Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Harry felt his lips twitch into a smirk as he tried the door to his bedroom and found that it had been left carelessly unlocked the first night of his return to the Dursleys after ten months spent at Hogwarts. All of the boy’s school things had been locked away in the cupboard under the stairs by his blundering Uncle Vernon and the boy’s shrieking Aunt the moment that the wizard had walked through the door. In the pair’s haste to erase any evidence of the boy’s freakishness, the Dursleys had forgotten to lock the door to Harry’s room that night.

It wouldn’t have mattered even if they had.

Moving down the stairs silently, Harry crept out into the backyard and climbed over the painted fence, just as he always had in the past, before running down the silent street, feet quiet on the pavement. The wind tangled the boy’s hair in a way that Harry thought felt a bit like flying.

The field was just as Harry had remembered it from the last time that he had been there nearly a year ago now. The grass was still just as tall and thick as it had been before, the earth just as warm from the summer sun, and the tree line surrounding it just as haunting and enticing as always.

And the boy standing in the middle of it with his back to Harry, his frame encased in moonlight, was just as familiar as ever before.

Harry moved through the grass silently - he knew that he did -  but when the younger boy got closer to the other, he was met with dark blue eyes and a searching hand cupping his face in lieu of a proper hello. Truly it felt like more of one than words could ever hope to as the other checked for any signs of damage on the younger as he had so many times before.

“ Jude ,” Harry breathed, tasting the name on his tongue like an ancient language that hadn’t been spoken in a long time, yet he still knew the words to.

Though he’d looked at the same stars that hung over their heads now every night, Harry knew that after a certain point he’d stopped thinking of the boy, and of the Dursleys too. Surrey had become something of a dream to him; a nightmare with silver edges created by the boy before him.

“ Harry ,” the older boy said softly, and there was something desperate in that softness, something that Harry didn’t quite know but had heard from him before. 

And maybe another boy if he were to be honest, but magic - Harry decided then - was a dream during the summer, and so were all those attached to it.

Jude’s hair was longer than it had been the last time that they had seen one another, brown locks swooping in front of the older boy’s eyes as the hair closest to the nape of his neck had begun to curl. The blue in his eyes looked duller than it had before and Harry wondered if the past year had taken a toll on the other boy as well, as it felt as if the dimness in the other’s eyes matched his own.

Fingers laced together as if either of them could ever be something sacred to another, Jude pulled Harry silently along to the treeline, just a step ahead of the younger boy. Harry thought that they should feel worlds apart after all of this time, but as he ran his fingers across the familiar bark, the boy couldn’t help but think that they were more like the trees that they so loved. Time that felt like an eternity to some passed like it was nothing between them, as if they had only seen one another yesterday.

“I was going to meet some people tomorrow,” Jude said suddenly, their eyes somehow impossibly finding one another in the dark. “I want you to come with me,” the boy says simply, though they boy knew that Harry had every choice in the matter.

Harry raised a brow that he knew that the older boy couldn’t see, but could tell was there nonetheless. “And just who are we meeting?” He asked, never entertaining for a moment the notion that he wouldn’t be by the other boy’s side for as long as he was wanted there.

“You’ll just have to come and find out,” the older boy says, teasing the younger as if they hadn’t just spent the majority of the year apart. As if they were still just the same boys as they had been when they had left one another. Harry thought that maybe - for the summer at least - they could be.

Had either of them known how the summer would end, then neither of them ever would have gone.

—-

The Dursleys pretended as if Harry didn’t exist as he walked down the stairs, something that the boy was perfectly fine with as he walked right out the door early the next morning, not sparing a glance at the family already gathered around the telly with Dudley’s show on.

Jude was waiting for him just down the street, dressed in clothes just about as ratty as his own. The older boy’s hands were in his pockets as they walked the familiar path to the playground not far from Privet Drive.

“Still ignoring you?” Jude asked, talking of the Dursleys, remembering the way that they had suddenly stopped their onslaught of the younger boy the year before.

Harry shrugged. “For now.” They both knew that he wasn’t lucky enough for it to last much longer. “Still skipping out on your readings?” Harry asked in turn, something devilish curling on his lips as he got back at the other, petty as it might be.

“For now.”

When they got to the playground, there were three boys there waiting for them close to the swings.

The tallest of the three had sandy hair and dark eyes like coal. His skin was deeply kissed by the sun, with the end of a tattoo peeking out from the bottom of his rolled up sleeve. Smoke billowed around the teen from the cigarette prized between his lips even though the boy didn’t look any older than sixteen, if that.

The second boy looked a little younger, maybe fifteen at the most. He was sitting down with his legs crossed on the ground, cards splayed out before him, and a cigarette of his own tucked neatly behind his ear, red hair tucked neatly into a short ponytail at the back of his neck. His eyes were green like the forest that the youngest two boys liked to wander, something lively and whole. Something eerier in a way that it shouldn’t be.

The last of the three boys looked to be the oldest of the lot, seventeen easy from what Harry could tell. His hair was brown and the teen had the eyes to match it. There was something hungry in the older boy’s gaze as Jude and Harry walked up to the three. Something dangerous.

But Harry was dangerous too, at least he thought that he was.

“Told you that he would bring someone,” the boy on the ground said, looking up at and holding his hand out expectantly to the eldest boy. The teen in question only cursed as he slipped some cash into the youngest’s hand.

“You’ve got to quit betting against him, Henry,” the blond said, flicking the cherry off of his cigarette and pocketing the rest of it. The teen’s eyes scanned over Harry appraisingly before focusing on Jude. “Who’s the twerp?”

But Harry, no matter how little he said, had never been one to let others speak for him when he had a voice of his own. Even when he didn’t, actions were usually enough. “Harry Potter,” the youngest of the lot said, stepping forwards and drawing the attention to him once more.

The middle and eldest boy seemed amused by his bravado but Harry didn’t care. He knew that this was some sort of test, one that he needed to pass on his own merit.

“Are you quick, Harry ?” The blond asked, stepping closer though he didn’t feel very threatening at all.

Harry thought of the years that he had spent outrunning Dudley and his gang, and of the lightness in his body now that he was off of school grounds and knew the answer easily enough. “As can be.”

“Do you know how to fight?”

“With a blade,” the boy answered, feeling the reassuring weight of it in his trouser pocket.

The response seemed to please the blond and intrigue the brown haired boy - Henry .

“Have you ever killed anyone?” The eldest boy asked, interest pooling in his voice that caused Jude to flinch and step in where he had been silent before.

“Don’t be a prick, Henry,” the boy said protectively, stepping up closer to Harry’s side, but Henry wasn’t paying attention to him at all.

Harry met the brown eyes with a steely gaze, as cold as he knew how, and Henry smirked .

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that, Finley,” the older teen said, his eyes searching Harry as if looking for some sign. For a corpse to bury.

Jude turned quickly to look at the youngest boy and Harry could see the disbelief written in his eyes. Could see the urge to break the silent rule that they had composed to not ask questions that they knew that the other couldn’t answer, to not ask about the past year.

And now there were four sets of eyes on the boy, each hungrily awaiting the same answer.

“One of my teachers,” Harry answered evenly, plainly even. “Thought I stole something of his and attacked me,” he lied in a way that wasn’t entirely one. “I got to him first.”

The teen sitting on the ground nodded and turned away, obviously appeased as he went back to shuffling his cards in increasingly intricate ways. The sixteen year old’s gaze seemed to soften at the knowledge as Harry had intended for it to, looking at Harry as if he was some broken boy. Harry would admit that he wasn't too far off the mark. Jude looked concerned, rightfully so the younger boy supposed, as he tapped his shoe against Harry’s - a silent show of support. Henry, in stark contrast, looked entertained in the way that some of the older Slytherins tended to look after seeing something particularly cruel, or having been the cause of it.

Harry didn’t know how he felt about that.

“Alex?” The blond asked, turning to the boy on the ground expectantly.

Harry watched as the third boy beckoned him forwards without looking up at him at all and Harry followed obediently, too curious to resist and too used to doing exactly as he was told within the muggle world to not to.

He sat down in front of the older boy, Alex, and watched with concealed fascination as the other boy shuffled the cards theatrically before spreading them out between the pair of them in neat semicircle with one smooth movement.

“Pick three.”

Now that Harry was actually close enough to see the cards, it was easy to tell that they were a little larger than normal playing cards, their backs looking a little stranger too. It was easy enough to guess just what the cards were now too. 

Harry held out his hand and was prepared to just grab the first three cards that he came across, but as his hand drew closer, the boy could feel a tingling at the tips of his fingers. Something pure that he hadn’t thought that he would find here of all places.

He could feel magic .

Glancing quickly at the teen once more, Harry was sure that he hadn’t seen the other at Hogwarts this past year, just as sure as he was that this was magic coming off of the older boy and infused within the cards. He found that the magic itself felt as most gray magic often did, except that there was a twinge of darkness there, something like a stain upon the weak magic.

Wasting no more time, Harry glided his hand over the cards. Once. Twice. Three times he did so, each time stopping to retrieve a card that seemed to hold a warmth to it that almost felt like his own magic reaching out to him, and flipping it over.

The other boy peered at the cards curiously before picking them up one by one and showing them to Harry for the younger to better see.

“The tower to represent an unwanted change in your past and an awakening that you had not foreseen,” the teen says before returning the card to his deck and picking up the next. “The moon placed in reverse to represent a darkness inside of yourself. A darkness that you covet as much as you push it away,” Alex explained before moving onto the third tarot card, one that drew a shaky breath from all who saw it. “And death as your future. Transformation and new beginnings.”

Harry watched as Alex looked over his shoulder at the eldest two boys, at the teen that he didn’t know the name of just yet. Alex’s expression was calm even as the other three boy’s held potent amounts of shock.

“Well?” The fortune teller asked, something like an ‘I told you so’ in his voice.

The blond stepped forwards and stopped just bedside Harry, his hand stretched out for the younger of the two to meet. “Thomas,” the teen introduced as Harry grasped the other’s hand and allowed himself to be drawn to his feet. “Welcome to the Plutos.”

—-

The Plutos were small for a gang, just the five of them and a few other boys that came and went as the summer progressed, looking more for quick cash than anything else. Among them, Harry found that his and Jude’s small statures had advantages as they crept into the places that the older boys no longer were small enough to reach, breaking into convenience stores through small windows for smokes and cheap spirits. 

His summer was filled with smoke and the occasional burn of liquor well into the star lit night, and running from the cops down dim light streets, paint on their fingers that slowly made Harry forget about the blood on his own.

The money wasn’t great, but it was more muggle money than he or Jude had ever had their lives. The pair of younger boys grinned the first time that they stepped into a grocery store that summer and were able to buy ice cream on the hottest day of the season, something that neither of them had ever been allowed to have before then.

He spent days learning about how to read cards from Alex, and more drawing out his own with the book and art supplies that he had gotten for Christmas that year, sketching out each of the cards onto the thick paper with care. He learned that on the back of the older boy’s cards was the symbol of Pluto overlapping itself in neat lines down and across.

The same symbol that each of the members had tattooed on their bodies.

Transformation and change.

Thomas had his done just above his elbow where he could cover it easily for work and show it off when he wanted to. Alex’s was at the base of the back of his neck, and Henry’s was just below the dip in his collar bone, peeling out the top of his shirts as it went up his neck.

By the end of the summer Harry and Jude each had one of their own, done by an associate of the group that didn’t care how illegal it was so long as he was paid. Harry’s was done largely on the right side of his ribs, overlapping and skipping over some of the scar tissue there, as Jude had his done on the back of his left shoulder.

Both of the boys were taught some of the basics of street fighting that the older teen had picked up over the years, learning  how to use their slenderness to their advantage as it gave them the speed that those larger than them would lack in a fight.

Deep gashes were created when knives were thrown into the already dangerous mix once more and soon the boys were being sat down on the ground and taught how to properly stitch a wound back up with thread, a needle, a lighter, and alcohol. And though the two boys knew perfectly well how to stitch themselves back up after that, Thomas often found the pair tending to the other when things eventually went wrong.

Early in the first month of the summer holiday, Harry found the camera that Dudley had broken the summer before, and finally finished fixing it back up, and soon the days were filled with pictures of three teens dressed in tank tops, combat boots, and baggy jeans with two younger boys at their sides. Harry always took the photos and stashed them away between the pages of one of the books that Dudley had left behind in his second bedroom before Harry had been given it during the last summer.

It wasn’t long before Henry had noticed the keen eyes that Harry seemed to have, the accuracy of aim that came from casting spells for ten months. The teen had grinned as he had placed a weapon with such capability into the hands of a known killer. It was the sort of smile that you wouldn’t want others to see.

Even with the boy’s poor eyesight, Harry had proven to be an implacable shot after he had adjusted to the feel of a gun. They practiced in a field with short grass and an unforgiving sun, old beer can placed onto the trunks of overturned trees of varying distances, and soon Harry felt pride overtaking his previous reservations that he’d held.

At night during that first month Harry would return to the Dursleys just after dinner and ignore the scowls from the family as he came back from the day, bandages wrapped around parts of his arms and over the nicks on his fingers. They were parallel lines for that first month, Harry and the Dursleys, passing by one another but never touching as they feared what he could do with the magic within him, and Harry feared what they would do once they knew that he wasn’t allowed to use it. Harry couldn’t help but think that it was better this way.

And then Dobby had come.

It was seven in the evening when Harry had made his way back to the house, a good few hours earlier than when he might have normally, for good reason though.

“Get in here!” His Aunt screamed the moment that he stalked through the door, the first words that she’d spoken to the boy in nearly a month.

There was old newspaper strung about on the newly cleaned floors of the kitchen when he walked inside of it, protecting the floor from being dirtied by anyone’s step before Uncle Vernon’s guest arrived that night. Harry was careful to stay atop it, knowing what would happen - magic or not - if he didn’t.

His Aunt didn’t spare him another glance as she went about washing the dishes that had been used to prepare the dinner for that night. She only pointed him at a plate on the kitchen table with two slices of bread and a lump of cheese on it.

“Eat quickly!” The woman screeched much louder than was needed for them being so close. “The Masons will be here soon!”

Harry scarfed down the pitiful amount of food with a bitterness. If it wasn’t for the Masons coming, Harry could have gotten at least a proper cheese sandwich from a shop closer into town. He would have been safe from having to duck out of the way of his Aunt’s frying pan that she had aimed for his head as Dudley ran screaming upon seeing him, and wouldn’t have to be trudging up the stairs to pretend that he didn’t exist. 

He wouldn’t be stopping outside of his bedroom door with his hand still on the doorknob, feeling the traces of wild magic leaking out from inside of it.

Shit .

 When Harry opened the door there was some sort of creature poised on his twin sized bed, with large bat - like ears and green eyes the size of tennis balls that almost worked in the creature’s favor.

Almost.

Harry slipped into the room and closed the door as the creature - elf , his mind supplied from one of the books he’d read at school - quietly hopped down from the bed and bowed so deep that his nose grazed the carpet. 

“Excuse me,” Harry said politely to keep from cursing something loud and violent at his mystery guest, for lack of a better term, “but who are you, and what are you doing here ?”

“Dobby, sir!” The elf answered in a high pitched voice that the boy was sure carried down the stairs, making the wizard flinch at the possible consequences of it. “Just Dobby. Dobby the house elf.”

“Right,” the boy nodded, edging along the side of his room to his desk, leaning against it casually with his hand wrapped securely around the blade within his trouser pocket. “And you are here because?”

Big green eyes stared up at Harry from the ground before the elf began pacing about the room. “Dobby had come to tell you, sir… it is difficult, sir… Dobby wonders where to begin…”

Harry knew that the polite thing would be to ask the elf to sit down, but the creature’s mutterings were at least quiet at the moment in contrast to the loud voice that Dobby had used before.

“ Harry Potter must not go back to Hogwarts! ” The elf suddenly got the strength to say, his voice resonating loudly within the room, loud enough to make the boy flinch as he was sure that the Dursleys would have heard it through the too thin walls.

“What?” The boy asked dimly, looking at the house elf as if Dobby had grown another head. “Funny joke,” Harry said before sitting down at his desk and pulling out one of his school books from the bottom of the drawer along with his half finished charms essay. He had managed to pick the lock on the cupboard while the Dursleys were out one day taking Dudley to see some movie, and had been steadily working through his summer homework since then.

“No. No. No,” the elf squealed, stepping up close to Harry’s side and tugging at the wizard’s sleeve as he tried to write. “Harry Potter must not go back to Hogwarts, he will be in the most terrible danger if he does.”

When am I not ? The boy thought bitterly, but didn’t say so out loud.

“Dobby,” Harry started, but the elf was already speaking once more.

“Harry Potter mustn’t go to school this year!” The elf screamed loud enough for the obnoxious voices down stairs to quiet at the noise.

“Dobby,” Harry all but growled, a warning clear in the boy’s voice.

“No! Harry Potter can’t go and has no reason to,” the house elf continued. “Harry Potter hasn’t even gotten any letters, what reason does he have to go?”

Harry felt his gaze go cold at the mention of the lack of communication between him and the others. On the train the boy had told his housemates not to write, that his relatives wouldn’t like it. Blaise had been the first to agree, seeming to understand more of the situation than the others could without being told, which the boy suspected was true. He’d gotten the other Slytherins to agree as well.

“You don’t know anything about my friends, Dobby,” the boy said coldly, ice in his voice, in another life there might have been heat there.

But Dobby only shook his head as if he knew something that Harry did not. The way that the elf spoke said that he did. “Harry Potter must say that he’s not going back to Hogwarts,” the elf insisted. “He must not face the dangers that are coming.”

There was a burning determination in the elf’s eyes, a sort that spoke of foolish acts to come if he didn’t find a way to placate the creature soon.

“Fine,” Harry decided. “If you are that insistent upon it then I won’t go,” the boy agreed at last. “Happy?”

And the elf grinned, wide and full of life before nodding and disappearing with a too loud crack. The boy would have felt sorry for lying, but he was a Slytherin and it was his nature to do so, so the snake only grinned in a too sharp way as he went back to his essay.

—-

Harry didn’t meet the Pluto’s concerned gazes the next day when the group came together. He didn’t want to see their reactions to the fresh bruises on his cheek and the cut on his lip from too heavy hands.

Uncle Vernon hadn’t been pleased with the noise that Dobby had made the night before, the timing have apparently ruined one of his golf jokes - which Harry privately thought that the man should have been thankful for as all of his jokes were completely horrid, both in substance and execution. 

The man had already been on edge before from the hours that Harry had been keeping, but his temper had snapped though when Harry’s Hogwarts letter had come in the morning just as Harry was leaving. A few bruises and a bloodied lip was the price that he had to pay to keep it.

Thomas and Jude moved quickly forwards, the younger of the pair taking Harry’s face in his hands and moving it to each side as he had done so many times before as the older watched on with angry eyes that the wizard had never seen before.

“We’ll figure something out, but you’re not going back there next summer,” Thomas decided, his voice hard with something that made the younger boy wonder just how the sixteen year old had needed up on the street as most of their group was.

He knew better than to ask though, questions still seemed so forbidden to the youngest of the five.

Instead all Harry did was nod, a traitorous sense of hope filling his chest. Out of their little group, Thomas was the least likely to try and deceive him. He knew that the older boy would take him away from the Dursleys now if he thought that the streets would be any safer for a twelve year old boy than that house was.

“One of these days I’m going to break all of their teeth,” Jude growled as he dropped his hands from Harry’s face and took his place at the boy’s side. Harry chose not to reply, but secretly hoped that the older boy would one day make good on that promise.

Thomas took Harry into London about a week later, after Harry thought that most of the hubbub of school shoppers would have died down in Diagon Alley. The teen had an old, thoroughly beat up car that he’d stashed at the edge of some abandoned house that was collapsing in on itself. Another thing that Harry knew better than to ask about. Though, in turn, Thomas didn’t ask about just what school things the boy was buying in the food corner of London.

His new school books were heavy and over half of them were by the same author, but they weren’t so awkward to carry as they could have been as the boy had bought a satchel as well with an undetectable extension charm worked into it from a darker street that had read Knockturn Alley when Harry had wondered down it, drawn in by the way that the shops radiated of magic like his own. He’d needed a new bag anyways, his old one used to be Dudley’s and was breaking at the seams.

—-

The last month of summer passed in an illegal, smoke filled haze of days a lot like the first, except for one thing:

By the end of summer, Henry was dead.

Harry had killed him.

Chapter Text

King’s Cross Station was already busy when Thomas drove into the parking lot beside it, sighing like an old man as he listened to the conversation taking place around him, back and forth from the front and back seats of the car.

“Remember to actually eat something,” Alex insisted, not for the first time.

“And sleep some, you damned bastard,” Jude’s voice came next from behind Thomas’s seat, frustration lacing both of the boy’s tones as they spoke to the fourth within the car.

Thomas and Alex had only known the two boys in their backseat for a couple of months, since the start of the summer, but both of them were unquestionably fond of the duo. And more protective of the youngest of the two than they thought possible in such a short time.

Though the eldest of the four knew that they had reason to be, more evidence to support their worries than they should for a boy of only twelve. A boy that had blood on his hands before they had even met him, and more so now that they had.

The instructions followed relentlessly as the four boys got out of the car, drawing more than one curious glance from the other more respectably dressed people walking to the station.

Thomas grinned as he watched the youngest of their lot walk away from the other two, to the boot of the car. 

“You know what?” The black haired boy asked, his hands held up tiredly as if in surrender or defeat, though Thomas knew that it was neither. 

Harry wasn’t one for either of those, and when one was forced upon him then his retribution was always worse than the original slight. Something that the corpse in the ground should have remembered, but none of the boys felt any pity for it not having done so. 

“This space is great,” the boy continued, “I can already feel my IQ increasing from here.” The elder of the four boys laughed, a deep rumble in Thomas and Alex’s chests that hadn’t been heard in some time now, but he could see that Jude did not look impressed by their youngest’s wit in the least. Harry sighed at the look. “It’s just school, I’m not going to show up dead or something.”

All four boys went still at the youngest’s words, a mixture of guilt and raw pain painting across each of their faces as the careless words set in. Because that was exactly what they were afraid of, that somehow the scarred boy would die and they wouldn’t know until he just didn’t show up at the beginning of the summer holidays, because no one writes to friends that they don’t know exist. Because they wouldn’t have been able to do anything to help the boy even if they did.

“ Harry ,” Thomas said, his voice pained with an anguish that he knew hurt each of them to hear so plainly. But it was better to be hurt than to be broken, a glance at the bespectacled boy wearing long sleeves even in the summer was all he needed to know that.

“Right, sorry,” the boy said guiltily, his eyes downcast.

No one said that it was alright, Jude only moved to grab the other end of the trunk and Alex closed the boot as Thomas walked away solemnly to grab a trolley and brought it back. The boy loaded the trunk onto it, and Harry pulled the contraption out in front of the beat up car.

The four boys gathered there, something unbreakable in each of their eyes as they refused to say a proper goodbye. Thomas held out his fist and grinned with mischief as the other boy knocked his own against it, doing the same with Alex. Only Jude dared to touch the small boy more than that, bringing a hand to the scarred boy’s face in a way that only he was allowed to do. The three watched as Harry went still under the touch, but didn’t pull away.

Not like he had that first day, and not like he had when he’d told them of the boy that had died at his hand.

Small mercies, Thomas supposed.

“Ten months,” Harry said, echoing the words that he had spoken only a year before, though it felt so much longer as things have changed. Too much, too fast.

“Ten months,” Jude replied just the same, as if the change didn’t matter at all.

Harry waited until the other boy’s hand had dropped to turn away, pushing his trolley inside of the station, not looking back once.

He knew that it would kill him if he did.

—-

Harry walked to the back of the Hogwarts Express, the compartments so filled with green and pompous children dressed too finely for a long train ride to be anything but the Slytherin section of the train. A quick glance at the filled compartments told the boy that none of the other second years were there just yet, Harry having arrived rather early, so he picked a compartment relatively close to the front of the unofficial section, knowing that the others would see it on their way through, and fearful of what would happen once they did.

He was just forcing his trunk under one of the long seats when a familiar pull of magic caused him to turn, the door sliding open as he did.

“Harry!” Pansy exclaimed as Harry watched her bound into the room, Tracey and Daphne following closely behind the girl, all three wearing warm expressions that no one outside of their group within Slytherin house ever got to see. He almost felt sick gazing at such honest looks, as if they were meant for someone else altogether.

Pansy grabbed Harry’s wrist, but if she noticed the boy’s wince, then the dark haired girl chose not to say anything. “All summer without a word is horrible, you little prat,” the girl chided, her eyes looking more than slightly angered as she cursed beneath her breath, something about muggles.

He didn’t know how to tell her that he still wouldn’t be speaking with her next summer, that the magical world and muggle were something separate to him. That they had to be, even as the lines blurred in a way that he hated.

He never wanted to have blood on his hands in both.

“It’s good to see you, Harry,” Daphne said sweetly as Pansy pulled him down onto one of the seats, the other two girls taking the rest of the bench on either side of the pair. Harry only made a poor attempt at a smile.

“Yeah, no word all summer,” Tracey agreed from Harry’s other side, the wash of dark magic putting the boy more at ease than he’d been in two weeks, “so now you should tell us all about that muggle world of yours, starting with how machines work.”

Harry’s brows pulled into a confused pinch as he tried to reason the connection between the two, and he listened to the other two girls groan.

“She’s been like this all summer,” Daphne said, jutting any annoyed thumb at the other girl.

“Ever since she saw a muggle television,” Pansy added tiredly.

Harry only shook his head, falling seamlessly back into the chaos that the three girls seemed to carry around them, wearing it like some sort of perfume. No one outside of Slytherin would have guessed that the trio were such gossips as they were, occasionally drawing Blaise into their orbit as well.

‘Knowledge is power, darling, ’ Pansy had said last year when Harry had made the mistake of asking why they did this. ‘And I plan to have the most of it. ’

Sometimes he thought that Tracey narrowly avoided Ravenclaw, but he never did question Pansy’s sorting.

Harry was halfway through a clumsy explanation of what little he knew about physics - little enough that half of the words were ‘um…’ - when the compartment door slid open once more, the rest of their little band shuffling inside.

All eyes turned to Harry once more, the lone figure that had been left out all summer. The attention was enough to make the boy’s body go tense as his skin suddenly crawled uncomfortably on his bones.

“Good summer?” Theo asked as he sat down on the bench opposite to Harry, something manic in the boy’s eyes that made the smaller boy think that he’ll have to study up on muggle science a bit more to answer the questions as Theo traded a look with Tracey.

Harry’s mind filled with two months of cheap spirits and smoke that he was sure still hung to his skin now. Of guns and fields, and abandoned alleyways that no one ever wanders down if they want to keep their lives.

“You could say that,” the boy said quietly, unsure of just how much of a lie it truly was. It had been good, until it wasn’t.

“Well, I hope that it was properly boring,” Draco cut in, taking his seat as Harry thought that it had been anything but, “because then you will know that mine was already infinitely better and be more inclined to come to Malfoy manor next summer.”

“Maybe we could finally fix that gelled hair of yours,” Harry jested, knowing that he would be going right back to Surrey once the train pulled into the station in a few months, but not having the heart to say that just yet.

“Prat,” Draco all but hissed, pouting when none of the other second years leapt to his defense but instead remained suspiciously quiet.

Harry rolled his eyes as the blond got over the slight easily and dived into a retelling of his past two months of practicing to be a quidditch chaser and traveling Europe with his mother while his father was holed up in the study. Harry was hardly listening though, instead letting his eyes wander to the third boy in the group, and the last member of theirs, finding Blaise’s eyes already on his.

There was a sad look on the other boy’s face, one that didn’t match the rest of the second year Slytherins, but fit Harry perfectly. All it took was a glance to know that the other snake somehow knew what he had done, knew of the blood on his hands just as he had the first time two months ago.

The thought only made the boy’s skin crawl more.

Lunch came soon enough as Harry sat quietly among his friends, sinking into the silence that he’d spent so much of his life in. Draco glared knowingly at the boy as the Trolley Witch took one glance at their compartment and rolled away with her nose held stubbornly in the air. Hermione, Harry knew, would never hear the end of this once they saw her again in their Slytherin - Ravenclaw classes.

The sky grew darker as the castle drew closer, and before long their compartment was splitting up to change into their school robes. No one said anything when Harry opened to do so in the bathroom of the train, just as none of the boys had said anything all last school year when he had done the same thing within the dorms. There were lines that the others knew not to cross, this was one of them. Harry supposed that Slytherin decorum had to be good for something.

When the train finally came to a stop, their little group followed the older Slytherins to the carriages that had been brought down to bring them to the school. Harry saw Draco give him a cold look as Harry stuck himself between Daphne and Tracey instead of taking his spot at the blond’s and Blaise’s side, but Harry steadfastly ignored the other boy, and Tracey and Daphne - though close to him - never did touch him.

Harry felt his eyes widen minutely as he saw the carriages for the first time and the bone - like creatures pulling them.

Their shoe was akin to horses, but all of the flesh had either been pulled from or sunken so low into the bone that it looked as if they had none. The creatures had dark, bat - like wings and long snouts, their eyes a milky white.

Glancing around, the Slytherin boy found that no one else seemed to be paying the creatures and mind. Though, the longer that he watched, the more wrong that idea seemed. It wasn’t that the wizards were blatantly ignoring the strange creatures, but more as if they didn’t see them at all, the boy realized.

Harry turned and saw Blaise looking at him with a questioning gaze, but the smaller snake only shook his head. He knew that he wasn’t crazy, he didn’t need to ask.

He didn’t need to get so close to the others for a little while longer.

—-

Blaise headed to the carriage once he saw that the other boy was moving once more, and took his place among the other Slytherins, leaving a spot for the following boy. Leaving Harry’s spot open.

 Though no one had called attention to it last term, Blaise had noticed over the summer the absence of the smaller boy. How he was always expecting to find the scarred Slytherin fitted nicely between him and Draco, right where he always was, when the Slytherins had visited one another over the summer when their parents were playing nice and keeping allies. Now, there was always a space left open for the boy to take, a subconscious habit that none of them had noticed until the cause of it was gone.

‘ I never thought that it would be like this ,’ Pansy had said as she’d glanced at the empty slot while the group had been wandering Diagon Alley retrieving their school books for the year. ‘I never thought that Harry bloody Potter of all people would be someone that I would miss.’

The words had rung true among their gathered group. They were Slytherins, most of them children of former Death Eaters, and were expected to attach themselves to the strongest in the room for survival. Those that weren’t the children of Death Eaters came from dark families anyways, they had no business being so attracted to the savior of the wizarding world as they were. 

And yet Harry had proved himself to be the strongest the first night last year, ruthless as he slit another’s throat, powerful in the bathroom Halloween night and sly as they had gotten away with it. He had proven to be stronger than an adult wizard at the end of the last term, and seemed to have been faced with the misfortune of proving himself in the muggle world as well over the holidays. The boy was a wonder and hardly anyone knew it as Harry hid the power that he held, a Slytherin move no doubt.

There was confusion in everyone’s gazes as Harry didn’t take his spot between Blaise and Draco in the carriage, but instead sat down at the end of the girls’ side by Tracey. The boy fell so quickly into a conversation about some muggle thing with the girl that it almost seemed natural to everyone else.

Everyone else didn’t notice the way that the boy picked at his sleeve, not like Blaise did.

Not like Theo either.

—-

Harry found himself between Daphne and Pansy at the Slytherin table not much later, steadfastly ignoring a certain snake’s instant gaze from across the table. He was thankful for the sorting starting, no matter how dull it was when you were not in it. The most interesting part of the whole thing was a girl that seemed to be arguing with the hat over her placement, all but going into a hat stall. In the end the youngest Weasley was sorted into Gryffindor, something that she didn’t seem to like as she gazed across the hall towards Slytherin, right at Harry.

Harry suddenly almost felt bad about threatening the poor Sorting Hat last year.

Even as Ginny sat sullenly down at the Gryffindor table with her back to him, Harry couldn’t shake the inexplicable feeling of being watched. Glancing around as careful as he could, he found the source among the staff at the Head Table.

The man was pompously overdressed, with golden hair and blinding white teeth that he used to smile like a fool. Though he was speaking with the Ancient Runes Professor - someone that looked as if he would rather be speaking with anyone else, ever - the man’s eyes stayed firmly locked on Harry, sickeningly so. Harry met the gaze with a hard glare of his own, but the fool only smiled brighter at the attention.

“That’s the new Defense teacher, Professor Lockhart,” Pansy whispered, having noticed the exchange.

Harry felt a small wave of disgust run through him as he recognized the name from the extensive list of books that they had to purchase for the year, more than half of them by Lockhart himself. Harry had tried reading one of them over the summer holidays, having already gotten through his other school books, but ended up laughing at the ridiculousness of it all so much so that Thomas had glared at him, and Jude had attempted to take the book from Harry as Alex had only watched on unimpressed by them all. And Henry had - Harry supposed that it didn’t really matter what Henry had done then.

Not anymore.

“Chances of him mysteriously going missing by the end of the year?” Theo asked, looking as spectacularly unimpressed by their new Professor as Harry felt.

“High if he keeps staring at Harry the way that he is,” Draco decided, his voice spilled with a special sort of disgust usually reserved for Gryffindors.

