Author's Note: I decided to make the Gryffindor dorms a bit more like those of Slytherin and so the the boys get double rooms =)
Note:
"blah" - normal speech;
"Blah" - overheard conversations;
'blah' - thoughts;
[blah] - letters, diary entries, book passages, etc.
$blah$ - Parseltongue;
"blah!" - spells;
Previously on 'Harry Potter: The Black Lord'
He then looked to the Slytherin table, where his students were quietly talking to each other. No matter what others thought he was always proud of his snakes, even if no one else was. Then his eyes drifted to the Gryffindor table. He was somewhat surprised to notice that the Potter brat somehow managed to tame that mane he called hair. The boy also wasn't wearing glasses. While the changes were very small, they did the child a lot of good, even made him look more like Lily and not that good for nothing Potter. The man also noticed that for one the boy was dressed properly, which would also explain the way Weasley was making a scene of himself. Severus recalled his latest conversation with Lucius and decided that it wouldn't be a particular hardship to tone down his harassing of the boy. After all there was always plenty of other victims around.
On with the story.
CHAPTER SIX.
When they finally got back to the Gryffindor Tower, Harry was pleased to note that the second year dorms were much different from the huge one they all lived in last year. This year they had separate rooms, not for everyone naturally, but they were separated two to a room and much to Harry's pleasure he was sharing a room with Neville. For one unlike Ronald Neville didn't snore, then there was the fact that Neville was someone Harry actually liked and wanted to be friends with. The Longbottom heir was also pleased to be room-mates with Harry and they spent a nice evening unpacking. They were already in his pyjamas when Ron made it to the dorm and threw a fit as soon as he learned he was not room-mates with Harry. Neville wanted to try and calm him down, but Harry just locked the door and did his best to ignore the ranting of his former best friend.
"Trust me Neville, leaving him be is just about the best thing we can do." – he said with a sigh as he settle down in his bed.
"But Harry, he's your friend."- tried to protest Neville – "It's understandable that he would be upset not to room with you."
Harry gave the boy a kind smile:
"And I would understand it had he really behaved like a friend and not like some jealous git. I didn't even get one letter from him this summer. In my opinion either a person is your friend at all times, or he's not your friend at all. Well, to be honest it's an opinion I've only recently formed, but I think it's a sound one. You know before coming to Hogwarts I was raised by Muggles. Not the most lovable bunch to be sure. I was so happy when I was told I was a wizard that I rushed head first into a totally unknown world." – Harry turned onto his back and stared at the ceiling which was enchanted so that it showed the starry sky instead of just ceiling – "I didn't stop to consider all the new things around me. I met Ron and we went along fine. He didn't find any of the things that I didn't understand strange, so I shrugged them off and just followed him. But this last summer I spent alone. I didn't get one letter from either Ron or Hermione. And the only thing I could do beside homework was thinking and reading. Ron is a nice person to hang out with from time to time, but he just doesn't suit me as a best friend. "
As he spoke, he understood that it was absolutely true, even if it wasn't the whole truth. Harry had no idea why he was telling Neville about this, but then again he figured it wasn't very healthy to keep everything bottled up. At the very least, Harry thought, Neville wouldn't betray him… or so he hoped.
Morning came sooner than expected and with it came the time tables. As usual all of their classes were with the Slytherins and the work load was pretty intense, though it still left quite a lot of free time. Harry chuckled as he heard Ron grumbling about too many classes, but stopped dead in his tracks as some words caught his ear.
"…How does he think Ginny will get close to that Potter git if we have to do homework through all of our free time?"
Yep, just as he expected the youngest Weasley was in Dumbledore's pocket.
"Ronald," – another painfully familiar voice cut in – "We can't be that obvious! Since you got it into your head that playing the role of his friend didn't include writing him during holidays, now he's angry and probably doesn't think you're really his friend, just another glory seeking idiot!"
'And yes, that would be Hermione…' – thought Harry sadly – 'I wonder how the old bastard got her into this, she's a muggleborns after all…'
"When I want your opinion, mudblood, I'll ask for it!" – snapped a clearly angry Ron – "What you think you're something special…" – whatever else the idiot wanted to say would remain a mystery forever, since the girl in question clearly didn't appreciate his name calling and like any slighted woman punched the ginger head in the head.
"Don't you ever call me that again, Ronald Billius Weasley!" – she screeched quietly – "My parents may be muggles, but at least they are rich and we have a normal house unlike some people I know!"
Harry blinked. That was definitely Hermione's voice, but what he was hearing was definitely out of character for the girl… or so he thought until now. Knowing that she was in on the 'let's keep tabs on Harry' plan made the boy think in a totally different light about her.
