepuff, no… and I think not Ravenclaw, either… tell me, youngest Weasley, what do you want?”

Ginny didn’t know exactly, except that it involved not being controlled by her mum anymore, and being known as Ginny Weasley and not the Weasley daughter.

“Oh yes. That makes it quite clear… better be SLYTHERIN!”

She squeezed her eyes shut and lifted the Hat off her head.

McGonagall looked quite surprised. Ginny lifted her head and ignored the furious burning heat in her cheeks and walked quickly to the Slytherin table. They were clapping and cheering—was she imagining it or was it a little quieter for her? —and Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff were, too, but the Gryffindor table definitely took a few minutes to join in. She didn’t dare look at any of her brothers.

  Harry was grinning in the sharp way he had. He didn’t seem surprised. Ginny recognized his friends—the stiff, awkward, joint Potter birthday party had introduced her to Theo Nott, Blaise Zabini, Pansy Parkinson, and Tracy Davis, and the blond one was probably Daphne Greengrass. That was Malfoy, glaring at her and pointedly not clapping; two boys who looked as stupid as they were huge; a girl with muscular arms and a glare that could intimidate a large dog, and sitting with them Ginny’s new dorm mates.

Her stomach churned uneasily. Slytherin. She was a Weasley in Slytherin.

Zabini and Harry scooted apart. The girl in between them moved when Harry elbowed her. Ginny took the hint and joined them. “Smile,” Harry muttered. “Yes, that’s—no, dial it back, that’s verging on serial killer territory—”

Ginny didn’t recognize the expression but his point was clear. She did her best to keep a happy expression on her face. It was hard.

“I know I said you were the sensible Weasley, but I wasn’t expecting to be proved correct so quickly,” Daphne said, fixing her bright blue eyes on Ginny.

Ginny frowned at her. “I don’t even know you.”

“You had the sense not to steal a flying car instead of simply owling the school,” Daphne said delicately.

“You told them?” she said to Harry.

He smirked. “Of course I did, Miss Weasley.”

Dumbledore stood up. “Silence, please!” he called. “I would like to remind you of a few things before we commence our feast—the Forbidden Forest is, as you might suspect, forbidden, as is using magic in the halls. There is a long list of banned items and artifacts you may find posted on the door to Filch’s office. And finally—babbling! Kooky! Ambidextrous! Meteor!

“Thank you!”

He sat back down. The tables suddenly went from empty to groaning with food.

“He’s not as impressive as I was expecting,” Ginny muttered.

The first year next to her, a plain-faced girl with straight brown hair, sniffed. “He may have been something once, but he’s out to pasture now.”

“He’s a great wizard,” Ginny argued, because her parents believed it, and they weren’t stupid.

“Oh, good at magic, sure,” a sandy blond girl across the table said. The second years were talking about people Ginny didn’t know, and ignoring them. “But he’s a soft old fraud.”

“What’re your names?” Ginny asked.

“Evalyn Travers,” the brown-haired girl said.

Ginny blinked. Travers—she knew that name.

Oh. Oh, Merlin—Travers was a Death Eater’s name.

“Yes,” Evalyn said in a cold voice, “my uncle is in Azkaban. Since I can see you wondering.”

Ginny blinked.

And decided that she probably shouldn’t make everyone hate her on the first day. Theo Nott’s family was Dark, and Harry and Hermione both liked him, and Hermione was Muggle-born. Clearly family wasn’t everything.

“Mostly I was thinking Evalyn is a way prettier name than Ginevra,” she said. “I think my parents must have hated me.”

Some of the ice in Evalyn’s eyes melted. She held out a hand. Ginny shook it. “Ginny Weasley, and if you call me Ginevra I’ll hex you.”

“Natalie Nielsen,” the girl across the table said.

Ginny learned that the rest of her year-mates were Aria Cross, Finn Sullivan, and Alex Rowle—another Death Eater name, another few seconds in which Ginny worked to put aside her immediate negative reaction—and they ended up shuffling a bit to sit away from the second years when the two groups’ conversations started overlapping enough to be confusing. Of course, then they really got into the feast, and no one was talking all that much. Ginny did learn that Natalie and Evalyn had been friends for three years, Finn and Aria knew each other, and Alex Rowle had never met any of them because he lived with his grandparents and they were overbearing and didn’t let him leave their manor much. In fact, all of them seemed to have a manor or mansion of some kind. Ginny didn’t let it bother her; she’d much rather grow up in the Burrow than in some empty, drafty old house.

She didn’t hear blood traitor once.

Harry

He kept an eye on Ginny and the other first years throughout dinner, but she seemed to be doing fine—a little wary, but he couldn’t blame her, since Nielsen, Rowle, and Travers were all related to convicted Death Eaters.

Once they were all pleasantly stuffed, Harry sat back and watched Theo and Blaise get into a competition over who could transfigure the most complicated shape out of their silverware, and listened to Ginny swap flying stories with bubbly blond-haired Natalie Nielsen, and wished he’d never have to leave Hogwarts.

Chapter Text

September 3, 1992

It only took two days for Harry to realize this year was going to be different.

The routine of classes and homework was easy to slip back into. The whole school spent a day talking about Ron and Jules’ dramatic crash into the Whomping Willow and subsequent detentions, and people talking about Jules Potter was familiar. Harry was more comfortable in his dorm even with Malfoy and the beefcakes across the aisle than he had been in Charlie’s old room in the Burrow. But he was a second year now, and that meant he’d lost the protection of firstie anonymity, which became abundantly clear when someone nailed him with a petrificus totalus from behind one morning. Harry experienced the distinctly unpleasant sensation of his arms and legs locking to his sides; he tipped slowly forward and fell to the floor with a crunch.

Theo cast the counter. Harry climbed to his feet, pulled off his glasses, muttered reparo, slid them back on, and plugged his bleeding nose. He really needed to learn healing charms at some point.

“Simon Fentiss,” Theo said shortly.

Harry narrowed his eyes. “You two go ahead.”

It took thirty minutes, and he skipped History of Magic, but Harry managed to break into first the fifth year dorms and then past the enchantments on Fentiss’ bed and trunk. He’d spent a fair amount of time over the summer studying ward spells and how to break them. It took four illegal spells to get in, but then Harry had unrestricted access to Fentiss’ things.

He left three of Fred and George’s Boil Bites in a corner of Fentiss’ drawer, wrapped in paper like toffees. Itching cream from Gambol and Japes got carefully spread on the pillows and the insides of all Fenstiss’ clean socks and underwear. A Scrambling Charm turned four half-finished essays to incomprehensible alphabet soup. He hexed all the older boy’s books shut, a trick Fred and George regularly did on any books Percy left out in the kitchen, and with a nasty smile Harry used diffindo to weaken the seams on all the older boy’s trousers and the two book bags in his trunk until they were barely holding together.

When he was done, he stepped back and carefully re-wove all the ward spells around the bed. Some of them he couldn’t cast, but he got almost all back in place—apparently Fentiss wasn’t that great a wizard.

“Have fun?” Theo said snidely when Harry rejoined them for Herbology.

“Loads,” Harry said, attacking his fluxweed viciously. Justin, working next to Blaise across the table, eyed their expressions and wisely decided to look down at his own plant.  

Theo was silent for a few seconds. “Someone set my books on fire this morning.”

Harry stopped moving and got a prick from a fluxweed thorn for his trouble. He cursed and went back to struggling with the plant. “Do you know who?”

“It’s taken care of,” Theo said shortly.

Harry nodded. He’d expect nothing else. “Why you?” Subtext: Death Eater sympathizers in Slytherin didn’t like Harry much, but Theo’s dad was one of them.

“They take a dim view of those who got off with the Imperius Defense,” Theo said shortly, and dropped his voice even more. “Some Death Eaters went for that instead of go to Azkaban… and sometimes that’s taken as a sign of faulty loyalty. That they shouldn’t have betrayed their Lord just to stay out of prison.”

Which was as good as admitting Theo’s father hadn’t been under the Imperius at all, which Harry had suspected for a while.

The question remaining was whether Theo got shifty when his dad came up because he disagreed with his father, or because he didn’t want to touch on such things with Harry.

Professor Sprout pulled him aside to give him a letter to deliver to Neville at lunch. Harry was a bit behind the others trudging up to the castle, and distracted planning how he’d balance afternoon classes, homework, and some clearly necessary focus on offensive and defensive spells, which meant he was alone and not paying attention when he crossed the entrance hall.

Click! “Hiyah, Harry!”

Harry blinked and flinched. “What in Merlin’s—who the hell are you?” he said, a little snappily, at the tiny, squeaky Gryffindor aiming a camera of all things at him.

The kid’s smile faltered. “Colin Creevey,” he said. “Your brother’s famous! So are you, kind of—I just wanted a picture—”

“Er,” Harry said. “Look, that’s great, but I’m not actually famous or a hero or anything, that’s Jules.”

“I already got his picture,” Creevey said. “And his autograph!”

“I’m not signing anything,” Harry said firmly. He’d be passing the autograph thing off to Malfoy and Pansy first chance he got; they’d have a field day with that information. “And it’s rude to take pictures of people without asking.”

Creevey deflated a little.

“No more, all right? Stick with Gryffindors.” He paused. “Jules won’t like you much if he sees you hanging ‘round me.”

“Why not? My brother and I get on fine.”

“Well, not everyone is you and your brother.”

“Okay, okay. Have a nice day!” the Gryffindor chirped, and ran into the Great Hall.

Merlin, this is going to be a long week.

Slytherin third year Celesta Fawley turned up in the hospital wing that night, having swallowed her tongue and sprouted tentacles all over her body that refused to go away. Theo smirked, Harry nodded his approval, and Blaise rolled his eyes at both of them but willingly learned the Tongue-Swallowing Hex when Theo offered to teach it to them.

James,

Term’s going well so far. There’s a Gryffindor first year, Colin Creevey, who’s pretty much in love with Jules. Carries a camera everywhere. If you wanted you could definitely rib Jules about having a fan club.

I’m sure you’ve heard by now that Ginny got sorted into Slytherin. I wouldn’t worry about her. She seems to be getting on well enough with her year-mates and Slytherin first years more or less get ignored by everyone except kind of the second years.

I’m thinking of trying out for Quidditch this month. Any tips?

-Harry

Dear Mrs. And Mr. Weasley,

I hope you have gotten to relax a bit in the last few days now that we are all back to school. I would like, once again, to extend my sincerest gratitude for the hospitality you showed me this summer. I intend to make other arrangements for next year and I shouldn’t need to impose upon you again, but I will remember my time at the Burrow with immense fondness.

I would also like to apologize for Ron and Jules having stolen your car. I know it’s not my fault, but I feel some of the guilt is mine for failing to convince them that there was a better alternate route. I’m just relieved neither of them was hurt.

If George and Fred’s reactions are anything to go by, Ginny’s Sorting is quite a surprise to your family. You have my word that I will do my best to look out for her in Slytherin. She does seem to be doing quite well so far. She gets on well with her year-mates and my friends, and the first-years enjoy a significant degree of anonymity from the upper year Slytherins. In case you’ve been wondering about Nielsen, Rowle, or Travers’… family connections, I can assure you I’ve seen no indication that any of them has Death Eater sympathies or has treated Ginny badly due to her being from a supposed “blood traitor” family. And if they did, I’m confident Ginny could handle it herself, but if any problems arise I and my friends will look out for her. It may put your minds at ease to know that Natalie Nielsen has not known her mother since she was five, and Evalyn Travers and Alex Rowle have never known their Death Eater relatives.

Thank you again for taking me in this summer. Mrs. Weasley, I must say—after returning to Hogwarts, I can say with certainty that I think your cooking is better.

Best wishes,

Harry Potter

He was exaggerating a bit about the nature of Ginny’s year mates. Harry knew none of them well enough to say to what degree they cared about blood. He genuinely hadn’t seen any issues, though, and thought it would be good to keep the Weasley parents on his side by comforting them and promising to look out for Ginny. Not that she needed the help… but Mrs. Weasley especially seemed to think someone ought to be ‘looking out for Ginny’.

September 4, 1992

Harry had to admit he was curious about Lockhart’s class. Their first one was a few days after term started, since apparently the professor had to take a few days’ emergency leave before he could start teaching, a fact which made Snape’s lip curl when he informed them of the scheduling change.

“Here’s hoping we get a decent Defense teacher this year,” Bulstrode said as they walked into Defense.

Harry looked around at the walls, which were plastered with portraits and pictures and framed magazine covers, all featuring miniature smiling Lockharts. “I wouldn’t count on it.”

“I read the books,” Theo said darkly. “All of them. Just so I can say with absolute certainty that he is full of shite.”

“Lovely,” Malfoy muttered.

The Slytherins sat down and waited. The schedule change had given them their first class with Lockhart and no Gryffindors. Harry wasn’t sure whether to be relieved that he didn’t have to deal with both in one class or mad that the Gryffindors weren’t around to provide the increased anonymity that came with more students.

Lockhart swirled into the classroom and posed with a blinding smile and a flare of his turquoise robes. He seized Crabbe’s copy of Travles with Trolls and held it up so they could see his smiling face on the cover. “Me,” he said. “Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Forces Defense League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly’s Most Charming Smile Award—but I don’t want to talk about that.”

“Sure you don’t,” Theo hissed.

“I didn’t defeat the Bandon Banshee by smiling at her!”

Lockhart paused, clearly waiting for laughs. No one obliged him.

“I see you’ve all bought a complete set of my books—well done.”

“Well done you for milking us for money,” Harry whispered. Blaise, Theo, and Pansy smirked.

 “I thought we’d start today with a little quiz. Nothing to worry about—just to check how well you’ve read them, how much you’ve taken in—”

He started handing out papers. Harry, who had struggled through Year with the Yeti and three pages of Traveling with Trolls before he could no longer stand the sensation of his intelligence dropping, fully expected to bullshit his way through the quiz, but he had to stop on the first page. It was full of questions like:

1. What is Gilderoy Lockhart’s favorite color?
2. What is Gilderoy Lockhart’s secret ambition?
3. What, in your opinion, is Gilderoy Lockhart’s greatest achievement to date?

This went all the way to question 54: When is Gilderoy Lockhart’s birthday, and what would his ideal gift be?

“This is a joke,” Blaise said. “Please tell me this is a joke.”

Theo started writing almost instantly, a vicious smirk on his face. “I’ll make it a joke.”

Harry peered over at his paper. For the first question, Theo had responded: His hair.

“Amateur,” Harry scoffed, writing the unique blue of his eyes.

“This should be entertaining,” said Blaise, grinning and determinedly putting pen to paper.

Pansy shook her head. “Boys…”

But Harry distinctly saw her write “permanently replace all his teeth with solid gold so he can actually blind people with his smile” in response to What does Gilderoy Lockhart plan to do to celebrate his retirement?

Half an hour later, Lockhart collected the papers. Harry and Blaise played tic-tac-toe on the table and half listened to him complain that they’d all done extremely poorly, until—

“My word—Hadrian Potter!”

Harry looked up, fixing his face into complete boredom. “Yes, sir?”

“Why, you’re the spitting image of your brother!” Lockhart beamed.

“Not really, sir,” Harry said evenly.

Blaise coughed.

Lockhart blinked, clearly not used to outright disagreement, but it didn’t throw him for long. “Come on up here, dear boy, come on, I must greet you properly—”

“No, thank you, sir,” Harry said, still bored but polite.

“May I ask why not?”

“My shoes pinch when I stand.”

This excuse was so patently ridiculous that Bulstrode and the beefcakes couldn’t contain their laughter and even Lockhart’s smile got a little strained. “Of course, my boy, of course—I do know a variety of charms to help one’s clothes fit properly and look their best, if you need any assistance you’re welcome to ask—in that case—down to business!”

He bent and lifted a large, covered cage from behind his desk onto its surface. The cage rattled and chirped ominously.

“Now, be warned,” Lockhart said dramatically. “It is my job to prepare you to face the foulest creatures known to wizardkind! You may face your worst fears in this room. All I ask is that you remain calm and rest assured no harm will come to you while I am here.”

Lockhart whisked the cage cover away. “Behold,” he said. “Freshly caught Cornish pixies.”

This was too much for Malfoy, who let out a snort that even Lockhart couldn’t delude himself into thinking was fear.

“You may wish to stop laughing,” Lockhart said. “Right, then—let’s see what you make of them!”

And he opened the cage.

It was chaos. The pixies buzzed out like malevolent blue devils with painful teeth.

“Glacius!” Harry hissed. “Glacius! Glacius! Petrificus totalus!” He managed to bind or momentarily freeze several of the oncoming pixies, but one bit him painfully the ear and by the sounds of shrieking around him, he wasn’t the only one.

The bell rang. There was a mad dash for the door. Harry, Blaise, Theo, and Pansy were separated from it by a swarm of the little blue monsters.

Lockhart beat them there. “Right,” he said in the relative calm. “I’ll just ask the four of you to nip them back in their cage.”

He swept out and shut the door behind him.

“Wanker,” Theo said savagely. “Glacius!”

Blaise and Pansy and Harry were all casting as quickly as possible, but petrificus totalus took prohibitively long to say when the pixies moved this quickly and glacius was only a temporary stopgap.

Harry had a sudden idea. “Close your eyes,” he warned. “Fulma!”

A blinding flash of white turned the backs of his eyelids red. The pixies shrieked in pain.

The light faded. Harry blinked. Sure enough, the pixies were flying drunkenly through the air, and loads of them had landed or collapsed to the floor, wailing in pain and rubbing their eyes.

“Brilliant,” Theo said, and they set about casting Body-Binds on every pixie in sight. They weren’t nearly done by the time the light’s aftereffects wore off. Harry had to repeat the Flare Charm three more times before all the pixies were on the floor or desks in Body-Binds and the four of them could go around and pick them up.

On a whim, Harry slipped one into his bag. The twins might be able to make use of the venom, and if not, they could pass it off to Hagrid no problem. And it wasn’t like Lockhart was going to miss it.

“Can we just leave them?” Theo said, glaring at the pile of bound pixies in the bottom of the cage.

Pansy locked it. “It’s not their fault Lockhart’s an idiot.”

Blaise sighed. “Finitus maximus.”

The Body-Binds dissolved, and the pixies leaped to furious, shrieking life, but they were well and truly stuck.

“We don’t like you much, either,” Blaise muttered at them.

Lockhart’s first lesson was the main topic of conversation when Harry’s usual group of friends converged on the common leisure hall on the first floor. He was pleased to spot Ginny with a group that included Terry Boot, Demelza Robins, Alex Rowle, Evalyn Travers, Natalie Nielsen, and Luna Lovegood—and conspicuously not Megan Jorkins—in the room next door. She’d taken his suggestion, then, and started a study group of her own. They all had books out but appeared to be ignoring them, which was a good sign that they were friendly as well as studious.

“I used Immobulus maximus,” Hannah Abbott said about the pixies. “Just makes them all stop moving and sort of hover where they are, I learned it last summer when four hundred kneazle kittens made a break for the door of the shelter near my house—you just grab them out of the air and stuff them back in the cage. It wore off before we got to the last couple up by the ceiling but Justin managed to catch those in Body-Binds.”

“Nice aim,” Blaise said, eyebrows raised. “They were devilishly hard to hit.”

“I grew up playing basketball,” Justin said modestly.

“Basketball?”

Harry left Justin to try and explain basketball to Blaise and asked Hermione and Neville how it had gone.

Neville turned bright red and spoke in the resigned tone of a convicted man listing off his crimes. “They—well, they hung me off the chandelier, bit Lavender five times, tore out a bit of Ron’s hair, threw Lockhart’s wand and Jules’ glasses out the window, and shredded all the tests.”

“He’s just trying to give us hands on experience,” Hermione said.

Theo stared at her. “Are you mad, Hermione? The man’s an idiot and a fraud. There’s no way everything in his books is true. Unless you’re telling me you believe the man who couldn’t handle Cornish pixies took on a werewolf.”

Hermione only blushed harder.

Harry elbowed Theo. This was a lot like Ginny and Megan’s obvious crushes on Jules. There was no sense antagonizing her about it. She wasn’t going to change her mind.

Theo rolled his eyes and focused on his Astronomy homework.

Harry,

I’m glad to hear your second year is starting off well. Notwithstanding the flying car incident, of course—there’s been an investigation of the barrier and no one can figure out what was wrong with it. I’m sure the Weasleys appreciated your quick thinking—although I must say, taking the car to Hogwarts was rather impressive on Jules and Ron’s part! I do wish they hadn’t crashed into the Willow. And that you hadn’t gone straight to Snivellus Snape, although I understand he’s your Head of House. (How does he treat you, by the way?)

Jules tells me Lockhart is a menace as a teacher. I’m sorry you have to have another year of subpar Defense instruction. I’ve included a list of good second year defensive/dueling spells (Jules got the same one, so don’t go starting fights with him) for you to practice on your own if you’re interested.

-James

Harry snickered when he realized he already knew nearly all the spells on James’ list.

Dear Harry,

Ron seems to believe that it’s your fault that Ginny ended up in Slytherin. We understand, of course, that this is nonsense. We’re proud of her no matter what House she’s in—we’ve told her as much—but I must admit we were a bit worried. It’s an enormous relief to hear your update. Arthur was involved in Rowle’s original arrest and it’s nice to hear that Ginny hasn’t had problems with her year mates. And we’re very grateful to you for offering to look out for her. We do worry about her, you know; youngest in the family and all—it’s a mother thing, I suppose.

You were the farthest thing from an imposition this summer, dear, you mustn’t think that. We were glad to give you somewhere to go since your father wouldn’t do his duties by his Heir and your Muggle relatives sound quite difficult. And I must extend my gratitude to you for your help with my brewing this summer! Having an extra set of hands around the laboratory was ever so useful; none of my children has expressed much of an interest in potions. Arthur and I both hope you’ll consider coming to us if you have need of a place to stay next summer or over the holidays.

Have a wonderful term!

Best wishes,

Molly Weasley

September 6, 1992

“Bicuspid,” Harry muttered, pointing his wand at a stone in the middle of the third floor corridor that was a little lighter than its neighbors. The floor obligingly rumbled aside, and he dropped into the passage behind it. The shortcut was dusty and gave him a crick in his neck from ducking under the low ceiling, but he’d been practicing protego on his own for an hour in one of the unused classrooms and he was bloody exhausted. It was worth a bit of soreness to get back to the dorms five minutes sooner.

The passage ended in the ceiling of one of the shallower dungeon tunnels. Harry checked that the hallway was empty and dropped through. The hole in the ceiling closed up behind him and he set off towards the Slytherin dorms.

“Fambulare.”

Harry heard the incantation and checked himself on reflex. The Trip Jinx shot impotently past him and sparked out against the floor.

He turned. Fifth year Vance Montague and fourth years Hestia Carrow, Flora Carrow, and Everett Kinney were laughing from a nook in the wall where a small table and a few padded chairs lurked.

“Thanks for the practice,” Harry said drily, and made to keep walking. He didn’t want to deal with this. He couldn’t handle four upper years on his own. Not without setting the lot of them on fire.

“Oi! Potter!” Montague called.

Harry faced the older boy and waited.

“Think it’s fun to hang out with blood traitors, do you?” Montague sneered.

Harry raised an eyebrow. “Do you think it’s fun to be a decent person? Wait, never mind, you wouldn’t know what that feels like.”

Montague’s expression darkened. “You little shit,” he hissed.

“We can play with him a bit,” Hestia Carrow said. “I’ll do it if you haven’t the stomach.” She smiled sweetly at Harry and tapped her wand on the table. Flora, the quiet twin, just looked at Harry from under her dark hair with an unreadable expression.

Kinney stood up and stretched. “I’ll help.”

Harry popped his wand.

“What are you going to do, Potter, pull my pants down?” Kinney sneered.

Actually, he might, because fundihosen had the fortunate side effect of tripping people on their own clothes, but Harry wasn’t going to point that out if the upper year hadn’t already figured it out himself.

Harry was magically and mentally exhausted, but if they insisted on doing this, he wasn’t going without a fight.

“We know you got into Simon’s things,” Montague growled. “And now you’re going to pay.”

“Someone got into Fentiss’ things?” Harry said innocently. “That seems like your own problem, if you think a second year could break the wards on a fifth year’s room. Either you think I can’t do much more in a duel than pull your pants down or you think I’m a good enough wizard to pull that off. Make up your minds.”

“No more cheek,” Hestia said.

Kinney aimed his wand. “Segrego!”

Harry dodged. “Invesicae! Torqueo!” he snarled back, aiming once at Montague and once at Hestia, who was the more dangerous between Kinney and her.

The Incontinence Jinx landed; Montague promptly bellowed in rage as he lost control of bladder and bowels. The smell of fecal matter filled the hall and a dark stain crept down his trousers. “You’ll pay for that! Os abdo!”

“Stupefy!”

Three new voices rang out. The Stunners shot past Harry and slammed into Kinney and Montague. Hestia shielded in time and scowled. “Flint, what are you playing at?”

Flora was on her feet at her twin’s shoulder in a second, wand out and ready.

“Leave off,” Marcus Flint said bluntly, stalking up to them flanked by Miles Bletchley. “Quidditch safe zone.”

Hestia scowled harder.

“Politics stay off the field, Carrow,” Flint said flatly. “If he can fly, that’s all I care about. Keep your friends out of the common room for a bit or I might decide to test something a little nastier than Stupefy. Potter. Come on.”

Harry kept a wary distance from Flint and Bletchley. He didn’t actually trust them any more than the Carrows or Montague or Kinney; his only guarantee was Quidditch.

They got a few turns away before Montague stopped and turned on him. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that you need to be way ahead of your age on combat spells,” he said. “And to only count on Quidditch immunity up until tryouts if you don’t make the team.”

Harry nodded, expressionless. “What’s os abdo?”

Flint grinned cruelly. “Bone removing curse. Don’t let it hit your torso; without a ribcage and spine your organs collapse and you’ll spend weeks in St. Mungo’s.”

He stalked away.

Bletchley lingered. “In the Slytherin bookshelves, there’s an encyclopedia of string magic,” he said quietly. “Tap it with your wand and say supracasta. It’ll turn into a collection of… spells you might find useful. It goes back on the shelves when you’re done, understand?”

“Got it,” Harry said.

Bletchley angled his head. “Wright says you’re pretty damn good on a broom. For your sake, I hope he’s right.”

Harry watched them walk away, fists clenched. Then he turned around and took a different route out of the dungeons to avoid the Carrows, Kinney, and Montague. He was exhausted and he had homework to do, but he also apparently needed Quidditch practice.

The only positive things about his evening were learning a new curse and discovering that the school brooms were way easier to manage after a summer on a Dragonflye.

Bletchley’s book turned out to be full of curses that ranged from gray to very obviously Dark. Harry pulled out a notebook enchanted to only open for him and started taking notes with grim determination. Bletchley paused by his table, glanced at his work, and moved on without comment.

Ginny

“Oi! Gin!”

Ginny glanced over her shoulder. It was George, waving at her from behind a statue.

She checked her step and veered off to talk to him instead of going into the Great Hall. “What?”

“Oh come off it, we know you’re avoiding us,” Fred said, appearing from behind George and steering her into a classroom.

“And that’s not okay,” George said.

Percy was in the classroom too. “Where’s Ron?”

Fred rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah… about that.”

Ginny winced. She’d thought as much, but— “He didn’t take it well, did he? My Sorting.”

“Not so much,” George said. “He actually blames Harry for corrupting you or some tripe.”

“We know you’ve been avoiding us,” Fred said.

“I thought you’d be mad too. Or—I don’t know what I thought.”

Percy spoke for the first time. “Ginny, they’re… You know who your year mates are, right?”

“Natalie Nielsen’s mother is a convicted Death Eater serving life in Azkaban. Fostered with the Greengrasses after her mum was caught and Nat was 5, moved back into her family mansion with an alcoholic great-uncle three years later. Evalyn Travers’ uncle is also a convicted Death Eater serving life in Azkaban and was one of the Inner Circle; her mother is paranoid and refuses to leave their house; her father was an Ollivander cousin and died when she was seven. She and Evalyn were friends before school. Alex Rowle’s dad was a Death Eater; he’s shy and quiet and wants to be a Healer. Finn Sullivan’s a halfblood and his mum was in Gryffindor. Aria Cross keeps to herself but she hexed a Ravenclaw last year who made fun of me for betraying my family and Nat for not having a family. Yes, I know who they are, and so far I think they’re all awfully decent.”

“See? I told you she’d be fine,” Fred said.

Percy was stubborn. “But the upper years—I know them. Some of them can get… pretty nasty.”

“First year anonymity,” Ginny said. “They let the firsties sort out our own hierarchy and pretty much do our own thing. Finn tried to boss me and I nailed him with a Bat-Bogey Hex, and they’ve all left me alone since then.”

“Where’d you learn that one?” George said.

Ginny didn’t tell them Harry had taught her the spell one night in the Weasley field and even let her cast it on him. “A book.”

Percy frowned. “I don’t like my sister casting Bat-Bogey Hexes—”

“—but you’ll shut up about it because this is my chance to be something other than ‘just another Weasley’ and if dealing with Slytherin politics is what that takes, I’ll do it,” Ginny interrupted.

Her brothers all looked uncomfortable. “You’re not… just another Weasley,” George said.

“Not to you,” Ginny said, choosing her words carefully. She didn’t want to hurt them, but— “Just to everyone else. They see the red hair and freckles and go ‘oh, Weasley, bound for Gryffindor, nothing will come of her.’ That or they expect me to live up to Bill and Charlie and you lot. Don’t think Ron doesn’t feel it, either.”

“We never meant—” Fred began.

“Of course not,” she agreed. “Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen anyway. Look. I love you. I’ll always be your sister and I don’t blame you for anything. But—you should understand that’s part of why the Hat gave me Slytherin.” She paused. “Oh, and tell Ron that Harry’s been helping me. He called in a favor and got Pansy Parkinson to teach me Slytherin rules and make sure I know the etiquette expected of girls—did you know our parents have been willfully ignoring a whole load of ancient traditions our entire lives that I don’t see any problems with?—and Harry’s friends have been helping the rest of us with our classwork.”

“We didn’t mean to harass you, Gin,” Percy said. This was the least pompous she had seen him in years. It was a good change. “Just to make sure you’re okay.”

“Thanks,” she said, and hugged all of them once before she left. “Tell Ron if he’s willing to get over Slytherin hating, I’d love to talk to him.”

Neville

He scowled at his wand. “Engorgio!”

The quill on his desk stayed stubbornly normal-sized.

“Am I saying it right?” he asked.

“Emphasize the second syllable,” Hermione said absently, bent over her Potions essay and scribbling furiously.

“en-GORGE-io,” Neville said, enunciating.

“Yes, not bad…”

He tried the spell again, balancing the sounds, the movement, the feeling of his magic—

—and nothing happened.

Useless, he thought. I’m hardly even a wizard, my magic barely works, I wouldn’t even make it through Potions without help from Harry and Tracy and Hermione and that one doesn’t even ask for a wand—

He only had one friend in Gryffindor, and he liked Justin and Hannah a lot, same for Anthony and Sue and Lisa, and Harry and the other Slytherins—but they all had their House mates. And it was hard to get close to any group when they lived together and you didn’t. Meanwhile—

Across the room, Jules Potter laughed as Ron heckled one of the first-years. Neville’s ears burned, watching. The firstie—he thought it was Rose Zeller—shrank back and looked near tears. He wanted to help, wanted to step in—but he was such a terrible wizard, Jules or Ron or Seamus might hex him and he’d fall over and they’d all laugh—

Rose Zeller grabbed her books and fled to the dormitory stairs, summoning even more laughter from the second-year boys.

Even as he was disgusted by the other boys’ behavior, even as he hated himself for being too cowardly to stand up and fix it—Neville found a tiny part of himself wondering if they’d like him, if he could belong there, if only he’d sit down and laugh with them…

Neville hunched farther down in his seat.

Pathetic. He was so pathetic.

September 7, 1992

Harry

Malfoy threw himself into a chair opposite Harry. “Potter,” he sneered.

“If you sneer too much your face will get stuck that way,” Harry said.

“Yours is already stuck in ugly.”

“Oh, yes, very mature. What do you want? I’m not helping you with the Transfiguration spell.” Malfoy was absolute pants at Transfiguration practical.

Malfoy scowled. “As if I’d ask for your help. Are you trying out for the Quidditch team this year?”

“Maybe,” Harry said. “Why?”

“What position?”

“What position do you want?”

Malfoy didn’t answer.

“You’re going for Seeker,” Harry said after a second. “For the glory.”

Malfoy looked annoyed, which Harry took to mean his guess was right. “Why? You going to try and knock me out of the spot, Potter?”

“I prefer Chaser, actually,” Harry said, closing his book when it became obvious Malfoy wasn’t going away anytime soon. “Why do you care?”

“My father’s promised to buy the whole team Nimbus Two Thousand and Ones,” Malfoy said with a smug smile. “So don’t bother buying a broom if you haven’t got one already.”

Harry paused. “So you’re resorting to bribes?”

Malfoy shrugged uncaringly. “Why not? We all know I’m the best for the spot now Higgs is gone.”

“But if you do it that way, what’s to stop another wealthy Slytherin from doing the same thing next year when the Cleansweep Twelve comes out?” Harry said. “If you get in on talent, you’re irreplaceable. If you get in on money, you’re not special.”

Malfoy frowned suddenly. Clearly he’d expected this conversation to result in Harry being awed by, and grateful for, the Malfoy vaults. Not a challenge to his worldview.

“Look, do you actually think you’re good enough to make Seeker?” Harry said, leaning forward.

“Of course.”

“Then you don’t need to buy your way on. If you make it, we all still get the brooms anyway.” Harry decided to throw him a bone. “And I’d appreciate if you would convey my gratitude to your father for his generosity and dedication to Slytherin House.”

 Malfoy scowled at him. “As if your opinion would matter to my father.”

“It will,” Harry said, standing, “if I become the new Chaser.”

September 14, 1992

“Chasers! Mount up!”

Harry swung his leg aboard the Meteor C19 he’d borrowed from the Slytherin team. It was lower quality than Cleensweep Tens, but only by a bit; not nearly as good as a Nimbus 2000 or 2001. Not that it mattered. He didn’t intend to let the broom model determine whether or not he made the team. He’d flown the Meteor B3 at the Weasleys and it was shit, but shit that flew like a bad knockoff of the C19. He could do this.

“Bletchley, in position!” Flint barked. The Keeper sped off to loop around one set of goal posts. Flint turned on his Chasers with a scowl. “I want you lot running solo drills on your own. I’ll get you one at a time. Whoever fits in best with me and Pucey against our reserve Chasers gets the spot. I’ll be watching your solos, and so will Bletchley when he’s not blocking, Derrick, and Bole. Our reserve Beaters will be with the other Chasers playing defense only. The ones who didn’t make Beater this morning have been given bats and another set of Bludgers and told to take out their frustration on whoever’s running drills. You’re being judged every moment you’re in the air so I suggest you make it count. Questions?”

No one said anything.

“Good, ‘cause I’m not repeating myself. Get your asses in the air!”

Harry didn’t need to be told twice. He kicked off hard and launched, eking more speed out of his broom than even Lucas Roberts and Luana Oakes on their superior Cleansweeps. He shot into the region by the goal posts Bletchley wasn’t using and wove through them, cutting tighter and tighter with each turn until his hair was nearly ruffling the stone posts every turn. The Meteor was a dream after the stupid Dragonflye; he barely had to think and it turned.

Lucas Roberts started in on the goalpost-looping drill, a common warm-up pattern, and Harry moved on. He paused long enough to nod to Derrick and Bole, check on Roberts, be satisfied that Roberts wasn’t managing to match Harry’s pace or turn radius through the goalposts, and threw himself into the rhythm of Chaser drills.

It was a blessed bit of relief from the tension of the last week. Most of these drills he had memorized. Harry started with the ones he’d flown hundreds of times before, then moved into the more complicated intermediate-level drills, thinking back on early-morning sessions with Wright, dodging Fred and George’s Bludgers, creeping out late and passing the Quaffle with Ginny. The reserve Beaters rocketed around their end of the Quidditch pitch and whacked the Bludgers around furiously, but they weren’t even a challenge after the Weasley twins, and Harry avoided them all easily.

“Potter! You’re up!”

He pulled out of a Vasilevsky corkscrew dive and angled up to where Flint and Pucey waited.

“Modified Hawkshead,” Flint said, and tossed Harry the Quaffle. “You take point.”

Well. That was unexpected. Usually the most experienced took point. Harry was just glad Wright had taught him the Modified Hawkshead. “Go,” he said, and took off for the goalposts, Quaffle held in a reverse southern grip.

Flint and Pucey pulled up above and below Harry and slightly behind instead of to his left and right as in the normal Hawkshead. He saw a Bludger coming from one side and Addison from the left—Harry poured on the speed and wrenched his broom up at the last second—the Bludger almost took out Addison’s broom and forced him to drop back.

The other Bludger came screaming straight at his face from above the goalposts. Harry dove to avoid it, looped around the base of the posts, saw Parks and Samwell looming ahead—he’d have no time to avoid them—he slid his right foot off the footrest and twisted as he fell that direction, hooking his ankle around the base of the broom so he was flying upside down for a precious second that was all he needed to toss the Quaffle up in the air—Harry kicked out, spinning back upright on his broom and using the same motion to slam the Quaffle straight up into Pucey’s waiting hands with the tail of his broom.

Pucey scored.

There was no respite. Bletchley grabbed the Quaffle and passed it to Addison; Harry took off after him and shoulder checked the older boy, popping the Quaffle out of his weak Morrison Grip and into Flint’s hands. He took a Bludger to the shoulder to give Flint time to score and looped around to be in position when Pucey dodged Samwell and pegged the Quaffle down to him. Harry spun, grabbed it, faked Bletchley out, and barely slammed it through the left goalpost.

It was the first and last time he scored during tryouts. Bletchley kicked up his defense after that, and Flint scored twice and Pucey once. Harry still thought he’d done pretty well. His flying was good and he was sore and sweaty and exhilarated when they were done.

“Right,” Flint said. “Last up, Seeker tryouts. Malfoy, Addison, Roberts, get up there. First to three Snitch catches gets the position, second place is the reserve. Everyone else, go shower, then wait in the team lounge for the results. We’ll decide after Seeker.”

Harry cleaned and polished the Meteor. It reminded him unpleasantly of being forced to clean and polish and varnish silverware and banisters under Aunt Petunia’s exacting eye, but at least this time he cared about the thing he was cleaning, and if the smell of wood varnish brought back bad memories he could ignore it and finish the task.

The shower was about the best thing he’d ever felt but he was too nervous to enjoy it fully. His stomach was tying itself in knots. Harry needed this for the sake of the protection it would garner from the Death Eater sympathizers among the upper year Slytherins, and to get out on the pitch and face off with Jules. But more than either of those reasons—

He wanted it for himself. Harry loved flying, and he was fiercely proud of what Slytherin House was and what it could be in ten or twenty years, and he wanted to fly in green and silver. Wanted to score and win in green and silver.

No one talked in the team lounge. Harry was the only one younger than fourteen in the room; he tucked himself into a corner and kept his wand close, but no one bothered him and he kept a low profile.

The minutes ticked by.

Finally, finally, Seeker tryouts ended. Malfoy and the rest could be heard in the locker rooms and Flint, Pucey, Derrick, Bole, and Bletchley went into the Captain’s office to deliberate with barely a glance at their waiting aspirants to give away their preferences.

Malfoy sauntered into the lounge ten minutes later, showered and smug, which told Harry the answer to one of two questions he had for the blond boy. He caught Malfoy’s eye and jerked his head towards the seat to his left. Malfoy took it.

“Congratulations,” Harry said, low.

“How’d you know I got it?” Malfoy demanded quietly.

Harry gave him a look. “You couldn’t look any prouder if you’d figured out how to cure dragon pox, Malfoy, you’re not subtle.”

“Shut it. Yeah, I got it. No one else even had one catch,” Malfoy said.

“Did you tell them about the brooms?”

Malfoy glared, and for a second Harry thought he wasn’t going to answer, but then—

“No,” he admitted. “I decided you had a point.”

“And look at that,” Harry said with a grin. “You didn’t need it.”

Malfoy nodded, and then, for the first time, he actually smiled back at Harry, who wondered if there was hope for the Malfoy heir after all.

“All right,” Flint announced, opening the door and stepping out. The rest of the returning team followed and leaned against the wall. “We’ve decided. Malfoy, you’re the new Seeker, as you all could tell for yourselves. No contest. Reserve Seeker, Addison. And the replacement Chaser will be Potter.” Harry hid his relief, but his excitement wouldn’t be contained. He couldn’t stop himself smiling like an idiot. Malfoy even clapped him on the back. “Everyone else, if I hear a word of complaint, you won’t wake up with hair tomorrow, clear?”

The rest of the Chaser hopefuls left. Montague scowled at Harry on the way out. Harry just grinned back.

“Practice schedules.” Flint passed around parchments. Harry opened it and his eyebrows rose. “We fly five times a week, an hour and a half on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday and two hours on Fridays and Saturdays. Those of you who don’t have brooms, you pick one from the team brooms or you find someone else to borrow from.”

“Actually,” Malfoy said, “brooms won’t be a problem.”

Flint scowled at him. “You’re Seeker but you’re a second year, Malfoy, if this isn’t important—”

“You’ll want to hear it,” Harry said lazily.

Malfoy lifted his chin. “My father agreed that if I made the team this year, he would buy all of us Nimbus 2001s. I’ll owl him tonight and the shipment should get here within two days.”

Dead silence.

Then Flint started to laugh. Slowly the rest of the returning players joined in.

“Merlin’s balls,” Pucey said with a grin, “Gryffindor won’t stand a chance.”

“I can’t wait to rub this in Wood’s face,” Flint said with relish.

Harry tapped his fingers on his knees. “We could wait until after the first match, though,” he said slowly. “Not that we need the advantage of surprise… but it couldn’t hurt.”

Bletchley nodded appreciatively. “And can you imagine their faces when we walk out onto the pitch with all new brooms?”

“I like it,” Flint said, grinning wolfishly. “Right. Not a word of the new brooms to anyone. Even your friends. I don’t want to catch a whisper of it. Potter, you complain about having to borrow brooms from upper years in front of your Gryffindor friends. Malfoy—”

“He can brag about his father buying him a Nimbus 2001, everyone’s expecting it anyway,” Harry said, smirking as Malfoy’s ears turned pink.

“See here, Potter, just because you’re jealous of my family’s wealth—”

“Malfoy, stow it,” Pucey said. “His family’s almost as old and his dad’s blood just as pure as yours. The Potters aren’t exactly strapped for galleons.”

Malfoy flushed pinker.

“He’s at least on speaking terms with his father,” Harry muttered, because he didn’t want to make an outright enemy of Malfoy.

That got a laugh from the team. Harry’s bad relationship with James was an open secret in Slytherin.

“Since brooms are taken care of, next up is robes. Order forms here.” He passed them to Harry and Malfoy. “Get them to me by Monday; we’ll order you two sets of match uniforms each and you’re responsible for your own practice gear if you haven’t got it already. And last thing—” He pulled out two copies of a thick leather-bound book. “All the Slytherin Quidditch drills, plays, maneuvers, and tactics. You live and breathe by this now. If it falls into the hands of anyone who isn’t you, you will earn the wrath of centuries of Slytherin Quidditch players, including me.”

Harry and Malfoy took the books reverently, acutely aware of the legacies they were holding in their hands. They shared an excited glance. Harry couldn’t remember ever sharing in something like this with Malfoy. It was a little uncomfortable, but Quidditch trumped all other concerns.

“Okay,” Bletchley said. “This normally goes unspoken, but the two of you haven’t gotten along—don’t think we haven’t noticed—so I’m going to break Slytherin character and be painfully blunt. Politics stay out of the team facilities and off the pitch. As soon as you show up for practice or a match you put your teammates and the game before any and all other concerns for as long as that game or practice lasts. Ribbing and messing around’s kind of part of the territory, but actual feuds? We don’t want to see ‘em.”

“Seconded,” Flint said.

Harry and Malfoy nodded.

“Right,” Flint said, and grinned. “Welcome to the team.”

September 17, 1992

Ever since the flying car incident, Jules and Ron and, by extension, the rest of their friends had been refusing to speak to Harry. Harry actually considered this quite a nice arrangement, but of course it couldn’t last.

Ron punched him in the entrance hall.

Harry staggered backwards. His glasses had broken and were hanging off the sides of his face, and his anger had snapped to icy life in his veins. “Weasley, what the hell?”

“You corrupted my sister,” Ron said. He was bright red with rage. “You’re the reason she ended up in slimy Slytherin—”

“Oi, Ron, this is—maybe not the place,” Jules said.

Harry pulled his wand. “Reparo. You know, Ron, you should listen to him. Not that you have a great track record for listening to common sense, but a boy can dream.”

“You shut up, I’m not doing this for you,” Jules snapped. “You deserved that.”

“For what, exactly?” Harry folded his arms. Part of him wished he hadn’t sent Theo and Blaise ahead while he hunted down his Transfiguration book, but he didn’t need backup to deal with these two. “I hope you don’t think Ginny is so pathetic and easily controlled that I somehow managed to completely change her personality in the span of two months of casual interaction. If the Hat put her in Slytherin, then that’s where she belongs. And I’m pretty sure we already covered that Slytherin’s not inherently a bad place to be.”

“She’s my sister,” Ron said. “She belongs in Gryffindor. Where I can look out for her. Where our family always goes.”

“She doesn’t need you to look out for her,” Harry said coldly. “She can do that for herself. And besides, if you really think people should go where their families go—well, that would imply I belong in Gryffindor, and I think we both know that’s not true.”

Ron’s mouth opened and closed a few times.

“Great imitation of a fish,” Harry said. “Okay, so glad we cleared this up, can we go back to not speaking? It was doing wonders for my complexion.”

“You are such a git,” Jules said furiously. “I can’t believe we’re related—thank Merlin Dad sent you away after Mum died, or I’d have had to deal with you my whole life!”

Harry’s hand tightened so hard around the holly wand that his fingers hurt.

The wand was what stopped him casting a curse, actually. The holly didn’t like them as much. It didn’t—resist, per se, but there was a subtle sense that this wasn’t quite what it had been designed for. That little reminder cleared his head enough for him to refrain from using a Dark spell on Jules Potter in the middle of Hogwarts’ entrance hall.

“For what it’s worth,” Harry said smoothly, “I can’t honestly decide which would’ve been worse—putting up with you for the last ten years, or being locked in the Dursleys’ cupboard when I wasn’t cooking food I didn’t get to eat or doing chores in order to get any food at all.”

He stalked into the Great Hall, because he had to get away from them before his control slipped completely.

October 31, 1992

“Feast this year?” Theo said, eyeing Harry cleverly.

Harry shook his head and tugged his robes closer to him. He hated Halloween—the celebratory air, the feasting… “I’m not going to celebrate the night my mum died,” he said sourly.

“You ought to look into Samhain,” Pansy said casually. “Plenty of wizards still practice it in some form—Hallowe’en was originally a day to honor the dead and remember your ancestors.”

They stared at her.

“What?” she said. “Just because I like gossip doesn’t mean I’m too dumb to pay attention in class.”

