A/N

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. JK Rowling does. Anything you recognise is hers. Anything you don't, well, I'm laying claim to that.

Woo! Chapter 3! It's all going so well. I have no idea how often I'll be churning these out, but just a warning: I'll have to stop for a bit soon. I have mock exams coming up. Need to revise. I'll try to make up for it over Christmas.

Oh yes, I almost forgot:

"*Parsel*"

"Harry, wake up! Time to practice!"

And that was how Harry woke again. To a voice in his head shouting at him. Not really the best start.

'Must you insist on doing this? Couldn't you, I don't know, just say it? You're in my head, it's not like I'd be able to ignore you."

"But it's fun!"

Sighing, Harry got up, and made his way, groggily, to the shower. Having completed his morning ritual, he made his way out into the common room, and out to the corridor.

'I guess I'll need to use the Quidditch Pitch, right? I mean, it's not as if it wasn't allowed or anything…'

"True, but what if someone sees you?"

'I'll put the feelers out, ask people, subtly, mind you, if there might be somewhere more discreet I can train. No need to let anyone know more than is entirely necessary…"

"That's my boy, embrace your Slytherin!"

'Yeah, because clearly that's the only reason for me to be cunning and cruel, nothing to do with having a demon in my head for the past 4 years.'

Answered with a rather predictable silence, he made his way outside and started with his exercises and kata.


Returning to the common room at 7:45, he changed into his uniform and waited for his roommate to wake. He did so around 5 to 8, and went though his own morning routine. Once he was awake enough to think clearly, he said: "Damn it, how are you so… Awake?"

"I have an effective, if annoying alarm."

"Hey!"

Blaise looked at him a little oddly, but clearly decided to drop it.
Harry shrugged and bent down to open his trunk. A hissed parse password to open his private compartment and a little coaxing got a stunning glistening black snake slithering up his arm. A closer look revealed it to have a blood red underbelly and startling blue eyes shining out from its scaly head.

"That's a snake." Blaise apparently had been shocked by the snake.

"Well no shit Sherlock."

"Why is there a snake currently coiling itself around your shoulders?"

"Because she likes it there."

Zabini just looked blankly. Harry only just held back a sigh.

"Look if you must know, she's my pet and her name is Ruby. She hates to go anywhere without me, hence the resting on my shoulders. Actually, you do make a decent point, I should get her to hide. If a Slytherin's acting this surprised, I'd hate to see anyone else's reaction."

Another whispered request to Ruby to hide, and she was wrapped around his torso. Apparently it was nice and warm, if her happy hissing was any indication.

They headed down to breakfast, joining the other first years as they went, as the Slytherin code demanded, and sat at one end of the table. Belial had already told Harry of the Slytherin rules Snape had failed to mention – mainly the hierarchy. First years were at the bottom, and had to work their way up, denoting, roughly, their place on the table. Harry shifted, finding it difficult to sit comfortably with Ruby coiled so tightly round him. Resolving to speak to her later, he gave up trying.


Snape came around near the end of breakfast, handing out the timetables. Looking at it, Harry found he had Charms with the 'Claws first thing.

'At least I don't have to worry about Ron…'

"Until later. Look, you have Potions with the Gryffs second. So not only will you have to deal with the volatile weasel, you need to withstand Snape's ire."

'Well, thank you Mr Killjoy!' Harry huffed. He was right though, two lessons with Gryffindor before the end of the day. Oh joy.


Charms was fine, except for the teacher, a short man called Professor Flitwick falling off his stack of books when he called Harry's name during the role call, nothing really interesting happened. They were just going over a basic floating charm, one Harry had mastered about a week after getting Belial as a permanent resident.

The girl, Harry recalled her name as Granger, seemed disgruntled that Harry got the spell so quickly.

"Major inferiority complex there, if ever I saw one."

