Chapter 7

They were on their annual summer trip (Italy this year) when Tori's acceptance letter from Beauxbatons arrived. Unlike Hogwarts, they didn't accept students who hadn't enrolled themselves and Harry's decision to attend school came too late after their application date, so he didn't get one. Three weeks later, just a few days after they returned to England, they both received Hogwarts letters. Harry spent a long time just staring at his when it arrived; although he'd been officially adopted for over six months now, it wasn't often he needed to use his surname in places so he still found it a little strange, and up-lifting, to see Mr. H. Potter-Valentine written on the front of the envelope.

Harry sent his response agreeing to attend immediately, but Tori didn't. She couldn't decide where she wanted to go—she'd always had an interest in Beauxbatons, hearing stories about it from Jennifer, but Hogwarts was closer to home and it meant she would be at the same place as Harry. She only had a week left to reply to them both and not until the very last possible day did she eventually settle on Hogwarts.

It was Harry's birthday by then. Like Tori, he got another dose of vampire blood along with all his other presents, this time from Lorna, and hoped it didn't make his sensitivity to light any worse. The potions that the healer prescribed almost a year ago had done nothing to help and he stopped taking them after a couple of months, preferring just to rely on sunglasses or a Shades Spell when he went out. He liked wearing sunglasses most of the time because he had a really cool pair of sporty frames with reflective lenses, but his parents pointed out that wearing them so often at Hogwarts, where he'd have to spend a lot more time in daylight, might draw unwanted questions, so he would have to use the Shades Spell more often there.

He had a party that year, but it was a sleepover party that didn't start until evening so that afternoon Jennifer took him and Tori down to London to buy their school things, suggesting they get it done earlier so they didn't have to battle the back-to-school crowds later in August. Diagon Alley was nothing new to them, but Harry was a little excited nonetheless—until Lorna stopped him before they could leave and told him to remove the Concealing Charm covering his scars.

"Why?" he demanded. "I always go out with it on."

"Yes, because you needed to prevent anyone from recognising you. That is no longer necessary, and when you get to Hogwarts you won't be able to wear it there. It will be impossible for the other students to never notice, Harry, unless you hid them all the time and you know what we've said about you hiding them from yourself. You have to get used to not hiding them in public," she finished, sounding faintly apologetic but firm enough that he knew she wouldn't change her mind.

It was the first time he'd gone out in public with the scars visible since leaving the Dursleys and he felt almost naked doing it. They drove down to London and Harry left the limo and entered the Leaky Cauldron with hunched shoulders and a scowl.

«Whoa, look at him,» Tori whispered in French as they headed through the pub, eyes on a huge man sitting at the bar with a beer mug the size of Tori's head.

«Don't be rude, Tori,» Jennifer scolded, but the man had already heard them. Harry didn't know if he understood French or if he just looked around at that particular moment, but when he saw them he smiled politely and then his eyes went wide.

"Harry? Harry Potter?"

The whole pub went silent. Before Harry could deny it and pretend to be someone else or run out the back door, the man was on his feet and in two great footsteps crossed the room to stand before them, everyone else close behind, crowding around and trying to peer at Harry. The man reached out a hand—and Jennifer's wand came up, pointed straight at the giant's big bushy beard as she stood firmly between him and Harry and Tori.

"Please step back, sir," she said politely but firmly. The man blinked at her.

"It's Harry."

"I am well aware who he is; I'm his governess. That does not give you the right to go around touching him. We don't know who you are."

The man looked like he wanted to slap himself. "Blimey, o' course yeh don't!" He finally took a step back, but thrust out his giant hand. "Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts."

He beamed, dark eyes twinkling, and then looked shocked when Jennifer didn't shake his hand. Harry didn't blame her; Hagrid could probably crush it to the bone.

"Pleasure," she said simply. "If you'll excuse us, we have things to do."

"What? But wait a minute, I just wanna say hello. Last time I saw Harry he was still a baby."

Harry hoped seeing was all he'd done. Hagrid's hands were a big as a baby and Harry had a feeling he was the kind of man who forgot his own strength.

"Yeh look a bit like yer dad, Harry," he went on, looking over Jennifer's shoulder at Harry and smiling again, "but yeh've got yer mum's eyes."

"I know. Um, thank you," he added, unsure what else to say. "We really have to go."

This comment prompted everyone else in the pub to surge around Hagrid and past Jennifer to grab Harry's hand and shake it vigorously.

"Doris Crockford, Mr Potter, can't believe I'm meeting you at last."

"So proud, Mr Potter, I'm just so proud."

"Always wanted to shake your hand—I'm all of a flutter."

"Delighted, Mr Potter, just can't tell you. Diggle's the name, Dedalus Diggle."

A man in a purple turban came forwards and Hagrid, who was grinning at all the attention Harry was getting, grabbed the man by the scruff of his neck and jerked him to the forefront of the crowd.

"Professor Quirrell!" he cried and said to Harry, as if they were close companions, "Harry, Professor Quirrell will be one of your teachers at Hogwarts."

"I NEED TO GO!"

Silence. Harry took a shaky step backwards, glowering at everyone, then turned on his heel and stalked out the pub's back door. Tori hurried after him.

"Sensitive little fellow," muttered Dedalus Diggle.

"You ambushed him," Jennifer snapped, fixing each one of them with a glare until they flushed or glanced away. "He's just a boy come to do his school shopping and you all mob him like a bunch of heathens. It's disgraceful."

"But he's the Boy Who Lived!" cried Doris Crockford.

"That doesn't give you the right! He is a child first and I'm certain you wouldn't act like this towards any other child who walked into the pub. Go back to your drinks and let us get on with our day."