“Liking gossip doesn’t make you dumb,” Harry said. “Not when you use it like you do.”

“Awww, you’re so sweet,” she said.

“Want me to come?” Theo said.

Harry shook his head. “You missed last year for me. I’ll be fine. I doubt there’s any trolls wandering around this year. Lockhart’s too stupid to be a murderous maniac.” He waited until Pansy was already in the Great Hall to add, “Or attached to Voldemort. Even the Dark Lord has certain standards.”

It was a black joke, but Harry was in a black mood, and Theo and Blaise were both the sort of people to appreciate his particular brand of humor. They laughed and Theo nudged Harry’s shoulder with his own, just like Harry had once done when Theo opened up slightly about his father and they slipped into the Great Hall.

Harry caught a flash of the noise and light and food smells and general air of merriment and wished for a brief second that he could join them. Just wished… wished for something he couldn’t name, and would never have, and blamed Voldemort for.

I’m going to kill you, Harry thought savagely at a Dark Lord he could not see. His feet started to pace of their own accord.

He wandered up and down the hallways. The passages of Hogwarts felt more familiar to him with every passing day, with every night he jolted awake at four or five in the morning and crept out in silencing shoes to practice magic in the halls and search out the castle’s hidden spaces. He still hadn’t found the kitchens yet, but had it narrowed down to one long passage very near where Justin and Hannah parted ways with the rest to head to the Hufflepuff dorms, lined with portraits and paintings and statues all of a food theme. He wondered how many house-elves worked in Hogwarts, and what he could do to get them on his side… maybe Fred and George’s smuggling routes, currently feeding a steady trickle of ballpoint pens to NEWT and OWL students and of galleons to Fred, George, and Harry’s pockets, could be put to use bringing simple amenities to Hogwarts for the elves. Like… Muggle candies, maybe. Or books. Did house-elves read? Or do anything for fun? Maybe blankets would work, since those didn’t count as clothes. He’d have to do some reading on house-elves. Fred and George probably knew how to find the kitchens, but Harry wanted to work it out on his own…

His thoughts turned to Quidditch. He’d caught Fred and George sneaking about under the pitch trying to spy on the Slytherin team and threatened to write their mother and tell her they were spying. Both boys gave him wounded looks and trudged back to the castle. Harry reported having chased off unnamed Gryffindor spies, and Flint and Pucey and Bletchley spent ten minutes setting up the strongest anti-observation charms they knew, with Harry watching closely and memorizing the enchantments for later research. He was at least a year ahead of the curriculum in Potions and Defense, nearly so with Transfiguration in practice if not theory, and ahead of almost all his classmates in everything else, except Charms. Harry had to practice new charms relentlessly for weeks to be able to cast them with just the incantation and wand movement and no further concentration to slow him down. Quidditch, though—the new brooms were absolute heaven. The 2001 responded to Harry’s every thought, it seemed, and turned on a dime, and accelerated so fast he felt like he could leave everything behind. And he did, to some degree—while he was flying no worries or bad memories could touch him. Something about mounting the broom and springing into the air left all his baggage behind…

It was camaraderie, too. Harry had already picked up on some really interesting spells from his teammates, and he genuinely liked Pucey and Bletchley, and got on well enough with Flint and Derrick and Bole, and even he and Malfoy were getting along better now they had a common goal. He hadn’t even heard the word mudblood in weeks. In fact, Harry was getting a little bored now that the other half of the Slytherin second-years weren’t giving him excuses to plan hexes and revenge anymore. Maybe it was time to turn his sights to other Houses… Ernie Macmillan had been particularly annoying lately, joining in Ron and Finnegan’s Hate On Harry Potter Party…

Thoughts of house-elves and Quidditch and revenge eventually faded. The corridors were dark and silent and empty, and after long enough, his mind started to follow suit…  

“Kill… let me rip… tear… Come… come to me… let me tear you… let me kill… so hungry… let me kill, and rip, and feed…”

Harry jumped so violently that he actually left the ground. He landed with wand in hand and the peaceful meditative emptiness absolutely shattered.

There was nothing in sight.

The voice was moving away from him. Heart pounding, Harry followed it, mentally thanking Theo yet again for the silenced shoes. He couldn’t just… leave it alone, but that didn’t mean he was going to be stupid and run heedlessly into danger.

He was on the second floor. The voice was moving fast. Harry sped up, keeping a sharp eye out for Peeves, Mrs. Norris, or Filch, all of whom seemed able to see through Notice-Me-Nots, or any other form of danger, but he saw nothing.

Until he turned the corner into a deserted hallway and found a message painted on the wall in what looked like blood.

Harry’s heart lurched and then kicked into overdrive. This was not a good place to be. He barely registered what the words said—The Chamber of Secrets Has Been Opened—Enemies of the Heir Beware—and backed up quickly.

He turned around, stuffed his wand away, and hurried back for the mouth of the passage.

“There you are!” Jules said, appearing with Ron, Finnegan, Macmillan, and for some reason Michael Corner of Ravenclaw at his shoulders. “What were you doing skulking… about…”

He trailed off, eyes fixed on the words and an expression of pure horror on his face.

“You… is that Mrs. Norris?” Finnegan said in a hushed voice.

“What are you talking about?” Harry said, annoyed and afraid.

Finnegan pointed. “There—”

Harry turned. Looked. And indeed noticed Filch’s cat, dangling stiffly by her tail from a light fixture.

“Merlin’s balls,” he whispered, partly because this was really bloody weird and partly because he knew how bad it looked. He’d just been starting to repair his relationship with Ron and Jules over the summer, and the Ginny thing wasn’t insurmountable, but this—

A distant rumble told him the feast was over. “Okay, move,” he said.

Three wands were trained on him in a second, Finnegan’s and Macmillan’s not far behind.

“You’re staying right there,” Jules snarled.

It took thirty seconds before students poured into the main second floor corridor, and noticed the standoff, and fell silent.

Malfoy’s voice broke it. “The Chamber’s been opened! You’ll be next, Mudbloods!”

Harry lifted his chin and made his expression as bored as he could. “Really, Jules, is this necessary?” he said, low.

Jules didn’t lower his wand.

“What’s going on here? What’s going on?” Argus Filch came shoving his way through the crowd and his eyes about popped with delight when he saw five students with their wands in another’s face. “Aha! No magic in the corridors—”

His eyes landed on Mrs. Norris, and he screeched. “My cat! What happened to my cat!”

“We found him lurking about here,” Jules said quickly—

“You!” Filch bellowed, rounding on Harry, whose fingers were twitching for his wand. “You’ve gone and killed her! I’ll kill you!”

To Harry’s eternal shock, it was not only Theo who appeared out of the crowd, but Flint and Bletchley as well. The three of them didn’t exactly jump forward and stand at his back, but they lurked at the edge of the crowd, disinterested masks in place and wands out by their sides.

“Argus!”

Dumbledore had arrived on the scene, followed by a number of other teachers. Harry was not reassured. He didn’t trust the headmaster in the slightest. Lockhart was not an ally, though he could be manipulated; Snape did his duties to Harry as Head of Slytherin House but his acid hatred of all Potters had cooled only to pretending Harry didn’t exist unless absolutely necessary. He was not an ally. McGonagall liked him if for no other reason than that he was attentive in her class and good at Transfiguration, but he didn’t know her. Flitwick was kind of the same except Harry wasn’t even particularly skilled with Charms. And Sinistra never remembered anyone’s names.

The headmaster swept past Harry and detached Mrs. Norris from the torch bracket. “Come with me, Argus,” he said. “You too, Mr. Potter… and you five, I suppose.”

“Use my office, Headmaster, it’s nearest,” Lockhart said eagerly.

“Thank you, Gilderoy.”

The silent crowd parted easily before Dumbledore. Harry shared a glance with Theo before he turned his eyes to the front and walked with a deliberately casual air. The skin between his shoulder blades prickled. Every step convinced him more fully that someone was about to either hit him or hex him.

Neville peeled away from the crowd and fell in at Harry’s side. He looked deathly pale and was biting his lip nervously, but he kept on stubbornly walking. Either the teachers didn’t notice one more set of Gryffindor robes or chose not to care that Neville was apparently tagging along.

They entered the office.

Harry bit back a smirk as multiple portrait Lockharts dodged out of sight, hair in nets or rollers. He and the other students ended up in the corner while Lockhart lit the torches and Dumbledore examined Mrs. Norris closely, first looking at her from so close his long nose nearly brushed her fur, and then by murmuring long, arcane enchantments and touching his wand to various places on her still body. Nothing appeared to happen. Meanwhile, Filch muttered threats under his breath while glaring at Harry and Lockhart nattered on about how it was such a pity, and he’d seen something like this before, too late to save the victims, such a tragedy, but he knew how to whip up some amulets that would prevent it from happening to anyone else, and of course he’d be willing to do so for the school, if his expenses for the materials were covered, that is…

Harry suspected him of perpetuating the attack as a way to get extra recognition from the school and possibly swindle money by overcharging for the amulets until Dumbledore declared Mrs. Norris Petrified and Lockhart immediately changed tack to how he’d known all along. What an absolute fraud, he though with disgust.

“It was him!” Filch howled, pointing at Harry. “Everyone knows I’m a—I’m a Squib, and he’s a Slytherin—”

“No second year could have done this, Argus,” Dumbledore said. “It would take Dark Magic of the most advanced level to accomplish petrification.”

“Sir, we saw him skulking along,” Jules said loudly. “He looked very suspicious—we followed a good ways behind—”

“He was in the corridor a few minutes before we got there,” Ron added. “And he was trying to run away when we showed up, like he was guilty—”

 “Anyone with any sense would leave such a scene and report it to a teacher,” Snape said silkily.

Harry frowned at the help from an unexpected quarter and wondered what, if anything, Snape would expect of him for it.

“Not run away, though,” Ron said.

“This—this is rid-ridiculous,” Neville stammered, fists clenched and chubby cheeks red. “Harry wouldn’t—I know him, he wouldn’t—d-do something like this.”

“Mr. Longbottom, were you even there?” McGonagall said, looking a bit put upon.

“No,” Neville said bravely, “but it was one on f-five, and—and he’s my friend, so—I came.”

Harry needed to thank Neville later.

Dumbledore looked at Harry. “Are you not going to attempt to defend yourself, Mr. Potter?”

His tone was kind, but Harry didn’t trust it. Or him. “I have no evidence and no alibi but my word,” Harry said. “It was a wrong place, wrong time sort of moment. But I have no way to prove that.”

“Why were you wandering the halls?” McGonagall said. “Instead of at the feast with your peers?”

Here was an opportunity; McGonagall, by all counts, had been fond of Harry’s mum in school. “My—well, Jules’ and my mum died on—on Halloween,” he said quietly, ducking his head. His peripheral vision picked up an ever-so-slight flinch from Snape. Odd. “I don’t… I don’t like celebrating.”

McGonagall’s face cleared and softened at the same time. “Of course. My apologies, Mr. Potter, I momentarily forgot last year…”

Because one year ago, a possessed madman had let a troll loose in the castle. Harry resolved to pace safely in the Slytherin dormitories next Halloween. Although, on second thought, the Slytherin dorms were maybe not the safest place for him. He should look around his room a bit more thoroughly for any passages that led out of it, so he had a back door if he needed one… or find a way to make glass briefly permeable in one direction, so he could maybe even flee to the lake—

“Innocent until proven guilty,” Dumbledore said, eyes twinkling kindly.

Harry smiled a bit tremulously. “Thank you, Headmaster,” he said.

“Of course, dear boy.”

“I think it best if you run along to your dormitories now,” Professor McGonagall said. “Severus, if you could help me make certain the crime scene has not been tampered with—we’ll need to launch a full investigation—”

“Certainly,” Snape said. “If I may have a word with Mr. Potter first?”

“As is your due,” Dumbledore said, and shooed everyone else out of Lockhart’s office. Lockhart himself looked annoyed, which Harry suspected Snape was enjoying.

Snape drew his wand. Harry’s heart accelerated for a second, but Snape only cast a few quick sound wards. “So the portraits won’t overhear,” he said, and examined Harry with his cold black eyes. “Mr. Potter. Answer me true: Are you in any way involved with the Chamber of Secrets?”

“No,” Harry said. He met the professor’s eyes and decided to test a certain theory of his—he dropped his mental guard and concentrated on his absolute honesty. “I don’t know what that even is.”

Snape looked slightly startled. “Mr. Potter… do you know of Occlumency and Legilimency?”

“No,” Harry said.

“Legilimency is the art of using magic to reach into the mind of another and search for memories, thoughts, and emotions,” Snape said.

Harry was horrified to have his theory confirmed. “There are wizards who can read minds, and I’m only learning this now?”

“Very, very few wizards or witches accomplish even passing competency as Legilimens,” Snape said. “It is not considered worthwhile to unnecessarily worry young students.”

Harry examined him. “You’re a—a Legilimens, aren’t you, sir? And—the headmaster?”

“Indeed. We are the only two Legilimens in this school, though Professor McGonagall has some skill with Occlumency for the simple reason that the fundamentals of the art of guarding one’s mind involve rigorous self-discipline. The headmaster and myself are both expert-level Occlumens as well.”

I need to learn Occlumency as soon as possible. “Sir, how would you recommend going about learning Occlumency?” Harry said. He wasn’t sure what exactly entailed an Occlumency shield, if that was even the right term, but he concentrated on inane things—his irritation with Lockhart’s portraits, the Cornish pixie episode, flying the other day—as he met Snape’s eyes.

Snape’s eyebrows raised a fraction. “You already possess rudimentary Occlumency shields, Mr. Potter. I suspect you have developed a crude competency in the lower levels of the art as a form of emotional control. I can recommend you a book on the subject.”

“I would appreciate it. Thank you, sir.”

“Understand I only do this because you ask and because you seem to have a proclivity, and because your… unique position… makes you a target from many sides,” Snape warned. “You are not to go bandying it about even to Slytherins beyond those you trust completely that you are studying Occlumency.”

“I don’t trust anyone completely.”

Snape’s mouth did something that would have been considered a twitch at best on another man but on him actually might have been approaching a smile. “Very wise of you. It seems you truly skipped all your father’s genes.”

Not completely, or I’d have run the opposite way of the voice in the walls talking about killing. “Thank you, sir.”

“You may go, Mr. Potter.”

Harry found Neville sitting in the hallway.

“Harry!” Neville scrambled to his feet. He paled and nodded jerkily when Snape appeared. Snape swept his gaze over Neville, said “Mr. Longbottom” in a neutral tone, and left in the direction of the writing on the wall.

Neville stared after him. “That was… weird. He didn’t even…”

“I think you standing up for me made him less inclined to sneer at you,” Harry said drily. “It probably helps that you haven’t blown anything up in Potions yet this year. Excellent job, by the way.”

“I couldn’t have done it without your help,” Neville said. Snape was still pairing them together most days, but Harry was almost grateful—it forced him to devote time to delving into the theory behind every ingredient and every ratio of every potion, which was a pain on top of hours of Quidditch practice in the rain, weekly dueling practice with all his friends and occasional nighttime experiments with more questionable spells just with Slytherins, the study group, homework in general, and actually going to classes but worth it in the long run. Neville, meanwhile, could now be trusted to manage most tasks with only minimal supervision, and Harry had stepped back and only helped prepare ingredients in the last class, and Neville’s Pepper-Up Potion had actually gotten an A.

“Thanks,” Harry said quietly. “For… coming. And saying anything to Jules and Ron.” He knew how hard a time Neville had with them; it wasn’t hard to tell just from watching them in class.

Neville flushed and looked at his feet. “Well—you’d do the same for me. Right?”

“Of course,” Harry agreed. “You’re one of my best mates.”

Neville had never looked happier.

Harry zeroed in on Blaise and Theo once he got back to his dorms. “Malfoy?”

“I told him off,” Blaise said, looking as though he’d very much enjoyed ripping into their dorm mate. “Thoroughly.”

“Absolute moron,” Theo griped, throwing himself across his bed. “’You’ll be next, Mudbloods’—honestly, is there a worse thing to shout across a crowded hallway? He has no sense of subtlety. Sometimes I wonder how he’s even in Slytherin.”

“Don’t we all,” Harry muttered.

November 2, 1992

As it turned out, Harry didn’t have to do any research on the Chamber of Secrets. Hermione managed to eke an actual response out of Professor Binns for once, and she told the whole study group about it in a hushed voice.

There was a minute or two of silence.

“It’s ridiculous,” Justin said flatly. “Ernie’s terrified of you, mind, and same with Susan. But there’s no way you’re the Heir of Slytherin. I mean, come on, your mum’s a Muggle-born and your dad’s a Potter, where in Merlin’s name would you have gotten Slytherin ancestry from?”

“Not to mention, your twin would have all the same blood,” Hermione said.

Theo shook his head. “Even twins often don’t share the same abilities, Hermione. It’s a bit different with wizards. Some skills and magical affinities are finicky and don’t crop up every generation, especially when the relation is distant and dilute. The firstborn is usually more likely to get certain family magics, but not always—the point is that it’s possible for Harry to have traits or magical characteristics Jules doesn’t.”

“What are you suggesting?” Hannah said. “That Harry is the—the Heir of Slytherin?”

“Just laying out the facts,” Theo said.

Pansy frowned. “Well, the rumors are already flying. The usual Slytherins-are-all-evil nonsense, but Harry—it’s not very positive towards you specifically.”

“Of course not,” he muttered.

Tracy didn’t even look up from her book. “Two of your closer friends are Muggle-born,” she said. “And no Slytherin’s going to believe you’re out to purge the school of non-Purebloods.”

Harry grinned, pleased that his efforts to curb use of mudblood weren’t going unnoticed.

Daphne looked at Hermione. “What’s the general attitude in Gryffindor?”

Harry blinked. He didn’t think he’d ever heard Daphne address Hermione directly before. Maybe it had to do with Hermione having trounced Daphne on every exam at the end of first year.

“Well,” Hermione said, also looking a bit surprised and more than a bit pleased, “there’s a lot of talk, as you might expect, but I don’t think anyone really believes it’s a second-year. Except Jules and his friends, but—well. Outside their own group, people like them well enough because they’re funny and Jules is the Boy-Who-Lived, but they’re not close to anyone.”

Neville looked down. “They’re gits.”

“Did they do something?” Anthony said. He’d been quiet most of their discussion, eyes tracking sharply around the table as everyone spoke. Sue was reading Hogwarts, A History for anything about the Chamber Binns hadn’t mentioned.

“No,” Neville said.

“If they do, let us know,” Harry said.

Neville abruptly slammed his book shut. “I can handle myself.”

Everyone paused. Even Sue and Tracy looked up from their books.

“I know you can,” Harry said slowly just as Blaise said with amazement, “He bites!”

“Shut up,” Neville said, but he smiled and the tension ebbed.

Relieved that his friends, at least, weren’t turning on him, Harry went back to memorizing Quidditch plays.

After the study group, Harry pulled Hannah aside. “Hey,” he said, “I was wondering—”

“If I know a creature that could do this?” Hannah guessed.

Harry grinned. “Got it in one.”

Hannah laughed. Her fondness for any and all magical creatures was well known; she’d been excited to start Care of Magical Creatures pretty much since the first day. “Not off the top of my head. However, I’ve arranged for three of the first years, Justin, Ernie, and Susan to rotate through topics and sections of the library under my direction looking for anything that might be the culprit. I’ll let you know when we find anything. Next up…” She thought. “Ernie, looking under Section G of Magical Creatures in Law and Crime, tomorrow at three, and Eloise Midgen—first year—spent an hour on Section A of State of Matter Spells compiling a list of books that cover petrification. Here’s her list so far.” Hannah held out a bit of paper.

Harry took it, a bit shocked. “Has anyone ever told you you ought to run for Minister someday?”

“That’s so sweet of you, Harry,” she said, blushing a bit. The Slytherin girls said “that’s so sweet” in condescending, sarcastic tones; it took Harry a few seconds to convince himself that Hannah was being genuine. “No. But I can’t say I haven’t thought about it.”

“You’d be brilliant,” he said with feeling. “Maybe rope Hermione in on this project? And Anthony, Sue, and Lisa, you know how they are about research, and they probably know the library better than Eloise Midgen—or, actually, anyone else in first or second year—”

“Good plan,” Hannah said. “When I become Minister, you can be my Senior Undersecretary.”

“I refuse any title that has ‘under’ in it,” Harry said flatly. “Can I just be your on-call special political advisor? I’ll sit in the corner and drink coffee and keep up a running sarcastic commentary to make the stupid people less annoying. And advise on political things.”

Hannah considered it. “That works, too.”

November 3, 1992

The Slytherin second years had a free period after lunch and before double Potions on Friday, during which they went back to their common room to study. Harry noticed Malfoy heading back to the dorm, looking upset, just as it was time to go to class, and waved Blaise and Pansy off without him.

He stood unnoticed in the door of the second year dorm and watched Malfoy tear through his trunk for a few seconds.

“Malfoy,” he said. “Time for class.”

“I know, Potter, I’ve got to find the essay for today,” Malfoy snapped. Snape was his favorite teacher and Potions his favorite class; he was one of three people—the others being Hermione and Tracy—who could occasionally pull off a better potions result than Harry.

Harry lifted the sheaf of papers in his hand. “You mean… this essay?”

Malfoy stood up and came over, relief plain on his face. “Yes—Potter, where’d you find that?”

“You shouldn’t leave your things lying around the common room, Malfoy,” Harry said slowly. Malfoy grabbed the parchment, but Harry didn’t let go. “It’s very… short-sighted of you. Rather like shouting anti-Muggle-born sentiment in the middle of a crowded hallway, don’t you think?”

Ugly realization was dawning. “Give it here, Potter,” Malfoy snarled.

“I warned you about the word Mudblood, Malfoy.” Harry let go and Malfoy snatched the essay back.

Seconds later, without Harry even touching a wand, it burst into flame.

Malfoy yelled and dropped it, shaking burned fingers. He sobbed once and looked at Harry with more than a little fear.

“I told you it could get painful,” Harry said softly, and turned on his heel to leave.

Snape paused at Malfoy’s desk. “Mr. Malfoy, where is your essay?”

Malfoy’s jaw clenched. “I don’t have it, sir.”

“And why not?” Snape drawled.

“I… didn’t do it, sir.” Malfoy’s eyes cut to Harry, who didn’t let his expression betray an iota of his involvement.

“You… didn’t… do it.” Snape sounded as if he didn’t understand such a concept. “May I inquire as to why not?”

“I forgot, sir.”

“I… see.” Snape looked at Harry. “Five points from Slytherin, Mr. Malfoy.”

He moved on.

Harry handed his own essay over without a blink.

November 5, 1992

Ginny

Ginny was really starting to see why Slytherins got so mad about House prejudice.

She’d thought it was just them being sensitive—that they should acknowledge how many Dark witches and wizards their House turned out, damn it, even if not all of them went bad. But not one of Ginny’s year-mates had exhibited anything resembling Death Eater sympathies or blood supremacist nonsense. The closest it came was Finn and Nat’s ongoing list of complaints about cultural erosion. An opinion which, now that she was more aware of all the traditions and history she’d never learned, she found herself reluctantly starting to share. And when Ginny walked around with a group of eleven-year-olds who all got hissed at for the color of the trim on their robes—never mind their age, never mind they were all just kids in school—she started to get annoyed.

It didn’t help that there were rumors flying like hippogriffs that Harry Potter had Petrified Mrs. Norris’ cat and was some kind of budding Dark Lord. This was absolutely ridiculous. He was just a boy. Sure, he seemed to have one of the top spots in the Slytherin second-year hierarchy, and when Malfoy needled him sometimes his eyes got kind of creepy, but he did his homework and bickered about who was better at Transfiguration and played Exploding Snap and cursed when he lost and trooped in looking irritable and muddy and soaking wet after Quidditch practice. He definitely wasn’t sneaking off to practice the Dark Arts in his spare time.

Actually. He might have been sneaking off in his spare time, and he might have been practicing spells that weren’t totally Light. Ginny had already seen Finn use one and the upper years didn’t seem to care. It made her a little uncomfortable, but as Natalie put it, “the difference is how and why you use it, not what it does,” which… made sense.

Ginny still hadn’t asked to join in when the one of the second years occasionally offered to teach a spell to the firsties.

She wandered down the Charms corridor, heading back to the dungeons after going back for a book she’d left behind in class, awash in remembered irritation at Ron, who was still only speaking to her stiffly.

“Take that, you Slytherin scum—”

“Think you can just run around the school safe from the Heir and his monster, do you?”

Ginny drew her wand and started to run around the corner like Ron would’ve done, but a different voice—one that sounded like herself—whispered no, wait, get a feel for what’s going on before you dive in—

Well, that was just not great. Ginny wasn’t about to let this go—but she also did not want to take on Seamus Finnegan and a third year Gryffindor she thought was named Toby something on her own.

But that was Evalyn Travers on the ground, wand out of reach by the wall, bleeding from the nose. Slytherin Rule One: House unity above all.

She was quiet and still, like she’d just wait for the two boys to get bored and leave. Ginny got that—sometimes that was the only option. Evalyn was good at Potions and Herbology, but her wandwork wasn’t the best.

Ginny chewed her lip. She didn’t actually know many spells yet, definitely not as many as a third year…

Well, in that case, she just had to strike first and hard enough to win before they knew she was there.

She targeted Toby first, since he was older, and Seamus knew her; he’d probably hesitate when he saw who it was. Ginny aimed her wand carefully just as the third year nudged Evalyn’s hip with his foot. “Well?” Toby mocked.

“Mucus chiroptera!” Ginny whispered, concentrating fiercely. It was the first thing Harry told her when he taught her the spell—you had to want it.

She very  much wanted Toby Pritchard to get hexed.

Toby’s shrieking filled the hall a second later, as bats began crawling out of his nose and flying about his head, beating him with their wings and scratching with their claws. Ginny couldn’t help it; she laughed. He looked ridiculous staggering about with a growing cloud of bats around his head.

“Hey!” Seamus shouted, fumbling for his wand.

Toby bolted.

Ginny let him go by, then, stepped around the corner and kept hers trained on Seamus.

“Ginny?” Seamus said in disbelief. He paused, but then reached for his pocket again. “You’re not gonna—”

“Volculeus.”

The Stinging Hex caught him in the shoulder. She hadn’t been sure it would even work and a little thrill went through her. Seamus yelped. “Ginny, what in Merlin’s name?”

“I grew up with you, Seamus,” she said, glaring. “I’d have said we were friends. And you’re in here knocking an eleven-year-old to the ground and making fun of her? Really?”

Seamus flushed. “She’s a Slytherin—”

“So am I,” Ginny said. “You gonna trip me, too? Dump me on the floor so Toby Pritchard can kick me and make fun of me?”

He opened his mouth, and no sound came out.

“Go back to Gryffindor,” Ginny said as coldly as she could manage.

Seamus left with several backwards glances. “Don’t think Ron won’t hear about this,” he threatened.

“If any of you says anything to me about it, your mothers will hear about this,” she retorted.

That, finally, got him out of her way.

Ginny watched him run, tucked her wand away, leaned on the wall, and then changed her mind and slid down to sit on the floor with a thump. She tipped her head back against the stone and willed her tears not to fall.

Evalyn sat up and watched her, quietly. Not moving.

“He was like a cousin,” Ginny whispered. “And now—just because of the colors on my robe, this. It’s—”

She swallowed, shook her head. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes it does,” Evalyn said simply.

“Do you think they’ll always hate me?” Ginny said.

She’d meant it as a poor attempt at a joke, but Evalyn took it seriously. “They’re not worth caring what they think of you.”

“My brother is…”

There was a long pause.

“If you’re going to care—at least your last name is Weasley.”

Ginny scowled, because she couldn’t deny that Evalyn had a point. “Is it that bad for you?”

“No,” Evalyn said. “I don’t care what they think of me.”

For a few seconds, Ginny thought the quiet girl was done, but then she rubbed her fingers across the floor and kept talking. “You should know—I don’t disagree with the foundations of their views. Just—the extremist bits. I want… to make it so people Evalyn Travers and don’t think evil. It’s not like my family wants to run around murdering Muggles. We just think a stronger isolationist policy would be better.”

Once, Ginny would’ve paled and panicked at this information. But two months of eavesdropping had taught her… it wasn’t as black-and-white as her parents had made it out to be. Evalyn had been nothing but decent so far. And Ginny had spent quite a few hours with Pansy, who’d been giving her a crash course in all the old pureblood customs the Weasleys ignored but that Ginny would need to at least know about to make it in Slytherin. One of them was that when the heir to a Noble house was a girl, her children would keep her last name. Ginny pictured Evalyn growing up, doing… something, but doing it well, and then getting married, and having a child named Travers who was proud to announce themselves as one because Evalyn Travers was famous and had done great things.

It was a nice sort of future.

“I know Weasley’s not like Travers,” Ginny finally said into the stillness. “But I get—people hearing your name and making assumptions. I’m just another Weasley. The latest in a set. Oliver Wood actually said that— “soon Gryffindor will have the whole set” or some tripe. I don’t want to be the Weasley daughter, or the youngest Weasley.”

They sat in silence for a while. Ginny wasn’t even sure who was staying on the floor for who anymore.

“Was that a Bad-Bogey Hex?” Evalyn said finally.

Ginny grinned at her. “Yep.”

“Who taught you that?”

“Harry Potter.”

Evalyn got a little gleam in her eye. “Maybe he’d be willing to teach all of us once or twice a week… since we’re having so much trouble with the Gryffindors lately.”

Ginny grinned. “You know, I think he might.”

She and Evalyn had been friendly before, but after that, they were friends. Unspoken, undiscussed, but true. Natalie seemed to take Ginny helping Evalyn as a sign and adopted Ginny into their friendship with determination. They were as different as night and day—Evalyn was quiet, reserved, dark-eyed and plain, preferring to hover on the periphery of any group of people, while Natalie was bubbly, vibrant, loud, and loved attention. Ginny was somewhere in the middle. They balanced each other out.

Harry and Theo looked at each other when the three girls went to ask about extracurricular magic lessons. “I brought this on myself, didn’t I,” Harry said. But he didn’t seem annoyed.

Theo snickered. Ginny wasn’t sure she liked him—Blaise had a kindness underneath his disdain and sharp smile, where Theo was all sharp edges. But Theo was Harry’s best friend. And Harry had helped her.

“We can rotate through,” Blaise said. “I’ll take one night, and Harry the next, and so on. Twice a week?”

Theo sniffed. “You’re assuming I’m going to participate.”

Blaise raised one eyebrow in the perfect image of oh, you’re cute.

“Yeah, okay,” Theo said.

Ginny got absolutely trounced by Blaise the first night. She practiced with Evalyn and Natalie a few times and still got trounced by Harry the second. Theo was even less kind than the other two, but Ginny learned a lot from his unforgiving teaching style. “When some Gryffindor arsehole jumps you, they’re not going to miss,” he said bluntly. “And it’s not just this year. For different reasons, all three of you are going to have enemies, and some of them will be in Slytherin.”

Ginny frowned. “Have you lot had to deal with problems in Slytherin?”

Theo’s face got just a little harder. “Why do you think we got so good at this?” he snapped, shooting a Stinging Hex that Ginny dodged. Evalyn wasn’t as fast and it caught her wrist.

She practiced a Body-Bind.

Natalie used a gardus and crossed her arms. “I can see Harry, but why you?”

“Funnily enough, both sides have the same reason.” Theo paused to correct Natalie’s wand motion for the Body-Bind, and Natalie cast it again, aiming at a dressmaker’s dummy Harry had dug up in a storage room somewhere and levitated down to the dungeons for target practice. “Better. They all have problems with me because my dad’s not in Azkaban.”

Ginny had caught on well enough to the unofficial Slytherin rules to know she shouldn’t ask for clarification on this. It took a few minutes, but she puzzled it out on her own while Theo taught Natalie a nasty spell to make someone swallow their tongue. The Death Eaters were mad at Lord Nott for betraying them by pretending it had all been a lie. Which was just several kinds of messed up.

Chapter Text

November 7, 1992

Harry

“Everyone shut up!” Flint yelled.

Harry and Malfoy left off their whispering. Bletchley and Pucey and Bole stopped arguing about Quidditch plays. Derrick extinguished the fire he’d started on the stone floor of the team lounge for some reason. They gathered around Flint, stomachs churning and eyes wide with anticipation. Harry flexed and relaxed his hands, feeling the leather of his fingerless Quidditch gloves move with them and wanting to be on his broom already.

Flint wasted no time. “Gryffindor’ll be out for blood on this one.” They all knew it was because of the Chamber of Secrets nonsense. “So we don’t let them get ahead. We’ve got better brooms, we’ve got better maneuvers, we’ve got better players, and we’ve got a better point to prove.”

He paused, looking around. Harry’s teammates were nodding. Determined.

“So let’s go show this bloody school why we’ve had the Cup seven years running!” he finished.

“Slytherin!” they all bellowed in unison, and moved as one for the broom racks, where seven identical gleaming black-and-silver Nimbus 2001s waited patiently.

Harry grabbed his off the bottom rack and turned around right into Malfoy. “Remember what we talked about,” he hissed.

“I know, Potter, we went over it three times already,” Malfoy said, rolling his eyes.

Bole cuffed them lightly on the backs of their heads. “Stow it.”

They filed out into the corridor that led from their team rooms up to the pitch. The second Flint opened the door, the distant roar of the crowd got a lot louder. Adrenaline made its first appearance in Harry’s bloodstream. The corridor was wide and dim. He could see the pitch, and across it, Gryffindor’s exit, just a yawning dark square in the base of the pitch wall.

“Formation,” Flint said.

They shuffled into order. Flint walked at the front, with Pucey, Bletchley, and Harry abreast behind him. Derrick and Bole walked behind them and Malfoy brought up the rear, so they formed an inverted triangle walking together at their Captain’s back, brooms all held over their right shoulders so the silver fittings on the twigs and footrests would catch the light.

As usual, Lee Jordan was commentating. “The Slytherin team enters the pitch—Flint, Pucey, Potter, Bletchley, Derrick, Bole, and Malfoy!”

To enthusiastic cheers, the Slytherin team walked onto the field.

“And—I don’t believe it—they’re all flying Nimbus Two Thousand and Ones!” Jordan said suddenly. The pitch of the cheers turned from excited to frenzied. Harry couldn’t stop grinning.

It was electric.

“Pretty great, isn’t it?” Bletchley muttered.

“Incredible,” he said fervently.

“—fastest broom in the world, with revolving stirrups and revolutionary new aerodynamics applied to the tail shape—”

“Jordan!” McGonagall snapped.

“Sorry, professor—aaand welcoming the Gryffindor team! Wood, Spinnet, Johnson, Bell, Weasley, Weasley, and Potter! Bit of sibling rivalry on the pitch today, as the Potter twins face off in the air for the first time—although Harry Potter is playing Chaser for Slytherin instead of Seeker like many expected—”

Harry tuned him out and swung his broom down into mount position more or less in sync with the rest of his team. The Gryffindors spread out in a cluster opposite them with Madam Hooch in the middle.

“Now, I want a clean game,” Madam Hooch reminded them.

Wood and Flint shook hands. From his angle, Harry could see that Wood, at least, did not look inclined to play clean. He knew Flint well enough to guess the Slytherin captain was more or less in the same head space.

Harry glanced at Jules for the first time. His brother was glaring daggers at Harry and seemed to be trying to glare at Malfoy. Harry smirked at him, nodded minutely to the twins, and put all thoughts of friendship or familial bonds out of his mind. This was Quidditch, and he was a Slytherin. He didn’t have room for either.

“Mount up!”

Harry swung his leg over his broom, heart pounding with excitement.

“On my whistle. Three—two—one—”

With a roar from the crowd to speed them up, the fourteen players launched into the air.

The two Bludgers came for the Slytherins immediately. Derrick and Bole launched a furious attack. Harry trusted his Beaters and poured on the speed. Spinnet had the Quaffle and Flint was on her. Harry took Bell, marking her so closely their knees bumped—

Spinnet tried to pass. Bell lunged for it, but Harry’s broom was quicker; he pulled ahead, caught the Quaffle, fired it off to Pucey, who’d looped around for support, dodged another Bludger and then Derrick, who was hot on its tail—

The Chasers shot back up toward the Gryffindor goal posts—

“Oh no—Flint scores! Ten-zero to Slytherin—”

Not biased commentary at all, Harry thought savagely, body-checking Bell, the smallest of the Gryffindor Chasers, so hard she dropped the Quaffle—Harry dove for it, along with Bell, and Spinnet appeared from behind one of the raised seating sections—

Harry beat them both there.

He scooped the Quaffle into a Marks Grip without thinking, rolled under his broom to dodge a Bludger, and flew half the pitch upside down before he needed to turn and used the directional forces to flip himself back upright.

Wood and the goalposts loomed ahead, along with Angelina Johnson.

Pucey and Flint were rocketing into position.

Harry suddenly saw what maneuver they were going for, and grinned—

Yet another Bludger shot straight at his face. He jinked right, passed to Pucey, who immediately started a complex play with Flint while Harry went suddenly ignored—no one paid him any mind as he drifted around the back of the goalposts—

Seconds before Flint would’ve crossed the line into the scoring area, he completely abandoned the complex play he and Pucey’d been setting up, and fired the Quaffle straight at Harry.

Harry was already moving even as the Quaffle settled into his left arm, already urging his broom on higher, faster—he caught a glimpse of the Seekers high above, Jules’ flying erratic and desperate—looked like his and Malfoy’s plan was working, then—Harry looped around the back of the goalposts while Wood was hopelessly out of position and slammed the Quaffle through.

“Slytherin scores—twenty-zero to the snakes—clever play there, moving Potter into the scoring box while Chasers Pucey and Flint pretended to set up the incredibly complicated Jade Fire Offense—”

A Bludger slammed into Harry’s ribs.

How he hung onto his broom, Harry would never be able to say. Bole appeared out of nowhere and shot the Bludger straight into Wood, making him drop the Quaffle—Flint caught it, scored again—Harry could barely concentrate, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything more than cling to his broom and roll out of the way as the Bludger came back for him—

The same one that had been all game, except it was confused by the other Chasers.

Harry’s breath came back in a gasp and he rejoined play, determined to ignore the stabbing pain in his ribs. He’d probably fractured at least one. It didn’t matter. He’d had worse. And the best way to confuse the Bludger was stay in the pack of Chasers and keep moving.

Pucey scored twice, then Harry a second time, then Flint again. Slytherin was up sixty-nothing when Wood called for a time-out.

“We’ve got two rogue Bludgers,” Bole said the second their feet touched the ground. “One’s marked to Harry, the other to the Other Potter.”

“The one on me’s confused by the other Chasers,” Harry said. “I can manage it unless it kicks up its game.”

“You can manage it but we’re working double time just to keep it from disrupting your plays, never mind actually using the Bludgers against the other team,” Bole muttered.

“The Weasleys are stuck protecting the Other Potter too,” Flint said. “It’s not that big a problem.”

Harry looked over. The Gryffindor team was clearly arguing about something. “Malfoy, how’s Jules doing?”

Malfoy smirked. “He was starting to lose it—team’s probably giving him a pep talk now, but I can just keep calling him scarhead and bugging him about the brooms, works every time.”

Flint looked between them. “You were planning psychological warfare on the Other Potter?”

“He did,” Malfoy said grudgingly, nodding at Harry, who smirked.

“Clever,” Flint said. “Right, everyone got it? Beaters, keep that thing from killing Potter—Malfoy, just get the Snitch. Or keep Other Potter off it until we’re a hundred sixty up. We’re slaughtering them—let’s keep it up.”

Madam Hooch was approaching the Gryffindors. Harry waited, unsure if they were going to forfeit.

She conferred with the Gryffindors for a few minutes. For his part, Harry was counting on Jules’ stubbornness and Gryffindor pride to come through. No way would they forfeit and accept a tie. Rogue Bludgers could be sorted out later; continuing gameplay would mean they had a chance to win. A good one.

It started raining right about the time Madam Hooch stepped back from Wood. “Prepare to resume play!”

The Slytherin team hurriedly mounted their brooms. Harry tugged his goggles back into place and adjusted his glasses so they didn’t pinch.

The whistle blew.

He kicked off and shot into the air.

Within thirty seconds, though, it became obvious that the stakes were higher. Both Jules and Harry were forced into increasingly ridiculous maneuvers to avoid broken bones; the Bludgers were going at double or triple their usual speed and might actually kill on impact if they struck either player’s head. But neither of them was willing to call it.

Harry flubbed two plays before he decided enough was enough and did a circle around Flint, yelling “I’ll disrupt their Chasers with this bitch—run plays without me, I’m useless—” and then he had to do a sudden corkscrew dive, pull up at the last second, and dodge through the goal posts.

Either Flint heard him or came to the same conclusion. He and Pucey went after the Quaffle with grim determination. Slytherin domination was slowed now that they were down a Chaser, but Bletchley managed some fantastic saves and while Slytherin didn’t score any more, Gryffindor couldn’t put one through the hoops either. It helped that Harry could simply fly right for any Chaser pattern the Gryffindors tried to set up and use his superior turn radius to slingshot the Bludger straight at them.

He had no idea where Jules was, but it was nowhere near the Chaser play on the main pitch.

Harry’s Bludger came back at him—he dodged—it slammed into the side of the pitch barrier, ripping a massive hole in the canvas and shattering a number of the interior supports. Harry tore off again. The furious Bludger smashed its way back out a hundred meters down the barrier and chased him back up into the air.

  He caught a flicker of gold out of the corner of his eye—an excited murmur rose from the crowd—the Snitch had been spotted.

Malfoy was already going after it, Jules Potter hard on his heels.

Harry was forced to do a stupid kind of twirl in midair to avoid the Bludger. He zigzagged and rolled and used his better acceleration and turn ability to stay ahead of it. Twice it almost took out a Gryffindor Chaser. Harry caught a glimpse of Derrick and Bole; neither of them could use their bats or touch the Quaffle with the Bludgers occupied, and they were currently engaged in an elaborate game of body-check-each-other-without-getting-called-for-a-foul with the Weasley twins that seemed mostly aimed at occupying the other team’s Beaters and keeping them from mucking up Chaser plays on purpose. Harry left them to it and went and mucked up Gryffindor’s Chaser play.

A roar from the crowd told him something was going on—Harry whipped around a goalpost, heard the Bludger slam into it—soared almost straight up at Oliver Wood, forcing him to skip aside and leaving the left hoop clear for Pucey to score Slytherin’s seventh goal even from outside the scoring zone—he looked around for the Seekers and saw the tail end of Jules’ broom disappearing under the barrier. Harry was so shocked he almost got hit by the Bludger. The Snitch had taken advantage of the damage Harry’s Bludger had caused, and now it was leading the Seekers on a deadly obstacle course with the other rogue Bludger on their tail, and most surprisingly, self-serving Draco Malfoy had willingly followed it in there.

Harry would have to make an effort with him after this. Malfoy had actually been decent lately, and apparently he’d struck on something the blonde valued more than being a whiny prat.

Then the Bludger came whistling back and Harry put all thoughts of Malfoy aside.

He peeked at the scoreboard. 80-30. Gryffindor was gaining a bit of ground. They’d never get to 150 up at this rate.

Malfoy had to catch the Snitch. Harry was going to make sure that happened.

He was going to help his House win. He was going to prove his point.

Bludger hot on his heels, Harry dove and skimmed the ground. With a jerk and a shift of his weight he turned almost ninety degrees and screamed straight up, skimming the front of one of the stands. Screams echoed as he shot past the balcony and up. The Bludger smashed up through the inside of the seating section, but it wasn’t so far rogue that it forgot its charms to avoid spectators, and it swerved around the seating platform instead of smashing straight up through it. Harry used the precious seconds to turn around and look for the Seekers.

80-40 Slytherin.

Come on, come on—

Jules and Malfoy burst out of the same Bludger hole they’d gone in, having done a lap of the pitch in there. Malfoy was almost flat to his broom. They were neck and neck after the merrily zigzagging Snitch. Jules’ Bludger was hard on their heels and ready to take him out if he faltered.

Johnson and Spinnet pulled off a brilliant double-tap score. Harry shot up and cut off Katie Bell when she looped around to set up the second part of the play and lost sight of the Seekers for a few seconds.

The next time he looked over, Jules had fallen behind and Malfoy was reaching out—

“Muh… head… hurs.”

“Mr. Potter, please don’t try to speak.”

Harry blinked.

Strange room. Strange scents. Big blurs of people moving around him. He couldn’t see—no glasses, he was vulnerable, he couldn’t—couldn’t defend himself, he didn’t know where he was—

Harry sat straight upright. His stomach rolled. He struggled out from under his blankets—there were hands on him, holding him back, holding him down—

He tried to lash out with magic but nothing happened. He was too disoriented. He had no wand, he couldn’t see—

 “Harry! Harry!”

Someone slapped him in the face.

Harry blinked.

The person was leaning in close enough for him to see. Oh. Theo. Okay.

He looked around, aware he still probably looked wild—he couldn’t figure who was who, except the woman who was holding him back was probably Madame Pomfrey.

“Can I have my glasses,” he choked out, and then his body processed that he was not in fact in imminent danger and his nausea reasserted itself.

Harry turned and vomited on the floor.

Theo handed him his glasses. Harry jammed them onto his face and tried to calm his breathing. Okay—okay, this was okay.

Half the Slytherin Quidditch team was there; Bletchley, Pucey, and Malfoy. Plus Blaise, Pansy, and, touchingly, Neville, Justin, and Hermione, who looked massively uncomfortable but were ignoring the clot of Gryffindors clustered around a bed on the other side of the infirmary that probably belonged to Jules.

“Mr. Nott, I would be livid with you for slapping a patient if that had not worked,” Madame Pomfrey said through stiff lips. “Step back so that I may check him over.”

Theo smirked at Harry, unrepentant, and climbed off the bed. “Sorry about that.”

“Appreciate it,” Harry said. “The slap, not the apology.”

Madame Pomfrey ran a few diagnostics spells, forced half a bottle of nasty potion down his throat “to repair the damage to your lungs, and ribs and accelerate the healing of your concussion,” and bustled off to check on Jules, who apparently had somehow managed to not break but lose all the bones in his right arm.

Harry’s guests took her departure as a sign to cluster around the bed. Bletchley and Derrick were staunchly ignoring Hermione and Justin. Harry decided not to bother with that right now. Malfoy at least was not sneering at them. Improvement.

“What happened?”

“Bludger took you straight in the solar plexus,” Justin said. “Knocked you clean off your broom. The concussion’s from when you landed. We all thought you’d broken your neck.”

“It was bloody epic, mate,” Bletchley said with a manic smile. “You are brilliant on a broom, I mean—I saw it in practice but now I get why Wright wanted you—”

“Wait, Wright recruited him?” Malfoy said in outrage.

“I’d never flown before last year, Malfoy, how do you think I got this good this fast?” Harry said. He was less guarded than usual and hated it even as the words kept coming. “He caught me sneaking out to fly last Christmas and trained me in secret for all second term.”

Malfoy muttered his irritation.

“You’re all right?” Hermione said.

“Never better,” Harry said with a weak smile.

Pansy sat on his feet. “Mhm. Sure.”

“Spectacular projectile vomit,” Blaise said. “I’m going to preserve that memory so I can relive it if I ever get a Penseive.”