'I should try and capitalise on that. She does seem quite bright…'


After Charms ended, Harry and the rest of the Slytherins made their way to Potions. The others talked quietly amongst themselves, and Harry made small talk with Blaise and a boy who'd introduced himself as Theodore Nott about Quidditch and recent Ministry legislation, which Nott seemed to know a lot about, which led to an interesting debate on the effectiveness and fairness of the latest ban on Werewolves marrying. Theo seemed to think it would stop any dangerous cross-breeding that could happen, which had never occurred without some sort of malformation in the baby and frequently resulted in the mothers dying, until Harry pointed out that it wouldn't really stop much of that, as it just meant the werewolves would need to be more covert and secretive, which simply left them with a bigger gap between the two societies.

All this talk ended when the Gryffindors arrived, laughing and joking loudly amongst themselves, and Ron throwing him baleful glares every 10 seconds.

Luckily, before he could approach, Snape swept in, and ordered them all into the classroom.

He too took role call, and Harry was surprised when Snape made no comment whatsoever when he came to him, just a slight sneer and moving on.

"Wasn't he saying yesterday that Slytherins present a united front? Must really take it to heart himself."

This was further shown when Snape made no snarky comments the entire lesson, in fact seeming to look almost pleased when Harry and Blaise finished the lesson with a perfect boil-remedying potion. Almost. The fact that he gave no points was not lost on Harry, especially when he gave 10 to Theo for his attempt, which, while good, was nothing like their own.


History of Magic was next, and 10 minutes into the lesson, Belial was screaming in Harry's head for the torture to end, and Harry eventually just charmed his quill to note down all that was said and put his head down to sleep. Belial woke him up when the lesson ended, so Harry packed up his things and went with the other Snakes to Transfiguration with, one again, the Gryffindors.

When the Slytherins got there, the only thing waiting for them in the room was a house-cat, sitting patiently on the teacher's desk. Harry could see the vague magical aura around the creature, as well as the imprint on its magic of a stern-faced, thin-lipped woman. So, McGonagall was an animagus. Impressive.

"I have a perfect idea…"

"Who do you think it belongs to?" Blaise asked from the other side of Theo.

"Oh, probably it's Professor McGonagall's."

"I'm not so sure, does she seem like a cat-lady to you?" Theo sounded incredulous. Harry was hard-pressed not to snort at how accurate his statement really was.

"I think she just might be."

On this, Harry walked up to the front of the class, and proceeded to draw out a ball of wool from his robe, having conjured it when he placed his hand in. The cat's eyes were immediately on it, and when Harry moved it closer, it batted it with its paws. Harry grinned when it started playing with the ball. He kept playing with his professor until it was the time for the lesson to start. Writing magically appeared on the blackboard behind the desk, instructing the students to take out their books and start reading chapter one until McGonagall arrived, as she was currently indisposed temporarily. Looking around, Harry noticed two empty seats among the Gryffindors, and guessed that was probably why his professor was waiting to reveal herself.

It was about ten minutes into the lesson that Weasley finally turned up, along with someone Harry vaguely recognised as Dean Thomas.

"Whew, made it! Can you imagine the look on McGonagall's face if we were late?"

McGonagall chose this moment to hop off her desk and transform back into her human self. Harry smirked at the looks of shock from Blaise and Theo on either side of him as the realised he must have known and purposefully played with the cat. He then saw how shocked and nervous Weasel and Thomas were, and almost burst out laughing.

"Perhaps, Mr Weasley, it would be useful for me to transfigure you into a pocket watch, to ensure one of you may be on time."

"We got lost!" Clearly Weasley felt the need to give her a better opportunity to utilise her biting sarcasm.

"Then perhaps a map? I trust you don't need on to find your seats? It's always a sad day when you can't think to follow your classmates to your next lesson."

The two sheepishly made their way to the free spaces.

"Oh, and 10 points to Slytherin for showing kindness to an animal, Mr Potter."

