First off, I was hugely grateful for all the wonderful reviews this got and I sincerely apologize for not having had the time to reply to each of them. I enjoyed reading all the ideas for what could/should happen, but, my mind being a very weird twisty place that even I don't delve too deeply into, the biggest spark I got was from "what if Neville was the Boy Who Lived?", turning it into "what if Neville was the Heir of Slytherin?" Naturally, that makes no sense whatsoever, so it took a while to turn that into an actual oneshot--and this is the result. I'm thinking now that maybe I'll try one oneshot for each year, possibly culminating in an alternate epilogue. Don't expect any faster (or even guaranteed) updates, though, because (again) I have no more ideas. :)

Thank you again, and I hope you like. Without further ado:

Year Two:

On a Wall, Supporting Proof

Ron Weasley grimaced when he first saw the Dueling Club notice on his common room message board in second year, then did something very unusual for a hot-headed and much-vaunted young Gryffindor. Forgetting all the tension from an unknown monster stalking the halls, he hurried off to talk to a Slytherin.

Draco Malfoy had no expression when he read the announcement, of course, as befitted a cool society-trained young Serpent of pure blood, especially since he was with a group of similarly society-blooded "friends." As soon as his coterie departed their common room, though, he extricated himself from them, with only slight concern expressed due to the Chamber of Secret's opening, to do something none of them would ever have imagined. He sauntered away to meet up with a Lion.

Neville Longbottom didn't even see the message because he woke up late and ran down to breakfast without even stopping to fasten his yellow-and-black-striped tie properly, craning his head around anxiously when he entered the Great Hall to spot the oddly minded but ever cheerful Ravenclaw he considered his best friend. When, unsurprisingly, he proved not in evidence, Neville hurried out again without even grabbing a piece of toast and went right back down the corridor that housed Hufflepuff toward a certain fruit painting hanging just further down.

Harry Potter had been installed in the Hogwarts kitchens since six that morning, debating variations of cooking recipes and why they couldn't experiment with including potions ingredients with the earnest little beings that manned the staff, when Neville came in and found him still ensconced. Good mornings were passed all around and Neville settled in beside him to eat, the constant buried anxiety impressed on him by their other two friends satisfied now that he knew where Harry was and was with him.

Draco and Ron, meanwhile, found each other in the library and quickly retired behind a discreet shelf of boring textbooks, mindful that breakfast was starting and they didn't want their absence to be noticed.

"Dueling Club!" Ron opened, in a pained hiss.

"Not a problem," Draco returned, rolling his eyes. "His own House will keep him and anything athletic separate."

Harry's one venture into the world of sports had ended on the same day it began, when he made his House team for truly extraordinary flying ability and then got kicked off it for "playing" with the spells on the balls and brooms. The Ravenclaws had been appalled and aggrieved. Draco and Ron had been appalled and relieved. Harry was... special... enough without all the extra attention being a Quidditch star would have shone on him.

"Lockhart is in charge!" Ron contradicted, having for once read something more closely than his ostensible friend/rival. Draco winced.

Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor Lockhart was a celebrity of the wizarding world, and, it hadn't taken Draco and Ron long to see, an off-his-rocker-nutters-from-the-fame celebrity. Even worse, he kept trying to pull the Boy Who Lived into the spotlight with him to increase his fame by association. Ron, as Gryffindors were the ones who shared his class with the Ravenclaws, was already run ragged trying to run interference between the two. He had developed an almost paranoia concerning Lockhart, which explained his uncharacteristic closer reading of anything than the Slytherin.

"Nothing we can do now," Draco finally pronounced, responsibility and doom weighing heavy on his voice. "We'll just have to manage it as it happens."

The mandatory first meeting of the Dueling Club arrived. As it happened, Lockhart decided on a "demonstration" between two students to start things off, and called Harry up before Draco or Ron could do anything, much to their aggravation. Draco managed to get dubbed his opponent. Ron and Neville tried to press up closer to the dueling platform just in case.

"Now, we'll be practicing Expelliarmus and Protego--" Lockhart announced.

Draco paid no attention to the nominal restrictions--Harry never heard any restrictions, and he had collected such a weird eclectic knowledge of spells in just a year and a half that Draco had no idea what he might cast and therefore had no idea what counters to have prepared. Attempting to minimize potential damage, he jumped in first with an incantation he hoped would distract his ostensible friend/charge from doing anything of his own.

"Serpensortia!"

A large black snake coiled out of the tip of his wand and landed on the platform with a sharp hiss. Harry immediately perked up and focused on it with the same bright interest with which he had first regarded Neville's pet toad.

Then, to Draco and Ron's horror, he opened his mouth, and the sound that emerged was nearly identical to that the snake was producing. For a second they both stood frozen, unable to imagine how to contain it, waiting for the inevitable reactions of everyone else watching. With all the rumors about the Chamber and monster flying--

"SSssSsssSSsSSSSS!"

Everyone present stared in fearful disbelief at Neville Longbottom, invisible unassuming Hufflepuff, whose fists were clenched and eyes nearly shut with the effort of producing such a burst. Harry's much more moderate hissing was completely overmasked, even when the snake startled and he had to reassure and calm it down. Draco quickly gathered his wits and banished the snake before Harry lost control, then grabbed Harry and dragged him off the platform before Lockhart recovered. Ron mobilized and grabbed Neville, and the four of them beat a fast retreat while the general shock still held.

"Bloody idiot!" Draco growled at Harry and Neville as they took cover in the first empty classroom they ran by, for once too shaken to keep the cool he usually took such pains of. "Do you have any idea what you just did?"

"Parseltongue," Harry answered promptly, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and looking ridiculously pleased about it.