Harry looked at his teammates. “What happened in the match? You lot look happy, so I’m guessing we won.”

“Two thirty to sixty,” Derrick said smugly.

“Brilliant catch,” Harry said to Malfoy. “When you went under the stands—I thought you were both going to die under there—”

Malfoy looked immensely pleased. “It was brilliant. My father came to watch today—he was pleased to see his gift being put to good use.”

“Oh,” Hermione said. Her cheeks flushed a dull red with anger. “So that’s how—you bought your way onto the team!”

“Hermione!” Neville said sharply, pushing her back into her chair.

Malfoy glared at her. “What did you say, you little—”

He caught Harry’s glare, and changed tack midsentence. “—M—Gryffindor?”

Bletchley and Derrick definitely noticed that interaction.

“He didn’t, ‘Mione,” Harry said. Talking was hard. He wanted to sleep. “Only told us… ‘bout the brooms after tryouts. Was a gift. No bribe.”

Hermione folded her arms.

Malfoy glared. She glared back.

“Okay,” Justin said. “Harry. I’m glad you’re all right.”

“Thanks, Jus’in,” Harry said with a grin. Clearly the potion was kicking in. He hated being this loopy. Theo saw it and intervened.

“Someone tell Harry about Lockhart,” he said gleefully.

Neville perked up. “Oh, Merlin, it was—you know Jules’ arm got broken, right?”

“Yes,” Harry said, and knew his satisfaction wasn’t hidden at all.

Neville winced. “Right—well, Lockhart did his whole I’m-the-best-at-everything routine—Ron and Hermione tried to stop him, but—well, he tried to mend the bones but ended up removing them instead.”

Harry remembered a Bone-Removing Curse. He met Bletchley’s eyes and knew the fifth year remembered too. Bletchley shook his head minutely; so it had been an accident and not the actual curse. Lockhart would stay classed as irritating idiot in Harry’s mental people files instead of active threat.

“Please tell me he didn’t get near me,” Harry said, suddenly apprehensive.

Derrick sniggered. “Nah, Flint threatened to hex him while Pucey and I carried you off.”

“Remind me to buy Flint… a bouquet,” Harry said, eyes slipping closed. He blinked them open again, determined to stay awake.

Theo and Blaise exchanged a smirking glance. Harry was fairly sure they were already mentally planning flower arrangements and owl orders.

“Party in the House common room tonight,” Derrick said. “Pity you can’t be there, Potter—Pomfrey says she’s keeping you at least overnight—can’t disagree, honestly, brains are nasty to mess with.”

“I like my brain working without bruises,” Harry agreed.

“Merlin, he’s loopy,” Bletchley muttered.

“No, Pansy, don’t start asking him probing questions,” Blaise said suddenly. “I know that look. I’m not letting you use his injury for gossip gathering.”

Pansy sighed dramatically. “You take all the fun out of life.”

Harry’s non-Slytherin friends looked a little flabbergasted by these interactions.

Madame Pomfrey came bustling back over. “All right, it’s going on eight o’clock and my patients need sleep. Out,” she said firmly.

“We’ll save you some butterbeer,” Blaise whispered as the Quidditch guys filed out. Malfoy met Harry’s eyes one last time. Harry was expecting a sneer, or crude dismissal—

—and instead, he got a grin.

Startled, Harry grinned back.

Hermione caught it.

Harry blinked at her slowly. “Thanks for… coming, ‘Mione. Nev. Justin. I know… they’re not… easy for you.”

“Of course,” Hermione said firmly. She smiled at him.

Justin patted him on the shoulder. “Get better soon, Harry, study group won’t be the same without you,” and they left, too.

“Nice to see you’ve got Malfoy on such a leash,” Theo said.

Harry grinned.

Madame Pomfrey realized he still had guests. “Out! Out!”

Blaise and Theo fled.

Harry let himself slip into sleep…

Crack!

For the second time in the last few hours, Harry sat bolt upright in surprise.

This time, he had his glasses on and he wasn’t coming out of unconsciousness created by a blow to the head, so he was a lot less disoriented and managed not to yell when he found a house-elf sitting on his legs.

“What the—Dobby?” he hissed.

Jules’ bed had been pushed next to Harry’s for the night. He blinked and sat up, arm in a sling. “Harry? What—hey, it’s the crazy elf! Whose is he?”

“Hello to you too,” Harry said. “I don’t know, he won’t say.”

Dobby moaned suddenly. “Dobby is being a bad house-elf, sirs, Dobby’s masters would not want Dobby to be here—”

Harry was used to the elf’s habits and managed to haul him back before he got hold of the potion bottle. “No, sit down and don’t do that,” he said firmly. “Why are you here?”

“Hadrian and Julian Potter came back to school,” Dobby said miserably. “Dobby had hoped to keep them at home, Dobby warned and warned them, but they came to school even though they missed the train…”

Harry narrowed his eyes. “You’re the one that closed the barrier.”

“Why you little—!” Jules exclaimed.

“Indeed, sirs,” Dobby said, long ears flapping as he nodded. “Dobby hid and watched for the Potter twins and Dobby had to iron his hands afterward, sirs—” he showed them ten long, bandaged fingers— “but Dobby didn’t care, sirs, Dobby thought the Potters were safe, never did Dobby imagine they’d find other ways to go to school… Dobby was so shocked to hear the Potters were back at Hogwarts that he let his master’s dinner burn! Such a flogging Dobby has never had…”

“You nearly got Ron and me expelled,” Jules said. Harry bit back a snort; he hadn’t heard that. “You’d better get lost before my bones grow back—”

“Dobby is used to threats, sir,” Dobby said with a weak smile. “Dobby gets them five times a day at home.”

“Well, and that’s very sad, and your masters are awful, but that doesn’t give you an excuse to muck with our lives,” Harry said firmly.

“You could just tell us—” Jules began.

“No!” Dobby moaned. “Dobby cannot, Dobby thought his Bludgers would be enough to send the Potters home—”

“Your Bludgers?” Jules demanded at the same time as Harry said “That’s that cleared up, at least” and throttled his icy fury with a brutal hand. The first lessons in Occlumency were clearing one’s mind and controlling emotions and he’d been practicing lately. It was easier to stifle and think through than it once would’ve been.

“Why did you want us sent home in pieces?” Jules said.

“Ah, if Julian Potter only knew!” Dobby wailed, blowing his nose into his pillowcase. “What he means to us, the lowly, the enslaved, we dregs of the magical world! Dobby remembers how the house-elves were treated when He Who Must Not Be Named was at the height of his power! We were treated like vermin… Of course, Dobby is still treated like vermin, but many of his brothers and sisters see much better lives, serve much better masters now… Julian Potter triumphed, and a new dawn came to the wizarding world, and the Dark Lord was vanquished… And now, at Hogwarts, terrible things are about to happen, terrible secrets are coming to light, are perhaps happening and coming already, and Dobby cannot let the Potters stay here now that history is repeating itself and the Chamber of Secrets is open once more—”

This time, Harry was far too distracted by the ramifications of what Dobby had just said to worry about the elf’s self-punishment routine. He was too slow. Dobby lunged, grabbed the water pitcher on Harry’s bedside table, and cracked it over his own head. Jules jumped.

Dobby crawled back onto Harry’s bed a second later, looking distinctly cross-eyed. “Bad Dobby, very bad Dobby…”

“So the Chamber does exist,” Jules whispered. “And—did you say it’s been opened before? Dobby—tell me!”

“Dobby cannot, ask no more of poor Dobby…”

“Who’s opened it before? When? What happened?”

“Jules, stow it,” Harry said. “He’s going for the pitcher again, we’re not going to get any more out of him. Have you been directly ordered not to tell us?”

“Ordered not to tell anyone, sirs,” Dobby said, trembling. “Go home, the Potters must go home!”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Jules said firmly. “If the Chamber really has been opened—”

Personally, if there was a monster running around Hogwarts, Harry wouldn’t want to be living here. But Hogwarts was his home. Hogwarts was his ticket out of the Dursleys’ miserable life, out of being reliant on James Potter. He’d take the monster.

“We have Muggle-born friends,” Harry said. “If the Chamber’s been opened and the Heir’s enemies are actually Muggle-borns—Jules, shut up, we don’t actually have evidence of that yet—some of our friends would be first in line.”

“The Potters risk their lives for their friends,” Dobby moaned. “So noble, so valiant, the both of you, Dobby had not known a Slytherin could be so loyal…”

“Hey,” Harry said. “One of my House values is loyalty. Just, you know, to those who earn it.”

“Lying, sneaky gits,” Jules muttered.

Harry glared at him. “And Gryffindors are reckless, headstrong idiots, what’s your point?”

Dobby suddenly froze, bat ears quivering. “People come,” he whispered urgently. “Dobby must go—and the Potters must go home—”

He vanished with a crack.

Jules and Harry heard it then—footsteps from the corridor. They locked eyes for half a second and collapsed in perfect synchrony onto their pillows, feigning sleep. Harry kept his glasses on, banking on them not noticing.

Next second, Dumbledore backed into the room, wearing a long woolen nightrobe and a cap. He and Professor McGonagall appeared to be carrying a statue. “Fetch Madame Pomfrey,” Dumbledore whispered, and McGonagall hurried away.

Madame Pomfrey swept into view on McGonagall’s heels, tugging a cardigan lopsidedly on over her nightgown. She inhaled sharply. “What happened?”

“Another attack,” Dumbledore said heavily.

“We found a bunch of grapes on the stairs with him,” McGonagall said. “We think he was trying to sneak up here to visit the Potters. We found this next to him.” She held up a camera.

Jules shifted a few inches up, carefully, to get a better look. Harry already knew—had known since he saw the camera. Colin Creevey.

“Petrified,” Madame Pomfrey breathed.

“Yes,” McGonagall said. “But I shudder to think—if Albus hadn’t been going downstairs for a cup of hot chocolate… what might have happened.”

And why didn’t he just summon a house-elf? What was the Headmaster doing wandering the halls in a wooly nightrobe and a hat?

Dumbledore pried open the back of the camera. A jet of steam shot forth; Harry caught the scent of burned plastic.

“Good gracious!” McGonagall said. “But… Albus, does this mean…”

“Yes,” Dumbledore said heavily. “I am afraid… that the Chamber of Secrets has again been opened.”

McGonagall and Pomfrey both gasped.

“Who?” McGonagall said in a hushed voice.

Dumbledore looked down on Colin. His face was cast entirely in shadow. “The question is not who, Minerva, but how…”

Well, and that was just perfectly cryptic. Yet another example of the Headmaster withholding information. Harry had not forgotten that all the evidence indicated Dumbledore had manipulated several eleven-year-olds into a confrontation with Voldemort last year—and now he seemed to know more than anyone else, and keep his cards to himself. Almost like—almost like he knew there was someone, or two someones, awake and listening. Almost like he wanted those two someones to get curious and go looking on their own.

Chapter Text

November 9, 1992

Harry’s second day in the hospital wing had been horribly boring, as no one was permitted in for the sake of keeping them from gawping at Colin. He’d known rumors would fly, and sure enough, when he was released after two nights in the hospital wing and returned to Slytherin, everyone was wildly curious and ready to pump him for information. Because they were Slytherins, this came in the shape of subtle inquiries for information couched in other things, and carefully phrased questions that were supposed to knock him off guard and make him reveal something he didn’t want to. Harry appreciated the practice he got with word games and the attention he was receiving from the upper years. Apparently his performance in the Quidditch game and his possession of valued information shifted the balance from “actively ignore Harry Potter’s existence” to cautiously neutral interest.

It took him two hours to make it out of the common room with Pansy in tow and head for the boys’ dorm. He’d signaled Blaise and Theo to go that direction twenty minutes prior. Malfoy and the beefcakes were still in the common room, Malfoy basking in the glory of his suicidal run through the inside of the pitch wall and then his epic catch amidst rogue Bludgers and the beefcakes hanging out because they didn’t seem to have hobbies beyond shadowing Malfoy. Meaning Harry and his friends had the second year boys’ dorm to themselves.

Harry shut the door and raised his wand. “Colloportus maximus. Caesum sonare.”

Theo and Blaise were already waiting, but the wards piqued their interest. “Why the secrecy?” Blaise said.

“The Chamber of Secrets exists, the teachers know about it, and it’s happened before,” Harry said flatly, turning around.

There was a moment of silence.

“How do you know this?” Pansy said.

“Remember the crazy house-elf? Yeah, he came back, and this time he let something slip. Then Jules and I faked sleep while they brought Creevey in and we overheard more.” Harry told them what he’d learned from Dobby and from eavesdropping on the headmaster, ending with, “I kind of suspect he’s setting Jules up for some epic confrontation like last year, but there’s not a lot I can do with Jules. He doesn’t like me and he doesn’t listen to me.”

“The rumors about you being Slytherin’s heir are back,” Pansy said. “Someone overheard you telling Creevey to bugger off in the entrance hall—”

“I didn’t tell him to bugger off,” Harry said indignantly.

She shrugged. “Not exactly, but does it matter? This is the rumor mill we’re talking about.”

“Point.”

“And if the Chamber does exist, everyone will be watching your every move to try to figure out when and how you’re supposedly sneaking off to it,” she finished.

Theo narrowed his eyes. “You’re not actually Slytherin’s heir, are you?”

Harry hesitated.

“Harry,” Blaise said. “Explain.”

“It’s easier to show you.” Harry looked at the snake floor. “Mariko?”

“Harry, what was that—” Theo began.

Harry held up a hand. “Shh.”

A few seconds later, a slender brown snake about half a meter long slid out of a crack in the stone, tongue flickering.  

“Hi, Mariko. Thanks for coming. I’m showing them I can speak Parseltongue,” Harry told the snake.

Pansy yelped. Blaise sat bolt upright. Theo only angled his head slightly, eyes glittering.

“You’re a Parselmouth,” Blaise breathed.

“Yes, thank you, Captain Obvious,” Harry said.

Pansy threw a pillow at him. “You—don’t be like that, you know how much of a shock this is!”

“Why?” Theo said quietly.

Harry met his hard gaze. “Because… it’s a Dark wizard’s gift. Voldemort’s gift. By the time I knew I could trust you guys, it was a ways into the school year and it didn’t feel like a good time. ‘Oh, by the way, Theo, Blaise, I just happen to have this extremely rare ability that has some really spectacularly bad connotations, okay let’s go back to Potions homework.’”

Blaise nodded slowly. “I… suppose that makes sense.”

“Did you never consider we might not care about those connotations?” Theo said.

Harry narrowed his eyes. Because they knew Harry and would blow off the connotations due to friendship, or because they supported the Dark Lord and so didn’t consider a Dark gift a bad thing?

“How long have you known?” Blaise said.

“Years. I didn’t know what it was called, of course—I met a grass snake in the garden at my aunt’s house, and after that a lot of them would come by to talk while I was out there working. Which was a lot, in the summer. It was only once I started reading wizard books that first summer that I realized what people think of Parselmouths. I decided to keep it secret. I only realized how many snakes there are in the castle at the end of last year when I heard Mariko complaining about the stones being cold.”

“Salazar Slytherin was a Parselmouth,” Theo said.

Harry raised an eyebrow. "How astute."

Theo rolled his eyes. 

“You realize this knowledge could dramatically improve your relationship with the upper years,” Pansy said. When Harry looked at her, she smirked. “Don’t think we haven’t noticed—half of them want to hex you into pieces but won’t because of Quidditch, and those that tried anyway ended up mysteriously covered in boils, missing half their homework, or in the hospital wing, all of which the Quidditch team seemed very confused by since they hadn’t done anything. The other half watch you like, excuse the pun, a snake they found in their bed and can't decide to kill or befriend. And then there’s Theo’s little feud with the Carrows…”

Theo shrugged when Harry raised an eyebrow at him. “Their grandfather, mother, and uncle are all in Azkaban. Flora and Hestia have a grudge, apparently. I’m handling it.”

“You are, admirably, but that’s not the point. If they all knew Harry’s a Parselmouth? And that we’re friends with him?”

“It can’t get out, Pansy,” Harry said, his voice as cold as he’d ever heard it.

She deflated a bit. “I know.”

He stared her down, releasing the damper on his eye color a bit.

“Okay, fine. I promise to keep this a secret. Happy?”

“Not remotely. Half the school thinks I’m a murderer, I can’t walk to class without hexes flying, and if I don’t alibi out of the next one, it’ll be even worse. Hermione said Binns said the school’s been searched loads of times for the Chamber. My thinking is if Slytherin hid a secret room in the castle, you’d access it from here.”

“Logical,” Blaise said. “So we’re searching.”

“Tonight. All of us. And as many nights as we need to search these dungeons from top to bottom,” Harry said grimly. “Including the back halls no one ever uses. Hold on—I need to check something.”

He turned back to the snake. “Mariko.”

“Yes, Speaker-two-legs-Harry?”

“What do you know about the Heir of Slytherin?”

She hissed thoughtfully. “I know the Founder-Speaker-two-legs-Slytherin left certain opportunities for those with his gift within this old heap of stones… I know there have been several over the centuries… The snakes of Hogwarts come and go but we pass the stories on.”

“Am I one of them? The Heirs?”

“You speak the Founder’s sacred tongue,” she said. Harry was aware of his friends watching with fascination. “I know not if your blood can trace to his.”

“Who was the last Heir of Slytherin? When was he here in this castle?”

“He has forbidden us from revealing the answers to such questions, or telling anything about previous Heirs. He is no longer here.” Mariko eyed him pointedly. “Should a new Heir of the Speaker-Founder claim his or her birthright, the previous Heir’s commands could be overridden, but until such time we are bound to our silence on the matter. I am sorry to not be of more help.”

Harry was glad he’d taken the time to talk to and befriend Mariko and a few other snakes he’d found around the dungeons. “Thank you, Mariko.”

“I wish you good hunting and quick strikes, young Speaker-two-legs.”

“And you.”

He turned back to his friends as Mariko vanished back beneath the stone floor.

“That was…” Blaise finished with “weird” at the same time as Theo said “incredible.” They looked at each other and laughed.

“What’d it say?” Pansy said.

“Basically that the last Heir told all the snakes to keep their mouths shut until the new Heir “claims their birthright,” which I assume means accessing the Chamber. Which, no, I have not, which tells me either there’s an actual Heir running around the school or one of the previous ones left a set of instructions lying around somewhere. It seems like Parseltongue is tied to the whole Heir thing, though—makes sense, since that was Slytherin’s gift in the first place… She did say the old Heir isn’t here anymore. So it has to be someone who’s already graduated—and long enough ago that none of us or the upper years or anyone’s relatives remembers.”

Pansy sighed. “And there goes my hope of an easy answer. If I break my nails poking around the corners of the dungeons, Harry, I’ll hex you.”

“Fair,” Harry said. “Will you hold off on the hexes if I can find a nail-repairing spell?”

“I’ll consider it.”

November 11, 1992

The study group was unusually grim.

Harry did his best to keep a low profile, focusing on his Potions essay, and then helping Neville with his Potions essay, and then moving on to practicing Engorgement Charms.

He kept half an ear on the general flow of conversation. Everyone was dancing around what they really wanted to talk about. Harry found it tiresome. When Slytherins danced around something, it was an entertaining game. When Gryffindors and Ravenclaws tried, it was just painful to listen to.

“Harry, Jules said you saw him be brought in,” Hannah said at last. “What did he look like?”

Harry resigned himself to having this conversation. “A statue,” he said. “Like Mrs. Norris, except—well, creepier, because it was Colin.” He hesitated, and then told them about the camera and Dumbledore’s comment confirming the Chamber had been opened before. Jules would’ve told the Gryffindors already, at least.

Hermione nodded, confirming his guess. “I wonder how many times it’s been opened before that? How many times Slytherin’s heirs have tried to—to kill Muggle-borns?” Her cheeks burned with anger.

“Of course it was bloody Slytherin who put a blood purist monster in the castle,” Justin said.

“You’ve got six Slytherins at this table,” Daphne said with a coldness to her voice that hadn’t been there for a while in study group. “Mind how you speak of our Founder.”

“I’m sorry, but it’s true,” Justin said. “You know I was down for Eton before this? Mum was disappointed that I ended up coming to Hogwarts. Disappointed, not—horrified or—disgusted. She doesn’t—it’s not like Muggles learn about wizards and automatically hate them. Wizards are the ones running around with the blood purist crap—”

“Just because your mother handled it well doesn’t mean they all will,” Harry said. “Look at my family.”

“Harry, if Justin can’t extrapolate his mother to all Muggles, you can’t do the same for your family,” Hermione said, clearly struggling to keep an even tone.

“No! I’m not saying that! I’m saying people hate and fear what they don’t understand,” Harry said. His mind was full of freak, abomination, corrupting our home, keep you away from our son, useless lazy layabout freak. “I’m saying it’s not unreasonable for a wizard in a time of persection to have wanted to keep Muggle-borns out when they might have dangerous Muggle ideas about magic.”

“The point remains that Slytherin wanted to kill Muggle-borns just based on their birth,” Hermione snapped. “You can’t—you can’t make decisions or judgments about people based on what they can’t control!”

“No,” Daphne said. “The point remains that Hogwarts was founded in a time when Muggles were systematically persecuting wizards.”

Harry blinked. He’d never thought of it that way before—but she was right.

“Oh please, they were wizards,” Hermione said. “They had magic!”

“Hermione,” Neville said. “You are one.”

She looked startled. “I know?”

“You said they,” Neville said weakly.

“Well—I was talking about wizards in the past!”

“Fine,” Theo snapped, leaning forward. Harry didn’t think he’d ever seen his friend this angry. “They had magic. Now imagine you were caught by surprise and drugged or something, or maybe you didn’t want to prove them right, and you’re tied to a stake and they start a fire at your feet. What do you do?”

Hermione stared at him. “I cast a Fireproofing Charm, obviously. Then spell the ropes off.”

“Your wand’s in your pocket,” Theo said. “Or maybe broken, or up your sleeve—either way you can’t reach it. Then what do you do?”

“Isn’t this why Floo powder was invented?” Justin said. “I read that somewhere in a book about the witch hunts.”

Hermione nodded, looking pissed. “I’d just throw some down and escape.”

“Great plan,” Blaise said. “Now what? Instead of a fire, next time they’ll throw someone in the lake wrapped in chains. Or behead them. Or coat them with tar. Or slow roast them. All things Muggles thought up to kill wizards. They’re not exactly helpless against us. And they're not stupid; eventually they'd notice magic happens when we're holding our pathetic little wood sticks in our hands, and take them away before they throw you in the lake or the fire.”

“And for that matter, if you vanished in the Floo, where d’you think they’d look?” Theo said. “Your house, maybe? Where your parents are, Hermione, or your little sister, Justin—”

Justin looked a little sick. “All right, you’ve made your point—”

“No, they haven’t!” Hermione glared around the table. “Persecution of wizards centuries ago doesn’t condone murder! You don’t put a dangerous monster in a school!”

“Someone should tell Dumbledore that,” Harry said, more nastily than he’d intended. “I seem to remember him baiting a trap for a Dark Lord last year, planting a bloody Cerberus on top of it, and manipulating an eleven-year-old and his friends to go gallivanting off through a gauntlet of deadly traps all to orchestrate yet another confrontation between the Boy Who Lived and his great foe!”

“Dumbledore wouldn’t do that,” Hermione snarled.

“Except he did. Think about the evidence, ‘Mione,” Theo said.

She rounded on him. “Don’t call me that! I can’t believe you all! I thought—so what, you look down on me for my birth? Am I just a filthy Mudblood?”

 “You’re our friend,” Daphne said coldly. “Or, at least, I thought so. And you know what friends do? They listen. They try to be open-minded.”

“Oh, like you were open-minded about me last year?” Hermione said furiously. “You all looked at me like scum in study group for months!”

“Because you ignored our entire culture while ranting narrow-mindedly about your own! Because you bossed everyone around and tried to make the lot of us feel stupid for not keeping up with the brightest witch of our age!” Theo’s imitation of Flitwick’s squeaky voice was cruel but accurate. 

Hermione looked like she’d been slapped. Then she looked madder. “I did no such thing! I was only trying to help! And if you can’t see that, well, that’s your narrow mind talking; you probably felt threatened by me, it’s not possible a mere Mudblood could be better than all the perfect little purebloods—”

“Blood matters,” Theo hissed. “Ability matters more.”

Harry saw something odd in Pansy’s face. And Daphne's.

“That doesn’t condone murder based on blood!” Hermione was practically shaking with rage. Her accusatory gaze swept like fire over all of them. Harry didn’t know—anger sat cold and heavy in his stomach, but so did confusion, so did hesitation, not to mention discomfort—

“Slytherin put a monster in the basement and set it up so his blood purist heirs could follow in his footsteps years later!” Hermione said. “Half of Gryffindor thinks it’s Malfoy—”

This idea was so patently ridiculous that Blaise and Tracy actually laughed; Harry and Daphne smiled, which was as close to laughter as either came in this circle.

“You’re joking,” Pansy said.

Hermione looked between them, smug for some reason. “I thought you didn’t like him.”

“Harry, you’ve been friendly with him after Quidditch, right?” Justin said.

Harry shrugged. “We’re not hexing the other every time one of us turns our back now. I’d say it’s an improvement. We have a common goal. That doesn’t mean I like him. You’ll notice he’s never been invited along here.”

“Don’t think I didn’t notice you had to stop him from calling me mudblood,” Hermione spat. “In the hospital wing.”

“You’re subtle,” Justin said. “He isn’t.”

“Does the fact that I could even get him to stop make a difference?” Harry said mildly.

Hermione threw her hands up. So that was a no.

“It’s not Malfoy,” Theo said. “He has no subtlety, no tact, no hint of the cunning it would take to pull this off. He’s just a pompous spoiled prat who throws his family name around and tries to bluster his way to what he wants and sulks when it fails.”

“He’s a git,” Justin said. “And he comes from an old pureblood family—the Malfoys are about as likely to know about the Chamber as you can get. I wouldn’t be surprised if Lucius Malfoy had some old Dark artifact that helps you get to the Chamber and control the monster, and of course he’d pass it on to his son.”

“It’s not Malfoy,” Harry repeated.

“How can you be so sure?” Hermione said, glaring. “By your own admission, you’re not friends. It’s not as if you can speak for his every movement.”

“No,” Harry said, “but I do live with him. I think that makes me more qualified to speak on the subject than you.”

“Or less,” Lisa said softly. “Harry… consider your House bias here.”

He stared at her.

“What, like your House bias doesn’t exist?” Theo demanded. “Like Slytherins never have to deal with prejudice, with people assuming we're all just baby bigots off to run around murdering people for fun as soon as they see the green in our ties and robes? Like almost every teacher in the school isn't reluctant to give us points? Like all of our opinions about our House mates even if we don't like whoever we're talking about don't bloody matter because-”

“Theo,” Harry said quietly.

Theo huffed and sat back.

“It’s not Malfoy,” Harry said flatly.

There was a pause.

“I can’t believe you,” Hermione said. “I thought—being Muggle-raised—you’d at least understand—how can you defend him?”

“Because we know it’s not him,” Harry said.

Neville met Harry’s eyes. The Gryffindor boy was deeply uncomfortable—clearly he wanted to stay out of it. To not lose his only ally in Gryffindor or one of his good friends by arguing one way or the other.

Harry could save him the choice. “It’s all ancient history,” he said. “The problem isn’t who did what a thousand years ago, when we can never be sure and can’t change a thing. The problem is that someone is using the monster for evil now.”

Hermione was staring at him, betrayed. “You know,” she said heatedly, “Jules thinks it’s you, Harry.”

Harry choked. “He what?”

“And I laughed in his face. I told him it was stupid.” Hermione slammed her textbook loudly enough to make Neville jump. “You know what? Now I’m not so sure.”

She grabbed her things and stormed out of the room.

Silence reigned.

“Er… right,” Hannah said. “I’m… running a research task force. To figure out what the monster actually is. Anyone want to help?”

Anthony, Sue, and Lisa all volunteered. Harry knew Justin was already involved and Hermione would probably sign on later, when she wasn’t marching off in a huff. They eventually went back to reviewing their History of Magic essays, but Justin and Neville seemed distracted.

Harry was, too, but for different reasons. He suspected that his Slytherin friends had been avoiding certain topics with him for a while—it was uncomfortable to find that he actually agreed with them.

Then he checked himself. Why was it uncomfortable? Because somehow, he’d internalized what James and Dumbledore considered healthy beliefs, he realized with not a little horror. He felt uncomfortable because he’d bought into their lines that everything a Slytherin thought was wrong.

But if they thought these beliefs were bad—Harry didn’t like or trust either James or Dumbledore. Why did he bother with what they’d think of his opinions anyway?

November 13, 1992

Harry’s classes were rapidly becoming nightmarish.

Herbology with the Hufflepuffs was uncomfortable. Justin worked at Harry’s table and stubbornly ignored the suspicious glares the rest of Hufflepuff was giving them. Things between him and Harry had been a bit tense after the argument in the study group, but not as much as with Hermione. Harry told Justin point blank that if the Hufflepuffs got weird about Justin and Harry’s friendship, Justin could cut ties and Harry wouldn’t hold it against him. Justin looked at him like he was mad and told him to focus on mixing his mandrake fertilizer. Defense was even worse—Harry had taken to casting the Notice-Me-Not charm on himself in class just to keep Lockhart from calling him up for dramatic reenactments of all Lockhart’s successes. After being ordered to howl like a werewolf and let Lockhart tackle him, Harry was done. He concentrated on studying Defense Against the Dark Arts, and to some extent actual Dark Arts, in his free time and did other classwork while Lockhart prattled on and patted his hair.

Potions had always been one of Harry’s favorite classes, but he was rapidly gaining a fervent appreciation for it. Snape still aggressively pretended he didn’t exist—Harry’s surname canceled any Slytherin favoritism—but he ruled his classroom with an iron fist and it was a welcome relief from the whispers.

“We will be brewing Swelling Solutions,” Snape said. Harry narrowed his eyes and ran through lists of ingredients in his head. He hadn’t actually opened the second-year Potions textbook outside of class for two months… There’d be puffer-fish eyes involved; the consistency should be relatively thick but not to the point of a paste or gel…

Harry and Pansy ended up brewing together. Theo and Blaise sniped at each other across the table. Pansy was good at Potions, if not great; she and Harry bickered amiably and smirked as Snape made snide comments about Finnegan, Weasley, Thomas, and Jules’ potions.

Snape swept past Neville and Hermione’s cauldron with barely a glance.

There was a flicker of motion in Harry’s peripheral vision—

Goyle’s potion exploded.

Harry yelled as half-completed Swelling Solution splashed across his left hand. His fingers immediately started growing with uncomfortable heat and pressure. Goyle’s eyes were the size of dinner plates; Malfoy’s nose was swelling and the blond was shrieking in horror.

One person seemed unsurprised by the chaos. Four, actually—Finnegan, Weasley, and Jules were laughing, and Hermione was—

Where was Hermione?

“SILENCE!” Snape roared. “Anyone who has been splashed, come here for a Deflating Draught—when I find out who did this—”

Harry hurried up and got in line with most of the Slytherins plus Neville and Lavender. Pansy’s lips were the size of sausages and drooping forward; Malfoy’s nose had grown to the point that it dragged his head forward and down under its own weight.

He spotted Hermione, wearing a shifty expression and just standing up from behind her cauldron. Harry frowned—had she been lurking back there the whole time, or…

“Neville,” he muttered under the cover of them both chugging vials of Deflating Draught. “Where’d Hermione go?”

Neville glanced over his shoulder. “She’s right there—oh—what, she went somewhere?”

“Never mind,” Harry said, “I just didn’t see her for a sec—have she and Jules and Ron been planning anything?”

“They were muttering about something in the common room last night… I thought it was weird, she doesn’t usually spend time around them in the evenings, they hate studying…”

“Thanks,” Harry said. “And hey, it wasn’t your potion that blew up this time…”

Neville grinned. It was maybe the first time Harry had ever seen him look happy in Potions. “Hermione wasn’t even paying attention—most of our potion was my work today, and it worked, it’s what splashed me, not Goyle’s, I jumped and bumped our cauldron…”

“Great work,” Harry said, genuinely proud. Neville had been working his pants off to keep up in Potions for a year and a half. Although, probably if Snape hadn’t backed off him a bit he’d still be causing disasters every other week. Or maybe cause and effect was the other way around, who knew.

“Thanks,” Neville said.

They split back to their own tables. Harry extinguished the fire beneath their cauldron; the potion had been simmering too long while he and Pansy got their swollen body parts deflated and wasn’t salvageable.

The class settled back down, muttering quietly.

Snape swept over to Goyle’s cauldron, fished about for a bit, and drew out the twisted, blackened remains of a firework.

Harry’s head snapped up and over to the Gryffindors. Jules was looking suspiciously wide-eyed.

“If I find out who threw this,” Snape whispered, “I shall make sure that person is expelled.”

Jules was attempting to look puzzled. It mostly just looked awkward.

Snape put the lot of them to work scrubbing the desks down until the bell rang.

“Hermione,” Harry said. “Hey—hey, ‘Mione, wait up.”

She paused and gave him a distinctly cool glance. “What, Harry?”

“What are you lot playing at?” he said, trying to not let her see his worry and irritation. “Causing chaos in Snape’s class—”

“I know what I’m doing,” Hermione hissed.

“I know you do,” he said, “that wasn’t what I meant—”

“Shove off, Potter,” Weasley snarled, elbowing between them. “Can’t you take a hint?”

“Hermione, talk to me,” Harry said, ignoring Weasley as best he could.

“Ron, go away,” Hermione said irritably, moving around Weasley again. “Harry, look, it’s nothing to do with you. Stay out of it.”

He looked away. “Fine,” he said, a bit tightly, and hurried ahead to walk with Theo and Neville.

November 19, 1992

“Blaise—Harry—come see!”

Blaise and Harry headed over to Neville at the entrance hall notice board. “What, is Dumbledore hiding another monster in the castle as a badly disguised trap for the Dark Lord?” Blaise said.

Neville shrugged. “He might be, it’s not like we’d hear about it, since the lot of us are beneath his notice. No—they’re starting a Dueling Club! Second years, tonight at eight in the Great Hall.”

“Well, if that’s not an invitation to mess with Weasley…” Blaise said.

“Can we just… put grudges aside?” Neville said. The three of them started for the Great Hall. “For one evening?”

Harry and Blaise glanced at each other. “Doubtful,” they said in unison.

“But it’ll be useful,” Harry added. “And we can minimize how much we take advantage of this. Right, Blaise?”

Blaise turned up his nose. “That’s a conversation you need to have with Theo, not me. He’s far less mature than I am.”

“Meaning… more petty and vindictive?” Neville said.

Blaise smirked.

“That’s a yes,” Harry stage whispered to Neville.

The Gryffindor laughed and then sheered off to sit with his House.

“So,” Blaise said. “Dueling club.”

Harry nodded.

“This should be interesting,” Blaise said with a smirk.

At eight o’clock that night, Harry, Theo, Blaise, and Pansy hurried up to the Great Hall. They’d lost track of time searching some of the last few dusty forgotten rooms in the back of the Slytherin dorms—with no luck—and were a bit behind their peers. When they slipped into the Great Hall, it seemed like their entire form had come. The House tables had disappeared and been replaced with a long, golden stage at one end of the Hall.

“I wonder who’s teaching?” Pansy said. “Flitwick was a dueling champion when he was young; he championed the European circuit four times and won the International Wizards’ Dueling Tournament in 1951.”

“As long as it’s not—” Harry began, and then groaned.

“You cursed it,” Theo said sourly as Gilderoy Lockhart paraded out onto the stage, flashing his gleaming smile.

“Oh thank Merlin,” Blaise said with feeling, as Snape followed Lockhart out onto the stage. “Some sense.”

Neville popped up at that moment, followed by Justin. “Who thought it was a good idea for those two of all the teachers to lead dueling club?” Justin said, eyeing the stage critically. “Honestly.”

“Gather round, gather round!” Lockhart called, waving his arms. “Can you all see me? Excellent!

“Now, Professor Dumbledore has granted me permission to start this little dueling club, to train you all in case you ever need to defend yourselves as I have done on countless occasions—for a full account, see my published works.

“Let me introduce my assistant, Professor Snape. He tells me he knows a tiny little bit about dueling himself and has kindly agreed to help me put on a little demonstration for you all before we begin! Don’t worry—you’ll still have your Potions master when I’m through with him!”

Neville stared at the stage. “Is he an idiot? Does he honestly think he can handle Snape?”

Snape’s lip was curling. Harry had to stifle a laugh. He was reasonably confident he was ahead of most of his peers in terms of dueling skill; he’d come tonight in the hopes of going against one of his brother’s friends and maybe picking up a useful spell or two from whoever was teaching it, if they moved beyond the basics. But it would be worth any amount of boredom just to get to see Snape face off with Lockhart.

The two teachers bowed. Harry heard whispered bets being placed; most people were betting on Snape but some, mainly girls, were laying money on Lockhart. Snape’s bow was more an irritated jerk of his head than anything else. Lockhart did something involving much flourishing of his hands. They parted, stalked to opposite ends of the stage, and turned sharply to face one another. Snape held his wand at the ready. Lockhart pointed his wand dramatically, arm raised, wrist bent to angle down at Snape, empty hand held high and dramatic behind him. “As you can see, we are holding our wands in accepted combat positions—we will cast our first spells on the count of three. Neither of us will be aiming to kill, of course.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Harry muttered as Snape’s lip curled.

“Three-two-one—”

Lockhart brandished his wand in a complicated fashion. Snape flicked his and cried, “Expelliarmus!”

“Disarming charm,” Theo hissed. “We need to practice that one.”

“My Gran says it’s dead useful,” Neville muttered back. “Usually a third-year spell, though—”

“We’re already practicing third-year offensive spells, you know that, you’ve been there.”

“Yeah, but I can’t cast them.”

Justin elbowed Neville lightly. “Your magical core’s probably just developing a little slower, it happens sometimes—what?” He glared at Blaise and Pansy, who were staring at him with shock. “Look, I’m Muggle-born, but that doesn’t mean I completely ignore wizarding literature. Or culture,” he added pointedly.

Lockhart staggered back up onto stage and accepted his wand from Lavender Brown. “Yes—very good idea, Professor Snape, to show them the Disarming Charm—but if you don’t mind me saying so, it was all too obvious what you were going to do, if I had wanted to stop you I certainly could have—however, I thought it best to show them how it works—bit of hands-on experience, so to speak…”

“Snape looks like he’s about to commit murder,” Theo whispered gleefully.

“If he does we’d get rid of the two worst teachers,” Neville said.

Theo glared. “You only say that because Snape’s head of Slytherin—”

“Yes, and his blatant favoritism’s ridiculous,” Justin butted in.

“Maybe if you lot gave a damn about Potions,” Blaise said smoothly. "Or if the other teachers weren't all so biased against anyone with a green tie." 

"Not here," Harry said quietly. 

The argument subsided with a few eye-rolls.

“Now, I think that’s enough demonstration—shall we move on to practice? Professor Snape, if you could be so kind as to help me assign pairs?”

Snape got to their side of the room first. “I think not,” he said, seeing how they’d paired themselves off. “Weasley, with Nott. Malfoy, you partner with the celebrity. Older Potter, work with Miss Granger. Ah… Finnegan and Zabini, Goyle and Bulstrode, Crabbe and Longbottom…” He moved on, and in the ensuing shuffle, Harry worked his way over to Crabbe.

“No harm will come to Longbottom at your hands,” Harry hissed, loosening the damper on his eye color and glaring at Crabbe.

The larger boy took a step back. “Yeah,” he said.

Harry smiled. “Excellent. Have fun.”

“Did you just threaten him?” Hermione hissed when he joined her.

“Don’t miss a trick, do you, ‘Mione?” he said, still grinning.

“Charming house mates you’ve got.”

Harry looked pointedly at Jules and Ron. “You, too.”

She huffed and glared at him. “I’ve been practicing. You won’t beat me as easily as last summer.”

He blinked at her. “Of course I won’t, you’re a brilliant witch—are you still mad at me?”

“Oh, brilliant deduction, what tipped you off?”

“We never should’ve taught you sarcasm,” he muttered. “Hermione—”

“Everyone to your places!” Lockhart bellowed. “Face your partners and bow!”

Harry bowed at precisely the depth you used for someone of equal social standing but who you respected. It was an arcane practice, but still in use in formal circumstances for some old families, and Pansy had taken it upon herself to teach him. Hermione was a bit more awkward. Guess there were things you couldn't learn from books. 

“When I count to three, cast your Disarming Charms—only to disarm, we don’t want any accidents—”

Harry looked at Theo’s face and decided that was probably not going to happen.

Well. Actually, accidents were unlikely to happen. It would definitely not be an accident when Theo used a different spell.

“Three—two—one—”

“Expelliarmus!” Harry said, shifting sideways a hair—Hermione also dodged as she cast; they both missed—she fired a Body-Bind and he whispered “Gardus,” absorbed it, returned a Freezing Charm—

Hermione cast an incantation Harry didn’t know. He stepped hurriedly sideways and when he tried to take one more step, his shoes didn’t move. In the second it took him to register that she’d used a Sticking Charm, he was already too late to avoid her Stinging Hex.

The sharp, mild pain lanced across his chest and dissipated.

“Nice one,” he said, as sincerely as he could manage. She really had improved. “Where’d you find the Sticking Charm?”

“A book,” she said.

“…and do you know the counter?”

She let him stew for a few more seconds before a tiny smile tugged at her lips and she undid the charm.

“Well played, Miss Granger,” he said, and looked around. “Oh Merlin.”

Hermione followed suit with a wince.

“Stop! Stop!” Lockhart screamed.

Snape roared a mass Finite Incantatem and ended various spells.

Ron’s legs stopped twitching; Theo, whose hair was now standing on end and looking a bit scorched, glared down at him with enough anger that Harry wasn’t sure Theo would actually stop. He drifted over to his friend while scanning the surrounding area. Justin, near Theo, had successfully Disarmed Lisa Turpin, they were looking around in mingled curiosity and horror. Jules and Malfoy were both picking themselves up off the ground and glaring fiercely. No surprise. Crabbe and Neville appeared not to have done any damage to each other. Pansy had lost to Daphne but didn’t seem too bothered; Daphne was an excellent duelist. Blaise leaned on the edge of the stage with an amused face as Finnegan tried to put out the fire on his robe hem.

“I didn’t do it,” Blaise said when Harry raised an eyebrow at him. “His own spell backfired. I didn’t have to do anything, actually, easiest duel I’ve ever been in.”

“This is comedy gold,” Theo said, leaving off glaring at Ron at last.

“What’d Weasley do to you?” Blaise asked.

Theo scowled and tried to pat his hair down. “I’ve no idea. The incantation was for a Bluebell Flames Charm, but his wand did something wrong.”

“It’s been broken since they crashed the car,” Neville said, a bit gloomily, as he and Justin rejoined them. “Flitwick keeps pairing me with him in Charms, it turned my hair blue last week. And then the week before that it was spitting bubbles nonstop for four hours in the common room.”

“Can’t his parents afford a new one?” Blaise said.

“His only option is to use his older brother’s,” Justin said. “He won’t.”

“How common is it to use a family wand?” Harry said slowly. He never used the ash wand anywhere anyone could see; even Blaise and Theo didn’t know about it.

He should read up on wand lore, come to think about it. Harry added it to his mental list of research topics, with politics, defense, occlumency, and animagery.

“It happens,” Neville said. “Some old families pass down wands as hereditary. My wand is—was—my dad’s.”

“Most just put them on display somewhere,” Blaise said. “My grandparents’ are on the wall in our living room, under loads of guard spells of course—”

“Which grandparents?” Theo said innocently. “You’ve got eight sets, last I counted—”

“The only grandparents that count,” Blaise said, “on my mum’s side.” He was glaring daggers at Theo.

Justin looked confused—apparently he’d never heard the rumors about Blaise’s mum—but Neville winced. Harry had only heard about it from Theo, at the beginning of first year, and they’d never spoken of it since. 

“Anyway,” Blaise continued, “most times a hereditary wand is only used by the newest generation if it chooses one of them.”

“How’d you know your dad’s wand was right for you, Neville?” Harry said. “Did it… call to you, or—”

“Gran gave it to me,” Neville said, turning a bit red. “She said—she said my dad was a g-great wizard, and I should be—proud to be his son. That c-carrying his wand was—is an honor.”

Harry’s mind abruptly derailed from thoughts of family wands and hereditary magic and the ash wand and Vincent Gaunt.

Because if Neville’s wand never chose him—

Justin opened his mouth, caught Harry’s eye, and closed it again. Later, Harry mouthed at him. Justin inclined his head slightly and gave every impression of focusing back on the stage now that the professors had finished sorting out all the jinxes gone wrong. Harry thanked Merlin that Hufflepuffs understood subtlety. Neville, naturally, missed the entire exchange.

“I think I’d better teach you how to block unfriendly spells,” Lockhart decided, looking a bit flustered.

“Have you now,” Theo muttered.

“Perhaps let’s have a volunteer pair?” Lockhart looked around hopefully. “Weasley and Nott, say—”

“A poor decision,” Snape said lazily. “Weasley’s wand causes mayhem whenever he so much as moves it. Perhaps one of my own House? Say…”

Snape’s gaze raked over the Slytherins. Harry shifted into his not me posture, a subtle change that nonetheless did wonders, as he’d discovered in Muggle primary school, to keep attention off him.

“Mr. Malfoy and Mr. Jules Potter,” Snape said, eyes glittering. Harry tried not to be relieved. Going up in front of everyone like that sounded—no. “Shall we test our local celebrity?”

Jules set his jaw and glared at Snape as he stepped forward. Malfoy, on the other hand, swaggered arrogantly up to the teachers as the crowd shuffled back to leave a clear space. Harry, Blaise, and Neville lost Theo and Justin in the process; Harry could see them on the other side of the dueling circle.

“I’m honestly not sure who to cheer for here,” Blaise said drily. Lockhart and Snape leaned in to give advice to their respective students.

 “Three—two—one—go!” Lockhart shouted.

Jules and Malfoy whipped their wands up. Jules was ever-so-slightly faster— “Rictusempra!” he said.

The Tickling Charm hit Malfoy in the shoulder. He began laughing immediately, and fell to one knee, convulsing slightly—he raised his wand, aimed it at Jules— “Serpentsortia!”

“Oh bugger,” Blaise said.

A long black snake shot out the end of his wand and hit the floor, hissing evilly. Harry was right by the edge of the stage; he could see the malice in its eyes—

“Don’t panic, Potter,” Snape said, raising his wand—

“Allow me!” Lockhart brandished his wand. There was a bang that hurled both him and Professor Snape backwards into the crowd of students, Jules to the floor, and the snake straight up into the air. It slammed back down even angrier than it had been, except now it was disoriented.

Harry knew snakes. He saw the instant its attention fixed on Justin with intent to strike.

The teachers were both out of sight, struggling against screaming students. They’d never make it.

Just as the viper lunged, Harry jumped forward and opened his mouth. “Stop!”

The snake pulled up abruptly and turned to stare at him. “They call me here—make me—I am to—I mussst attack—sssso angry, ssso very angry—”

“The one that did thisss to you will regret it,” Harry said. Anything to keep it calm, keep it still— “I am a Ssspeaker of the Ssssacred Tongue, and I command you, sstill your strike.”