Harry grinned again at the looks of shock he was receiving and the barely concealed glares on the faces of most of the Gryffindors.

The lesson then proceeded without anything much happening, as they were learning theory.


Finally the day was over and Harry sank into a comfortable chair back in the Slytherin common room.

"How did you know the cat was McGonagall, Harry?"

"I saw, it Theo. Honestly, it's not that hard."

"Oh God. Rare talent. How do you never think about this stuff?!"

"You mean you can see auras?" This time from Blaise. He seemed almost… Hopeful.

"Yes. Anything wrong with that?"

"No, it's just… I have a bit of a talent there, but no-one's ever showed me how to use it properly… I was almost starting to give up on it…" Blaise was looking down at the floor.

"Tell you what, I'll train you in it. It's not actually that hard."

"Really? Thank you Harry!"

Theo suddenly looked rather scared.

"Ummm… Harry, why is there a black snake poking its head out of your cloak?"

"*Ruby! I told you not to make yoursself known unlesss we're in the room!*"

"*But massster! I'm hungry, and there are ssso many juiccy sssmelling people…*"

"*Fine, I'll charm you invisible and you can go hunting.*"

"*Thank you massster!*"

Theo and Blaise were gazing on in shock.

"You're a Parselmouth?!"

"Yep."

"But, but…" Theo seemed to be struggling to put together a sentence.

"Anything wrong?"

"But you're the Boy-Who-Lived! How are you a Parseltongue?"

Harry hissed, and inside hi mind, Belial was getting angry. They both hated Harry's ridiculous titles.

"Don't call me that! And yes, I'm a Parseltongue, get used to it!"

Both boys quailed at his angry retort. Harry decided to just head up to bed. Going up, he remembered his promise to Ruby, and let her slither out onto his shoulders. She paused there, both enjoying the feel of their companion so close, before Harry wandlessly made her invisible allowing her to slither off him and out the door. Harry quickly changed for bed, did his Occlumency exercises. His mindscape took the form of Dante's Inferno, with seven layers, each more fiercely protected than the last. The seventh contained Belial's spirit, and if anyone broke in he would normally deal with them, despite Harry's already considerable defences.

Having made sure everything was in order, he went to bed. Who knew what the next day would bring? I anything, it was sure to fun. Especially with his first lesson with Quirrel.

"Watch out for him. He's not what he seems."

'How do you mean?'

"He feels like Voldemort."

A/N

I'm so sorry I took so long! I got distracted with stuff, then I needed to revise. I stayed up until one in the morning to finish this chapter for you guys. I had meant to gone further, but this will have to do for now.

Sorry to anyone who exercises any form of martial art for the exercises thing. I don't and I really have no idea what to do. I just googled 'martial art preparatory exercises' and went for a promising looking one discussing Karate. Sorry!

Oh, and anyone who wants to see what I think Ruby looks like, here you go (remove spaces): " mulishamorphs .weebly uploads/1/9/2/1/1921645/7406124 .png"

Well, I'd like to answer my Reviews. If you guys don't like it, just skip it. Not difficult.

The dragon and the rose: Thanks! Yeah, Ron's going to be a problem. Probably going to cause some issues which might piss off Belial a teensy bit :P. I actually have no idea what he'll do. Apart from one incident. Actually, also some other stuff. Ok, so I know a lot.

UNSC UNDEAD BOOMER: Thanks, and Ruby is revealed in here. If anyone doesn't like Harry having her, just remember: I like 'em, and at least it's not some sort of magical one… Seriously. Who thinks magical ones are common enough to turn up in the shops, normally JUST in time for Harry to find one. Oh, and a cookie for anyone who works out what I'm talking about. Oh wait. You read about it before here. Whatever.

Random Guest Person: Maybe. (Twins wing DM)

Emailycat39: I'll get round to explaining that in a couple of chapters.

Zense and Geetac: Thanks! That's all I can say to you, so, yeah… Woo!