“Higher still if Professor Snape doesn't stop glaring as he is,” Blaise added, thrumming his nails against the table as if bored. Harry knew that he wasn’t.

Raising a hand, Harry lifted a finger to the older man. Only one.

Lockhart reared back and turned his gaze away faster than Harry thought possible, but it brought joy to the Slytherins that had seen it nonetheless, barking with a laughter that only twelve year olds could truly hold - something marked by both reality and innocence in equal measure.

Most Slytherins anyways.

Harry’s gaze traveled down the staff table a ways, finding the unimpressed scowl of the potions master, the man’s brow raised high. The boy only made a subtle sweeping motion in front of himself, a silent message of ‘ I’m still here, ’ even if it didn’t feel as if he was at all.

A stiff nod was all that he received in return, it was enough. 

The feast continued.

—-

The Slytherins all grinned something chilling as those second year and above all went down to the dungeons ahead of the first years. Each of them immediately moving to their room, either for the night or change out of the school robes and into something that they wouldn’t mind getting blood on.

The second years all chose the latter option.

The boys walked downstairs as Snape had just finished his obligatory speech for the year and had started to leave the common room. One couldn’t be held liable for illegal duels if they were not there for them after all. The man’s eyes immediately fell on the black haired boy who was well in front of the other three snakes - Crabbe and Goyle trailing far behind the four as they carried snacks. 

The potions master made a quick motion to the smallest among the group of second years, and Harry went to him without looking back at the others. The Professor noticed quickly the careful distance that the boy put between them - more than an arm’s length, enough that the Professor would have to lunge to hit the boy, giving Harry time to get away - and didn’t have to wonder why, even if he only knew part of it.

“Do try not to scar anyone this year, Potter,” Snape drawled, though Harry could hear a certain note of unnecessary worry under the man’s voice as he seemed to look the boy over for injuries that weren’t so plain to see. Harry found a sort of comfort in the fact that the only sign of worry that the other would find would be that the boy was a little too thin - though it wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been this time the year previous - he had worked far too hard to look fine to compromise that now.

Harry glanced at the teen that he had done just that to only a year before and smirked. “I don’t know, sir,” the younger snake said with a shrug as the scarred teen hurried from his sight. “I think  Warrington looks better that way.”

The potions master only muttered something about idiot boys and their knack for trouble as he walked away, not disagreeing as though as he left the Slytherins to their traditions as Harry made his way over to the rest of his year, slipping easily in among the Slytherin girls, much to the confusion of most of the snakes watching.

“The rules are simple,” Gemma said, taking her place at the center of the crowd of gathered Slytherins. “You get challenged, you duel. Anyone that doesn't want to do so should leave now.” The girl’s voice was firm as she spoke, sending more than a few first years running to their dorms. The prefect sighed once everyone that chose to leave was finally gone. “Those that have chosen to stay remember, nothing lethal, and Potter has a knife.”

The second year students grinned at the last comment, but none of them felt as good about it as the boy himself. Sometimes it felt good to know that others thought that you were dangerous, to make them hesitant to hurt you.

It wasn’t long before an older Slytherin named Maynard Hatton stepped into the center of the circle that had been conjured, his dark eyes holding a particular brand of hatred within them. Harry wasn’t even surprised when that gaze fell on him, such things usually did.

“I challenge Harry Potter,” the teen said coldly.

Gemma sighed, though Harry noticed that no one looked as angry about someone in their sixth year challenging a second year as they had before. At least not once they remember what Harry had done last year. “Who will your second be?” The girl asked.

“I forfeit the right to a second,” the sixth year said boredly, twisting and twirling his wand, though Harry knew that he was anything but.

All of the other Slytherins began to mutter at the boy’s confidence, something that almost seemed to be deserved if one were to believe how good of a dueler the snake claimed to be. Gemma only glared at the teen, a look much harsher than Harry could remember her using before.

“Arrogant prat,” Draco muttered, drawing more than one eye to the blond boy from the group of second years.

“As if you’re not one yourself,” Harry sniped irritably before joining the older boy in the circle. “I forfeit my right to a second as well,” the Slytherin boy announced, though his proclamation gave a much lesser reaction.

The boys moved the correct distance apart before Gemma moved to the edge of the ring, her eyes dark as she looked at the eldest of the two as if daring him to try something. “Begin.”

Hatton raised his wand surely, pointing it at the chest of the younger boy, but Harry hadn’t bothered to so much as draw his own yet. 

“You’re going to look so pretty holed up in the hospital wing once I’m done with you. Maybe I’ll even come and visit to admire my handiwork, mudblood,” the elder said, making Harry understand his prefect’s dark gaze all too well.

“Not if I put you in the ground first,” Harry growled as the older boy shot the first spell, something dark that sent a silent shiver down the younger’s spine as he moved lethally to the side to avoid the angry yellow streak of magic, purple sparks following immediately after. 

Silent magic was much more entertaining.

Harry grinned as he drew and raised his own wand in a smooth motion of a practiced hand. It was the smile of a predator stalking its prey, but the other didn’t seem to realize that as he cast another hex. Intention filled the holly wand as rage so profound that it almost seemed as if you could taste it in the air took over the boy. 

He wanted the other to hurt. 

One didn’t get away with hurting one of Harry’s people, no matter how loose the connection was, without being hurt in kind.

A red streak of magic shot out of the younger Slytherin’s wand without so much as a whispered word to accompany it. There wasn’t a single Slytherin in the room other than Harry himself that didn’t know exactly what that spell was.

Hatton fell to the ground as a scream tore through his throat, the pain so audible and piercing that Harry would have canceled the spell had he not still been drunk on the high of it all.

But he stopped the screaming anyways as Harry let the spell go, an idea blooming in his mind.

“You know,” Harry drawled as he stalked closer to the crumpled teen, “I heard that seven shots from a stinging jinx could kill a troll. You look enough like one, shall we try it out?”

He only cast the spell three times though at the teen - one for each time that the other boy tried to pull himself to his feet, or raise his hands in defeat - before he got bored.

“You’re going to look so pretty in the hospital wing,” the second year shot back at the older snake before swinging his leg in a deadly arc that sent the once more kneeling teen sprawling to the ground.

Harry followed him down, his legs thrown on either side of the older boy as he brought his fist down in the heaviest blows that someone as scrawny as Harry could manage.

The other Slytherins watched on as one of their own was beat bloody by another - no remorse in any of their eyes - and suddenly it wasn’t only Blaise that knew that something was wrong with the Chosen One, more than one snake now thinking the boy was a psycho. 

He fit into their house rather well.

Gemma was the one to pull the smaller Slytherin off of Hatton after some time had passed and the teen was on the brink of passing out, looking almost sorry as she did so. Harry’s knuckles were bloody and the pain ran through him with a familiar enough pleasant shock that he almost didn’t register the not allowed touch, but did notice it enough to pull away.

“Anyone else?” Harry asked, the beginnings of a cold light - one that Blaise recognized but did not fear as those in other years so clearly did - taking over his gaze as he did.

No one came forward and while Harry was disappointed by that, Blaise was more than pleased. There was already enough blood on his favorite carpet in the common room (Harry had already hurt himself enough in the process of attempting to protect another).

That was the night that Slytherin House learned what some of its members had already known for a while now as a certain form of magic hung thick in the air, heavy enough for even those that were gray aligned to feel:

Harry Potter had a dark affinity.

Chapter Text

Snape found himself watching the Slytherins walk into the Great Hall once more and felt a spark of relief that most of them had no markings to show the previous night’s illicit activities. Except for Hatton, that was, who looked as if he’d found himself on the wrong end of a Bludger, but none of the professors at the High Table were too concerned about that, not even the potions master himself. In fact, Snape thought he heard a few of them quietly giving points to Slytherin House, but didn’t dare tear his gaze away to check.

The second years had just walked in.

Just like last year, the ten snakes walked into the Great Hall as a unit, one never straying far from the others. And just like last year, the gazes of those already sitting at the house table morphed into that of respect, more so this time than last year even.

Unlike last year though, when the group went to sit down the boy didn’t take his place between the Malfoy and Zabini boys, but rather between Miss. Parkinson and Greengrass. Though the boy looked physically fine - trying hard to appear in such a way it seemed - the Slytherin Head of House knew then that the boy hadn’t come out of the summer holidays as unscathed as he had intended for the potions Professor to believe.

—-

The second years left for Greenhouse Three with refreshed looks on their young faces. Though most of them didn’t particularly like the idea of doing Herbology, having the class first thing in the morning meant that none of them had to properly think for a little while. Harry was especially looking forward to the class as he had the best marks in it for his house, and was right behind Neville Longbottom in their year. He supposed spending so long ‘helping’ Aunt Petunia care for the garden had to be good for something.

However, the boy’s mood quickly soured upon seeing who else was at the Greenhouses.

The second years shared confused glances as they watched Professor Sprout walking out of the greenhouse to greet them, something of a scowl disfiguring the normally kind looking witch’s face as another followed her out of the building.

Lockhart was dressed neatly in turquoise robes and an obnoxious hat of the same color that made Harry wonder why someone would be so foolish as to think that anything about the professor’s outfit was acceptable in public. The Slytherins bit back a collective groan as some of the Hufflepuff girls waking behind them all but swooned at the sight of the defense professor, likely thinking that the wizard was an attractive hero. But lairs knew one another, and even Vincent and Greg knew part of the game that the blond Professor was playing.

Harry was sure that Dumbledore did too.

“Oh, hello there!” The man in question all but beamed as he looked at the gathering mass of students. His eyes seemed to linger on Harry for a moment longer than the rest, something that did not go unnoticed by the snakes. “I was just talking with Professor Sprout here about the right way to care for aconite-”

But the Herbology Professor wasn’t giving the younger teacher the time of day. The witch stepped up in front of the man and began speaking over him, much to the appreciation of the Slytherins and disappointment of the gathered Hufflepuffs.

“Why don’t you lot go to the greenhouses?” The Herbology Professor all but shouted, looking as close to murderous as any of them had ever seen the normally jolly witch.

“I think the chances of him not making it the year have just risen once more,” Blaise commented quietly and Harry was inclined to agree even as he shuffled away from the other boy and towards the greenhouses.

“Harry! I’ve been wanting a word-” an annoyingly charismatic voice called suddenly as the boys had begun to walk away. The smaller of the two snakes turned to see the defense Professor looking at Harry with those hungry eyes of someone that wanted something that they shouldn’t, and Harry would have rather endured the sickness that the castle brought upon him in full than speak to the man alone even once. “You don’t mind if he’s a few minutes late, do you, Professor Sprout?” Lockhart asked with a smile that the Slytherins were sure was meant to be charming.

It wasn’t in the least.

The professor’s eyes flitted to Harry and the Slytherins gathered around the boy. She saw more than one of their number shaking their heads no, and saw Potter himself unconsciously grabbing onto the robes of Miss. Tracey Davis. She knew that Slytherin loyalty rivaled that of even a Hufflepuff’s once forged properly, and knew then that the - while admittedly sometimes gruff - quiet boy, for some reason felt endangered by the idiot before her. 

Professor Sprout was anything if not protective of her students.

“I’m sure you can understand why I’ll have to decline, Professor,” the witch tsked. “This is my class time after all and I don’t like it when it is wasted on none academic pursuits,” Sprout said bravely, her nose upturned high. “Good day.”

The Slytherins had never admired their Professor more.

Harry gave the woman a small nod before the group continued to Greenhouse Three. The Professor returned it easily with one of her own.

—-

“We will be reporting Mandrakes today,” the Professor said once everyone had taken their places at the greenhouse benches. Harry was nestled neatly between Pansy and Daphne, with Draco and Blaise on Pansy’s other side. “Now, who can tell me the properties of the Mandrake?” 

Harry, Blaise, Draco, and Tracey all revised their hands, but it was Harry that the witch pointed to.

“It’s a bloody powerful restorative, mam,” the boy answered, ignoring the way that the professor shook her head at his word choice, he’d grown numb to that from teachers by now. “It is used to restore those that have been transfigured or cursed to normal.”

“Eight points to Slytherin,” the witch decided with a nod. “Now, who can tell me its secondary name? Mr. Zabini?”

“Mandragora,” the other snake answered smugly before shooting the smaller Slytherin a quick smirk as he was awarded ten points by the professor.

“Even though the Mandrake is essential in most antidotes,” the Herbology professor continued, “it’s also very dangerous. Who can tell me why?”

“Because its cry will kill anyone that hears it,” Pansy said as if the answer was obvious, which it would be to anyone that had been raised within the magical world or read the textbook ahead of time.

“Good, eight points,” Professor Sprout said with a smile, not giving the full ten as the Slytherin girl had spoken without being called upon.

Not much later, there were twenty or so students moving about the greenhouse to begin repotting the young mandrakes, four to a tray. Pansy, Tracey, and Harry moved to one with Daphne following closely behind the trio, but a Hufflepuff boy that none of them had spoken to before despite having classes with him for a year, got there first.

“Justine Finch - Fletchy,” the boy introduced brightly before moving to shake Harry’s hand, an unwelcome touch that he only narrowly avoided by grabbing a pair of violently pink earmuffs as if he hadn’t seen the hand at all. “I of course know you three,” the boy continued, so clearly undeterred. “The famous Harry Potter, knowledgeable Pansy Parkinson, and the intelligent Tracey Davis.”

The badger must not have noticed the glare that he was receiving from Pansy at being reduced to ‘knowledgeable’.

“That Lockhart is something, isn’t he?” Justine asked as the second years filled their pots with dragon dung. “Just an amazing chap!” The Hufflepuff exclaimed, too excited to notice the way that the three snakes were rolling their eyes. “I don’t think that I’d ever be so brave if I were caught in a telephone booth by a werewolf. Just fantastic!”

“So fansatical,” Harry said, his voice dripping with a certain kind of sarcasm, causing the other two Slytherins to snicker.

The Slytherins put their earmuffs on and blocked out anything else that the Hufflepuff might have been saying as they waited for the signal to repot the Mandrakes.

—-

“We could just skiv off,” Harry suggested seriously, looking down at his schedule as if it were little more than a ticket to damnation. In a way it almost was.

“The whole house?” Pansy scoffed, “that’s likely.”

“We could say that it was in protest,” Draco offered weakly. “Muggles do that sort of thing a lot, right?” The boy asked, looking at Harry, but the dark haired boy only shrugged, never having really been allowed near the t.v. when the news was on. It annoyed the Dursleys too much, as if they thought that he was going to plan an uprising or something of the like.

“Of what ?” Daphne scoffed, her brow raised high in a way that would make just about anyone question their next words carefully if they wanted to keep their vocal cords.

“Wanting a competent teacher?” Theo suggested bluntly, though Harry knew that the other would never say it to an adult's face. There were lines engraved into him that matched the ones that marred Harry and were smeared across Blaise.

Harry wished he had a way to erase them all, but all he could do was move himself away from the scalpel and figure out a way to rip it from another later.

“As if they could find anyone else if they had to resort to him ,” Tracey snipped.

It was right after lunch and the Slytherins had Defense Against the Dark Arts with Lockhart next, something that none of them were particularly looking forwards to, though in the end they still went; placing Harry at the very back of the room with a very mean looking Milicent Bulstrode. The boy couldn’t help but scoff as Hermione walked into class with a dolly smile on her face and hearts practically sparkling in her eyes.

“Gilderoy Lockhart,” the man himself said, striding into the room as Harry was making a little barricade of books between himself and the professor’s line of sight. “Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defense League, and five - time winner of Witch Weekly’s Most - Charming - Smile Award - but I don’t talk about that-”

“ Except you just did ,” Milicent whispered darkly, causing Harry to snicker.

“-I thought that we’d start today with a little pop quiz over my books,” the wizard continued as he handed out the quiz papers before returning to the front. “You have thirty minutes, start - now !”

Harry turned over the paper and looked down at the question before glancing at Milley, finding his look of disgust mirrored on her face.

1. What is Gilderoy Lockhart’s favorite color?

The boy looked down at the test paper and saw that it continued on in a similar manner all the way down to question forty - four.

Harry rolled his eyes and set about writing answers that he was sure was bound to lose Slytherin house quite a few points, but would be more than worth it.

Thirty minutes later the Professor took up the quiz papers and glanced through them at the front of the class. Harry could see the exact moment that the man’s eyes fell on his… creative answers, as the defense professor raised his head and looked right at Harry in disbelief. This action; however, caused the answers of the page to shift into something more appropriate without leaving so much as a trace, a side effect that Harry had unintentionally found when trying to figure out how to remove the tarot cards from the sketchbook without irreparably changing them in the process.

“Right…” the man said slowly before recovering once more. “Well it looks like most of you need to reread my books carefully,” the professor said with too much cheer to be true. “Now, onto business.”

The second years watched as the man moved between his desk and brought out a cage that was covered by a dark cloak, though had begun to rattle at the movement.

“It is my job to arm you against the foulest of creatures known to wizard kind,” the man said dramatically, too much so in Harry’s opinion. “You may find yourself facing your worst fears in this room, but no harm will come upon you while I’m here, so remain calm.” The Ravenclaws and Slytherins watched as the blond man gripped at the cloth and began to pull it back. “Don’t scream, you might provoke them!”

The Professor tore the cloak off of the cage and for a moment the whole room was silent except for the sounds of the creatures themselves rattling around behind the metal bars.

“ Cornish Pixies?” Draco asked from a few seats ahead of Harry, more than a note of disgust in the boy’s voice. The rest of the Slytherins and even one or two Ravenclaws snickered at the sight of the small blue creatures, their alien - like features and insect wings not threatening in the least.

“Yes?” The Professor asked with a smile so false Harry thought that Lockhart must have sold a considerable quantity of his soul to make it.

“I mean,” Pansy started, cutting off her own laugh as best as she could manage, “it’s not as if they’re dangerous to anything other than a butterfly.”

More students snickered this time, but Lockhart wasn’t someone used To being mocked in such a blatant way. “Right then,” the professor declared loudly, “let’s see what you make of them then.” 

That was when all hell broke loose as the professor opened the cage.

The caged pixies flew quickly out of their confinement, wreaking havoc in every direction that they went as the creatures terrorized the students and all but attempted to tear the classroom into two.

“Come now,” the Professor shouted expectantly, “round them up everyone.” But when the students only continued to scream and swat at the dark blue creatures, Lockhart raised his wand and shouted a spell that Harry was too far away to hear, but knew had no effect once so ever by the way that the magic stayed stagnant in the air.

The bell rang as Lockhart made a dive under his desk and all of the students made a dash for the door. Harry was slower moving as none of the creatures had dared to come near the boy, knowing the depths of the magic within him, and the defense teacher took this as an opportunity to have the snake cage the rest of the creatures himself as the older man ran with the rest of the students, a pixie stuck in his hair.

Glancing around, Harry saw that only Blaise and Pansy remained, each of them fighting through the chaos to get to him. Harry looked at the other boy and raised a brow before flicking his wrist and glancing at the newly confused Pansy. The other boy only glanced around the room and nodded once, sure and sharp.

“Pansy,” Blaise said, his voice more serious than either had ever heard it before, “keep quiet about what you are about to see,” the dark skinned boy said, his voice low and almost threatening in nature in a way that made Harry want to draw closer to him, since he knew that Blaise was acting in such a way for his sake. But terror gripped at his heart at the idea of doing so alone so he stayed where he was.

The girl nodded and Harry raised his hands, magic swelling thickly in the air as he focused and bent it to his will. He could feel the dark magic coming from the other two snakes, and leaned into it even as they were still more than an arm’s length away, fighting away the usual sickness with something more.

The Slytherins felt the magic in the air come alive, tingling across their skin like an invisible flame that swelled and sparked to life as the smallest of the three flicked his wrist decisively.

And then all was still.

The pixies had frozen in the air, only their small chest rising and falling with each breath that the creatures took. Pansy looked at her friend as if she was seeing a stranger, but one glance from Blaise was enough to know that she had just been trusted with something. Something that she couldn’t share, not if she didn’t want to face the consequences of doing so from both of the other two boys. But as the fear at the sheer amount of power began to clear, the girl recognized the waves of magic as the same dull beat that she had felt coming off of the smallest Slytherin for a year now.

“Now what?” The girl asked, grinning sharply.

The three Slytherins moved about the room and grabbed the pixies from the air, placing them back into the cage none too gently. But Harry still didn’t release his spell even as they had walked the cage into Lockhart’s office.

“Pansy,” the boy said suddenly, not bothering to look at the girl as he studied the caged creatures on the desk, “you have muggle hair pins, right?”

Blaise gave Pansy a confused glance, knowing the home that she came from, but the girl only nodded. “Yeah, mother didn’t want me to take the expensive ones that she had bought me over the holidays to Hogwarts, she was scared that I would lose them,” Patsy explained with an embarrassed flush. “They’re the only muggle things in the house.”

“Hand me two,” the boy commanded gruffly.

Pansy did so without question and watched as the small boy bent and shaped the pins until he was seemingly satisfied with the results, and then inserted them into the lock. Harry moved with a practiced grace as he felt for the pins and lifted them one by one, slowly undoing the lock before giving the hair pins back to Pansy, fixing them with another careless flick of the boy’s wrist.

“What did you just do?” Blaise asked as Harry stood and admired his handiwork with an appraising gaze before deeming it well enough. 

The lock still looked as if it was firmly in place, but a good shake would undo that.

“Picked the lock,” the other boy said as if it was something that should have been obvious. After the summer that Harry had it was. “It’s like the muggle version of Alohomora,” he explained, “only much more illegal. Once the pixies revive they should be able to free themselves quickly enough and tear this place apart,” Harry added, giving the office that was overfilled with moving portraits of Lockhart a distasteful look.

The three left the room, closing the door shut tight as Harry released his hold of his magic. They could already hear the banging before they’d even fully left the classroom. Their smiles had never been so sharp.

Chapter Text

Harry felt his spine tingle uncomfortably and knew that he was one wrong move away from cursing Flint… and possibly Wood too.

A few days ago Slytherin House held tryouts for a new chaser. The only person surprised by Draco getting the position was Flint himself who had given it to him, but the captain hadn’t known just how much time and effort the blond had put into learning the new position after the past year when Harry had become seeker. To be frank, watching the boy move through the air as naturally as breathing, Harry couldn’t imagine the other Slytherin playing anything else. At least not without having to bribe his way into it.

But a new player meant more training with the team to get everyone sorted out with the new variable that was in play, which somehow translated into Harry being woken up by a certain blond before the sun had even risen. Which, consequently, led to Harry having to heal the nose that he had broken on said boy when Draco had touched him to wake him up. Something that the other Slytherin was still cross about.

Half of the older Slytherins still looked just south of tipsy and smelled of Firewhiskey from the party the night before, as the group made their way down to the Quidditch Pitch. 

Another reason to not be having practice before breakfast had even started , Harry thought.

They had only gotten about halfway onto the Pitch when the Slytherin students had suddenly stopped walking and Gemma groaned at whatever sight she saw in an annoyed way that only came from being hungover. When he heard the first voice speak to the crowd of Slytherins, Harry was inclined to agree. 

“Flint!” The Gryffindor captain screamed irritably as he marched righteously over to the mass of green, broom firmly in hand. “This is our practice time! We got out just for it! Clear off now!”

Harry watched as the Slytherin captain looked down at the approaching Gryffindor with a certain kind of smirk that told the boy that the older snake had been very aware that the other house would be here.

Fucking prat , Harry cursed, thinking of his lost hours of sleep.

“Plenty of room for all of us, Wood,” the Slytherin captain said, his voice dipping just so as the older boy’s eyes flitted over the other captain.

But Gryffindors truly are oblivious it seems, as the older boy picked up on none of the signs that he was being sent. 

“But I booked the field!” Wood yelled angrily enough to make Harry suppress a flinch as the rest of the Gryffindor Quidditch team walked over to see the cause of the commotion. Harry was not pleased to see that McLaggen was still among them, the git was a slime. He was the sort of bloke that the Plutos wouldn’t feel sorry about robbing blind. 

“Ah, but I’ve got a note from Professor Snape,” Flint said, holding the parchment in question out primly to the other captain.

Harry watched as the Gryffindor read the note quickly, displeasure pooling onto the teen’s face as he did so, but the smaller boy only rolled his eyes, tired and without much a filter to his words after being woken up so early and hardly sleeping the night before, nightmares plagued him until late hours. 

“Can you two stop your strange flirting?” The Slytherin seeker asked, ignoring the way that some of the lions seemed to all but choke on air at his words as Gemma snickered from the boy’s side. “ Please ?”

Flint and Wood were both peculiar shades of red that all but matched the Gryffindor robes all too well.

“We we-re not !” Wood stammered, but even his own teammates behind the teen looked doubtful. Harry could see Fred and George pretending to swoon off to the side, causing more than one Slytherin to bite down a laugh, smoothly hidden away behind masks.

“ I’m too sober for this,” the scarred boy whispered vehemently. “You do something,” the snake said, pointing at Wood, “so Flint does something. And then it keeps going and going until two teams are up before the bloody sun . All the while at least one of you is constantly eye fucking the other each time.”

“The little snakeys got a point,” Fred said as he came to stand before the younger boy and George went to Wood to see if the Gryffindor captain was still breathing.

Harry could feel his magic swell and pull at the other boy the way that it does most of the Slytherins, and thought that he might understand now why it always reacted so strongly to the twins.

“Yeah Wood ~” George taunted, poking the other teen in the face. 

The lion barely swatted the Weasley twin away.

“So what do you want to do then, Potter?” The Slytherin captain asked, sounding annoyed but not as angry as he could be. Most likely largely due to the fact that the red clad captain hadn’t denied anything.

“Go find an empty classroom and quit dragging the rest of us along at ridiculous hours to have to watch your weird foreplay?” The boy suggested crudely before feigning some sort of realization, hitting the palm of his head to the top of his head. “ Oh ! You mean about practice now . The field is big enough for two teams to practice. How about splitting it for an hour and then doing a friendly scrimmage?”

The captains looked at one another, red still tenting their cheeks and nodded in a reluctant agreement.

“ Great !” Harry exclaimed falsely, clapping his hands together loudly. “Then you two can go and see about that empty classroom after practice.”

The boy neatly avoided a weak jinx from the Slytherin captain and flipped the older boy off with his free hand.

As the teams divided up once more, the twins went to Harry, large smiles on their nearly identical faces. A few of the older Slytherins shot nasty looks at the trio, but Harry didn’t care in the least. He never truly did these days.

“So proud of our little snake, Forge,” Fred said as the twins drew near. 

“Growing up and sorting problems, Greg,” George said, wiping a fake tear dramatically from his face.

“And no fist fighting this time too.”

The Weasley twins smiled at one another fondly and Harry rolled his eyes good naturedly, but the younger boy still found himself keeping a hesitant distance from the pair as he did with most of his friends these days. It wasn’t until the two Gryffindor boys tried to throw an arm around the Slytherin that they saw the boy flinch and the look in their eyes changed from that of humor to concern.

“Harry…” Fred said slowly, but then each of the Quidditch captains were calling for their missing players. 

Harry had never taken to the sky faster.

—-

Days at Hogwarts continued to pass as the hours of daylight grew shorter and the nights longer. Harry spent most of his time avoiding the Weasley twins and the other boys in his dorm, but Lockhart most of all - the wizard was everywhere, always seeking to speak with the boy when he saw him. For the first time at Hogwarts, Harry felt like prey instead of a predator in his own right. It wasn’t an experience that he felt like repeating, so he slunk around the castle like a fox; quick and sly, neatly avoiding the older wizard as he did with the others that he had once never been more than a few feet from.

Hermione turned out to be a great friend to have during this time, someone outside of his house that was always willing to go to the Library for whatever the Ravenclaw girl was studying then. This term seemed to be devoted to History of Magic, to writing an all but new curriculum so that the lot of them would be prepared for OWLs. No one ever said the witch was sane.

Harry walked down the halls of Hogwarts to Ravenclaw Tower alone, the sickness still pulling at his body as if it wished to slowly kill even a portion of the dark magic within him with each step. The Slytherin had grown used to the sickening ache over the past year spent at Hogwarts, and it was a much more tolerable ailment now that Quirrell and the piece of Voldermort that he had allowed to possess  him wasn’t around.

The walk was usually one that he enjoyed to an extent, the first years too scarred or awed to bother him - he never was exactly sure which - and the older students too used to him now to look at him like some sort of specimen for them to study anymore. It was a quiet few minutes that he had to himself without the relentless press of bodies brushing against his own.

Today wasn’t one of those days.

There were voices at the top of the tower as Harry made his way up it, a soft one and two that were much harsher in nature than the first. The boy didn’t have to see what was going on to know what it was, he had been on the receiving end of such confrontations enough to know just by the ring in the older voices alone - because the taunting pair were older then the airy voice, and that made the Slytherin feel sick in ways other than the castle did - that this wasn’t some simple disagreement or anything of the like.

And he was right.

At the top of the stairs to Ravenclaw tower, there were two girls and one boy all huddled together in a way that could almost be seen as conspiratorially had the smallest of the three not been back into the wall, her hands trembling and the feeling of something wild in the air.

The youngest had blond hair that easily went to the middle of her back and hair features that almost made her look like some sort of mythical creature other than a witch. There was a sense of otherness coming from the girl, something that pulled at the magic in the boy in a way that was different from the dark magic that he’d grown accustomed to - a magic that seemed to behave more like that of Goblins or elves, though it felt as fractured and misshapen as his own.

 The other two Harry recognized as third year Ravenclaws. The boy had dark hair and summer tanned skin while the girl was blond as well, with a red tent coloring it, though she looked particularly cruel looking down at the other pale haired witch.

“Come on, Loony ,” the older girl said, a sneer in her voice as she spoke. “It’s only a riddle, simple one at that.”

The dark haired boy - one that Harry realized he didn’t know the name of as the snake moved forward with all of the silence of someone used to not being allowed to make a sound - was looming over the youngest of the three and had the misfortune of being closest to the Slytherin when he finally struck, a fist slamming right into the other boy’s nose as he opened his mouth to speak.

The older boy stumbled back, holding his face as his friend moved to the boy’s side, looking up at Harry with venomous eyes that paled as she seemed to realize just who had appeared before them. There were rumors - though weren’t there always? - about what had occurred at the end of last term. Rumors that twisted and combined with the ones that had been around since that day in Godric’s Hollow all those years ago. Rumors about Harry being a dark wizard so powerful that Voldermort had sought to kill him before the boy could prove a threat to the dark lord. 

Those that were told those rumors by cautious parents after the boy had been sorted into Slytherin were quick to stumble upon some version of the truth about what had occurred on the stairs that day.

Marietta Edgecombe was one of those children, Harry could see it in her eyes, guarded and wide with fear.

The Slytherin knew that he could use that.

“Neither of you are going to say a word about this to anyone else,” the boy says sternly as he looks up at the older girl and boy with a gaze that made the pair feel small as the snake’s magic coated them, vast and endless like the night sky that made all others feel insignificant beneath it. “If you do then I’m sure Professor Flitwick would love to hear about two of his students bullying another of his eagles. A first year at that.” Harry’s voice was as cold as the space between the stars, chilling the older students enough to let them know that they were mere dust in space, not the glittering objects that humans have always adored. “Do this again and he will be the least of your worries. Now leave.”

The Ravenclaw duo were pale as they did just that, shaking as they had caused the other to do; the one that they had called Loony in the same way that Harry was often called Freak or Boy by his relatives. As if neither of them were even worth a name.

The snake turned to the eagle as he felt his magic settle into something more comfortable for the younger and slid on a smile that he wished he could still mean. It was a gruesome sight to behold, but the girl didn’t mind - she knows somewhere in her bones that she would see a true one someday, once the jagged edges of the broken boy had reconfigured into something a little curler than he might have been in another life, but just as bright.

She was never wrong about such things, magic whispering in her ear in ways that the Ravenclaw knew that it shouldn’t.

(The magic in her whispered that the other’s was just as strange, just as marred as her own, though in a completely different way even as they were both mistakes created by death.)

Harry looked down at the girl’s hands to find them steady as the pull of magic wilder than his own lessened more and more. He didn’t ask if she was alright, knowing that she wasn’t and he wasn’t capable to make her so.

The Ravenclaw understood the sentiment still.

“Care to tell me the password?” Harry asked the girl, letting the gruesome attempt at humanity that he had made slip away as he knew how wrong it must look on his lips.

“It’s a riddle,” the Ravenclaw says softly, her voice as airy and free as the magic that resides within her, “you have to solve it yourself if you want in.”

The Slytherin hums and glides up to the door as if his bones didn’t ache now that the magic he had released was gone once more. The sickness seemed worse near the other common rooms and Harry wondered if the blonde girl felt it too, to some extent at least.

“ Glittering points that downward thrust, sparkling spears that never rust even as all else becomes an ashen dust .” Harry looked down as the magic within the door swelled and the eagle shaped knocker on it began to speak, a scratching sort of voice that remained the Slytherin of metal coming from its beak. “ What am I?”

A snarky part of the boy wanted to be crass with the enchanted door, but he really did fancy making it to the library at some point that day and pushed the impulse down.

“A lighting bolt,” the boy all but hisses, taking no pleasure in the fact that even a bloody door knows who he was.