“As you command,” the snake said dully, and at last settled to the ground.

Harry realized the hall was dead silent. Merlin's bloody balls. 

“Mr. Potter, what—” Snape began, finally getting free of the now-frozen second years, and then he saw Harry with the docile snake coiled on the ground in front of him.

“Parselmouth,” Harry heard them whispering. “Potter’s a Parselmouth.”

“Evanesco,” Snape said, waving his wand at the snake. Harry tried not to feel bad. It was only a construct, summoned into being with the sole purpose of attacking its caster’s enemy—it would’ve dissolved on its own in less than an hour.

Harry looked up and dared to meet Justin’s eyes.

Justin’s face was white as porcelain. “Potter,” he said faintly—

But Harry was never to learn what he would have said, because Snape, at that moment, latched onto his elbow. “Mr. Potter, come with me,” he said in the tone of voice that permitted no argument.

As Harry was pulled from the room, he couldn’t help noticing how people pulled away from his and Snape’s path.

He lifted his chin and let his expression harden.

“Parkinson, Nott, Zabini, Longbottom, you will wait there,” Snape growled. Even Theo didn’t dare argue as Snape dragged Harry into his office.

“Sit down.”

Harry sat.

Snape loomed over him. “You are a Parselmouth and you saw fit to tell no one?”

“For obvious reasons,” Harry said stiffly. “Sir.”

He did not like his Head of House much on a good day. This was not a good day.

“None of your cheek, Potter! What in Merlin’s name possessed you to reveal yourself in that fashion?”

“Justin Finch-Fletchley is my friend,” Harry said as evenly as he could manage. “I don’t know what kind of snake Malfoy summoned, but there are magical species whose bites are lethal in under thirty seconds. You and Lockhart had students in the way of any spells you might have cast. I couldn’t just do nothing.”

Snape glared at him. “It looked as though you charged the serpent and bade it attack Finch-Fletchley, Potter, not stopped it!”

“To someone with no eyes, maybe,” Harry said. His fingernails dug into his palms. He clung to his Occlumency readings to keep himself from shouting. “It was the best of multiple bad choices.”

Snape seethed for a few more seconds before he waved jerkily at the door. “Get out of my sight.”

Harry didn’t need to be told twice.

“You’re a Parselmouth?” demanded Neville. Justin was there too, watching Harry with an unreadable expression.

“Obviously,” he snapped, in no mood for this.

“You—they’re not surprised,” Justin said, pointing at Blaise and Theo. “Not even a little bit. You told them already, didn’t you?”

“Recently, yes,” Harry said. “Justin—Snape told me it looked like I was charging the snake and egging it on. I want you to know that’s not true—I was telling it to stand down.”

A second of silence. Two. Three.

“Okay,” Justin said. “Okay, I believe you.”

Harry deflated just a bit. At least Justin didn’t seem to be holding a grudge over the library argument.

“But why didn’t you tell us?” Neville said.

“For that exact reason!” Harry said, finally losing his temper and waving furiously at the ceiling.

They all showed varying degrees of shock. Harry cursed his lack of control and closed his eyes. “Because it’s a secret. Because it’s not exactly something I want running around the school after Jules spent half of last year convincing people I’m a budding Dark Lord. Because of the connotations associated with Slytherin’s gift. Because I didn’t want to lose my friends.”

“You idiot,” Justin said fondly. “That’s not how friends work.”

Chapter Text

November 26, 1992

Neville

It was, however, how the school worked.

Within three days, Harry couldn’t walk anywhere without Hufflepuffs, Gryffindors, and some Ravenclaws veering out of his path, shooting him a mixture of frightened and furious looks, and whispering in his wake. Neville didn’t know how he dealt with it. Harry’s face only occasionally slipped and showed how annoyed he was by the whole thing; he kept his chin up and went to class and did his homework and was relentlessly polite to all the teachers. Students who asked him rude questions received acidly sarcastic responses from Theo most of the time and Harry some of the time. Neville hung out with them when he could and made a point of waving to Harry across the Great Hall every meal.

“Why’re you still friends with him, Nev?” Seamus said in disgust one night. The second year Gryffindors were studying for Astronomy. No one needed to ask who Seamus was talking about.

Neville’s cheeks flamed. He ducked his head closer to his star chart and didn’t answer.

“He’s dangerous,” Dean added decisively. “Parseltongue’s the sign of a Dark wizard, everyone knows it.”

“He was telling it to get away from Justin,” Neville said in a quiet voice. But—he got the words out. His grip on his pencil tightened.

“How do you know?” Jules said. There was an almost fierce intensity in his eyes. It made Neville a little scared. Cowardly useless pathetic excuse for a Gryffindor. “Do you speak Parselmouth too?”

“Parseltongue.”

They all stared at Hermione. “What?” Jules said.

“Parseltongue. The language is Parseltongue. People who speak it are Parselmouths.”

“Oh-kay,” Ron said. “Anyway. It was Malfoy who cast that spell. Malfoy, Harry’s house mate. Who’s to say they didn’t plan this out beforehand? So Harry could pretend to save Justin and get rid of the rumors about him being the Heir. Except it backfired, because now we’re all more convinced he’s the Heir.”

“Him or Malfoy,” Seamus said. “They could be working together. Maybe you can do Dark magic and give someone Parseltongue. That’d be very Slytherin, don’t you think? Make everyone think it’s Harry when actually it was Malfoy all along?”

“Malfoy hates Muggle-borns,” Jules said darkly.

“He’s stopped running around calling people Mudbloods, at least,” Parvati pointed out, twirling her wand idly.

Neville’s words all bottled up inside him—clogged in his throat and threatened to choke him. He wanted to say—something. Harry was his friend. Harry had helped him, stood up for him—Neville wasn’t stupid enough to not see the influence Harry had on the Slytherin second years. Harry didn’t mind when Neville couldn’t find his words; Harry got silence, and how sometimes it was easier just to not talk—Harry understood. Neville should be able to stand up for him in return.

Hermione could, and did, even though she and Harry were fighting. “Yes, and that’s thanks to Harry. Still think he’s the Heir?”

“They’re Slytherins,” Dean said, as if that was all that mattered. “Who knows why they do anything?”

“They’re all liars,” Seamus said. “Slimy conniving gits.”

Oh, a three-syllable word, look at you go, Finnegan was what Harry or Theo would’ve said. Neville couldn’t force anything out of his throat except a soft “No they’re not” that no one heard.

“Nott’s a Death Eater’s son,” Seamus continued, like that was all that mattered about a person. Well—he had a point, it did matter, but Neville knew Theo, knew he didn’t hold with the extremist nonsense—he was a little disdainful of Muggle-borns, but only for their general refusal to try to integrate with wizarding tradition. Which Neville’s family actually agreed with. Not that he’d been brave enough to say that to anyone. Even Theo and Blaise. “Who knows what kinds of things he learns? He might just be smarter than Malfoy about hiding it. And Zabini—his mum’s had seven husbands come along and die, leaving her loads of gold.”

“He’s a child,” Hermione said. “He’d have had nothing to do with that.”

“He grew up with it,” Ron said. “He’s either too stupid to realize what’s going on or he’s involved with a load of murders. And they’re both Harry’s friends.”

Jules looked at his hands. “Harry’s my brother. I’d—I just—I wish I’d noticed, you know? He seemed decent enough that first summer… kind of quiet and odd, but Dad said the Muggles weren’t very nice to him, so I went with it… he spent loads of time holed up in the library at Potter Manor, and I thought he’d be in Ravenclaw if not Gryffindor. And then he got Sorted. And I didn’t talk to him for ages. But he didn’t seem—that bad—and then last summer I thought we were getting somewhere… and now I can’t help think—all that weirdness. He’s just been the Heir this whole time. He probably could—could barely stand being in a Gryffindor house all the time—”

“He’s not the Heir!”

The words felt like they tore his throat to ribbons and Neville imagined the taste of blood in his mouth but they got there. He’d done it. He’d said something.

The other boys were staring at him with varying degrees of surprise.

A dam had burst and Neville stumbled on. “I—he spent—a whole s-summer with the Weasleys—I don’t know an-any more Gryffindor house than that—and the twins like him—Ginny is in Slytherin, you know you’re calling Ron’s little sister a—a liar you can’t trust? G-going to make her s-sleep in the backyard next summer, Ron?”

There was a beat of stunned silence.

“Got that off your chest, Nev?” Seamus said, and then there was a bout of laughter. Laughter.

If Neville had been Theo or Harry, he’d have hexed them. If he’d been Pansy or Blaise or Justin he would’ve known exactly what to say to shut them up. But he was just Neville, so he grabbed his books and left as quickly as he could.

He looked back once, right before he went up the stairs to the boys’ dorm. Hermione and Parvati were leaning in, discussing something intently with the boys. Hermione had been tight with them lately—especially Jules and Ron—and it looked like that wasn’t going to change.

Neville sighed and went up to bed. He’d get up early and finish his essays in the Great Hall before breakfast.

November 30, 1992

Harry

Harry had stopped going to the study group sessions. Anthony and Lisa and Sue, at least, believed him, but Harry could tell it was hard on them in their own Houses to be known friends with him and saved them the choice. Hermione stopped around the same time he did. Neville and Justin and the Ravenclaws still met, and occasionally Tracy or Theo, but for the most part there were no Slytherins.

He found himself not particularly interested in company in general. Theo understood silence—Theo had his days when he just wanted to be quiet, to not talk, but to still have a steady presence at his shoulder, and Harry was happy to be that person as Theo was for him. Blaise typically preferred the distraction of company on his bad days, and for that he usually sought out the common room. They all knew each other’s boundaries; knew when to let sleeping dragons lie. And Neville was so relentlessly well-meaning Harry couldn’t find it in himself to be annoyed by him. Everyone else, though—

The musty scent of old books pervaded everything, this far back in the stacks. Harry had taken to spending loads of time in the library. The twisting shelves seemed to go on forever. He actually had never found an end to them. It was peaceful.

It was also near curfew. He sighed and started back.

“Justin, I still think you should hide up in our dorms.”

Harry froze. He knew that voice. Pompous, stubborn, convinced of his own brilliance. Ernie Macmillan. He peeked through the stacks. Sure enough, Justin, Ernie, Susan Bones, and a few other Hufflepuffs—not Hannah, though, Harry’d seen her twenty minutes ago doing Transfiguration work—clustered around a table.

“I’m not going to cower,” Justin said, voice low. “Just because you lot have gone all paranoid—”

“It’s not paranoia! You literally told Potter you’re a Muggle-born—”

“Of course I bloody told him, he’s my friend—”

“No he’s not.” Susan Bones. “He’s a Parselmouth—everyone knows that’s the mark of a Dark wizard. And he’s a Slytherin! They’re master liars, how do you know he even likes you at all?”

“I’m not an idiot,” Justin said. “I can tell who’s my friend and who’s not. For example, it seems like everyone at this table is an example of the latter category.” He got up and stormed away from it, right around a shelf and nearly into Harry.

“Harry,” Justin said in surprise, stopping dead.

Ernie and Susan appeared, having run after Justin. “Wait—” Ernie began, and stopped dead when he saw Harry, face paling.

“Good to see you, Justin,” Harry said, as pleasantly as he could manage. “I must say, it’s nice to know at least one Hufflepuff lives up to your values of loyalty and kindness. See you in Herbology.”

He turned on his heel and stalked away.

Harry would never be able to say, later, how long he was walking around the castle. Only that he remembered seeing Hagrid at one point holding a brace of dead roosters, and that he was in a sort of numb haze that felt a lot like when he cleared his mind every night in his Occlumency lessons, except foggier—and then a knife slashed it clean in two when he came upon Justin Finch-Fletchley’s petrified body, and the slightly smoking, perfectly still form of the Gryffindor ghost.

He stared at them for a few seconds, mind racing. Justin. This was Justin—a friend.

Harry turned around and took off running.

He wasn’t wearing his soundless shoes, an oversight he cursed himself for now as he hurtled through one corridor after another. He gasped out a Notice-Me-Not charm while waiting for a staircase to move, took three secret passages, and found the secret back way into the Slytherin dorms. Sweaty, out of breath, and unsure how much time he had left, Harry made himself slow down and creep into the second year boys’ dorm.

Only Theo and Blaise were there, by some stroke of luck. Harry shut the book behind him and took a few gasping breaths. Both of his friends sat up straight. “Harry?” Theo said. “What’s—”

“An hour ago, Blaise, you met me outside the library and we walked down here,” Harry gasped out. “We’ve been reviewing—something since then. Alibi. There’s been another petrification. Justin.”

“Got it,” Theo said briskly, blinking shock and worry away. “Common room’s been pretty active; it’s not weird that no one will remember having seen you guys come in. Going over Switching Spell theory and the Bryant-Parks magical bonding theory.”

“Thank Merlin,” Harry said, already digging through his trunk and yanking out Transfigration notes. He spread them out on his blankets, kicked off his shoes and robe, threw them into his trunk, slammed it shut, and threw himself across his bed. Theo and Blaise likewise made sure their notes were out and launched straight into a discussion of Parks’ fourth hypothesis.

Not two minutes later, the doors slammed open to reveal Severus Snape in all his melodramatic glory.

Harry looked up, his surprise and Theo’s and Blaise’s all perfectly in sync. “Professor?” Blaise said.

“Potter,” Snape said. “Come with me.”

Harry obediently got to his feet. “Professor, what—”

“Harry hasn’t done anything,” Theo said.

Snape glared him into silence. “Yes, thank you, Mr. Nott. Potter. Now.”

“Yes, sir.” Harry grabbed a robe and threw it back on, stuffed his feet into shoes, checked his wand, and followed his Head of House out of his dorm.

Snape marched through the common room. Harry followed on his heels with just a hint of a proper Slytherin sneer on his face, meeting every curious look sent his way with an icy glare. Montague and the Carrow twins sneered back, but the rest looked away.

They left the dungeons, crossed the entrance hall, and started up the Grand Staircase.

“Professor—”

“Not here, Potter.”

Snape finally stopped in front of the gargoyles that guarded Dumbledore’s office. “Lemon drop,” he snarled, and the statues leapt aside to allow them up to the headmaster’s domain.

Harry wasn’t any happier to be here now than he had been at the end of last year.

The phoenix was sitting in the corner of the office. The finicky-looking metal instruments were still scattered around. The previous headmasters’ portraits still pretended to sleep on the walls.

“Welcome, Harry,” Dumbledore said with a warm smile. “Come in, please.”

Harry didn’t turn to watch Snape leave. “Thank you, sir.”

“I’m sure you’re wondering why you’re here.”

Harry fixed his eyes firmly on the bridge of Dumbledore’s nose. Such a transparent attempt to get him to reveal he knew more than he should. “Yes, sir.”

“Sit, please. There has… I regret to inform you that there has been another petrification.”

Harry gasped. “No.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Who?” Harry said in a hushed tone, lowering himself slowly into a chair.

Dumbledore’s eyes were piercing. Harry thought he wasn’t imagining that Dumbledore was trying to make eye contact and concentrated on the nosepiece of the Headmaster’s spectacles.

“Justin Finch-Fletchley and Sir Nicholas, the ghost of Gryffindor.”

Harry widened his eyes. “Justin? Merlin… But they will be all right, won’t they, Headmaster? Professor Sprout has the Mandrakes—they’ll wake up?”

“Of course, dear boy,” the Headmasters aid. “Assuredly. Petrification is certainly not death, for which I am most thankful.”

“Can I go see him?” Harry said. “Justin, I mean—and Neville and Blaise and Theo will want to come, I’m sure of it…”

“We may perhaps be able to make arrangements,” Dumbledore said. “I’ll do what I can.”

Harry pretended to think. “What… sir, what could possibly… petrify a ghost?”

Dumbledore’s expression turned grave. “The entire staff, and many fine minds beyond our hallowed halls, are working to answer precisely that question.”

Which was not actually reassuring, but Harry could let him have the deflection without a fight. He slumped in his chair. “…I’m relieved to hear it. Sir, I can’t help wondering… do you…” He bit his lip.

“No, Harry,” Dumbledore said kindly. “I do not believe you to be the Heir of Slytherin, or the perpetrator behind these dastardly attacks.”

“Th-thank you,” Harry whispered.

The twinkle intensified. “Of course. Sleep well, Harry.”

Snape was waiting outside the office. “I shall escort you back to the dorms. Though I am sure you are proficient in creeping about after curfew and could manage it without losing points,” he added with a faint sneer.

Harry ignored this and dipped his head. “Thank you, sir.”

The clicking of their shoes was the only sound for a while.

“Boomslang skin and powdered horn of a bicorn,” Snape said.

Harry looked at him blankly. “Excuse me, sir?”

Snape’s eyes bored into his. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you creeping off to experiment with advanced potions in the unused sections of the dungeons.” Harry refused to let his expression change, but it didn’t seem to make a difference; Snape smirked. “You wouldn’t have been so foolish as to steal from my personal stores… would you?”

“Sir, if I wanted such potions ingredients, I’d order them by owl,” Harry said. “I believe I actually have a small quantity of powdered bicorn horn in my trunk.”

“Very well, Mr. Potter.” Snape looked away as if their conversation had never happened.

Harry wondered who was stealing from the potions stores, but put it out of his mind. He had bigger problems. It was probably an upper year wanting to practice on their own who couldn’t afford the less common ingredients.

December 2, 1992

Harry,

Jules tells me the school’s convinced you’re the Heir of Slytherin. We’re Potters, probably the least likely family to have Slytherin blood! And I’d have said it was stupid if you weren’t a Parselmouth.

Talking to snakes is the sign of a Dark wizard, Harry. I don’t know if the magics released the night Jules defeated You-Know-Who did this to you—or how you can do this—but you have to know how it looks.

I need you to tell me if anyone in Slytherin is acting suspicious. If the real Heir is caught by you, or with information you passed on, it would do a lot to clear your name.

-James

Harry scowled at the letter. It was ridiculously transparent. James hoped to make Harry so desperate for parental approval, so desperate to prove himself not a baby Dark Lord, that he’d turn on his House mates. Like he honestly thought there was a chance Harry wouldn’t turn in the person running around with a monster in his school trying to kill people. And Jules’ taunts from the day before were still ringing in his ears: Dad was furious when he found out. Said he wouldn’t have a Dark wizard in the family and he’s never going to host you in our house without taking your wand first.

The letter sat on the table and trembled slightly in a draft from the entrance to the common room. Harry’s scowl deepened.

One corner of the letter caught on fire.

He sat in his chair and watched it slowly burn.

December 7, 1992

Where Harry went, stares and whispers followed. Before, they’d been curious, wary, suspicious, unhappy. Now they were outright malevolent. He dodged Trip Jinxes and Stinging Hexes and Body Binds and nastier things all day—if it wasn’t for his and Theo’s and Blaise’s collective skill with blocking using gardus, he would never have gotten anywhere on time. He added another layer to the ward spells around his bed.

Fred and George seemed to find it hilarious. “Make way for the Heir of Slytherin,” they’d yell, running down the hallways in front of Harry when they saw him. He thought they were actually going out of their way to do so, since they were in different years and different Houses and had no classes in common. “Seriously evil wizard coming through—look out, Harry’s off to find his pet monster—”

“You are idiots,” Harry informed them. Percy Weasley was trying to fight his way through the crowds to Harry, Theo, and the twins, and he looked like he agreed.

George grinned. “Ah, but we’re funny idiots, and that means people like us.”

“What do you two think you’re doing,” Percy hissed, reaching them finally. He fell in as the four of them made for the third-floor staircase.

“Having a laugh, obviously,” Fred said.

“It is not a laughing matter!” Percy wouldn’t look directly at Harry or Theo.

George noticed. “Oh, come off it, Perce, you don’t seriously believe this shit? He lived with us. Don’t you think we would’ve noticed if the Heir of Slytherin was living in Charlie’s old bedroom?”

“Maybe not, George,” Harry said seriously. “I was two whole flights below your rooms.”

“Very fun—wait, when did you figure out how to tell us apart?” George demanded. Fred and Percy looked equally shocked. Theo sighed theatrically.

“It’s not that hard,” Harry said. “You’re different people. I just paid attention.”

He grinned at the surprise on their faces, waved goodbye, and headed to his House table in a better mood than he’d had for days. It didn’t last. An upper year Ravenclaw tried to hex him. Harry deflected it and Bletchley returned a curse from where he was sitting that locked the other student’s fingers together. For good measure, Harry leaned back and nailed the Ravenclaw with anaticula, an arcane curse that would make someone’s wand spit ducks whenever they tried to cast a spell. It would last a day or two. “Should be a nasty shock when he goes to class,” Blaise snickered, overhearing the incantation. Pansy pretended not to notice.

Harry ate as quickly as he could and went outside for a quiet walk in the snow.

December 18, 1992

Ginny

“Thank Merlin for the holidays,” she muttered.

Evalyn nodded.

“I can’t believe I let you two talk me into staying over,” Natalie said. “Or that Uncle Albare even let me. I’ve got a stack of magazines nearly the height of my trunk and an open bag attached to Gringotts. We are going to engage in some retail therapy.”

“I don’t need you to buy me clothes, Natalie,” Ginny said tartly.

“First of all, yes you do, your school robes are fine but your fashion sense is deplorable. Second, you owe me for sticking around to keep you two company over break, and you’re going to pay me back by letting me buy you a new wardrobe.”

Ginny stared at her. “Are you… blackmailing me into letting you give me a gift?”

Natalie beamed beatifically. “I do what I must.”

“I am still not used to how Slytherins do things,” Ginny muttered. She couldn’t deny… it might be nice to… to have decent robes. Not that she was—not that she resented her parents. She knew they did the best they could. She loved them, she didn’t blame them—but sometimes she did wish she could buy the clothes she thought were cute. Sometimes she wanted to be able to look nice.

“Awesome, we have an agreement. Evalyn?”

Evalyn shrugged. “No bright colors.”

“You suck all the fun out of life. You’re like a fun vampire.”

“And you are a fashion werewolf, you turn into an unbearable beast when you see a catalog,” Ginny retorted.

Evalyn grinned, which was as close as she ever came to laughing.

Natalie slung an arm around each of their shoulders. “Come on, our housekeeper sent me a massive care package this morning, and we’re going back to the common room, and we’re going to bully Harry and Pansy and Blaise into helping us eat all the sweets.”

“Harry could do with some cheering up lately,” Natalie said.

Evalyn’s decision was simpler. “We owe him.”

Ginny couldn’t help agreeing. Harry’s and Theo’s and Blaise’s irregular tutelage had given them enough of an edge to keep them out of a couple of tight spots, mostly with the Gryffindors, especially as tensions grew. Ginny was pretty sure Harry was even more grateful for the holidays than she was.

“Do you think he’s… you know.” Natalie was unusually serious.

“He’s not,” Ginny said sharply. She didn’t know Harry’s politics, not well, but she knew him, and his vendetta against the word mudblood was something of an urban legend in Slytherin. He wouldn’t.

“Okay.” Nat dropped it.

Harry

“Thank Merlin for the holidays.”

“I do wish Neville and Theo’d stuck around,” Pansy sighed. “It’s so quiet…”

“Excuse you, are we not entertaining enough?” Blaise demanded.

“Not by half,” Pansy sniffed.

Harry shrugged. “We needed Theo to go home, anyway.”

“Hopefully his dad knows something about the Chamber,” Blaise said. “Or knows someone who does.”

“And in the meantime, we’ve got Slytherin just to ourselves,” Harry muttered sarcastically, because they’d just emerged from the dorms to find Malfoy and Bulstrode playing wizard’s chess while the beefcakes watched.

Blaise nudged him. “Plus some more pleasant company.”

Ginny Weasley, Natalie Nielsen, and Evalyn Travers had all stayed on over the holidays as well. Harry had learned from Ginny and Neville that Jules wanted to stay to experience a Hogwarts Christmas and Ron and Hermione were staying to support him. Harry pushed aside the bit of hurt he felt whenever he thought about Hermione’s sudden turn to the Gryffindors. “Mind if we join you?” he said to the first years.

Natalie sent him a wide smile. “Not at all. I’ve a massive box of sweets to go through. You are going to help us make it, yes? As payment for your help this term.”

“Slytherin looks out for its own,” Blaise said.

“But Slytherins also know not to turn down a good bargain,” said Pansy, elbowing him and sitting down smartly. “I will accept food as payment for tutoring you lot in fashion.”

“I did not need the help,” Natalie said.

“Yes you did, no one should ever pair pastel pink with mustard orange.”

Harry had a sudden vision of Pansy and Natalie mentoring a girl or two from each new form in Pansy’s clever rumor-mongering ways and couldn’t decide if he was interested or terrified.

December 25, 1992

“Harry!”

A pillow hit Harry in the face and he sat bolt upright, fumbling for glasses and wand simultaneously.

Blaise was grinning at him. “If you don’t want pillows to the face, take down your ward spells. Or include airborne pillows in the list of things the wards’ll block. Get up, mate—it’s Christmas!”

Harry tumbled out of bed, dragged a robe on over his pajamas, and followed Blaise out into the common room, leaving Malfoy and the beefcakes in bed. There were neat piles of gifts under the tree just like last year.

“Presents,” he said with a loopy grin. It was impossible to be grouchy on Christmas.

“Yes, presents, it’s Christmas,” Blaise said. “What were you expecting, dirty dishware?”

Harry checked that the common room was empty other than them. Not surprising—it wasn’t yet six. “Last year was the first time I ever got more than maybe a broken coat hanger or an old sock for Christmas,” he said, levitating his pile of gifts over to a separate cluster of chairs.

“Muggles,” Blaise hissed.

“Wait for Pansy?” Blaise said.

Harry shrugged. “Might as well. And—should we wait for Ginny and Evalyn and Nat?”

“Let’s,” Blaise said. “I want to see what the Weasleys can afford to get their daughter for Christmas.”

Harry kicked his ankle. “Tacky, remember?”

“Fine,” Blaise muttered. “I want to see how bad their taste in gifts is, how’s that?”

“Less tacky,” Harry allowed. “The parents are actually pretty nice people. I’ve never eaten better food. And I know you like the twins, don’t deny it.”

Blaise rolled his eyes but didn’t try to argue. He’d been aloof from them at first, but warmed when they treated the Heir thing as a joke and stuck by Harry. It probably helped that Harry had shown him some of the twins’ notes on experiments they’d done with magical substances and Blaise had been reluctantly impressed by their evil genius.

It was agony to wait. Harry bounced his knees and sat on his hands to keep himself from reaching for the top gift in the stack. It was a smaller pile than anyone else’s, again, but he didn’t care.

Finally, Pansy stuck her head out of the girls’ dorms. “Want the firsties?” she called.

Harry grinned. Pansy knew them well.

“Yes, bring them along,” Blaise sighed. Harry threw a pillow at him and Blaise batted it away, laughing.

Pansy returned in two minutes with a sleepy Evalyn and Ginny in tow. “Nat’s coming,” Ginny said. “She hates waking up. Farthest from a morning person I’ve ever met.”

“Let’s hide her presents,” Harry said suddenly, leaning forward with a grin.

Blaise smirked.

Natalie stumbled out of the girls’ dorms five minutes later. “Sorry I’m… so… where are my presents?”

The others blinked innocently at her. Their chairs were pulled up in a loose circle; wrapped parcels sat on the table and were strewn at their feet. “What do you mean?” Ginny said.

Natalie narrowed her eyes and pointed at them. “No, no, no, I know that look, Ginevra Weasley—give me back my presents!”

“Only if you agree not to hex whoever did this,” Ginny said.

“No way. I retain my hexing rights.”

Ginny grinned. “All right, but you asked for it…”

“I can handle anything you throw at me, Ginevra.”

Harry pulled his wand and levitated one of the chairs straight up into the air, revealing a pile of presents hidden underneath it. “Sure, you can handle Ginny, but how about me?” he said with a smirk.

Natalie glared. “You set me up!”

“Of course I did,” Ginny said. Blaise and Pansy were laughing and even Evalyn cracked a smile, which Harry had noticed was rare in the company of people other than Ginny and Natalie. “I’m in Slytherin for a reason.”

Natalie huffed and threw herself into a seat, flicking her long brown hair over her shoulder. “You are all terrible people.”

“Yes, and you’re friends with us,” Ginny fired back.

“Fair point. Open your presents already, Weasley.”

They tore into their wrapping paper with enthusiasm, temporarily throwing Slytherin decorum out into the lake.

A few upper years trickled in and took their gifts to other areas of the common room, ignoring the younger set. Malfoy and the beefcakes and Bulstrode came out and unwrapped gifts near them. Malfoy made loud comments about how expensive all his presents were, which everyone else ignored. Harry noticed that Malfoy was watching them with an almost jealous expression and wondered, suddenly, when the other boy had spent Christmas with actual friends. If he’d ever had a Christmas where he was allowed to simply shred his wrapping paper and be a kid.

Harry didn’t like him enough to invite him over with the rest of them, but it gave him enough pause to grin at Malfoy when they made eye contact.

Malfoy nodded jerkily and turned back to his ‘friends’.

Ginny held up a Weasley sweater and made a face. “Why does she always do pink, it goes horribly with my hair—”

Blaise pointed his wand at her sweater. “Colorvaria verde,” he said, and the pink wool morphed to a deep Slytherin green.

Ginny blinked at him in surprise. “I—thanks, Blaise.”

He was already turning back to a box containing three heavy gold cloak pins. “If we must have a Slytherin walking around wearing that thing, it will at least be a decent color,” he said dismissively, but Ginny wasn’t fooled.

Harry had gotten a Weasley sweater again this year, slightly larger and in a shade of midnight blue this time, along with a plum cake. Evalyn and Natalie got sweaters, too, which surprised everyone in the group except Ginny and put pleasure on both girls’ faces.

There was a luxury eagle-feather quill from Hermione in Harry’s gift pile. He weighed it in his hand and hoped she liked the book he’d sent her, a collection of the strangest unexplained transfiguration errors ever recorded. He hoped they could stop fighting soon.

He hoped for a lot of things and rarely got any of them.

Sighing, Harry went back to unwrapping gifts.

No one, even a student dreading interacting with their peers, could fail to enjoy a Hogwarts Christmas feast.

Harry ate himself nearly into a food coma. Ginny and Natalie followed suit. Pansy and Evalyn ate with more care, manners precise and laughing as the boys took turns flicking peas up the table at Ron Weasley when he wasn’t looking. One landed in his hair and he failed to notice, which condemned Harry and Blaise to spend ten minutes choking on laughter every time they looked at him until Jules finally noticed and brushed it off with a glare sent their direction. Fred and George had bewitched Percy’s badge to read Pinhead and took turns loudly asking Harry, Jules, Ron, and Blaise what they were laughing at while Percy got more and more confused.

After three helpings of Christmas pudding, Harry and Blaise said goodbye to the twins and wandered down to their dorms, ahead of Crabbe, Goyle, and Bulstrode, who could all eat more than Harry and Blaise together, but behind Pansy, the first-year girls, and Malfoy.

Pansy roped Harry into a game of wizard’s chess. Blaise pulled out a book and started reading. The first year girls went back to their dorm. Malfoy wandered out of the dorms in a more casual robe, made a few snide comments about Harry’s chess ability, and left the common room in a huff when Harry didn’t rise to the bait.

He came back about five minutes later with his friends in tow.

“Wait here,” Malfoy said to his friends, “I’ll just go and get it—”

He vanished back towards the dormitories. Harry looked away from the chessboard while Pansy deliberated her next move and watched the other second years. Crabbe and Goyle were unsubtly looking around with weird expressions on their faces. Bulstrode was sitting ramrod straight, which she never did in the common room, only in classes or the Great Hall, to keep up appearances with other houses. When only Slytherins were around, she slouched.

“Harry, it’s your turn,” Pansy reminded him.

Crabbe leaned forward. “Chess, eh?”

Goyle elbowed him.

“…yes, Crabbe,” Harry said slowly. “Have you played before?”

Pansy opened her mouth, but Harry trod on her foot under the table.

“A bit,” Crabbe said, suddenly uncomfortable, but there was a sharp interest in his eyes as he looked at the board.

Harry had seen Crabbe play chess all of one time, and he’d lost soundly to Bulstrode, who was by no means a chess master herself.

Behind the couch Crabbe was using, Blaise had quit paying attention to his book and was watching with a suspicious expression. Pansy could tell something was off with Harry. She glanced under her lashes at Crabbe and then back to Harry.

Harry studied the chessboard and made a move. A deliberately stupid move.

Crabbe sniggered briefly.

 Pansy looked at the board and nodded slowly. “I see what you’re doing,” she said, pretending to tease him, but Harry knew she’d noticed the same thing he had.

“Here it is,” Malfoy announced, coming back out with a smirk on his face and a newspaper clipping in his hand. “My father’s just sent it to me—this’ll give you a laugh—”

Harry knew exactly what the clipping was; Malfoy had mentioned his father’s interview with the Prophet regarding Mr. Weasley’s flying car.

Crabbe read the clipping, laughed jerkily, and passed it off to Goyle and Bulstrode, who bent their heads together.

Harry didn’t miss the ugly glare Goyle sent Malfoy, and neither did Pansy. Malfoy, unsurprisingly, was oblivious. “Well?” he demanded. “Don’t you think it’s funny?”

Pansy made a move. Harry studied the board and glared; she was taking advantage of the stupid play he’d made to test Crabbe. She gave him an innocent smile and he sighed and prepared to salvage what he could of the game. His attention wasn’t on the board, though—not really. He was listening to Crabbe’s weak laugh, watching Crabbe and Goyle’s expressions twitch alarmingly while Malfoy insulted the Weasleys. Something was very, very wrong here.

There was an idea tickling at the back of Harry’s mind—but the kind of idea where if he thought too hard about it, it would retreat into his subconscious. He let it simmer.

“The Weasleys are an old and respectable family,” Harry said absently, pretending to be intent on the game. “Just because Ron’s a prat doesn’t mean they all are. The twins are actually really smart and Ginny’s in our House, Malfoy, as you ought to remember.”

“What’s up with you, Crabbe?” Malfoy snapped. Harry glanced over—Crabbe’s face was oddly contorted.

“Stomachache,” Crabbe grunted.

“Well, go on up to the hospital wing and give all those—” Malfoy glanced at Harry. “—those statues a kick from me. I’m surprised the Prophet hasn’t reported all the attacks—I bet Dumbledore’s trying to hush it up. He never should’ve let that idiot Creevey in.” His voice turned high-pitched and cruel. “Can I have your autograph, Potter? Can I get a picture, Potter? Can I lick your shoes, Potter?”

Crabbe and Goyle and Bulstrode sat stiffly. Malfoy stared at them. “What’s the matter with you three?”

Harry very much wanted to know the same thing. He lost a bishop to Pansy and didn’t care. Malfoy’s friends laughed belatedly.

“Saint Potter,” Malfoy sneered. “Running around with those Gryffindor idiots and—and scum. Hopefully Slytherin’s beast will make an exception to the Muggle-borns only rule and sent Potter to the hospital wing next.”

“If he’s petrified for second term, we might actually get some peace,” Blaise said idly.

“Maybe not petrification,” Malfoy said. “My father’s told me all about it. Last time the Chamber opened, fifty years ago, a girl died. I wish I knew who it was,” he added. “I’d tell him to go for the Gryffindor Potter next.”

He said this with a snide glance Harry’s way. Harry didn’t know if Malfoy was trying to imply that Harry was in fact the heir, or looking for a reaction to Malfoy’s wishing his brother dead. Meanwhile, Crabbe and Goyle both looked thunderstruck.

“Did you actually just wish for another student to die?” Blaise said in disbelief. “A twelve-year-old. Malfoy, for Merlin’s sake.”

Malfoy sneered at Blaise but didn’t answer.

“You must have some idea who it is…” Goyle said.

“You know I haven’t, Goyle, I’ve said so a hundred times,” Malfoy snapped. “And Father won’t tell me anything more about the last time. He says to stay out of the way and let the Heir get on with it.”

“Right, because having a murdering monster loose in a school is a fantastic idea and one we should all just accept,” Harry said drily.

Crabbe made a strange choking noise.

Harry looked at him. So did everyone else. Something was off about him—the hair maybe?

Before he could get a good look, Crabbe, Goyle, and Bulstrode were up and moving for the common room entrance.

“Where are you going?” Malfoy called angrily.

“Medicine for my stomach,” Crabbe grunted.

“I think we ate something bad,” Bulstrode added, and then they were gone.

Malfoy huffed as the entrance closed on their heels. “Honestly, sometimes I don’t know why I bother with them.” He stalked off to the dorms.

Harry Blaise’s eyes, tilted his head towards the entrance, and stood. Blaise was on his feet in a second, book forgotten, falling in with Harry.

“Don’t think you’re going without me,” Pansy snapped, catching up to Blaise’s other side.

The other Slytherins were out of sight completely by the time they left the common room. Harry listened and heard the distant echo of running feet.

“Come on,” he said, and took off in pursuit. There was a secret shortcut along here—twist the torch bracket and say “Slytherin,” and it let you into a dark and cramped but much more direct route up to the entrance hall. Harry went first. Blaise grabbed his shoulder and Pansy grabbed Blaise’s.

“Lumos,” Harry cast, and hurtled along in the faint wandlight.

They popped out into the entrance hall barely a minute later and saw Bulstrode, Crabbe, and Goyle staggering away from an open broom closet, disoriented and shoeless.

“What in the world’s the matter with you?” Blaise snapped.

“Closet,” Bulstrode said, looking extremely confused.

Harry narrowed his eyes. “Were you just down in the common room?”

“What? No, are you going batty already?” Bulstrode sneered.

Harry waved her off. Malfoy’s friends made their loopy way toward the dungeon steps. The idea tickle was stronger—more of a scrape, honestly.

“Someone tell me what’s going on,” Pansy said.

Powdered horn of bicorn. Shredded boomslang skin. Chaos in Potions and Hermione looking suspiciously shifty. Snape’s fear that someone was stealing. A page from Moste Potente Potions flashed through Harry’s mind and he cursed wildly as the pieces fell into place.

“What—” Blaise started.

“Polyjuice Potion! Snape told me someone’s been stealing powdered horn of bicorn and shredded boomslang skin—I thought it was an upper year messing around who couldn’t afford the ingredients—remember the Swelling Solution? Someone threw that firework. It wasn’t a prank, it was a diversion—so one of the Gryffindors could steal the ingredients! Merlin, I’m an idiot—where would you go to illegally brew a potion if not the dungeons?” he said.

Pansy thought for a second. “Bathrooms,” she said. “Water and tile floors. But somewhere private, somewhere no one would think to—Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom!”

“What?” Harry said.

“Haunted girls’ loo on the second floor.” Pansy was already moving. Blaise and Harry scrambled to catch up. “No one ever uses it and Myrtle floods it half the time. It’s actually very near where you found Mrs. Norris, Harry, the floor was flooded that day, remember? —they might’ve first found it that day, and realized how useful it could be—there!”

Harry held up a hand to stop Blaise throwing the door open for a dramatic entrance, cast a quick “Caesum sonar” on the hinges, and eased it open.

The bathroom was large, white marble, and echoing. A circle of sinks stood in the middle and two rows of stalls stretched out on the other side of the sinks, stopping at a wall directly across from the door. Harry could hear shuffling and movement.

“—can’t believe it’s not Malfoy,” a familiar voice said. Jules. Anger turned Harry’s veins cold.

“Might still be Harry, though.” That was Ron. “You saw the way Malfoy looked at him, right? When he made that comment about the Heir? Even the Slytherins think it’s him.”

“He’s my brother, Ron. If we’re related, I could be the heir, too.”

“Or maybe Dark magic, I dunno, warped him when you killed You-Know-Who! You know your dad’s theories, Jules—” They were shuffling about in the stalls, probably changing back into Gryffindor robes. Harry crept around the sinks and leaned back against the one that directly faced the rows of stalls, wand out in his right hand. Blaise and Pansy flanked him without being asked, Pansy crossing her arms and Blaise boosting himself up to sit on a sink to Harry’s left, twirling his wand around his fingers. 

“More importantly, you two idiots nearly blew our cover,” Hermione said, voice furious. “Honestly, if your acting was any worse, the Polyjuice would’ve been useless! It very nearly was—”

“You expect me to have just sat there without reacting while he insulted my family, Granger—”

“Yes! I’d have sat there if he started whinging about Mudbloods! You knew what doing this would entail—honestly, why I even agreed to help you I don’t know—”

“Because you thought it was Malfoy or Harry too,” Jules snapped.

A door flew open. “I—”

Hermione stopped dead, her face turning ashen as she took in the three Slytherins waiting for her. Harry smirked. “’Lo, Hermione. Funny seeing you here.”

Ron and Jules burst out of their own stalls, wands up. “Expelliarmus!” Harry and Blaise cast in unison, sending the Gryffindors’ wands spinning through the air. Harry caught one and Pansy the other; she examined it for a second, as if it were a vaguely interesting bit of jewelry, and passed it off to Harry as well.

“What are you doing here?” Jules said, trying to bluff, but Harry could read the fear in his eyes.

“Really? Polyjuice?” Blaise sneered. “That disaster in Potions was to cover for you stealing the ingredients—it’s lucky only Harry connected the dots; you do realize Snape knows someone’s been stealing from his stores. And what they’ve been stealing.”

“You’re lucky no one noticed,” Pansy said. “Aside from us, of course—your acting is atrocious, Weasley, Granger has a point—Crabbe, interested in chess? Please.”

“We had every right,” Jules said, dropping the pretense. “One of you’s running around trying to kill people.”

“I expect this distrust from you by now,” Harry said, raking his eyes dismissively over Jules and Ron. “But—Hermione, really? I told you it’s not Malfoy. He’s got no more idea than I have who it is. But no, you couldn’t trust a slimy Slytherin, so you went and brewed a highly illegal potion to infiltrate my common room and find out exactly what I told you.”

“We learned—we learned more about the last time, too,” Hermione insisted, but Harry could see the regret and guilt in her eyes. “Fifty years ago—”

“And whoever did it got caught, expelled and probably thrown in Azkaban,” Harry said. “So it can’t be the same person. And all that information will be in the school archives if you go back far enough.”

“You know, Harry,” Pansy said with an exaggerated lightbulb moment, “you have a point, it’s highly illegal to be brewing Polyjuice Potion at twelve years old in a disused lavatory. Not to mention drugging other students, false impersonation…”

“It would be ever such a shame if anyone… found out,” Blaise said, as casually as if they were discussing the weather.

Harry nodded. “Though, I expect no one will, as long as our budding criminals keep it to themselves… and don’t ever breathe a word of the Slytherin common room entrance or how to reach it.” He made a note to tell the prefects to change the password.

Jules stared at them. “Blackmail? Now you’re threatening us with blackmail?”

“Some friend you are!” Hermione burst out.

“Before today, I wouldn’t have even considered it,” Harry said icily. “For your sake, Hermione. But clearly we’re not as good friends as I thought.”

 He dropped Jules and Ron’s wands on the floor with a sneer and walked out, Blaise and Pansy on his heels.

In the common room, Harry stalked past the few upper years who’d stayed on and went straight for the boys’ dorm. He threw the door open.

Malfoy looked up from where he was about to climb into bed and had only long enough for his eyes to widen with fear before Harry was on him, wand in his face and backing him into the wall.

“You—little—idiot,” Harry snarled, jabbing Malfoy’s neck with his wand. He was dimly aware of Pansy and Blaise holding Crabbe and Goyle at bay with their own wands. “How are you actually this stupid?”

“Get off, Potter—when my father hears how you assaulted me in our dormitory—”

“—he’ll thank me for doing my duty as a Slytherin when you screwed up! Go ahead, Malfoy, write home and whine to him, I’ll let him know it was you who was too blind to notice your three closest friends were actually Gryffindors on illegal Polyjuice Potion!”

Malfoy froze.

“That’s right,” Harry snarled. “That whole routine with the newspaper clipping? You were shoving that in Ron Weasley’s face. We had three Gryffindors sitting in our common room and you brought them here.”

“I’ll kill him,” Malfoy hissed.

Harry jabbed his wand harder into Malfoy’s neck. “No you will not. That’s Jules Potter’s best friend—you really think, if he dies suddenly, his friends won’t put the pieces together? Not to mention—starting a body count at twelve is such a bad idea I can’t even tell you. I handled it. They’ll keep their mouths shut. And you need to be a hell of a lot more careful. You disgrace what it means to be a Slytherin.” He shoved Malfoy once and stepped away.

Malfoy rubbed his neck, stuck somewhere between fury and fear.

Harry got three steps away and changed his mind about not hexing Malfoy. “Anteoculatia,” he hissed, spinning back around and slashing his wand in Malfoy’s direction.

Malfoy actually screamed as the blond hair he was so proud of quivered and fell out while antlers grew out of his skull, until he was completely bald with a rack to rival a buck deer’s.

“Better get on up to the hospital wing, Malfoy,” Harry said coldly. “I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of Slytherin rule three, but just in case your memory is as bad for the House rules as it is for your friends—we don’t blame things on other Slytherins.”

Malfoy scrambled out the door, his entire scalp bright red. Goyle and Crabbe exchanged confused looks and lumbered after him.

There was a pause.

“Enjoyed that, did you?” Pansy said.

“Yes,” Harry said. “I did, actually. Very much.”

Blaise laughed suddenly. “Theo is going to be furious he missed this.”

Chapter Text

January 4, 1993

“You gave him antlers when I wasn’t there to see it?” were Theo’s first words when Harry and Blaise greeted him in the entrance hall.

Blaise grinned. “Told you.”

“I never said you were wrong,” Harry said. He’d written Theo with the broad scope of the incident.

Theo shook his head. “We aren’t friends.”

“Have fun hanging out with the beefcakes, then,” Harry said. “I’m sure that will be some scintillating conversation—”

“Shut up, Potter,” Theo said, but he was grinning.

Neville appeared. “Harry! Blaise! How were your holidays?”

“Interesting,” Blaise said.

Harry tilted his head, a silent request for Neville to follow them. Once he’d have been bringing Hermione along too. And Justin. And Anthony, Sue, Lisa, and Hannah. But Hermione wasn’t speaking to him, Justin was in the hospital wing, and the Ravenclaws and Hannah were all avoiding Harry at his own suggestion to help their own social standings. Hannah had fought him harder on that one than Anthony, Lisa, and Sue. Harry was grateful for her loyalty—for all of their loyalty—but he wasn’t a fool.

“Does this have anything to do with Hermione sending me a very rambling letter about how she thinks you’ll never speak to her again?” Neville said.

Blaise raised his eyebrows. “So she does feel guilty.”

“Seemed so.” Harry wondered idly why Neville was so much more verbose with them than in class—wondered how a group of vindictive acid-tongued Slytherins had become the people Neville was most comfortable with. “But she wouldn’t say why. I wrote her back asking what she’d done and she sent me this super formal letter saying she’d been emotional when she sent the previous one and to just discount all of it. What is going on?”

“In here,” Harry said, stepping up to three suits of armor displayed crouching and brandishing their weapons. “Rapier,” he said, and they clanged into upright positions, leaving just enough room for someone to slip between them and through a narrow gap in the wall that was concealed behind the statues. Blaise, Theo, and Neville followed him.

“Lumos.”

Neville looked around the long, low-ceilinged dark room. “What is this place?”