They did so grumbling and Jennifer stalked away, finding Harry and Tori waiting in the small courtyard behind the pub. She checked Harry was alright then tapped her wand to the bricks to open up the passageway into the alley. It was better there, people more interested in their shopping than in three newcomers. Jennifer already had funds from the Valentines—they didn't trust goblins, and goblins didn't trust vampires, so they didn't store any of their money in Gringotts—so they steadily made their way through each of the shops in the alley.

Tori was particularly eager to get a wand; their parents had always refused, Lorna saying she had quite enough to learn and Gabriel pointing out that the Ministry tracked underage magic. When Tori rightfully pointed out that they never found Harry doing it, Harry had lied and said his wand had been enchanted by Snape to be undetectable and that he didn't know how to do it. It was one of very few lies he told, and almost all of them were connected to his skill in magic and how he'd come to get it. He could never quite bring himself to admit that he'd made a deal with a demon, even after growing close to them.

Jennifer agreed they could get the wand first, but rather than go to Ollivander's they headed into Knockturn Alley to a shop named Hoburn's. Harry and Tori exchanged a surprised glance but followed without question. Vampires could move through the area with less harassment than in Diagon Alley so they had been there before, though never alone. Gabriel and Lorna wanted them comfortable with the darker side of wizarding society, but they weren't stupid enough to leave children alone in a place with predators as dangerous as themselves and less moral about the treatment of youngsters.

"Why aren't we going to Ollivanders?" Tori asked. "Isn't he the best?"

"So they say," Jennifer replied with a tone that made it clear she wasn't included in 'they', "but that doesn't mean he's always the most suitable. He only uses three cores and with your family I think you would benefit from a bigger selection of less commonly used cores."

Like most stores in Knockturn Alley, Hoburn's shop appeared small and dark, but once inside it was surprisingly light and clearly enchanted to be bigger on the inside that it was outside. It was the only way to explain the extraordinarily long shelves stretching away into the far back of the shop. There was a small counter to the side, behind which sat a big, broad witch in artfully ripped robes, blue hair gelled up in spikes and combat-booted feet resting on the counter as she read a small book with no title.

She glanced over when they entered and took her feet off the counter, thumping them down heavily on the wood floor.

"First timers?" she said, setting the book aside and peering down at Harry and Tori, who nodded. "Alrighty. What's your name, kids?"

"Tori."

"Harry, but I don't need a wand."

The woman's attention fixed on Tori. "You, then. Favourite colour?"

Surprised, Tori glanced at Jennifer but she just gestured for her to answer. "Purple."

"Favourite number?"

"Uh… eight?"

"Animal?"

"Tigers."

"How do you feel about werewolves?"

"They're monsters."

"Vampires?"

"They're okay."

"Centaurs?"

"Weird."

"Dugbogs?"

Tori had to think a moment then, trying to remember what a dugbog was. "Is that the one that lives in swamps?"

"Yup."

"I dunno. Bit disgusting, living in a swamp, I guess."

"How do you feel about putting tadpoles in people's soup?"

"Well, as long as it's not my soup," she said with a grin.

"Can you touch the tip of your nose with your tongue, rub your tummy and pat your head at the same time, cross your eyes, or any combination thereof?"

"I can touch my nose and cross my eyes."

"Show me."

Tori did so and the witch grinned. "Excellent. Alright, come along. Let's try out a few wands."

Harry and Jennifer waited by the counter while the witch took Tori further into the shop. They didn't take long, returning less than five minutes later with a wand of alder wood with a fwooper feather core. She bought a hip holster for it, which prompted Harry to get one too, and then they returned to Diagon Alley for the rest of their things. The trip passed by without note, except for Rubeus Hagrid waving cheerfully as if they were old friends as he came out of Gringotts just as Harry, Tori, and Jennifer were heading back to the Leaky Cauldron, and they were soon back home with two trunk-loads of new belongings.

August passed quickly, but not easily. Harry and Tori had to alter their sleeping schedule so they'd be prepared before they reached Hogwarts and found themselves having to get up at seven o'clock in the morning, and neither of them were happy about it. Harry also noticed his hearing improving, but that was the only change from the vampire blood this time. It was helpful in dealing with Samantha, however, who was soft spoken. He spent a little time every day teaching her to speak and she picked up individual words well enough, but didn't do so well with proper sentences. She also tended to lose interest quickly if the words she learnt weren't related to food, sleep, or comfort.

About a week into August, Gareth wrote offering to take Harry to Snape's grave on the anniversary of his death. Harry went, but he didn't stay long and he didn't sit and talk to it like he did at Lily and James'. He didn't have the same sense of connection to Snape's grave, and so when he got home he did what he'd always done on the anniversary of Snape's death—he brewed a potion, with Gabriel's help, and placed it under the drawing of Snape that Gareth had given him years ago and which now hung framed on his bedroom wall. The potion he made was called Strawberry Night, one that Snape himself had invented, and was the last one Snape had ever brewed with him. It was a sleeping potion that gave the drinker pleasant dreams and at the end of the day Harry would hold it up to the picture in a toast to the man before drinking it.

Gabriel wrote to Professor Dumbledore about Harry's advanced education. Only after it was sent did Harry worry about exactly what Gabriel wrote; he wasn't sure how much Dumbledore, as Snape's employer, knew about what Snape taught him in the summers, but he suspected Dumbledore would probably realise the story about a tutor teaching him how to cast spells was a lie.

Fortunately, whatever Gabriel did say, Dumbledore replied only that Harry would be tested on each of his subjects when he reached Hogwarts and any changes in lessons would then be based on his results. Gabriel wasn't impressed, wanting Harry immediately placed into higher level classes, but Harry didn't mind. He was just pleased that Dumbledore had responded to the second part of Gabriel's letter saying that an exception would be made allowing him to take Samantha as a pet even though she wasn't an owl, cat, or toad, as long as he brought along a terrarium to store her in.