The door creaks open and the Slytherin turns to the first year before going inside, seeing the way that she moved just out of sight of those within the common room.

“Mind showing me where the second year girls’ dorms are?” Harry asked, though he knows that he could find them easily enough on his own if he focused long enough for the steady thrum of Hermione’s magic.

He had gotten better at telling magic apart by how it feels over the past month or so. Partly because he was growing accustomed to the feeling of it all as his own magic grew, and partly out of a necessity that he felt to avoid the defense Professor and the foggy way that his magic felt; like a memory that he could no longer reach. Harry’s magic has always been very good at adapting to the boy’s needs - silent when words were not allowed, wandless when the boy did not know such things existed - this was no different.

The girl balks at the idea, but the magic whispers in an inviting way.

“You won’t be able to go up there,” the Ravenclaw says instead, neither agreeing or not.

Harry only shrugged, something easy and without the tension that neither had noticed that he’d been carrying for far too long. “I know how to yell.”

There really was nothing that the girl could say to that.

Later she would know what the magic did then and she would thank it in the way that she so often did - though as the years passed she would curse it just as much - but now she only trailed behind the snake as he slipped into the common room, ignoring the way that everyone stared as if she was a creature instead of a human being and focused instead in how Harry stood tall at her side with a look that could kill should he even think the words.

(Later too, she would learn from the boy himself that if she had told him that she didn’t want to go back in there he never would have made her, going as far as to offer her a place to hide should she need it. A field that few would ever know of. Fewer still from their world would ever see.)

Harry hung close to the strange girl as she walked across the common room, his eyes dark as he looked upon the others with a gaze that told them that he wouldn’t tolerate hearing the name that she had been called once more, and if a bit of his magic spilled into the air to make the point known, then that really wasn’t his problem.

The Ravenclaw leads him to the right set of stairs, around the mounds of books that had been piled on all available surfaces near the chairs, desk, and tables that easily doubled in number to that of both the Gryffindor and Slytherin common rooms.

“It’s the second door there,” the airy voice spoke once more, pointing up the winding staircase that led to the dorms of each year.

Harry nodded at her before placing his hand on the cool stone and leaning as far into the stairwell as he could without stepping onto it. “ Hermione Granger ,” the snake yelled, his voice loud like a panicked scream but void of such emotion, “ get your arse down here!”

A small crashing noise could be heard from up the stairwell as a very surprised Ravenclaw all but fell into view, a long list in the girl’s hand that the Slytherin could only assume contained a number of book titles and questions that she wanted to answer.

“ Harry-!” The older girl started, clearly exasperated by the appearance of her friend in the common room when they were supposed to be meeting in the hall, but stopped upon seeing the younger witch that stood nervously at the snake’s side. “Loony Lovegood?”

And just like that, the slightly warm gaze that the Slytherin had held for the older of the two girls shifted into something colder that almost made Hermione take a step back up the stairs as she stops before the pair.

Harry hadn’t thought that Hermione would be the type and he found that in that moment disappointment hung to him like a second skin, both in her and himself.

“It was a pleasure to meet you, Lovegood,” the Slytherin says kindly, a voice that rang falsely in both his ears and the first year’s, but both know that he wished he had the capability to mean such sentiments as he once had, that his emotions weren’t always such sharp things, but for now they were. “I hope we can speak again under better circumstances,” the boy says with a cordialness that he blames on his housemates, knowing that it hadn’t come from the Dursleys and it certainly hadn’t come from the Plutos. “ Granger , let’s go.”

Harry pretends he doesn't see the way that the older Ravenclaw flinches at the use of her last name.

—-

The walk to the library was silent and tense in a manner only slightly different from how it had been between them after the Slytherin had gotten into a fight with the youngest Weasley boy. The only difference was this time it was Harry who was angry with the other, and while his anger was just as silent as Hermione’s had been then, the snake’s held a coldness to it that sought to chill the other to the bone. 

The Ravenclaw supposed that she shouldn’t be all that surprised, the same thing had happened between Harry and Draco on the first train ride, back when he had said something that he shouldn’t have.

The pair still sat together in the library, though there was a mound of books between them that effectively shut off the easy conversation that they usually held. In times like this the Ravenclaw was envious of whatever Harry had with Draco and Blaise because she knew that they never would have such a close friendship - though she would admit that the ways in which the three boys were close with one another was different with each. It was still something that she could never hope to touch in this lifetime.

Harry drowned himself in books on Alchemy, absorbing the wizarding side of the subject now that he knew just how real it was, the science behind it and how ancient runes mixed so seamlessly with it all. Even with his fever for the subject, he didn’t know what he would seek to do with it, but he thought that he just might need it one day - magic is a complex thing after all - so if he grabbed a book or two on runes that had fifth years sending him strange glances, that really was no one else’s business but the librarian’s. 

—-

The next time that the Slytherins had Charms class, Flitwick awarded the boy twenty points for doing the latest charm on the first try. The words were followed by a seemingly excited flick of the older wizard’s wand, but as the boy watched the broken skin on his  knuckles knit itself back together, he knew it wasn’t for the charm at all.

—-

It was Halloween by the next time that Harry saw the first year Ravenclaw.

The Slytherin was standing outside of the feast, gazing at the carved pumpkins and the bats that were flying about them, at the smiling faces of children that thought only of the holiday and didn’t bear the same burden of loss that he did. At the professors whose smiles became a little more strained upon seeing the small boy, remembering what he did about that night.

The snake felt his skin begin to buzz in that almost manic way that it had only once before as magic as broken as his own drew closer, its owner coming to a stop at the boy’s side. Neither said anything for a moment, only standing together in understanding instead. It hurt her too when a particular day passed and everyone else had the gall to smile and carry on as if it wasn’t tearing her apart.

“I found Thestrals in the Forbidden Forest,” the Ravenclaw says with that airy voice of hers that Harry knew was empty in the way that space was - filled with too much and yet never enough. “Would you like to come with me to see them?”

The snake had no idea what a Thestral was, or even if they were real, but even if they spent the night scouring the woods for creatures that didn’t exist he knew that it would still be better than going into the Great Hall and pretending to be happy when half of the time he wanted to scream until the castle fell to shambles around him. Scream for a life that he would never have, a love that he could not remember, and everything that happened to him because it was gone.

“Alright.”

Harry could hear the low hiss of a snake too far away to understand the words clearly, but chose to ignore it as the pair slipped away from the Great Hall to the back entrance of the school by the greenhouses, the plants snapping almost affectionately at the pair as they passed.

The magic whispered at the Ravenclaw to come back, to have the older boy seen by everyone, all but screaming as they continued to walk away, but she knew that the Slytherin couldn’t stand the Great Hall right then.

The magic in the air whispered and a snake hissed, but the only ones that could hear either walked into the Forbidden Forest with their wands alight, searching for the creatures that pulled the carriages, together in their grief.

—-

When Harry slipped into the Slytherin common room just before curfew, all of the eyes within it went right to the boy, sinking into him like a butterfly on a pin board. It made his skin crawl as the other snakes whispered like they had in his first week at Hogwarts the year before. Meeting their searching gazes with a cold one of his own, Harry walked to the huddle of second years by the fire, startling at the clear relief in their eyes as they saw him, a stark contrast to everyone else.

“Okay, what the bloody fuck is going on?” The boy asked as he sat himself down next to Pansy, ignoring the slight hurt in Blaise and Draco’s eyes as he still strayed from them.

“Where were you?” Daphne asked instead of anyone properly answering his blunt question, something that he chose to let slide at the clear alarm in the other's voice.

“In the woods with Luna Lovegood,” Harry answered easily, not seeing what that had to do with anything. At the others’ blank looks the boy sighed. “A first year Ravenclaw,” he explains, “we were looking for Thestrals.”

Found them too , Harry thought almost fondly, remembering the bony creatures that he now knew others could see as well. Creatures that could only be seen by those who had seen death.

Harry had killed two people now, and Luna had seen her mother die at nine. The situations weren’t the same, not by a lot, but in a way they were similar.

We’ve each seen someone we care for put into the ground, Harry thought as his gaze fell to the thin fingers that had pulled the trigger that day, the blood that had splattered on the wall still visible in his mind as if it had happened only yesterday. The only difference was that I was mourning someone I hadn’t lost yet long before the bullet hit his brain.

Thestrals were his new favorite magical creature, strange and often avoided, unseen and inexplicably linked to death in a way that he always had been since that night in Godric’s Hollow.

“Wonderful alibi choice, Potter,” Theo remarked with a voice that could almost be a sneer if he didn’t sound as worried beneath the annoyed exterior as the other boy did.

“Alibi for what ?” The smaller Slytherin asked, his patience thinning by the moment.

It was Pansy that answered, always the gossip, explaining the writing that had been found on the wall in blood - rooster , Draco guessed, the giant oaf was complaining about someone killing them when I was walking down to the Pitch - and Mrs. Norris who had been found petrified and hung on the very same wall.

“Some people think that it was you,” Tracey says softly, glancing around at the other snakes strewn across the room, some still stealing glances at the small group - at Harry .

“Yeah, the half - blood whose friends with a muggle born and was raised by muggles,” Harry points out with no lack of sarcasm, not mentioning the fact that he hated the Dursleys, it wouldn’t do him any good. “Because that makes sense.”

But Blaise only shrugs. “You’re a Slytherin and we’re connected with Quirrell’s disappearance because of Dumbledore last term,” he explains factually, not mentioning before the others the fact that he had been responsible for the previous Defense professor’s unknown death. Small mercies. “It doesn't help that you weren’t at the feat either, not when almost everyone else was.”

“Right.”

The group goes quiet after that, each of the snakes making a decent attempt at their homework, but Harry was still distracted enough to hear the other students talking nearby.

“ There’s no way he could be the Heir, he’s hardly any better than that mudblood he hangs around with. Him and all of the blood traitors,” one of the sixth years whispered harshly, his voice carrying in the too quiet room, but no one else seemed to notice it. “ The brat is only good for Quidditch, he doesn’t have the guts for something like this.”

“ But he’s dark,” another snake protested, stealing a glance that Harry pretended not to see. “ He cast a silent Cruicio on the first night,” they reminded the other. “ Have you ever seen anyone do that before ?”

Harry wasn’t surprised to find that the spell that he had cast then had been dark, but he was by the hate in the older teen’s voice as the pair argued among themselves. He hadn’t been bothered by anyone about his blood status the year prior, the other Slytherins knowing better than to say anything where he or the other now second years could hear. Now, listening to the two argue over whether or not he had been the one to petrify Filch’s bloody cat, he felt anger rise within him, strong as an exploding star.

He wasn’t going to let them forget where he came from again.

Chapter Text

Harry tapped his fingers anxiously against his desk as Transfiguration class came to a slow end for the day, his parrot already turned into a water goblet and back at the start of class. The only entertainment coming from Weasley’s rat that no one seemed to be able to fully transfigure no matter how hard any of the other lions tried - and the Gryffindors were trying - as the Slytherins were sneakily taking bets, earning the scarred boy a few gallons as the bell rang and no one had been able to get the blasted thing to turn without some sort of animal feature remaining. He’d felt that there was some other magic there that resisted the full change, but had no indication to do the Weasel any favors by mentioning it.

Harry stayed seated as everyone else stood,  offing at the other snakes as he slowly collected his things before standing himself to approach the Deputy Headmistress’s desk.

“Professor?” The boy asked, biting back a small smirk as the witch gave a start at his sudden presence.

“Yes? What is it, Potter?” McGonagall asked hurriedly, not hiding her annoyance as she still looked almost everywhere but at the boy before her, the one that looked like two students that she had adored until he spoke or moved in any way. Then, in those moments, he only looked wrong . Colder than either of them ever had, even during the war where children had been sent to fight and came back haggard and torn. 

Those that came back at all.

“I - I,” the boy started, a stutter in his voice that betrayed his nervousness to the woman, softening her too sharp tone into something more appropriate of a Professor speaking with a student.

“Yes?” She asked once more, trying to be civil to the boy that hurt her to even look at. She often wondered how Severus could stand it.

Would it have been like this had he been in my house? She wondered, not for the first time.

A horrible part of her thinks that it wouldn’t. She would have been stern, yes, but she would have been able to at least look at the boy without feeling cheated in some way. Without seeing ghosts of what should have been.

Even a year past he was still nothing like them.

James had been loud, the boy was quiet. Lily had been kind, the boy acted like all the other snakes in his year, taking bets at another’s misfortune, cruel smiles, and loyal only to his own. They had been good, and he was -

“I was wondering if there was a spell to transfigure a quill into a pen,” the Slytherins says nervously, his hands held in front of himself, close enough that the Transfiguration Professor could see the scars there, thin silver lines that she had seen on those that cooked and practiced with knives.

Severus had such lines on his hands from potions, Molly Weasley from the former, and Bellatrix Lestrange from the latter.

Dangerous , her mind whispered.

“And why would you need that, Mr. Potter?” McGonagall asked, looking level at the slim boy, at his shoulder but not him . “I’m sure you are aware that you’re required to use a quill or pencil in class.”

“Old - older students were talking about my blood status, saying nasty things about it,” the boy explained, his voice barely above a whisper as he stuttered over the words as if they were hard to admit. “I don’t want them to forget, mam. I want to constantly shove it in their face so that they can’t .”

McGonagall could imagine the things that some of the older Slytherins might have been saying about the boy with the muggle born mother, especially since Halloween. With a sigh the witch forced herself to look into the green eyes that bored into her own with a determination that most twelve year olds could not claim.

Coldness too, a soft voice told her, the Headmaster’s worries coming to mind, but for once she shoved it down.

 “You want to learn an advanced spell just to spite some older students?” The transfiguration professor asked to make sure that she was right on all points.

Potter nodded. “It’s hard to forget something when it is glaring you right in the face every day, isn't it professor?” The boy asks, and McGonagall wondered for a moment if they were still speaking of muggle pens at all.

“I suppose it is,” the witch conceded, almost impressed by the boy’s cunning, and seeing Lily for the first time in the boy. She had done something similar at the beginning of her sixth year, receiving her first detention for giving James and Black clicking pens.

Slytherin truly is a good fit, the Professor thought, though it was with a much softer tone this time than she had done so before.

“Alright then.”

The Professor stood and cleared the chalk board with an easy wave of her wand, watching as the boy took his first notes for the class in the entire time he had been at the school, the diagrams on his page just as intricate as her own. There was a small smile on the professor's lips at the sight.

Half an hour later, Harry left the classroom ten points heavier and with a new spell in his ever growing collection. 

—-

At dinner Snape watched as the boy read and ate, his present portions still smaller than the man would have liked, but big enough not to warrant a nutrients potion to assist. 

When the scarred boy looked up at the Head Table half way through the meal, his eyes didn’t go to his head of house like Snape thought that they might, but the McGonagall. The witch met the boy’s gaze with a small nod. The smile that the snake gave her in return before ducking his head was bright, blinding even.

False.

What have you done this time?

—-

Harry sighed as he walked down the chilled corridor to the Potions Master’s office, confused as he had done nothing to warrant such a summons - if one didn’t count his traipsing through the Forbidden Forest on Halloween.

Knuckles rasping on the wooden door of the classroom, the Slytherin waited for the quiet confirmation from the man inside of it to come in before pushing the door open.

“You wanted to see me, Sir?” Harry asked, polite and cautious as ever as he slunk into the classroom, staying father back from the older snake than he usually would, something that the Professor notes.

“I did,” the man confirms as he finishes marking through an essay with an angry red ink. Harry watched with apprehension as the Professor slowly put the quill down, dark eyes meeting his own. “I was wondering what you had done to change Professor McGonagall’s tune towards you so suddenly,” the man states in an almost bored tone that neither truly believed.

Snape didn’t mention the fact that he had worried about what the older professor might think with the rumors about the boy flying around as they were since Halloween, whispers of hidden chambers and dark magic. That he had worried about what she might do if provoked almost as much as he had worried about what the Headmaster was sure to do should this proceed to a certain point. But then Minerva had looked at the boy in the same way that she might one of her lions and the fear lessened.

The younger snake had a sly look on his face as he withdrew a small object from his bag, a thin piece of what looked to be muggle plastic.

A pen , the man’s brain supplied as he watched the boy spin it along his fingers like one might a blade.

“I just asked her to help me with a bit of transfiguration,” the boy says in lieu of a proper explanation, but it was truly all the potions master needed as he remembered just as McGonagall had another with the same eyes as the younger snake that had come back to sixth year with about twenty of the things after the Snape had called her something that he still regretted today.

I suppose he is like her in some ways.

Harry didn’t tell the older Slytherin that he could have easily done the spell himself with the flick of his wrist, that he had done just that once back in his dorm room to make another. He didn’t tell the older snake that he had only asked the Transfiguration Professor for help because he knew that she would pity him afterwards, and the pity of the Deputy Headmistress would keep her from suspecting him as the Heir. That it might ever lead her to defend him should another Professor - should Dumbledore - suggest it. 

He didn’t think that Snape would be angered by it - actually thought that the man might be proud of his cunning should he ever find out - but to admit such a thing would be to admit the control that he had over his magic, something Harry knew better than to do until necessary.

He never had been very trusting of adults.

“Sir,” the boy started as he finally moved to sit in the chair opposite of the potions master’s desk, hand tight on his wand, magic thick on his tongue with anxiety that the snake didn’t like associating with his head of house. “What exactly is the Chamber of Secrets?”

Snape doesn't startle, having expected such a question to come sooner or later. The man sighs as he thinks of how to answer. “The Chamber of Secrets,” the man starts, “was created by Salazar Slytherin over a thousand years ago when the castle was built by the four founders. The story goes that the wizard wanted to be more selective about those brought into the school, and was pushed out because of it, so he built the Chamber and hid a monster within it that could only be unleashed by his true heir.”

“And then the monster would one day kill all those who weren’t purebloods,” the boy says with a nod, already having known as much from the other second years within his house. There was one point that none of them knew though. “But what is the monster? And shouldn’t it be dead by now if it’s been locked up in the castle for over a thousand years?”

The Professor sighs once more at the boy who was finally learning to ask questions after so long of being forced not to, he just wished that it was under better circumstances. “Magical beast can live for a long time, Mr. Potter. The rules are different for them than you are used to in the muggle world,” he reminded the boy, watching as the younger snake nodded. “Besides that, no one other than the true heir knows what the beast is.”

Harry wants to tell the professor that what he’s said doesn't help, but he knows that there is nothing more that the older man could have said that wouldn't have been pure speculation, though he had some ideas of his own.

“How was your summer, Mr. Potter?” The Professor asked, voicing the question he had wanted to since the first day of term, but had thought that the younger snake needed more time.

Had thought that it wasn’t his place to ask, but a question for a question was only fair.

The boy shrugged, and though his gaze was level and face set, Snape knew that whatever the child spoke next would be a lie. 

“It was fine, sir,” Harry said easily. “Normal.”

It was anything but and they both knew it.

Snape wondered if the family that he lived with, the Dursleys, had been worse this year than previous. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibilities for them to hurt the child more because of their hatred of magic - their fear of it - after he had spent a year being taught only such things. He wondered if it was truly that though.

“Alright then,” the Professor answers, his voice holding the same sternness that it always did, but Snape knew that his tone was a lie. He also knew that pressing the boy when he wasn’t ready would only make the younger Slytherin shut down more than he already was. He had been on each side of that coin. “You are free to go.”

The boy had never left the potions classroom so fast.

—-

Harry watched as the giant squid swam peacefully by in the Black Lake, the merpeople that weaved in and out of the seaweed, chasing after grindylows with their lances held high. He would never understand why the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws boasted about having towers with sights that could be seen from within the castle, when there were sights like this .

The Slytherin glanced at the other snakes gathered around him, the rest of the second years who always backed each of his plays regardless of what they were, and who their families are.

“So, who is the Heir then?” Harry asked, looking at the rest of the snakes in the common room, the dark and gray aligned wixen who thrived on the chaos created within the school, selling false protection charms and such.

Millicent is the first to look up, tossing one of the Lockhart books onto the floor in a way that would have made Theo and Tracey blanch had it not been one of the Defense Professor’s. “We know that it is no one in our year,” the girl decides as if it was that simple.

It was.

“Harry would kill them if it was,” Draco agrees with a shudder, knowing that in another life he might have been on the reviving end of the scarred boy’s vengeance had he even made a remark in favor of the Heir. 

He knows that he would have too. His father was letting him act as he wished now, to be friends with Harry and act on the other boy’s views so long as Harry remained as strong as he is. The Boy Who Lived was a powerful ally to have. Father wouldn’t allow the friendship to continue should the other lose power or influence.

“An older year then?” Theo asks, but Harry only shakes his head no.

“An older student could have struck at any point before now,” the boy reminds them in a low voice as to not be overheard. “And they would have been smarter than to open the chamber so early in the year, leaving ample time to be caught,” Harry explains further, silently pleased that the others took his words as they were and did not question where he got such insights from. His summer would have been a very strange thing to explain to a group of pureblood should he try to. He knew he likely never would, at least not in full. Maybe not at all. “No,” the boy decides, “it has to either be a first year or someone so self confident that they won’t be caught that their year doesn't matter.” 

The Slytherins glanced at one another, knowing that the reasoning was sound.

“Let's assume for now that it’s a first year then,” Millicent decided.

“All of the Slytherin first years were at the feast,” Blaise reminds the others.

“So another house then,” Pansy says smoothly, with an unbothered wave of her hand. “We can go ahead and rule Hufflepuff out, too much of a coward that lot.”

“They also have the highest population of muggle borns, so it would be unlikely for someone so prejudiced to be sorted there,” Tracey reports as she grabs for paper and a quill, most likely making a list.

The girls sound sure and Harry agrees with their proclamations - Hufflepuff is the least likely - but he can’t help but remember the way that Smith glared in the halls, all the students did.

“That leaves Ravenclaw and Gryffindor,” Daphne surmised with a groan. “Each as likely as the other.”

“But equally likely if it was a prank and not a true attack,” Harry realized aloud, sitting up straighter on the sofa between Milley and Pansy as he did so.

“I understand Gryffindor,” Blaise starts, each of femme remembering the Weasel incident the year prior, “but what does Ravenclaw have against you?”

“Same thing Gryffindor does,” Harry whispers, but the others hear it still.

“ Great ,” Draco says with no small amount of sarcasm in his voice. The smaller snake only shrugs. “Can you go one year without punching someone?”

“No,” more than one voice says at once, causing the second year Slytherins to look at one another.

“Thought so,” the blind conceded in dismay.

“If it is truly just a prank, then no first year has any true motive though,” Tracey says, her quill still over the parchment as she spoke.

In times like these Harry thinks that things were much simpler when he was with the Plutos. “So, we wait and see if the bastards strike again,” the boy says, his tone firm, “and from there we can see if it’s a shitty prank or not, and if I was even a target at all. Filch is hated after all.”

The others agreed, but none of them liked how useless it made them feel as they watched the scarred boy sink more into himself with each passing day, each of them staying as close to him as they could in the halls, as close as he would let them. Harry hated the way that his skin itched as if a beast lived beneath it, one begging to be released.

—-

Harry sighed with Draco and Gemma as the Slytherin team dragged themselves down to the Pitch for warm ups before the match, the three blatantly ignoring the way that Flint was slowly losing his Slytherin composure as he looked for a certain Gryffindor captain with an increasing fever.

“I can’t wait for fourth year,” Harry decided dully after the fifth desperate look from the older boy.

“Why?” Gemma asked from between the pair of second years. It might have been sarcasm, but both were too tired to pick up on it if it was.

“We never have to see that again,” Draco answered, biting back a yawn as he was thankful, not for the first time, to not have even come close to being sorted into Gryffindor. The lions had been practicing for weeks now, the weather and time be damned.

“I would say again that they should just shag already,” Harry starts once more, remembering what had happened the last time that he had given that suggestion, “but honestly I doubt Wood would see anything that wasn’t a Quaffle at this point.”

The prefect thought that she ought to dissuade the pair of talking about the two captains in such a way, but frankly she agreed and had been putting up with the antics of the Slytherin - Gryffindor duo for too long to care much about proper anymore.

The Slytherin team gathered in the changing room, ignoring the thickness of the air outside and the whispers of thunder in the sky. The sky was darkening even in the earliness of the morning; Harry thought that it was bloody perfect for a house of shunned wizards. Of dark wizards.

“Gryffindor and the other houses have been saying a lot of things since the feast,” Flint starts, his eyes flicking to Harry just as everyone else’s did as well. There was no question about what rumors the captain was speaking of. “The other houses hate us,” the teen says truthfully, each of the snakes thinking of how it had never been safe to travel the corridors alond, and how doing so was now an impossible feat as wands were always clutched in hands, spells thick on tongues. “But those bastards can’t take this ,” Flint said fiercely, sounding remarkably like a certain lion. “So, everyone give it your damnedest, and Potter catch the bloody snitch.”

“As if McLaggen could get to it first,” the smallest of the snakes scoffed, thinking of the poor excuse of a human being - vile being the most adept word.

Flint rolled his eyes, but did nothing to refute the statement. Draco only shook his head, but Harry grinned like a viper about to pounce on its prey. The blond boy didn’t miss that this was the first smile that the other boy had genuinely held all term - something violent and cruel though it may be - but chose not to say anything out of fear that it would disappear just as swiftly.

It did anyways, but with the natural ending that such cold looks possessed.

The two teams walked onto the field, red and green clashing as it so often did, but the Weasley twins winked at the youngest snake in a playful manner that had the rest of the lions shooting the trio glares that Harry was all too happy to return - the twins were his after all, and the boy had done much worse before to protect his own. 

Flint and Wood shook hands under the hard gaze of Madam Hooch, but only the snakes and lions on the field noticed that the tight grip that the pair held with one another was filled with more than the standard threatening glares.

Honestly , Harry thought, the word sounding a lot like a curse within his mind. Sometimes he wished he was more unperceptive of those around him, though he knew that seeing things as he did had kept him alive until now.

It was still painful for the boy to watch.

At the whistle, the players rose up into the air, Harry soaring high above them all in search of a glint of gold. The snake spared a glance at the stands below, giving a small salute to the Slytherin stands and the Ravenclaw mixed in among them beside a rather confused looking Blaise, as the first year seemed to be wearing a strange crown made of a fake snake, its scales a glittering blue.

Only the Professors had seen such a sight before, not that any of them would ever voice the strange resemblance aloud, not with the attack still hanging taunt in the air. McGonagall hoped though for their sake that this was where the resemblance ended, Snape knew that it wasn’t.

Harry moved on instinct as he felt the wind change and the heavy feeling of magic soar past him, narrowly avoiding the black Bludger to the point that he could feel its wind ruffle his hair. The boy looked down to glare at the twins, but stopped once he saw them looking just as confused as he should have.

George gave the Bludger a hard knock with the club in his hands, aiming it towards a Slytherin on the other side of the pitch from the second year snake, but Harry was already moving before the thing had even changed direction once more, narrowly avoiding another would be hit to the head.

The seeker swooped down as he heard the ball coming once more, the wind whistling at his back, and flew straight for the Slytherin beaters, ducking out of the way so that Flint could hit the ball away from them both.

“It’s hexed!” Harry screamed before be forced to fly higher once more as the blasted thing pelted after him as if it was a comet in orbit. The boy wanted to steal a glance at the professors - at Snape who had saved him this time last year - but rain started to fall from the sky and all he could do was avoid the Bludger once more as Jordan announced the Slytherins in lead.

A whistle blew, high and piercing as Madam Hooch called for a timeout, the players descending to the ground and the enchanted equipment with them. A curse slipped past Harry’s lips as his feet met the ground once more, a relieved sort of thing.

—-

“ What’s wrong ?” Blaise couldn’t help but ask under his breath as he watched the game come to a stop.

He’d seen the Bludger chasing after Harry and had known that it was unusual for the object to be so entirely focused on one player as the Bludger was with Harry, but he had also seen the smaller snake take down a mountain troll with little more than a spoken word, and cast a silent unforgivable. He knew that it wouldn’t have even taken the other a flick of his wrist to dismantle a hex, but Blaise also remembered how little Harry seemed to value his own life in situations like these. As he watched the other Slytherins come together he realized that it must be more than just a simple jinx or hex.

Subtle magic then, the boy realized as something dark coiled in the Slytherin’s chest as the sight of Draco, Flint, and Gemma turning on the smallest snake, panic in their stances. The blond went as far as to call the Weasley twins over to the green clad students, the redheads looking just as exasperated as the other three once filled in.

Magic whispered in the air and Luna turned to the older boy as it did so, the snake in her hair glittering even as rain poured down upon them.

“Whatever happens,” the first year started softly, her hand laying gently on the anxious boy’s arm, “know that he’ll be okay.”

“ What ?”

—-

“You can not be serious, Potter!” Flint exclaimed, but the boy only shrugged, nonplussed by the other’s anger.

“I’ve sat at the top of the hierarchy for the past two years, Flint,” Harry reminded the other coldly. “You should remember why.”

The rest of the house went still as the boy brought up his place, simultaneously putting the rest of them in their own, much to the confusion of the twin lions still among them. Though the pair hated the younger boy’s idea, they knew neither than to step into whatever house politics this was.

The two snakes stared at one another, each of their gazes cold as leaked into them, the younger’s all consuming like the unknown depths of the space. Flint stepped down first.

“Alright,” the Quidditch captain conceded, “but don’t come crying to one of us when you break something, brat,” the teen said tersely.

Harry rolled his eyes, not caring much for useless words or sentiments masked as something akin to a threat. “I haven’t cried over a broken bone since I was four,” the boy remarked carelessly, having no idea of the effect of his own words on the others as Harry walked off, broom in hand.

The rain was falling more heavily now as the two teams took to the sky once more, the sound of the Bludger as it flew, whistling in the Slytherin’s ear as he moved to avoid it, something vicious on Harry's face as he maneuvered through the air.

There .

Rising sharply in the air, Harry chased after the Snitch, Bludger be damned. Out of the corner of his eye, the boy could see McLaggen following quickly behind him, close enough that the snake could see the smirk on the older boy’s lips, as if the lion still thought that he had a chance.

Or maybe he just saw the Bludger going straight for Harry’s outstretched arm, the magical object that the boy was blatantly ignoring in favor of another.

Until he wasn’t anymore.

Pain seared through Harry’s body, hot as he felt the bones in his arm breaking from the Bludger’s hit. Even as his vision blurred and began to swim before his eyes, the wizard still didn’t scream, biting it back even  as the older Gryffindor did so when dodging the thing, the foreign magic that had been weaved into the ball now gone as it acted as it should once more and sought to dismount as many players as it could instead of just the one.

There was an outcry from somewhere in the crowd, something angry and frightened too - a voice that he knew and wished that the other had never sounded like that, especially not because of him - but Harry ignored it in favor of raising his good arm and catching the Golden Snitch between his thin fingers. The object fluttered in his grasp, desperate to be free once more as Harry glided to the ground, rain cascading around him. 

The world tilted as his feet hit the earth and the last thing that the boy remembered was a too bright smile and a spell that he tried to shake off before it could touch him, but didn’t quite have the energy to do so after the magic that he had used before.

“ No .”

—-

When Harry woke once more it was to the hazy feeling of his body being moved, lifted up onto some sort of stretcher as the rain continued to kiss his skin. Somewhere the boy could hear the fading voice of Lockhart stammering about some sort of tricky spell, his voice stuttering in the way that it does when he pretends to know more than the wizard truly does. Harry tried to push himself onto his side to see why, but he couldn’t make his arm move to hold up the weight.

“Oh.”

“ Oh ?” A new voice asked, this one much closer as they moved. “How eloquent, Mr. Potter.”

Harry would have flinched at the use of his last name - something that he’d noticed that the Professor hardly used at all unless he was angered with the younger snake, or they were in class, usually choosing not to call Harry by anything at all if he could - but he found that he didn’t have the energy to do so.

Elf magic is a bitch.

“I thought that you were done acting like a foolish Gryffindor,” the potions master said coldly, his voice teetering in a way that made Harry want to get as far away from the other as he could.

“I didn’t act like a Gryffindor, sir,” the boy said almost defiantly, remembering how the Weasley twins had reacted to his plan and knew that his words were true - Gryffindors wouldn’t have done what he had. “I only did what was needed to win the match. It was a calculated risk.”

Harry had known going back into the match from the break that if he let the Bludger touch him then he could undo the magic that was so messily woven into the equipment. He hadn’t expected to break anything in the process, or for the magic to feel as familiar as it had. But the snake knew that he couldn’t explain such a thing to the older Slytherin, not without revealing more than he wanted the man to know. For now at the least.

The younger Slytherin could have sworn that he heard the potions Professor mutter something that sounded like ‘ brat ’ but it was covered up by the sound of shoes hitting against stone as Snape moved through the halls.

Snape lowered the conjured stretcher down onto one of the beds farthest from the door, sure that at least one or two of his snake would try and make it to the boy’s side, knowing that the boy wouldn’t have wanted them to see him in such a weak way.

Brat .

Poppy moved quickly to the boy’s side, tsking noises falling from the witch's lips at the sight of the Slytherin’s arm hanging in such an unnatural way.

“He should have been brought straight to me, Severus,” the older witch scolded the younger professor as she moved to retrieve the Skele Gro from the cabinet. Neither said anything about how the boy was watching the mediwitch as if she was some sort of demon made to haunt him alone. “I can mend bones in a heartbeat, but growing them back is another story.”