"Well… that would explain why you're not very keen on being friends with them…" – came Neville's voice from behind and Harry jumped with a small 'eep' escaping him, which made the usually timid Neville give him a small mischievous grin – "You should really pay more attention to your surroundings, Harry." – he gently teased the other boy, making Harry gape at him.
"Who are you and what did you do to Neville?" – he questioned confusedly. The fact that other people beside himself could be able to pull off a convincing public mask escaping him for the moment.
"Nothing," – the boy sand calmly, running a hand through him dirty blond hair – "However before I actually explain everything in detail, you will promise not to tell anyone the things I will share with you. In return I will give you a similar promise."
Harry nodded dumbly, his brain going into over shock, which caused a rather strange expression to form on his face, which made Neville snicker softly.
(Author's Note: Yep, I decided to make Neville awesome. ^.^ Maybe not as awesome as Harry, but very cool none the less. After all, he is the other child of the Prophecy)
"So is it just a regular promise, or are we going to do something magical?" – asked Harry curiously, as he overcame his shock. He wondered if there were any people who actually were exactly the way they behaved. He felt slightly silly for deciding what sort of person Neville was without even getting to know him better first.
The Longbottom heir was glad that Harry seemed open to the idea of a more binding promise, but as he recalled the conversation they overheard between Ron and Hermione, he realized that this was probably not something Harry wanted to chance getting out. He gave the other boy a small smile. He felt rather weird going without his mask at Hogwarts, after all his Gran always said that Dumbledore would be out to get him if he couldn't get his hands on Harry first, but the old lady never did go into details about what made her think like that and Neville has never been overly curious, so he just did as Gran advised and pretended to be an idiot. Of course this made him have fewer friends than he would have wanted, but didn't mind overly much.
"Well, we could make a blood pledge…" – he said uncertainly. He was of course aware what it meant and knew that Harry probably had no idea, so he explained hastily – "Gran said that it's the way for two wizards, or even two families to form an alliance, to ensure that they wouldn't betray each other, or wouldn't be forced to betray each other."
Harry, while being much more studious that last year and more careful about trusting people, was still very much a Gryffindor. What Neville said appealed to him, the idea of having a friend or at least an ally that would not be able to betray him was a very nice one, so he nodded enthusiastically:
"Sounds good. How do we do it?"
Neville blinked. He expected to answer a lot of questions before and if Harry agreed to do this. But here the Potter heir was once more demonstrating exactly why the Sorting Hat put him into Gryffindor. Still, Neville was not about to ask if he was sure.
"Well, we have to give the promise, then each of us makes a cut across the palm and we shake hands mixing blood and thus making the promise a binding one. Well, at least that's what Gran said."
"Okay, let's do this." – exclaimed Harry eagerly once again making Neville snicker at his obvious eagerness, which Harry noticed and glanced at the floor, flushing darkly – "Sorry. You must think I'm a total idiot. It's just after a year of telling Ron everything I got used to having someone there to talk to, to be able to tell them anything. Of course now I know that trusting him was a mistake, but this thing you're proposing gives me the chance to have that again. You said yourself, we'll be able to tell each other anything and know for sure that we won't betray each other even if we wanted to." His voice was small as he studied the floor. He felt like an idiot for jumping the chance to have what he wanted as soon as it appeared, without even considering all the aspects of the promise they would give each other – "Perhaps we could go to the library and look it up, so what exactly it entails and how it's done…" – he mumbled.
This made Neville give him a smile and Harry snorted as it occurred to him that they've come full circle from how they've been last evening, or at least how he thought they were considering the fact that Neville's home life was apparently better than he thought it was.
'Darn it, why doesn't somebody do something about this stupid ghost?' – wondered Harry as he tuned out Binns' droning about yet another goblin rebellion and instead watched his classmates. He rolled his eyes when he saw Hermione write down notes and Ron sleeping next to her. The Slytherins were busy passing notes back and forth and periodically one of them would throw something at their professor, who didn't even seem to notice as he droned on and on. Next to Harry Neville was also snoring away, while on his left Seamus was trying to turn water into rum under the table. With a heavy sigh Potter pulled out a random book, which turned out to be their potions textbook and spent the otherwise useless history class reading.
Author's Note: Well, nothing exciting about this one. I do need to spend some time placing the characters where I want them before I can get to the interesting part =) But don't worry, I'll try to get over the boring stuff as quickly as I can. To make things more lively, I've decided to add some pranks into the story. Here's a question for you guys.
Poll 1: What sort of prank should Harry & Neville pull first:
A. switch the headmaster's lemon drops with glamoured nasty berty botts beans;
B. turn Ron green and silver;
C. make Hermione turn in assignments written with vanishing ink;
D. turn Ginny into a boy for a few days;
E. If you feel these are too boring, feel free to PM me with your suggestions.