Dumbledore also said they could continue their violin lessons while attending Hogwarts; a number of students had music tutors come into the castle and their violin teacher was already familiar with it, teaching several other Hogwarts students. Tori was the only one continuing with that, though; Harry, still not a great fan of the instrument, asked to quit and his parents agreed—after much begging and pleading.

Ada drove them down to London on the thirtieth of August to spend the next couple of days in the town house. Harry and Tori were up early on September the first, neither of them particularly well-slept; they'd been too excited and nervous to sleep the night before, and still struggled a little with their rearranged sleep schedule. They ate breakfast, checked their trunks one last time to make sure they hadn't forgotten anything, then gave their parents hugs goodbye and climbed into the Chrysler they used for getting around London easier than the limo.

"What are you going to do while we're at school?" Tori asked Jennifer during the journey.

Jennifer smiled. "I'm going to sit back with a book and a martini and say to myself, 'How nice it is not to have a pair of noisy children getting underfoot!'"

"Jennifer!"

"I'm not really sure what I'm going to do," she admitted, laughing. "It's going to be very strange to have so much free time to myself."

"Will you miss us?"

"I'll miss you a lot," Jennifer said honestly. "I suspect I'll find it too quiet without you, if I'm honest."

"Are you going to move out of Lynott Manor?" Harry asked.

"Oh, no, certainly not. I'll still be your governess for the holidays, and if there's ever an emergency at the school I'll probably have to come up instead of your parents. Don't worry, you're not getting rid of me that easily just yet. Besides, Lynott Manor is as much my home as it is yours."

"Good," they both said, but then Tori added, "Don't you think we're a bit old for a governess now? I think you should be something else."

"Like what?"

"A day guardian. That's what you should be now."

Jennifer liked it. "We'll have to mention it to Gabriel and Lorna at Saturnalia."

They reached Kings Cross in good time, found a compartment to stow their trunks in, said their goodbyes to Jennifer, and fifteen minutes later the Hogwarts Express was pulling out of the station. Harry had Samantha secure inside a travel cage, but as the train set off he lifted the top to look in and check on her, and she flicked her tongue out curiously. "Magic train?" she hissed. She'd gathered enough from Harry to understand that they would be moving away from home today, but Harry didn't think she quite understood what a train was exactly. He'd shown her a picture when he taught her the word, but she didn't tend to translate pictures into reality very well.

"Yes," he answered. "We on the way to Hogwarts."

Someone gasped, a toad croaked, and Harry looked up to see a chubby boy staring at him wide-eyed. He held a toad, but at its owner loss of attention it squirmed from the hands holding it, plopped to the floor, and hopped away.

"Trevor!"

The boy lunged after the toad, falling to his knees and scrambling along the corridor to try and catch it. Tori was smiling and Harry couldn't help grinning either, but he tried to hide it as he stood and leant out, watching the boy chase after the toad. Feeling a little responsible for the escape, he drew his wand from its holster and flicked it at the toad, silently commanding, 'Immobilus!'

The toad froze, enabling the boy to scoop it up and cradle it closely, and Harry cancelled the spell.

"Slippery things, aren't they?"

The boy turned, nodding. "He's always getting away from me."

"Why don't you buy him a cage?"

The boy looked miserable. "My great-uncle said a proper wizard doesn't need a cage for their pet."

"Your great-uncle doesn't know very much about animals then, does he? If an animal can't stay with its owner, it should be in a cage. Come on in here. We'll shut the door and at least if he gets away from you again, he can't get far."

"But… that snake…"

"Oh, don't worry about Samantha. She doesn't eat toads."

Still looking a bit reluctant, the boy nevertheless sidled into the compartment after Harry and sat down. Harry shut the door and sat opposite him, next to Tori.

"I'm Harry, by the way. This is my sister, Tori. What's your name?"

"Neville Longbottom," the boy said. He glanced down at Samantha's travel cage nervously, up at Harry, down again, then asked, "S-so you're a… a Parselmouth?"

Harry nodded and opened his mouth to comment on how he hadn't had Samantha very long, and to ask how long Neville had had Trevor, but Neville looked up again at that point and this time caught sight of the oldest of Harry's scars and blurted out, "You're Harry Potter!"

He promptly turned bright red and stuttered out an apology. Harry waved it off with an awkward smile. "It's okay. I am, but it's Potter-Valentine now."

"But I thought… well isn't Parseltongue… y'know… dark?" Neville whispered.

"No, not really. It just means I can talk to snakes. People just say it is because of the Dark Lord and Salazar Slytherin. But I defeated the Dark Lord, so you can't really think I'm a dark wizard."

"I… suppose," Neville agreed hesitantly, and when Harry smiled at him he returned it, albeit still unsurely. Harry had a feeling he did everything unsurely.

They spent the ride together, sometimes chatting, sometimes sitting in comfortable silence, and buying some sweets from the trolley when it came past. Tori let Mr Flufflefoot out of his cage and he soon made friends with Trevor the toad. A red-headed boy came looking for somewhere to sit, but reeled back when he saw Samantha. He made a snide comment about snakes not being allowed at Hogwarts, to which Harry pointed out the fat grey rat half hanging from his pocket, and the boy blushed as red as his hair and went away again.

About an hour before they arrived, something crashed against the door of their compartment and when Harry slid it open he had to hurriedly get out the way as a blond boy backed in, hands raised defensively in front of him while an Indian girl had one fist clenched in his robes and the other raised over her head.

"Say that again, you pasty-faced little weasel!"

"Get off me!"

"Then take it back or say it again!"

The boy hesitated, then sneered and said, "Mudblood."

The girl punched him. He stagged back, tripped over Mr Flufflefoot's cage, and landed on his backside. Neville stared in shock at the girl, but Harry and Tori looked down unkindly on the boy, who was bleeding from the nose. He looked up at them, cheeks flushed with embarrassment, and wiped at his nose.

"What?" he snapped. "Didn't anyone tell you it's rude to stare?"