“I tried to bring him to you, but that excuse of a Defense professor got to him first,” the potions master says honestly with an annoyed cross of his arms as he followed the witch back to the boy. They both knew that Lockhart was little more than a teaching hazard.

“It’ll be easier on you, Potter,” the witch started, her voice stern but much softer in comparison as she spoke now, “if we take a look at your arm now before regrowing the bones, so let’s get the gloves and outer robes off.”

It was a command, clear and simple, but Snape was still surprised when the boy shook his head. “ No,” the snake said firmly, and the Professor would have gotten angry had he not seen the inexplicable fear hidden behind the younger's too thin mask, green eyes that somehow looked even more broken than they had at the end of the year.

Poppy started saying something, but Snape didn’t wait to coax the child into action, vanishing the outer layers and gloves with a clean flick of his wand and sending them back to the Slytherin changing room.

No one spoke for a long moment, the silence hanging heavily in the air in a way that Harry almost thought he could cut with a blade should he wish to.

There was bruising on his arm from where the Bludger had hit the snake, a deep purple mark that spanned across what should have been a thin arm with fragile bones, but that wasn’t what commanded the attention of the three within the room.

Scars laced the boy’s arms, old ones that the Professor had known of before, thick scars on arms from cooking and thin scars from knives, both kitchen and not. Two deep scars - one on each arm - only as old as the summer holidays that spawned from wrist to elbow, deep enough to kill.

It was a miracle that the child was alive, the adults thought as Madam Pomfrey gasped and Snape hid his anger behind his Slytherin mask - not well enough for Harry not to see it.

They thought that it was a miracle, but Harry knew that it was the magic within him. Three sources brought together with the common goal to keep the boy alive. One source taking control of the other two.

The bruise balm was applied wordlessly after that by the mediwitch, the professor sitting wordlessly in the chair beside the bed to wait until Madam Pomfrey was done.

The potions master had no idea what could have driven the boy to such a thing; and he had more ideas than he wanted to. It hadn’t alluded the man’s keen eyes the way that the boy had been acting within the Great Hall and how he no longer partnered with Malfoy in class, but Ms. Bulstrode instead despite the pair never having been close before.

The Slytherin watched as Madam Pomfrey walked away, leaving behind the skele gro dose for the younger to take after the conversation that was due between the pair. Harry had never wanted the witch to come back more.

Pulling his good arm to his stomach, the younger snake glanced out the window, his skin itching as the older scars were laid bare for the potions master to see.

“I take it these are why you refused to go to Madam Pomfrey last year,” Snake concluded aloud as he watched the younger Slytherin stare at the storming sky with a hard gaze. “Mr. Potter,” the man tried once more, only to be met with the picture of an unmoving boy. “ Harry .”

The two snakes looked at one another, green eyes meeting dark ones, and yet it was the emerald ones that looked cold. “Low blow, Professor,” the boy said stonily, but he didn’t look away.

Snape knew that it was.

“Why…?” The man started, his voice trailing off in a way he hadn’t expected it to. 

It had been a while since he’d been in a position such as this, he had been a much colder man back then; or maybe he had been the same man as he is now, but it was the boy before him that brought out such a change. The boy whose favorite sweet was Treacle Tart and drink is Pumpkin Juice. Who had Potter’s looks, Lily’s eyes and yet acts more and more like another boy that he had known. The boy that he hated to watch play Quidditch because of stunts like what landed him in here.

The boy that he had grown entirely too attached to.

The one that he had sworn to protect.

If Harry had been kinder he would have finished the sentence for his Head of House. Harry was not a kind a boy.

“Why what?” The boy asked, the meaning clear to them both:

If I must be asked of it, you must speak it.

Snape wasn’t startled by the boy’s harshness as a lion might have been, nor did he make any more attempts to tiptoe around the issue as a badger might. They were snakes after all, cold and precise. 

“Why did you try to kill yourself?”

The boy’s gaze doesn’t change at all, it is just as devoid of anything as it had been since September, but the question seems to make the effect show more, unable to be ignored as so many had willfully done so till now. Harry knows this of course, he’d spent his whole life refusing to blend into the background and disappear to make other ‘comfortable’

And nothing, the younger Slytherin knew, was more uncomfortable than the truth.

“I made some friends over the summer,” the boy explains, his eyes not looking away but still seemingly seeing something else entirely. “We were almost inseparable - the five of us - always causing mischief,” the child explains, not knowing of his word’s effect on the older snake. “Where one went, another would always follow.

“Henry and I would go out to this field,” Harry continues, knowing that it wasn’t his field - the one that he had shared with Jude - but another. “He taught me how to shoot a gun that he had nicked from someone before we met. I had good aim too from all of the spell work done here,” the boy says almost proudly, blatantly ignoring the horror on his professor’s face that the man wasn't bothering to mask. Snape knew that no one with Potter genes should be allowed near a firearm, Harry might have agreed had the man voiced his opinion.

The damage was already done though.

“He was bigger than me and stronger than me,” the younger snake says, his voice losing any humor that it might have gained as he picks at the sheets of the infirmary bed, “and I’ve always been taught that fighting back would only make things worse in the muggle world… magic or nor…”

Especially with magic.

He was bigger than me, and stronger than me, and I froze, Harry thinks to himself, the last word filled with more venom than any actual swear might have. 

He was bigger than me, and stronger than me, and more drunk than I had ever been, and he had reveled in taking a known killer.

There was a sick look in the professor's eyes that tells the boy that the man understood what he was alluding to without him having to fully voice it. Harry was fine with being a coward when he could.

“I killed him the next day,” Harry admits softly, not ashamed or the fact as he figured he should be, not caring that he wasn’t either. “Shot him straight through the head with the same gun he taught me how to use.”

The boy could remember dragging himself to the rest of the Plutos bruised and bloodied, Jude looking murderous as the older boy had cleaned the blood from the younger’s too thin frame, the only person that Harry would let touch him. The only person that he was sure would not hurt him.

No one had been surprised when Henry hadn’t come the next day, his death whispered through the seedier parts of London.

The four mourned him at the funeral that followed; mourned the teen that they had known and not the drunken monster that they had buried.

And though he hates himself for it, the Professor thinks of another group of friends - four instead of five - and a betrayal that had ended in death. He wonders if it was Potter luck, or maybe just something entirely belonging to the boy before him who had suffered the consequences of both.

“Even after his death I still felt unclean.”

“So you tried to kill yourself.”

“So I tried to kill myself.”

They spoke simply, matter - of - factly, in a manner that didn’t match the conversation at hand.

Snape knew that he should ask if the boy had tried anything else since the start of term but that then he remembered why they were in the infirmary in the first place - the Quidditch match where the child had let himself be hit by the hexed Bludger so that he could catch the snitch, uncaring of how he would be hurt. In the magical world there were a lot of ways to hurt oneself without it being obvious to others.

The Professor didn’t even want to think about the Bludger that had been tampered with, or what hex could have done it that a standard counter spell didn’t work. That was an issue for another day.

“I won’t take your knife from you,” the Professor decides at last after a long stretch of time that wasn’t exactly uncomfortable, but more tired in nature - resigned almost. Ashamed . “But, I’ll only allow you to keep it under the intention that you come to me should you feel the urge to use it for more than self defense.”

For more than duels, they both knew he meant.

“Don’t worry, Professor,” the boy said with a smile that rang false to the potions master - something wrong and forced, “I have my own promises to keep.”

Snape knew that those promises were likely to the other friends that the boy had made over the summer holiday, he didn’t want to think of what chaos the boy was getting into - what other pain he was nigh to be subjected to -  for as long as Dumbledore refused to step in or even reveal why he wouldn’t.

“Alright then.”

Had the Professor remembered that the foolish boy before him was as manipulative and scheming as the rest of his house, he would have known that the younger Slytherin wouldn’t stay idle for long. Instead the boy only took the Skele Gro as the Slytherin Head of House got up to leave with a quiet promise to inform the child’s friends that were undoubtedly waiting in the hall that they could visit in the morning. 

Harry almost felt guilty about his schemes as the man left him with a too soft look in his eyes that was much more vulnerable than he surely knew it to be, but he was a Slytherin and guilt for such things was for lions.

—-

Pain woke the boy up hours later, strong shocks of it running up and down his arm as the bones were in the middle of regrowing. It was with a horrid shock that the Slytherin realized that the pain wasn’t the reason for his newfound conciseness at all.

There was someone running a water cooled cloth against his forehead. Something .

“ Dobby !” Harry said the name like a curse as he pushed himself away from the creature, biting down the way that pain racked his body at the sudden action.

The elf’s eyes didn’t flash with fear as the boy had almost hoped that they would at being found out, but rather filled with tears for some strange reason that the Slytherin was sure to hate.

“Harry Potter came back to school,” the elf whispered in a miserable little voice as a tear ran down the creature's face. “Dobby warned him, but Sir didn’t listen. Ah sir, why didn’t you listen to Dobby?” The elf asked, his voice growing more and more bothered by the moment. “Sir said he would listen!”

“I’m a Slytherin, Dobby,” the wizard reminded the house elf coolly as he pushed the creature’s approaching hand away more harshly than he knew he needed to. “We lie, it’s what we do.”

The elf’s feature contorted strangely with confusion, as if he had known this particular trait before but thought the boy too good to employ it. Thought him above it. It was a pity, as the snake knew that he wasn’t good at all; not like Hermione who has never broken a school rule just for the hell of it, and certainly not like Luna with her kind smiles that have only known death by association, not causation.

“Harry Potter must go home!” The house elf pressed on as his shock cleared and determination set in once more. “Dobby thought his Bludger would-”

“ Your Bludger,” Harry said, cutting the elf off as his anger rose but voice stayed even. “You were the one that tried to mangle me?” He asked, seemingly surprised even though he had already figured as much. Harry just wanted to know why .

“Yes,” Dobby admitted almost fearfully as he seemed to see something that he hadn’t wanted to in the boy, a coldness that shouldn't exist in someone so young. “Dobby only wanted Harry Potter hurt enough to be sent home!”

Home , Harry wanted to scoff at the word but didn’t.

“Well I suppose it’s okay so long as it was only that much,” the boy snarled, knowing perfectly well that the elf hadn’t been attempting to kill him. That didn’t help calm him though, not when he was spending a night in pain and sick from the magic of the main castle. “I don’t suppose you’re planning on telling me the particulars of why you sought to land me in the Hospital Wing and send me home?”

“Ah, if Harry Potter only knew,” the elf bemoaned as more tears fell freely down the creature’s face. Harry wanted to snap and tell the elf that he would know if Dobby would only tell him, but the creature was already speaking once more. “If he only knew what he meant to us, to the lowly, the enslaved, the absolute dregs of the magical world.”

Harry listened as the elf droned on for a long moment, uncaring of the respect that he had unwillingly incurred when he was an infant, too young to remember much more of that night than a flash of green light and a cruel laugh that haunted the boy at night even all these years later. One thing did stick out to the snake though.

“Are you saying that the Chamber had been opened before ?” The Slytherin boy asked, but the elf only shook. “ Tell me, Dobby!” The boy commanded with a growl, pain and sickness shooting through his body in a horrible dance.

But the house elf only began to stammer pleas for the boy to go home, useless things that did the Slytherin no good.

“Who is it, Dobby?” The boy asked once more. “Who was it?”

Harry felt it as Dobby froze, the sickening approach of light magic and an unbothering source of gray. The boy slumped back into the bed as the house elf disappeared with a loud crack and a panicked look in its too large eyes.

He had just become situated once more when the Headmaster backed into the infirmary carrying what looked to be one end of a statue as Professor McGonagall followed a moment later carrying the other. The pair heaved it onto the bed before the Deputy Headmistress was ordered to retrieve the mediwitch, hurrying past Harry’s bed to do so.

“What happened?” Madam Pomfrey asked, her whisper raised by panic as she hurried over to Dumbledore and leaned over the bed where the statue - the petrified student, he knew - was laid on.

“Another attack,” Dumbledore said as if it wasn't obvious from the start, not even a Petrificus Totalus looked quite like this from what the boy could see. “Minerva found him on the stairs.”

Harry watched with half lidded eyes from his bed as the professor shifted, giving the boy a better view of the petrified student; a Gryffindor first year if he wasn’t mistaken. One holding a muggle camera up to his face. He could remember seeing the boy in the halls with the thing from time - to - time since the opening feast, Quidditch practice too, but the boy had been beyond harmless and Harry wasn’t known for fighting eleven year olds that could probably only do a shaky levitation charm at the best, not when the snake himself was a magically gifted as he was.

He would still punch the git though if he got too close.

“Yes,” the Gryffindor Head of House confirmed, vanquishing any doubts that the attack on Mrs. Norris could have been some ill advised prank. “But I shudder to think… if Albus hadn’t been on the way down-”

Harry watched as the three removed the camera from the boy’s hands, smoke rising from it, the insides melted, but he didn’t care about that. The Slytherin wanted to know why the Headmaster was actually downstairs around the infirmary at such an hour of the night at all, because he didn’t believe it was truly for hot chocolate.

He wanted to know why the man did a lot of things.

“What does this mean , Albus?” McGonagall asked, her voice strained in a way that said that she already knew but didn’t wish for it to be the truth.

“It means that the Chamber of Secrets has indeed been opened once more.”

“But, Albus… surely who?” The lion pressed.

Harry didn’t think that he was imagining the way that the Headmaster’s eyes seemed to wander over to him, an accusation in them for a crime that the boy hadn’t committed.

“The question is not who ,” the Headmaster said surely, “but how .” 

The wizard's voice was as cold as his eyes, like a man being haunted by a ghost that only he knew. Harry would vanquish it if he only knew how, but between the cold look now and the way that Dumbledore had so unquestioningly known he’d killed Quirrell only last year without ever having a body to find, the boy didn’t think that there was much that he could do.

If Dumbledore had paid attention he would have known that the boy would never hurt muggle borns, would have known his opinion on magic from the start as Draco had, and his protection of others as Hermione now did. But he didn’t, so he saw only a monster with the face of a boy instead.

Harry would always be a ghost to Dumbledore, and he would always hate the older man for the role that he had played in making him one.

Chapter Text

When Harry woke the morning after the game, it was to the bright winter sunlight pouring in through the window and a soft melody that he didn’t recognize being hummed at his side. When he turned to look, the beginnings of panic gripping at his heart, Harry immediately shook his head fondly at the sight of a girl with long blond hair with loose curls and an odd assortment of braids in it reading her father’s paper upside down.

“Hello, Harry,” Luna greeted, her voice just as airy as it had been that last time that they had met, but lacking the grief that she had held then. Or maybe Harry was just the one that was without it now, because the other’s tone sounded slightly more despondent than he thought it ought to, than he ever wanted it to.

“Luna,” the Slytherin greeted kindly, always softest where the young Ravenclaw was concerned, not because he thought that he had to be, but because he knew that he could be. Around Luna he could be a kinder version of himself, one that might have lived had he not grown up in the house that he did. He also knew that she wouldn’t shy away from the darkness inside of him, not when there was a wildness within her.

Madam Pomfrey bustled into the room with a breakfast tray once seeing that Harry was awake, but stopped at the sight of the figure next to him.

“Miss Lovegood, what-” the witch started before seeing just how close the pair were sitting next to one another, the Ravenclaw half laying on the bed as she flipped through s strange newspaper as Mr. Potter pushed himself up next to her. It was a familiar sight from years long past, especially with how the boy had let his hair grow out a little over the summer holidays and had kept it at such length. “There is no point asking you to leave, is there Miss. Lovegood?” The witch asked at last.

Harry watched as Luna smiled so easily that it almost hurt to see as she shook her head. “No, ma’am,” the Ravenclaw girl confirmed airily.

“Of course there isn’t,” the mediwitch said to herself, almost like some sort of curse, but both students could see a certain fondness in the older witch’s eyes, something inexplicably mixed with grief as Madam Pomfrey summoned another breakfast tray with a tired sigh, placing both down before the pair with a soft flick of her wand. “You can leave once you have finished eating, dear.”

The mediwitch had turned before seeing the look that the pair had shared, satisfaction at getting away with something that they knew that they shouldn’t have. She knew that it was there still.

The pair ate quickly, the Ravenclaw laughing sweetly as the Slytherin boy struggled to eat with his left hand, the right still too tender to be of much use. The snake glared at her, but Luna wasn’t someone that Harry could ever truly be angered with, not as she talked about creatures that he had no idea if they were real or not. He indulged her still. 

They may not come from the same magic, but each of theirs was torn in a way that only the other could understand.

“Do you think your friends would mind if I took you for the day?” The first year asked. Her voice wasn’t sweet, just as dreamy and airy as ever, but Harry felt inclined to believe that she  knew exactly how his friends would react - no stone left unturned within the castle.

The magic whispered to her that his assumptions would come true, but it also told that this was a necessary action to take now. One that the Slytherins would thank her for if they were to know what change it would cause - they would, just not that she was the one behind it. 

“I think that they could stand my absence for at least a few hours,” the boy answered, neither here nor there in his response.

It was good enough.

Luna smiled and left him to get dressed in the clothes that one of his dorm mates - Zabini , they both knew though for much different reasons - had brought the night before for the snake to change into: baggy muggle jeans from Thomas and a comfortable sweater that Harry had nicked from Alex after he had started wearing sleeves even in the summer.

When the pair left the infirmary, Harry felt that he could finally stand to be in his own skin once more, even as the sickness lingered, a startling contrast to find.

“Most healing spells have roots in light magic,” Luna explained almost conversationally to a question that the boy hadn’t even asked. “Even if they’re considered gray, the effect does seem to linger.

Magic beautifully broken in the same way.

“It does,” he agreed, silently determining then to never go to the Hospital wing again for more than basic potions if he could help it. Muggle stitches would be better.

“Though I’m sure that there are some in the opposite side of the spectrum,” the Ravenclaw girl added with an unbothered shrug.

Harry nodded. “I’m sure you’re right.”

She usually was.

Neither knew how they ended up there, limbs moving as if on their own, but soon Harry was pacing before a particular tapestry on the seventh floor of the school, a door appearing where there hadn’t been one before - neither was surprised at all.

The strange pair basked in the warmth of the field, the winter chill outside of the castle fading away from their skin as Luna let Harry lead them to a particular spot in the tall grass, the pair sitting down in it as if they had done so a thousand times before - he had, but Luna’s grass was much taller outside of her home, going up to the girl’s hips. Something that you could lay down in and never be found. A world of her own. 

She found that she didn’t mind this field either, even if it wasn’t hers.

They laid down side by side in the tall grass, sides pressed against one another as Harry whispered the stories of the false stars right above them, Luna going in with the ones that he hadn’t known, though he thought that her version of the stories were a bit different than everyone else’s. The stars shimmered as they spoke of them, the magic of the strange pair reaching out to the conjured room in the same manner as the branches of the trees as the pair walked slowly among them, the limbs kissing at their skin.

He had done this before with another, in the field that this was made from the memory of, but Harry knew that this was different. Things almost always were within the magical world.

“You’re scared of them,” the Ravenclaw girl says matter - of - factly as they walk through the conjured forest. “Terrified that you’ll be hurt by another that you call a friend.”

Harry doesn't question how she knows such a thing, to him and the sickness that lingered within him, it seems almost natural that someone who gazed up at the stars with the same eyes that a centaur might would know such a thing.

“Is it so wrong to be?” The Slytherin boy asks, running his fingers subconsciously down the long scars tracing his arms, knowing that they in no way measured the ones that couldn’t be seen so clearly; the ones that marked themselves on his heart and constricted him to this day.

“No,” Luna answers softly, stopping before the other and forcing the boy to look into her eyes, the ones that knew too much - just like his own. “But you know that they won’t.”

And he did know, that belief was the only reason that the others were still as close to him as they are, but it didn’t stop the heart wrenching fear that welled up inside of him each time that one of them moved too closely in the halls, or breathed too loudly at night.

Fear was an irrational thing, but hardly ever unfounded.

“And if they do?” Harry asks because some part of him - the broken part is utterly consumed by fear that it hurts to breathe some days - had to.

Luna only smiles, something sharp with too many teeth, that felt like protection to the boy that has worn such a look before instead of a threat. “Then you hurt them,” she says simply and Harry knew that she would have done well as a snake. “The magic says you won’t need to though,” she adds with a much softer smile and Harry wasn’t surprised to hear that the girl had a peculiar gift - he knew that this was an admission to one - it only made sense, made them more alike as they each possessed powers that they should not.

“The Wrackspurts are beginning to clear,” Luna notices in that airy voice of hers, much less grave than it had been only a moment before, and the Slytherin considers the topic dropped. “That’s good.”

“Wrackspurts?” Harry asks, knowing a lot about magical creatures, but not having heard of this one just yet.

The Ravenclaw girl smiles and talks about creatures that neither knew to be true as they walk through the conjured forest, and Harry couldn’t imagine a life different from this one.

—-

All of the second year Slytherins were already in the Great Hall by the time that the pair slipped in, Luna immediately skipping away to the blue clad table as Harry walked closer to his own. He could tell that the other snakes were staring at him without truly seeming to look up as he approached - a subtly that those in the other three houses lacked - but Harry paid them all, and the whispers that accompanied them, no mind as he took his place between Draco and Blaise.

No one said anything when Harry sat down, not about the choice of seating and how long he had gone without taking it, or even where the boy had been all day, though he could tell that they wanted to. But no one asked, so Harry didn’t say a thing, choosing only to drink his pumpkin juice instead.

Nothing was magically fixed with the action, Harry still didn’t lean into either of the boys as he might once have before to stave off the light magic of the school, and he was still tense every time that one of them moved to suddenly. Nothing was magically fixed in the least, but as Blaise forced food onto Harry’s otherwise empty plate and the other boys talked of Quidditch and the upcoming house matches, he thought that it one day might be okay.

—-

“It seems your boys are over their fight,” McGonagall declared with a pleased smile that still surprised the potions master every time that he saw the witch direct it at the snake that she had all but hated just last year. That she had feared .

Snape looks down at Harry and watches as the boy moves tentatively without the ease that he had held so easily only last year. He knows in a way that McGonagall couldn’t that this was more than just the end of a fight - not that there had been one at all - that it was more than anyone should have to endure.

Harry looks up at the High Table and Snape watches as the boy looks down the line of professors for him. The look in the child’s eyes is almost identical to the one that he had been given at the beginning on the year - a stubborn proclamation of his continued existence- but where that had been a mask before, this one was broken and cracked in all of the ways that it should be for someone healing.

Snape nodded and the boy returned to his plate, letting Zabini put food onto the golden dish with a knowing gaze, and the potions professor was proud.

—-

Suspicion flowed too freely through the castle in the days following the second attack - because it truly could be considered one now - no one could truly look at another without seeing it.  The younger years had taken to traveling in pairs, thinking that they would be safer that way, as the prefects patrolled the halls more than they ever had before.

Harry watched it all happen, watched the way that eyes lingered on him in the halls and whispered conversations came to a sudden stop as he drew near. The boy wasn’t any sort of fool, he knew that his being in the Forbidden Forest during the first attack and the Hospital Wing during the second was too much of a coincidence for most - honestly he had begun to wonder once more in earnest if it was a coincidence at all, but a frame job instead - even some of the professors gave the boy wary looks in class.

The only house that stood fast in their belief that Harry wasn’t the bloody Heir of Slytherin was Slytherin house itself. 

The snakes knew how brutal the boy could be when he wished to - a trait that would have fit the Heir well - but also how undeniably muggle he acted as well. Harry carried around a muggle knife and wore battered combat boots and too ripped clothes on the weekends instead of wizarding robes. He talked about muggle inventions with Tracey and Theo and music with the Weasley twins now that they were all speaking in earnest once more. And how he refused to use quills in the common room, but used pens instead, glaring at anyone who said anything about it; hexing those foolish enough to say it more than once.

Slytherin house knew that someone like that would never open the Chamber of Secrets , especially not with his friendship with Granger - no matter how strained it may be at times  - which was disappointing to those who had possessed the fleeting hope that the boy might be someone to rally behind after seeing how effortlessly he had cast one of the Unforgivables. But Harry was only twelve, they could wait to see what time would make of him.

Their own surety of who it wasn’t didn’t stop the snakes from guessing as to who it was though.

“My father is not the Heir of Slytherin !”

At Draco’s shrill shriek, Harry glanced up from his book on runes, sliding a bookmark into place as he settled in for what was bound to be a good show.

All of the Slytherin second years - sans Draco, who had gone to ask an older year a question that they couldn’t get a straight answer on from the book - were gathered around the couches and chairs before the fire. The dungeons had grown cold enough once more with the approaching holidays that you could see your own breath when traveling beneath the school. Warming charms were cast around the room, but nothing beat an actual flame when there was one.

Blaise raised a brow at Harry, but the boy only shrugged and stood with interest, the others following suit as well. Anything that could make Draco flare in indignation like one of his father’s peacocks was interesting enough to look into.

There was a huddle of bodies around one of the center study tables in the common room, each of them bent around some long stretch of parchment. Draco stood on the outside of that group, his hands on his hips as he glared at some of the older years. Harry saw Flint snickering off to the side and knew that whatever this was, no one else was truly taking it seriously. The assumption was further confirmed once he saw the open bottle of Firewhiskey sitting next to the seventh year who was holding the quill.

“You’re right,” the seventh year agreed, a slight slur in her words. “He would have passed the secret down to you ~ so you would be the Heir of Slytherin!”

There were drunken giggles from most of the older students there, enough that they all missed the way that Draco looked at Harry with fear clear in his eyes. They had already spoken about what Harry would do if he were to find out they one of the Slytherins truly was running around playing Heir, and the youngest Malfoy was in the peculiar position of knowing the power that the smallest Slytherin held; power that could kill too easily and the body never be found should Harry wish it to.

But Harry didn’t think that it was Draco and only waved the blond’s concerns off. The boy moved closer to the parchment instead, pushing his way through the drunken crowd to get a good look at it.

The handwriting was smeared, only getting more and more ineligible as it went on, but one name stuck out among the others. One that almost seemed… probable:

“Percy Weasley?” Harry asked almost innocently, bordering on rude, not giving away his full interest. Even drunken Slytherins were still snakes, and nothing was free if they thought that they could get a good price for it. “Why him?”

It was well known within Hogwarts that the Weasleys were some of the most accepting witches and wizards in the British wizarding world - so long as it was nothing that they considered dark - even though they’re purebloods. Harry didn't know why the other Slytherins would suspect - even as a joke - that a teen of that family, who is on the short list to become Head boy in his seventh year, would be the Heir of Slytherin. Especially when his family had been In Gryffindor for so long that no one could name another house that one of them had belonged to.

“Rumor has it that dear Percy is something of a black sheep within his family,” Gemma informed with a conspiratorial wink that Harry didn’t know if  it was from the alcohol or not. He almost thought not, an assumption that eased the tenseness of the snake’s shoulder and the tightness of his grip on the blade in his pocket.

Harry could stand drunken teens - he could - but that didn’t mean that he was comfortable around them, his mind still held the scars of the last one who had gotten too close to the boy. His arms did too.

“Then there’s the rumors that he was almost sorted into Slytherin himself.”

Harry turned with a raised brow to Warrington, watching as the older teen carefully spoke. It seemed that most of the tension placed on him by the rest of the house for the previous year’s opening night duels had lessened as a new snake took his previous place in ostracization. Harry would have sneered at him for having the foolishness to speak had he not noticed the way that the teen held onto his wand with a white knuckle grip, and had the information that he brought not proved interesting enough to excuse the indiscretion. 

“Oh?” Harry asked and Blaise couldn’t help but smirk at how easily the fifth year was playing into his friend’s hands, so eager to be forgiven. He loved that he knew that the smaller snake was doing it intentionally too.

The fifth year nodded. “He asked to be put in Gryffindor like the rest of his family and the Hat listened,” the teen explained.

Humming with the smallest gleam of pleasure in his green eyes, Harry gave a sharp turn on his heel, stopping only to grab his book on the way to the second year boys dorms. Though the boy never gave a command - verbal or otherwise - for the other Slytherin boys to follow, Draco and Blaise did so without question.

“Percy Weasley?” Blaise asked as the three walked into the room, settling around his bed as Harry’s curtains were still as firmly drawn as ever and Draco was too much a drama queen to give up his own space, even temporarily.

Harry shrugged, but Blaise saw the way that the other boy’s fingers thrummed on top of the comforter as he sat on the edge of the bed - an improvement still - it meant that Harry was giving the topic serious thought. Plotting how to confirm its likeness even.

Nights like these made Blaise wonder how the world could have ever thought for so long that the boy beside him would be anything but a snake.

“You’ve lost the plot if you think a Weasley could be the Heir of Slytherin,” Draco scoffed as he leaned against the bed post, armed cross like a child - like defiance. Both Blaise and Harry knew that this was more about the Malfoy - Weasley feud than the issue at hand, and treated it as such.

“I think I can see the plot well enough,” Harry decided before looking at the other two boys fully. “You heard them, Percy is the black sheep of the family, a potential Slytherin at that,” the boy reminded them. “And what would be the opposite of the most accepting and welcoming family in magical Britain?”

“A two - bit bigot,” Blaise guessed as he snuck a glance at Draco, who had gotten better since the start of last year, but still had the tendency to get unnecessarily angry when Granger got better marks than him in class, even as the blond refused to study, much to Theo’s continued dismay.

“ Exactly ,” Harry answers, aware of the tension between the pair and steadfastly ignoring it. There was a long moment of silence before a slow smirk crept onto the smallest boy’s lips, immediately bringing fear to the other two. It was the same look that the snake got before casting a particularly nasty hex when others were being too loud while he was trying to study, or before he used a bit of his sort of magic. “You know, I heard that the Weasel is staying for the holidays again,” Harry starts, almost casually. “What do you think the likelihood is that the rest of the Weasley clan are too?”

Blaise smiles as Draco visibly deflates.

“You’re not seriously thinking about us spending Yule here, are you?” The blond boy asks, and for a moment Harry wonders what it would be like to have someone that he wanted to go home to, someone to miss that truly - he did in a way, was reminded of it each time that he saw the conjured stars, but Harry knew that it wasn’t the same, at least not entirely.

“I’ll be staying,” Harry decides then, “you lot can go home for the holidays,” the boy says with a dismissive wave of his hand as he pushes himself to his feet.

Draco smiles brightly and leaves the dorm at the clear dismissal, but Blaise remains where he was and watches silently as the other pulls out the sketchbook that Harry had been so lost in since the summer holidays.

“Yes Blaise?” Harry asks in a way that was almost teasing, but they both knew that it wasn’t.

“Just wondering if you wouldn’t fancy some company over the holidays is all,” the Slytherin boy explains with a shrug. It wasn’t a lie, not truly, he had been intending to ask Harry home for the winter holidays for a while now, but things had been so unsteady that he didn’t want to spook the other boy away like some sort of stray.

Harry hums, something low and haunted in a way that it hadn’t been before the end of first year, but likely always would be now. “I suppose it wouldn’t be the worst thing,” the wizard answers, remembering the lonely hours spent wandering the castle alone the year before. Though he had learned and discovered enough then, it wasn’t truly something that he wanted to repeat.

Harry looked across the room at the empty bed before sliding into his own, suspicions filling the boy’s mind that would only be answered with the patience of a snake.

Yes , he knew, there were much worse things.

Chapter Text

The winter holidays were drawing close when Harry walked into the common room one morning to see a small mass of Slytherins gathered at the notice board. The boy raised a brow at the girl as Pansy slipped away from it and glided over to where Harry had taken a seat by the large glass walls, watching the Grindylows swim peacefully by with a sort of calm that he yearned to have within the sea.

“They’re starting a Dueling Club,” Pansy said as she took the seat across from the scarred boy, leaving the ones on either side of the other snake for the two boys likely to walk down the stairs any moment now. “The first meeting is tonight.”

“And you, who loves watching people fail at dueling almost as much as I do, sound less than impressed,” the boy noticed easily. “Why?” He asked as he pulled his knees to his chest with a shiver before casting a silent warming charm over them both.

The other Slytherin bit her lip in thought, a habit that she shared with Harry himself and that the boy only did when refraining from saying something that he knew that he shouldn’t - mostly in Defense Against the Dark Arts.

“They haven’t announced the Professor overseeing it,” the girl said slowly, as if not wanting to voice her own thoughts out of fear of them becoming true, “but dueling is defensive magic…”

Harry bit back a groan as the other snake trailed off, yes he could see perfectly well where the girl’s lack of enthusiasm had come from.

That didn’t mean that they weren’t all still going.

At eight that night the ten second year Slytherins walked up to the Great Hall from the dungeons and stood with some of the older snakes at one end of the long stage that had been brought down just for this. 

Those from Slytherin house that had decided to come all wore polite masks of disinterest as Lockhart walked onto the stage, blatantly ignoring the swoons from the girls of the other three houses that still believed the fraud to be some sort of great wizard instead of an admirable con artist. Truly, his cunning and the inevitability of the man being removed in some fashion before the end of the year was the only reason that no one within the house had complained to the parents yet about his appointment.

Most of the snakes felt as though this was a waste of time filled with lessons that they could have easily learned in house on a dueling night, so many Slytherins only showed up because of the man following Lockhart onto the pompous stage.

