...and his nipples were Castor and Pollux
and his windpipe was Blood on the Tracks,
his bladder and spleen were Hieronymus Bosch.
His eardrum was a sheaf of lyric poems.
And his ribcage was a fossil Stegosaurus
and his calves were the rails of a ladder.
His lips were Monopoly hotels
and his blood was hot sauce.
His teeth were a set of white chessmen,
his temples were statues of the Buddha,
his diaphragm was a garden trampoline,
his arms were kestrels hovering in the wind.
And his liver was a case of grand cru Medoc.
And his shoulder blades were shoals of mackerel.
His armpits were a dinghy's rusting rowlocks
and his palms were renewable energy.
~ Self Portrait at Fifty, Bloodlines by Andy Brown
Chapter Seven
Trust Is Earned
However when Harry arrived at Dumbledore's office right after breakfast the very next day, and was told by Dumbledore's elderly receptionist to wait in the anteroom, he was the only one there dressed in green. Five older students all robed in black and yellow stared him down, with fervid hatred in their eyes. One girl dressed in Gryffindor orange sat in the corner, reading a book. She had reached the middle of her novel by the time all the Hufflepuff students filed out. Harry regretted not bringing along anything to do. He still had that star chart for Astronomy to complete. When the Gryffindor girl got called in and Harry was alone in the waiting room, he tapped his feet restlessly on the carpet, glancing over at the portrait every now and then, both hoping and dreading the portrait hole would open. The girl finally left, and Harry jumped to his feet. He took two paces towards the portrait hole when it swung closed again, and the portrait informed him that open office hour was over and Headmaster Dumbledore would not be accepting any more queries today. If he had something to discuss with Albus Dumbledore, the portrait told him to come back on Monday.
The first thing Harry did after class the next day was rush up the stairs to Gryffindor tower. He entered the anteroom huffing and panting, and leaned against the door frame for support when he saw the number of students milling about the place. None of them were Slytherin. Mostly yellows and reds filled the room, with perhaps one or two Ravenclaw blues. At least he had his book with him. He sequestered himself in a nook by the window, hidden from the angry Hufflepuff glares behind the foliage of a large weeping fig, and, perched on the windowsill, read from The Heir of Slytherin. He'd finished the book by the time the anteroom had cleared out. Now, eagerly he ran toward the portrait hole.
It slammed shut in his face. Open office hours were over for the day, come back tomorrow.
He did. However the process repeated itself. This time there was an officious red-headed Gryffindor boy who cornered Harry in the hall and raised complaints about Professor Snape, who had apparently taken points off Gryffindor unfairly. The bespectacled and freckle-faced Older Year reminded Harry that none of the Gryffindor teaching staff acted this way, and went so far as to claim that Professor Snape was not fit to be Head of any House. The manner in which Professor Snape abused his authority was inexcusable. Someone should start a petition to get him sacked.
The Hufflepuffs cheered. Harry quickly looked inside the waiting room, but found no-one from his own House. There weren't even any Ravenclaws around.
"Are you a Weasley?" Harry timidly asked the bossy Gryffindor boy, whose fiery red hair looked rather impressive.
"Percy Weasley, what's it to you?"
Harry shrugged. "Just curious."
The Weasley boy snorted. "Yeah right, a Slytherin just being curious, and my name is Prince Vlad the Impaler."
Behind him, the Hufflepuffs dissolved in hoots of laughter.
"Helps put a name to the retard I'm cussing out in my head," Harry grumbled.
Percy Weasley raised his ginger eyebrows. "What did you just say?" he cupped his ear with the palm of his hand and took a large step forward, invading Harry's personal space.
"Oh nothing," Harry said. Side-stepping around Percy he fled inside the anteroom, where he quickly found his favorite spot behind the potted plant.
He managed to avoid further harassment by the other students, but Headmaster Dumbledore still wouldn't see him. Harry was about to leave when a thought struck him. Why couldn't he schedule an appointment? Surely the Headmaster had time set aside for the more serious matters which could not be resolved within fifteen minutes. Harry reckoned his was one of those. He turned to the receptionist behind the high mahogany desk, and waited as she searched through a large diary.
The first free time slot for an audience with Professor Dumbledore was two weeks from now. The receptionist said she couldn't schedule a meeting anytime sooner. Harry grumblingly accepted. What he had to tell Dumbledore was urgent. But the ancient receptionist would hear none of it. She maintained that everyone had supposedly 'urgent' matters these days, and lamented over how today's youth was not taught the virtue of patience.
Harry did not hear a word from the Serpent over the following two weeks. He was beginning to hope it was all some big nightmare concocted out of shock. Maybe the Serpent did not actually exist... perhaps it was all in his head.
Cedric Diggory, the Hufflepuff Seeker, had been confined to the Hospital Wing. He couldn't walk, the rumor went. House Hufflepuff was in a state of disarray, though they did have a replacement Seeker lined up for the next game to be held on December first, against Team Ravenclaw. With the way things were looking, it seemed unlikely Hufflepuff would win. Harry had already purchased tickets for the game, he would go and see it no matter what.