"Didn't anyone tell you it's rude to call people names?" Tori retorted. "Hang on, aren't you that Malfoy kid?"

She said his name in the same tone he'd said Mudblood. He scrambled to his feet, glaring at her.

"I don't even know who you are, which means you're not important and you have no right saying anything about my family."

"I know all I need to know about your family. You're a bunch of baby-killing scumbags."

Malfoy went from pink to white quicker than a snitch tied to a jet engine, and stormed out of the compartment without another word to any of them, shoving past the Indian girl and slamming the door behind him. The girl, smirking triumphantly, sat down next to Neville. She caught Harry's eye, they stared at each other for a moment, then:

"Harry!"

"Anita!"

"You know her?" Tori asked, looking between them. Harry nodded.

"We were at the same primary school when I lived with my aunt and uncle."

"It was a rotten school," Anita added. "I'm glad I left."

"You left? Why? Because of your dad? I heard he died. I'm sorry."

She shrugged. "I'm not. And yeah, it was. Me and Mum moved to London to live with her sister and I went to a school there. I heard about your uncle. He died the same night as my dad, didn't he?"

She looked like she wanted to say more, maybe ask him details about how it happened, but was resisting.

"Yeah. It was no big loss."

"That's not very nice," Neville said. "He was your uncle."

"He was a jerk who hated me," Harry told him plainly. "He got what he deserved."

Neville was shocked. "B-but he's your family!"

"No, Tori and my parents and my governess are my family. My aunt and uncle were just… they were nothing."

"Parents?" Anita repeated. "What do you mean?"

"I was adopted. This is Tori, she's my sister. Tori, this is Anita."

They shook hands and exchanged pleasantries while Neville was still trying to process Harry's callous disregard of his aunt and uncle. He excused himself when Harry and the girls got to talking about Hogwarts and didn't come back before they reached Hogsmeade Station. There, Hagrid led them down to the edge of a lake where they took some boats across the water to the castle proper. Inside they were greeted by Professor McGonagall, an imposing witch Harry vaguely recalled meeting in the few weeks he spent at Hogwarts after the werewolf attack, and then led into the Great Hall where the rest of the students were already seated. When the first years were lined up at the front of the hall, Harry looked over the staff table and caught Gareth's gaze, smiling in greeting and getting a salute in return.

The Sorting Hat sung its song and then McGonagall started reading out their names. Some people took a second to sort but others sat under the hat for a long time. Anita was under it for almost a full minute before it put her in Gryffindor. When Malfoy's name was called—Draco Malfoy, Harry learnt—there was a murmur of voices across the hall and the boy cringed slightly before straightening his shoulders and walking up to the stool. When he sat, he kept his gaze fixed above everyone's heads until the hat fell over his eyes, and was sorted into Slytherin after a few moments.

Then, a few names later:

"Potter-Valentine, Harry!"

Louder and more curious whispers darted about the hall at that and he walked up to the stool without looking at anyone. Even without the enhanced hearing provided by the vampire blood he'd have heard the mutters of "Did she say Harry Potter?" and "Potter-Valentine? Is it not the Boy Who Lived then?" and "What happened to his face?"

When McGonagall put the hat on him, it slid down over his eyes, hiding the rest of the hall from him, and a quiet voice said in his ear, "Hmm. Interesting. I haven't met a child who sold their soul to a demon before today and now I've met two, and I don't often sit on the heads of people with vampire blood in their veins."

Harry stiffened.

"Oh, not to fear. Your secrets are my secrets. No one likes a hat that gossips, so you can stop thinking about setting me on fire, thank you very much. Let me have a look… determined, loyal to those who earn it, intelligent too. I think you'll do very well in SLYTHERIN!"

Amidst the applause, just before McGonagall pulled the hat up, he heard the hat murmur, "You might want to look into the details of your demon deal…"

He suppressed a frown at that and hopped off the stool, moving over to Slytherin table to join his new housemates, accepting their greetings and congratulations with nods and thin smiles. No one asked yet about his name or scars, but he knew they'd be coming and he saw their eyes fixating on the lightning bolt on his forehead.

There were six people left to sort now; Zacharias Smith went to Hufflepuff, Dean Thomas to Gryffindor, Lisa Turpin to Ravenclaw, and then it was Tori's turn. She glanced over to Harry before the hat was placed on her and he gave her an encouraging smile, and not long after she was sorted into Ravenclaw. Ron Weasley was sorted in Gryffindor and Blaise Zabini, the last one, went to Slytherin.

Dumbledore gave a few words and then the tables were laden with food and the hall filled with chatter as people helped themselves to dinner. Harry wasn't the least bit surprised that the first discussions at the Slytherin table focused on him and he dutifully explained his name, his scars, and his relationship with Tori. She sat at a spot on the Ravenclaw table that put her directly behind him, so he was able to simply point over his shoulder at her and it inevitably drew the attention of the nearby Ravenclaws too. It was fine until he happened to mention Gabriel's name and a Ravenclaw prefect choked on his beef.

"Lord Gabriel Valentine?" he said when he'd cleared the meat from his throat, twisted around to look between Harry and Tori. "The… the vampire?"

They nodded and were promptly bombarded with questions about life with vampires. The meal was half-over by the time people turned their attention to other topics, and even then someone would occasionally turn back to Harry with another question.

Draco Malfoy wasn't one of the ones to pester him. Whether still embarrassed by the incident on the train or because he realised that Harry and Tori didn't like him already, he stayed out of all conversations regarding them. He did look as if he wanted to say something several times, and his lip curled with dislike at every mention of vampires. Harry wondered if he knew about his ancestors treatment of Lorna, but he didn't care enough to ask and interact with the boy.

The meal finished and Dumbledore rose again. He introduced Professor Quirrell as the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, gave notice as to the Forbidden Forest being—no surprise—forbidden, reminded them that magic wasn't permitted in the corridors, and announced that the third floor corridor was out of bounds to everyone who didn't wish to die painfully.