They were waiting for a show.

“Let me introduce to you my assistant, professor Snape,” Lockhart announced with a too wide smile and a sweep of his arm, seemingly having forgotten that everyone present had been taught by the potions master for at least until sixth year when potions as a class can then be dropped. Harry couldn't understand how Hermione still thought that he was some sort of hero. “He’s told me that he knows some about dueling and had humbly agreed to participate in this demonstration before we go into smaller groups. Now, I don’t want any of you to worry, you will still have your potions master when I’m done with him!”

The snakes snickered as they looked to their Head of House and knew that it was much more likely that Hogwarts would be in the market for a new Defense Professor than a potions master after this. Not that Harry thought it would come to that, Slytherins - especially older ones - did not so easily show their cards before they played them. 

Harry watched as the dueling pair moved with much more formality than their house fuels ever held, the need for a fight always overwhelming their adherence to the bowing that  Lockhart had done - Snape only going as far as to incline his head, more respect that Harry would have given the blond - before both professors raised their wands to one another.

“As you can see,” Lockhart started and Harry saw Draco preemptively roll his eyes, “we are holding our wands out in an accepted combative position. On the count of three, we will each cast our first spells,” the man explained. “Non lethal of course, as neither of us will be aiming to kill.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Harry muttered as he watched his Head of House glare at the current Defense Professor the way that he might at one of Neville’s potions. Blaise smirked and Harry ignored the pleasure that brought him from bringing out a reaction from the usually stoic boy. It wouldn’t do him any good to dwell on it.

The snakes watched as Lockhart counted down to one, the last number hardly even leaving his lips before the Professor had been struck by a disarming charm. A blaze of scarlet light crashed into the blond professor, knocking the man off of his feet and into the wall far behind where the pair had started. Harry looked to Malfoy as the two boys cheered as if they were at a muggle sporting event, hollering without a care as some of the other Slytherins joined in.

“Do you think he’s alright?” Hermione asked with a worried voice as the second year Ravenclaw made her way over to the snakes in her year.

“I hope not,” Harry said callously, still slightly peeved with the Ravenclaw girl, angered that she hadn’t even yet realized what had made him so mad with her in the first place.

Harry took a quick glance around the crowd and was unsurprised to find that Luna wasn’t there. The first year didn’t really much like other people, not when all most did was call her names.

Lockhart got to his feet as a Gryffindor handed him his wand.

“Thank you, Miss Brown,” the Professor said and Harry was pleased to see that the man’s smile was strained. “An excellent idea to show them that, Professor Snape, but I must say that it was pretty obvious as to what you were about to do. It would have been all too easy to stop you had I wanted to…”

Harry stopped listening then as Lockhart attempted to rectify his blunder, choosing to turn his mind to the homework he had waiting for him back in the dorms instead and sinking back in the Slytherin’s protective hold as the sickness increased the longer that he remained in the main part of the castle. Anything was better than listening to Lockhart anymore than he had to usually in class - not that he did much of that either.

Harry only started paying attention once more as the pair of professors moved among the students and began to split them up into groups of two. The scarred boy immediately moved towards Blaise, knowing that Snape would put them together if he did so, but was stopped by an obnoxious laugh.

“I don’t think so,” Lockhart said with a grin that made the Slytherin want to knock the older wizard’s teeth in until he looked like an elementary school boy losing his first tooth. “Potter, you go with Weasley. Zabini with Malfoy.”

The redhead and black haired boys both scowled at one another and their Professor as the pair moved farther from the stage to face one another, wands in hand. Neither particularly wanted to spend time in the other’s company, but Harry didn’t bother to suppress that small thrill that rose up within him at the promise of  beating the youngest Weasley brother in a proper duel. He had been itching for a good fight since the beginning of term.

“Face your partners and bow!” The current defense professor called out cheerily. The weasel and the snake both grimaced, doing little more than incline their heads to one another. “Wands at the ready! Aim to disarm your opponents only.

“One - two-”

Harry felt the magic thick on his tongue, pulling at the air as he pointed his wand at the other boy, the magic already soaring at the lion before the Professor had even reached three. The Gryffindor was sent flying back as a silver stream of light hit the boy, but the snake didn’t relent or wait for his prey to stand, and only continued the onslaught of spells, dodging the Weasel’s when the other had the mind to make them.

“I said disarm only!”

Harry aimed a stinging jinx at the other boy as he twisted to the side to avoid Weasley's own spell, and watched as it hit Weasley’s wrist, causing the Gryffindor to drop his wand from the shock of pain.

“I disarmed him,” the Slytherin said with a shrug, ignoring the way his Head of House glared and the rest of the room was staring. Ignoring the whispers that arose as the other duels had slowed enough to watch them.

“That you did,” the potions master sneered, his eyes cold in the same way that they were when Harry did something brash - something too Gryffindor for the older snake’s taste. Somehow the boy thought that this counted. “How about we teach them first how to block unfriendly spells?” Snape asked the other professor with one last hard glare at the Slytherin seeker.

Harry wasn’t surprised in the least when the older Slytherin beckoned for him to follow to Snape’s office once the club had been dismissed for the night. The boy hadn't even sat down fully in the chair in front of the professor’s desk before the potions master had begun to speak.

“What in Merlin’s name were you thinking with that stunt back there?” The Professor asked, his voice cold in a way that was almost worse than any amount of yelling could be. Almost.

“I was thinking I was trying to disarm Weasley,” the boy said back immediately.

Harry didn’t say how he had been restless for months now, itching for some sort of fight, some way to release the energy within him. That duels with drunken Slytherins during house parties weren’t enough of a challenge. That no matter how many he beat or what Harry did to hide, he still felt as helpless as a small child, so when there was an opportunity to fight in such a public way that would keep the other houses at bay, he took it.

He didn’t say it, but Snape still saw it in the boy’s broken gaze. He didn’t need to be able to read the child’s mind to understand the look in the boy’s eyes. Not when he had seen it in his own before.

“Most of the school already believes you to be the Heir of Slytherin,” the professor explained, his voice losing its bite, “they may not act on it, but they do.”

“It’s idiotic that they believe that,” the boy grumbled and Snape sighed, silently agreeing with the child.

“Be that as it may,” the potions master continued, “you cannot be so reckless as to show the other houses how easily you can take one of their own in a fight or duel once more, sanctioned or not,” Snape said sternly.

But I was hardly even trying, Harry wanted to protest, but he could see the logic in such restraint. It was of the same sort that told him to keep quiet about how much control over his magic he truly possessed. The same sort that told him to keep some of his other talents to himself until he needed to show them.

Humans are perfectly ration creatures, but Harry knew that lose all that when frightened. The other three houses were only staring now - staring and whispering in the halls - there was no telling what they would seek to do should their fears be more thoroughly confirmed. Righteous moves made from fear were deadly ones.

“Alright,” the boy agreed, silently hoping that Percy Weasley did turn out to be the heir so that he could at least do something over the coming break, and hoping that he wasn’t at the same because it would destroy Fred and George. “No more fights.”

No more fights out of house, they both knew that Harry meant. Snakes protect their own after all.

It was as good as Snape was going to get.

—-

When Harry walked into the Slytherin common room, Blaise raised a questing brow at the smaller boy, but Harry only shook his head.

No damage done.

The other boy nodded and Harry took his place at the other Slytherin’s side as Draco leaned forward to grin at him.

“Brilliant dueling there mate,” the blond complimented and the others gave a nod of agreement, though Harry found that his own flush of victory was tampered by the talk that he had just had with Snape.

But the other Slytherins still smiled, they all - Harry included - knew the worth of such displays of power. Even if the current atmosphere of the castle wasn’t exactly conducive for one.

“The Weasel shouldn’t be giving you a hard time again,” Pansy commented as if in agreement to something that had been said before Harry had come into the common room.

“I still would have used Serpensortia ,” the blond boy says almost childishly as he leans back and crosses his arms over his chest as if he was much younger than he currently was.

The other Slytherins definitely looked as if they had heard this comment before.

“Yes, and have everyone believe that he is the Heir of Slytherin even more than they do now?” Theo asks, defensive of the smaller boy, knowing the damage that rumors could cause. “Wonderful idea there, Dray.”

“ Serpensortia ?” Harry asks quickly, cutting off what was sure to be more arguing between the pair if allowed to continue. Pansy shared a knowing look and yet Harry didn’t feel as if he knew exactly the same thing as she did.

“It’s a spell that allows the caster to conjure snakes,” Milley explains once it was clear that Draco would not be doing so, too busy pouting like a drama queen.

Harry turned to the blond, curiosity dulling some of his caution. “Can you speak to snakes?” The scarred boy asked, not understanding any other reason that one would cast such a spell if they couldn’t control its product.

The other Slytherins looked at one another and Harry slowly, as if approaching a wild beast. The boy was reminded then of all of the times that he had been hurt for asking questions before, somehow this didn’t feel so different.

“Are you a Parselmouth, Harry?” Tracey asked calmly, even as her complexion paled the slightest bit.

“A what ?”

No one answered the boy though, the others too consumed in their shock to do much else. A hand grazed the boy’s wrist and Harry didn’t have to look to know whose it was. For the first time in a very long few months, Harry found himself leaning into the other’s touch before Blaise drew it away once more.

“Parselmouths are wizards who can speak to snakes,” Blaise explained softly and Harry didn’t bother to control how he must look, not when they were in the common room, not when it was just them. His friends, his people. “They’re dark wizards, said to be descended from Salazar Slytherin himself.”

Harry’s thoughts collided in his mind like particles in gas, moving fast enough that he almost couldn’t keep track of where one ended and the next one began. He knew that he was dark, and it almost made sense that Salazar Slytherin would be a Parselmouth, given the symbol of their house. But he didn’t know what to think about the other; he almost hoped that he was though. Given Slytherin’s views on muggle borns, Harry - a half - blood, son of a muggle born, raised by muggles - would be the greatest fuck you that he could ever hope to give the long dead man.

The boy hadn't noticed that he was scratching at his wrist until Blaise’s hand reached out once more to still the motion, the touch staying this time instead of pulling away like before. No one said a thing about the display, so Harry didn’t draw attention to it either.

“I’ve only spoken to a snake once before,” Harry said slowly, remembering his Uncle’s anger and the sound of the cupboard- his cupboard - door slamming shut, the locks falling firmly into place. “Set a python on my cousin at the zoo, didn’t I?”

The boy ignored the way that more than one eye went wide at the easy admission. Whether from the conformation of it all, or from what he had done, Harry didn’t know and didn’t particularly care. He wasn’t a good person, no one should expect him to be some sort of saint outside of school.

(They didn’t, the other snakes were just surprised by the easy violence that the boy had admitted to. The coldness in which he spoke of it. The hate of those that shared his blood. The only ones that were truly surprised were those that didn’t know of the things that they boy had done, the blood on his hands that matched the marks on others’)

Harry left them all alone with their surprise as thoughts swam through the boy’s mind, small things that he hadn’t thought mattered before. Things that mattered now more than before.

“It’s a snake,” the boy said suddenly, drawing all of the eyes back to him and effectively ending the whispered conversations from before.

“What is?” Pansy asked, her head turning slightly to the side as dark hair moved in front of her eyes.

“The monster,” Harry answered slowly, but surely. “It’s a snake.”

More than one of the second years looked at the boy, confused as to how he had gotten to this point, but Theo only nodded just as slowly as Harry had spoken.

“Salazar Slytherin was Parselmouth,” Theo reasoned, his thoughts running as wild as Harry’s only a moment before.

“An inherited ability passed from parent to child,” Harry continued, a small smile curving on his lips even as his body felt chilled by more than just the cold air of the common room.

“And if Slytherin wanted a monster that only his descendants could control…” Draco added in, seeing the reasoning of the other two boys just as everyone else in their circle did.

“Then what better than a snake?” Blaise finished, his eyes sliding to one of the myriad of such decorations about the room.

He wasn’t the only one.

“So there’s a magical snake wandering about the castle halls and being controlled by another Parselmouth?” Tracey asked, her arms crossed in consideration even as her voice sounded slightly exasperated.

They were only twelve after all, such things as this should be left up to adults, only the professors of the castle seemed to be too willing to let the attacks continue, possibly hoping to catch the offender in the act.

They were too willing to sit on their asses and follow Dumbledore’s lead.

Harry wasn’t.

“We’re spending the holidays reading through each of our families library sections on magical creatures, aren’t we?” Daphne asked, sounding more than a little despondent. It was understandable. Greengrass has a little sister that she hardly gets to see since starting school. No one had the heart to tell her that they would be doing just that. “We’re spending the entire holiday reading about magical snakes. I should have just gone to Ravenclaw,” the girl grumbled as the other Slytherins laughed.

—-

“Damn it,” Dumbledore cursed as he returned to his office from the Hospital Wing once more, the visage of Justin Finch - Fletchley sharp in the aging man’s mind. Two children now had been attacked - three attacks in all - and Dumbledore knew who did it - had seen the way that the boy moved and smiled, the easy influence that he held over the rest of Slytherin House and even some of other houses, just like another - but had no way to prove such a large accusation.

No legal way at the least , the Headmaster thought, knowing that there were ways, quite a few if he were honest, but none of them that would paint him in a favorable light should they be known after he had used them.

“Albus, we have to do something,” a new voice spoke as McGonagall trailed after the older wizard into the room, the witch visibly shaken by finding yet another of her students petrified at her feet. “This can’t be allowed to continue.”

“You’re right,” the man agreed easily, sitting down into his chair with a grave face that showed his age clearly for once, “but even so, there is no proof against the boy, only speculation,” the man said tiredly.

McGonagall’s brows raised sharply at the way that the Headmaster spoke, as if he knew who the culprit was and was still allowing them to wander the halls. But then she thought of the rumors that had been circling for over a month now, flimsy things built on fear, fights and little more.

“You think that it’s the Potter boy,” she realized aloud, and Dumbledore sighed at the clear disbelief in her voice. He wondered when this had occurred, when McGonagall had been swayed to the boy’s side and had begun to stray from his own, because he knew that regardless of whether or not the boy truly was at fault, they weren’t on the same side and most likely never would be.

“Minerva,” the man starts slowly, trying to keep his composure, “he was absent from the feast during the first attack, the Creevy boy was attacked within walking distance of the Hospital Wing the very same night that he was there-”

“And Mr. Fletchley?” The transfiguration Professor asks coldly, her arms crossed against her chest in a way that could almost be perceived as regal. “As far as I am aware, there wasn’t a single Slytherin second year within the library then,” the witch protested coolly.

The headmaster was still unconvinced, thinking of the invisibility cloak that the boy owned.

“I thought you of all people would stop from jumping to conclusions on circumstantial evidence given the man currently tending to what will become our Christmas trees during the holidays,” the witch pressed, her voice cold as ice as she looked down at the sitting man, almost making him feel small under such a timeless gaze.

Dumbledore sighed through his unease. “What happened with Hagrid was most regrettable,” the man started, but was cut off by a laugh.

“The boy that you are accusing is friends with Hermione Granger,” McGonagall cut in, too used to Dumbledore’s manipulations to be drawn in by them when she didn’t wish to be, “a muggle born, Albus,” she reminded him. “One that gets on remarkably well with the rest of her Slytherin classmates.”

“He is also friends with the Malfoy boy,” the headmaster was quick to retaliate, his voice rising the slightest bit, but was still noted by the witch. “And you and I both know of his family.”

At that, McGonagall scoffed. Yes, she knew of his family, it was hard to forget who you once had fought against in a war. The once promising students you worried about one day having to kill or be killed by should it come down to such a situation. 

“And yet Draco Malfoy is as like his parents as Potter himself is,” the transfiguration professor said, her voice stern as if she were talking to a particularly misbehaving student. The witch thought of all of the times that she had seen the second year snakes and Miss. Granger together- she’d seen them studying together just last week, preparing for the impending exams - the Longbottom boy and Miss. Lovegood with them as well in recent weeks.

Yes, they all seemed so much like their parents, the witch thought with more than a hint of sarcasm. 

But the Headmaster only had a sad look in his eyes that seemed to imply that he pitied her, that he knew something that she did not, but wouldn’t tell the witch either. Sometimes, McGonagall couldn't help but think that it was all of these secrets that had led to the war going as it did before. It surely had helped to shield the older Black brother until it was too late to do a thing about his betrayal that night.

Dumbledore sighed once more as he watched the witch leave, robes fluttering behind her not unlike how they might with Severus when the younger man was in one of his moods. He wasn’t angered with her though, not when he knew that there was no way that professor could know about the possibilities of what might have been created that night. She didn’t know of the power that lay beneath the boy’s skin - not that Dumbledore did to a full extent, not being able to feel it as dark wizards did, but assuming of its existence - or how easily he accepted another's death at his own hands.

She didn’t know of how tainted the boy’s soul was.

Dumbledore thought that he did though. He wasn’t entirely wrong, but the margin of error was enough to turn the boy against him from the start.

Chapter Text

Harry walked close to the other Slytherins in the hall after the double attack on Finch - Fletchley and the ghost, always close to one or another of the snakes, even some of the older years on days with Quidditch practice. The house had enough common sense to know that the boy wasn’t the Heir of Slytherin, though none of the others seemed to. There was hate in the eyes of the rest of the school, enough that the snakes all knew that should Harry go anywhere alone, he would end up on the wrong side of a wand if left alone and it would somehow be Slytherin’s fault.

Snakes protect their own after all.

Even the twins, knowing that the boy wasn’t some raging blood supremacist and unknowing of a certain ability of his, didn’t find the whole thing as terribly amusing as they might have had this happened if Harry were in any other house. The pair of Weasley brothers had taken to glaring at the rest of the school as the other students hissed and pointed as he passed.  No one bothered to explain to professor Sprout why a group of her Hufflepuffs came to potions one day with green hair a day after doing just that to the boy, or why the twins were smiling like the Cheshire Cat when the charm took a week to wear off as both Madam Pomfrey and Professor Snape had ‘no potion to remedy it’ and ‘no time to brew one for such insolent children’ (respectively).

Harry knew that a Finite Incantatem would have done the job just fine. He knew that both the mediwitch and potions master knew this as well. 

Still, Harry never expected for the tactics to work for long.

And they hadn’t.

The second year Slytherins were in the library the day before the Hogwarts Express was due to come pick up the students. With everyone scrambling to pack away all of their things for the winter holidays, the snakes had the entire place to themselves. They thought that it would be safe to let Harry wander among the stacks on his own, looking for more books on ancient runes and how to combine them, while the others read about mythical and magical creatures, looking for snakes among the books on beast. Anything to keep the smallest Slytherin entertained during the long break with only Blaise, the Weasleys, and books on demonic snakes for company. Things tended to blow up when he wasn’t.

Anything to keep him from retreating back into himself.

Harry didn’t know their name, he had never spoken to the Hufflepuff before and didn’t particularly pay attention to the seventh year NEWTs students as a whole unless they were Slytherins as well and willing to teach him a proper curse or two.

The Slytherin had been in the runes section when he had beard a false low hiss from behind him, something that he knew would never pass as anything more than an insult to a serpent should they hear it. Harry was content to ignore it, to continue looking through the stacks for a book that might help him with his self - imposed holiday project, but then the hiss came once more, louder this time. Closer.

Sometimes life was about knowing when to remain stubbornly seen, other times about when to fade. Most days it was about paying the price for either of those choices; for existing.

A hand turned Harry fast, bashing the boy’s back into the stacks behind him before the snake had time to get his bearings. The teen before him had a cruel face, brown hair tangled and teeth bared like a wild animal. There was no wand in the Hufflepuff’s hand, but Harry knew that they started learning nonverbal spells in sixth year and the seventh year would only need a moment to cast one once the other did draw his wand.

Magic swelled in the air, dark as Harry glared at the taller boy, all but begging him to do something . (Snakes protect their own, and giving an entire house two weeks to scheme would not end well for the badger.)

“Harry Potter, the Heir of Slytherin,” the boy sneered as he looked down at Harry, agreed clear in his eyes. “I was five when you defeated He - Who - Must - Not - Be - Named. I remember the whole wizarding world rejoicing that night,” the badger said pointedly as the snake looked up at him with a gaze only tinted by anger. A gaze that grew more dull and bored by the moment. The hand on Harry’s shoulder tightened. “I didn’t though, my parents were dead because you were too late. And now what? You want to go and pick up where the last guy left off? Not bloody likely.”

Another orphan of war, Harry realized, knowing the bitterness that came from it, from being left behind. From being the only one left. Somehow it only made the younger boy glare more.

“So you’re what?” The snake asked, his voice annoyingly calm, “gonna kill me in the school library? Not the smartest mover there, mate. Though you are a Hufflepuff so I guess you can’t expect much there.”

Harry thought about the cuts on his arms, the long scars that had healed almost completely by morning. If the Hufflepuff was planning on killing him, he’d have to try a lot harder than this . 

He didn’t like how his hand shook regardless as memories swelled.

The seventh year hummed, his face too cruel and grief stricken for a Hufflepuff. “Maybe I’ll just break you,” the teen decided, his voice dropping lower. “Your wand too,” the boy continued, grabbing the object in question from the inside of Harry’s robes. “Can’t do magic without one of these, can you?”

Harry watched as the other held up the brother of the wand that had killed his parents, looking at the older boy with no protest. He didn’t truly need the thing, nor did he want it, a fact that he was sure the wand mourned as much as it understood.

“Hey, did you find-”

Both boys turned as a new voice approached, one that Harry had only ever heard on the Quidditch Pitch before and didn’t know if he should be grateful or not for it now.

The second Hufflepuff slowed at the mouth of the isle, slowly walking down it to the pair as the seventh year pulled his hand back to his side, a faux look of innocence on the eldest boy’s face.

“Sorry,” the seventh year said, “got a little caught up with a second year that bit off more than he could chew.”

There was some very colorful phrasing that Harry wanted to use, but refrained at the cold look in the other seeker’s eyes.

“Of course,” the seeker said, nodding as if he understood, “picking on second years because of some rumors must be very time consuming.”

The Slytherin decided then that Cedric Diggory was one of his favorite people within the magical world.

“I wasn’t-” the seventh year started in protest, blundering over his words.

“Sure,” Diggory said breezily, “I’d leave now.”

The seventh year did just that.

“Sorry ‘bout him,” the badger said, nodding at the retreating form of his house mate. “He’s always been a bit of a jerk.”

“No shit,” Harry grumbled, but was startled out of his sour mood when the older boy laughed, the sound filling the air like music. It was hard to ever stay angry when Diggory was around.

“I’ve heard about your colorful vocabulary,” the other seeker said, a laugh still there in the teen’s voice, “good to see that some rumors can be believed in this bloody school.”

“I don’t know,” the Slytherin started, feeling lighter than he had in months while talking to a practical stranger, maybe because the other boy was one, “whatever you’ve heard,” Harry continued, “I’ve probably said worse.”

“Merlin I hope so.”

His face grew more serious though, soft in its calmness, as if trying to placate a stray. “Just so you know,” the fourth year started, eyes borrowing into the Slytherin’s, “not everyone thinks you’re the Heir. Some of us have noticed just how different your year of Slytherins are, and how much the rest have changed, and a lot of us are smart enough to know why.”

As fast and sudden as Cedric Diggory had come, he left the same, leaving Harry alone holding a book on ancient runes.

—-

Harry woke up the next morning to the glittering of thousands of stars above him and the rustling of the other boys about the dorm room packing away their last minute things. A curse fell from one of the boy’s lips as something fell and Harry found himself biting back an annoyed groan. Greg and Vince were about as quiet as fireworks during the New Year, but Harry had put too much effort into helping them study over the last two years to kill them now.

The snake pulled himself out of bed with an annoyed huff and helped the other boys pack the last of their small things, shooting Blaise a nasty glare with all the heat of someone woken up far too early as he saw the other boy simply watching the proceedings with an amused smirk. The look turned into a scowl when Harry flicked his wrist, a mild stinging jinx hitting the other boy’s arm. Blaise rolled his eyes and stood to help as well.

Harry walked over to Theo, leaving Greg and Vince to Blaise. They all knew better than to help Draco with packing or anything else pretending to touching his things. The scarred boy was surprised by the sight that met him.

The usually organized Slytherin had clothes strewn around him, on the bed, the floor. His books were stacked hazardously and the boy himself looked tired. Somehow the sight was familiar though, and it only took Harry a moment to place it as the same arrangement that Theo had shown at the end of last year, just before going home for the summer holidays.

It was the arrangement of someone that didn’t want to go at all.

The smaller boy’s steps were light, nearly soundless as he approached the other snake, but for the first time he was found out as Theo turned to look at him as he approached, the sign of someone much too used to listening for every sound.

Harry sighed and joined the other boy on the ground.

“You don’t have to go,” Harry started, knowing that his words were futile even as he spoke them, “you could stay with Blaise and I.”

But Theo only shook his head, dark curls falling into his eyes. Harry found himself wondering how much the other boy looked like his father, if he avoided mirrors too, not wanting to see his own reflection and the truths that it showed. From how quickly he got dressed in the morning and how little time he spent in the bathroom, Harry thought that he might.

“Yes I do,” the other Slytherin said with the same manner as a man going to the gallows, one that had already accepted his fate.

Harry wanted to do something, to make the right moves and threaten the right people, but he knew that he wasn’t good for any of that right then. His own plans wouldn’t accommodate two and it was a rare, press filled affair when a pureblood child got taken from their families.

“I suppose you do,” Harry conceded, but he was a Slytherin and he was already scheming even as they packed away all of the things that Theo would need.

One year, Harry promised himself, one year was all that he needed for the other.

—-

Harry stayed behind in the dorm room as Blaise walked with the other second year snakes down to the front of the school, but no one mentioned the scarred boy’s absence. They all knew of his strong dislike of large crowds - especially those that he could not fight within - and had expected it. There was no need to force the other to push himself for their sake, especially not when he had just spent the past hour helping them all pack.

When Blaise returned to the dorm room, he could only guess that the other boy was back in his own bed,  as he was nowhere else to be seen. He was about ready to climb back into his own, but the sight of the always firmly shut curtains left open as if in invitation near the foot of the bed stopped him.

The boy takes in a slow breath before knocking on the wood of the bedpost and climbing in through the opening in the curtain when he was met with no response.

Sometimes it was easy to forget just how much power the other Slytherin held, the things that he could do with little more than a wave of his hand that took adult wizards years to learn and perfect. Drawing into the bed, only to see a soft sun floating high above him among the stars that were always there, as if the pair were in the heavens themselves, was a good reminder. The ball shined down light into the small space as if they were the earth, basking in its glow.

It was breathtaking magic.

Harry only looked up for a moment when Blaise took the invitation that he had laid out. The other boy smiled at him in a soft way that Harry knew that they would all lose with age (he already had). Instead of smiling back, the boy only scooted over on the bed, colored pencils and stolen muggle markers following him as he did, and let Blaise sit beside him in the space where the bed met the wall. Snakes hissed lightly on the wallpaper, annoyed by the moving, and Harry hissed back as the other Slytherin took his place, ignoring the bright look in his eyes.

They didn’t speak for a long moment - most days the pair didn’t need to do so to understand one another - only basking in the comfort of the other,  in the way that Harry’s skin didn’t crawl even as both boys felt the smaller’s magic in the air, a warning to those foolish enough to betray his trust. He didn’t think that this applied to Blaise, but Harry knew that he hadn’t thought that it would apply to Henry either.

“What are you drawing?” Blaise asked in a way that was almost sudden, as if he wasn’t sure that he was allowed to do so.

Harry almost thought that he might smile at that.

Wordlessly Harry handed over the book that he had been drawing in, the same one that he had been given this time the year before. He didn’t look at the other boy as Blaise leafed through the sketches that he had spent so many months lovingly creating by hand, choosing to open his ancient runes text instead, flushing slightly at the memory of how he had gotten it. There was a new combination that he wanted to try, hoping that it would have more success than the previous ones. There was already spare paper set out just for that.

“What are they?” Blaise asked as he flipped to another page, intricate drawings looking back at him; a man dressed in clothes that were unmistakably muggle, hanging upside down by his feet from rope attached to a tree. The Hanging Man the page called it. A boy with what almost looked like a flurry of magic around him, blue sparks that decorated the red flames that the boy had conjured. The Magician. There were more, pages and pages of them filling both the front and back of the entire book, each drawn with the same practiced hand.

“The muggles calm them tarot cards,” Harry explained as he copied down the runes onto the bottom of a page, a box with a star within it above the symbols, a moon on the back of the page, “they use them for divination. Though few are hardly ever successful unless they have magic like us.”

Blaise ran his fingers over the boy - the magician - tracing the sparks of magic that encircled him. “So why are you making a set then?” He asked, unsure of why a wizard would need them when they had their own methods of divination within the magical world.

Harry shrugs. “Maybe I was just bored,” the boy says almost dismissively, but they both knew that it was more than that. 

The scarred boy taps the runes on the page one by one and both boys watch as the page took on a faint golden glow before returning to how it had been before. When Harry slid his fingers across the page, the box with the star within it came loose, leaving the front of the page blank as if it had never been there at all. The boy flipped it over and smirked in triumph as the box with the moon within it was still on the back, not pulled away with the other even though they had been drawn in the other side of one another. 

The box in his palm had the faint hum of magic as he held it, as if begging for another to bend it to their will. It was the same sort of faintness that Alex’s cards held.

“That took a lot longer than it should have to get right,” Harry muttered as he cast the library book away to the end of the bed, heat no longer coming to his cheeks every time that he looked at it, but face flushed with accomplishment.

Blaise bit down a playful smile at the thought of something being hard for the other boy who magic came as easily as breathing to, maybe more so. It was only fair that his self assigned projects were difficult for him. The feeling fell and gave way to curiosity as something fell out of the book.

The object had a white lining to it with a picture inside of it, a muggle photograph, the Slytherin realized. The picture was small, but Blaise could see the smiling faces of five boys, each of varying age, looking back at him. They were all dressed in muggle clothes, the sort that his mother had told him to walk away from should they ever seen them on the street if he wanted to keep his possessions, and had their arms slung across one another, eyes wild with freedom. It took Blaise a moment longer than he would like to admit to recognize Harry as one of them. It had been far too long since he had looked so young, so free in such a way.

Summer 1992. 

The writing was the same messy scrawl as on Harry’s cards, and had a symbol next to the year that the boy only recognized from Astronomy: the symbol of Pluto. It could be seen on some of the older boy’s skin as well.

But as soon as he had found it, the picture was taken from Blaise’s grasp, the book as well, as Harry slid the picture back into place before putting the book away.

“That's private,” was all the boy said in a way of explanation for his actions and Blaise nodded, knowing that this was a line that he wasn’t yet meant to cross.

“Right,” Blaise said, his voice low. This wasn’t at all how he had wanted this morning to go. “Why don’t we research magical snakes some more?” He asked tentatively, not sure how the other would respond, but Harry only nodded and they spent a long morning doing just that.

—-

Snakes, as the boys soon found, were very common in myths and lore; spanning from Ancient Egypt to the Garden of Eden. The pair had started with myths and stories because they figured that any widely known magical beast would have already been looked into by the professors. They might have been a little too presumptuous in such an idea, but it was all they had at the time. It took the pair hours of reading through books that would have been scorned for anything other than astronomy to find a myth that seemed close to what was occurring, but even then they knew that it wasn’t the answer.

The story of Medusa was one that Harry had known for years, but hadn’t truly thought of outside of looking up at the night sky, or sneaking into a library to hide from Dudley and his gang, all too stupid to think to go inside. 

It was a simple myth, lacking some of the complexity and vast time span that others held. The story starts the same in all of the versions being told that had been touched by the ideas of Rome (Harry had found at least three) with a girl - Medusa - that served the virgin goddess Athena as one of her priestesses. She was beautiful and because of that, the mortal was unlucky enough to draw the attention of the sea god Poseidon. 

The stories tend to diverge from there, from Medusa willingly breaking her vow of celibacy, to being forced to by the Olympian god. The myths tend to disagree once more from there, about rather or not the former priestess being made what she became was a curse from the angry goddess, or a gift from the wisdom goddess, seeking to protect her loyal servant from man’s desires now that she could no longer call the mortal her priestess. 

Either way, the stories all end the same, with Medusa becoming a gorgon: a woman with snakes upon her head where her hair had once been. Unlike other creatures of the same strain, one glance into the former priestess’s eyes and the viewer would be turned to stone, something that couldn’t be undone as easily as a golden touch.

“You don’t seriously think that we’re after a gorgon, do you?” Blaise asked, his voice shrouded in disbelief as he leaned in close to the other boy, their sides brushing against one another as they looked down at the text.

“No,” Harry agreed with a soft shake of his head as he closed the book, silently pleased when the other boy didn’t move away. “But I know that there is truth in myths,” he explained.

“And what truth does this one hold?”

Too many, Harry wanted to say, having seen others wear the head of Medusa on their skin, a tattoo, and knowing now what it meant. Knowing that he could now too, but never would. Knowing that he was a coward that wanted to pretend that it hadn’t happened at all than own it in such a way. He wasn’t made of the sort of bravery that those that showed it did.

“The men in the story died looking into Medusa’s snake - like eyes,” Harry said at last, “they were turned to stone.”