The dubious figure that had been seen lurking by the Quidditch pitch during the game last Saturday had still not been found. There was a general consensus among Hogwarts students, especially the Hufflepuffs, that the Golden Snitch had been hexed with Dark Arts, and that House Slytherin was somehow involved. Harry and his friends received many a scolding look from Older Years of other Houses, as if a First Year could be responsible for such advanced level Dark Magic. The concept itself was hilarious. That had to be the main reason why Blaise announced he was 'boycotting' the event.
"Let them buy their own tickets," said Blaise. "I don't care who wins: the overgrown sniveling skunks or the crowing black birds."
With a firm nod, Greg agreed. "I won't be going to their pathetic excuse of a game. They like to act all morally superior, but when it comes down to it, Hufflepuff doesn't stand a chance against our House on the Quidditch pitch. They can virtue signal till the cows come home, but fact remains: the only way they can win is by taking Team Slytherin out of the equation with their bogus rules and regulations."
Pansy pouted, "and I hate how they took seventy points off our House without a shred of evidence! They didn't launch an investigation, just declared us guilty in front of the whole school." She clawed at her robes with her lacquered green nails. "We worked hard for those points."
Harry agreed, sort of... if you considered the exam cheating caper they'd pulled off to be 'hard work', but he liked Quidditch far too much to miss out on a game. He wondered if Team Ravenclaw played any different, if the House philosophies influenced flying styles. He would certainly be trying out for the Quidditch Team next year. Nothing could stop him. The best he could do till then was visit as many Quidditch games as he could, watch and learn techniques he'd later practice flying with Draco, high above the Castle, where no one could touch them.
Of course Draco had other reasons for not going to the game. He said the whole thing was amateurish, not worth discussion. Hogwarts Quidditch Teams couldn't hold a candle to the English Under-Seventeens. What was the point of going to some sub-par event when he could read all about the British and Irish Quidditch League in the Quidditch journal he'd surreptitiously subscribed to? Sure he wished he could go to a real event like that, see professional players fly in person, that would be the dream.
Was there a magical equivalent of the telly, Harry ventured to ask.
Draco blinked back at him. "What's a telee?"
"Nevermind," said Harry, turning back to his dinner.
They had polished off the ghoulish goulash by the time Harry followed his friends up to The Quad. All treading on tiptoe, with soft clinking chimes coming from the pockets of their robes. Greg led the way, the soft halo around the tip of his wand lit up a few steps in front of him. The light did not reach Harry though; he stumbled after his friends in the dark. It was too risky to cast more than one Lumos. They weren't doing anything wrong, but they didn't wish to get caught doing it.
Gobstones was not exactly... the coolest after-school activity in town.
The Gryffindors were lucky, Greg muttered bitterly. They did not have far to go: Gryffindor Tower was situated on a corner of The Quad. It would be so easy for them to slip down to The Quad and sneak back inside their dorms after the game was over, without ever getting caught.
Nestor reminded Greg that Gryffindor wasn't the only House partaking in tonight's tournament. Ravenclaw Tower was quite a ways off from The Quad.
Draco rolled his eyes. "Oh please, those Poindexters jump at any excuse to flaunt their autism. Bet they run a weekly contest on who can outgeek the rest. They aren't trying to hide the fact they play Gobstones, they wear that crap like a badge of honor."
Greg made a handwave to say something like 'there you have it'. Nestor said nothing. They rounded a corner when Greg suddenly stopped. Harry bumped into Draco, then quickly mumbled his apologies.
"It's okay," Draco whispered with a smile Harry barely caught in the dim light of Greg's Lumos before that went out.
"We're here," said Greg.
The Quad was cold and empty. Harry looked up at the stars twinkling in the night sky.
"Where are the other teams?" Draco ground out waspishly.
Nestor looked lost. He fumbled with the sack of marbles in his hands. "We've been set up..."
"Oh yeah?" Greg spread his arms out, "then where are the cameras? What's the point of humiliating us when there's no one here to see? No witness to capture the moment?"
Nestor twiddled his thumbs sheepishly, without saying anything.
"Huh?" Greg pushed on. "It's not even past curfew. We can't get in trouble for walking around school with a bag of marbles in our hands like a right set of morons."
Harry did find it funny though how no one had shown up, not one person from the other Houses.
"Do you reckon they're scared?" said Nestor, eyes gleaming in the moonlight. "They know we'd wipe the floor with them, and take all their precious stones."
Draco giggled into his hand. "The Huffing Puffs would prolly blame you for hexing their marbles."
With a face hard as stone, Nestor looked at him. "My brother would never, and I repeat never, cheat at Quidditch."
A shiver ran through Harry, the chuckles died in Draco's throat. It was too easy to forget Nestor had a brother on the Quidditch team.