“No idea,” Harry said. There was no furniture, and the walls had no torch brackets, and the dust on the floor looked completely undisturbed. “I found it a couple of months ago. Point is, it’s great for quick private conversations, if not particularly secure.” He told Neville about the Polyjuice, the bathroom confrontation, his fight with Hermione, and then him losing it a little bit and taking out some of his frustration on Malfoy.

Neville looked awed. “I really want to see Malfoy with antlers.”

“I’ll teach you the spell,” Harry said.

“I probably won’t be able to cast it,” Neville said gloomily.

Harry caught Theo’s eye.

“Neville,” Theo said quietly, “have you ever considered… that maybe you have trouble with magic because your wand didn’t choose you?”

“It’s my father’s,” Neville said. “It’s an honor to carry it.”

The words sounded like someone else’s in his mouth.

“He sounds like a good man,” Blaise said. “And he’d have wanted you to be successful. If that meant getting your own wand instead of using his—well, you’re not him, are you? You’re your own person. If living up to his legacy involves getting a new wand, it’s at least worth considering.”

Neville bit his lip.

Theo huffed. “All our old family wands are so steeped in Dark magic I probably couldn’t even get one into Hogwarts without the wards going off…”

Neville laughed and immediately looked horrified at himself. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh…”

“No, don’t apologize for laughing,” Theo said. “I’m funny.”

“All the old Potter family wands are on racks in our vault,” Harry said quietly. “Doing what Blaise’s mum did with her parent’s wands is better than that, at least.”

“I’ll… think about it,” Neville said.

“And in other news… Theo, did your dad tell you anything new about the Chamber?”

“Well, I was all ready to come back and tell what I know, but then Dracy bloody Malfoy stole my lines. Fifty years ago, Chamber opened, Muggle-borns getting petrified, and then one of them died, person who did it gets caught and expelled.”

“Do you know who it was? Or who caught them?” Harry said.

Theo grinned. “No… but I have a feeling we might be able to find out both of those things.”

“How?”

“The school keeps records,” Theo said. “Of all the students’ enrollment. All we have to do is find where the records are, break in, find the records from fifty years ago, and find whatever student didn’t enroll the next year. If there’s no one, we can assume it’s a seventh year, which still narrows our search and gives us an actual list of names. That’ll tell us who was expelled, and presumably responsible.”

“Which would require four second years to first of all find the record room and second of all break in to said room,” Blaise said.

“I can help with the first part,” Harry said. “There’s loads of snakes in this castle. I’m friends with a few.”

Neville had a determined expression on his face. “What about the person who caught them?”

Theo grinned. “How do you feel about the trophy room?”

January 7, 1993

They weren’t able to meet in the trophy room for three days, thanks to Slytherin and Gryffindor having different schedules.

“Okay, our excuse is that we’re settling a bet on how far back these things go,” Blaise said. “Everyone pick a year.”

“990,” Theo said instantly.

Neville frowned. “Uh… 1367?”

“This makes no sense,” Harry said. “We’ll be searching in the recent history era—if someone comes in and we say we’re settling a bet, why are we not down at the end with the oldest awards?”

“Well, what do you think we should say?” Blaise challenged.

“History project,” Harry said promptly. “I don’t know much about the wizarding world; I grew up Muggle. I came to poke around out of curiosity, Neville came to poke around also, and you two are here to laugh at us while we sneeze.”

“Sounds believable,” Theo said, snickering. “Don’t pout, Blaise, you’re just mad we’re not going with your idea.”

“I am a Zabini and Zabinis do not pout,” Blaise said. His dignity was ruined when Neville threw one of Harry’s charmed pens at his head and it nailed Blaise right in the cheek.

“Ow! Longbottom—”

Neville tried and failed to stop laughing. “What?”

“This means war.” Blaise grabbed the pen off the floor and threw it back. It hit Neville in the chest.

“Hey, you got ink on my sweater!”

“Scourgify,” Harry said, not bothering to hide his amusement.

“Thanks,” Neville said. “Okay, where’s the trophies for about fifty years ago? Can’t be that many.”

There turned out to be a lot.

“How many times can they award someone a medal for something completely and utterly inane?” Theo snarled, squinting at yet another pendant for Good Citizenship. “This one is—is helping the janitor scrub floors without asking!”

“Better than the one for good manners at the dinner table,” Blaise said darkly. He was still sifting through everything for the year 1942; Neville had wandered over to act as lookout while Harry went through 1943. Theo had reverted to just walking around and making fun of the most ridiculous awards he could find. “The awards stop around the late sixties or early seventies. Apparently Headmaster Dippet gave them out every other week. Thank Merlin Dumbledore doesn’t do that.”

Theo snorted. “I never expected you to say the words thank Merlin Dumbledore and not follow them up with something like isn’t Headmaster anymore.”

Neville rolled his eyes. “He’s a great wizard, but a wonderful Headmaster he is not.”

“Hang on,” Blaise said suddenly. “1943—Special Award for Services to the School, awarded to… Tom Marvolo Riddle.”

Theo tossed the medal aside and came over to look. “What kind of name is Tom Marvolo Riddle? Did his parents hate him?”

“My name is Longbottom,” Neville said. “I’d take Marvolo.”

“Point,” Theo said, laughing.

“It doesn’t say what for,” Harry said in frustration.

Blaise had been digging around the rest of the shelf; he turned to Harry with satisfaction. “But he’s the only person to get one that year. They’re not common; there wasn’t another awarded until… 1948, and before Riddle the last one was Sincher in 1939. Loads of other medals and stupid awards, but nothing important enough for having caught a murderer. I think we can say with a fair degree of certainty he did it.”

“Does it say anything else?” Neville said. “House, age, anything?”

“No, but that’ll be in the record room,” Theo said.

Blaise shook his head. “It’s a bad idea.”

“It’s the best one we have,” Harry said. “The Heir got Justin, Blaise. A friend.”

“Why do you think I haven’t just walked away from this entire crusade?” Blaise muttered.

“Do we know where the record room is yet?” Theo said. “Harry?”

“Actually, yes. But getting in won’t be easy. It’s on the sixth floor, near the entrance to the Astronomy Tower, there’s at least one snake who can smell wards and tells me it’s covered in them, and an alert will probably go off to the headmaster if anyone opens the door.”

“We’ll have to plan this,” Blaise said grimly. “Carefully. I am not getting expelled for this.”

January 13, 1993

Neville

The Three Knights Room, as they took to calling the room behind the suits of armor, became something of a headquarters for them.

Harry put up a few alarm spells and ward spells. Nothing complex, but you had to have an additional password beyond rapier—he set it as mandragora, which made Neville smile, which was unusual these days—and if anyone tried to get in, Harry would know. He said most students fourth year and above could probably break the wards, that Harry himself probably couldn’t, but Neville was still both impressed and depressed by the ease with which Harry cast them.

“Theo?”

“Hm.” Theo didn’t look up from his Transfiguration essay.

“D’you think I should get a new wand?”

Theo’s quill paused. “I think it’s your choice to make.”

“But if it was you.”

Pause.

“I’d do it.”

Neville bit his lip. It would be uncomfortable, but—

“Theo… your dad…”

Theo’s shoulders tensed. “Don’t go there, Neville.”

“Does he… does he ever hurt you?”

They both jerked up.

Harry shrugged and came the rest of the way into the room. “I only heard the last two sentences.”

“No.” Theo set his quill down. “No, he doesn’t. He’d never—he would never."

Harry’s mouth twisted bitterly before he smoothed his expression out again.

Theo winced. “Sorry, mate—”

“No, it’s fine,” Harry said, a bit sourly. “I know full well my childhood wasn’t stellar.”

Neville knew if he was picking up on the tension here, the two Slytherins probably felt it like a knife blade. The thing none of them was ever willing to talk about.

“What would happen if Hermione came over to your house?” he said suddenly. Both Slytherins winced, probably at his bluntness.

Theo’s face went carefully blank before he spoke. “Something he says a lot—I heard a lot growing up—‘Blood matters. Ability matters more.’ Hermione is a brilliant witch.”

Neville opened his mouth again, but Harry caught his eye and shook his head slightly. Harry’s views were another unknown, though not as much as Theo’s. Probably he just didn’t want to start an argument.

Another time.

A few seconds passed.

“You have some… issues with your gran,” Theo said. “Don’t you?” 

“I… kind of?” Neville said, not sure how to put it but thinking talking might be nice for a changee. “She loves me. She cares about me. She pays attention to my interests—Herbology and learning things… it’s just—it was hard on her. To lose… her son and her daughter-in-law and her brother, almost at once. And—so many friends. I think if she thinks she makes me… better, raises me better, then I’ll… I’ll be good enough to survive. When… when they weren’t.” He looked down at his wand and a surprising amount of bitterness hit him. Neville pushed it away. He didn’t want to resent her. “I love her. She cares about me. She just—she forgets to listen sometimes. Probably because… well.” He tried to laugh. “You’ve seen how I am in class—with everyone else—I can hardly get a word out that counts as standing up for myself.”

“It’s not your fault,” Harry said. “It’s never your fault. It might help if you learn to speak up more. But it’s not your job to make her listen. It’s her job to remember to listen in the first place. And if you—if you remind her of that—and she works on it—that’s good.”

His eyes—he didn’t look like he was looking at Neville or Theo.

“Harry,” Theo said. “If you need to talk…”

“Yeah.” Listening, Neville could do just fine.

“I know,” Harry said. “But… not right now.” He paused. “Same for you, by the way.”

Theo leaned back, nodding.

Neville cast about for something to say. “Oh, er—Harry, Hermione’s not… friends with Jules and Ron.”

“Mmm. And I care why?”

“Drop the act,” Neville said, so sharply he surprised himself. “We all know you were hurt by what happened.”

Harry sucked in a breath and for a second, just a second, he looked frightening—eyes bright, body tense, features carved from ice. But then it disappeared and he slumped back. “Fine, so what? She’s better off not being friends with me right now, anyway.”

“Now that is mopey.”

Theo threw his hands in the air. “For Merlin’s sake, how many interruptions are we going to have?”

Fred and George grinned as they ducked inside. “We’re wounded, we are.”

“Absolutely betrayed.”

“We can be serious. Right, Gred?”

“Of course, Feorge.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “I will hex you.”

“An-tee-oh-cue-lay-tia,” one of the twins said. Neville still couldn’t tell them apart. “Antler skulls.”

“Bloody brilliant.”

“We’ve been waiting for an excuse to use that one for years.”

“Of course ickle snakey Potter beat us to it—”

“—but who knows? Ron might just wake up a little top heavy one of these days.”

“Take pictures,” Theo said. “Please. I will literally pay you.”

Neville tried not to laugh. “Maybe don’t encourage them, Theo.”

Harry suddenly sat upright. “Fred, George… I might need a favor. Favor now, favor owed.”

“So you’ll owe us one?”

“One favor of equal or lesser magnitude, to be called in on a date of your choosing, and no, letting you into Slytherin, helping you sneak into Slytherin, or giving up House secrets are all out.”

“Damn.”

“We were hoping to hex Montague.”

Harry grinned. It was a mean expression and Neville didn’t like seeing it on his friend’s face, but as it was aimed at Montague—well. “I can do that for you.”

“What’s the favor?”

Theo got it. “Diversion,” he said. “Good one, Harry.”

The pieces fell together, and Neville grinned. “Oh,” he said. “Record room.”

“Record room,” Harry confirmed. “Now all we need is Blaise and Pansy.”

January 20, 1993

Harry 

“This is a terrible plan.”

“This is your plan.”

“It sounded better in the Knights Room. And it’s not entirely mine. Harry’s snakes gave us the information and we’re relying on the Weasley twins of all people!”

“If you had objections about the twins, you should’ve voiced them two weeks ago,” Harry said.

Blaise poked him. “I did.”

“We thought you were arguing just to argue. You like to do that,” Theo said.

“I’m just curious—does that much hypocrisy leave an aftertaste or anything? Seems like it should…”

Harry cut off their bickering. “We’re here.”

They stopped and looked at the blank stretch of wall.

“It looks like there’s nothing here,” Neville said.

Theo smirked. “I believe that’s rather the point.”

Harry looked down. “Show me?” He ignored how Hannah flinched at the sound of Parseltongue.

“Thissss way,” Senny, a grass snake who’d come in to the castle because apparently the magic and the warmth kept snakes out of hibernation, said, darting over the stone floor. He was nearly invisible. Harry tracked his movement until the snake paused maybe ten meters farther down. “Here.”

Theo examined the wall. “Yeah, I see the crack—that’s how he got back there in the first place?”

“Looks like it,” Harry said, pulling his wand. He looked at Theo. “Ready?”

Theo pointed his wand at the wall and traced a complicated pattern. He and Harry had spent hours poring over Transfiguration books, finding the elements of wand movements that would get the desired effect and piecing them together from other things Transfigurations they’d practiced. It had been the work of nearly a week to get it right, but they’d eventually how to transfigure stone to air and back again. The two of them were the best at transfiguration among their group and the other three weren’t consistent enough with this spell, so they stood back while Harry and Theo went to work.

“Commuto.”

Harry concentrated fiercely. A cavity appeared in the wall, round and smooth, as though the stone was ice cream and someone had taken a spoon to it.

“Commuto.”

The cavity grew a little deeper.

One Transfiguration after another, they carved their way into the wall, following Senny’ tail sliding away into the cracks. Dimly, through his intense concentration on his casting, Harry heard Blaise put up an illusion that would make the entrance of their tunnel look like normal wall.

The tunnel was cramped, and the floor wasn’t flat. They had to go single file and crawling. Harry and Theo alternated casting commuto; Theo was in front and had to press himself to one side for Harry to aim past him and take another chunk out of the rock.

“Here,” Senny said, stopping and jabbing with his nose.

“Thankssss,” Harry said, as Theo turned and aimed to the right instead of straight ahead. “I’ll bring you some Cockroach Clussster tomorrow.”

Senny hissed his pleasure and vanished back the way they’d come.

They angled their tunnel to the right.

Senny turned out to have been perfectly correct. They only needed to do three more transfigurations before they hit only air and Theo crawled out into the record room.

“Hell, that was exhausting,” he said, wincing and breathing rather hard.

Harry agreed fervently. Transfiguration wasn’t easy magic and they’d just done rather a lot at once. McGonagall, he had no doubt, probably could have carved the tunnel all at once with a single spell and barely felt it.

“My turn,” Pansy said, tumbling out of the tunnel. “I’ll track down—whoa.”

“Yeah,” Harry agreed, still panting but looking around in amazement.

The record room lived up to its name. Honeycombs of thousands of scrolls lined the walls; a single massive oak desk stood in the center of the tall, narrow room.

“This is incredible,” Hannah breathed. “This can’t be only attendance records; there’s far too many of them.”

Harry looked at the hole they’d left. “Senny was right—good thing we stayed close to the ground.” The bottom level of honeycombs was only about half a meter above the floor; their tunnel came out barely beneath it. It would’ve been bad to destroy any of the records.

Pansy stepped slowly up to the desk. Neville cast a quick lumos and frowned, concentrating; the light slowly grew until Harry could see that a bloodred quill floated perfectly still above the desk and a blank bit of parchment.

“I can’t see the top,” Blaise said in a hushed voice. Harry and Hannah and Theo craned their heads back. The room rose higher than Neville’s wandlight reached.

Pansy looked back. “I think—I think we dictate to the quill.”

“But does it save a record of searches?” Harry said. “We don’t want anyone knowing what we came in here for.”

“I’ll take the parchment,” Pansy said. She prodded the quill with her wand. “Get me student records from 1943 and 1944.”

The quill scritched across the parchment. A series of clunks echoed through the room.

Neville looked around nervously.

“Pansy—” Blaise said.

“Shh.”

They waited a few more seconds.

Shuffling sounded above. They all looked up. Neville raised his wand.

Two scrolls were floating down from the ceiling.

“Quick,” Pansy hissed. “Blaise, Neville, Hannah—help me.”

Harry sat down. He was really tired. Really tired. Maybe they’d underestimated how much it would take out of him and Theo to get them in here… and they still had to retransfigure air to rock on the way out.

Theo sat down next to him.

This had been the plan, at least--for the other four to search for the records while Harry and Theo rested. So it wasn’t too big a problem. But still. He hadn’t expected to be this tired.

Pansy and Hannah worked surprisingly well together, spreading the scrolls out. Hannah had a word-finding charm and found Tom Riddle straightaway. “Slytherin,” she said grimly.

“Look,” Neville said suddenly, pointing. “1943--Rubeus Hagrid! He was a student here!”

Hannah’s head snapped up. “Ernie told me--Hagrid showed him and Jules and Ron once that he’s got the two pieces of his wand in a pink umbrella. He uses it for magic sometimes, illegally.” Harry filed that away. “His wand was snapped for something--and he’s never got another, so it can’t have been an accident.”

“You think…”

Hannah cast the word-finding charm on the second scroll. Harry couldn’t see the surface of the desk from his spot on the floor, but he could see the grimness on their faces.

Blaise spoke it. “Hagrid was expelled.”

“No way,” Theo croaked. “Hagrid, the Heir of Slytherin? That’s honestly the funniest thing I’ve heard all day. I’d laugh if I wasn’t so tired.”

Pansy poked the quill again. “All records on Tom Riddle.”

More scrolls floated down. Five more that Harry figured were more student attendance lists, but a couple of others. They unrolled the scrolls and scanned them, acutely aware of time passing.

“Prefect, Head Boy, nearly perfect grades, hardly a single detention,” Neville said. “Riddle really had it all, didn’t he?”

“Framed,” Harry said. He’d been thinking, and it was the only thing that made any sense. “Hagrid’s been framed.”

“I expect you’re right, but let’s save that conversation for later,” Pansy said. “We need to figure out who died.”

“Wait,” Neville said. “Surely—what if they kept a list of students who’ve died? We don’t have time to go through both scrolls all the way through—that’s hundreds of students, and it’s been nearly forty minutes—”

“That’s actually rather brilliant,” Pansy said.

“You sound surprised,” Neville muttered.

Pansy snickered and asked the scroll for death records.

“That’s actually rather a lot of death records,” Hannah said, critically eyeing the three fat scrolls that slid out of niches about halfway up one wall and floated down to the desk. “Should we be concerned?”

“I’m sure Hogwarts was more dangerous back when it opened,” Blaise said, already opening one of them. “This is the oldest—ends about 1500.”

Pansy unrolled the one that was thinner than the others. “Here we go—a few people have died since, but the only one who died in 1943 was… Myrtle Warren?”

“You can’t mean… Moaning Myrtle?” Hannah said in disbelief.

“Who?” Blaise said.

“The second floor girls’ loo,” Pansy said. “I’m sure you remember that little standoff? I told you it’s haunted—by the ghost of a girl named Myrtle. Everyone calls her Moaning Myrtle.”

“What standoff?” Hannah asked.

Harry clambered to his feet. He was feeling better. “It doesn’t matter. That’s an excellent lead. Can anyone think of anything else?”

They all looked round at each other.

“I can’t,” Neville said finally. “We know—we know who was expelled, we learned more about Riddle, and we even got—who died.”

“Riddle’s a Slytherin,” Blaise said. “We can go back through our House records.”

“Your House keeps records?” Neville said.

The Slytherins looked at him. “Yours doesn’t?” Theo said.

“It’s Gryffindor,” Pansy said. “The only people in this school less organized than Gryffindors are Ravenclaws the week after exams when they suddenly have no obligations and all the time to go after their mad hobbies.”

“Anthony isn’t here to be offended by that so I’ll be offended for him,” Hannah said. “Ravenclaws are wonderful.”

“Oh yes,” Pansy said. “Wonderful. But spectacularly disorganized.”

“We need to go,” Harry said, looking at his battered old wristwatch. “Lunch hour’s almost up, whatever the twins did will be over by now—”

Blaise started rolling scrolls. The others followed suit while Harry and Theo braced themselves to start their transfiguration again.

“Okay, we’re done,” Pansy said, poking the quill again.

The scrolls started to float away, but the parchment with their searches on it rolled up with a snap and rose, too.

“Grab it!” Theo said.

“No, get back here—” Pansy grabbed for it and missed; Blaise used his height to snatch it out of the air before it got too far above them and jammed it into his pocket.

A wail burst through the room, high-pitched and loud enough to nearly burst their eardrums.

“What is that!” Neville yelled, hands over his ears.

“Alarm spell! Go!” Harry shouted back. Blaise was already scrambling into the tunnel, Hannah and Pansy right behind him. Harry shoved Neville after them and looked around. No sign of them ever having been here, except the scrolls still floating back up towards their niches; only a few hadn’t put themselves away yet.

Theo dove into the tunnel. “Harry! Come on!”

Harry fell to his knees and hurried inside. He twisted around and pointed his wand behind him. “Commuto.” He concentrated fiercely, making the outer edge of the transfigured block of air into solid stone that matched the room’s inner wall, making the stone the same composition as what surrounded it—

The new chunk had as much power behind it as he could muster, and it was easily half a meter thick.

Theo aimed his wand past Harry.

“No time,” Harry said, pushing on him, “we’ll have to just do the other end and leave the tunnel open, go—”

Theo didn’t need more prompting. He took off in a fast crawl after Neville. Harry followed. The only sounds were their panting and the scrape of cloth and hands on stone. Wandlight bounced chaotically over the walls and ceiling; at least two people had cast lumos and were carrying wands in their mouths. Harry’s palms and knees were soon raw from crawling but he paid the pain no attention.

Blaise paused at the end of the tunnel, listening. They all waited and tried to catch their breath.

“I don’t hear anything,” he whispered, and scrambled out of the tunnel. Hannah tumbled out after him, then Pansy, Neville, Theo—

Harry was last.

Blaise undid the illusion spell.

“I hear footsteps,” Theo hissed. “Commuto.”

His transfigured stone was nearly perfect. Maybe a shade darker than the surrounding area, maybe not perfectly flat transitions, but Harry didn’t think you’d notice the difference if you didn’t know it was there.

They took off running. The boys were silent; Harry really needed to get Theo to give the girls silent shoes for Christmas next year—

Just as they dodged around a corner, they heard someone skid to a halt outside the records room.

Hannah peeked back around the corner before Harry could stop her.

A second later, she turned back. “It was Flitwick,” she said. “He said a password and went inside, hall’s clear—”

“Tapestry,” Harry said. “Of the knights—there’s a passage behind it.”

They crept farther down the hall, tugged aside the tapestry he’d mentioned, and found a spiral staircase.

“The top dead-ends,” Harry said. “Bottom lets out beneath the Grand Staircase on the first floor.”

“Perfect,” Blaise said, already hurtling down the stairs.

They paused at the bottom to get their breath back, fix rumpled ties, and brush stone dust off their knees, then Pansy pushed on the stone Harry pointed her to and the wall swung silently aside.

Fred and George leaned on the wall opposite them, grinning. “Excellent use of the passages, Harry.”

“We didn’t find that one until third year.”

“Did you get what you needed?”

Harry nodded. “Set off an alarm, barely evaded Flitwick, but yes. Did you cause enough chaos?”

“Half the school’s in the hospital wing,” George said.

“What?”

“We got into the kitchen storage and lined all the cups we could get our hands on with an experimental powder.”

“House-elves didn’t notice, they’ll have nothing to report.”

“It made everyone who drank out of a contaminated goblet start laughing uncontrollably.”

“Until they got sick, actually.”

“It was only supposed to last ten minutes but it hadn’t worn off after twenty.”

“Madam Pomfrey should be able to sort them out.”

“Some people turned a bit purple, we didn’t expect that.”

“They were all sixth and seventh years…”

“…and we’ve only tested it on ourselves, so maybe some older students have a different reaction.”

“We’ll look into it.”

Hannah looked faint. “You just—you poisoned half the school?!”

“Well, we tested it on ourselves first,” Fred said, looking offended.

George shrugged. “So we knew it wasn’t lethal. Or dangerous. Just… inconvenient.”

Hannah threw her hands in the air. “I cannot believe you two—”

“It’s done, Hannah,” Blaise said.

“Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“Then don’t,” Harry said. “I’m sure being furious with them will have such an impact.”

Hannah turned her glare on him.

He smirked.

Hannah shook her head. “I won’t report you this time. Mostly because I really should’ve thought to ask first. But seriously—if I ever hear about you two causing a diversion by doing something so irresponsible and dangerous, your brother will find out within a day.”

Fred and George were very good at looking contrite and solemn. “We understand.”

“We won’t do it again.”

“Good,” Hannah said. “Harry, Knights Room tomorrow after classes?”

“Sure.”

She left in a huff.

Theo raised an eyebrow at the twins. “I’m sure you meant you wouldn’t poison people again, not that you wouldn’t let Hannah hear about you doing such a thing again. Right?”

Now their expressions were smirking and sharp. “Oh, definitely the former.”

“We would never be so manipulative.”

“You poisoned half the school,” Neville grumbled, shaking his head. “How is this my life now?”

Blaise slung an arm around his shoulders as they headed for the entrance hall, where a flood of students was leaving the Great Hall, all chattering loudly about the chaos that had just happened. “You’re friends with sneaky conniving Slytherins and two of the craziest Gryffindors to ever Gryffindor, Neville, what were you expecting?”

That night at dinner, Dumbledore stood up and made an announcement with an unusually grim face that the lunchtime incident had been the result of deliberate sabotage, and the teachers suspected it was linked to the triggering of an alarm spell on an unspecified secure room in the castle, and they were investigating, and whoever had done it would be punished with the most severe of consequences. Harry made sure his expression was innocent and carefully didn’t look at any of his friends.

January 24

Harry looked up from his cauldron as the girls walked in. He’d taken to doing his potions experiments in one end of the Knights Room. It was easier than the dungeons since they were spending a lot of time in here lately. “You talked to Myrtle?”

“Yes,” Pansy said, throwing herself into a chair. They’d gotten Fred and George to cast Shrinking Charms on comfortable chairs stolen from the common leisure rooms and then reverse the spells once the chairs were inside the Knights Room, in exchange for the password and unlimited access to the space. The twins had already started storing boxes in the corner, some of which held smuggled pens waiting to be charmed and sold, and some of which had unidentified contents. With Bluebell Flames burning in a large iron bowl on the floor, comfortable chairs, a big wooden table, boxes at one end and Harry’s cauldron and worktable at the other, the place was almost cozy, if you ignored the bare stone walls and the shadows in the corners the Bluebell Flames couldn’t quite dispel. “She only remembers ‘big yellow eyes’ over by the sinks.”

“We checked the sinks out,” Hannah said. “There was nothing odd about them.”

Harry sighed. “Well, it was something.”

“She did remember Hagrid,” Pansy said. “He was a Gryffindor—of course—and she said he was an oaf, was one of the kindest people in the school, and terrified everyone by trying to keep all the most terrifying magical creatures around. Got detentions all the time for going into the Forbidden Forest—apparently Hagrid’s the reason its name was changed from ‘the Dark Forest’ and declared off-limits to students; before him it wasn’t officially forbidden—and wasn’t spectacular at magic.”

“Sounds about right,” Theo said.

“Hagrid’s really nice,” Neville said, without looking up from his Potions essay, which he was struggling through with occasional help from Harry.

Theo shrugged. “I never said he wasn’t.”

“Can we not?” Hannah said. “Seriously, I’d actually like to get some work done—”

Blaise burst through the door. “My mum’s getting married again—”

Hannah threw her hands into the air. “Apparently bloody not—”

“—this summer,” Blaise finished, skidding to a halt. His clothes were more disheveled than Harry had ever seen them, and he strongly suspected that if Blaise’s hair hadn’t been cut short it would’ve been a mess as well. “And you’re all coming to the wedding because so help me Merlin if I have to get through another one of those things where every bloody person is a mindless sycophant or out to—to use me for something I am going to commit homicide.”

“What, so you haven’t already?” Theo said.

“Theo, this is not the time,” Blaise snarled.

Neville’s mouth was hanging open. “What is happening right now?”

“Surely you know who Lia Zabini is,” Theo said. “The Black Widow?”

“I—well, yes, but I thought—they were rumors,” Neville said.

Blaise thrust his hands deep into his pockets.

Neville squinted uncertainly at him. “Are they rumors?”

“I can neither confirm nor deny,” Blaise said with a trace of his usual airy disdain. Then he collapsed into an empty chair with a long exhale and threw an arm over his eyes.

Hannah and Neville exchanged a worried glance. Even Theo seemed slightly hesitant, and Harry had never seen him hesitate to whip out his lethal sarcasm and acid tongue.

“Er,” Harry said. “You—are you all right, mate?” If it was him, he wouldn’t have wanted to talk about it; he’d have wanted to hurl hexes and dodge them until he was exhausted enough to collapse into bed and fall asleep instantly, and Theo would’ve happily obliged him because he coped with things the same way. Blaise, though—Blaise talked.

“No,” Blaise said. “No, I am not. She—Merlin. The socialites, the games, the wordplay—she loves it, she loves the backstabbing and the twisting people’s thoughts and manipulating them—did you know black widow spiders don’t spin the pretty symmetrical webs? They’re chaotic, complicated, impossible to understand. She’s my mother and I don’t trust her. And she doesn’t trust bloody anyone.”

“And you want people you can trust,” Hannah said gently. “To watch your back while you’re there.”

“No, I can watch my own back just fine, thanks,” Blaise said. Harry was relieved to hear that Blaise wasn’t too distressed for snappy retorts. If he’d been that far gone, they may have had to do something drastic. Like possibly murder his mother’s latest fiancée to keep the wedding from ever happening and thus giving Blaise stress. “I’ve been attending these since I was two and been trained for them, both overtly and by observation, for quite literally my entire life. Mum’s bedtime stories involved betrayal and death.”

“Well that explains a lot,” Theo said.

Harry glared at him.

“Okay, no more,” Theo said. Then he checked his wristwatch. “For… two minutes. Starting now.”

“Merlin, it’s a miracle,” Pansy said, staring at Theo in awe. Blaise replaced the arm over his face with a pillow. “Nott agreeing to shut his mouth—”

“I agreed to leave off Blaise for two minutes, not you,” Theo said. “Speaking of which, did you do something to your hair? It looks rather like Weasley’s rat tried to nest in it.”

Pansy’s hand flew to her wand. “You—”

“Hey,” Harry said sharply.

They shut up.

“Blaise, if not to watch your back, why do you want us there?” Hannah said. Harry met her eyes and mouthed thank you.

Blaise’s voice was muffled. “To remind me I’m not her, okay? To remind me that I at least have people I can trust.” He paused. “Also because there’s quite frequently drama and mind games, and I know Harry and Pansy at least will love playing them, and Pansy, you can gather some excellent gossip.”

Pansy looked delighted. “Blaise, that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever done for me.”

“I know,” he said. “Figured you ought to get something out of this.”

“What about us?” Neville said, still looking a bit stunned by the entire conversation. “Hannah and me. And Hermione. And I’m assuming Justin, when he wakes up.”

“I was planning on bribing Hermione with access to my family library in Italy,” Blaise said. “And you and Hannah and Justin are nice people, you’ll come just because I asked.”

Hannah made a face. “I really want to be offended by that, but I can’t, because you’re right.”

“I can,” Neville said. “I want in your greenhouse if you’ve got one.”

“Neville,” Harry said, impressed. “You’re learning to talk like a Slytherin.”

Neville looked horrified. “Oh Merlin, I am, aren’t I? I need to not spend time with you lot.”

“Come off it,” Theo said. Blaise’s shoulders were moving in what looked like a trace of laughter, which was immensely reassuring. “You just got a visit to Italian greenhouses out of doing a favor for a friend that you probably would’ve done even if this whole conversation about bribery hadn’t come up. Speaking of which, what do I get, Blaise? I can play word games with the best of them but it’s not something I do for fun, like Pansy and Harry.”

“It does require a certain intelligence threshold,” Pansy said thoughtfully.

Theo glowered at her. “I will stick your shoes to the floor next time you’re getting up in front of the class for something.”

“And I will hex your mouth shut next time you face off with Weasley,” she said sweetly. “Maybe if you’re silent, he’ll be able to get in a decent retort.”

“Doubtful,” Harry said drily. “My brother’s favorite sidekick is many things, but good at witty banter is not one of them.”

There was a pause.

“Looks like we’re going to Italy,” Hannah said. “Where, exactly?”

“Venice. Casa Zabini, known of old as Casa di Angeli, and yes I’m aware of the irony.”

“Angeli,” Theo said. “Angels. Those are that one Muggle religion’s spirits of divinity, purity, and goodness, right?”

“Yep,” Harry said.

Theo looked like he very much regretted his two-minute promise. Harry knew they’d be hearing a lot of angel jokes next summer.

“You can all come for a week or two,” Blaise said. “The London home’s got nothing on Casa Zabini proper, and we’ll have it to ourselves for the week after the wedding, and the Italian Ministry literally does not care what underage wizards and witches do in the summer, and the library will keep us plenty occupied.” Harry was already looking forward to exploring it. He knew he, Hermione, and Theo would probably spend at least a few days doing little else.

Neville twisted his fingers together. “Er... Hermione...”

Blaise paused. "This is assuming she... gets over her Slytherin prejudice, and we make up with her." 

“It’s not prejudice,” Hannah said.

Harry raised an eyebrow at her.

“Okay, maybe it is, a little,” Hannah admitted. “But can you blame her? When half the upper-year Slytherins mock her and disregard her completely just because she’s a—a Mudblood?”

“She didn’t trust me, Hannah,” Harry said. “She thought I was the Heir, or that I was lying about it not being Malfoy—and I can accept her having her doubts, but—seriously? What she did was not acceptable and she needs to apologize.”

“She swears she did,” Neville said. “In—in the bathroom that day—”

“Sincerely,” Harry added. “When she’s not guilty, caught in the moment, and backtracking to minimize the consequences of her actions.”

Hannah frowned. “Blaise—Hermione and Justin are—are Muggle-born. Don’t take this the wrong way, but…”

“But I wasn’t exactly willing to accept them at first?” Blaise finished bitingly.

Hannah nodded, realized Blaise couldn’t see him through the pillow, and said “Yes” hurriedly.

“I admit, it was… difficult… for me,” Blaise said grudgingly. “Justin pays attention, he’s actually bothering with cultural awareness. Harry—Hermione’s better, at least since you talked to her last year. My mother will be fine as long as they make an effort. And not that I think it’ll come to this, but I can always blackmail her into being decent.”

“You’d blackmail your mother?” Pansy said. “Zabini. That’s impressive. I want whatever you have on her.”

“Yeah, you’ll have to do a hell of a lot more than come to a wedding to get that information out of me, Parkinson.”

Hannah shook her head. “You are all awful.”

Harry sent her a lazy, charming smile. “Yes, but we are also funny, and intelligent, and loyal to our friends…”

“I hate you, Potter,” she said, without any real feeling.

“If that’s hatred, I wonder what you define my brother’s feelings toward me.”

“Complicated,” Hannah said promptly. “Curiosity, uncertainty, bitterness, insecurity. I’ve no doubt he feels betrayed you’re in Slytherin. If you can forgive Blaise growing up with anti-Muggle-born sentiment and needing time to get over it, surely you can forgive Jules Potter growing up with anti-Slytherin sentiment and needing some time to get over that, which would probably go faster if you’d quit antagonizing him.”

Harry blinked at her. “I’d no idea you devoted that much thought to Jules.”

“I’m good at people,” Hannah said simply. “Maybe not in the way Pansy is, but—Muggles call it profiling. I’ve always had a knack.” She paused. “Although I’m sure you have character objections.”

“Merlin, yes,” Harry said.

Theo rolled his eyes. “Arrogance, self-centeredness—”

“What, and you don’t have either of those?” Hannah countered.

“Confidence, Hannah, not arrogance. One involves an accurate estimation of self-worth, the other involves thinking better of oneself than you should,” Theo said, warming to the debate. Harry knew he could go on for ages about semantics and logical fallacies if you let him get going. “And we’re selfish, not self-centered. There’s a distinct difference, if you look at—”

“Anyway,” Harry said, “he’s also a reckless, impulsive, entitled prat, who spends far too little time thinking about the consequences of his actions and far too much thinking about how good they’ll look during and how good they’ll sound later to his friends. He’s far too fond of attention and also he’s friends with Weasley and Finnegan, which speaks to a character deficiency or a stunning obliviousness to the characters of the people around him, neither of which recommends him to me.”

Hannah shrugged. “Yes, and that’s all very valid, and I frankly dislike him for many of the same reasons. My point about his Slytherin prejudice stands.”

“I’ll… consider it,” Harry said reluctantly. It was easier to just hate Jules.

But he supposed that would mean sinking to Weasley’s level, he realized with sudden horror.

“No. Never mind. I will not deliberately antagonize Jules unless he picks a fight with me first,” Harry amended. “Weasley and Finnegan, I reserve my rights to antagonize.”

“In fairness, it doesn’t take much,” Theo said, smirking. “We just have to breathe in their direction and they’re ready to throw fists. Or jinxes, except they never seem to be able to draw their wands quickly enough.”

“Jules is getting dueling training this summer,” Harry said offhandedly, “he bragged about it at the end of last year—thirteen’s the minimum age for Ministry-approved summer practice, which you have to pay through the nose for and only happens on Ministry proper, and is only extended to those with ‘Chosen One’ attached to their name—point is, don’t be so quick to piss him off next year.”

Theo actually looked excited by the prospect. “Oh excellent, some actual practice.”

“I’m sorry, am I not good enough for you to train with?” Harry said. “Because I beat you at least half the time, and I’m fairly sure Jules isn’t going to be any better than I am, given, you know, Slytherin’s climate—”

“It’s different with someone you actively dislike,” Theo said.

“I’m flattered,” Harry drawled. “You don’t actively dislike me. Such an ironclad foundation to our friendship.”

“Personality like yours, were you really expecting anything better?” Pansy cut in.

“At least I don’t have a personality like yours; all my time would be spent worrying who was going to try to stab me in the back next,” Harry said.

“You don’t?” Blaise said.

Harry shrugged. “Worrying’s stupid.”

“Um,” Neville said. “How?”

Harry paused, trying to put something he’d lived by most of his life into words. “Either you can do something about the thing that you’re worried about, in which case you’d be better served spending time doing it and not worrying, or you can’t do anything about whatever you’re worried about, in which case worrying won’t change anything and you might as well do or think about something else.”

Neville angled his head, thinking.

“Very well put, Harry,” Hannah said.

He nodded absently. He was thinking about his ongoing search for the entrance to the kitchens. Many of the other passages seemed to want to be found by anyone with the willingness to search and a desire to use them, but the kitchen entrance was clearly only willing to reveal itself for the worthy, or some such nonsense.

Neville shook his head. “I have to write home that I’ve been invited to Lia Zabini’s latest wedding with her son, the Slytherin Potter, and the Nott and Parkinson heirs. Gran’s going to have kittens.”

February 16, 1993

Harry and Blaise went at it fiercely, grim and determined.

“Volculeus!”

“Expelliarmus!”

“Tarantallegra!”

“Commuto!”

“Fulma!”

“Famublare!”

The last Trip Jinx caught Harry and he slammed into the stone hard enough to bruise his shoulder. Blaise nailed him in the leg with a Stinging Hex and raised his arms in victory.

“Tarantallegra,” Harry hissed, a bit vindictively.

“Dammit—” Blaise’s legs lurched into uncontrollable motion, and he promptly hit the ground, wand rolling away from his fingers.

Hannah cast a finite. “Harry, that wasn’t sporting, he hit you.”

“In the leg,” Harry said innocently, climbing to his feet. “He’s the one who used tarantallegra instead of a Body-Bind or Expelliarmus.”

Blaise glowered. “Why are we friends?”

“Because no one else will put up with you?” Theo said, nodding approvingly at Harry as he took his place in the dueling circle with Daphne, who looked bored and also like she was about to very much enjoy flinging hexes at something, which was her default expression.

Blaise sneered at both of them and stalked over to work with Hannah and Pansy.

Harry joined Neville. The Gryffindor boy had been working hard and could somewhat regularly cast Stinging Hexes and Body Binds now. Disarming Charms still evaded him, as did Dancing Charms most of the time, but it was progress. Harry volunteered to be Neville’s practice subject and resigned himself to an hour spent holding a book in front of him and periodically wincing from a Stinger, toppling over after a Body Bind, or struggling to hold onto the book and cast finite at the same time if his legs jerked into involuntary motion.

 Tracy was the one to eventually call a halt and insist they all use the remaining hour before curfew to study. There was a Potions test approaching.  Harry wasn’t worried about it in the slightest, and was actually rather looking forward to it as he’d been messing around with brewing for long enough that he thought he could actually improve the brew’s shelf life and maybe eke some points out of Snape, who for all his Slytherin favoritism almost never gave Harry any in class. The rest of them, especially Neville, still wanted to study. Harry answered questions when he was asked them but mostly worked on a separate project involving inkpots, quills, and Switching Spells.

Fifteen minutes to curfew, they began packing up their things.

Neville very clumsily dropped first a quill, then two scrolls that came undone and had to be rerolled, and then his entire writing case, which burst open and spilled several quills and pieces of loose paper onto the floor.

Harry sighed. “Go on,” he told the rest, “I’ll help him clean up.”

“Thanks,” Neville muttered, looking down, and the rest of the group filed out of the Knights Room.

Theo sighed dramatically and hung back as well. Blaise dithered but Harry waved him on, and the taller boy vanished with a shrug, walking off with Daphne, Tracy, and Pansy.

“That was pretty subtle, nice job,” Harry said.

Neville frowned. “I thought you hadn’t noticed.”

Theo snorted, picking up the last of Neville’s quills. “Neville, you’re not sneaky. What is it?”

“I think Jules and Ron found a Dark object. Really dark. The kind of Dark that bites back.”

Harry handed Neville the last of his papers with a sigh.

“How do they manage to stick their noses into everything weird that ever happens in this bloody castle?” Theo complained.

“Not everything,” Harry said. “And it does seem rather… odd… in light of last year…”

“You mean… how the traps seemed… d-designed for Jules and his closest friends?” Neville said, biting his lip. “I—I mean, Dumbledore is… he wouldn’t try to kill a first year. And—Jules is the Boy Who Lived!”

“As much as I hate that nickname, he has a point,” Theo said. “What Light wizard in their right mind would go after Jules?”

“It could be argued that Dumble isn’t in his right mind,” Harry said. “But this is off topic. Neville, what’s the Dark object?”

“A diary,” Neville said grimly. “It was in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom—they saw it was flooded again and went to look—someone tried to flush it down the toilets but it clogged and then washed back out. They’ve been poking round it for a few weeks now but—remember the Valentine Megan Jorkins sent Jules?”

“Vividly,” Theo said.

Harry grinned. “It’s one of my most treasured memories.”

“I’m with Hannah,” Neville said. “You are not nice people. Anyway—er—Jules spilled ink on the diary when his bag split, but when he got back to the dorms the ink was gone—so he tried writing in it.”

“They hadn’t tried writing in it before?” Harry said. “Idiots.” They were all clustered by the entrance to the Knights Room, ready to leave but unwilling to have this conversation in the open.

Neville shrugged. “I dunno, I’m not exactly close with them… But as it turns out—the diary’s got some bloke’s memories stored in it, and it writes back if you write in it, and it can show you memories. But the weirdest part—it belonged to Tom Riddle.”

Theo coughed. “What?”

“And you’re only telling us this now?” Harry said, then winced. “That was harsher than I meant it to be—”

“I didn’t know until today,” Neville said. “And then—well, we had Daphne and Tracy here, and I didn’t know how much you’ve told them… so I didn’t say anything. Until now. But—it showed Jules a memory. Of Riddle and Hagrid. We were right—about Riddle turning in Hagrid, anyway, and Hagrid getting thrown out… it sounded rather like old Headmaster Dippet wasn’t very fond of Hagrid on account of Hagrid being part giant…”

“Is it possible Dumbledore’s actually an upgrade?” Theo said.

Harry elbowed him. “So—the diary has memories in it, and Jules used it to find out that Riddle turned Hagrid in for killing that one student. But you think it’s Dark?”

“Well,” Neville said, hesitating, “it seems—it seems like it can’t have been Hagrid, didn’t we agree?”

“He’s about as likely to be the Heir of Slytherin as a chicken,” Theo said.

“Maybe less, chickens are vicious little bastards,” Harry said absently, remembering with a shudder the time Dudley had wanted to go to a farm-style petting zoo for his birthday. “And you think it’s Dark because it’s lying to Jules?”

“Yeah. That, and it's obviously powerful.”

“Well, even if it did end up lying to him, Riddle lied in his life, too, so that’s not much difference… he might be morally bankrupt, but that doesn’t necessarily make him Dark. Or the Heir.”

“The way Jules told it… it also seemed like—well, like Riddle knew about whatever Hagrid was raising in the castle and only told on him when it killed someone and they were going to close the school down. He said Riddle was very worried about that.”

“Slytherin records show Riddle stayed on over all the holidays he could for all seven years here,” Harry said, looking at Theo. “Familiar trend?”

“Oh yeah.” Theo crossed his arms. “So Riddle’s got a home he doesn’t want to go back to, a Muggle surname in Slytherin, perfect grades and exam scores, Prefect, Head Boy later on—and in his fifth year, he turns in Hagrid for raising whatever it was only after he learned about the death and that they were about to close the school. At which point the attacks stopped.”

“And if you assume Hagrid’s not the Heir…” Harry said. “Logically, it’s possible Riddle was the real Heir and he decided putting up with Muggle-borns was a better option than not getting to come to Hogwarts at all.”

“That, or the real Heir was someone else who took advantage of the frame job to get off clean,” Theo said. “But that doesn’t make sense, because if Riddle wasn’t the Heir, he couldn’t have been able to be sure the attacks would stop if he turned in an innocent student. Which would only destroy his credibility if Hagrid got expelled and the attacks kept on happening.”

Harry nodded. “Not to mention, Riddle’s actually in Slytherin, which you would expect the Heir to be, and by all measures, highly intelligent.”

Neville looked a little lost by this logic, but he soldiered on. “Riddle must be the Heir, then.”

“Looks that way.”

“So the diary’s probably Dark.”

Harry and Theo shrugged. “It’s not an unreasonable assumption,” Theo said. “I could tell if I could get a look at it.” It went unsaid that he’d be able to do so because he had actually spent time around Dark objects before.

“Can you get it to us?” Harry said.

Neville frowned. “Probably not, Jules keeps it locked in his trunk… I’ll try.”

“Hell,” Harry said, looking at his watch. “It’s past curfew. Neville, can you make it back to your dorm without getting caught? If not, I can take you—”

“I got it,” Neville said with a sudden grin. “I’ve been picking up on the passages from you. See you guys.”

Theo and Harry watched him go.

“Do you think we’re a bad influence on him?” Harry said.

Theo shrugged. “Do you think I care?”

Laughing, they made their way down to the dungeons, where Theo surreptitiously cast a silencing ward around Blaise’s bed, sat on the edge of it, and caught Blaise up on the latest out of Gryffindor Tower.

February 20, 1993

Three days later, a pale-faced Neville told Harry, Hannah, Blaise, Theo, and Pansy that someone had broken into the Gryffindor second year boys’ dorm, trashed all of Jules Potter’s things, and stolen the diary back. Theo cursed and Harry frowned, because they both saw immediately what this meant—someone in Gryffindor had access to the preserved memories of the Heir of Slytherin. Which meant it could be a Gryffindor using Riddle’s instructions to open the Chamber.