“Petrification,” Blaise said slowly, realization dawning on the other Slytherin as he quickly understood what Harry meant. “You think that the monster kills with its gaze.”

“It would explain why no one has seen it.”

“Because all those that have are in the hospital wing now,” Blaise said quickly, a smirk on his lips that died when he seemed to realize something that Harry hadn’t yet thought of. “But none of them are dead,” the boy said, a little despondent.

“Don’t sound so disappointed there,” Harry said, the slight tilt of his lips telling Blaise that it was a joke. It fell as he stopped to consider the question. “In the myths, people would get around Medusa’s gaze by not looking at her directly in the eyes, but through the reflection of another surface,” the boy said slowly, unsure if that idea would stand or not in a world so closely tied to myths and yet completely removed from them.

But Blaise smiled in a way that could almost be called vicious.

“Moaning Myrtle had flooded the girl’s bathroom and outside hallway on the night of the first attack,” Blaise said with an conviction that only came from being right. It was the sort of look that he got in class when he answered a question right before Harry could, the other boy found that he didn’t mind it so much now. “There was water all over where it took place.”

“That Gryffindors kid had a camera over his eyes when they brought him in,” the scarred boy cut in quickly, remembering it now. The detail hadn’t seemed so important then when Dumbledore was looking at him as if he were about to trigger the end of every mythical world just by having the audacity to exist. “What about the Hufflepuff?”

“Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor ghost,” Blaise added the last bit after seeing Harry’s look of confusion at the name, “was found next to Fletchy, floating in a way that could be described as dead if he were not already.”

“And a ghost can’t die again, so he was the in - between that time.”

Blaise was smiling now in a way that would have had most Gryffindors reaching for their wands, something flushed with accomplishment and sharp in the way that every snakes’ smile always managed to be. Harry didn’t want to see it end, but knew that they were on the precipice of an answer, that all that they needed now was a push.

“So, which snake kills with its gaze?”

The other’s smile fell as Harry had known that it would, but that doesn’t mean that he didn’t mourn its loss.

“There is one, but they’re supposed to be extinct,” Blaise said hesitantly after a long moment.

“Not extinct enough,” Harry grumbled.

“A basilisk,” Blaise decked with the voice of someone that wished that they were wrong. “We’re looking for a basilisk.”

Chapter Text

Even though the two Slytherin boys had realized what the monster was, the pair still spent most of the winter holiday leading up to Christmas Eve in the confines of the school library. The problem with finding a solution to the main task at hand, Harry found out then, was that - like with most word problems in math - there is almost always a part B, another problem waiting for them in the wings. The monster was most likely a basilisk - something that only Salazar Slytherin himself and his descendants could hope to control - that was easy enough to realize once thought through, but then came the problem of how to kill it… and how to find it.

Needless to say, Harry would take muggle math right now over another day of this .

“We could just stab it,” Blaise offered tiredly from his spot on the ground, leaning against the shelf opposite to Harry, a heavy tome in his lap and more stacked on either side of the boy like a barricade, each as unhelpful as the last.

Harry held up two fingers to the other boy, two major flaws to his plan that made Blaise deflate into a tired shell once more. This was how each of their suggestions had died, by the flaws that the other snake found within it.

“We don’t have anything long enough to stab it,” Harry pointed out, pulling one finger back down as he didn’t even look up from the book in his own lap while doing so. “Also, I doubt either of us want to get as close to its eyes and venomous fangs as stabbing would require even if we had a sword of some kind laying around.”

Blaise only hummed, a soft sound that admitted defeat as he turned to the next page, finding nothing useful within it, just as they had found nothing useful within the others. Basilisk had been gone from the wizarding world for so long that now all of the books pertaining to them had only the most basic of facts and nothing more.

“We could try the morning cry of a rooster,” Harry suggested after a long moment, turning his book around for the other boy to see. “Says here that it would kill the monster instantly,” he explains, running his fingers over the text, aware of how seriously the other Slytherin takes his suggestions. 

Even after a year now, it was still strange for the boy to have his opinions valued and be listened to in such a high regard, to be more than the boy in the cupboard under the stairs. He knew that some people only did so because of what he had supposedly done when he was one, but he knew that the snakes valued more what he had done since.

Blaise shook his head after a long moment. “All the roosters were killed around Halloween,” the boy explains glumly, knowing that this could have been an easy, safe solution and that whatever Harry did instead was going to be anything but. “The grounds keeper hasn’t gotten any more yet.”

“ Well fuck,” Harry breathed and Blaise ducked his head to smile, having missed such vulgar words coming from the other’s mouth in the months where the other boy had been all but docile for so long.

Harry wanted to say that in the days leading up to Christmas Eve that the pair had found something on how to kill the beast. He’d like to say that they found something on the Chamber as well. Neither of these things were true. 

Some secrets remained hidden until it was too late to do anything about them.

—-

When Christmas Eve rolled around, Harry found himself dragging a limp Blaise out of bed and onto the warm floor of the Slytherin dorms, up as the sun rose like every year before.

“Damn it, Potter,” the other boy cursed as he picked himself up from the floor, an annoyed look in his face that was usually reserved for when Professor McGonagall assigned homework, “have you ever heard of sleeping in on a holiday?” The boy asked as if they hadn’t been waking up till close to noon for the past week.

Harry looked away and watched as the snakes danced through the tree limbs, awoken by their squabbling, but too interested to care enough to complain. He thought of the years spent being woken up early for every holiday that there was to prepare food that he would never get to eat more than the scraps of, and sometimes not even that. It had become wired into his bones to wake so early, just like how silently he walked and the way that he shied away from touch, only ever being hurt by it before.

Though he didn’t say anything, Blaise must have seen something in his gaze - he almost always did - because the other boy’s face immediately softened.

“Sorry,” he whispered, always speaking softest in moments like these.

Harry nodded and waved his hand the smallest bit, the red immediately disappearing from the other’s wrist from where he had pulled at him. “Yeah, me too.

“Come on,” Harry started, louder this time, "we really do need to be leaving now if we want to catch the Weasleys and make it look natural.”

Blaise nodded and Harry felt something loosen in his chest at the ease in which the other boy did  so.

—-

Harry knew from his first year that he would always love Hogwarts best at Christmas. The trees that lined the Great Hall - an absurd amount for so few people - and the lights that decorated them all made the boy feel as if he had stepped into the land of the fair folk. Though he had read all about Red Caps and has seen goblins in the flesh enough to know that not all of the folk of the air were as pretty as the muggle stories make them out to be, during these two weeks, Harry thought that he wouldn’t mind getting lost in their world anyways. With the right company of course.

Blaise nodded to where the Weasleys were already sitting at the middle of the long table that sat at the center of the Great Hall - one instead of the usual four - but the effort was wasted as Fred waved them over. Harry didn’t have to be close enough to hear it to know that the Weasel groaned once he realized just who was joining them.

The twins pushed away from one another as the snakes drew closer, letting the Slytherin pair sit between them as Percy, Ron and Ginny sat on the other side. Blaise scowled as Harry smiled at the youngest Weasley, something fake and forced that still made the girl blush.

“Little Snakies!” George exclaimed in lieu of a proper greeting as he passed down two plates to the pair, ignoring the seemingly permanent the eye bags that the two Slytherins had and the ink staining each of their fingers.

It was a look that he had seen on himself and Fred more times than he could count before during the summers and times of research and planning for pranks. He knew then that it wasn’t an accident that the snakes were showing themselves now after hiding away together in the castle for the last week. One look at his twin said that Fred thought the same.

They’re planning something.

George may not know much of the boy constantly at Harry's side, but he knew that the Zabinis had remained neutral in the last war, and that the snake wouldn’t be there if he wasn’t someone that the scarred boy valued and trusted above the others in his year. And Harry was someone that he trusted with his life. Those reasons were enough for the teen to nod at his twin’s questioning brow, an agreement passing between the pair that they wouldn’t interfere in whatever plot the two Slytherins had brewing, even though it was obvious that it involved their siblings somehow.

Harry was their little brother in everything but blood, they would trust him, especially if this was somehow related to the Chamber as they thought that it might be.

“Good Holiday?” Harry asked no one in particular, his smile false but shining in a way that would have easily made him a teacher’s favorite if he had wished to use it on them. 

Ginny nodded quickly but wasn’t able to say anything other than a startled squeal. Percy on the other hand soaked in the smile that the snake was wearing as if he knew that it was designed just for him.

“Wonderful holiday,” the eldest Weasley says easily. “Though it has been a hassle keeping the others under control and researching at the same time.”

Harry laughs and it sounds like a soft music, only Blaise, Fred and George hear the mischief beneath it. 

“I can imagine,” the boy agrees, his eyes bright as he takes a glance at the other red heads. “What have you been researching?”

That was how the table ended up listening to a lecture over Arithmetic, something that Harry couldn’t care less about but gave a greater appreciation for muggle math. Even Ginny was glaring at the boy a bit by the end of it, but Harry knew that people were easiest to talk to when they were content. It was always easiest to get what you want from them when they’re already open to you and in your good graces.

“You know,” Harry said, his smile still painfully bright that Blaise and the twins couldn’t help but wonder if it was eating away at his soul by now, “Arithmomancy and Ancient Runes almost seem like their own languages when you speak of them like that,” the snake says with an easy voice, when the older teen had stopped to take a breath. Percy nods, looking slightly despondent about the change in topic but going with it easily. “ Do wizards have their own languages?” The Slytherin asks as if the thought had never occurred to him before.

The eldest of the lot laughs in a way that Harry doesn't exactly appreciate, but his face doesn't change in the least. “Of course we don’t,” the teen says pompously as he shakes his head before stopping as if to consider the point. “Well, there is one but it’s not exactly common,” the boy admits with a hint of disgust.

“What is it?”

Harry noticed that the teen looked uncomfortable, but pretended not to as he didn’t particularly care.

“There are some dark wizards that can speak to snakes,” Percy says with no hidden amount of disgust, the sort that you couldn’t fake. “Like I said, it’s a dark gift though, not something to be proud of or flaunt if you have. Honestly it would be best to never discover it or use it at all,” the teen says, unaware of the parselmouth before him. “Especially after He - Who - Must - Not - Be - Named was rumored to be one.”

Blaise reached out under the table and laced his fingers through the other Slytherin’s, holding onto to him tight as Harry lost a little of the false light from his eyes. He knew what it was like to have to listen to a son of a light leaning family rave about how evil he was for something that he couldn’t control. The fact that he hadn’t lashed out yet was incredible.

Harry squeezed back, finding strength in the other.

“Of course,” the boy whispered, hating that fact that he would always be hated for something by those that didn’t even know him.

His only distraction was the youngest Weasley and the way that the girl’s gaze turned shifty as she heard the name, something that Harry didn’t fail to note.

“I can’t wait for the Gryffindor - Hufflepuff match after the holidays,” Fred said suddenly, changing the topic with little finesse, not that any of the lions seemed to notice.

Breakfast continued on from there, the topic changing fluidly as the seven ate, but Harry couldn’t help but notice the way that Ginny seemed to curl in on herself when anything pertaining to Slytherin was mentioned, not in fear but something else. And the way that her fingers tapped against the table with radical movements that the boy had seen in junkies looking for their next fix over the summer. He wondered just what she had gotten herself hooked to.

He wondered if it had anything to do with the Chamber.

—-

The rest of the day was spent in the Gryffindor common room playing chess and wizard games, and sneaking down to the kitchen for hot chocolate. The three second years managed to remain civil with one another under Percy’s pointed gaze as they spent most of the time joking with the twins. 

Though it should have been a fun day, Harry spent the entire time tucked between the twins or at Blaise's side, sickness crashing down on him each time that he dared to stray too far from any of them. Between that and the echoes of the eldest Weasley's comments still lingering in his mind, Harry couldn't help but sigh in relief when they stepped into the Slytherin common room again. 

The teen slunk down onto the couch with a sigh, laying his head on Blaise’s shoulder when the other boy sat down next to him as well, the fire ragging before them. 

“Not Percy?” The taller of the two guessed as he pressed closer to the other Slytherin, telling himself that it was only for the cold.

“No,” Harry agreed, curling into the other. “Though there is definitely something wrong with the youngest Weasley.”

“You mean other than her obsession with you?” Blaise asked, his voice harsher than he meant for it to be, more annoyed with the girl than he knew he had any right to be.

Harry smirked at the other snake’s reaction. “Yeah,” he confirmed, “other than that.”

Normally they would have said more, spoken of it all, but tonight Harry just let himself be pulled down as Blaise laid down on the couch, his eyes falling closed with the other’s warmth, feeling safe for the first time in months.

Maybe it wasn’t such a horrible Christmas Eve.

—-

Snape walked down to the Slytherin common rooms on Christmas afternoon with more nervousness than he thought necessary for going to speak with a pair of children, but it was hard not to be when each time that he spoke to one of them outside of class he always found out things that he wished weren’t true.

The professor spoke the password and felt his gaze soften at the sight of his two snakes reading on the couch. It was a soft sight that was rare for those in his house, even more so as they grew older.

“Professor,” Harry greeted as he slipped a bookmark into his book and placed it on the table as Mr. Zabini followed suit and did the same, “what can we do for you, sir?”

“I was wondering if the two of you would like to help me with some potions.”

Snape had been expecting the boys to look slightly despondent at the idea, but Harry only nodded and pushed quickly to his feet before looking down at the other boy with big eyes that everyone within the room knew to be false.

Mr. Zabini sighed and rose to his feet anyways.

“Alright,” the boy said in a slightly drawn voice. Snape figured then that the Zabini heir would do just about anything that the other Slytherin boy asked. He was glad, Harry needed more people unconditionally at his side.

—-

It had been a spur of the moment decision to ask the two snakes to help him in the lab making simple potions, something that he had honestly thought that they would turn down and the three would leave it at that. Most students would rather write extra essay than spend time with the potions Professor, but he had seen how cooped up the boys had become in the library - no doubt sticking their noses where they don’t belong, not that he would stop them until they seemed close to actual danger - and thought that this might be a good thing for them to use to get their mind off of what is undoubtedly the Chamber of Secrets.

The potions master would never admit it aloud, not while he might still have resume his position as a spy, but he was also worried for the boy. Concerned that the climate of the school towards him and the isolation of the holidays might drive the boy to relapse, promises that Harry had made be damned.

“We’re going to be making some basic bruise balm,” the man said as the three of them gathered the necessary ingredients and spread out among two work benches. “It’s always easiest to do so during the holidays when there are no Quidditch players running through the stocks as quick as I can make them,” the Professor says with a mock glare that none of them believed.

“Yeah, yeah,” Harry says imprudently as Mr. Zabini smirks at him, but the professor doesn't mind. It’s easier not to when he knows the alternative was a sort of fear that boy held that was identical to what Snape had felt towards his father when he was growing up.

It was surprisingly easy to fall into a routine with the two as the boys moved with one another as if they had always been meant to do so, one cutting up potions ingredients while the other ground them into a fine powder, each them having what was needed ready and in the right amount for the potions master to add to the cauldron. 

He noticed that by the time that the balms were put into small tins that both boys looked more settled than they had before, and less stressed than he had seen any of his second years since Halloween. It was a nice sight to see, even for the professor that knew that in another life he would have hated the boy.

“Thank you for the help,” Snape says formally, not used to doing so, but knowing that it was needed.

Mr. Zabini only nods as he stretches out his back, the snake looking eager to be away from the potions classroom, but Harry looks up and meets the man’s eyes, the look in his own saying more than words could. 

“Here,” the Professor says, a little softer than he normally would as he held out one of the small tins to the boy, “try not to need to use it.”

“No promises there, sir,” the boy says as he takes the tin and pockets it with a practiced ease that Snape tried not to think where he learned it from - there were only so many morally good things that a child could learn while spending time on the streets. “Thank you,” the boy says in the way that only someone not being used to being given things can, as if human decency was something special that he wasn’t used to being allowed.

“Of course.”

Snape knew that he had made an oath to protect the boy, that he was expected to spy once more to do so, but sometimes when he actually spoke to the boy he couldn’t help but wonder if he had already grown too attached.

(The answer was yes)

—-

That night, the two boys slept in Harry’s bed and renamed all of the constellations, creating new ones and new stories behind them when they wished. It was something childlike and innocent in a way that neither of them had been allowed much to be when they were young. 

And if when they woke up in the morning they were tangled around one another, then that really was no ones business but their own. 

Chapter Text

It wasn’t long before the peaceful holiday came to a close, the rest of the castle coming back and filling it once more. Last year Harry had been happy for this change, lonely in the large space and wanting company other than the Weasleys, but this time he mourned the loss of the peace that he and Blaise had found - the lazy mornings and days spent reading with one another, sides pressed flush against one another. He didn’t think that there would be another Christmas quite like this one. Not for a while at least.

The pair went down to meet the others once the carriages had arrived, but Harry left Blaise to entertain them as he stole away Theo to their dorms, steadfastly ignoring the looks that he was getting from each boy. He wasn’t one to spill secrets- even his own if he could help it - and Harry knew that this was one that Theo would likely rather take this to his grave than have another in Slytherin house know. Fear does that to you. 

“What are we doing, Harry?” Theo asked finally as the boy in question sat him down on Blaise’s bed, not that it looked as if it had been slept in firing the past week. He knew that it most likely hadn’t and focused more on biting back a wince instead.

Harry didn’t answer as he rummaged through his nightstand drawer and pulled out a small tin that looked to Theo as if it belonged in the medical wing instead of in the Slytherin dorms.

“Take off your shirt,” the other boy said bluntly, leaving no room for questions as he still held the tin and looked at Theo with an expectant expression.

Theo wasn’t too disappointed with the fact that his immediate reaction was to freeze in confusion and mild panic at the other snake’s request, it seemed a reasonable one to have.

“What?” The boy asked in a way that he was sure made him sound dumb but was too tired and too confused to much care.

“This is a bruise balm,” the bespectacled boy explained shortly, holding up the tin for the other to better see, as if it made that much of a difference.

(It did, just not enough)

Theo turned stubbornly and looked at the wallpaper of the dorms, unsurprised to find that most of the snakes had slowly made their way to Harry’s corner of the room after the other boy had revealed his ability to speak to them, something that the Slytherin knew that the other had been hiding since before first year, just as he hid whatever it was that only Draco, Blaise, and Pansy had come to know about him. Theo knew that Harry had more secrets living beneath his skin than most kept in their life. Somehow, Theo’s had become one of them.

“I’ll take off mine.”

Theo’s head snapped back to the source of the noise, to the boy that now had a dead look in his eyes that was the same as those horrid first weeks of term when Harry’s gaze looked like little more than open wounds as he could hardly bring himself to be within an arm’s length of any of the boys within the dorm. It was the look that had told Theo that he and Harry had more in common than just their magical types. It wasn’t a look that he liked seeing once more.

 “What?” Theo asked for the second time in as many minutes and chastised himself for it, but in the almost two full years that the six boys had been sharing a dorm together, the other snake had never shown anyone more skin than what was already revealed from the school robes. It was surprising that the other would do so now just to make Theo more comfortable.

“You take off yours and I’ll take off mine,” the too small boy says slowly, as if talking to a spooked horse, “then we would be even.”

Then we would each be able to hurt one another, Theo heard beneath the other Slytherin’s words, unsure of whether or not he meant it in such a way, but thinking that Harry just might have. For as much as he tries to blend in with the other students around him, to not be noticed, Harry was still a Slytherin after all, the hat placed him in the house for a reason. Probably, at least in part, due to his tendency to try to blend in until he needed to stand out.

“Alright,” Theo agreed at last, his heart hammering in his chest like a Golden Snitch as he reached for the first button even as his voice was flat when he spoke. Emotion was weakness after all.

Harry only nodded as he reached for the first button on his own short as well, undoing them with hands much steadier than Theo’s own. It was only a moment or two before each of their chests were laid bare for the other to see, but the second after seemed to stretch on for an eternity.

Theo didn’t know what he had been expecting, he had known that there would be scars - that was a given when even after a month of being at school Harry still changed in the bathroom each morning. He had known and yet nothing had prepared him to see them himself.

There were thin slashes that spanned his stomach, and splotches of varying size that looked to be grease burns or something of the sort. Some of them were old, faded almost completely into the other boy’s tanned skin, but others were as fresh as summer, thin nicks that you would from someone known to be skilled in fighting with a knife. But also the identical ones going down each of the other snake’s arms, ones that should have killed the boy before he got here this year.

Theo knew better than to ask, though he wanted to.

“You have a tattoo?” He asks instead and watches as the smaller boy’s shoulders lose some of the tension that they had held before.

Harry nodded as he unscrewed the lid of the balm and began to walk around to the other side of the bed. Theo tried his best not to react to the large bouts of raised skin on the other’s back that looked as if they were from the metal of a belt. Theo had never been grateful to his father before - for the man that hit him hard enough to bruise just for existing while his mother did not - and he never would be again, but Harry was proof that there were worse places to be. Houses that left more than just bruises and mental scars.

“There’s some guys that I’m friends with back in the muggle world,” the scarred boy said, explaining as he began to rub the balm onto Theo’s skin, the bruises slowly fading from his shoulders and back as Harry did so, “we all have them.”

“It hurt?”

“Like a bitch,” Harry lied bluntly and both boys laughed, something broken that would have haunted anyone else, but a laugh nonetheless.

Neither had felt so light in years.

—-

In the weeks that followed the winter holidays, Harry had made it a point to always be in a place where others could see him, even if it was only a passing glance. 

There hadn’t been another attack since before the break, but that didn’t mean that the Headmaster’s calculating gaze had wavered from where it had been lingering on him, waiting for Harry to do something . He was sure that if there was another attack and he wasn’t around at least someone from another house, that Harry would find himself with a snapped wand on the first train ride back to the Dursleys, if not whatever the wizard version of jail was. 

Neither were particularly appealing to the young wizard.

Because of this fear, the snakes found themselves becoming good acquaintances with a certain blonde haired Ravenclaw, much to Pansy’s joy and Blaise’s dismay for some odd reason that Harry didn’t quite understand.

“Harry,” the girl greeted as she took Draco’s spot at the boy’s side, the youngest Malfoy knew better than to fight the first year on it since Harry would have undoubtedly taken the Ravenclaw girl’s side in the matter, and moved to sit by Theo instead with a huff.

“Luna,” the boy said in turn, his voice just a degree lighter in the strange girl’s presence than it was before, something that Blaise noticed and scowled at into his dinner.

“Troublesome night, don’t you think?” The eagle asked as she served herself a plate, her words as strange and cryptic as usual, and her voice just as dreamy as it always is. It was the sort of voice that made one want to believe whatever it was that the speaker was saying, even if they didn’t quite know the meaning.

The snakes glanced at one another, each of their eyes holding the same question within them, but Harry only nodded at the Ravenclaw at his side as if he understood something that they did not. Maybe he did.

“Most nights are,” the scarred boy said easily, speaking vaguely of something that only Harry and Blaise knew for certain about; the nightmares that plagued the smaller boy’s nights. The ones that had Blaise sleeping in the other’s bed every night to the point that the other Slytherins didn’t even spare a glance at the pair of them now when he didn’t bother going to his own bed anymore, and just used it to study in as Harry did the same on the ground by him. Daphne had accused them of being codependent when Draco had let slip to the girls about the reinstated arrangement. Draco had also been regulated to sitting between Daphne and Theo the same day as Luna took his spot during meals so they all figured that this was enough said. “But I suppose magic means more than just that.”

Luna hummed in conformation and the Slytherins knew enough to know that this was something that they should take seriously. The first year Ravenclaw was undoubtedly strange, talking of creatures that none of them were ever exactly sure were real or not - it had gone both ways in the past few weeks as the Ravenclaw seemed very ahead in Care of Magical Creatures, especially since she can’t even take the class till third year - but anything that ‘magic’ said, they knew to listen to because it would come true because Harry bloody Potter had managed to find one of the only true seers within the school.

“Bad enough to not leave Harry alone in the halls tonight?” Pansy asked as she leaned forwards on the table, her gaze bright as she looked at the other girl. Pansy had been one of the first to accept the Ravenclaw’s abilities as truth, though most of the other Slytherins thought that there was more to Pansy’s like of the girl than just that.

Luna hummed and thrummed her fingers against the table, her stranger rings glittering in the Great Hall’s candle light. “I wouldn’t go that far,” the girl decided after a long moment, “though,” she started once more, turning to look directly at Harry and no one else, “I wouldn’t keep anything that feels like a piece of yourself. Some magics shouldn't be messed with.”

Harry nodded, taking the words to heart. Luna encouraged most things, Ravenclaw curiosity getting the better of the girl, but even she had limits. Sometimes you have to learn from your parents’ mistakes even when they aren't there to teach you of them themselves. Especially then.

“Alright then.”

The Ravenclaw girl hummed once more and leaned her head onto Harry’s shoulder. Harry let her as he messed with one of the charms on the girl’s bracelet. It was the shape of a Greek vase. Neither saw the haunted looks on some of the professors faces as they looked down at the pair from the Head Table.

Neither cared to either.

—-

Harry and Blaise walked slowly together after dinner, going to a part of the castle that the Slytherins didn’t often visit outside of class if they could help it.

It was the place where Mrs. Norris had been attacked, and where the blood had been written with on the wall. 

It had been months since the first attack, long enough that any evidence that the pair might have found would have been so far removed or changed that it would have been hopeless to look for it at all. But that wasn’t what the pair was there for at all.

“You said that this is where Moaning Myrtle haunts?” Harry asked. 

“If it wasn’t before then I would say it is now,” Blaise answered as he glared down at the ground as if it had offended him. Harry wasn’t exactly too inclined to like it much either.

The hallway outside it the abandoned girl’s bathroom was flooded, water pouring from the room as undistinguishable wails filled the hall alongside the water and strange chill. 

Harry let out a sigh as he took the first step into the water, drawing nearer to the bathroom and the strange magic emitting from it. Blaise grumbled something behind him, but the boy wasn’t listening, too drawn in by whatever it was that was calling him closer. 

In the back of his mind, something screamed that, this was a horrible idea, but he chose to ignore that voice for now.

Wading through the water, Harry ignored the ghost that they had originally come to speak to about Halloween night and ignored the boy trying to speak to him. All of his attention was on the magic that felt like a marred version of his own, the magic that reminded him of Quirrell’s that night last year.

There was a thin black book under one of the flooding sinks. A small diary that somehow had magic that felt like his own. The snake reached down to grab it, but stopped as dreamy words flooded his mind.

‘I wouldn’t keep anything that feels like a piece of yourself. Some magics shouldn't be messed with.’

Harry reeled back from the sink, standing fast as he flicked his wrist and called the diary up into the air, letting it float next to him, but never touch his skin. Something told the boy then that any contact with the object would be his downfall, and he wasn’t foolish enough to think himself immortal, nor would he ever want to be.

“Come on,” Harry said after a long moment of thinking over what they should do with the thing and only truly coming up with one that he was comfortable with, “we need to take this to Snape.”

Blaise nodded in agreement and sighed in relief, not having liked the near catatonic state that his friend had been in only a moment before, and knowing that it had something to do with the blasted book that was floating by the other snake’s head.

“Sure, just ignore miserable, moping, Moaning Myrtle!” The ghost hollered as the pair hurried away towards the dungeons and did just that.

—-

Snape quickly cast a quick stasis charm as he heard a frantic knock at the door to his classroom. A preemptive sneer spread across the man’s face at the thought of what foolish things he was going to be expected to face now. He was not expecting the twin deadpan faces that met him though, or the book hovering next to one of them with no wand in sight.

“Come in,” the Professor said, brows raised with the only sign of interest that he would allow himself to show before the potions master quickly shut the for back.

“Sorry to bother you, sir,” Zabini said politely as he stood closely to the other boy’s side as if waiting for something. Whether he was waiting for the professor’s reaction to the blatant wandless magic, or something else, Snape didn’t know, but was sure that he would find out. “But you were closest.”

Snape doubted their reasoning, but knew enough about his house to leave it be.

“So what is the problem then?” The man asked with a faux impatience. In reality he was curious. This was the first time that Harry had come directly to him for something instead of him finding the child first whether by accident or on purpose.

“This,” Harry said shorty, waving his hand forwards and willing the book to float between himself and the potions master, erasing any doubt from the professor’s mind that the boy was using wandless magic as naturally as any adult wizard would use a wand. “We found it when walking past Myrtle’s bathroom. It’s magic feels like the sort that Quirrell had at the end.”

The professor took in a long breath, knowing that there were too many things to think about at the moment and chose to look at only the task at hand.

“What made you decide that it was dangerous?” The man asked instead of any of the other questions that he wanted to. 

“I was drawn to the book as if in some sort of trance,” the smaller of the two snakes started.

“So we figured that it was probably cursed,” the other finished, looking at the book warily and stepping closer still to the other snake.

“Good instinct,” the Professor praised as he drew his own wand and took control of the book, a diary it seemed, and silently cast some of the identification charms that he knew. None of them gave much more of a result other than to say that object was dark in nature and… “It seems that if you had used this book, even the slightest bit, that your life source would have been slowly siphoned from you and given to it.”

He saw both boys shudder at that and couldn’t help but agree. He didn’t want to know what the boys’ life force would have gone towards if given to the diary, what it would have been used to create.

“Thank you for coming to me, I’ll start working on destroying this immediately,” the Professor decided, not even mentally bemoaning at the fact that he was being so polite to James Potter’s son. 

Not that he had seen the boy as either of his parents in a long time. As it was, Harry didn’t share much more with either of them than blood and a family name. The potions master didn’t know how to feel about that.

The boys nodded and turned to leave much like they had over the winter Holidays. “Harry,” the eldest Slytherin spoke quickly before the younger snakes could leave, “don’t think that we won’t be speaking of this,” the man said, gesturing with his hand to mimic what the boy had been doing earlier with his magic, “once the book is destroyed.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, sir.”

The door closed and Snape sighed, wondering how this had become his life as he looked at the hovering book. The Professor sighed and figured that the Draught of Living Death that he had been about to brew for his sixth year NEWTs students to use a companion to their own would be a good place to start.

It wasn’t.

Chapter Text

As quickly as one holiday had left, another had come, the days flying by as Harry suddenly found himself sitting in the Slytherin common room before the fire, Easter holiday in full swing. Each of the snakes had a paper before them courtesy of Snape who had handed them out at breakfast that morning.

“I think I’m going to go for Care of Magical Creatures,” Draco said, scribbling it down onto his paper with a pencil that he had most certainly nicked from Harry at some point even as he spoke, the decision already made. “It should be an easy O,” the boy said by way of explanation, one that no one had asked for but now everyone raised a brow to the blond’s apparent need to do so.

Harry smirked from the ground as he pointed his transfigured pen at the other Slytherin in an accusatory manner. “You just want to be around the creatures,” the scarred boy said as the others hid snickers. “Softy.”

“Do not!” The other boy protested with a slight sputter as he spoke, heat pooling on the snake’s pale cheeks, painting them with a flush.

“Draco, darling,” Pansy said softly, though there was a laugh beneath it, “you used to chase the wild unicorns when we’re young, and then would cry when they ran from you.”

“Shush, Pans,” Draco said quickly as the girl smirked, his cheeks even more red than before as the rest of the snakes laughed, honest and true this time.

“We should all at have at least one other Slytherin in any elective that we pick though,” Tracey said, tapping her quill nervously against the table. 

Harry could all but see the thoughts running through the witch’s mind, not that any of them had to try too hard. Not when they were all thinking the same sort of thing.

Other than the fight with the youngest Weasley brother in first year, there hadn’t been any problems with the other houses when they were younger. Now that they were in second year and the Chamber had been opened, people were quick to turn and look at them with suspicion, seeming to forget the fact that they had all been on good terms just at the beginning of the school term. They didn’t know what the next year would bring, but knew that they would always need someone close.

Then there was always Harry’s unique relationship with light magic of course. 

Harry stared down at his paper, blank aside from the list of classes at the top and the lines provided to write down one's selection. 

In another life he thought that he might have gone the Care of Magical Creatures route too, even if it was only to follow his friends, but animals - aside from snakes whom didn’t seem to mind him much - had been growing less and less fond with him over the years, the pets at Hogwarts having taken to hissing and growling at him as he passed them and their owners in the halls. Muggle Studies was useless for someone that had grown up within the muggle world and understood it better than most. Arithmomancy was mostly based on memorization, something that Harry could do but didn’t like, especially not with charts.

The only two elective options left were Divination and the Study of Ancient Runes. Something within Harry sparked as he wrote each of them down, a sort of confidence taking over the brief spark of helplessness that he had felt only a moment before. He knew Ancient Runes, had been studying them on his own for months now out of curiosity and his own personal project. He had an entire deck of Tarot cards hidden away in a drawer within the common room to help him glimpse into the future in the same sort of way that Alex did when not relying on his uncanny intuition alone. He supposed that there were more ill fitting options to choose from.

After a moment of studying the extracurriculars, Harry wrote down one more before pushing the paper away from himself. The action was enough to have drawn Blaise’s attention as he leaned found against Harry as they had so many times before and looked over the boy’s shoulder, ignoring the way that Harry went tense at the sudden touch. They had agreed weeks ago that Harry would never break his habit of flinching away if he never allowed another to touch him casually again. Between the constant small touches and laying next to the other boy each night, the boy hardly flinched anymore once he knew who the touch was coming.