"Is he serious?" Harry heard Tori ask while a few students across the hall laughed. "Was that a joke?"

Harry sincerely hoped so.

They had to sing the school song then. Harry mumbled it, having never been very good at singing, and shuffled impatiently as he waited for the last two singers, a pair of Gryffindors, to finish up. He was thoroughly exhausted, still not quite used to being awake all day despite his parents' best efforts to alter his sleeping schedule.

Dumbledore dismissed them and Harry said goodbye to Tori then followed Lisa Patterson, a fifth year prefect, down to Slytherin, a large dungeon room with tall windows set into one wall that looked directly into the lake they'd crossed over earlier. Harry was glad to find it gently lit and having nowhere through which sunlight could come; he wouldn't have to worry about his sensitivity to light here. At the far end of the common room were two doors that Lisa led them too, turning to face them and gesturing to each.

"Girls on my left, boys on my right. Curfew is at nine but you only have to be back in the common room by then—when you actually go to bed is your choice, but it's also your responsibility to get up on time in the morning. You'll get your class timetables at breakfast tomorrow so don't miss it. It's served from seven o'clock; first class is at half-eight. Welcome to Slytherin."

Beyond the door was a short corridor lined with seven more doors set in the wall opposite, each one bearing a label with a year name on it, and one directly adjacent to the entrance, which was the bathroom. They found the first year dorm second from the bottom. Inside were six beds, with their trunks set to one side. There was some squabbling between Draco Malfoy and Theodore Nott over who got the bed furthest from the door, but soon enough they'd each picked one and dragged their trunks over.

Harry enlarged Samantha's terrarium, set it up by his bed, and transferred her to it. It made the others curious and he had to assure them he had permission to keep her and that she wasn't venomous. That done, he retrieved his pyjamas, set out his uniform for the next day, went to the bathroom to clean up, and then changed and crawled into bed, falling straight to sleep.

It was only when he walked into breakfast the next morning that Harry realised the enchantment on the ceiling of the Great Hall, to make it look like the sky outside, was loathsome in all its beauty. He'd known about it of course, and even appreciated it the night before when it meant they were eating under a clear night sky of sparkling stars, but at half past seven in the morning it meant sitting under glaring sunlight which didn't make being up at such an ungodly hour any better.

He didn't want to draw attention by putting on the Shades Spell at breakfast and thankfully his house mates took his grumpy attitude as merely a morning thing, which wasn't entirely untrue, but the moment they left breakfast he slipped off to a bathroom to put the spell on. It made things a little dark in the corridors, but after years of nocturnal living he preferred the dim light anyway, and it was definitely necessary for their first ever class—double Herbology.

They shared it with the Ravenclaws and Harry found Tori as they waited outside the greenhouses before class started. Her greeting smile was a bit strained and she introduced him curtly to Lisa Turpin before dragging him away from everyone to quietly ask him to put the Shades Spell on her too. She didn't have the same sensitivity to light that he did, but it was still bright enough to be annoying, especially when they'd be standing under it for a double period.

"Is there one for ears, too?" she asked a little grumblingly after he put it on. "It's so noisy here."

Harry had noticed that, too. Their hearing might not have been to vampire standards, and he knew his own wasn't as good as Tori's, but Lynott House was never loud except at Saturnalia. With such advanced hearing, vampires simply didn't need to be as loud as humans to be heard; it made the simple everyday noise of five hundred children sound like a riot to Harry and Tori.

At Tori's question, a couple of possible spells instantly came to mind, but none he could do without drawing attention from their classmates. The Shades Spell just meant a wave of his wand in front of the face, but the simplest and most ideal sound dulling spell required sticking the tip into the ear and there was no way he could do that there without everyone noticing. That besides, he didn't have time because Professor Sprout arrived then and ushered them all into Greenhouse One.

Sprout gave them a safety lesson before they began, vigorously warning them against going alone into many of the greenhouses, some of which housed plants that were dangerous or even lethal when not handled properly. When they actually got started, they learned how to look after a harmless little fungi often used in beauty potions.

They had break next and Harry spent the time with Tori, showing her a letter he'd received at breakfast that morning. It was from Gareth—who Harry kept having to remind himself to call 'Professor Martin' now—saying that Harry was to come to his office after classes to talk about testing his skill level. Tori sulked when she saw it.

"Why is it just you?" she grumbled. "I was being tutored in magical theory too."

"Yeah, but you can't do lots of spells like me."

"I could have, if Mum and Dad had let me get a wand and have lessons. I'd have been as good as you."

Harry said nothing. He didn't doubt Tori's intelligence—she'd always done well with their lessons and getting into Ravenclaw was further proof—but it would take a lifetime of study, or a demon deal, to know as many spells as well as he did.

He remembered then what the Sorting Hat said about his demon deal and wondered what it meant. He considered dismissing it; after all, what did a hat, even a magical one, know about demon deals? But it had sat on Anita's head before Harry's, and a large number of heads before that, so there was a chance it knew quite a lot about demon deals. He decided not to worry too much about it, but would check out the library when he had a chance and see if he could find some books about it.

After break the Slytherins had History of Magic, which was shockingly boring. Harry was used to trips to museums and exciting stories from his parents; Professor Binns' monotonous lecture made a subject that, while not Harry's favourite, had been somewhat interesting into something painfully boring. He also got it wrong, but Harry kept his mouth shut when Binns said Uric the Oddball's eccentricities had no known cause, knowing that it was primarily the result of a vampire seduction done by Edward, the Valentines' butler.