Neville and Hannah were understandably skeptical, but Theo got them to admit it was at least something they had to consider.

March 6, 1993

“SLY-THER-IN! SLY-THER-IN! SLY-THER-IN!”

Harry grinned uncontrollably as the return of the victorious Slytherin Quidditch team to their common room was greeted with cheers, screams, pumpkin juice, butterbeer, and mass amounts of sweets.

Theo and Blaise and Pansy fought their way through the crowd to congratulate him. Bletchley and even Bole, who didn’t like Harry much, were on either side of him and clapping him on the back and complimenting him on his flying. Hestia Carrow gave him a grudging nod from across the common room. Flora, the constant silent presence at her sister’s shoulder, met Harry’s eyes expressionlessly and turned away after a few seconds, but even their hatred of him couldn’t ruin his mood. He held his bottle of butterbeer in the air when someone hollered for a toast and joined in the chanting.  

“Hey! Hey, you lot quiet down!” seventh-year prefect Tony McDougal bellowed, tugging out a bit of parchment for their usual post-game ritual.

“And the score stands as follows! Bletchley: Eighty points saved, a hundred and forty missed. Bole: hit a Ravenclaw a personal record of twenty-four times in one game. Derrick: seventeen times. Flint: sixty points scored. Pucey: seventy points scored. Potter: thirty points scored. Finally: Malfoy, catching the Snitch after two hours and fourteen minutes of gameplay, after brilliantly feinting out Seeker Chang!”

The common room burst into renewed roars of approval.

Harry thought he might never have been this happy.

April 5, 1993

Ginny

“Ron—Ron, wait up.”

Ron frowned when he saw her. “Gin, now’s not the best—”

“That’s what you said the last four times I tried to talk to you,” Ginny said, ignoring the surprise on Seamus and Jules’ faces, probably because she was never this sharp-tongued around them before. She remembered last summer and how tongue-tied she’d been around Jules and his friends, afraid the cool older kids would think she was stupid or dumb or weird if she said anything that wasn’t right. Ginny was already pissed at her old self and it hadn’t even been a whole year.

Ron shifted. “Well, it’s been true—”

“Too busy to talk to your sister?” she said.

“Fine,” he said. “But if you make me late for Herbology, I’ll—something.”

“Clever threat, Ron, I’m shaking in my shoes.”

Ron turned scarlet and waved his friends on.

“What?” he growled when they were gone.

Ginny folded her arms. “Look, things have been tense between us all year, and I’m not too stupid to realize it’s because I’m in Slytherin.”

They’d talked, at least, back in September, and he’d admitted it was weird and said he could deal with it, but then whenever they saw each other he looked uncomfortable and made stilted conversation and then hurried away at the first opportunity. Ginny had never got on as well with Ron as she had the twins, but they had a camaraderie that came of being the youngest siblings in the Burrow and she missed her brother.

“It’s… not easy,” Ron said. “You—Gin, you know what Slytherins are. I don’t—I feel like I don’t know you now! How you could’ve been—Sorted there in the first place, but then you—you seem to like it, you’re running around with the children of Death Eaters—”

“Evalyn and Nat are great,” Ginny said. “They love Luna and Demelza and Terry and Randall, and in case you’d forgotten, that’s Loony Lovegood, a Muggle-born Gryffindor girl, and two halfblood Ravenclaws. Alex Rowle jumps at his own shadow and loves Potions and has dreamed of being a Healer since he was six. Nat’s favorite pastime is shopping and clothing design, and Evalyn wants to work in the management side of the DMLE. Do those really sound like budding Dark wizards?” She didn’t mention that their politics didn’t really match the Weasley family’s.

“That’s what Slytherin does to you,” Ron said darkly. “It turns even the decent ones Dark. Can you blame me for worrying about what it’ll do to you?”

Ginny stared at him. She couldn’t—she had no words to express how infuriating it was for him to just assume she would go Dark. She was his sister, by Merlin! He knew her, and he still thought she’d go Dark? How dare he!

She was very, very tempted to pull her wand and test some of the more creative low-power hexes Harry’s second-year friends had been teaching her all year long. After Malfoy landed in the hospital wing with antlers, they’d begged that one off of Theo, and Ginny thought Ron would look rather hilarious with antlers and a bald head.

But that would only prove his point. In his mind, at least. No, she needed to handle this in a different way than she would have Finn when he was being irritating.

“I don’t need or want you to protect me,” Ginny said. “Or—or follow me around and make sure I grow up thinking the right way! So just—I’m your sister, don’t you trust me?”

It was supposed to be a guilt trip. But he opened his mouth and the words of course I trust you, Gin never came out. Ron just stared at her, hesitant, resolute, regretful because he didn’t want to say his honest answer to that question but he wasn’t a Slytherin and it hadn’t occurred to him to lie until his reaction had already given him away.

She tried not to let it hurt. She tried. She really did.

“So that’s a no, then,” Ginny said, voice shaking, and turned her back on him. Feeling like she was turning her back on more than him.

“Gin—no, wait, that’s not what I—”

“We both know what you meant, Ronald.” She paused. “Oh—Mum wrote me saying Percy’s worried about Meg. I’m not in her House and we have none of the same friends but she’s apparently been acting weird lately. If you want someone to coddle, go help her.”

Then she left for real. She had her actual friends to get back to.

April 10, 1993

Harry

Harry’s friends piled into the stands. The Gryffindor-Hufflepuff match would determine who played Slytherin for the House Cup. Harry was divided. He supported Fred and George but he also refused to cheer for Jules and wanted Gryffindor to lose on principle. Hannah, of course, was draped in yellow, while Neville was absolutely covered in red and gold, as was Ginny’s friend Demelza a few rows down.

They’d shown up early to get good seats and the group of them sat down, talking and laughing and passing around a bag of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans.

Eleven o’clock ticked closer and closer. The stands were packed, and the atmosphere was electric. Harry loved playing Quidditch best, of course, but watching high-stakes matches was a close second.

“May I have your attention!” Lee Jordan’s magnified voice echoed across the pitch, unusually serious. “I have just been informed that the Quidditch match has been canceled.”

Instant uproar. Harry sat bolt upright as the excitement drained from the air. Quidditch canceled? He’d never—what could make them cancel—

Oh. Oh.

“There’s been another attack,” Pansy whispered, realizing in almost the same second. Hannah overheard her and immediately left off furiously yelling at Lee Jordan, white-faced.

At least I have an alibi this time.

Just his luck, though—someone was convinced you didn’t need to actually be there. That Harry could’ve given the monster its orders and walked away to keep his hands clean. It was actually a pretty good point and something Harry would’ve done if he was actually the Heir of Slytherin on a murderous rampage, but he couldn’t exactly say that, so he pretended shock and indignation as he was hauled before the headmaster yet again.

At least it was in McGonagall’s office instead of the old man’s this time. Harry was sick of all the tinkling, delicate silver instruments, and fairly convinced they were useless aside from intimidating people who didn’t know what they were.

“Mr. Potter,” Dumbledore said.

“It wasn’t me,” Harry said, trying to sound desperate, upset, anxious. “Listen—I—Justin is my friend, I’d never have—”

“Mr. Potter, you have a motive this time.” McGonagall’s voice was crisp as a January morning, precise as the crack of a whip. “I have reports from members of multiple Houses that you and Miss Granger have been on poor terms since the holidays.”

Harry reeled. “What? It’s—Hermione?”

McGonagall pursed her lips. Harry didn’t even try to hide his surprise; he was pretty sure he couldn’t and he didn’t want to in the first place—he needed them to believe that—

“I had no idea,” he said. The shake in his voice was real now. Hermione— “We argued, but—that doesn’t mean I’d want her—want to attack her—”

“Potter, that will do,” Snape cut in smoothly.

Harry shut his mouth with a click, lowering his eyes and clasping his hands tightly in front of him.

“Minerva, there is no evidence beyond the circumstantial that Mr. Potter is the culprit,” Dumbledore said. “I find it astonishing that so many people are so willing to pin the blame upon a second year.” He twinkled at Harry. “You understand why we had to speak with you.”

“Of course, sir,” Harry said, voice dull.

“You may go,” Dumbledore said.

Harry looked up. “Can I—can I see her?”

“That would be a poor idea,” McGonagall said before Snape or Dumbledore could reply.

Harry nodded and left before she could think up another reason to blame him.

It wasn’t just the teachers, though. Apparently news of the bad blood between Hermione and her Slytherin friends had spread rapidly, and now it felt like the entire Great Hall was glaring at him as he walked in for dinner. Harry ignored the lot of them, took his place at the Slytherin table with his back to the wall, and began eating like nothing was out of the ordinary.

Justin. Hermione. Now it’s all being pinned on me.

Whoever you are, Heir of Slytherin, you made your second big mistake.

“Harry,” Blaise said, almost hesitantly. Hearing Blaise hesitant about anything caught Harry’s attention; he looked up.

“Yeah?”

“Are—you all right?” Pansy said, frowning at him.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” he said bitterly.

“You looked—a little frightening there, mate,” Theo said.

Harry stabbed at his roast beef. “Did I.”

He ignored their uneasy glances and left the Great Hall as soon as he was finished eating.

Snape put in an appearance after dinner and very sternly told the whole of Slytherin House that the new curfew was six o’clock at night, that teachers would escort them to and from lessons and bathroom breaks, and that Quidditch and all other evening activities were indefinitely postponed. Harry immediately started planning how he could slip away long enough to gather some of the things he’d left in the Knights Room for convenience now that they wouldn’t be able to gather there nearly as easily. This train of thought was derailed completely when Snape coldly informed them that the school might well be closed if the culprit wasn’t caught. Harry sat bolt upright at that and tried to convince himself that the chill in his veins was anger and not fear. Snape’s eyes lingered on him, and Harry knew his Head of House was well aware of how this news affected him.

Conversation in the common room for the second years had centered around their course selections for a week—Harry had added Arithmancy and Ancient Runes to his schedule; Blaise Care of Magical Creatures and Ancient Runes, Theo the same as Harry—but tonight, even though tomorrow was the due date for selections, no one could talk about anything but the attack. Harry kept mostly quiet; Blaise, sitting next to him, talked enough for the both of them. He was acutely aware of the suspicious interest of the upper years. Some thought Harry was the Heir, others thought this was ridiculous; some hoped the Heir would manage to kill all the Muggle-borns, others would happily hex the Heir into oblivion for various reasons. None of them was willing to confront him about it, and Harry had to be careful not to either encourage the rumors one way or the other. Especially since Blaise and especially Theo would be affected by Harry’s position in the House, just as he’d be affected by theirs. And Theo, who’d been fielding challenges all year despite the partial immunity provided by being friends with a Quidditch player, really couldn’t afford more complications.

Harry hung about the common room long enough that going to bed wouldn’t look like he was hiding even though he really wanted nothing more than to get the second year boys asleep.

“It’s funny, isn’t it?” Theo said as they were leaving the bathrooms. “Riddle framed Hagrid and stopped his attacks so the school wouldn’t be closed down. You’re extra motivated to catch the new attacker for the same reason.”

“I’m well aware of the irony,” Harry said stiffly.

Theo bumped his shoulder against Harry’s and didn’t say anything else. Harry took comfort in Theo’s silence and Blaise’s ongoing idle chatter as they got ready for bed, but when they crawled into bed he couldn’t bring himself to sleep.

It wasn’t all that hard to creep up to the hospital wing that night. There were teachers and prefects out patrolling, but between his soundless shoes, Harry’s knowledge of the secret passages, and Senny, who’d been bribed with Cockroach Cluster to act as a scout, Harry had no trouble avoiding them. The hospital wing was locked but he’d been focusing on ward spells, lock spells, and unlocking spells for a while now, and on his third attempt the lock clicked.

He slipped inside and paused to let his eyes readjust to the faint moonlight.

The petrified form of Nearly Headless Nick floated up near the ceiling. Four beds were lined up along the side of the room, surrounded by curtains to keep gawkers away. Harry peeked through the first one. He skipped the second, not wanting to see Justin’s petrified body again, and found Hermione in the third.

She was frozen in an awkward partial crouch, mouth half open, eyes wide, one hand raised and looking as though it had been holding onto something. Harry picked up a small hand mirror off the table next to her and slid it into her fingers: it fit perfectly. Weird.

With a sigh, he set the mirror back down and sat down on the edge of her bed.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I shouldn’t have… let us go this long without sorting things out. Not because our fight makes me a suspect—although that’s annoying enough.” He fell quiet, looking out the window for a few seconds at the stars. “You could’ve died, ‘Mione. In the middle of a stupid childish fight. Died and the last time we spoke Blaise and Theo and I were blackmailing you lot. Which I don’t regret, by the way, but—I regret not fixing it sooner. Or trying to fix it, at least. I’ve no idea if you would’ve been willing to help rebuild that bridge from your side. But I should’ve at least tried.”

“Touching.”

Harry whipped around, wand up, and glared when he saw Theo.

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say that much at once,” Theo said, sauntering past him without a care for the wand in his face and sitting on the windowsill. “Except maybe when you were ripping into Malfoy. Definitely not talked so much about your feelings.”

“Theo, do you even know how to not be an arse all the time?” Harry sighed, putting his wand away. “And what are you doing here?”

“Of course I know how, I just choose not to, because you’d be bored if I was nice,” Theo said, pronouncing nice like bastard. “And—you’re not the only one who’s her friend, okay? I woke up and found you gone. Wasn’t hard to figure out where, we all saw how pissed you were that they wouldn’t let you up here. And I wanted to see her too. So.”

Harry resigned himself to Theo’s presence.

Theo grinned at him, but there was an edge of sadness to it, of seriousness.

They sat in silence for a while, each alone with their own thoughts but not truly alone, not in the ways it counted.

“It’s personal,” Harry breathed into the stillness. “Whoever the Heir is? When they get caught, we’re going to kill them.”

It was something he’d been thinking for a while and never dared voice. Something always held him back. Some—fear that his friends wouldn’t understand. Even now he couldn’t bring himself to look at Theo.

“Yes,” Theo said.

Harry’s shoulders sagged with relief.

Chapter Text

April 13, 1993

Neville

“If it was Hagrid, we have to sneak out. We have to talk to him.”

Neville almost sat up and told them how dumb an idea that was, but something kept him huddled in the chair in the corner, where Jules and Ron and Seamus and Dean couldn’t see. Maybe it was the Slytherin influence. He didn’t know how he felt about that. Or about eavesdropping. Only that he wanted to listen.

Jules responded to Seamus, his voice soft. “I agree. Who’s coming?”

“We shouldn’t,” Dean said. Neville peeked around the edge of the chair; Dean was gesturing to himself and Seamus. “We’re both ill, if we start sneezing or coughing we might give you away…”

Seamus scowled but reluctantly agreed.

“Fine,” Ron said. “So Jules and me—none of the girls would want to come.”

“What about Neville?” Jules said.

Neville couldn’t stop himself from looking around the edge of the chair again. Ron was looking uncomfortable. “Well—he’s—he’s not very brave, is he? D’you really think he’d want to come? He tried to stop us last year from going after the Stone—”

Neville winced, remembering the Body-Bind Hermione had put him in; remembered the humiliation of sixth year Numaira Blackwater finding him on the floor and casting the counter for him with pity in her eyes; remembered creeping back to bed, his entire body cold with shame.

“I don’t know why he was sorted into Gryffindor, he’s such a Hufflepuff,” Seamus said.

There was a faint murmur of agreement.

Neville closed his eyes. They were—it was exactly what he thought half the time, or even more than half, but—somehow it hurt worse—somehow hearing them say it made it more real. It was the final bitter confirmation of what he’d long suspected: no one, not even himself, thought he was worthy of being in Gryffindor. His stomach churned even as he was in some sick way glad to hear them say it because at least now he didn’t have to wonder what they all thought of him anymore. At least now he knew.

“So just Ron and me,” Jules confirmed. “We’ll sneak out at midnight tomorrow.”

Neville stayed in his chair long after they’d finished their homework and gone up to bed, shivering despite how close he was to one of the smaller auxiliary fireplaces. 

April 14, 1993

Harry

“And he won’t be talked out of it.”

Blaise shook his head. “He’s dead set on going along. I think—it seemed like he’s got it in his head to prove something to the other Gryffindors. He told me… well, I think he just needed to talk about it to someone, but it did seem like he was trying to justify it to himself. I told him he was being stupid and he said he knew but if they were going he was going too. Actually, his exact words were if they’re going, I can’t chicken out. So.”

Harry took off his glasses and rubbed his temples.

“Are we going to stop them?” Theo said.

“They have the Cloak; they probably won’t get caught...” Harry said. “And talking to Hagrid might not actually be a bad idea; it’s not like we have any other leads. If we can get the Gryffindors to do it for us, so much the better. He’s friends with them.”

Blaise frowned.

“But I’m going,” Harry added.

“Now that is stupid,” Blaise said. “You don’t have an Invisibility Cloak—”

“I have soundless shoes, the Notice-Me-Not charm, snakes to scout ahead for me, and a good working knowledge of the castle’s secret passages,” Harry countered. Senny and Mariko in particular loved Cockroach Cluster and had also found that they enjoyed the conspiratorial nature and excitement of helping Harry creep around after hours; he was beginning to consider both of them friends, even though they weren’t intelligent enough to hold real, complex conversations with. “I won’t get caught. And if I’m there, I can watch through the window and see Hagrid’s reactions—it’ll be more valuable to have a firsthand memory of the conversation.”

“True,” Blaise said reluctantly. “But don’t ask me to come.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Harry said, grinning. He knew Blaise better than that; his friend valued sleep and staying out of trouble too much to go creeping about after hours for anything short of Harry or Theo or possibly Pansy or Neville being in life-threatening peril.

Theo tapped his fingers idly. “And we haven’t gone to a teacher about any of this because…”

Harry stared at him; hadn’t it been obvious? “Because we can’t trust any of them,” he said. “We’d have to admit to breaking into the record room, for one thing—they’ve not caught anyone and I’m not about to confess. For another, everyone believes it was Hagrid… before… Oh.”

“What?” Theo said.

“Oh Merlin,” Harry said, suddenly seeing it. “Dumbledore—he could’ve got Hagrid pardoned or—or something, at least kept his wand from being snapped—he was plenty powerful for that even then, defeater of Grindelwald and all that, but no—no, he let it happen, he convinced Dippet to keep Hagrid on as gamekeeper, Hagrid probably would’ve happily taken being a social outcast or even exiled from England and gone off around the world hunting down and studying magical creatures—”

“I see it,” Theo said, eyes wide. “He wanted a blindly loyal servant. Hagrid’s his man through and through because Dumbledore trusted him back then, because Dumbledore made Hagrid think only Dumbledore could give him a semblance of a normal life—how’d we not see this before?”

“I’m actually impressed,” Blaise said. “That’s remarkably cunning and manipulative for a Gryffindor.”

“Dumbledore’s not your average Gryffindor,” Harry said grimly. “And anyway, look at Neville—you’re not sorted based on the traits you embody, necessarily—more on what you value most.”

Theo nodded. “Neville and Justin. Neville ended up in Gryffindor instead of Hufflepuff because he thinks bravery and doing what’s right is most important; Justin has some strong Slytherin traits but he went to Hufflepuff because he values fair play and hard work over cunning and ambition. Dumbledore definitely thinks bravery and nobility and the Greater Good—” he sneered— “are most important.”

“Thank Merlin he was trained by Gryffindor and not Slytherin, or he’d be ten times as dangerous,” Blaise said with feeling.

Harry shook his head hard. “This is off topic. Point is, Neville’s going down there because he’s convinced he has to prove his bravery to my idiot brother and his idiot friends, which means I’m going after him and you two are covering for me.”

“Blaise can cover for us,” Theo said. “I’m coming.”

When he spoke in that tone of voice, Blaise and Harry both knew there was no changing his mind. They shrugged and went with it.

Mariko eagerly accepted Harry’s bargain—scouting in exchange for Cockroach Cluster—and he and Theo crept out of their dormitories at half past eleven, taking care not to wake Crabbe, Malfoy, or Goyle, and slipping out the back passage from the dorms rather than go through the common room in case one of the OWL or NEWT students was up studying.

It was one of the hardest bits of late-night sneaking Harry had ever done. They had to pause or redirect themselves three times as often as usual to avoid ghosts, teachers, prefects, or, once, Peeves.

“We’re going to be late,” Theo hissed, peering out from behind a tapestry at the Divination professor, who was wandering along a bit aimlessly and singing under her breath.

Harry nodded. He knew they were running late. They’d just have to hope the Gryffindors didn’t beat them down to Hagrid’s by too big a margin.

Once the professor was out of the way, they slipped out of the passageway and dashed soundlessly across the entrance hall. Theo kept lookout while Harry unlocked one of the side doors to the courtyard. They stuck to the shadows and kept their movements slow as they made their way around the central courtyard and through the front gates, and then picked up a jog once they were out of the castle proper and on their way down the sloping lawn to Hagrid’s.

The sky was partly cloudy. Starlight provided the only illumination. Neither of them dared cast a lumos and there was a lot of slipping and scrambling as they hit unseen obstacles. Hagrid’s hut glowed with warm yellow light from the windows.

“I didn’t think it could look so homey,” Theo whispered.

Harry snickered softly.

They stepped up to one of the windows and peeked inside.

Hagrid was pouring large mugs of tea for Jules, Ron, and Neville. What Harry could see of Hagrid’s face behind the beard was pasty instead of his usual ruddy hue. He kept glancing nervously at the window facing the castle.

“He’s forgotten tea leaves,” Theo said, staring.

Harry elbowed his friend hard in the ribs. “Theo—!”

Theo looked up and sucked in a breath. “Hell—”

Albus Dumbledore and Cornelius Fudge were walking down from the castle.

Harry immediately dashed around the back of the hut and through the back door.

Jules and Ron shot to their feet and Hagrid almost instantly had a crossbow trained on Harry. He ignored all this. “Dumbledore and Fudge are nearly here, you lot need to hide now—”

Someone knocked.

“What the bloody hell are you doing here,” Ron half-shouted, but Jules at least had listened; he fumbled the Invisibility Cloak out and he and Neville huddled under it. Jules dragged Ron beneath.

The door started to open.

Harry had no time to run back outside—only to cast the Notice-Me-Not charm with as much force as he could muster and crouch in the corner and pray to Merlin and Morgana that he’d stay undiscovered.

Dumbledore was the first one in the door, eyes twinkling kindly. The twinkle dimmed when he looked at Harry.

Oh no.

But the headmaster didn’t out him—only turned to Hagrid. “Good evening, Hagrid.”

Harry pressed himself farther back against the wall, and then decided to scuttle sideways beneath the table. Dumbledore subtly followed the motion while Cornelius Fudge pushed into the house and closed the door.

Hagrid dropped heavily into one of his chairs and stared at the two men. He’d now added sweaty to the paleness.

“Bad business, Hagrid,” Fudge said in clipped tones. “Very bad business. Had to come. Four attacks on Muggle-borns. Things’ve gone on long enough—the Ministry must act, you understand.”

“I never,” Hagrid said, looking desperately at Dumbledore. Harry already knew full well how this was going to end. Dumbledore could’ve warned Hagrid, told him to bolt and live in the Forbidden Forest until this blew over, but no—as soon as Hagrid became a PR problem, as soon as Hagrid was a liability, Dumbledore wasn’t going to lift a finger to stop the Ministry taking him. “Professor Dumbledore, sir, you know I never—”

“I want it understood, Cornelius, that Hagrid has my full confidence,” Dumbledore said, frowning.

Oh, yes, great display you’re putting on there, can’t have Hagrid suspecting how you’ve used him—Harry let none of his thoughts show on his face, even though he was mostly hidden beneath the table, since Dumbledore could apparently see through the Notice-Me-Not. He’d caught a few glances sent in the direction of the three boys under the Invisibility Cloak, too, and knew Dumbledore was aware of the others’ presence.

“Look, Albus,” Fudge said uncomfortably, “Hagrid’s record’s against him. Ministry’s got to do something—governors have been in touch—”

“Yet again, Cornelius, I tell you that taking Hagrid away will not help in the slightest,” Dumbledore said. His eyes were on fire. But ‘telling’ is all he’ll do.

“Look at it from my point of view,” Fudge said, fidgeting. Harry’s opinion of the Minister soured more with every passing second. The man was a dithering fool, and those robes. Unbelievably tacky. “I’m under a lot of pressure. Got to be seen doing something. If it turns out it wasn’t Hagrid, he’ll be back and no more said. But I’ve got to take him. Got to. Wouldn’t be doing my duty—”

Your duty to protect the innocent and only incarcerate the truly guilty, you mean? Harry thought, just as Hagrid broke in, voice unsteady. “Take me? Take me where?”

“For a short stretch only,” Fudge said, not meeting Hagrid’s eyes. “Not as punishment—just—just a precaution, mind—If someone else is caught, you’ll be let out with a full apology.”

“Not Azkaban?” Hagrid croaked.

Harry twitched. Surely even Dumbledore wouldn’t let Hagrid end up there—surely there were other places to hold him—

Before Fudge could answer, the door opened again, and a tall, pale-haired man with a cane stepped inside. Harry recognized Lucius Malfoy at about the same time that he realized the man’s smile hid ten times more cunning and danger than his son’s ever had. Harry made a note to never piss Malfoy off too much if only to not land himself in Malfoy the elder’s black books.

“Already here, Fudge,” he said approvingly. “Good, good…”

“What’re you doin’ here?” Hagrid said, red returning to his cheeks as his anger outpaced his fear. Gryffindors. “Get outta my house!”

“My dear man, I assure you I derive no pleasure from visiting your—er—you call this a house?” Malfoy said, sneering as he looked around the cabin. Harry had to give credit; that was a pretty good jab. “I simply called at the school and was told the headmaster was here.”

“And what exactly do you want with me, Lucius?” Dumbledore said calmly. Harry dared lean forward a bit, biting back his absolute terror—Malfoy was altogether more dangerous and harder to fool than Fudge; if he saw through the Notice-Me-Not—well. Dumbledore’s eyes, he noticed, were burning even more now.

“Dreadful thing,” Malfoy drawled, unrolling a scroll, “but the governors feel it’s time you stepped aside. This is an Order of Suspension—you’ll find all twelve signatures on it. I’m afraid we feel you’re losing your touch. Two more attacks recently, was it? At this rate, there’ll be no more Muggle-borns left in the school, and we know how awful a loss that would be.”

Oh, Harry thought, very impressed. Political coup. Very good. Impeccable timing, the dramatic entrance, the delivery—this man knows how to keep his hands clean. He was, however, divided on whether he thought it was a good idea for Dumbledore to leave the school now. Harry had no illusions that the shade of Voldemort had just gone and given up after last year, or that Voldie wouldn’t be back for round three with Jules and by likely extension Harry. With that in mind, not having Dumbledore around seemed a very poor prospect indeed.

“Oh, see here, now, Lucius,” Fudge said, looking alarmed. Harry resisted the urge to snicker; the man really was pathetic. “Dumbledore suspended—no, no—the last thing we want right now—”

“I’m afraid all twelve of us have voted,” Malfoy said silkily. He was like a more polished and better groomed version of Snape.

Hagrid launched to his feet. “An’ how many did yeh have ter blackmail an’ threaten until they agreed, Malfoy?” he roared.

Probably at least a few, since Dumbledore seems to have two thirds of the wizarding world in his pocket, Harry thought. He’d have to look into who the governors were.

“Dear, dear, that temper will surely land you in trouble one of these days. I wouldn’t shout at the Azkaban guards like that. They wouldn’t like it at all,” Malfoy said with a nasty smile.

“Yeh can’ take Dumbledore!” Hagrid shouted. “Take him away, an’ the Muggle-borns won’ stand a chance! There’ll be killin’ next!”

“Calm yourself, Hagrid,” Dumbledore said. He was perfectly controlled—perfectly composed. Harry knew he was watching two master manipulators face off, their pawns helpless and caught in the middle, dimly aware of the larger currents that moved them and unable to do a thing to change the course of events. It was fascinating. “If the governors desire my removal, Lucius, I will of course step aside—”

“But—” stuttered Fudge.

“No!” Hagrid roared.

“However,” Dumbledore said, not breaking eye contact with Malfoy and speaking very slowly and carefully, “you will find that I have only truly left this school when no one here remains loyal to me. You will also find that help will always be given to those who ask for it.”

For just a second, Harry was quite sure that Dumbledore’s piercing blue gaze lanced directly into the corner where Jules, Ron, and Neville squashed together under the Invisibility Cloak.

“Admirable sentiment,” Malfoy said with a bow. “We shall all miss your—er—highly individual way of running things, Albus, and only hope that your successor will manage to prevent any—ah—killin’s.”

Harry felt rather like applauding. Did he like Malfoy? No. Did he think the man was a Death Eater and therefore most likely a generally deplorable human being? Yes. Could he separate that from, and admire, the man’s ability to manipulate people and get what he wanted? Absolutely.

Not that he’d be saying as much to the Gryffindors.

Malfoy swept out, followed by Dumbledore.

“Come along, Hagrid,” Fudge sighed.

Hagrid paused and looked around significantly. “If anyone wanted ter find out some stuff, all they’d have ter do is follow the spiders. That’d lead ‘em right! That’s all I’m sayin’.”

Oh look. Hagrid revealing key information yet again. Color me shocked.

“All right, I’m comin’,” Hagrid said when Fudge stared at him, dragging his coat on as he headed for the door. He paused one more time. “And someone’ll have ter feed Fang while I’m gone,” he added, and then they were gone.

There was a pause.

Ron tore the Cloak off. “What—! What—are you—Dumbledore—”

“Use English, I don’t speak gibberish,” Harry said coolly.

Theo slipped inside. “That was unexpectedly dramatic. We should’ve brought Blaise after all.”

“Why are you here!” Jules demanded.

“I told them,” Neville said resignedly.

“You what!” Ron rounded on him.

“Weasley!” Harry said sharply. “Back off! We’re just as invested in finding the Heir as you, of course he told us—”

“As if,” Ron scoffed. “We all know it’s you, Potter.”

Harry ignored him and met Jules’ eyes. Ron saw the world in black-and-white but maybe there was something in Jules he could appeal to. “Two of my friends are up there in the hospital wing and it’s my name being dragged through the mud. I would very much like to see the Heir taken down.”

“Follow the spiders,” Jules said slowly, apparently deciding on a truce. “What d’you suppose he meant?”

“I’d assume there are spiders somewhere, and they’re going somewhere,” Harry said drily.

Ron rolled his eyes.

Neville looked at Harry. “Weren’t you saying you’d found some finding charm? Last week?”

“Theo?” Harry said. Charms were still hard for him and he hadn’t mastered the spell yet, even though it was a low-level Charm that had once been on the third-year curriculum before Flitwick replaced it with Cheering Charms.

Theo pulled his wand. “Worth a shot. Revelio spiders!”

The wand spun in his hand, pointing towards a shelf. Theo walked over, pushed aside a picture frame and a stack of chipped plates, and pulled out a heavy glass jar containing maybe two dozen spiders of various shapes and sizes. Harry and Neville stepped closer to examine it.

“Convenient,” Theo muttered, low enough that only the three of them could hear.

Harry nodded.

“We’re being led,” Neville said.

“But it almost definitely won’t be too dangerous—this is the Boy Who Lived being led on another adventure, after all.” Harry pressed his eyes shut. He didn’t want to do this. But short of hexing Neville into stillness and floating him back up to the castle, there was no way he’d keep his friend out of this, and the thought of how mad Neville would be if Harr did that kept his wand away. Plus, he was curious.

He turned around and found Ron standing there, pale and stricken, staring at the spiders with a look of absolute terror on his face. Jules was hovering uncertainly around him.

“Weasley!” Harry barked. “Snap out of it.”

His abrasive tone seemed to shock some of the fear out of Ron’s eyes; he blinked and looked angry as well as terrified. “I—don’t—like—spiders,” he said.

“Twins turned his teddy bear into a giant spider when he was little,” Jules said succinctly.

Harry filed that away for later use and knew Theo was doing the same. Really, they ought to know better than to reveal such weaknesses to people they didn’t trust. Harry personally hated confined spaces, being deprived of his glasses, being touched when he wasn’t expecting it, and was rapidly developing a strong fear response to finding himself without a wand, but he’d never let on the extent of any of those things to anyone who wasn’t Theo, Blaise, Neville, or possibly Pansy.

Hermione would’ve been on that list once.

He pushed away thoughts of Hermione. “Well, let’s see if this works, shall we?”

Neville set his jaw and carefully lifted a few spiders out of the jar, ignoring Ron’s terrified squeaks, put them on the floor.

Immediately, all four spiders started scrambling for the window and running back and forth along the sill.

“Aperiportus,” Theo said. The window swung violently open and slammed into the eaves.

“Whoops,” he said, smirking, and tucked his wand away. The spiders dashed over the sill as soon as the glass was gone. Harry hurried after them, Jules and Neville on his heels.

“Lumos!” Harry cast, holding his wand high.

In the wandlight, they all made out the spiders vanishing into the grass in the direction of the forest.

“Okay, then,” Jules said. “Let the rest of them out—let’s go.”

“What? Now?” Harry said in disbelief. “This is a terrible plan—we’re not prepared, we’ve no idea what’s in there, where we’re going, or how far away they might lead us; no way to get back quickly; no one who knows where we’ve gone—”

“Yes, now,” Jules said. “We’re already out here. There’s a jar of spiders right there. I thought you were motivated to find the Heir?”

“I want to do it without dying or getting expelled,” Harry said through gritted teeth.

“We’re going,” Jules said flatly.

Ron nodded, though he looked as though he’d rather repeat the afternoon spent belching slugs after he tried to hex a Ravenclaw third year for calling Hermione a Mudblood than go into the forest after the spiders.

“Well, we’ve got to make them easier to see,” Theo said innocently.

Harr instantly knew exactly what he meant and had to swallow a laugh. He Transfigured a chunk of the floor into air and they dumped the spiders into the resulting hole.

“Come on, Jules,” he said, looking at his brother. “Do you know the Engorgement Charm?”

“Eep,” Ron said.

Neville shook his head. Harry turned away from the other Gryffindors and winked at him.

“Engorgio,” Theo said, and one of the spiders grew to the size of a dinner plate.

“Can’t we…” Jules said.

Harry cast an engorgio. It didn’t work quite as well as Theo’s, but a softball-sized spider was better than one the size of his thumbnail. “Come on, Jules, you saw how fast the first four got out of sight. If we’re doing this, we might as well make sure we don’t lose them and have to come back for round two. Engorgio.”

Theo grew another three spiders before Jules sighed. It took him a few tries to master the charm, but once he got it he was actually better at it than Harry, who tried not to be annoyed and mostly succeeded by telling himself he was far better at Potions and Transfiguration than his brother.

“Why are you lot even coming,” Ron said.

“Neville’s hardly going to not go,” Harry said. “He’s our friend, if there’s danger you could use two more wands, and like we said, we would very much like to catch the Heir.”

“Ron, it’s fine, they’re coming,” Jules said. “They’re good wizards. We can use them.”

More like we are using you, Harry thought, but he wasn’t going to argue with finally having Jules on his side.

They finally got all the spiders grown up to size. “Ready?” Harry said.

“Count of three.”

He, Theo, Blaise, and Neville levitated the lot of them up out of the hole in the ground.

Ron backed up, tripped over Fang, and sat down hard.

The spiders instantly made for the window.

“Quick—” Jules said, running for the back door. The others followed him out and took off into the forest. The spiders were surprisingly fast. Harry looked back once, and found both Ron and the boarhound trailing a bit behind. He put them both out of his mind and picked up the pace.

The path went on for a long time. The spiders thankfully seemed to prefer scuttling over the packed earth to fighting through the undergrowth now that they were too large to do so easily, and the path ran in a more or less straight line. All of them except Ron had their wands up and glowing with light.

Harry had never been in the Forbidden Forest and Jules soon announced grimly that he’d never been this far before, either. Neville’s face was ashen in the wandlight and Ron couldn’t seem to look away from the spiders. Even Theo and Harry were feeling it. Only Jules looked unaffected, and Harry was pretty sure that was a front, if an impressive one.

The ground started to slope downwards.

Fang let out a great, booming bark. Harry and Theo, used to controlling their reactions, twitched; the others all nearly jumped out of their skins.

“What was that?” Ron said. He was gripping Harry’s elbow very hard and seemed not to care that he’d latched on to possibly his least favorite person in the castle after Malfoy and Snape.

“There’s something moving over there,” Theo breathed, turning. “It sounds big…”

Some distance to their right, the something was indeed moving, snapping branches and rustling twigs.

“Oh no,” Ron said. “Oh no no no no no…”

“Shut up,” Jules hissed. “It’ll hear you.”

“It’s already heard Fang!” Ron said, his voice oddly high-pitched.

The darkness pressed in on their wandlight. Theo and Neville slowly backed up until all five of them and Fang were clustered together.

“What d’you think it’s doing?” Ron whispered.

Harry was pretty sure they were being hunted and that the silence meant nothing good, but he wasn’t about to—

“Probably getting ready to pounce,” Jules said.

—say that.

Harry sighed.

Light blazed.

Fang yelped and tried to run, but Neville appeared to have a death grip on his collar and the boarhound didn’t get far.

“Jules!” Ron said, taking off running. “It’s the car!”

Theo cursed. He and Harry and Neville and Fang took off after Jules and Ron without hesitation; none of them wanted to be separated.

Stumbling and tripping, they crashed through the underbrush, until Harry stumbled out into a clearing and squinted past what he now realized were headlights and discovered that the Weasleys’ Ford Anglia had apparently gone wild and been living in the forest for the last six months.

“What the bloody hell,” Theo said.

Ron leaned on the car and patted it, heedless of the scratches and dirt streaking its sides, the dents covering the hood and roof that may have been the Whomping Willow or other things in the forest. “I wondered where it went,” Ron said delightedly.

Harry ignored him and shone his wandlight around. “Dammit, Ron, we’ve lost the trail—now what?’

“Harry,” Theo said quietly.

Harry looked at him and Ron first. Theo was white with fear and staring fixedly at something over Harry’s head. Ron had bypassed white to a grayish pallor and started trembling violently.

There wasn’t even time to turn and look. Harry felt himself get yanked up off the ground. He barely managed to cling to his wand. Shouts of terror told him the others were being grabbed too. The light from his wand danced and swung wildly as Harry’s captor bolted through the forest and shook him violently with every step; it illuminated snatches of hair, shining legs, tress, underbrush, and was that a giant cobweb on the trees—

Oh no.

Harry twisted and waved his wand and saw, in a flash of light, the chittering pincers of a giant spider and its eight shining eyes.

It hissed at him and shook him harder.

Harry curled in on himself and tucked his wand into his abdomen, unwilling to extinguish it but equally unwilling to shine it in the face of the spider again, because the spider clearly hadn’t liked that and he didn’t want to die.

After Merlin knew how long, they were hurled to the ground in a massive clearing.

Harr staggered to his feet, dizzy and disoriented, wand held at waist height. Theo—there was Theo a few feet away, and then Neville on his knees, and then Jules clambering to his feet as well, and Ron—Ron was still on his hands and knees, eyes popping and jaws stretched wide in a silent scream.

“Aragog!” a spider yelled. Harry flinched. They talked? Okay, that was good actually, if they talked he might be able to get them out of here, if they talked he could negotiate—

Because—Merlin, unless he negotiated, they were never getting out of here alive.

Hundreds of spiders ranging from Fang’s size to double Hagrid’s were converging on a massive hollow cleared of trees. Many chittered eagerly. In the center of the hollow stood a misty, domed web; Harry could see movement under it. Probably more spiders. Or, with their luck, something worse that the spiders worshipped and were bringing an offering of stupid second-year wizards.

Just a spider. It was just a spider. Harry didn’t know whether or not to be relieved by this, as the spider that emerged from the dome was the size of a small elephant, speckled with gray hair and milky-eyed—clearly blind.

“What is it?” it said, pincers clicking.

“Men.” The spider that had carried Harry shoved him forward; he hit his knees in front of the old one.

“Is it Hagrid?” Aragog said.

“Strangers.”

“Kill them,” the old one said, “I was sleeping…”

“We’re friends of Hagrid’s,” Jules shouted, just as Harry opened his mouth to say the same thing.

Aragog paused.

“Hagrid has never sent men to our hollow before,” he said slowly.

“Hagrid has run into trouble with the Ministry,” Harry said, standing slowly. He made sure to keep his fear hidden from his face and hoped they couldn’t smell it. Did spiders have good senses of smell? Were these things normal except for their size, or were they to normal spiders what dragons were to nonmagical lizards? “The—the wizards who’re in charge of us. They took Hagrid away.”

“In trouble?” Aragog clicked. Harry heard the distinct sound of concern there. Okay. So the spider liked Hagrid. He could work with that. “Why has he sent you?”

“He told us to follow the spiders,” Harry said, “that if we did we’d find someone who could give us valuable information. He’s been sent to Azkaban for setting a monster on students in the castle, because they think he did it before—but he was framed, wasn’t he? That’s what he wanted you to tell us.”

Jules and Ron both started a little.

“Yes,” Aragog said fretfully, “yes… years and years ago, Hagrid hatched me from an egg… he raised me, you see, inside the castle. That’s why they made him leave the school—they thought I was the monster in the Chamber of Secrets… When I was discovered, and blamed for the death of a girl, Hagrid protected me, and saved me. He even found me a wife, Mosag, and you see our children around you now… All through Hagrid’s goodness, our family has grown…”

“You—never at-attacked anyone, then?” Jules said.

“Never,” Aragog croaked. “It would have been my instinct, but respect for Hagrid stayed my strike. The girl who was killed was found in a bathroom… I never saw any part of the castle but the cupboard where I was raised, and a few snatches of halls as I fled the night Hagrid was discovered. Our kind like the dark and quiet…”

“Spiders fear the true monster in the Chamber,” Theo said. He came to stand by Harry’s shoulder, both of them straight and unafraid. Neville finally got himself to his feet; he and Jules moved together, until only Ron remained on his knees—and Fang, who was cowering on the forest floor. “Does that mean you know what it is?”

A wave of restless pincer-clacking rippled through the clearing. Harry’s skin crawled.

“The thing in the castle is an ancient creature we fear above all others,” Aragog said, shifting nervously. His milky eyes wandered. “Well do I remember how I pleaded with Hagrid to release me when I sensed it moving…”

Harry’s mind was spinning. Spiders feared the monster. Giant spiders. It couldn’t be that hard for Hannah’s research team to track down giant spiders, and if from there they could work out what the things were afraid of—

They could leave now. They should, before they overstayed their welcome.

 “We’re most grateful for your hospitality, Aragog,” he said as politely and clearly as he could manage. Jules opened his mouth; Harry turned a vicious glare on him that silenced him. “The information you’ve given us will be invaluable for discovering the true killer and clearing Hagrid’s name so he can return from the horrors of Azkaban. As a gift to express our thanks, I would like to bring you large quantities of—whatever type of meat your kind prefers to eat, prepared as you like it, within a week. Would such an exchange satisfy you?”

Aragog’s pincers clicked thoughtfully. He paused his slow retreat to his dome. “You are clever, friend of Hagrid’s… and do not think I do not see how you bargain for your lives. I… suppose, it would be more satisfactory to accept more meat at a later date…”

“Wait,” Ron said loudly, apparently having gathered his courage. “You haven’t told us—what is the monster in the Chamber? It petrifies people, it terrifies spiders—”

“We do not speak of it!” Aragog roared.

Jules flinched.

There was a pregnant pause.

Another spider scuttled up to Aragog’s side and seemed to be whispering to him. The others pulsed restlessly.

Harry resolved to learn the Silencing Charm the second he got back to school, no matter it was a fifth-year spell. He wasn’t enough stronger than his peers to be called a prodigy, but his magical core was definitely more powerful than average. And then he’d be able to shut up all the idiotic Gryffindors in his vicinity next time he had to deal with something like thisl

“I have… changed my mind,” Aragog clicked. “You have disrespected us… spoken of forbidden things on my home ground… abundant fresh meat is tempting, friends of Hagrid, but I will not deny my children fresh meat now when it walks so willingly into our forest and disrespects us…”

“Wait!” Harry shouted, but Aragog was gone.

And the rest were closing in.

“You bloody idiot!” Theo shouted at Ron, but Harry was too busy preparing a spell to bother yelling at stupid Gryffindors.

He raised his wand. “Immobulus maximus!”

Light flared.

Every spider in the clearing froze.

“Run,” Harry gasped, his legs suddenly feeling like jelly. He forced them into a stumbling run that evened out as his body adjusted after the sudden expenditure of magic. He could feel his weakness; he probably couldn’t cast anything stronger than a Stinger for another hour or two. And it hadn’t been effective—not nearly enough. Some of the spiders farthest from them were already starting to stir.

Jules dragged Ron to his feet; Neville snagged Fang’s collar and hauled the boarhound along until the dog’s terrified brain kicked in and he started running with them. Theo was next to Harry and yanked him upright every time Harry stumbled over something. He holstered his wand—it was next to useless with how tired he was and he was more likely to drop it than hang onto it.

“Not enough,” Jules gasped, “they’re coming—”

“Go faster,” Theo said. “Maybe—we can—get outside—their territory—”

They were sprinting across the forest floor now; they’d gotten outside the hollow but had no idea which direction to run in; they could’ve been going away from the castle for all Harry could tell—

Chittering and clattering and rustling and crashing came from behind.

“They’re coming,” Jules repeated. Ron was hyperventilating with fear and it wasn’t helping his running speed any.

Harry forced his legs to move faster.

There were spiders on either side of them. He could hear them in the trees, too; could hear them approaching from behind—Harry’s breath rasped in his lungs—just a little farther, just a little farther—

Jules and Ron skidded to a halt suddenly, drawing their wands—

“What are you doing!” Theo screamed—

Jules shouted something about how he’d rather die fighting than running—

A long, low note sounded.

Everything paused.

A blaze of light flamed through the forest.

The Weasleys’ car tore through the trees, slamming into spiders and smashing away the three closest to the boys. It stopped and the doors nearest them flew open.

Jules was the first to recover. “Get Fang!” he shouted.

Harry was nearest the boarhound; he grabbed the dog and threw him into the backseat and dived in on top. Neville piled in and then Theo; Ron and Jules were in the front seat—

The car doors slammed on their own and the engine snarled to life. It leapt forward. Spiders slammed into the windows and off the windows. The rear window shattered; Harry heard Theo cast volculeus three times, then Neville got off a Stinger of his own and yelled in excitement when a flash and a shriek announced it had actually worked.

“Nice one,” Harry croaked.

“I think—yeah—we’re past the worst of it,” Jules said, twisting to look out the rear window at the furious spiders falling behind them.

He and Harry met each other’s eyes, and for just a second all the bad blood was forgotten—they were just two brothers sharing the exhilaration of surviving a near-death experience together, high on adrenaline and success.

Then Harry’s fury returned, along with his sense, and he quit smiling and sat up to whack Ron on the back of the head. “You absolute moron—they were going to just let us walk out of there—”

“But we had to figure out what the monster is!” Ron shouted over the engine noise, the clatter of underbrush on the car’s sides, Fang’s whimpering, and the furious shrieks of the spiders behind them.