“Art?” Blaise asked, looking at the smaller boy in surprise until he remembered the cards that he had seen so many months ago. Really it would have been surprising if Harry hadn’t considered the class.

The snake shrugged. “Maybe I’m just curious about wizarding art,” the boy deflected as their conversation drew a few looks from the others. “Besides, there’s no OWLs for it, so it’ll be nice to have a relaxing class.”

Blaise still looked as if he didn’t believe the other boy. “At least this is probably one of the classes where we won’t have to take Tracey’s precautions,” the boy conceded, making the girl pout.

“You act as if they’re unnecessary,” the witch said with a high brow before turning her attention to Harry. “One of us will just have to walk you to it,” she decided. “I don’t trust the rest of the school with you after this year.”

Theo shook his head before turning back to his one paper. “I don’t think any of us do.”

“Since when did I get six overbearing parents?” Harry asked as he stood to go and turn his paper in, Blaise standing with him as well since his had been done almost since he got the bloody thing. 

“Since it became clear that you lack what most people refer to as survival instincts and started researching the Chamber of Secrets and the monster within it,” Daphne said, pointing her quill at Harry the way that he had at Draco only a few minutes before.

Harry thought about arguing, but he honestly thought that the point was fair even if he wasn’t planning on going down into the Chamber. It didn’t matter that he had been researching where it is, the basilisk and how to kill it. He wasn’t planning on going down there, he was just…

His arms burned as he decided not to think about just what he was planning on doing.

It didn’t matter.

Most days he figured that he didn’t matter enough for it to.

“Whatever,” the boy decided, brushing the conversation aside. “Let’s go.”

The pair walked quickly to the potions classroom, finding the door open for what is likely the first and only time all year when class is not in session. The man sitting at his desk didn’t even look up as the snakes walked in, only stopping from his reading to point briefly at a small stack of papers that was sitting next to him, before holding up a hand to signal the boys to wait.

The diary sat tauntingly on the desk.

A part of Harry wants to disobey the unsaid order, his magic clawing at his skin as if it didn’t know whether to lash out at the object that the boy knew was hidden within the room or to do something else entirely with the twisted magic. But he stayed right where he was.

The pair watched as Snape closed his book, heavy bags under the Professor’s eyes, and grabbed the two forms. 

“Ancient Runes and Care of Magical Creatures,” the potions master read from the page before looking up at the taller of the two boys. “An easy OWLs class and one that should help with a career. Good balance,” the eldest Slytherin decided, much to Blaise’s relief.

The pages switched in the professor’s hands and a tight look spread across the man’s face. “Divination, Ancient Runes, and Art,” Snape said slowly. “Art shouldn’t be a problem, but you’re going to have to switch one of the other two since they’re held at the same time.”

“Why would they hold two third year classes at the same time?” Harry asked bluntly, flinching at the potions master’s raised brow as he realized what he had done.

At the boy’s side Blaise hooked a finger through his own where the school robes would hide the action, but it didn’t do much to settle the boy. Nothing truly could at that moment after so many years of being told that he wasn’t allowed to ask questions. Sometimes he forgot that rule while here. Sometimes he forgot that it didn’t apply.

“Good question,” was all the man said instead of a reprimand like the boy had been expecting, “I’ve asked it before, and likely will again, but you do need to pick one.”

Thing was, Harry truly didn’t want to. One class he wanted to take because of a fascination that he had found with it, one that he hadn’t expected to have, one that made him think. And another he wanted to take because of a natural gift of one of the boys back in Surrey, one that he knew how to copy. There was a whole other world that he wanted to explore.

“Could I test up in the class?” Harry asks before he can think to stop himself, but there isn’t surprise on either of the other snakes’ faces, only confusion.

“Test up?” Blaise asks.

Harry nods. “You would take a cumulative test of the class for one of the years and if you pass then you get to skip that class and go to the next,” the boy explains.

“And you think that you could just magically ‘test out’ Potter ?” Snape asks coldly, some of the scorn from their first days of knowing one another seeping in as if he was seeing someone else other than Harry at that moment when he spoke. Someone that he loathed.

He noticed that the man called him Potter then when he had sometimes called him Harry in the past. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to prod at that connection just yet.

Blaise squeezes his fingers once more and Harry knows that he isn’t the only one that thinks that the professor had suddenly become harsh. “No sir, not magic,” the boy says placatingly, his voice small in the way that it too often was on Private Drive. “But I’ve been studying runes all year for a personal project,” he explains quickly.

The other boy nods in agreement. “Harry has to have read nearly half of the books in the library on them.”

The professor seems to still at that, something coming back to the man’s gaze that made it a little more familiar than it had been before. “Well,” he says, his voice much softer than before, almost apologetic though Harry knew that an adult would never outright be so, “we’ll have to see what we can do about that then. Maybe Professor Babbling will allow you to sit in on her third year final.”

“Thank you,” Harry says quickly before turning on his heel and leaving the room faster than he had in a long time, dragging Blaise with him. 

He knew that it was better to be out of an adult’s site when they were in moods like this, and Snape’s had been worsening since he’d gotten that damned book.

—-

The dungeon was packed when the Slytherins returned to it from dinner, that wasn’t unusual on days when large groups just so happened to leave at around the same time, or a first year was tasked with opening it and the snake suddenly finds that they can’t remember the password with so many people watching. What was usual was that the crowd wasn’t moving, even more so that they were all but silent.

Harry looked at the other second years for a brief second before making up his mind and slipping away from them and into the crowd, ignoring the way that his skin crawled. Harry had always been small, a product of only being fed enough by his relatives so that he continued to survive. Being the way that he was, Harry could easily slip between the cracks in the gathered crowd, pushing to the front of it until he stopped alongside a blank faced Flint and a fuming Gemma.

“What happened?” The boy asked as he looked upon the same sight that they all were up at the front. The sight that was truly enough to make such a large group still even as the common room was so close.

The door to the Potions classroom was thrown open wide in a way that it never was at this time of night, but worse than that, the potions professor's desk was trashed in a way that they all knew that the man never would have allowed. Student papers marked in an angry red ink that they could all see from even the hall were scattered across the floor as other papers with diagrams drawn upon them joined the mess. Almost all of the drawers were of the desk were open, some even completely taken out of it. Beakers were on the ground, and some were broken. Harry knew that this was the sort of mess that came from someone careless, someone careless that was looking for something.

“I came to ask about an essay,” Gemma said, the half finished paper still in the prefect’s hand, “found the room like this instead.”

The air was tense in the way that it often had been after an attack and Harry knew then that it was likely the same person. No one else would have been foolish enough to break into the office of the most feared Professor in Hogwarts.

At least Harry hoped that no one else would be.

“Clear out of the way,” a cold voice drawled as the other Slytherins rushed to follow the instruction.

The man hurried into his classroom, sparing none of the students little more than a glance as he immediately went for a box that usually sat hidden behind some of the potions ingredients that lined the shelves behind the professor’s desk. It was empty when the man opened it easily, surprise thick in his eyes.

There had likely been wards before, Harry thought nervously, wards that the thief somehow were able to get through. 

Harry wondered what sort of student could get through a professor's wards as easily as this seemed to have been for them as the hardest thing that they had likely had to have done was find the right box. He wondered if it was a student at all that had knowingly done this, or if the book had some sort of hold that could control others.

“They took it,” Harry said softly, hesitantly, stepping into the room. “Didn’t they?”

“Took what?” Flint asked, but was ignored.

Harry watches as the potions Professor drags a hand across his face. “Yes.”

Harry knew then that with the diary stolen it wouldn’t be long before the attacks started once more.

—-

Harry and the Slytherin girls walked closely to one another as they made slow progress to the Quidditch Pitch, eyes searching the sea of Hufflepuff yellow and black, and Gryffindor red and gold around them for twin sparks of blue. Hermione and Luna were supposed to be meeting them on the way to the pitch, they had all hoped that going to a game together would make the older girl like the younger more. 

Neither had shown.

Harry picked at his sleeves as they walked, nails scraping against the skin there until it turned red. He knew that it wasn’t like Hermione - the perfectionist - not to show up, even if they’re not particularly close. He also knew that even though Luna tended to be a bit of a free spirit, doing what she wants whenever she wants to, the Ravenclaw wasn’t the sort to break a promise if she could help it.

Something twisted in the boy’s stomach, distracting him enough that he didn’t notice the figure drawing close until he was already there.

“Mr. Potter,” Flitwick said morosely, taking note of the way that the boy flinched when he spoke. Something to speak with his head of house with at a later date. “I need you to come with me.”

“Harry has been with us all morning,” Pansy said quickly as she and Tracey moved to the boy’s side. They knew the way that some of the professors - that Dumbledore - looked at the other snake, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop. They’d hoped that he would be safe now that the old fool was gone.

“I’m not here to accuse him of anything,” the Professor said placatingly, not that he thought any of the snakes believed him. Something sad for the professor to realize from his second years. Usually it took them longer to become so cynical. “I just need to speak with Mr. Potter.”

Harry nodded at the girls before slipping away from their circle that they had all but formed. “I’ll be fine,” the boy assured. “But if I die then tell Draco to avenge me.”

The girls laughed as the pair walked away.

“Mr. Malfoy?” The Professor asked, trying to distract the boy before the likely impact was to come. “I would have thought Mr. Nott or Mr. Zabini would have been your Slytherins of choice.”

“You forget that the hat didn’t even touch Draco’s head before sorting him,” Harry reminded the older wizard. “But pleasantries aside,” the boy decided as they reached the castle doors, “what’s this about.”

The wizard sighed, hoping to have postponed this a little longer. “You’re Miss Granger’s friend, correct?”

Harry nodded even though he felt oddly guilty for doing so. The pair hadn’t been as close since the way that she had spoken of Luna. The attacks hadn’t helped much, nor with even her looking at the Slytherins as if they might suddenly grow fangs and strike. She’s a Ravenclaw - someone eager to learn and push the boundaries of knowledge - and yet was enough of a stickler for the rules that she was sometimes hard to speak with. To be honest around. He couldn’t count the number of times that they had stopped speaking about one thing or another that was on the more on the illicit side of things when the Ravenclaw had sat down with them in class.

Still…

“I am.”

“I thought so.” The Professor nodded. “Then it's probably best that you see this first before hearing about it from the school.”

“See what?” Harry asked, but he already thought that he knew.

They were outside the hospital wing, Hermione was nowhere to be seen, but Luna was.

The girl smiled slightly at her head of house, the look not reaching her eyes as she slid an arm through the Slytherin’s, leading him inside.

He wished that she hadn’t.

Hermione was laid down on the hospital bed, her hand held high in a way that was unnatural for the girl. Her eyes were opened wide with fear, unmoving.

She was petrified. 

Magic started to swell beneath the boy’s skin, enough to make the professor flinch as he looked at the Slytherin. He could hear the magic singing within the boy, the sound leaking from him, growing stronger as if it were about to scream. He didn’t know how she did, but Miss Lovegood seemed to know too because she tugged on Mr. Potter quickly, pulling him from the room just as bottles had begun to shake. Flitwick wanted to think that this was all accidental magic, but he knew that it wasn’t.

He knew that he should go after them as the boy’s teacher, but he raised his wand and sent a message to another instead and hoped that it was enough.

Luna walked quickly with the fuming boy’s hand clasped to her own, knowing where they needed to go even without magic whispering in her ears. 

Snakes protect their own and if Harry was about to fall, then no one else could see.

The dungeons flew by quickly, she almost didn’t notice the Professor waiting for them in her haste, but was thankful for him nonetheless as Snape opened the common room door. The snakes turned quickly to look at the source of the commotion, some of them more drawn to the magic seeping from the boy’s skin, pouring out of him like some sort of river.

The room began to shake, harder and harder as if the walls had come alive. Luna thought that the roof might begin to crack, but then the walls began to hiss.

There were countless numbers of snakes in the Slytherin common room. Painted ones, sculpted and carved. Aside from the one enchanted on the wallpaper they were all usually still. None of them were still then.

The snakes began to shift where they were as if being brought to life. Luna watched with wonder as they slithered within the wallpaper and the mantle piece, slithered and swelled like Harry’s magic, looking more and more real by the moment until suddenly there were snakes on the ground and screams in the air. 

Harry had brought them all to life.

The magic was screaming and Luna was scared.

Snape looked at the boy before him, unknowing of what to do as the boy breathed so harshly, his magic taking control. The man had seen a lot of things during the war, but never such a feat of magic outside of it and never something like this .

“Harry!” The man said quickly, dropping down before the boy and grabbing his shoulders. Touch was always enough to startle or ground the boy, but it wasn’t then amongst the hissing and startled mummers. The boy’s eyes were closed tight and he was shaking. “Harry, you need to control yourself.”

More snakes fell to the ground, slipping between the house members’ legs. The boy was hyperventilating now.

“Harry, you need to breathe,” Snape tried again, trying to get the boy to listen.

But Harry had lost control and that terrified him, causing him to spiral even more after the initial shock.

“ Can’t,” the boy said, but his words came out in a hiss. 

Parseltongue , Snape realized, but pushed it aside for later with the wandless magic. It would have to wait, he was just glad that no one else seemed to have heard it.

The potions master glanced around the room, at the boy’s friends where they all stood around the first year Ravenclaw and the other first year Slytherins with their wands drawn. There were tears in the young girl’s eyes, she looked terrified.

(She was, but not from Harry but for him)

“Control, Harry! You’re scaring Miss Lovegood,” the Professor tried once more, prepared to knock the boy out or stun him if it doesn't work. 

“Luna?” The boy asks hesitantly.

“Yes, you’re scaring Luna.”

The boy’s eyes opened slowly, going instantly to the Ravenclaw girl. His hand twitched and the girl moved instantly, stepping through the snakes as they slowly began to fade. The second years followed quickly and the Professor stepped away.

Luna took one side as Blaise took the other, with Theo and Draco before the trio as the two helped pull Harry to his feet.

“No one says a word about this to anyone,” the potions master said harshly, looking at each of his snakes. “Understood?”

Those within the common room were quick to nod, but they were all haunted by a similar occurrence that had happened only a few months prior at the beginning of the school year. It wasn’t just that the boy savior had a dark affinity that let him cast spells that anyone touched by one could, or even those that only those with a strong affinity could, but also things that should have been impossible. Spells that they didn’t even know exist, and shouldn’t have been able to be cast by a second year even in such a fit.

Spells that shouldn’t exist.

The snakes faded slowly into mist before returning to where they had been before. The Slytherins looked at the strange boy as he was held by the strange Ravenclaw and the youngest Zabini. Physically the boy looked tired, but his eyes looked more alive than ever, seeming to shine in a way that no one had quite noticed before. 

Like the killing curse.

—-

Harry poked at his food as he listened to the others talk around him, quiet whispers and not much else from around the Great Hall. It was always like this after an attack, everyone retreating to those that they knew and trusted, suspicious of all others. It was worse this time though because it wasn’t only the attack that had people on edge.

When the students woke this morning, they found two members of the staff missing, one taken and the other forcibly removed from his position by outside forces.

Hagrid, the grounds keeper, had been arrested for a crime that no one in Slytherin truly believed that the docile man had committed.

Dumbledore was removed from the school.

Harry didn’t know whether to feel relieved or not.

Chapter Text

Looking back on that day, Harry will never be sure what exactly hit off the chain reaction of what had occurred following the attack on Hermione. What caused his world to shift so profoundly as it had, but he does know that it started around a week before the first of June, when McGonagall had made an announcement at breakfast, three days before their first exam.

“I have good news,” the temporary headmistress said, speaking too slowly to stop the slew of conspiracy theories that started flooding the hall. 

“Dumbledore is coming back!” Some of the students yelled with hope that none of the Slytherins quite understood.

“You’ve caught the Heir of Slytherin!” A Ravenclaw squealed as Harry was surprised to see that none of the eyes within the Great Hall flitted over to him at that.

“Quidditch matches are back on!” 

Harry enjoyed watching Flint look at the other Quidditch captain in defeat at that. It was always an entertaining sight to watch how the older boy reacted to the Gryffindor.

“We’re getting a competent defense Professor next year!” Harry yelled out just to watch Lockhart scowl at the implication, and shrugged as his friends looked at him in a similar manner as Flint had just looked at Wood. “What?” Harry asked with a shrug, but smiled cheekily - and almost truly - as Blaise pulled him back down to the bench.

The Transfiguration Professor scowled at the boy, but Harry didn’t care as Snape was looking at him in a way that could almost  be called amused and Blaise was still holding onto his shoulder, the weight grounding in a way that Harry hadn’t thought that touch could still be.

The mood shifted as McGonagall revealed that the mandrakes were ready and that the petrified students would be revived by the end of tonight, and possibly reveal the culprit to them if they had seen them. It wasn’t that the mood was any less excited than before - it was more so - but the air of suspicion that had faded from constantly hovering through the castle since the attack on Hermione rose once more, though none of it was directed at Harry this time. The scarred boy figured that it would always be there when the attacks were mentioned.

Though everyone was obviously relieved to have this whole ordeal coming to a close, Harry felt a wave of apprehension rise up within him. He’d seen both sides of the criminal coin over the past year, the side of the innocent where he currently resided and the side of the perpetrator that he liked to dance on during the summer holidays. Harry knew how frantic people became when they felt that they were close to being found out, the lengths that they went to.

He wondered what lengths the Heir would go to now that everyone knew that there was a time limit on them.

Now that they knew.

—-

Blaise didn't say anything as he watched Harry tap his fingers against the bench all the way through History of Magic, though he knew that the girls found it to be annoying to put it politely. There was something in his nervous energy that was more than his usual swings between restlessness and complete lack of energy.

It was as if he was waiting for something to happen. 

(He was)

Class came slowly to an end, but Harry wasn’t listening to a word that the ghost was saying, instead he was letting his mind wander to what he would do if he were the Heir in this situation. How exactly this cornered animal would react. 

He knew that whoever the Heir is, that they were being influenced - if not controlled by - the diary that he and Blaise had found and given to the potions master, only for it to be stolen not too long after. This meant that the diary’s hold was strong on the victim - if they truly were one - and made them reckless, willing to do whatever it takes to succeed.

 It also meant that whatever magic it was that is holding the diary together as it is doesn't seem to care much for the vessel in which it acts through, as the vessel could have easily been caught and stopped in the act of stealing the cursed book back. It wouldn’t be long before those involved tucked their tails and ran before they could be caught, no matter the consequences that they left behind.

Desperation, Harry thought again, and the things that people do when faced with it.

Harry waited for the bell to signal for the break between classes, but it never came. 

He wished that he had been more surprised with what did come.

“All students retire to their house dormitories immediately. All teachers to the staff room.”

Harry stood with the rest of the students at the Transfiguration professor’s instructions, but where all of the Ravenclaws headed straight for the door, the snakes each looked to the scarred boy, a knowing look in their gazes.

“You’re not coming with us to the dormitory, are you?” Theo asked as the second year Slytherins all looked to the smallest of their lot. The one that they worried for the most, that they all knew had a tendency for acting like a Gryffindor at the worst of times.

This was one of the worst of times.

They watched as the boy shook his head and removed his invisibility cloak from his pocket, showing it to them as if the implication there was obvious. It was.

“This isn’t your responsibility,” Draco said as Pansy nodded along with the blond boy, “you don’t have to do this, you’re not a bloody lion.”

But Harry only let the cloak fall open. “Do you know any other Parselmouth?” The boy asked as he looked at his friends with the sort of stern gaze that resembled a certain potions master too much. 

The other Slytherins’ silence was enough of an answer.

“You have no idea how to kill it,” Blaise reminded the other boy, his stomach twisting into knots at the idea of the scarred boy facing such a creature as he was sure Harry was bound to do so if the went to the teacher’s lounge now and learned whatever it was that they knew.

Harry smirked and held up his hand, green flames dancing across his fingers as he moved them, a display of power that told those that hadn’t known before that the magic from a few days before hadn’t been an accident at all.

“I can think of a few.”

No one could think of a refute to that.

“If you die I’ll kill you,” Pansy said as she stepped forwards and took the small boy into her arms, “and you know that Luna will help.”

“Of course,” Harry said stiffly as he drew away and slipped on the cloak before anyone else could say another thing. 

Emotions never had been his strong suit.

—-

Ginny Weasley. 

Harry could curse himself for being so close to the truth when he had suspected Percy, and yet so far from it at the end of the day. 

It made sense that the diary would pick a pureblood to act through if it were to be targeting muggle borns. It made sense, and Harry had thought it months ago when the first attack had occurred not long after he had met Luna. Back then when they had narrowed the suspects down to Gryffindors house and Ravenclaw. Back when they had assumed the culprit to be a first year because no one else would ever be so foolish, or so easy to overlook. 

And he had been right.

But then the information about Percy had come along and his attention had been diverted from trying to find out who had been the Heir to how they had been doing it all and the creature itself. He’d let himself be distracted. He had done it before and had gotten himself hurt, now it was someone else’s head on the chopping block. 

He should have known better.

Maybe that guilt - no matter how irrational some small part of him knew that it was - was why he was walking so fast to the Gryffindor common room, trailing behind the Transfiguration professor with magically silenced feet as the sickness gripped at him, and slipping in behind her into the lion’s den.

The already quite common room ceased to create any noise at all as their Head of House walked in, a somber look on the witch’s face as she looked at the four Weasley brothers that were all sitting close to one another, something frantic in each of their gazes that matched the other’s. A sort of intuition that Harry thought must come from being a part of a family, to know when another is in trouble long before it is confirmed.

“There was another attack tonight,” the woman said, her voice a little strained by emotion, much more than Harry had ever heard her use before, something that must be reserved for her house alone. “Miss. Weasley was taken by the monster into the Chamber,” she continues bluntly, ripping off the band-aid (only it was covering a bullet hole instead of a scratch, and now all four of the boys were bleeding out). “The school will be closing down for good, and the train will be coming to pick you all up in the morning and take all students home.”

No one said a thing, but Harry didn’t think that the Professor had been expecting them to. It was strange to the snake that the Gryffindor head of house would be the least close to her students, but Harry supposed that this didn’t truly matter now. 

The Professor left as quickly as she had come, but Harry stayed and watched as the lions slowly made their way to their rooms. He had intended to talk with one or both of the twins when they were next alone, but when the pair rose, Lee Jordan was quick to follow them up. Percy was out of the question, even as he retired early, leaving only one Weasley brother left in the otherwise empty common room.

Great.

Harry tapped his fingers against his thigh as he moved close to the other second year, unsure of just how he wanted to go about this, but figured that if he was going to risk anyone else’s life, then it might as well be someone that he doesn't care for as much as he does the twins and his snakes.

Grabbing the edge of his invisibility cloak, Harry threw it over the other boy as he sat down next to him on the couch, their thighs pressed together, concealing them both as he put a hand over the other boy’s mouth and a finger to his own lips.

“What the hell, Potter?” The older boy growled as he shoved the offending hand away, but his voice was quiet, a whisper.

Harry bit back a smirk.

Maybe he’s not a complete idiot.

“I’m going after the monster,” the snake said quickly, before the other boy could become less compliant, “are you in or what?”

“Why?” The lion asks after a long moment, his eyes too tired to hold the anger that they usually did. “Why are you going after it?”

And wasn’t that a tricky question?

“The monster attacked Hermione,” the snake answers, a half truth that he doesn't feel too horrible for speaking.

He was going after it because the monster attacked Hermione, one of his first friends within the Wizarding world and the only other friend that he has the understands growing up muggle and then coming to Hogwarts, but he had also been hunting it before to clear his name. Going after it for the challenge that such a thing provided. But at the heart of those answers, there was one that was even more selfish than some of the previous.

He didn’t know what would happen to him next year if he didn’t.

He and the Plutos had a plan for the summer holidays, something that would work because it was such a short amount of time, but another school was bound to figure out that he wasn’t where he was supposed to be. That he wasn’t with the Dursleys.

There was no way that even bloody Merlin could force him to go back there.

(He wouldn’t admit that he also didn’t want to be separated from Luna and the rest of the snakes, that would imply that he had gotten too attached - he knows that he has been for a long time)

“The Heir made it personal,” the older boy said slowly, something in the heat of his voice softening as Ron looked at the snake. He’d known for a while now that he would have to tolerate the other boy because of Fred and George’s fondness for the Slytherin boy savior, he’d never thought that he would be sympathetic to the other boy.

“Didn’t they just make it personal for you?” 

Ron couldn’t deny that.

“Alright,” he says slowly, still somewhat bewildered by the thought of working with the snake, “but if we’re going to do this then we need an adult.”

The youngest Weasley brother thinks that he hears the Slytherin mutter something unkind about Gryffindors, but knows that he doesn't have time - that Ginny doesn't have time - for them to get into it now.

“Do we need one that is actually going to help, or just to divert some of the punishment once this is over with?” Potter asks and Ron realizes that the other boy is smart. More than just book smart - though the lion had never seen him open a book for any class that they were actually taking - but the sort of intelligence that lands one in Slytherin. 

Cunning.

Ron didn’t think that it was such a bad thing to have at the moment. It certainly didn’t hurt as much to see as it had at the beginning of first year around the time of the fight.

(And wasn’t that a surprise)

“Actually,” the snake continues, almost to himself, “scratch that, we’re going with the second one,” the younger boy decides. “This way we can knock getting rid of Lockhart off of my bucket list as well.”

Ron wasn’t entirely sure how the two correlated - he had an idea, but it was one where the defense professor’s body ends up in the Chamber, never to be found and the lion figured that the Slytherin wouldn't be so blatant about revealing such a plot if that were the case - but if it got his sister back and got rid of the idiot author, then the chess master didn’t mind.

“Uh, sure mate,” the youngest Weasley brother says, not sure what else he could say.

Harry nodded and motioned for the other boy to stand, the pair pressed closer together than he would have liked as they hid beneath the cloak and walked slowly to the door and then through the halls.

“You think that he’s in his office at this hour?” The Weasel asked with a slight tone of disbelief. 

Harry could understand and would have agreed had it been any other day, and had he not heard the conversation between the professors as he hid in the staff room.

But he had.

“Apparently he’s been blabbering about ‘knowing where the Chamber of Secrets is’” the snake says with air quotes and a clearly disgusted voice that made the Gryffindor wonder if the other boy had always been this way, and immediately know what the twins saw in him if the answer was that he had. “The other teachers have tasked him with going down to get your sister,” the younger of the two boys continues, “but since the bastard is a bloody liar then he’s probably packing to run right now.”

—-

He had been.

Robes and books had been flying magically around the room and stacking themselves into chests when the pair had walked into the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor’s office. The moving paintings and photographs were shoved into boxes in a way that could only be called hazardous as the blond Professor was still trying to cram more.

The Professor had confessed so easily to his past crimes while trying to escape his current duties to the school. Easily enough that Harry had known that the defense Professor had no intention of letting them leave the classroom with their memories intact.

It would have been a threatening situation had pit - pocketing the man on the way into the office not been as easy as doing so to a distracted child. Instead, they walked out of the classroom with the eldest man held at wand point.

“You two should really think about the consequences of what you are doing,” the man protests as he walks slowly, something that Harry notices sets the other boy’s teeth on edge. His anger was amusing when it wasn’t directed at him.

“That’s rich coming from a fuc’d up bloke like you,” Harry sneered, a bit of a cockney accent entering the snake’s voice as he spoke to the man that had admitted to stealing the memories of witches and wizards only a minute before to write his awful books.

“Where exactly are we going?” The Weasel asked after another minute of walking.

“Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom,” the Slytherin answered quickly as it came into view. “The first attack happened in this hall and Blaise and I found a cursed diary in it,” Harry explains while keeping a close eye on the defense Professor, knowing that if the man were to run, now would be the time.

“Could just be a coincidence,” the youngest Weasley brother protested, though Harry knows that it’s only from fear of them wasting precious time and being too late to save his sister. 

Harry was worried about that as well, though not for the girl’s life, but what it would be used to bring back.

The boys sent the professor in first, Harry didn’t try to hide the satisfaction that he felt at the way that the man shook, even if it did earn him a strange look from the Weasel.

Harry entered and looked around the room - the high ceilings and tall windows that followed the gothic theme of the rest of the castle, yet it looked a little more weathered by time as it had been uncared for during the past fifty years - and remembered the last time that he was there. The book that had been left beneath one of the sinks. It didn’t seem such a horrible place to start.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Harry could see the young looking ghost hovering above her cubicle, watching the three of them but not approaching for whatever reason. Harry had noticed over the past two years that the ghosts seem to avoid him for some reason, as if something about his magic felt toxic to them. He didn’t really care either way.

“What are we looking for?” Ron asked as the snake slipped away from behind the Professor and walked over to the sinks, stooping down to look at them as if searching for something.

“I found the diary under one of these sinks,” the other boy explains with a slightly echoing voice in the tall room, “figured it wouldn’t be a horrible place to start.”

The lion supposed that he couldn’t argue with that if Potter truly thought that this diary and the Chamber were somehow connected.

He just hoped that the other boy was right.

“Got ya,” the snake said as he had almost round the circle of sinks, his fingers brushing against something that Ron couldn’t see on one of the sinks.

The younger boy stepped back from the sink and the Gryffindor fought the urge to watch whatever it was that the boy did next, keeping an eye on the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor instead.

It was a hard thing to do once the Slytherin started to hiss.

“You’re a parselmouth!?” Ron asked, suddenly worried that the other boy truly was the Heir of Slytherin and this was some plot to make him next. It didn’t help that the sinks had begun to shift them and reveal a sort of slid just big enough for a grown man to go down.

He wasn’t expecting the Slytherin to look at him with such blatant disappointment when he turned around.

“And here I thought that Slytherins were supposed to be the prejudiced ones,” the boy scoffed, disgust clear in his voice that was much colder than it had been all night.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ron asked sharply, not really noticing how his wand had been slowly shifting from the professor to the other boy.

Harry did.

“You find out that I’m a parselmouth and suddenly believe that I’m evil even when you know that I’m here because I want the monster dead,” the Slytherin points out, making the lion’s cheeks heat up as he had done just that. “Guess I shouldn’t have expected anything else from a bloody Gryffindor.”

When the snake laughs, there is no humor in it at all.

“I-”

“Lockhart,” Harry says, cutting the other boy off, “you go first.”

“Shouldn’t one of you two go first?” The blond asks, slowly stepping away, but the snake still has his wand trained on the man and grabs the older wizard by the wrist. “You know… keep me in the middle?”

“You’re a precaution,” Harry says with cruelty that the lion wasn’t used to hearing coming from the Slytherin’s lips, “precautions go first.”

Ron knows that if he had blinked, then he would have missed the younger boy twisting the man and shoving him down the slide. It happened so quickly and with the strength that Ron always forgot that the Slytherin had.

“He’s going to try something once we’re down there,” Potter said, still not quite looking at the other boy, something that only hurt the redhead to see at the moment. “Don’t let your guard down even for a second.” And with that the snake was gone, following the Professor down.

Ron was quick to follow as well.

Lockhart was already on his feet and Potter’s wand lit by the time that Ron made it down the slide. He could have done without the second one as he shuddered looking at the slime covered walls and the small animal bones on the floor. The Gryffindor couldn't help but wonder how many students’ pets had gone missing over the years and made their way here.

He didn’t think that he wanted to know.

“If you see anything move, close your eyes right away,” the Slytherin warned as he venerated down the tunnel.

“Why?” Ron asked quickly. “What is the monster anyway?”

“A basilisk,” Harry answers without looking back at the other boy, keeping his wand and attention focused on the man in front of him. “One look directly into its eyes and you die instantly.”

Harry didn’t need to look back to know that there was fear in the lion’s eyes.

The Slytherin saw it before the Gryffindor said anything, the long outline of something huge and curved. He saw the way that the light of their wands hit it, the strange shadow that it held.

“It’s the thing’s skin,” Harry said as he trailed a hand over the smooth surface, almost expecting it to crumble beneath his touch.

“That’s gross mate,” the Weasel said as he stood as far away from the Basilisk skin as he possibly could in the small tunnel.

“Maybe,” Harry agreed, but he was already thinking of all of the things that could be done with it. The rare potions and the price that some people would likely be willing to pay for even the small piece of such a thing.

Unfortunately, the small reprieve from the tension of the tunnel came with a cost as Lockhart took the moment to grab the wand from the lion’s hand and point it at the pair.

“This ends here boys!” Gilderoy exclaimed as he looked at the unlikely pair. 

Even someone like him had noticed that the two boys seemed to dislike one another almost to the point of hating each other. He knew that it wasn’t a hard thing to do when the Potter boy was the way that he is -  cold eyes that see too much and easy influence among each of the houses. No one had even dared to touch the boy while everyone still believed him to be the Heir of Slytherin. 

He had watched the boy from the beginning, wanting to see what advantages he could reap from the young Slytherin. If the snake had turned out to be the hero that they all truly thought him to be for so long now, then he could take the credit as he had done so many times before, and if he had been the villain of this year, then there was credit to be had there too for bringing him down. 

Even he hadn’t quite expected this.

“I’ll take a piece of this skin with me and tell the whole school how Potter was a parselmouth and the Heir of Slytherin all along,” the defense professor continues. “How I was too late to save the young Weasley siblings from their fate, but managed to stop the Heir all the same. Won’t that be a nice story?”