They had lunch afterwards and then Transfiguration was the last class of the day. After introducing herself, taking the register, and lecturing them on the dangers of Transfiguration and misbehaving in class, McGonagall turned her desk into a pig and back and then set them to transfiguring matchsticks into needles. Harry did it perfectly on his first try—his very first, because he'd never been in a situation where he needed to Transfigure matchsticks into needles—which earned him ten house points from a surprised McGonagall, and another ten when he perfectly transfigured it back. While the rest of the class continued to practice, she set him some written work to do instead, which covered a number of theoretical things that he'd studied at home, and was the homework she set the rest of the class.

At the end of the lesson, he walked down to the dungeons with the rest of his class, but broke away when they passed a door labelled 'Professor G. Martin'. He knocked and got no answer, so waited outside for ten minutes until Gareth appeared, carrying an armload of scrolls.

"Oh, good, you're already here," he greeted. "Let yourself in, it's open."

Harry did but stepped aside to let Gareth enter first. He lit the fireplace and dumped the scrolls on his desk, gesturing for Harry to take a seat. Harry took one of the chairs before the desk, looking around. Aside from the desk, Gareth's chair, and two more facing it, there was a cupboard in one corner, a filing cabinet in another, and some shelves on the wall with brightly coloured potions that reflected the firelight to create a mosaic of lights on the ceiling. There was a mug on the desk and Harry was embarrassed to realise it was the same one he'd given Gareth as a present all those years ago, childishly painted with the man's name scrawled in uneven letters.

Gareth dropped into his own chair with a sigh, but gave Harry a warm smile. "So. How you doing? Settling in alright?"

"Yeah. The dorm is a bit weird, sharing a room with other people, but otherwise it's okay. Why do you still have that?"

Gareth glanced at the mug. "I drink coffee from it."

"It's old. And it's stupid. I was six when I painted that, it's awful."

"Well mug's don't have expiry dates so it doesn't matter that it's old, and I like it. If it makes you feel better, I won't tell anyone that you made it. How are your house mates?"

"They're okay," he said simply. Gareth was an old friend, but Harry was all too aware that in this instance he was acting as an authority figure and so he wasn't sure if it was alright to mention that he didn't really like half his roommates. Theodore Nott seemed alright, if a bit withdrawn, and so did Blaise Zabini, but he disliked Draco, both because of his family history with Lorna and because of his use of the word Mudblood on the train, and Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle hadn't made much of an impression on him either, mostly following Draco around. He hadn't interacted much with the girls yet, so didn't have any opinion on them.

"How's your first day been?"

Harry shrugged. "Alright. Herbology was good, but History of Magic and Transfiguration were boring."

"One too dull and the other too easy?"

Harry nodded.

"Thought so," he said, looking through the mess on his desk for something and eventually pulling out a sheaf of parchment. "Alright, so Lord Valentine wrote to Dumbledore saying you're pretty well advanced in practical and theoretical magic, is that right?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, well, the teachers have agreed to assess you and figure out your skill level so we can decide if you need moving up. The first couple of weeks can be a bit hectic settling in, so we'll do practical tests next weekend, on the fourteenth, and for now you'll just have to put up with standard lessons, but we've each assigned you an essay or worksheet to do so we can get an idea of your theoretical knowledge, alright?"

Harry nodded, taking the parchment from him. In truth, he was still a little unsure about it all. He wondered if the teachers would say there was no point in him attending Hogwarts when he knew every spell they could teach him. He would understand their point, and he couldn't argue that a focused home-schooling might be more suited to his needs, but he wanted the experience of going to school so he didn't want them sending him home. It might be alright if school didn't turn out to be as exciting as he'd always hoped, but he figured he'd need at least a couple of months to really get an idea of it, if not a whole year.

But he perked up looking over the essays and worksheets he'd been given. He might know all the spells and be fairly well-versed in general magical theory, but he didn't think he'd be that far ahead in History, even with a pair of vampires for parents, and he knew he couldn't be at all ahead in Herbology and Potions, and he was probably even behind in Astronomy. Gabriel and Lorna tried to teach him the constellations, but Harry had never been very good at finding them. To him, connecting the stars was like a giant, incredibly complex dot-to-dot with all the numbers missing. So they might advance him in Transfiguration, Charms, and Defence Against the Dark Arts, but all the other subjects were just as new to him as to any other first year.

Gareth told him he had to do everything within the next two weeks, and that it didn't exempt him from any other homework he'd get, then dismissed him. It was almost dinner by then but he had enough time to return to Slytherin to drop off his bag and papers, and to check on Samantha, making sure she was alright after the stress of moving. She seemed happy enough and the terrarium was the same one from home so she didn't have to acclimatise to somewhere completely new.

He walked up to the Great Hall with Theodore Nott and Blaise Zabini, getting to know them a little as they ate. Neither of them were very keen to talk about their families, but said enough for Harry to learn Blaise was an only child living with his mother and her seventh husband, whilst Theo now lived alone with his parents since his older sister left home a couple of years ago. He was extremely dismissive of both his parents and quick to change the subject. Harry didn't push to know more; he got the impression Theo felt much the same way about his parents that Harry did about his aunt and uncle.

In the common room that evening, while he was relaxing by the fire working on a letter home, the first year girls came up to him and Tracey Davis asked, "Is it true you have a snake?"

"Yes."

"Can we see?"

"Alright, when I'm done with my letter."

It didn't take him long and then he fetched Samantha from her terrarium and brought her through to the common room. It drew interested looks from many of the other students so that when he sat down with the first year girls there was quite a crowd huddling around to see. Daphne Greengrass drew back slightly, but Tracey leaned closer, grinning.

"He—is it a he? sorry—she's so pretty!"

"Thanks. Her name's Samantha."

"She's not poisonous, is she?" Daphne asked, unable to keep all the nerves from her voice.

"Snakes aren't poisonous, they're venomous," Harry answered. "And no, she isn't. She's a king snake."

"She's not very big," Millicent Bulstrode commented as Samantha coiled around Harry's wrist.

"She's only a couple of months old. She'll get bigger."