“We can!” Harry yelled back.

“It can’t be that hard to figure out what those things were, and then find a reference to the thing that scares them out of their fur!” Theo finished.

Neville leaned in. “Hannah Abbott—she has a research team—”

Ron looked properly guilty. “Well—we still made it, didn’t we?”

“Not the point,” Harry said with a sigh.

Ten rocky, bumpy, tense minutes later, the car screeched to a halt so hard Jules and Ron were nearly thrown into the windshield. Jules cast lumos; they were right at the edge of the forest. Fang leaped against the door.

Neville struggled around the boarhound and got it open.

Fang took off in the direction of Hagrid’s hut, tail between his legs.

Jules climbed out, prodding Ron along with him. Harry and Theo clambered out the back and slammed the door. Jules gave the car an affectionate pat just as it revved its engine and reversed back into the forest.

“Cloak,” Jules said shortly, heading off to Hagrid’s.

“Not going to forget it this time?” Theo said innocently.

Jules and Ron both stopped to stare at him.

“What? If you’d had it on you you wouldn’t have been caught, it’s not that big a leap of logic,” Theo said, obviously very much enjoying this.

Harry elbowed him. “Let’s not antagonize them, yeah?”

With a theatrical sigh, Theo mimed spelling his lips shut.

 Theo and Harry went into Hagrid’s hut and drank some jugged cold tea while Jules got his cloak. Neville and Harry hunted down Fang’s food and set some out for whenever the dog quit trembling under his blanket in the corner and got hungry.

They found Ron on his knees in the garden, having just finished vomiting.

“Follow the spiders,” he said weakly. Jules wordlessly handed him a glass of water; Ron rinsed his mouth and spat. “I’ll never forgive Hagrid. We’re lucky to be alive.”

“He probably figured Aragog wouldn’t hurt friends of his,” Jules said.

“Because Hagrid clearly has such a great handle on his creatures,” Theo said. “First the bloody dragon, then the Cerberus, now this—”

“What was the point?” Ron demanded, climbing to his feet. “That’s what I want to know—”

“We have confirmation he was framed,” Harry said. “That’s definitely good. We have a lead on tracking down what the monster actually is.”

Jules squinted at him. “You’ll let us know if—if Hannah’s group figures it out?”

“Yes,” Harry said. “After we let the teachers know.”

He’d made up his mind on that count long ago. The monster was just a tool being controlled by someone else, and the mountain troll notwithstanding, Harry didn’t fancy his and his friends’ odds of going up against something Salazar Slytherin himself thought was a good choice to protect the school. The teachers were best suited to handle that. He could trust them to want the thing dead or gone.

“Fair,” Jules said reluctantly. “What else did Aragog say?”

“The girl wasn’t killed by him, either,” Ron said. “Which is good to know he only started killing people after Hagrid let him loose—”

Jules’ eyes suddenly flew wide. “The bathroom!”

“What?” Ron said, but Neville, Theo, and Harry didn’t react. They’d known about Myrtle ages ago.

“Moaning Myrtle,” Harry and Jules said in unison, Jules excited, Harry resigned.

Jules stared at Harry. “You see it too!”

“No, you idiot, I knew about Myrtle ages ago,” Harry said waspishly. He really just wanted to go to sleep at this point. “Myrtle Warren, third year Muggle-born Ravenclaw in 1943, killed in the girls’ loo on the second floor. She doesn’t remember anything except ‘big yellow eyes by the sinks,’ presumably because she was in a stall and the monster came in through the door. It’s a dead end.”

“And you didn’t tell us?” Ron demanded, but this time he and Jules were looking at Neville.

Neville gulped.

Harry raised an eyebrow at him. He couldn’t fight all Neville’s battles. Especially not within his House mates. If Slytherin had taught Harry anything, it was that your standing in your own House was controlled only by you.

“Because—because it didn’t matter,” Neville stammered. “An-and they were—have been b-better friends than you ever were!”

Jules and Ron blinked.

“I h-heard you,” Neville said, building up steam. “C-calling me a—coward, saying I d-don’t belong in Gryffindor—you think less of me because I’m not an obnoxious git like you two!”

“This is just the Slytherins talking, isn’t it,” Jules said flatly, glaring at Harry and Theo. “Trying to start fights in Gryffindor, bloody typical—you shouldn’t be hanging round them so much, Neville.”

“I wouldn’t have if you lot had been decent to me at the start of first year,” Neville said. His eyes were wild. “And now they’re my friends! So no, I’m not going to stop hanging round them! You being the Boy Who Lived doesn’t give you the right to tell me what to do! And if you can’t look at yourself and realize you’re at least part of the problem then your denial is not my fault or my problem to fix!”

Jules and Ron both looked shocked. For a second, even Harry and Theo found themselves speechless, which was an unusual occurrence for both of them—even Harry, who often made a choice to stay silent while Theo talked, rarely had no idea of what he would say. Neville seemed to have run out of words and glared at Ron and Jules, fists clenched.

“You tell ‘em, Neville,” Theo said, breaking out in a grin.

“Er,” Jules said.

“It’s nearly two in the morning,” Harry said, “and I’d really like to sleep. Can we go?”

“Yeah,” Neville said. “Let’s go. Jules? Cloak?”

Jules started and held it up. He and Neville and Ron vanished underneath it; Harry and Theo walked around and told them which bits of their feet were showing.

“Thing’s damn impressive,” Theo muttered.

Harry nodded. He couldn’t get hung up on the unfairness of Jules getting the Cloak. If he did he’d only Floo home the next week and try to curse his father, the Head Auror, and that would end well for absolutely no one.

Harry held the side door until Jules muttered that they were clear, and then the Gryffindor and Slytherin boys parted ways.

Theo and Harry both collapsed straight into their beds, absolutely exhausted.

April 15, 1993

Harry tracked Hannah down the next morning before breakfast, led her into the niche under the Grand Staircase, out of sight of two Ravenclaw prefects’ watchful eyes, and related, in a whisper, a summary of the events of the night before. She was shocked by all of it and promised to set her group to searching for giant spiders, which were apparently called acromantulas and extremely dangerous— “But, Harry, it won’t be easy… the teachers are being very strict about taking us to and from the library, and we’re trying not to advertise what we’re doing… so I don’t know how much time we have to devote to researching acromantulas,” she whispered. “It’s a good lead, though—this could bring us some real results if only we can make it to the library…”

“If you need a diversion to slip away, I can arrange that,” Harry said, thinking of the twins, who he hadn’t seen much of since the new restrictions went into place and the Knights Room sessions were suspended.

Hannah bit her lip. “I’ll… think about it. And let you know.”

“Thanks, Hannah,” he said, grinning at her.

She started to hug him, stopped herself with a jerk, and just grinned back before she went into the Great Hall. Harry was pleasantly surprised that she’d noticed his aversion to hugs—well, and physical contact in general—and checked the normal Hufflepuff hugginess.

 Harry waited half a minute to make sure they couldn’t conceivably be walking in together before he followed. They were doing a good job pretending to not be friends; Lisa, Sue, Anthony, and Hannah all greeted him in the halls still, but subtly, and none of them exchanged words in the Great Hall anymore. Harry was really starting to miss them. Not as bad as last summer, since he still had Blaise and Theo and Pansy and to some extent Tracy and Daphne, but he’d just gotten actual friends and he was not happy about having to stay away from them.

Yet another thing to add to the Heir’s tab when Harry made them pay up.

End of April/Early May 1993

Harry threw himself into schoolwork.

He had little else to do. The Slytherin records turned up nothing of use on Tom Riddle. He and Theo and Blaise and Pansy spent the early morning hours of several nights trawling through the entire shelves looking for anything that could possibly contain references to the Chamber of Secrets or past Heirs of Slytherin. There were a few vague mentions of the Heir tradition and how rare it had become for someone of Founder blood to come to Hogwarts. Nothing else useful. Nothing substantiated. They did find loads of Dark or at least questionably Gray spells and wrote down every one they could find for later practice. But once they’d exhausted the Slytherin library’s resources, there was little to do but homework.

The illicit potions brewery and meeting place became one of the abandoned rooms deep in the dorms. Harry spent more time brewing than he had almost all year, losing himself in the delicacy of reactions and counter-reactions and bases and alkalines and stabilizers. They dueled until they couldn’t cast anymore—which, since they were twelve, wasn’t a particularly long time span—and then worked on essays, and then Harry and Theo kept reading and researching other things while Pansy and Blaise played Exploding Snap or argued about various things, and then for a change they’d switch to wizard’s chess, at which Harry was getting better but still no master.

His and his friends’ grades showed the effort. Snape actually awarded Harry five points for clever innovations in Potions twice in the end of April and beginning of May, which was two more times than he had all year. Lockhart’s classes were still absolute jokes, so Harry couldn’t measure the success of his Defense practice, but in Transfiguration practicals he continued to top the class with Theo, Anthony, and Lisa, and he was even beginning to get a better grasp on the theory. McGonagall seemed to be warming to him slightly. And in Charms, Harry was slowly but stubbornly making progress. Astronomy remained a bore and he bitterly wished he could drop it next year. Herbology had never been his favorite subject but it was closely tied to Potions and he usually did quite well, if not as well as Theo or Neville. Blaise, Theo, and Pansy likewise saw improvement.

There were no more attacks, and Harry started to cautiously hope that the Heir had been frightened off—that they’d take their exams, and the Mandrakes would mature and be brewed into Restorative Draught, and the victims be awoken, and school would continue on as usual.

May 15, 1993

“Exams?” Finnegan howled.

Why they’d chosen Lockhart to announce the exam schedule to a joint class of Gryffindors and Slytherins, Harry hadn’t the faintest idea, unless Dumbledore was lurking invisibly in a corner and just did this for the drama. Which, honestly, he wouldn’t put past the old man. Harry was half convinced at this point that Dumbledore had only hired Lockhart because he’d seen the man’s application cross his desk and thought, oh, this is going to be amusing.

Then again, Dumbledore wasn’t here, so it was probably McGonagall, whose sense of humor was far too dry for this. Probably she and Snape were just busy doing actual productive things and passed the simple things off to Lockhart.

“Why, of course exams, my boy,” Lockhart said with that thousand-watt smile. His eyes swept over the class; Harry refreshed his Notice-Me-Not charm and sank lower in his seat. He’d finally taken pity on Jules and taught him the charm as well; he saw Jules do the same, and Lockhart didn’t single either of them out. “You’ve got to pass your end-of-year exams, haven’t you? Ha-HA!”

“But—but—with everything going on!” Finnegan protested.

Merlin, he is stupid.

“We’ve only kept the school open for you to keep up your education!” Lockhart said. “Of course—if only I had free rein to go after the Chamber myself—it wouldn’t be difficult to find it in the slightest—got an excellent idea what the monster is, of course, I could handle it myself if only—but no, it’s a moot point. We can’t have you missing out on any of my classes for something as silly as this! You never know when you’ll have to face a banshee just as I did, and what I’ve taught you will save your life!”

“All I’ve learned from him is not to set pixies loose,” Harry heard Ron mutter, and surprised himself by smirking. It was actually funny. Unusual for Weasley. The redhead caught his amusement and peered suspiciously in Harry’s direction. Harry pasted on a perfectly innocent face. Ron rolled his eyes and looked away.

“I’ve learned more studying with you lot than in this class,” Neville whispered. He and Theo were sitting behind Harry and Blaise today, for which Neville had gotten several dirty looks. Harry was impressed with how well the other boy was handling it. “It’s a joke… Good thing no one’s told Gran, she might come down here and hex Lockhart.”

Harry actually rather wanted to witness that.

“Exams will begin the twenty-eighth and continue through the thirty-first,” Lockhart said. “Schedule’s been moved up a bit—on my suggestion, you understand—the sooner you lot are out of here, the sooner I’ll have a clear road to eliminate the monster for good! With capable support from the other teachers, naturally—”

Harry tuned out his droning and played hangman on a bit of parchment with Blaise, who’d sneered at the Muggle game at first and then come to enjoy it much more than he let on.

The Gryffindors and half the Hufflepuffs were shocked and mutinous that exams were even happening. Harry overheard Jules and Ron complaining loudly that studying hard hadn’t even been on their minds with the castle in this state of constant, oppressive fear. Harry had to admit the atmosphere wasn’t good for studying; laughter was quickly stifled and students were led between classes in militaristic lines, but honestly. This was school. The Ravenclaws seemed to have never considered that exams wouldn’t happen, and as usual, half of them were extremely overprepared while the other half had to suddenly yank themselves out of whatever research project they’d most recently become immersed in and cram. Harry managed to slip the twins information on Muggle energy drinks and a down payment for the first investment. They soon reported a roaring trade and Lisa bounded up to Harry in the hall, flashed three empty cans of Red Bull in her bag, and thanked him with a wink before dashing off. He wondered if this had maybe been a bad idea and shrugged it off. Wasn’t his problem if the Ravenclaws wanted to spend their money on questionably healthy drinks.

Chapter Text

May 27, 1993

Harry and Theo and Blaise were on their way to the Owlery, having given Lockhart the slip after Defense, when McGonagall’s magically amplified voice echoed through the halls and ordered all students to return to their dormitories. They exchanged alarmed glances and started down the stairs in a hurry.

The three of them were crossing the first floor corridor when Hannah ran up to them. “Harry! Thank Merlin I found you—I know what the monster is!”

“What?” Blaise said in disbelief. “You found it? Now of all times?”

“What is it?” Harry said.

“Basilisk!” Hanna held up a book: they all saw the cover, an archaic rendition of multiple nasty-looking creatures. “Someone’d torn out the page from the main copy; I had to go dig this up off the back shelves; Madam Pince was not happy—but I found it! Roosters’ crows are fatal—Hagrid’s roosters keep getting killed! Spiders flee before it—looking it directly in the eyes will kill, but reflections are only lethal—and its own reflection is lethal to it!”

“The camera,” Theo said. “Creevey—he saw it through the camera. Mrs. Norris must’ve seen it in the water from Myrtle’s bathroom…”

“Justin saw it through Nearly Headless Nick,” Harry said. “And Hermione—she had that mirror with her—she must have realized… Maybe she tore out that other page! And I heard that voice in the walls a few times—Parseltongue! Merlin, I’m an idiot.”

“We’ve got to tell the staff,” Blaise said. “Where’s the staffroom?”

“I know,” Theo said, “Flitwick dragged me up there one time to brag to Snape about my Charms work.”

“Show-off,” Harry said. “Hannah, you coming?”

“Ernie’s waiting for me,” she said. “I have to get back to my common room—but—good luck!”

She hurried away.

“There’s Hufflepuff hard work for you,” Theo said. “Honestly, why people underestimate them so often I haven’t the faintest idea…”

“Well, there’s Hufflepuffs like Justin and Hannah, and then Hufflepuffs like Laura Madley and Eleanor Bradstone who literally can’t understand the concept of not being relentlessly, aggressively nice,” Harry said. “And then you’ve got the pompous Ernie Macmillans…”

“I’m going back to the common room,” Blaise said. “I’ll cover for you two—if the prefects notice you missing…”

Harry nodded briefly. It was a good idea.

Blaise waved goodbye and took off at a walk, somehow managing to make it look uncaring, elegantly slouching, and perfectly at ease. Until he hit the corner, and then, since he wasn’t wearing silent shoes, they distinctly heard him pick up a jog.

Theo and Harry made eye contact. Snickering, they took off for the staff room.

To their shock, they found Ron and Jules outside, arguing hotly.

“—can’t just sneak in! We have to tell them—”

Both boys stopped abruptly when the Slytherins arrived. Harry noticed Jules hiding a piece of paper behind his back, put the pieces together, and sighed. “You’ve just gotten that paper from Hermione’s things, haven’t you?” he said. “Let me guess, it’s about basilisks?”

“How?” Ron demanded.

“Hannah just figured it out, said someone tore out a page from the main copy of whatever book she found it in. Are you going to tell the staff or not?” Theo said.

The Gryffindors exchanged a glance.

“Well…” Jules said.

“We were going to sneak in and listen to what this is all about,” Ron said, crossing his arms. “You gonna stop us?”

“How sneaky of you,” Harry said admiringly, knowing full well it would piss both of them off to be complimented on a Slytherin trait. Sure enough, they both scowled. “Let’s all go.”

Unable to resist, the Gryffindors came along. They piled into the staff room and all crammed themselves into a large, ugly wardrobe full of smelly old cloaks. Jules and Ron pulled the doors mostly shut and they all held their breath, listening.

Flitwick and Sprout dashed in not two minutes later. Babbling followed, then Sinestra, Vector, Trelawny, Snape…

McGonagall was the last to enter. The other teachers all fell silent.

“It has happened,” she told them. “Two students have been taken by the monster. Right into the Chamber itself.”

Flitwick squeaked. Sprout clapped her hands to her mouth. Snape gripped the back of a chair very hard and said, “How can you be sure?”

“The Heir of Slytherin left another message.” McGonagall’s face was white as a sheet. “Their skeletons will lie in the Chamber forever.”

Madam Hooch sank into a chair. “Which students?”

“Ginny Weasley and Megan Jorkins.”

Ron slumped. If they hadn’t all been crammed in upright, Harry was quite sure he’d have slid straight to the bottom of the wardrobe. As it was, his weight fell on Theo and Jules.

“We shall have to send the students home tomorrow,” McGonagall said. “This is the end of Hogwarts. Dumbledore always said…”

She never got to finish. The door banged open and Lockhart strode in, beaming. “So sorry—dozed off—what have I missed?”

The other teachers were looking at him with something that very much resembled hatred, which would’ve given Harry endless amusement if he hadn’t been in shock.

Snape stepped forward. “Just the man,” he said. “The very man. Two girls have been taken to the Chamber, Gilderoy. Your moment has come at last.”

“That’s right,” Sprout chimed in. “Weren’t you just saying yesterday that you’ve known all along where the Chamber of Secrets is?”

“I—well, I—” Lockhart sputtered.

“I seem to recall you saying you were quite sure you knew what was inside it,” Kettleburn added.

“D-did I? I don’t recall—”

“I certainly remember you saying you were sorry you hadn’t had a crack at the monster before Hagrid was arrested,” Snape cut in. Personally Harry found Snape more frightening than Lucius Malfoy. Malfoy the elder was oil-based. Snape, he decided in that instant, was made of steel. “Didn’t you say that the whole affair had been bungled, and you should’ve been given a free rein from the first?”

Lockhart looked wildly around. “Well, I—I really never—you may have misunderstood—”

“We’ll leave it to you, then, Gilderoy,” McGonagall said. “Tonight shall be the perfect opportunity. A free rein at last. Everyone out of your way.”

“V-very well,” Lockhart said, when no one seemed willing to come to his rescue. “I’ll—just be in my—in my office then. Getting—ready.”

He left as swiftly as he’d come.

“Right,” McGonagall said, nostrils flaring, “that’s gotten rid of him. Heads of Houses must go and inform their students what has happened. The rest of you—make sure no students are still in the halls. The Hogwarts Express will take them all home tomorrow.”

One by one, the teachers rose and left.

Only once they were all gone did Harry push open the wardrobe. “This is bad,” Theo said, stepping out into the light.

“Oh, you think?” Jules snapped. Ron was white-faced and furious and absolutely wordless. “That’s his sister and her friend—”

“Ginny’s my friend too,” Harry said. “Don’t you accuse us of not caring, Julian Potter.”

Jules deflated slightly. Aimed his ire elsewhere. “Well—let’s go and talk to Lockhart then,” he said. “If—well, he’s going after it, isn’t he? He ought to know what the the monster is. All of us should go.”

“Fine,” Theo muttered, “fine, you bloody Gryffindors must be corrupting my brain.”

Harry was clenching and unclenching his fists. This was—the final straw. Whoever the Heir was—they were going to die painfully.

Ginny was a friend. They weren’t particularly close, but he’d kept an eye on her—he and Theo and Blaise had taught Ginny and Nat and Evalyn dueling, had made sure the Weasley daughter didn’t end up hexed twelve ways from Sunday in Slytherin; Pansy had befriended Nat and to some extent the other two. And Harry had promised Mr. and Mrs. Weasley that he’d look after her. She was a clever, ambitious girl—and no one deserved this kind of death.

They made it to Lockhart’s office without too much trouble. And then nearly had to force their way inside, and what they saw—

“You’re packing?” Jules said in disbelief.

“Er—yes,” Lockhart said. “Unavoidable call—got to go—”

“What about my sister?” Ron said jerkily. Harry, who had patiently listened to Ginny ranting about Ron ignoring her and not trusting her a few weeks ago, refrained from making a snide comment about oh now she’s your sister, is she?

“Well—as to that—unfortunate incident,” Lockhart said, dumping the contents of a drawer into his trunk, “no one regrets more than I—”

“You’re the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher,” Jules protested furiously. “You can’t—not with all the Dark stuff going on!”

Harry looked closely at Lockhart. “He’s no Defense master,” Harry said scornfully. “He’s a fraud—I doubt you did half those things in your books, you’re a pathetic excuse for a wizard and a professor.”

Lockhart smiled grimly. “You do Slytherin credit, my dear boy.”

“You wrote them!” Jules shouted.

“Do use your common sense,” Lockhart said, slamming his trunk shut. “My books wouldn’t have sold half so well if people didn’t think I’d done all those things. No one wants to read about some ugly old Armenian warlock, even if he did save a village from werewolves. He’d look dreadful on the cover. And the witch who banished the Bandon Banshee had hair on her chin. I mean, come on—”

“So you’re just taking credit for what a load of other people have done!” Jules shouted furiously.

Theo’s eyes were wide. “That’s actually rather brilliant. What, do you Confund them, or—”

“Memory Charms,” Lockhart said. He’d recovered some of his smugness. Ron was alternating glaring at Lockhart and Theo. “I had to track down those people, ask them exactly how they’d done what they did, and then erase their memories very precisely. There was work involved.”

He shut the last of his trunks. Harry’s fingers inched toward his wand. “Yes,” Lockhart said, “I think that’s everything. Only one more—sorry, boys, but I really can’t have you blabbing all my secrets—”

Harry and Jules got to their wands just in time. Lockhart’s was half raised when the Potter twins shouted “Expelliarmus!”

The two Disarming Charms caught Lockhart full in the chest. He was blasted off his feet; his wand went hurtling through the air; Ron caught it and flung it out the window.

“Shouldn’t have let Professor Snape teach us that one,” Jules said furiously, kicking the trunk aside and advancing on Lockhart. Harry rolled his eyes at the theatrics.

“What d’you want me to do?” Lockhart said weakly. “I don’t know where the Chamber is.”

“We do,” Jules said.

“You do?” Theo and Lockhart said simultaneously.

Jules handed Harry the paper without taking his eyes or wand away from Lockhart.

Harry unfolded it, scanned the text, and took in the word on the bottom, written in Hermione’s hand.

Pipes.

“Of course,” Theo breathed.

“It’s using the plumbing,” Harry said. No wonder I was hearing the voice in the walls… “Which means…”

“Moaning Myrtle,” Ron said. “Her bathroom must be where it comes out!”

“Why on earth would the entrance to the Chamber be in a girls’ loo?” Harry muttered, folding the paper and passing it to Ron.

Theo shrugged. “It might’ve been something other than a girls’ loo before, the castle’s a thousand years old. I’m sure it’s been renovated.”

“True.”

“Let’s go,” Jules said.

They marched Lockhart at wandpoint through the halls. Harry and Theo discussed, in a whisper, whether to go for another teacher—but they decided to make sure they were right about the entrance to the Chamber being in the bathroom before they went for anyone else. Harry had zero faith in the teachers actually believing them without proof, especially since they were essentially holding another teacher hostage.

Jules shoved Lockhart into the bathroom first. Harry was pleased to see he was shaking.

Myrtle was sitting on a toilet looking morose.

“Hi, Myrtle,” Jules said.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said when she saw them. Harry saw the way her eyes fixed on Jules and stifled a snicker. “What do you want?”

“Myrtle,” Harry said, elbowing Jules aside. “Do you remember two girls coming to ask how you died?”

“Oooooh, yes,” Myrtle said, clearly relishing the memory. “I told them all about it.”

“Could you tell us again?” Jules said.

Myrtle rather looked as though she’d never been asked something so flattering. “Oh, it was awful,” she said, inching forward and staring back and forth between Harry and Jules with wide eyes. “I died in this very stall. I’d come in here to cry, you see, because Olive Hornby was teasing me about my glasses. The door was locked, and I heard somebody come in, speaking—a different language, I think but it was a boy speaking. So I opened the door to tell him to use his own toilet, and then—” She paused dramatically. “I died.”

Harry, who had already heard this story secondhand, was inching over by the sinks and looking about for anything resembling the entrance to an ancient secret cavern beneath the school.

“How?” Ron said.

“I don’t know,” Myrtle said. “I just remember seeing a pair of great big yellow eyes. My whole body sort of seized up, and then I was floating away…” Harry looked over his shoulder and found her staring fixedly at Jules, face shining. “And then I came back. I was determined to haunt Olive Hornby, you see.”

“Where exactly did you see the eyes?” Jules said.

“Over there,” Myrtle said, pointing towards Harry.

Harry nodded. He was on his knees, examining the pipes beneath the sink. “Just as Pansy and Hannah said… I thought it was just because the door was in this direction, but if the Chamber’s linked to the plumbing…”

Ron and Theo hurried over to help look while Jules kept his wand aimed at Lockhart.

“Look, there’s a snake carved on this tap,” Ron said. Harry scrambled out from beneath the sinks to look.

“That tap’s never worked,” Myrtle said brightly.

Harry peered closer. The snake was engraved on it, subtly and cleverly, almost impossible to spot. He nodded absently. It was a good design.

And if the Heir involved Parseltongue—

He tilted his head. “Open.”

The tap glowed with a brilliant white light and began to spin. Jules prodded Lockhart closer so they could watch; Lockhart looked very much like he’d rather be anywhere but here. The sink quickly began to move and sank out of sight, revealing a large hole in the ground.

“I’m not going down there,” Theo said.

“What?” Ron stared. “That’s my sister, you insufferable—”

“And we are all twelve,” Harry retorted. “That’s an ancient monster of incredible power down there. We have proof that the Chamber exists. We should go fetch McGonagall, Snape—the teachers.”

“There’s no time!”

“But if we go down there and no one knows where we’ve gone and we end up dead, there’s no chance at all!” Theo retorted.

Lockhart moved.

Harry staggered back and fell, hitting his head on the edge of a sink, as Lockhart slammed into him. He saw stars but dimly remembered to hold onto his wand. People were shouting. He and Lockhart rolled over, then again—a spell flashed by, missed—

Someone else slammed into them and the next thing Harry knew he was sliding.

He managed to shove away from Lockhart and choke out a “Lumos!” Wildly jittering wandlight glanced off of slime-covered walls of a pipe that rapidly grew to about the width of a Volkswagen. Other pipes branched off to the sides, but none were as large as this one and he didn’t slide into them. Ahead of him, Lockhart’s mussed blond head bounced around.

Fear howled in Harry’s lungs, but he choked it down.

He twisted around; looked behind him—Jules, right there.

Jules must have tackled them to get Lockhart off of Harry. Harry decided to give his brother the benefit of the doubt and assume he hadn’t meant to push them into the pipe. Otherwise he’d never forgive his brother.

He knew they were falling deeper even than the dungeons.

Harry was distinctly worried about what would happen at the bottom when the pipe suddenly leveled out. His speed decreased gradually, until he was spat out and landed on top of Lockhart hard enough to feel it but not hard enough to be dangerous. Jules slammed into them a second later.

Lockhart moaned feebly. Harry shoved Jules aside and rolled away just as Ron and then, to Harry’s slight surprise, Theo shot out of the pipe.

Harry helped Theo to his feet. “I can see Weasley jumping in after us,” he said. “But you?”

“I might’ve let the two of them bolt off down here on their own,” Theo said indignantly, “but it’s not as if I could let you go running off after a primordial monster with only Gryffindors as backup, could I?”

Harry grinned. Then he took stock of the state of his robes and hair and winced. “This is nasty.”

“Scourgify,” Theo said, pointing his wand at Harry. Harry cast the Scouring Charm on Theo. It helped, but not a lot.

“Stop primping and get a move on,” Ron said loudly.

Harry closed his eyes briefly. “Don’t let me hex him.”

Theo was glaring balefully over Harry’s shoulder at Ron. “I am not the person to ask for help in that area.”

“Good point.”

“We must be miles under the school,” Jules said.

Ron squinted at the slimy walls. “Under the lake, probably.”

Jules and Theo and Harry lit their wands. They started cautiously moving with Lockhart in front. “Remember,” Jules said, “first sign of movement, close your eyes.”

Animal bones littered the floor; their shoes crunched over them. Harry wondered idly how the basilisk got enough to eat down here. Rats and rodents didn’t seem enough to keep a giant serpent alive. Probably it hibernated for long periods of time—some species of magical reptiles could enter voluntary periods of hibernation if food or environmental pressure threatened to kill them.

The tunnel bent.

“Jules—there’s something up there,” Ron croaked.

Harry narrowed his eyes to nearly a slit, freezing in place. The others followed suit. The thing across the tunnel was perfectly still.

“Maybe it’s asleep,” Jules hissed.

Harry crept closer, ready to shout in Parseltongue, to close his eyes, to hurl hexes or shield or flee—

“It’s a skin,” he said, prodding it with his toe and sheathing his wand. “A shed skin.”

There was a thud. Lockhart’s knees had given way.

“Get up,” Ron said sharply, pointing his wand at Lockhart.

Lockhart stumbled—and then lunged forward and tackled Ron.

There was a scuffle—Harry’s robes were in the way of his wand—

Lockhart climbed to his feet, smiling triumphantly, holding Ron’s wand in front of him.

“I’m afraid it’s the end of the line, boys,” he said. “I shall take a bit of this skin back up to the school—tell them how I was too late to save the girl, how you two tragically lost your minds at the sight of her mangled body—say goodbye to your memories! Obliviate!”

The wand exploded.

Harry and Jules were thrown backwards. His glasses fell off. Harry spent a frantic few seconds patting the ground for them and nearly choked on his relief when he found them unbroken a few feet away.

He and Jules climbed to their feet and faced a wall of fallen rock.

“Well that’s just lovely,” Harry said.

Jules shot him a dirty look and hurried up to the rock. “Ron! Are you okay? Ron!”

“I’m here!” Ron hollered back.

“Lockhart’s lost it,” Theo added. There was a dull thud and a loud “Ow!” One of the other boys had apparently turned and kicked Lockhart in the shins.

“What now? We can’t get through—it’ll take ages…”

“I can work on it,” Theo said. “Levitating rocks out of the way. I’ll have to be careful, though, or I might bring the ceiling down on us for real.”

“Wait here,” Jules called. “We’ll go after Meg and Ginny. If we’re not back in an hour…”

Harry really wanted to argue. He really wanted to stay here until the cave-in was cleared. But now they had Ron down a wand and a memory-less Lockhart to deal with—it would honestly be more of a liability to continue with their whole party instead of just him and Jules. And they couldn’t get out the way they’d come—the pipe was far too steep and slippery to climb. Which meant their only option was forwards.

“Harry?” Theo said.

“I’m going,” Harry said as confidently as he could manage. “If I die, Theo, you get my books.”

Theo laughed. Jules stared at Harry and Ron muttered something that was probably derogatory about Slytherin humor. Harry ignored them both and set off down the corridor again. He wondered absently if leaving Theo alone with witless Lockhart and wandless Ron was a good idea. Theo was vindictive, as much as and maybe more than Harry himself, and if Ron kept being—well, Ron, Harry wasn’t sure they’d come back to Ron and Lockhart both conscious.

The tunnel curved again and again, winding deeper. Harry and Jules walked for a solid ten minutes. The noise of shifting rock soon disappeared behind them. Neither boy spoke.

“Harry.”

Harry nodded; he’d seen it too. The tunnel dead ended in a solid wall carved with two entwined serpents. Each snake had glittering inlaid emeralds for eyes.

“Open,” Harry hissed.

The wall cracked open and slid aside. Mouth dry and heart pounding, Harry followed Jules inside the Chamber of Secrets.

A long, dimly lit chamber stretched out before them. Tall pillars caved with more serpents lined both sides and rose to a ceiling lost in gloom. The only light was oddly greenish. The basilisk could be anywhere.

Harry’s wand had been out for ages. Jules drew his. They crept farther down, staying wordlessly together, Harry facing slightly left and Jules slightly right.

There was something at the far end of the Chamber. As the drew closer, it resolved into a giant statue of a man with a narrow, angled face and a long beard. His eyes glared sightlessly back toward the Chamber doors and at his feet lay the prone forms of Ginny Weasley and Megan Jorkins.

Jules ran for them, throwing his wand aside and falling to his knees. “Ginny! Meg!”

Harry hung back. Something was very wrong here.

“They won’t wake,” a soft voice said.

Harry jumped. Jules appeared not to notice. Someone had just—just appeared off to one side. Holding Jules’ wand. A young man of maybe fifteen or sixteen, perhaps a bit taller than average, handsome and dark-haired and sharp-featured.

“Expelliarmus,” he whispered, and Harry’s wand flew out of his hand and skittered away into the dark.

“Jules,” he said sharply. Jules looked up, looked from Harry to the new arrival, and froze.

“Tom?” Jules said in disbelief.

Tom Riddle. Oh. Oh.

Riddle was strangely blurred around the edges—not a ghost, not a poltergeist, solid enough to have color to his clothes and to hold Jules’ wand, but not solid enough to be a person. Harry’s mind was spinning. He didn’t understand—but there was an idea hovering just out of reach—

“What d’you mean, she won’t wake?” Jules said desperately. “She’s not—not dead—is she?”

“Not yet,” Riddle said.

“Are you a ghost?” Jules said.

“A memory,” Riddle said. He’d barely glanced at Harry; his attention now was focused on Jules. “Preserved in a diary for fifty years.”

That lined up with what Neville’d said about him. Harry kept his mouth shut. Riddle’s attention was focused on Jules and he didn’t fancy changing that just yet.

Riddle pointed towards a small black book over by the statue’s feet. Harry noted its location and went back to watching Riddle.

“You’ve got to help us, Tom,” Jules said. “There’s a basilisk—it could be here any moment—”

Riddle didn’t move.

Jules looked for his wand.

“He’s not going to help,” Harry said. “Jules, congratulations. You’ve known the Heir of Slytherin for months without a clue.”

Riddle had Jules’ wand trained on Harry from nearly the second Harry started speaking. “Ah, yes,” he said with a slight sneer. “The other Potter. Potter the elder, Potter the forgotten… Megan told me all about you. She doesn’t like you, you know. Said you were creepy, odd, mean, untrustworthy… the Slytherin Potter. You interest me, Harry… but not as much as your brother does.”

“What d’you mean, the Heir of Slytherin…”

“He framed Hagrid,” Harry said. “Tom Riddle, Prefect, perfect grades, the quiet, likable Slytherin, so clever and so well liked by all his teachers—it was your word against Hagrid’s, wasn’t it, Riddle? And with Dippet in charge, no one was going to believe Hagrid.”

Riddle cocked his head. “You know rather a lot about me, Harry Potter.”

“I had a vested interest,” Harry said flatly. “Special Award for Services to the School, fifty years ago. Wasn’t hard to guess out what for. Then we broke into the record room—”

“That was you?” Jules demanded. “How—”

Harry ignored him. “—and found out it was Myrtle Warren who died and Hagrid expelled the same year. Hagrid, the heir of Slytherin? Please. Compared to you—it wasn’t hard to guess you framed him. We were even more certain after Neville told us what you showed Jules in the diary. Megan had it before that—I assume she stole it back. So how’d it end up in the bathroom in the first place?”

“You are a Slytherin,” Riddle said, interested. “I had my doubts… you are a Potter, after all… but I see now why you were sorted into my House. Yes, Harry Potter, I framed Hagrid. I preserved my memories in this diary and linked myself to it, so that one day my work could be completed. Poor lonely Megan Jorkins, jealous of Ginny Weasley and all her loving brothers, pining after handsome, brave, funny, popular Jules Potter… she poured her heart out to me in the diary all year long.” He smiled. It was a faint expression of absolute victory. “It was very boring, listening to the shallow troubles of an eleven-year-old girl. But I was patient. I was kind. I was the best friend she’d ever had. And the more of herself she put into the diary, the stronger I got, until I could put a bit of myself back into her.”

“What d’you mean?” Jules said. He sounded both very angry and very afraid.

Possession, Harry thought but didn’t say. It was actually brilliant. Creepy as hell, but brilliant.

“Haven’t you seen it yet?” Riddle said. “Megan Jorkins opened the Chamber of Secrets, killed Hagrid’s roosters, wrote messages on the wall, and loosed Slytherin’s monster on unsuspecting Mudbloods. Eventually, though, she realized she wasn’t going insane—that it had to do with the diary, which she threw into the plumbing. And then when it was next opened, imagine my delight when it was Jules Potter writing to me! The Boy Who Lived, the person in the castle I was most anxious to meet!”

“Why?” Harry said. “Why Jules? Why now? What do you care about him?”

“Megan told me all about your fascinating history,” Riddle said, eyes lingering on Jules’s scar. “My objective had already changed from terrifying Muggle-borns to luring you down here. But Megan panicked when she saw you with the diary, you see—she was afraid I’d tell you all her dirty little secrets.” He laughed, a high, cold, hair-raising sound. “I could tell you were on the trail of Slytherin’s secret—if not you, then your brother, the infamous Parseltongue, the one everyone believed to be the Heir of Slytherin…”

“Even he did. They infiltrated our common room,” Harry said, glaring at Jules. “Polyjuice.”

Riddle’s eyebrows rose. “What second year was talented enough to brew that?”

“I could’ve,” Harry said. “I looked it up. Probably one or two others could’ve pulled it off without murdering or permanently disfiguring whoever drank it. But it wasn’t me—Hermione Granger, a filthy Mudblood, as I’m sure you’d put it. She’s in the hospital wing at the moment, actually. Speaking of which, Riddle, if you’re so dead set against Muggle-borns, how come you have a Muggle surname?”

“Do not use that name,” Riddle hissed. “It belonged to my filthy Muggle father, who left my mother with nothing and damned me to live in an orphanage until Hogwarts. I naturally chose another as soon as I’d left school—well, long before, really, but only with my closest friends.”

“So you made Megan write the message on the walls,” Jules said. “And come down here. What about Ginny?”

“She was lurking about,” Riddle said, but now most of his attention was on Harry. Harry didn’t like it. Riddle was—disconcerting. And what he’d said about an orphanage… Harry, reluctantly, rather understood that. No wonder he hadn’t wanted the school shut down. “Someone wrote home that Megan was acting odd and tasked Ginny with watching her. I had to have Megan stun her and levitate her body down here. Megan wept and whined for a while… very boring… but she’d put too much of herself into the diary. She’s got very little life left in her.”

“And then you just waited for us,” Harry said.

Riddle shrugged. “Jules Potter, so noble, so brave, so selfless—of course I saw that she meant arrogant, overconfident, reckless, impulsive, raised on a diet of anti-Dark wizard sentiment, raised as a national icon, raised to believe in his inheritance as a vanquisher of Dark Lords everywhere, raised to be a Gryffindor—would of course be determined to prove himself by rescuing Megan and Ginny… and his brother, the Slytherin Potter, would if nothing else desire to clear his own name.” He grinned at Harry. “I know how Slytherins think, you see. I knew you’d come. To prove your innocence and save your House mate if not for your brother, who by Megan’s report does not like you much.”

“She’s not wrong,” Jules muttered.

Harry rolled his eyes.

“And now I have questions for you, Julian Potter,” Riddle said, turning his dark eyes back on Jules.

“Like what?” Jules spat. His fists were clenched. Harry half-hoped he’d throw himself at Riddle; it might give Harry an opportunity to disarm the shade.

“Well,” Riddle said with a pleasant smile, “how is it that you, an aggressively ordinary boy in terms of intelligence and magical power, managed to defeat the Dark Lord Voldemort?”

“What do you care?” Harry said. “Voldemort was after… your…”

“Time,” Jules finished, but Harry was staring at Riddle in horror.

Riddle laughed again. “You see, don’t you, Harry?”

“See what?” Jules said.

Harry couldn’t find words. This was bad. This was actually worse than he’d thought. And he’d known it was really bloody bad to begin with.

“Lord Voldemort is my past, present, and future,” Riddle whispered, tracing lines of fire in the air with Jules’ wand spelling Tom Marvolo Riddle.

With a wave of the wand, the letters rearranged themselves until they spelled out I am Lord Voldemort.

“Oh that is ridiculous,” Harry said, unable to stop himself. “I thought it meant flight from Death—”

“Well, it does,” Riddle said. “But it is also a derivation of my own name. Homage to Marvolo, the family name chosen for me by my mother, a witch. As if I would keep my filthy Muggle father’s name when the blood of Salazar Slytherin himself runs in my veins…”

He gestured, and Harry looked past him and saw a list of names gleaming on the scroll held by the statue. Written in Parseltongue, thank Merlin, because Jules couldn’t read it, which meant he couldn’t pass on what made Harry’s brain temporarily short-circuit. One family name repeated over and over again among the list of Slytherin’s heirs.

Gaunt.

Which meant—

“No, Julian,” Riddle continued, “I fashioned myself a new name, and I resolved that one day I would be the greatest wizard to ever live.”

“You’re not,” Jules spat.

Harry wanted to drop his face into his palms. Really? Antagonizing the immature teenage shade of Lord Voldemort? Admittedly he was saner than Harry would’ve expected, but still. Had Harry gotten all the common sense from their parents’ gene pool?

“Excuse me?” Riddle said pleasantly.

“You’re not the greatest sorcerer in the world,” Jules said. He was breathing quickly and his hands were fists. Harry let him talk and began inching sideways in the direction his wand had flown. “Sorry to disappoint you, but the greatest wizard in the world is Albus Dumbledore. I know the history. I grew up learning about you! Being trained to defeat Dark wizards! He’s so strong you didn’t dare attack Hogwarts even at the height of your power, not while he was Headmaster, he saw through you in school and he still frightens you now, wherever your pathetic weak ghost is hiding out these days—last time we met you were stuck on the back of an idiot Muggle Studies teacher’s head—”

Riddle’s pleasantness had been replaced with a very ugly expression. “Dumbledore has been driven out of this castle by the mere memory of me!” he hissed.

“He’s not gone,” Jules said stubbornly. “Not as much as you think anyway—”

Harry had gotten close enough to see his wand—it was only about fifteen feet away—he didn’t dare use wandless magic to bring it back to himself, not with Jules right there; he’d be saving that trick until the absolute last second—

Music lanced through the air. Riddle froze.

Harry had read that phoenix song was supposed to reach directly to the soul. He never used to know what that meant, but he did now—Fawkes brought a tide of joy and hope and light to the gloomy Chamber that seemed to shove the oppressive greenish light back slightly.

Just as the song reached a piercing high note that made Harry feel as though his ribs were vibrating—he gritted his teeth and resisted the effect with all his willpower, unwilling to give up control of his mood to anything not of himself—Fawkes appeared at the top of a nearby pillar, beautiful and strong, clutching a ragged bundle in his talons.

He jumped into the air and soared straight for Jules.

“You’ve got to be joking,” Harry muttered. Jules, transfixed by the bird, didn’t hear him, but Riddle did, and shot a calculating glance Harry’s way. Harry sneered at the shade and looked back at his brother just as Fawkes dumped the bundle at Jules’ feet and landed on his shoulder.

The song died out. Fawkes stared steadily at Riddle.

Jules picked up the bundle slowly

Patched, frayed, and dirty, the Sorting Hat lay at Jules’ feet.

Riddle began to laugh. “This is what Dumbledore sends his defender! A songbird and an old hat! Do you feel brave now, Jules Potter? Aren’t you so confident in your protector?”

Harry was honestly a little disappointed himself.

“I don’t need a protector,” Jules said. “I’m the Boy Who Lived. I’ve faced you twice and won!”

“Well,” Riddle said with a hungry smile, “let’s see you how you do in round three, shall we?”

He turned around. “Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four.”

The statue’s giant stone face began moving.

Harry dived for his wand.

Something slithered in the depths of the statue.

“Run,” Jules shouted, and followed his own advice, taking off into the pillars along the right side of the room.

Harry’s fingers closed around his wand. He scrambled behind the nearest pillar, opposite the side Jules had run to, and pressed his back to it, taking immense comfort in the feeling of having his wand back in his hand, listening—

Something thumped to the floor.

“Kill the one with the bird,” Riddle hissed. Okay, that was weird—

The basilisk was moving toward Jules. Harry could hear it sliding over the floor. He heard a loud, explosive spitting sound—then a thud—the basilisk was hissing, wordless expressions of pain and fury—

Harry couldn’t help it. He turned and looked around the pillar.

The basilisk had its back to him. It was flailing about at Fawkes. As Harry watched, Fawkes dived; his long beak lanced out of sight—

The basilisk turned, and before Harry could close his eyes, he saw that Fawkes had destroyed both of the monster’s. He revised his opinion of Fawkes. The bird was loyal to Dumbledore, which was a point against it, but it was clearly intelligent.

“NO!” Riddle screamed. “THE BOY IS BEHIND YOU! LEAVE THE BIRD AND KILL THE BOY, YOU CAN STILL SMELL HIM—”

Harry took a chance. “STOP!” he shouted as loudly as he could.

The basilisk hiss-shouted something enraged about a false Speaker and went after Jules again. Harry could see his brother bolting farther down the chamber.

“Commendable effort, Harry.”

Harry stepped out from behind the pillar, training his wand on Riddle. They held each other there for several seconds, waiting. Harry could see the other Slytherin’s thoughts racing just like his own. Calculating, measuring, looking for an advantage.

“I know how my brother defeated you,” he said softly. “And I’m willing to trade for that information.”

“For what?” Riddle laughed. “Your life? I suppose I could offer you a place at my side when I leave here today… soon enough, Megan will be gone and there will be nothing left but me… and you have proven yourself clever enough to be useful.”

“No,” Harry said. “Although I appreciate you sending the basilisk after my brother first. I’m willing to trade information for information.”

“I suppose it matters not,” Riddle said. “You shall both be dead soon enough. What do you wish to know?”

“What’s wrong with the basilisk? It can barely talk and it won’t listen to me.”

Riddle sneered. “Quite simply, it’s mad.”

“It’s what?”

“Did you really think any of the Founders simply left a murderous beast down here?” Riddle shook his head. “Slytherin was not so much a hero of anti-Muggle-born sentiment as some like to believe. The basilisk had orders to be loyal to Slytherin’s heirs, but never to attack a member of Hogwarts so long as they were not a direct threat to the school. It was a defensive measure against those who would betray us to the Muggles. It used to slip out to hunt in the Forbidden Forest when it wasn’t hibernating, but by the time I found it, the exit was long since rendered impassable. I brought it its first meals in probably a century or more. It’s loyal to me alone now.”

Harry nodded. That made sense, he supposed. More sense than he wanted it to. “And the Chamber? I find it difficult to believe Salazar Slytherin would’ve put the entrance to his super secret lair in a bathroom.”

“Slytherin’s study was once where the bathroom now stands,” Riddle said. “You can see it on very old blueprints of the castle… I imagine it was renovated into a bathroom as something like vengeance against his memory.”