Neville just nodded, then, glancing with awkward nervousness at Draco and Ron, stuttered, "I w-was just... t-trying..." But he couldn't finish, because he still didn't really understand what Draco and Ron had explained to him and what he could talk about in front of Harry. He did much better when Draco and Ron weren't around.

"Now everyone's going to be saying you're the Heir of Slytherin, idiot!" Ron told him in exasperation, not even noticing he was repeating Draco's apellation. Neville wilted.

"That doesn't make sense," Harry interjected, looking puzzled.

"It doesn't have to. Rumors aren't logical," Draco snapped. "You're a Parselmouth, Harry?"

Harry brightened again. "Apparently. You guys ought to try too. I heard someone mention You-Know-Who could talk to snakes, but snakes can't hear, so I looked it up. It must be not really a language so much as magic some ancient wizard invented that sort of translates meaning from a form one of them understands to the other and back. I'm trying to figure out exactly how."

"Why?" Ron asked, looking at him like he was loony (a constant suspicion whenever Harry mentioned his oddball "findings," the first of which had been muggle celebrities' baby names).

"Because I want to be able to do that and talk to spiders. That snake really didn't have anything to say."

Draco squeezed his eyes shut in silent pain. Ron made a strangling sound. He was afraid of spiders.

"T-That'd be cool," Neville asserted. He didn't know about Ron's fear.

Harry beamed at him. Then he suddenly straightened and his eyes took on a distracted gleam that made Draco and Ron glance at each other in alarm. "Hey, I know how we can take care of that Heir of Slytherin thing! You can't be an heir if you're not descended from him, right?"

Neville just shrugged tentatively. Draco and Ron glanced at each other again, wondering what he thought he was getting to.

"And he's not," Ron agreed, cluelessly. "Just saying he's not won't--"

"No, let's prove he is."

All three of them stopped and stared at him. Harry's eyes were still aglow. Still in the thrall of genius or madness.

"And if you are, Nev, then just about everybody else must be too! Let's prove there's a hundred Heirs of Slytherin!"

The other three stared at each other, lost in what to say. Draco finally cleared his throat. "How?"

Harry looked at him with vague incomprehension at the question. "Tracing family trees and all. There must be family trees for lots of different people, right? We'll just put them all together and point them back to Slytherin."

Madness, not genius. Draco thought nervously of future things. Ron thought apprehensively of how long and tedious such a monumental task would be, tracing any line all the way back to medieval times.

"Okay," Neville said quietly. "What do you want us to do?"

"Just get together all the family trees you can find," Harry directed. "Any and all. I'll get everything else ready."

He moved off to do so, brisk and oblivious. Draco and Ron looked at each other, shrugged resignedly, and went to obey, sparing a dirty look for Neville as they passed him. True, their task was much lighter than it could have been, but volunteering? Neville bore it with only a brief swallow as an outward sign of discomfort, determined to do whatever his friend wanted him to in support. Especially since, really, he was only doing it for Neville.

The next morning the entire Hogwarts population spent the breakfast period staring in amassed silence at the massive pyramid of parchment that had appeared at some point on the wall of the Great Hall, the name Salazar Slytherin at the top outlined in bright purple to make it quite noticeable, tracing down to more names progressively than could possibly be accurate.

"Half the castle on there, you think?" Ron asked his seatmate rhetorically, without even knowing who it was. Glancing over to find out would have required glancing away from the makeshift tapestry. Then he squinted. "Dweezil Ollerton... Moxie the Madcap..." He stuffed his fist in his mouth to keep from laughing. Harry must have filled in spots with random names to make it easier.

"As if that could possibly be true!" Draco's seatmate snorted, although he wasn't paying enough attention to know who that was either. "Of all the ridiculous farces!"

"Not very clever, taping all that parchment together rather than an enlarging charm," Draco agreed, absently critiquing since that was what was expected. That charm certainly wouldn't have produced the triangular shape though, which did seem most practical for a family tree. And it was actually a rather clever choice since no one would suspect a Ravenclaw of such a simple method. He noted, with abstract admiration, that his, Ron's, Neville's and Harry's names were all prominently placed as possible Heirs of Slytherin. So were Lockhart's and the Headmaster's.

Neville spent only a moment in the Hall staring at the masterpiece before slipping out again and trotting quickly away toward the kitchen. He found Harry there, the house elf staff buzzing around him cleaning up the evidence of myriad quills, inks, parchments, Spellotape and Famous Wizards cards, passed out under a table with a triumphant smile on his face. One elf tucked a blanket around him as it worked.

Rumors of the Heir died down over the next few days, since even though the tree was obviously fake no one could be quite sure exactly who was excluded as a possibility without more records than were on hand in the school library. Neville was not one of the strongest remaining contenders. Neither, to Draco and Ron's relief, was Harry. Both were secretly concerned about how he could be a Parselmouth, though they shared the concern with no one, not even each other.

Speculation remained rife, though, on the situation in general since another attack was discovered to have occurred the very night previous to the tapestry's appearance--was in fact determined to have taken place right after the Dueling Club--prompting questions on whether someone was attempting to confuse their presence or someone else was attempting to reveal the truth they didn't dare speak. Speculation would only grow when after that the attacks stopped, never to be started up again. The Chamber was finally concluded to have closed as mysteriously as it opened.

Harry, in the midst of his random assortment of trivia and whims fostered in the first environment he had ever felt welcome, never realized the significance of one act among multiple intended to provide someone else the same pleasure. He gave the ghost Moaning Myrtle a Dictation Quill for the blank diary thrown into her bathroom that obviously no one else wanted. Then he went on to helping Ron plan Lockhart's framing as the Heir, with Draco to make his father on the school board vote for his sacking and Neville to stammer to key people that he wasn't really a Parselmouth, he'd only been repeating what the Defense Professor taught him. They used his falsified family tree as evidence.