"Why don't you have a cat or owl like a normal person?" Pansy Parkinson asked.

"I can't talk to cats and owls."

There was a pause as they considered that and then one of the other students in the crowd, a third year, asked, "Do you mean… are you a—a Parselmouth?"

He nodded. Several people looked wary, but others just looked impressed or even faintly envious.

"Show us," Millicent said.

"Do you mind all these people staring down at you like this?" Harry asked Samantha. He wasn't sure she really understood it—sentences longer than a few words were still beyond her grasp—but she seemed to enjoy the attention, and reacted to his voice with a general, wordless hiss of pleasure. A few people gasped at hearing him speak.

Pansy shivered. "That sounds creepier than I thought it would."

"I think it sounds really nice," Tracey said.

"It's proper," Millicent remarked. "There hasn't been a Parselmouth in Slytherin since You Know Who."

"I'm not like him," Harry felt the need to say, tone defensive despite his efforts to keep it neutral.

Tracey snorted. "Well obviously. You destroyed him."

There was a slightly awkward pause then. Harry wondered how many of them had parents or other family members who were Death Eaters.

A fourth year cleared their throat. "Aren't you worried the teachers will confiscate her?"

"No, they know about her already and I'm allowed to keep her."

Their curiosity satisfied, most people moved away, including Daphne and Pansy, but Millicent and Tracey settled in chairs nearby to chat with him more. Millicent held out her hand for Samantha to flick her tongue at and then, when Harry said it was alright, stroked her head and let Samantha crawl over her hands. He watched a little worriedly, but Millicent, despite her intimidating size, was exceptionally gentle and Samantha hissed contentedly the entire time.

The week went on. Defence Against the Dark Arts lessons turned out to be something of a joke; Quirrell spoke with a heavy stutter which made his already not very interesting classes even harder to take seriously. He didn't seem inclined to teach them any defensive magic at all and he was constantly surrounded by the scent of garlic. Everyone said it was because he stuffed his turban with it to ward off a vampire he'd once met in Romania. Harry didn't mention to anyone that garlic only bothered vampires if they ingested it; it was a little known fact that the vampires wanted to keep little known.

Potion classes were shared with the Gryffindors and they had a double lesson on Friday afternoons. Harry had always known that Slytherin and Gryffindor had an age old rivalry, but it was only then that he really understood how strong it was. Before the lesson even started, while they were waiting outside the classroom, the Gryffindors started to pick a fight when Harry approached Anita. He hadn't had chance to speak to her since the first day, but he barely managed to get out a greeting before Ron Weasley and Seamus Finnigan stepped up beside her and shoved Harry away. Anita looked as shocked as Harry.

"She doesn't want a dark wizard talking to her," Ron said snidely.

"I'm not a dark wizard," Harry protested at the same moment Anita snapped, "Don't tell me what I do and don't want, Weasley."

"You're a Parselmouth," Ron said, ignoring Anita entirely. "Everyone knows only dark wizards are Parselmouths."

It was common knowledge throughout the school by now and this wasn't the first time Harry heard people utter such things about him.

"Being a Parselmouth doesn't make me evil!"

"Yeah," agreed Tracey Davis, stepping up beside Harry. "He's the Boy Who Lived, Weasley. He can't be a dark wizard."

"He can," Seamus countered, staring at Harry distrustfully. "He could be just as dark as You Know Who and destroyed him just so he doesn't have any competition."

"Finnigan, do you realise how ridiculous you sound? Are you seriously accusing him of being a dark wizard when he was a baby?"

Seamus shrugged. "Maybe. Either way he's a dark wizard now and he can stay away from Anita and the rest of us Gryffindors."

"Go eat rat dung, Finnigan," Anita told him. "I don't need a pair of stupid white boys telling me who I can and can't hang around with."

The door of the classroom opened then, preventing it from going further, and Gareth gestured them all inside. His appearance surprised Harry a little—he'd always seen Gareth with his long hair tied in a simple ponytail, but now he wore it in a looped ponytail so it only hung a third of the length it normally did—a safety measure to keep it more out the way, Harry realised when Gareth gave a lecture on safety, which included lending hair ties to a couple of the girls who were wearing their hair down, before setting them to work in pairs on a simple boil potion.

He moved around the classroom as they worked, advising them on how to calibrate their scales and the best way to crush snake fangs. When Neville Longbottom neglected to remove his cauldron from the flames before adding the porcupine quills, causing the cauldron to melt and seep across the classroom floor, Gareth instantly cleared away the mess and fetched a boil cure from his desk. Neville had been drenched in the potion and boils were already popping up all over his face until he gulped the potion down.

"Don't get in a state about it, Longbottom," Gareth told him after making sure he was alright enough to not need a trip to the Hospital Wing. "You forgot to take the cauldron off the fire first. You should take it—you should all take it," he said, making sure the entire class was listening, "as a warning to pay careful attention to the instructions. Rule of thumb is to read through a set of instruction completely before you begin brewing, to familiarise yourself and so you can take note of any particular steps. Today's accident was relatively harmless, but some potions can be far more lethal when done incorrectly."

At the end of the lesson, Anita asked Harry if he'd hang out with her a bit as the Gryffindors now had a free period, but the Slytherins still had a Charms class to go to so he said he'd speak to her after dinner. Charms, like Transfiguration, was a boringly simple class for Harry. The rest of the class were learning fire spells, a necessity for use in Potions, but Harry scribbled away at the worksheet meant to determine his skill level, having already proven to Flitwick that he could conjure a variety of fires in their first lesson earlier that week.

After dinner he met Anita outside the Great Hall and they decided to wander about the castle as they talked. They mostly caught up on each others lives in the past few years and Anita asked about the magical world. She had one particular question that she wanted clarification on and which surprised him a bit.

"What does Mudblood mean?"

"It's a bad word for Muggleborns. I thought you knew that? Isn't it why you punched Malfoy on the train?"