“Blimey,” Potter says, a humorless laugh falling from his lips that makes Ron want to step farther away from the boy, “and here I thought that you were a complete idiot. Damn, guess I owe Pansy money.”

Lockhart was looking at the youngest of the two boys as if he were crazy and Ron couldn’t help but agree. A truly sickening thought.

“I wouldn’t worry about that if I were you,” the Professor said as he raised the stolen wand and pointed it at the bespectacled boy. “Obliviate!”

Ron couldn’t explain the scream that tore from his lips, but he didn’t fight it either as he dove at the Professor, to try and stop him even as something in the back of the boy’s mind told him that it was a fruitless endeavor.

Ron was already thinking of just what he was going to have to say to Professor McGonagall as he tackled the Professor to the ground slowly. He didn’t even want to start thinking of how he would explain it all to Snape.

He wasn’t expecting for the spell to rebound off of a shield that the other boy had somehow casted silently and hit Lockhart himself, or for the ceiling to fall down between the two boys.

“Harry!” The youngest Weasley brother screamed as the ceiling caved in between them. “Harry, are you okay!?”

“So I’m ‘Harry’ now?” A cheeky voice yelled back, though Ron found that he was glad to hear it.

If the other boy was acting like a little shit, then he knew that the Slytherin wasn’t too hurt. He’d seen the way that the snake had been at the beginning of the year and the end of the previous. He didn’t know what kind of hurt that was - nor did he want to -  but he knew that the other boy went quiet when he was so. Docile.

This wasn’t that.

“Git!”

“Prat!” 

There was silence for a moment as Harry pushed himself to his feet and looked around the space that he was in, the side that led deeper into the creature’s lair.

Good, the boy thought, no need to waste any more magic just yet.

Not that he truly felt any drain, not where there was a strong source of dark magic coming from down the tunnel. One as strong as the common room itself, if not more. 

“Stay with Lockhart,” Harry yelled quickly as he slid his wand into his school cloak, not needing the hindrance, “I’m going to keep going.”

“Don’t be stupid, Potter! We can-” The other boy yells, and the snake can hear the genuine concern in the older boy’s voice. Something that he hadn’t expected to be there. Something that he supposed almost dying together could add.

“Thought I was Harry!” The Slytherin yells back before walking away and picking up speed, ignoring the way that the lion called after him.

It was easier this way.

It was always easier to go about it alone.

Soon Harry could no longer hear the older boy’s desperate calls as the tunnel twisted and turned again and again as if it were a serpent itself. With each step Harry felt more and more alive than the last, magic coursing all around him that would have frighted others. It was old and electrifying. Harry didn’t think that he had quite felt like this since the first time stepping into the Slytherin common room. 

He felt like nothing could touch him.

When the tunnel came to end, it was to a solid with twin intertwined serpents on it, carved from stone as their eyes shined beneath the light that he had cast. Emeralds.

(He didn’t know it and likely never would, but the gems were the same color as his own eyes. And as the killing curse.)

“Open,” the boy hissed. 

The snakes obliged.

Chapter Text

When Harry walked into the Chamber of Secrets, he wasn’t expecting to find it to be a large open corridor with stone pillars of serpents lining the way and water on each side. Though in hindsight, he supposed that he might should have. The serpent was the symbol of Slytherin and water is the house’s element 

The shadows were tall as he walked deeper into the Chamber, though not tall enough to cover the giant face of an ancient man made of stone. One that he could only assume to be Salazar Slytherin himself.

“Egotistical much?” Harry asked himself, not expecting an answer. 

He got one.

“I suppose he does seem to be a little full of himself,” a soft voice answered and Harry stilled, glancing away from the stone figure to the person before him that he was sure hadn’t been there even a moment before.

There was a boy with neat black hair and dark eyes that seemed to know more than they should, leaning against one of the stone pillars. The edges of the older boy - likely sixteen - were shadowy and misted, as if the teen were some sort of ghost. Harry supposed that the idea couldn’t be so wrong, especially not as the magic coming from him was the same twisted sort as that of the diary, Quirrell, and even - in part - Harry himself. 

Near the teen’s feet was the figure of a young girl that Harry recognized instantly. No one else in the school had the same violent red hair as the Weasley’s did. No one else’s shined so bright, like the flames of Gryffindor house.

Ginny Weasley.

There was a dairy next to her on the ground. The diary.

Harry didn’t let his eyes linger on the girl, instead looking back to the teen. The one that hadn’t looked away from him yet. 

The boy was wearing the robes of a Slytherin, but the design was old. And the scarred boy knew for a fact that he wasn’t one of the prefects. 

Not presently.

“Tom Riddle,” Harry said. It wasn’t a guess, not when the other boy looked like a memory and it had been the name of the diary cover.

The older boy nodded, looking impressed.

“Very good,” he praised and between the way that the vestige before him looked and the power that flowed from him, Harry could easily see how some of the original Death Eaters had come to be swayed by him. Even from such a short interaction as this, Harry could see that the teen was likely the embodiment of everything that Slytherin was meant to stand for. “You sure are a puzzle.”

“How so?” The younger asked as he stepped closer to the other boy, and to Ginny.

“Ginny wrote so much about you within the diary,” the memory explained. “About the boy savior of the Wizarding world. The one to defeat Lord Voldermort when he was only an infant. And yet you’re a Slytherin and are different from all the expectations that the girl had.”

“And you’re Voldermort,” Harry said bluntly. “I’m not seeing the point here, Tom.”

Harry should have been expecting the cold laugh that he had received from the other snake, but he hadn’t been and it sent shivers down his spine.

“The point,” the memory continues, “is that you’re supposed to be a hero - a tool for the light - and yet you have the eyes of a killer.”

“You’re one to talk,” the younger of the two Slytherins said, pointing to the slowly dying girl on the ground, the one growing more and more pale by the moment.

“As I said,” Riddle continued as if Harry had just proven a point, “you’re interesting. I should hate you and yet you are fascinating, you and your magic going against all of the rules of nature. Just like my own.”

Harry knew that it was true.

Something tugged in the boy’s chest, as if a small piece of him was longing to be set free. It was almost painful and the sensation was only getting worse as the other boy became more and more clear.

“You’re boring,” Harry sneered, not wanting to be so bluntly complimented by the memory of the man that had killed his parents and sentenced him to the life that he had lived.

Riddle didn’t look daunted though.

“If I’m boring, then so are you,” Riddle protested smoothly, his voice as soft as a feather. “We’re the same aren’t we?” He asked. “Half - bloods raised in the muggle world, gifted in ways that others aren’t. Slytherins with stronger dark affinities than everyone else. Parselmouths. Orphans,” he said the last one as if he wasn’t the reason for that similarity. Harry guessed that it was true in a way, as he wasn’t just yet. “We even look alike, you and I. We’re special, you and I. We’re not held back by humanity like the rest of them.

“Join me,” the older boy said in a way that was more of a command than a request, spoken in such a soft way that Harry almost couldn’t imagine anyone turning it down as the memory holds out its hand, the edges no longer blurred.

He takes the hand.

“Go to hell,” the younger cursed. Flames the color of emeralds sprung to life in the boy’s hand, burning the other as he pulled quickly away, a cold look in each of their eyes.

“Pieces can be replaced,” Riddle said cryptically, speaking of something that Harry didn’t yet know, “so I’ll cut you out like a cancer now and save my present self the trouble.”

The older boy’s smile was cruel and Harry knew that it was the teen’s true one. The face beneath the facade.

“Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts four.”

Harry watched with slight awe that always seemed to overcome him when seeing new magic, as the statue of Salazar Slytherin moved at the memory’s command, opening its mouth wide until it was a black hole with something stirring inside.

It didn’t take a genius to know just what was inside of the small chamber.

A basilisk, the king of the serpents.

Harry wished that he was able to look at the creature, he was sure that it was beautiful.

Something heavy hit the stone as Harry looked down at the ground around his feet, not closing his eyes, as the floor was too slick and damaged with time to do so comfortably without the fear of falling. Only an idiot would fall at a time like this.

Harry wasn’t one.

“Kill him,” the older parselmouth hissed, and the serpent moved quickly to complete the order, scales sliding against the old stone floor as the memory laughed.

The younger Slytherin felt his mind go into overdrive as the serpent slid closer and he stood still. Harry could hear Riddle saying something about Dumbledore’s weapon being a coward, but Harry wasn’t one, not when it counted at least.

It counted now.

“Stop,” the boy hissed, the slightest hint of magic in the second years’ voice as he sought to overpower the previous command.

The memory of Tom Riddle only laughed at his attempt, but stuttered to a confused stop as the basilisk complied.

“What?” The teen asked, his voice halfway a hiss.

The king of the serpents stopped only a few yards from where the pair of them stood, its body right next to the passed out Weasley. Even as it didn’t look at her, the younger Slytherin was sure that it knew that the girl was there, and was choosing to ignore her.

“Another?” The creature hissed, slow and long as Harry peered at its scales but didn’t dare look into the serpent’s eyes.

“No!” Riddle hissed out in anger, but the younger parselmouth also spoke.

“Another,” Harry agreed, his voice firm in a way that it shouldn’t be. He didn’t fear the being before him.

The creature hissed with curiosity, and Harry could hear its tongue flicking out, as if deciding what to do.

“What do you want?” Harry asked the king of the serpents, startling both the creature and the other boy. He was sure that no one had ever asked the old snake such a thing before, no one likely would again.

The basilisk dropped its head in consideration, but was careful not to stoop in a way that either the memory or the boy might catch a glimpse of its eyes. It was silent for a long moment, but Harry thought that he would remember the creature's reply until he died.

“To be free.”

Harry remembered the snake that he had met at the zoo only two summers ago, the orphaned creature that had been bred in captivity. He had felt like that serpent then, trapped in a small exhibit as those that had been tasked to care for him did anything but. At least he and the snake from back then had others around them, even if they were the ones holding them in their cages. The basilisk, Harry knew, didn’t even have that much, and had been trapped here for a thousand years, alone.

He didn’t feel bad for the creature, but he understood it.

“You’ll only be hunted for sport if you leave the castle,” he informed the creature with a soft hiss, he’d never expected to have something in common with the beast that he’d wanted to kill for so long - still did. “You’re strong, but even you would fall to such a number eventually, and a life of running isn’t much of one at all.”

“Don’t listen to the boy,” the memory cut in once more, but the serpent king didn’t shift the teen’s way, Harry wasn’t sure if this was a  good thing or not for him.

Harry smiled slowly at the other boy. “There is another sort of freedom,” the younger Slytherin hissed, “one that is absolute and cannot be taken away unless magic is involved beforehand in doing so.”

“And what is that, little human?” The basilisk hissed, its tongue flicking out once more as it did so, a ghastly sound.

“Death.”

 The creature reared back as if struck by something as the memory of Riddle scoffed with clear disgust. Harry didn’t falter, not when he couldn’t afford to, not when there was a girl dying in the ground and her brother was awaiting his return with no clear way out of the tunnel.

And not when revenge and security were close enough to grasp.

“You would dare-” the basilisk hissed out in anger and Harry almost smiled more, those that showed anger so easily were always the easiest to manipulate, whether they realized it or not.

“It’s not so different from your existence now,” the boy cut in, showing his lack of survival instincts once more in process and seemingly proving Snape right in doing so. The man had called him reckless after all, and this was certainly that. “But,” Harry continued quickly, “you would get to be with your master once more. Only in death do you get to be with him though.”

“Salazar,” the snake hiss in a way that almost sounded like a whisper, one filled with all the longing a dark creature could possess for something that it had lost so long ago.

Harry knew then that he had won.

Tom Riddle knew it as well.

The memory lunged at the boy, his palms outstretched as if to strangle the younger Slytherin as an angry cry escaped his throat. Harry jumped nimbly to the side and had a blade in his hand in only a moment, not bothering with his wand and not wanting to give the teen a chance to steal it. The effort was unnecessary though, as the basilisk lunged at where the pair stood, quick as lighting as it did so.

Harry could hear the sickening crunch as teeth met bone and the screams that he thought might have filled his nightmares for a long time had he been someone with more of a heart. Instead of feeling horror though, all the boy did was feel a selfish sort of relief.

The screams were not his.

The memory of Tom Riddle wailed as a long tooth struck through his middle, through where Harry thought that the ribs might have been. Ginny Weasley screamed as well, her pain filling the corridor even as the basilisk drew away from the teen. The younger Slytherin knew then that the pair must have been more connected than he had thought if she felt such pain from a wound that the other had suffered, but no blood bloomed in the girl’s blouse, even as the memory’s shined like the sun, the pair only screaming more as the memory seemed to burn away.

When the screams stopped Harry turned with a blank gaze to the first year on the ground and walked slowly to her, but he didn’t need to go far to see the steady rise and fall of her chest - albeit weak, but there - or to feel how her magic still felt like her own from before, untainted by the memory (unlike his own). The diary felt clean then too, only a trace of the dark magic remaining after such a long time housing it.

The girl’s screams must have been their connection severing, Harry reasoned.

Harry looked as far up the basilisk as he dared before in inclining his head only the slightest bit for the creature to see.

“Thank you.”

The basilisk bobbed its head once as well.

“You said that death was true freedom,” the king of the serpents said, almost like a question, but not quite so.

“Yes,” Harry answered anyway once he noticed the lack of the serpent’s hostility at the thought.

“Yet you live?”

“Magic intervened,” the boy answered simply and the serpent hissed as if it were agreeing. As if it had known before asking.

Maybe it had.

“Alright.”

The basilisk bowed its head once more, dipping down until it laid against the ground, its eyes lidded so as to not kill the boy before him.

Harry would never understand how he had known what to do, not truly, but it didn’t matter because in that moment he had stepped closer to the creature and had laid a hand upon its soft scales as the magic that had kept the serpent alive for the past thousand or so years flowed from it to the boy, filling the Slytherin and changing him.

(Harry ignored the similarity of the situation of this and what had occurred between Ginny and the memory.)

Power flowed through the boy’s body, as intoxicating as some sort of drug. It was stronger than just being within the chamber, almost as if he held the heart of the chamber’s magic within him (maybe he did). Harry felt something shift within him, something settle as something else seemed to grow. If he focused hard enough, then the boy could feel the new source of magic within him, along with that of the other two dark taints that existed alongside his own.

No lights shined throughout the chamber as the last of the magic spilled from the serpent and into the boy, no screams of horror or delight as the creature drew its last breath. The king of the serpents was simply there one moment and dead the next, and Harry smiled at the sight with teeth that somehow seemed even sharper than before.

The basilisk that had hurt his friend on the memory’s order was as dead as the memory itself, and Harry was safe.

As much as he had ever been.

With consideration and a careful hand, Harry knelt down beside the body of the creature and waved his hand, relishing in the way that magic seemed to flow from him even easier than it had before, almost as if he were made of it. As if he were always meant to be this way. The creature’s mouth opened slowly and Harry reached inside of it, gripping his hands around one of the serpent’s fangs and ripping it from the creature’s mouth and tucking it between the pages of the diary.

He would need proof after all, no one would believe a tale of a boy screaming basilisk without it. 

The only problem after that was how the four of them would get out of the chamber now, though Harry wasn’t above leaving Lockhart down there to rot.

The answer turned out to be simple enough once he remembered the creatures that didn’t have to follow the same rules of magic as them.

“Dobby!”

—-

Harry and Ginny landed with a soft crack in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom, the door to the Chamber of Secrets long closed now. The snake propped the girl against one of the sinks, checking her pulse even as he saw the way that she was breathing. The Gryffindor’s heartbeat was steady and growing stronger, even as her magic was still weak.

Magical exhaustion, the boy figured and stood once more when another crack filled the room.

“Wha - Ginny!”

Harry watched as the youngest Weasley brother rushed to his sister’s side and ignored the longing that he felt at the sight, at the knowledge that no one had cared that much for him since he was one. The Weasel stopped a hair's breadth from touching her, as if scared that he might break the girl if he were to do so. Harry didn't blame the other boy, she looked on death’s door.

“Is she okay?” The older boy asked as he turned to look at the younger.

“Magical exhaustion,” Harry answered simply as he turned to grab the robes of the wandering professor and drag Lockhart back into the room before releasing him once more. “A trip to Madam Pomfrey and some sleep, and she should be fine.”

Dobby nodded along in agreement.

Harry was expecting a moment of awkwardness before the five of them left to the rest of the castle, but was met with a red headed boy in front of him quicker than he thought that the lion could move. There was a sharp pain in the younger wizard’s cheek that Harry hadn’t been expecting - but knew from experience would bruise - and then arms wrapped around his neck.

“Don’t you ever fucking run away like that again, you bastard,” the taller boy almost growled as he held the other, ignoring - for now - the way that the younger flinched at the contact.

It had been terrifying for Ron to hear the sound of the other boy leaving, running towards a monster that has almost killed far too many this year - that he was sure had killed his sister even despite hoping to be wrong.

He knew that he had no right to worry so much for the near stranger, but Ron’s emotions had always been quick to develop, anger that came with nowhere near enough warning and simple happiness that held tight to him. Caring about Harry Potter of all people had surprised him as much as the boy himself, but the universe was never simple because here he was doing so.

(Truthfully, it wasn’t hard either, not with how Fred and George had worried for the boy all year, the conversations they hadn’t thought that Ron had heard. It wasn’t hard when he was so bloody small and wore long sleeves even in the summer sun, something that he knew wasn’t normal. 

It wasn’t hard when he had spent two Christmases with the boy, watching him become surprised over small things like receiving a present.

It wasn’t hard when he had snuck into the Gryffindor common room just to ask if one of the Weasleys wanted to help save their sister, and when he spoke of revenge for a girl that Ron had once made fun of, getting a busted lip and some bruises for it.

It wasn’t hard at all.)

So he held him and wondered when he would stop feeling as if the Slytherin would disappear if he didn’t keep his eyes on him.

Harry tapped the other boy’s side and Ron released him as if knowing that pushing any further would lead to Harry not being the only one with a bruising cheek.

“Knew you cared, Weasel,” Harry said mockingly as he mentally tried to collect himself once more, the unexpected assault and touch leaving him more off kilter than he would have liked.

The younger Weasley brother didn’t deny it, Harry almost wished that he would.

“Dobby,” Harry said, drawing attention to the quietly watching house elf, “could you take Mr. Lockhart and Ginny to Madam Pomfrey while we deal with this?” The snake asked, holding up Riddle’s diary and the basilisk fang that was poking out from between its pages, the Wizarding world’s most deadly bookmark.

“Yes, Mr. Harry Potter, sir,” the house elf said quickly and Harry knew that he would have to tell the creature that they were even now the next time that he saw him.

But not right now, Harry thought as the elf disappeared with a soft crack, taking the other two with him.

“You have a house elf?” Ron asked once they were alone - or as much as they could be with Myrtle lurking about - one brow raised high in surprise.

“No,” the Slytherin said simply as he started  for the door and motioned for the other boy to follow. “I have no idea who he belongs to. We met before the school year started,” the boy continued and left it at that.

Ron figured that this was the sort of thing that happened when you were Harry Potter, and chose to just follow the other boy into the dark halls.

—-

When McGonagall heard a knock at her door, she first thought that it was perhaps Percy Weasley coming to ask after his sister, or an angered Filch dragging the twins by their ears for getting caught going after the girl on their own. Never did she think that she would see Ron Weasley and Harry Potter standing together with no hostility on either of their faces (even if the snake’s did seem to be bruising a bit on one cheek) and covered in dirt and slime.

“Professor,” the older of the two boys greeted sheepishly as the Slytherin stepped a bit in front of the other boy, an act that the transfiguration Professor did not miss.

The deputy headmistress almost wanted to close the door in the boys’ faces and not deal with whatever chaos it was that they were bringing with them, but Molly Weasley had recognized her son’s voice and was already rushing towards him and pulling the boy into her arms her husband not far behind her, as Potter stepped neatly into the room and away from the trio, eyeing Dumbledore warily once he realized that the older wizard was there too.

The headmaster’s eyes immediately went to the possessions in the boy’s hand, confusion clouding his eyes even more so than before. 

Everyone stood in silence for a long moment once the three had disentangled from one another. No one quite sure what to say.

“Gin is with Madam Pomfrey right now,” Ron quickly spat out, wanting to break the tension, but not knowing how. 

All four adults looked at the two boys in surprise at the information.

“You found her?” Molly asked, her voice weak in a way that Arthur didn’t like to hear, but more often did than he wished. With seven children it was hard for one of them not to be causing their mother worry.

“Harry did,” the lion said firmly, nodding to the other boy in the room.

All eyes turned to the youngest in the small office as Harry shrunk back under the weight of them, stepping closer to the other boy as his mother drew close with gratitude in her eyes. Apparently the action was enough because Mr. Weasley grabbed his wife’s hand and stopped her.

“Thank you,” the woman said earnestly instead.

“I, for one, would like to know how.”

The attention shifted easily to the Headmaster as he spoke, the twinkle gone from his eyes in the way that it so often was when speaking with or about the only remaining Potter. 

Harry was careful not to look into those eyes, not trusting what they might see.

“I’d like to have my head of house here if possible,” the younger boy says, as if frightened, something that was to be expected for the ordeal that he had just gone through, even if it was a lie. “Professor Snape must be worried about my… disappearance by now.”

I want another on my side for when things turn sour, Harry meant, knowing that they eventually would once one of his secrets were revealed.

The Headmaster looked as if he were about to say something, likely an evasive way to get out of the potions master being called, but McGonagall had already smiled in a sympathetic manner and raised her wand.

“Of course,” the witch said, “Professor Snape is probably running himself ragged attempting to find you on his own.”

Ron watched as the younger wizard looked at their Transfiguration Professor with a childlike expression as she raised her wand and conjured a cat patronus, giving it a message to deliver to the unsavory potions master. He’d never seen the other boy look so carefree. So young.

“Why don’t you begin while we’re waiting for Severus to arrive?” The Headmaster asked, not unkindly, but also lacking the warmth that he usually held for his students.

“Blaise and I had been looking into the Chamber of Secrets for months,” Harry started slowly, not seeing what else he could do but answer the man, there was no good alternative for him, “ever since people started suspecting me after the first attack. I only realized tonight where exactly the chamber might be.”

“And where was it?” McGonagall asks, her voice softer and with more curiosity than Dumbledore’s, tainted by relief.

Dumbledore noticed.

“There’s a slide in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom,” Ron answered, speaking up and drawing attention to himself, distributing the hard and soft gazes and lessening the suspicion on the Slytherin. Harry couldn't tell if he did so intentionally, or just was speaking so as to share the blame for any trouble that they might get into, but either option proved the other boy to be a little more cunning than the lion was probably comfortable with. “The slide goes down to the pipes, below the school. The Chamber is down there.”

The Gryffindor snuck a look at the other boy, only to find Harry already looking at him. The Slytherin nodded his head just the smallest bit before turning his attention back to the others in the room.

“Why didn’t you get an adult after that?” Mrs. Weasley asked, her voice scolding even as she was asking a question, as if already reprimanding the other boy for some sort of coming that she had assigned to him before having all of the facts. 

It reminded Harry a bit too much of Aunt Petunia, though he didn’t think that the women's methods were the same.

“We did,” Harry bit out, a bit bitterly as he looked at the woman, seeing her surprise at both the information and his tone. “Lockhart is the defense professor, we went to him,” the snake continued, not mentioning that the man was a complete idiot even before the memory loss. “He’s in the Hospital Wing right now with Ginny after attempting to Obliviate us and the spell rebounding.”

The mother opened her mouth, but didn’t seem to know what to say to that, as her son had been responsible- as responsible as he could hope to be while still going after a crazed monster - but had also been attacked within the school that was supposed to be safe and not even by the monster hiding within, but a professor that the school had hired.

“Are you both okay?” Mr. Weasley asks when his wife remains silent, looking between the two boys that were still standing close to one another.

“Yeah Dad,” Ron answers in an almost embarrassed huff as Harry only nods.

“Why did he attempt to steal your memories?” McGonagall asks, never having liked the foolish man but not thinking that he would ever do such a thing to children.

“He wiped the memories of all of the people that the stories in his books are based off of,” the Slytherin answers bluntly, “we found out and he needed to cover his tracks, waited until we were in the tunnels to do so, so that there wouldn’t be any witnesses. It was almost expected.”

Harry was saved whatever response his statement might have generated by the office door opening and an angry potions Professor stepping through, his eyes immediately looking to his Slytherin. Harry could see the anger within them, but also the relief as well. The snake focused more on the latter emotion than the former, he didn’t like it when the potions master was angry with him for actions that he had made.

Even more so, he didn’t want to recognize the disappointment there.

“Professor,” Harry said in a voice that sounded a lot like how Ron’s had when first speaking to Professor McGonagall.

“Potter,” Snape said shortly, “you are going to be in detention until you are thirty,” the man said as he drew in a slow breath before looking at the others gathered within the room. “I take it Miss. Weasley is safe now?” 

The boy only nodded and the Professor resisted the urge to just send the Slytherin back to his dorm mates and let them both deal with this in the morning, or at least in a familiar space such as his office. But he couldn’t do that when the other professors were clearly expecting answers now.

So, instead he noted the bruise blooming on his snake’s cheek and the way that the boy seemed to be shivering as if cold, but didn’t seem to quite notice yet as the adrenaline must still be coursing through his veins rather strongly with the Headmaster present, and waited for answers as well.

“What happened after you both made it down into the pipes, and the curse rebounded?” McGonagall asked, restarting the conversation now that the potions master was present.

“Some of the ceiling came down,” the youngest Weasley brother informed, and it was then that Snape noticed that the boys seemed a lot less antagonistic with one another than they had before. “We got separated,” the lion continued. “I was with Lockhart at the entrance, and Harry was on the other side near the Chamber.”

“The rubble was too thick and would have taken too long for Ron to get through, so I went on by myself,” Harry explained, not looking at his head of house. “I eventually made it to the Chamber and found Ginny and another boy.”

Ron’s head snapped to look at the Slytherin at that, as the professors looked on in confusion as well. There were no other students missing that they knew of and Harry had only brought Ginny back from the Chamber. They didn’t know who the boy could’ve been.

“Who was it?” Snape asked for them all.

Harry held out the familiar diary to his head of house for the older Slytherin to take. He did.

“Tom Riddle.” Harry ignored the flinches and sharp intakes of breath that came at the name from those that recognized it for who it belonged to. The adults could save their mental breakdowns for later when neither he nor Ron would have to see. “Or the memory of him at least. The book drained the life force and magic of anyone that wrote within it. Ginny must have had the book for nearly the entire year because Riddle was nearly corporeal by the time that I met him.”

“Is this…?” Snape asked slowly as he peered at the fang within the book, holding it up as if to inspect it and sure that he was wrong.

“A basilisk fang,” Harry confirmed, not meeting the eyes of the others within the room as they studied him with a mixture of horror, awe, and suspicion.

“How did you slay it?” Dumbledore asked knowing good and well that neither the Sword of Gryffindor nor Fawkes were seen by the being before him, the snake that should be dead and the horcrux with it by all accounts.

And when Harry smiles it almost seems as if he knows just what the older wizard was thinking.

“I spoke to it,” the younger Slytherin says, revealing a talent that most within the room hadn’t known before.

He watches as the youngest Weasley brother flinches under the admission and Snape’s gaze takes on a hard look as the professor glares at the Headmaster as if to challenge the other man into saying something that he shouldn’t.

“I told it that neither his master nor I could ever set it free within the outside world,” the boy continued, unrepentant of who he was. “That it would never see more than the inside of these castle walls, and since it is a creature that survives on magic,  it could let go of it as well. If it wished to.”

A half truth.

Dumbledore looked just about ready to object to what he had been told, likely finding it too easy of a solution, but Harry was faster as he spoke.

“It turns out that snakes don’t like being kept in cages.”

Harry thought of the snake from the zoo when he was ten once more, and the enchanted paintings of ones on the Slytherin common room walls. They all wished for a freedom that they could never have, and would never be able to keep even if they did. 

Harry thought of the magic that he had obtained from the basilisk, thrumming beautifully through his body like it was meant to always have been a part of him.

He thought of the scars on his arms that ran up the length of them, deep and lethal.

No, he decided, snakes did not like to be contained.

“I see.”

The group ironed out some of the missing details concerning the attacks and the Weasleys left to go and see their youngest, leaving only Harry and the three professors within the room. The two snakes were just about to leave - likely to send Harry to bed so that they could have some sort of talk in the morning - when a third joined them.

The man was tall and had blond hair the same shade as Draco’s with the same pointed nose pointed up into the air as he stormed into the office, Dobby at his side.

Oh, Harry thought, this is not going to go well.

Harry and Snape stepped to the side, as they hadn’t been fully noticed by the new visitor - Draco’s father, Harry thought - and watched the mental tennis match that occurred between the Headmaster and the member of the board of governors for the school. Harry wasn’t sure who he wanted to come out on top. 

The idea was settled quickly once he realized the implications that the headmaster was making about the man having given Ginny Weasley the diary, and once he saw the pure terror within the house elf’s eyes.

Harry tapped his fingers against his leg as the man left as swiftly as he had come, the boy feeling his sock shift as he turned to his head of house and ignored the appraising glare that Mr. Malfoy sent them both as he slammed the door shut. 

“Might I borrow the book real quick?” Harry asked, already reaching for it, knowing that he had little time to waste. 

The potions master raised a brow, but recognized the look on the boy’s eyes as the same one that he had during fights when defending anyone but himself. 

He gave the boy the book, holding onto the basilisk fang.

“Mr. Malfoy,” Harry called as he hurried from the room and caught up with the fuming man, careful to keep his expression blank. 

“Yes, Mr. Potter,” the man somewhat hissed, his voice hardly kind, but more so than it would have been had the boy before him not been in Slytherin and friends with his son. 

Harry held out the diary to the older man, a kind smile on his face that no one should believe, but too many did.

Luscious did as well.

“I thought that Draco might like it,” Harry said innocently, “given your family’s… standing.”

Harry knew what sort of people that the other boy was raised by, and had an idea of what they might do to him should they see that his ideals didn’t match their own anymore. This should but the other some time.

Two birds, one stone. 

The older Slytherin grabbed the book and immediately passed it to the house elf to hold onto, not quite noticing when the boy motioned for the elf to open it. 

Harry was long gone before the pureblood had realized that he had lost an elf.

—-

Every year, Ravenclaw house hosts an exhibition of sorts for the eagles to show off their work for the year - paintings, inventions, and things of the like - to Slytherin and Hufflepuff house. The only true rule that the show had was that the Gryffindors were not invited, and didn’t know of it. The exhibition was for the houses that usually weren’t the center of attention(though that had shifted now that Harry was there).

Harry walked through it with Luna and the other snakes, nodding at Hermione as he passed, once again on friendly terms with the girl after she had recovered from her ordeal. Hermione didn’t have any work to show because of her time in hospital, but Harry enjoyed the research and sketches that Luna had conducted on Nargles, even if he still wasn’t sure if they were real or not.

He didn’t know which to hope for either.

The boy felt eyes on him and turned to meet them, finding another second year looking at him from across the room, pink in the second year Ravenclaw’s cheeks when he had been caught staring. 

Terry Boot.

Harry smirked at him before turning back to Luna’s display, soaking in the sight as he moved freely throughout the room without the sickness that had clung to him for two years. It hadn’t been there since that night in the Chamber, only a sort of chill that he couldn’t seem to fight.

He’d take being cold over the sickness any day.

—-

When the Hogwarts Express pulled into the platform, Harry grabbed his things with much more ease than he had this time the year before, something that the others didn’t quite notice as they talked with one another about summer plans that he couldn’t go on, but didn’t really care if they were dissuaded in front of him or not.

He had someone waiting for him this year after all.

The snakes watched as Harry walked over to a brown haired boy that was slightly taller than himself. The stranger looked down at the snake almost tenderly as he reached and cupped the boy’s face, trailing a thumb over the fading bruise there as if he could hope to erase it with his touch. 

They had never seen Harry let another so close before, not even Blaise on Harry’s best of days when he all but sought out touch.

Jude reached down and grabbed one handle of the other boy’s trunk, letting Harry carry the other as they walked to the car that was just waiting outside. 

The Dursleys were nowhere in sight through it all.

Harry didn’t go back to them that summer, and the blood wards broke.

Chapter Text

The black dog watched as a boy that looked so much like the man that he had once known walked along with three others, his expression flat even as the others smiled. The other three boys didn't seem to mind though, the one that seemed all but glued to Harry's side all day, throwing an arm around the smaller boy's shoulders as Harry said something with a smirk that neither of his parents ever would have worn. But Padfoot shoved that thought away as he had decided that he had seen his fill and slipped away into the bushes, a new goal set firmly in his mind. A rat to kill.

Had the wizard stayed a moment longer he heard the four scheming as they always were, one speaking of things that he knew would become true as the others threw around ideas. Would have heard of illicit things that James Potter never would have done lest he give his mother a heart attack, the very same things that Remus had hidden from the bespectacled boy during their school years as smoke had clung to the wolf's skin as it did the four boys now.

Had he stayed a moment longer we would have seen a pair of green eyes stare right into his own, as the snake sought out the creature that had been following him all day, magic thick on the boy's fingertips should he need it to protect his own.

But the dog did leave, and Harry only saw a bush.