Okay. Harry steeled himself for the question that had really been bothering him. “Why?”

Riddle blinked. “Why what?”

“They say you’re insane,” Harry said, studying him closely. “A psychopath. I don’t think either is true. So why’d you think it was a good idea to run around attacking Muggle-borns? You grew up Muggle if you’ve got a diary from Vauxhall Road, and I’m pretty sure wizarding orphanages aren’t a thing—I’m sure you know the dangers of inbreeding.”

Riddle laughed humorlessly. “Because Hogwarts is stagnating, Harry Potter, and so is our society. Based on what Megan says, it’s worse now than in my day. Muggle-borns show no respect for the glorious world they’ve been granted exclusive entrance to and make little to no effort to adapt. I meant to frighten them into change—force them to adapt to blend in and therefore survive. And that was my objective this year as well… until I learned of you and your brother.”

Harry opened his mouth. Reeling slightly. He’d never thought—

“No more questions, Mr. Potter,” Riddle said. “My turn. Answer me.”

Harry could think about this later. “Our mother died to save him,” Harry said, repeating what Dumbledore had told Jules at the end of last year, which had been repeated in the Gryffindor common room and then relayed to Harry by way of Neville. He’d told Theo and Blaise and no one else. “It rendered him safe. Protected.”

“Ah,” Riddle breathed. “Yes, that would be powerful magic, old magic—I see now, there is nothing special about Jules Potter. I wondered, you know—there are some similarities between myself and your brother… more, however, between myself and you.”

Harry opened his mouth to protest—and then closed it again.

“You see, you cannot deny it,” Riddle said, smiling cruelly. It was a mirror of the expression Harry sometimes wore on his own face when no one but Blaise or Theo or his own reflection was there to see. “Both half-bloods, both believing ourselves orphans, both raised by Muggles. The only two Parselmouths to attend Hogwarts in centuries, both sorted into Slytherin House—I’m very curious how you came to inherit the Founder’s gift, though I suppose we’ll never know. We even look something alike,” Riddle said. “Or at least, you resemble me more than your brother does…”

It was true. Jules’ eyes were hazel where Harry’s were green, but aside from that—growing up with the Dursleys had left Harry smaller than his brother. He was the shorter, sharper version of Jules. Slender and cutting where his brother was built strong and solid. Harry didn’t know if it was their expressions or their actual bone structure, but he did have something edged to his face that Jules did not share.

“But it was mere chance and nothing more that saved your lives,” Riddle said. “I must say, it is a relief.”

“There’s another similarity between us,” Harry said softly. “One you forgot—or perhaps never realized…” He let his own cold smile take over his face. “You are not the only person in this Chamber to inherit Slytherin blood, Riddle. A Gaunt married into the Potters, oh, generations ago… the Slytherin blood is distant and dilute, but it still runs in Potter veins. Magical inheritance is a fickle thing.” He shrugged loosely. “It chose me.”

“So that is where your Parseltongue hails from,” he said. “No matter. I am alive and the elder. The Chamber and Slytherin’s inheritance remain mine.”

“No,” Harry said. “You’re just a memory.” He forced himself to believe it. “You’re not really here—not yet. Not until Megan dies. Which means… I am the heir of Slytherin.”

He hadn’t meant to say it in Parseltongue, but he did.

Riddle’s eyes widened. But not in fear. In—was that excitement?  

A faint but distinct tremor went through the Chamber.

“Harry!” Jules shouted.

Harry turned—

“Incarcero!” Riddle said, and Harry found himself bound head to foot in ropes.

“I’ll come deal with you in a moment,” Riddle said softly, as Harry lost his balance and toppled to the floor with a painful impact. His wand popped out of his grip and rolled out of reach. He managed to flop over onto his side and saw Riddle smirking at him. “You’re far too interesting to kill,” Riddle said, and sauntered over to where the basilisk had Jules pinned against the Chamber wall.

With a grunt, Jules rolled out from under its head. The basilisk didn’t move.

Harry had a moment to spare for disbelief and elation before he squinted and made out the wound in Jules’ arm.

Riddle stopped, standing over Jules. Harry decided enough was enough and brought his magic to bear on the ropes. They were spelled, resistant to magic, especially the unshaped hard-to-direct wandless kind, and they had no knots, meaning he had to twist his unlocking trick to directly unravel the fibers themselves—but he was making progress. Slow distinct progress.

“Fawkes,” Jules slurred. “You were… fantastic…”

“You’re dead,” Riddle said. Harry listened as closely as he could with the attention not going towards the ropes. “Even Dumbledore’s bird knows it. Do you see what he’s doing, Potter? He’s crying.”

Harry gritted his teeth. Bloody come undone already, dammit—

“So ends the famous Julian Potter,” Riddle said in a slow voice. “I do dislike the loss of wizard life… but you cannot be allowed to leave here alive. No one can know I’ve returned.”

There was a pause. Harry thought—he could feel he was nearly through—

“Get away, bird,” Riddle said suddenly. “I said get away—” There was a bang, and then Fawkes took to the air in a flurry of red and gold feathers—

“Phoenix tears,” Riddle said softly, looking at Jules’ arm. “Healing powers—of course—well, no matter. Perhaps it was always supposed to be this way. One on one, Jules Potter…”

Harry’s bonds came undone just as another flurry of wings announced Fawkes’ return.

With a thought, Harry moved his wand back to his hand—he aimed it at Riddle’s back just as Fawkes soared overhead and dropped the diary in Jules’ lap— “Expelliarmus! Apicorpus!” Harry shouted.

Jules’ wand flew out of Riddle’s hand but apparently he wasn’t solid enough yet for the Limb-Binding Curse to take effect—he lunged for Jules with a bellow of rage—

Jules seized the basilisk fang that had been in his arm and stabbed it through the diary.

Riddle screamed.

Harry skidded to a halt next to them. Ink spurted from the diary and coated Jules’ hands and robes. Riddle fell to the ground, writhing and twisting in agony.

Harry couldn’t help but enjoy the sight of Riddle’s pain. For Hermione and Justin. And Lily Potter.

Jules was shaking as he tried to stand. He paused when he saw the hand Harry offered. Then he slowly reached out and took it and let Harry haul him to his feet.

“You all right?” Harry said.

Jules blinked a few times. “Dizzy…”

“Understandable, you just almost died.” Harry looked down. “What the—is that a sword?”

“Godric Gryffindor’s,” Jules said, and somehow he’d already recovered enough to get the arrogance back in his tone. Harry bent and yanked it out of the basilisk’s mouth. It came free with a nasty crunch. “I recognized it from—from the old histories—Dad has a few pictures and things…”

Harry examined the blade. Sure enough, Godric Gryffindor was engraved along it. “How in Merlin’s name did you get this?”

Jules took the sword back. “It was in the Sorting Hat.”

Harry actually had no words to express exactly how bizarre it was that an ancient relic of the Founders, lost for centuries, had apparently been hiding in the bloody Sorting Hat. “Okay,” he said. “Grab the Hat, then—”

A faint moan came from the other end of the Chamber.

Harry and Jules hurried over.

Megan Jorkins sat up and started crying when she saw Jules. “Oh—oh, Jules—I tried to tell you at b-breakfast, but I c-couldn’t say it in front of—of Percy and Ron—it was me, Jules—he t-took me over, Riddle made me—and how d-did you kill that—that thing? Where’s Riddle? The last—thing I r-r-remember is him c-coming out of the diary—”

Harry tuned out Jules as he tried to awkwardly comfort the sobbing girl and knelt next to Ginny. “Renervate.”

She gasped and sat bolt upright. “What—where—how—”

“Easy,” Harry said, restraining her. She went for her wand, a reflex he recognized from two years in Slytherin House. “Hey, calm down—it’s fine, no threat, Jules killed the monster and the Heir—”

“Megan,” Ginny said. “Megan stunned me, how did she even cast that spell, I’ll—”

“Calm down or I’ll stun you again,” Harry said in his coldest voice.

Ginny shut up.

“Megan’s been possessed by a Dark artifact designed to loose the monster on the school. The monster was a basilisk.” He could hear Jules trying to explain to Megan, much more clumsily, and thanked Merlin Jules hadn’t heard Harry’s private conversation with the shade. “Between Hannah Abbott and Hermione Granger, we figured out what the monster is and how to get down here. Lockhart tried to wipe our memories and take credit for finding the Chamber but he used Ron’s broken wand and wiped himself instead; he and Theo and Ron are stuck behind the cave-in.”

He recognized her composure, too, as a function of Slytherin. It was far from perfect. He could see her terror, anger, shock, confusion, and relief all in a jumble, and her face was white with fear, but she nodded jerkily. “You—and Jules?”

“Fought off the spirit that possessed Megan,” Harry said, helping Ginny to her feet. She pulled her wand and held it tightly at her side; he didn’t argue, knowing it was a comfort thing. “Jules killed the basilisk; I delayed Riddle long enough for him to destroy the diary. It was what was controlling Megan.”

“I never knew…” Ginny said, staring at the diary. “Harry… I g-gave her the diary… it was in my cauldron, and she was going on about wanting to start a diary… so I gave it to her, because I don’t like notebooks much, they’re awkward, I prefer scrolls…”

Harry spared a moment to thank Merlin the diary hadn’t possessed an actual Slytherin. It would’ve made this entire thing much harder to explain. “It’s not your fault,” he said quietly, gripping her shoulders and channeling McGonagall and Snape’s sternness. “Someone was trying to do this to you, or anyone close to you.” His mind flashed back to the bookstore. In fact, I have a good idea who. “Do not blame yourself. And admirable composure, Miss Weasley. You do your House credit.”

She smiled weakly. “Th-thank you…”

“Come on.”

Ginny walked closely at Harry’s side as he and Jules and Megan started back up towards the entrance. Harry followed, looking back only once at the statue and its still-open mouth. The black inside yawned like an invitation, or a promise.

Megan wept continuously as they walked. Harry caught Ginny shooting her badly concealed contemptuous looks and had to stifle a smirk of his own.

After a few minutes’ progress up the tunnel, the rock came into view. Theo and Ron had managed to clear a gap without destroying the tunnel’s integrity. “Jules!” Ron said, and then “Ginny!”

Ginny let out a choking noise and ran for him.

Harry tried to ignore the painful squeeze in his heart as he watched both of them forget all their squabbles of the past year. Ron hauled Ginny through the hole and hugged her tightly. That was what siblings should be—or closer, anyway, than whatever mess of a relationship he and Jules had.

They boosted Megan through next, and then Harry crawled through and accepted Theo’s help getting down, and Jules came last. Theo glanced Harry over and cocked his head.

“Later,” Harry muttered. Ron was peppering the clearly exhausted and unwilling-to-talk Jules with questions, but Theo just nodded and kicked Lockhart not gently in the ribs.

“Get up,” he said.

“Ow,” Lockhart complained. “What was that for?”

“I don’t like you,” Theo said. “Come on, on your feet.”

“Hasn’t got a clue who he is, who we are, or where we are,” Ron said irritably. “He’s a danger to himself.”

Lockhart squinted at Harry and Jules. “You were here before, weren’t you? Odd sort of place, isn’t it? Do you live here? Do they live here? They’re new.” He nodded at the girls.

Megan shrank back. Ginny crossed her skinny freckled arms and glared at him. Lockhart didn’t seem to register either reaction.

They walked until they came back to the pipe. Harry looked for Ginny without thinking and found her right there at his side, then did a double take with surprise that she’d chosen to hang back and walk with him and Theo rather than up with Ron. Her brother clearly noticed this and shot several nasty looks over his shoulder at Harry and Theo. Harry ignored him and related the main points of the fight in the Chamber; Ginny listened as well, and neither of them commented on the gaps in his story. Like what Harry had been doing while Jules ran from the basilisk.

“Have you thought how we’re going to get back up this?” Jules said, bending and peering into the long, dark pipe.

Fawkes landed in front of Jules and waved his long tail feathers.

“Hannah said phoenixes can carry loads of weight,” Harry said slowly. “Do you think…”

“Do you want us to grab hold?” Jules asked the bird.

Fawkes trilled.

“No way,” Ron said.

“Fawkes isn’t an ordinary bird,” Jules said determinedly. He looked around. “Okay—everyone make a chain—”

They lined up and grasped hands: Jules, Ron, Harry, Theo, Ginny, and Megan. Harry had Theo grab his belt and took Lockhart’s hand himself; he didn’t trust the professor or Megan enough to put either of them anywhere but the last link of the chain, so that if one of them let go, someone else would still be hanging on.

Jules seized Fawkes’ tail.

A curious sense of lightness overcame Harry. Fawkes flappes his wings, and their feet lifted off the floor; he could feel the tug of his hand in Ron’s and the pressure of Theo, Ginny, and Megan’s weight dragging on his belt, the weight of Lockhart in his left hand, but none of it was nearly as heavy as it should’ve been. They soared upward into the pipe.

“Amazing!” Lockhart was shouting. “It’s just like magic!”

Harry was so tempted to drop him.

The ride was over before it stopped being fun. All seven of them landed on the wet floor of Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. The sink slid back into place and the Chamber’s entrance was hidden away once more.

Myrtle goggled at them. “You’re alive,” she said to Jules.

“How come you sound disappointed?” Jules snapped, wiping at his glasses—uselessly, since his robes were filthy, too.

“Well—I’d just been thinking… if you’d died, you’d have been welcome to share my toilet,” Myrtle said shyly.

This was too much for Theo; he turned away and faked a choking fit to hide his laughter.

“Is he quite all right?” Ginny said.

“Oh, he’s fine,” Harry said, straight-faced. “I expect it’s just shock…” He winked at her, and realization dawned: she, too, had to clap a hand over her mouth.

“Careful, Jules,” Ron said, as they left the bathroom for the now-dark corridor, “I think Myrtle’s got a crush on you…”

Jules made a face.

“Where now?” Ron said, looking anxiously at Megan, who was still silently crying.

“Follow the bird,” Harry said. “I’d bet it’s taking us to McGonagall.”

Sure enough, they set off in Fawkes’ wake, and arrived at McGonagall’s office not five minutes later.

Wet, muddy, filthy, and exhausted, they paused outside to regroup, and then Jules led the way inside.

For a moment there was silence as the room took in the sight of six nasty students and the equally nasty, vacantly smiling Lockhart. Then—

“Megan!” a tall bald man shouted, leaping across the room. He was quickly followed by a shriek of “Ginny!” and Mrs. Weasley, who crushed Ginny into a hug just as the man Harry assumed was Megan’s father pulled his daughter to his chest. Mr. Weasley followed closely on his wife’s heels.

Harry and Jules and Theo looked past the family reunions. Harry was not overjoyed to find Dumbledore beaming by the hearth, flanked by McGonagall, who was taking great, steadying gasps, and Snape, who was as cold and composed as ever. Fawkes flew to Dumbledore’s shoulder and crooned, butting his head against the Headmaster’s ear.

Mrs. Weasley tried to drag Jules and Harry into her embrace; Harry flinched violently and reflexively, and she remembered herself with a slight flush and patted him on the shoulder instead. “You saved her! You saved her! How did you do it?”

“We’d all quite like to know that, I suspect,” McGonagall said.

Harry plucked the diary out of Jules’ pocket, since his brother was still being smothered by Mrs. Weasley, and crossed the room to Dumbledore and Snape. “This diary is a Dark artifact that was deliberately passed to Ginny Weasley and Megan Jorkins at the beginning of the year,” he said evenly. “It possessed whoever wrote in it. Ginny, not knowing it was any more than a diary, gave it to Megan, and over the course of the school year, Megan fell more and more under the power of the entity held inside until he could possess her and compel her to open the Chamber of Secrets. Hannah Abbott and Hermione Granger’s efforts allowed us to determine the nature of the monster and the location of the Chamber’s entrance—Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom.” By this point, the parents had stopped hugging their children to listen. Even Jules and Ron seemed content to stay quiet and let Harry talk. He continued, his voice steady. “We tried to help Lockhart, but he was going to run away. So we took him with us. I meant to find proof of the Chamber’s existence and bring it to a teacher, but Lockhart tried to take my wand and tackled me into the pipe. The others came after to help me and there was no way back up. He tried to Obliviate us, but Ron’s wand was broken and it backfired; Lockhart’s memory’s wiped now. Jules and I were separated from Ron, Theo, and Lockhart by a cave-in and we progressed to find the monster.” He paused, wondering—

Jules stepped forward and held the sword out to Dumbledore. “Here, sir. Fawkes arrived while we were talking to the shade of Tom Riddle, and—”

“Tom Riddle?” Dumbledore said. Harry noticed that McGonagall didn’t seem to react but Snape had stiffened minutely.

“He was a student here,” Jules said slowly, “the last time the Chamber was opened…”

“He put his memories into the diary,” Harry said.

Dumbledore took the diary and examined it closely. “Brilliant,” he said softly. “But then, he was probably the most brilliant student Hogwarts has ever seen.”

He turned to the Weasleys and the Jorkins. “Very few people know that Lord Voldemort was once known as Tom Riddle and a student at Hogwarts. I taught him myself, fifty years ago… He disappeared after graduation… traveled far and wide, sank so deeply into the Dark Arts, that when he returned as Lord Voldemort, almost no one connected him to the brilliant boy we once had as a student…”

Mr. Jorkins looked furious and hysterically worried.

“Miss Jorkins had best get to the hospital wing,” Dumbledore said firmly. “There will be no punishment. Older and wiser wizards have been hoodwinked by Lord Voldemort. Miss Weasley had best get checked over as well—I shall send the boys along in a moment; I’d like another word with them. Minerva, will you escort Miss Weasley and Miss Jorkins and their parents to the hospital wing?”

“Of course,” McGonagall said. “Shall I take Gilderoy as well?”

“I think you’d best,” Dumbledore agreed.

Gilderoy Lockhart smiled vacantly as McGonagall steered him out of her office on the heels of the girls and their parents.

“What happened next?” Dumbledore said gently.

“Yeah. So—he talked for a bit.” Jules clearly wanted to get this over with.

“He told us he was interested in—in Jules, who had defeated a powerful Dark wizard,” Harry said. “And that he kidnapped Ginny and Megan to lure Jules down there. Me, too, since you need Parseltongue to get into the Chamber in the first place. He’d been feeding off of Megan’s energy all year and she was nearly dead and he was nearly all the way independent of the diary.”

“And then he called the basilisk on us,” Jules continued, “and then we hid, and I pulled the sword out of the Hat—Fawkes brought the Hat with him—and I stabbed the basilisk. But it bit me, and I was dying. And then Riddle came over to laugh at me, and Harry disarmed him from behind.”

“I bought enough time for Fawkes to drop the diary in Jules’ lap,” Harry said. “Jules stabbed it. With a basilisk fang. The link died.”

There was a trembling pause.

“Oh!” Mrs. Weasley shrieked, drawing Ginny into another round of hugs. Mr. Jorkins was lecturing Megan on trusting unidentified magical artifacts. Harry was focused on Dumbledore and Snape.

“The basilisk is dead?” Dumbledore said.

“Yes, sir.” Jules nodded vigorously. “Very dead.”

“Harry,” Dumbledore said heavily, “I am afraid I must ask one more thing of you tonight.”

Ten minutes later, Harry found himself back in the bathroom.

“I don’t know, sir,” he said uncertainly. “I don’t—I don’t know how I’m a Parselmouth but—Riddle said it was only the Heir who could open the Chamber and—I’m not the Heir. Not actually Slytherin’s descendant.”

“Please, just try,” Dumbledore said, watching the sinks closely. “I doubt we could force our way in… the wards are tied to the castle and the Chamber would likely self destruct if we tried to break them… it would possibly damage the centuries-old Hogwarts wards themselves. But if you can let us in… it’s possible there is a treasure trove of history and information down there.”

Snape, thank Merlin, had gone to check on Ginny, as she was a member of his House. Harry had Theo, Ron, and Jules as buffers between him and the headmaster.

Which was good, because he wasn’t confident at all that he could successfully lie to Albus Dumbledore.

“O-okay,” Harry said, and looked at the sink.

And spoke in garbled Parseltongue that would sound similar to the noise that translated to open, but not identical. Nothing that would provoke a reaction.

He did it again, careful to make the exact same sound, and then a third time, more forcefully.

“Professor—I don’t—I don’t think it’ll open,” he whispered, looking at the floor and letting the tremble he’d been hiding for a while touch his hands and shoulders. “I’m—I’m sorry.”

“It’s perfectly all right, my boy.” Dumbledore laid a hand on Harry’s shoulder.

Harry had been practicing rudimentary Occlumency for months now—mainly clearing his mind of all thought and emotion for fifteen minutes every night before he fell asleep. Sometimes he was too tired, sometimes he got lazy and skipped, but he averaged six nights out of every seven. He knew full well it was highly illegal to use Legilimency on another person, especially a minor. He also did not trust Dumbledore in the slightest to follow that law. Harry thanked Merlin in the moment before he lifted his head that he’d had the sense to practice.

Harry braced himself, concentrated fiercely on his exhaustion and his overriding desire to crawl in bed, and on the complete and utter terror of the Chamber, as he lifted his head and met Dumbledore’s twinkly blue gaze. “I wish I could help more,” he whispered.

Dumbledore held his gaze for a few seconds, then sighed and looked back at the sinks. “I suppose…”

Harry knew exactly what explanation he’d have given the old man, but if he was too eager to offer an excuse for the Chamber not opening he’d announce his guilt as much as if he’d refused to meet the Headmaster’s eyes.

“I can only conclude that you are not the true Heir of Slytherin,” Dumbledore said with a sigh. “Riddle was directly descended from Slytherin’s line, but you, Harry—your Parseltongue gift may well be the product of the Dark magics unleashed the night Jules vanquished the Dark Lord.” Right, because being a Parselmouth automatically makes you dark. “Parseltongue must not be the only requirement for entering the Chamber; you are not the true Heir and now that Riddle does not want you down there…” He trailed off, and let them fill in the rest of the pieces.

Harry hung his head. “I’m sorry, Professor.”

“It is no fault of yours, my dear Harry. I find myself relieved, in truth, that you are not another Heir…”

“As am I,” Harry said with feeling, suppressing his anger.

Dumbledore sighed again. “You may return to the hospital wing, I daresay Madam Pomfrey is anxious to check you all over… Jules, if you’d accompany me back to my office? I’d like to speak with you.”

Madam Pomfrey at least had the sense to give Harry and Theo beds on the opposite end of the hospital wing from Jules and Ron. Ginny and Megan had already been given doses of sleep potion; their parents had been given cots in the guest suites above the hospital wing. Harry noticed Theo only pretended to take his dose of sleep potion and followed suit without thinking.

Neville and Blaise showed up not ten minutes later. “We’ve come to visit,” Blaise said smoothly.

“They’re asleep,” Madam Pomfrey said.

“Can we—can we still see them? Please? Just—sit with them for a few mintues?” Neville’s voice was faint from distance but still clear.

Harry and Theo, who were only pretending to sleep, met each other’s eyes across the gap between their beds and grinned.

Madam Pomfrey sighed. “I suppose—as long as you keep quiet. And only because Pomona speaks so highly of you, Mr. Longbottom. I’ll be in my office.”

Neville and Blaise walked over and stood at the foot of Theo’s bed.

“Maybe this was stupid,” Neville muttered. 

Harry mouthed one, two, three at Theo and they both sat straight up in their beds.

Blaise flinched. Neville jumped back with a yelp that luckily went unheard by Pomfrey. “You scared me!” he hissed.

Harry was snickering.

“That was the point,” Theo said.

“Want to sit?” Harry said, patting the bed by his feet.

Blaise sat on Theo’s bed and Neville on Harry’s, shaking his head. “You are both terrible people. What is going on? Jules and Ron never came back to the dorms, and then I sneaked out and went to the Knights Room and found Blaise—”

“Why you rebel,” Harry teased in a whisper.

Neville poked his leg. “You lot are wearing off on me.”

“I told them where you’d gone,” Blaise said. “So we went to McGonagall and she said you were in the hospital wing and we’d find out what happened tomorrow. We pretended to go back to our dorms and came straight here as soon as we were out of sight.”

Harry and Theo told them the story in hushed whispers. Harry hesitated before adding a few details of his conversation with Riddle and what he’d learned.

“And you told Dumbledore none of that?” Neville said, eyes wide. “Harry…”

“I don’t trust Dumbledore,” Harry said flatly. “Not in the slightest. Besides, what does it matter how Riddle controlled the basilisk? It’s dead now, and there won’t be another one. And Riddle’s gone so it’s not like the information about how Jules didn’t die is going to go anywhere.”

Blaise tapped his fingers anxiously. “I can’t believe we were on the trail of the teenaged Dark Lord and didn’t notice.”

“It’s not like he put Lord Voldemort down as his nickname on school forms,” Harry said drily.

 “Still… and you spoke to him.”

Neville chewed his lip. “What was he… did he seem…”

“Insane?” Harry said, and hesitated. “I… honestly? No. Which was… unexpected. Cold, and calculating, and driven, but sane.” He held back on the similarities between himself and Riddle. Harry was still uncomfortable when he thought about that. Theo and Blaise would see some or all of them for themselves… but Neville wouldn’t.

There was one other thing he had to tell them, he knew, but this wasn’t the time or place for it. And he wasn’t sure if Neville could handle it.

“Weird,” Neville said. “Well… maybe it was only after he left school that he went crazy.”

Or maybe he never did.

Harry caught that thought with more than a little horror. Voldemort was evil. He’d killed his mum. Voldemort was the reason Harry ended up with the Dursleys.

“Theo, why didn’t you take the sleep potion?” he said.

Theo grimaced. “I don’t want to sleep. I’ll dream.”

“It’s called Dreamless Sleep for a reason,” Blaise said.

Theo kicked him. “Not Nightmareless Sleep, you dunce.”

“Why nightmares?” Neville said.

“Dumbledore,” Theo said quietly.

Harry frowned. “What?”

Silence ticked by.

“He killed my mum.”

Theo’s whisper was almost too soft to hear. Neville’s eyes got as wide as saucers. Even Blaise and Harry were caught off guard.

“In the war,” Theo continued. His voice was halting, as if the words had to be dragged out of him. Harry could sympathize. He didn’t like talking about his issues, either. “She was—fighting. For the other side. He killed her. I begged my father for years to see the memory—Dad finally let me, on my eleventh birthday. I’ll dream about it. After—after spending that much time with him.”

Harry thought back—he’d never seen Theo alone in Dumbledore’s presence. In fact… he’d seen Theo avoid the headmaster, but so subtly even Harry hadn’t noticed until he was looking for it in his memories.

“How can you stand to be in the same room as him?” Neville said. Interestingly, he didn’t do what Harry thought Hermione would have—just reflexively tried to deny it or explain it away.

Theo shrugged jerkily. “It was a war. I hate him for it, but I understand it. You know? It was a war and she was a soldier on the other side. She’d killed people before that. On the so-called Light side.” He sneered the last sentence and Harry watched Neville closely. The Gryffindor looked uncomfortable, but intrigued.

Maybe he could tell Neville after all.

Enemy combatant. Soldier. Harry was loathe to admit it, but—well, that was what his mother had been, hadn’t it? As far as Voldemort was concerned.

Voldemort had still been going after two babies.

“Does anyone know why the Dark Lord tried to kill me and Jules?” he said suddenly. “It doesn’t seem in line with his policy—he was all about pureblood supremacy, right? We’re halfbloods. The Potters are an Ancient and Noble House. He didn’t run around killing magical children.”

“He was evil,” Neville said, but the words sounded uncertain.

“But why not you, Neville? Your parents were Aurors, too. Or Susan Bones, for that matter, or the Weasley kids.”

Neville frowned.

“No one knows,” Blaise said.

Theo’s dad might, Harry thought, catching a bit of discomfort on Theo’s face, but decided not to ask. His friend had just had a rough day.

Madam Pomfrey stuck her head out of her office. Harry and Theo both instantly feigned sleep. “It’s time to go, boys,” she said. “You’re cutting it close to curfew.”

“Yes, Madam Pomfrey,” Neville said respectfully, and he and Blaise left with whispered good-byes.

Harry stayed up talking about inane things with Theo until they literally couldn’t keep their eyes open any longer.

The celebratory feast was the strangest Harry had ever experienced. Everyone was in their pajamas and talking loudly. It seemed Jules and Ron had taken most of the credit and told the story in such a way as to minimize the Slytherins’ involvement. Harry struggled not to roll his eyes and decided it was probably for the best. Everyone knew he hadn’t been the Heir—that a Dark object had been doing it and it was now destroyed—but the older Slytherins couldn’t pounce on him for ‘fraternizing with the enemy’ or some such nonsense. Once again, Harry could fly under the radar.

Hagrid returned, and happily greeted Ron and Jules. The petrified victims were revived just in time for the feast. Harry, Blaise, and Theo went over to say hello to Justin and Hannah. Harry stubbornly ignored the guilty sideways stares half of Hufflepuff were shooting him.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder as they were leaving the Hufflepuff table.

Harry turned around. “Hermione,” he said, not bothering to hide how happy it made him to see her up and about. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” she said. “Wonderful, actually.”

There was a pause. Luckily, the feast was chaotic enough that only Justin, Hannah, and Daphne noticed their exchange.

“I’m sorry,” Hermione said suddenly. “For—well. You know what.”

“I do,” Harry said. He couldn’t bring himself to apologize, but— “I could’ve handled it better.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “And—look, I didn’t mean—to not trust you.”

That was a conversation best held somewhere else. “Let’s talk about it later,” Harry said as gently as he could manage.

Hermione nodded, looking a bit sad, and turned around.

“Hermione,” Blaise said suddenly.

She looked back at them warily. “Yes?”

Blaise pulled an embossed letter from his pocket. “My mum is getting married this summer,” he said. “Ask Neville about it, but—I’m permitted to invite my friends from school. If you would be interested in coming, you are invited.” Hermione took the letter, a bit stunned. “Casa di Angeli has a very large library,” he added with a smirk. “And the Trace will be ineffective there.”

Hermione studied the dates on the letter and her eyebrows inched up. “Two weeks in Italy practicing magic with my friends and—learning about wizarding culture? As if I’d say no.” She beamed.

“Wonderful,” Blaise said, and he actually offered her a genuine smile.

Harry watched her return to the Gryffindor table and sit down with Neville and the twins, resolutely ignoring Jules and Ron and their friends.

Theo elbowed him. “We all know how upset you were, mate, no need to try so hard to hide it.”

“Yes there is,” Harry said, following them back to their own table. “And his name is Malfoy.”

Blaise sniggered.

Malfoy, however, had been positively sulky for the last few weeks. His father had nearly been sacked as a governor—Harry suspected the Minister had stepped in, anxious to get back in Dumbledore’s good graces, and tried to throw Lucius Malfoy off the list of governors, and failed because the man was a canny Slytherin. His position was still weak, though, and between that and Malfoy’s persistent fear of Harry, the blond Slytherin wasn’t nearly as irritating as he usually was.

“Harry, where are we going?” Neville said nervously.

Harry took a deep breath and shoved all his nervousness away. He was trusting them. Trusting three people who weren’t himself. It was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. “You’ll see, Neville.”

Neville wasn’t stupid. As soon as Harry made the turn down the second-floor hallway, his face paled slightly. Theo assumed his mask of boredom and Blaise his mask of amused disdain, which were their default hiding-what-I’m-thinking faces. Harry ignored all of them and marched straight into Myrtle’s bathroom.

“Myrtle?” he called.

No answer. Good.

“I lied,” he said bluntly to the others, after checking that there were no paintings on the walls. “When I told Dumbledore I couldn’t get back down to the Chamber. I lied.” He turned to the sinks before he could lose his nerve. “Open.”

The center one slid down, revealing a dark, slimy pipe.

Harry met each of their eyes in turn. “If you don’t want to come, I understand. But—please don’t tell anyone if you decide not to. I promise the basilisk is really dead and I’m not about to go on a murderous rampage.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Neville said.

Harry nodded once and climbed into the pipe.

He cast as many scourgifys as he could on the way down, just as he had the last three times he did this over the last two weeks, and heard at least two voices catch on behind him, but they’d still be filthy when they got to the bottom. No matter. He intended for this to be the last time he ever used the plumbing slide to the Chamber.

One by one, his friends slid out of the pipe behind him.

Theo raised his eyebrows. “You’ve been fixing the place up.”

“Somewhat,” Harry agreed.

Torches flickered on the walls, spelled to burn white instead of yellow, which cast a much less gloomy air about the whole place. Harry had transfigured all the animal bones to dust and begun working on cutting up and packaging the basilisk’s shed skin; he could make a fortune off of it on the black market if he could put Blaise or Theo’s family connections to work. Same for the venom and scales of the actual body. Harry had extracted the venom himself the previous week; jars stolen from the kitchen lined one wall of the actual Chamber, full of malevolent brownish liquid.

The cave-in remained. He hadn’t dared try to fix it and didn’t want to, anyway. The bathroom entrance was too risky. Myrtle could report on their comings and goings, and Dumbledore knew where it was now.

Fortunately, Harry had found another.

“Open,” he said again to the Chamber doors themselves, and led Neville, Blaise, and Theo into the Chamber of Secrets.

“Whoa,” Neville breathed, looking around with awe and a little fear.

Theo looked for the basilisk corpse. “Is that venom?”

“Yes,” Harry said. “I was going to speak to you about that, actually. Does your family know anyone who’d be willing to swear a vow of secrecy and butcher it for us so we can sell the parts?”

Theo grinned viciously. “What do you think?”

“Oh good,” Harry said.

Neville studied them. “You’re not going to give Jules a cut, are you?”

“Hardly,” Harry said. “If he knew I could get back down here?”

“Fair.” Neville looked around again. “But, Harry—this is… you do realize how this looks.”

“I do.” Harry pointed up at the scroll in the statue’s hand. “See the runes?”

“Can’t read them,” Blaise said.

“They’re in Parseltongue. It’s a list of all the Heirs of Slytherin and the year they opened the Chamber.” Harry tilted his head back and studied the list for the hundredth time. “There’s been quite a few over the years, but the last one before Riddle was… 1754. Either Slytherin’s descendants didn’t come to Hogwarts or they were too stupid or too ignorant to find the Chamber.”

“The Ministry has been persecuting Parselmouths for centuries,” Neville said quietly. “My gran told me about it once. Most Parselmouths leave England and go to India or China or Africa; there are places and cultures that worship snakes, or consider them symbols of healing as well as death. I’d imagine many of Slytherin’s heirs have left.”

Harry nodded slowly. “Interesting. But—well. I showed you this because… many of the wizards and witches on that list have the surname Gaunt.”

“And?” Blaise said.

“I’ve been looking up my family tree,” Harry said slowly. “As Heir Potter, I can summon all records relating to my ancestors via a Potter house-elf without my father ever knowing.” He’d found that clause of Heir powers a week ago and immediately put it to good use. “I’ve learned some very interesting things. In 1794, Lord Iacomus Potter’s wife died, leaving him with only one heir—thirteen-year-old Serena Potter. It wasn’t common back then for a girl to be the Heir, but Iacomus had no choice; he’d been rendered infertile by a curse and his wife was dead. It fell to Serena to marry and continue the Potter line.” Harry took a deep breath. “In 1803, she married Vincent Odin Gaunt.”

His friend’s faces showed varying degrees of shock. “Bloody hell,” Neville whispered.

“It seems Lord Potter was furious; he refused to speak to Serena from then until his deathbed. He passed in 1806 after a duel in which he was struck by a curse that killed him two days later. Vincent Gaunt was the eldest son of Owain Gaunt but abdicated the Heir position to his younger brother Vidar in order to marry Serena; he took the name Vincent Gaunt-Potter and was denied the title of Lord by Serena’s father and didn’t care. His and Serena’s child became William Iacomus Vincent Potter and the fact that a Gaunt married into the Potter line was largely forgotten. Vincent himself was not a Parselmouth—or so he claimed in the marriage negotiations. I’m not convinced. Lord Iacomus put up a huge fight and only allowed the marriage because of the concessions Vincent made regarding his name, his child’s name, and his position as Heir Gaunt. However, everyone else in his family was—and veritaserum didn’t exist back then, so no one could prove it.”

Theo’s eyes were the size of saucers; even Blaise had lost his composure. “You’re the heir of Slytherin,” Blaise said, disbelieving.

“I am. I claimed the title when I was talking to Riddle,” Harry said.

There were a few seconds of silence.

Neville broke it. “Well, it’s about time Slytherin had an heir that wasn’t an absolute bastard,” he said.

Harry choked on a laugh.

“Any other shocks?” Blaise drawled.

“None so big as that,” Harry said, fighting the tide of relief that threatened to drown him. “Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts four,” he hissed at the statue.

Its mouth opened.

“We’re going in there?” Neville said. “That’s… kind of creepy.”

“Yeah, a little,” Harry said. “But worth it. We’re leaving tomorrow… and there’s something I need to collect.”

He started climbing the statue. There was a set of hand- and footholds carved into the wall behind it, if you looked closely; from there it was easy to get to the statue’s shoulder and then climb the steps cunningly concealed in its beard, and into Slytherin’s mouth.

It looked nothing like a mouth. The cavern the statue allowed access to was large and round; the bottom level was rough-hewn while the second level was clean and dry, if dusty. Inside had taken even longer to clear of bones and skin than outside. Most of the skin was decayed and useless; Harry had simply transfigured it to air, a project that had lasted days and left him too magically exhausted to perform in class. Fortunately there were no exams and his grades were good enough to absorb the impact without much effect. It seemed the main cavern back here had been for the basilisk’s use—other passages, round and slimy, led off into the school’s plumbing—but the second level, which you reached by climbing a set of stairs carved into the stone wall, was all for humans.

Harry took off up the stairs. His friends followed, looking around with amazement.

The balcony wrapped around the circular cavern about fifty feet above the ground. Three doors led off of it. One was a passage up to a point in the dungeons not far from the Slytherin common room entrance; one Harry hadn’t managed to unlock yet; the third had opened at his touch and allowed him into a dark, oddly warm room. This was where he led Blaise, Neville, and Theo.

“Lights,” he hissed—nearly everything down here responded to Parseltongue—and a soft reddish wizardlight appeared near the ceiling.

Blaise whistled.

The left and right walls of the room were bare, but the back… had shelves and shelves of various-sized eggs set behind glass.

“It’s an incubator,” Neville said.

“For snakes,” Harry said. He pointed to a plaque on the wall.

Blaise squinted at it. “More Parseltongue?”

“Yes. It says—paraphrased—the eggs are here in case any of Slytherin’s heirs wants a familiar. There’s only like twenty or so left. Slytherin absolutely smothered this place in preservation charms and binding charms; if you want a familiar and search among the eggs, one of them will choose you and hatch for you, and the familiar will live as long as you do.”

Neville stared at him. “And—h-have you—are you going to get one?”

Harry pointed. “I already did.”

They all knelt slowly and looked in the glass of the bottom shelf.

A tiny snake, no longer than Harry’s forearm and dark grayish-green with brighter green accents on its head, peeked out from the bark along the bottom of the enclosure and hissed.

Harry opened the glass and reached inside. The snake coiled around his fingers and he lifted her out, showing her to the others. They clustered around. Neville didn’t seem to exhibit any fear.

“She’s too young to talk yet,” Harry said. “But she understands me fine. Her name is Eriss.”

Softly at first, and then growing louder, Blaise started to laugh.

Harry hated the train ride back to London.

Some things were fun. He managed to get an expanded compartment with Hermione, Neville, Blaise, Theo, Daphne, Pansy, Tracy, Justin, and Hannah. They practiced Disarming Charms and gardus and Hermione attempted protego; only she and Theo were strong enough, aside from Harry, to actually create anything that even hinted at a true Shield Charm at this point, and it left all three of them exhausted afterward. Their magical cores would need another year or so to mature before they could cast that one with any consistency. Harry introduced Eriss to all of them but said only that she was the child of one of the snakes in the castle that he was friends with. Hermione blanched but determinedly petted Eriss’ head. Hannah leaped right past the fear, dragging Justin in her wake, and started peppering Harry with questions. She disappeared into a book for a while and emerged to tell Harry that Eriss was an extremely venomous species of magical snake called Loharian vipers from central Africa. Eri, at that moment, made an expression of pleasure that only Harry could understand and wriggled over in Neville’s lap so he and Hermione and Theo could stroke her tiny belly. Hannah watched the snake for a moment, decided she didn’t seem dangerous, and lent Harry her book on magical snakes. He resolved to owl order anything from Flourish and Blotts that referenced snake care and snakes of central Africa at the first opportunity.

Fred and George popped in, met Eriss with little fuss, told Harry to come by over the summer, and left again. Ginny, Natalie, and Evalyn swung by not long after. Harry hid Eriss from them.

The thirty-minute warning forced Harry to acknowledge that this was the return to number four, Privet Drive.

“I can’t believe Dumbledore is making you go back to the Muggles,” Blaise said. “It’s heresy.”

“The wards,” Hermione said.

“Jules could do it just as well,” Harry muttered. “But no, he’s special.”

Hermione frowned. She and Hannah and Justin had had a hard time accepting what Theo and Blaise pointed out to them about Dumbledore’s manipulation of Hagrid, but with that staring them in the face, and after learning that Arabella Figg had been watching Harry for years on Dumbledore’s orders and yet he’d been left in the Dursley household, they were forced to admit that Dumbledore might not be the paragon most of the school seemed to consider him. They hadn’t had a true argument about it yet. Harry was hoping to give them time to think it through on their own instead of fight it out and cause any more tensions. Hermione was still a little awkward around the Slytherins, who were in turn a bit cool towards her, especially Daphne, but the Gryffindor girl kept at it with stubborn determination. Harry marveled at her ability to bullshit through awkwardness and pretend it didn’t exist, more at the fact that her tactic actually worked.

“How long do you have to stay this summer?” Justin said.

“As long as possible,” Harry sneered. “Apparently the wards are damaged. I tried telling him that’s probably because I hate living there and the wards involve calling a place home, but it seems a mere twelve-year-old’s word isn’t good enough. If I quit answering letters, show up and rescue me. Preferably without a flying car this time, though.”

Pansy put on her innocent face. “Does that mean I can use the other plan?”

“That plan involved blackmail, torture, and multiple crimes,” Blaise reminded her.

“So?” Pansy said.

Hermione failed epically to hide her laughter.

The train pulled into the station. Harry’s friends let him alone; they knew he didn’t like talking and that his rapidly deteriorating mood had nothing to do with him. Hermione promised to call the Dursleys’ over the summer. She and Harry and Justin waved goodbye to the others, who were going home by Floo or side-along-apparition from within the station, and ran through the barrier onto the Muggle platform. Harry ignored the loud and press-covered reunion between James and Jules that was very pointedly not including him. Jules still hadn’t spoken to him since they left the Chamber and James had written a very stilted letter. He seemed miffed that Harry hadn’t immediately responded to his previous letter with all my fellow Slytherins are evil and potentially the Heir because they do nothing but plot how to murder Muggle-borns every day.

“Mom! Dad!” Hermione said, waving. Harry spotted two well-dressed and average-looking Muggles standing by a Mercedes; they smiled and greeted her warmly. But not effusively.

She hugged Justin and nodded to Harry, well aware that he hated hugs, and vanished back to the Muggle world.

“Oh Merlin, here we go,” Harry muttered, seeing Vernon approaching.

Justin eyed Harry’s uncle. “He is spectacularly unpleasant.”

“Brilliant, Justin, really astute.”

Justin grinned suddenly. “I have an idea. My dad’s right over there, let’s introduce them.”

“That’s not going to end well,” Harry said.

“Trust me,” Justin said, smiling wider.

Harry shrugged and decided to roll with it.

Justin immediately waved at people Harry couldn’t see.

“Boy,” Uncle Vernon said abruptly. “Come along—”

“One moment, Mr. Dursley,” Justin said, his accent suddenly taking on a snobbish air. “My name is Justin Finch-Fletchley; I’m a classmate of Harry’s.”

Uncle Vernon eyed him with mingled disgust and fear. Clearly he remembered Theo cursing him on the platform last year, but Justin was also dressed like a relatively affluent Muggle boy, not in wizard’s robes. “I don’t care. Boy, we’re late.”

“Justin!”

Harry took in Justin’s parents with eyebrows that crept an inch up his forehead before he caught himself.

They were both dressed in the height of Muggle fashion; he recognized the coat Mrs. Finch-Fletchley was wearing as Burberry from one of Aunt Petunia’s magazines, and Mr. Finch-Fletchley’s suit was navy blue and perfectly tailored.

“Mum, Dad,” Justin said. His parents didn’t move in for hugs but they smiled fondly at their son. “I’d like you to meet Harry Potter, my classmate—he’s one of the best wizards in our year.”

“A pleasure,” Harry said with his most charming smile, acutely aware that he was wearing Dudley’s hideous old clothes. Justin’s parents didn’t seem to notice; his father shook Harry’s hand and his mother gave Harry a warm smile.

“We’ve heard so many wonderful things about Hogwarts,” Mrs. Finch-Fletchley said. “I must admit, we were expecting Justin to go to Eton like his elder brother, it was such a shock…”

“But it’s not every day you find out your son has magic!” Mr. Finch-Fletchley said, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “I daresay you’re Harry’s father?” he said to Vernon.

Harry was struggling not to laugh at the purple shade of Vernon’s face at this point. “My uncle, actually—I was raised by my mother’s sister and her husband,” he said as politely as he could manage. “Uncle Vernon, this is Mr. and Mrs. Finch-Fletchley.”

“Vernon Dursley,” Vernon grumbled, shaking Mr. Finch-Fletchley’s hand with distaste. “Boy, if you make me late for my conference call—”

“Dursley,” Mr. Finch-Fletchley said suddenly. “Not as in Grummings Manufacturing?”

Vernon froze. “Er—how d’you—”

“I remember!” Mr. Finch-Fletchley said suddenly. “We almost bought your company three years ago, Mr. Dursley.” He was looking at Vernon with not a little contempt, Harry thought delightedly.

“And you are?” Vernon said nastily.

Mr. Finch-Fletchley smiled like he’d just been handed dirt on his worst enemy. “Chief Executive Officer of Staunton Industries, Mr. Dursley.”

Vernon looked like he’d just been force-fed a lemon. Harry knew exactly why. Staunton was one of the biggest companies in the British Isles and one of Grunning’s biggest competitors. Actually, compared to Staunton, Grunning was small-time. And then there was Mr. Finch-Fletchley’s unfortunate mispronunciation of Vernon’s company’s name. Harry resisted the urge to grin like an idiot.

“Well—” Vernon sputtered. “I—pleasure to meet you, Mr. Finch-Fetchey—boy, it’s time to go—”

“Don’t forget to write, Harry,” Justin said with a wink. “Mum and Dad just let me get an owl.”

Harry grinned at him. “I wouldn’t dream of it. I look forward to hearing from you.”

“Perhaps you could come visit,” Mrs. Finch-Fletchley suggested. “We’re on holiday in Chile for a few weeks—but later this summer?”

“I’d greatly enjoy that,” Harry said with his patented make-adults-love-me smile. “Thank you ever so much, Mrs. Finch-Fletchley.”

“Of course,” she said. “It’s wonderful that Justin is making friends…”

Harry waved goodbye and followed Vernon back to the car, thinking with satisfaction that this was going to be a better summer than the last.