"I thought it was a race thing," she explained. "That brown skin meant muddy blood or something. It's not like he explained himself, but I could tell from his tone that it was an insult and that's why I hit him. Only I heard an older student say it to a white girl the other day, but I didn't want to ask any of the Gryffindors in case they thought I was stupid."

Harry hadn't even considered that the word could be taken in anyway other than an insult for Muggleborns. "You're not stupid. But I don't think wizards care much about skin colour, they only care about whether you've got magical parents or not. The stupid ones, anyway."

"They don't seem happy with religion, either. Or at least not Sikhism, but that's no surprise, but I did see one of the older students get mocked at dinner for saying grace."

"Um, I'm not sure about religion," Harry said, hesitant and aware that this could be a touchy subject. "Wizards don't have one for ourselves specifically and I think a lot of them are atheists, and I know some of the old pureblood families definitely don't like Christianity because of the witch trials, but I've never really heard much about general opinions on other religions. Sorry."

She shrugged. "It's nothing new. My aunt's home where me and Mum live now is in an area with a lot of Indians and Sikhs, and I went to school with most of them, but it's not like I'm not used to putting up with stupid white people."

"Does that include me?"

"You're not stupid, I'll give you that."

"Thanks," he said dryly.

"I wonder what they'd think of me if they knew half my magic came from a demon," she mused, after glancing around to check there was no one in earshot.

"What's it like for you? Using a wand when you can do magic without it?"

She shrugged. "It seems a bit pointless, really, 'cause I can do most of the stuff without one, but I don't want to tell everyone I can in case they ask me how. It's pretty obvious that wandless magic isn't normal."

"Some people can do little bits, but yeah not really without a lot of training." He paused, considering his next question, but decided to go ahead. "Does your mum—"

"Come… come to me… let me rip you… let me tear you… let me kill you…"

He stopped abruptly, looking around in surprise. Anita paused as well. "What?"

"Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"That voice. I heard a voice."

She glanced around, leaning over the banister of the staircase they were on to look below them and then peering up, then shrugged and looked back to him. "I can't see anyone. Maybe you're hearing things."

He nodded absently, but hoped not. What he'd heard was a bit too clear to be just his ears playing tricks on him, but he didn't like the thought of being a madman who had voices in his head talking about killing.

"What were you saying about my mum?" Anita asked, continuing up the stairs.

"What? Oh, does she know about your deal?"

Anita shook her head even before he finished asking. "She'd flip if she knew I did that. She'd think I was mad and drag me to doctors and a Guru and all kinds. Do your parents know?"

"No. I'm not really sure what vampires think of demons but I didn't want to tell them. I just told them I had a really good tutor before I met them."

Anita looked amused. "A tutor who taught you every single spell ever?"

"Just a lot," he admitted, smiling. "They don't know I know everything."

"Why are you even here? Isn't it even more pointless for you than for me?"

"I still need to learn Potions, Herbology, History, and Astronomy, and there's the advanced subjects we get to take in third year, but I wanted to come. My parents were going to home-school me so I'd have a focused curriculum, but I want go to a school."

"That's half of why I don't want them knowing about my magic too. I don't want to go to a normal school again. Magic school is way better. For example," she said, tone suddenly mischievous as they reached the end of a corridor with a locked door, "I'm pretty sure normal schools don't have forbidden corridors that the headmaster says could kill them."

Only then did Harry realise they were on the third floor.

"Do you want to have a look?" Anita asked.

"I'd rather know what's behind it first," Harry said, admittedly very curious about it. "Dumbledore did say it was a painful death."

Anita waved a dismissive hand. "He was probably just exaggerating. It's a school, they wouldn't really keep anything that dangerous around, would they?"

It was a fair point, but still. He drew his wand from the holster on his hip. "I've got a better idea. I can make the door see through."

"Oh, alright," she grumbled. He raised his wand, aimed it at the door, and—

"What do you think you're doing?!"

They both cringed, turning to face the irate Professor McGonagall stalking down the corridor towards them. They stood with heads bowed as she scolded them, warning that if she caught them hanging around again she'd take points, and then sent them on their way.

"Another time," Anita whispered to Harry when they split up to head back to their own houses.

Although Harry didn't think they'd taken a very complex route from the Great Hall, he still managed to take a wrong turn somewhere on the way back and ended up finding himself outside the Library. He still had some time left until curfew so he headed inside. There weren't many people there and Harry wandered through the silent stacks, familiarising himself with the layout of the place as he searched for anything about demons. He found a couple of promising looking books in the Defence Against the Dark Arts section and pulled one down, flicking through. It was only a classification tome, though, and while he did discover that the demon he'd made his deal with was classified as a crossroads demon (unimaginative but straightforward, he thought), it didn't tell him anything he didn't already know. It did reference another book he found on the same shelf, this one with more information about demonic interaction, and he sat down to read it.

Half an hour later, a prefect came along and pointed out that he only had fifteen minutes until curfew. He thanked them in a dull voice, put the book back, and walked down to Slytherin in a haze, following an older student also leaving the library. Inside he headed straight through to the dorms, lay down on his bed with the curtains drawn shut, and stared up at the canopy, his mind fixated on what he'd read.

Deals with demons are ill-advised and fatal. In exchange for the desired object, whether material or metaphysical, the subject is forced to forfeit their soul in a ten year contract. Precisely one decade after agreement, at the stroke of midnight, the subject is hunted down by the demon's vicious hellhounds, invisible creatures said to be visible only to their target. The victim suffers from hallucinations in the days preceding their deaths and are rumoured to be able to see the true face of demons during this time period.

Hellhounds are restless and unforgiving; they do not stop and they will cut through anything to reach their target. Post-mortem remains are always brutally mutilated and often unrecognisable even to the subject's closest friends and family. To date, there is no known record of any subject surviving an attack by hellhounds.