They weren't anything alike, the Flint brothers. Marcus was callous and strong, a bear of a man, towering even above his fellow Fifth Years. He was a demon on the pitch, where his inner fighting spirit emerged, tsunamied and trampled all over the other players. Sometimes even his own teammates... it was not uncommon that Marcus wounded one or two of his own teammates during a game by sending a Bludger their way. He didn't mean to, most of the time, but Marcus had the unfortunate disadvantage of not knowing his own strength. Muscle control was a problem, and at times when he only intended to hit a Bludger half as hard, in the intense heat of the game a soft knock with his bat turned into a killing strike.
Thank the holy trinity of Verbeia, Vinotonus and Veteris, that modern Quidditch did not allow Beaters to swat their bats at other players, or Marcus would have broken quite a few bones in his three years of playing Quidditch for House Slytherin. By contrast Nestor felt more at home behind a book than on a broom. He could fly, but he was not very good at it. And he did not feel inclined to challenge his older brother for the undisputed title of Quidditch King. It was admirable how the brothers supported each other in everything they did, very different from how Greg's home life must be. Perhaps that explained why Nestor and Greg never really got along...
Draco looked at his own shoes. "Come now Ness, you know I didn't mean it that way. The Puffs are goody-goody, is all."
Nestor shrugged. "Whatever, let's just go."
They all turned to leave. Wordlessly Harry said his last goodbyes to the stars, when sets of shuffling footfalls could be heard from all directions. Greg tensed. Draco reached inside his sleeve, ready to draw his wand at the least warning. Nestor's eyes narrowed to slits. Then Harry heard the unmistakable sound of softly clinking gobstones.
Small groups of First Years trickled onto The Quad from all four corners. They stood some distance apart, with their gobstone pouches in hand, looking awkwardly at one another.
"About time," Greg grumbled, swiping the back of his hand across his mouth.
The group approaching from Gryffindor Tower took a bold step forward.
"Not chickening out on us, are you?" said their leader. He was covered from head to toe in a dark cloak, that could've been scarlet but looked black in the shadows of the night. Harry thought he recognized the voice.
Greg snorted. "As if."
The other groups became bolder, less wary in their approach. One group began fussing about with old fashioned lanterns, and conjured large, soft looking cushions for themselves on the stone floor. In the warm glow of those lanterns, Harry recognized Hufflepuff uniforms. He was surprised to see they had girls on their team, too.
He turned back to the Gryffindors just in time to see their leader drop his hood. His cloak was scarlet, indeed, and soon Harry found himself staring at none other than Ron Weasley.
Their eyes met across the courtyard. Ron scoffed. "Well well well, if it isn't The Boy Who Didn't Die; you play Gobstones now?"
Harry scowled. "No," he said in a hard tone, "I only came to watch."
"Hmm," Ron drawled, looking him up and down. "Concerned about muddying your robes with Gobstone gunk? How genteel."
Those last words were said with a hint of sarcasm. Though Ron found an airy way to deliver them, such that he could not be accused of any mockery.
Harry couldn't place the other two students who were with Ron. As they all pushed back their hoods, he noticed one of them was a girl with short golden brown pigtails that shone in the faint light from the Hufflepuff lanterns.
She raised an eyebrow at Harry. "Have I got something you're looking for?" she said with a hint of confidence in her voice.
"Umm, no," he stammered, quickly collecting himself. "You can call me Harry. Could you tell me your name?"
The girl's eyes widened. She looked genuinely surprised. "It's um Dunbar, Fay Dunbar."
"Pleased to meet you Fay."
The girl's cheeks turned crimson, and Harry too, felt his face heat up. He shuffled his feet on the spot to hide his nervousness.
Nestor elbowed Harry in the ribs and leaned in close to whisper: "So, love at first sight is real."
Harry shoved his friend off with a smile. "Shut up."
The stout-looking boy who'd stood behind Ron all this time took a step forward and held out his porky hand to Harry, which made Harry pause and blink at him. The boy's cloak was a deep dark red, and bright orange robes spilled out from underneath. His dark blond hair covered his forehead, nearly reaching his eyes.
"Hi," the guy said with an easy smile, "I'm Ernie Macmillan."
He enthusiastically shook Harry's hand, leaving a tingling sensation when Harry finally got his hand back.
Ron however did not seem too pleased by this fraternizing with the Slytherins. Flaring his nostrils he crossed his arms and stuck up his chin, while closely following Harry's movements through narrowed pale blue eyes. The creases around his long nose only made his freckles look all the more prominent.
Out of thin air Nestor conjured a plain grey linen rug for them all to sit on, and Greg planted his buttocks down square center, on the thickest and softest part of the rug. Nestor sat on Greg's left, leaving very little space for anyone else. Draco made do with the bit of carpet on Greg's other side: he sat precariously perched on the tail end of the rug, a threadbare corner, so half of Draco sat on the rug, and the other half sat directly on the cold stones, leaving some space between himself and Greg.
Draco patted the space and smiled up at Harry. Meanwhile the Hufflepuffs made themselves comfortable on their many luxurious cushions, each player a cushion of their own. Ernie arranged for a number of burning torches to levitate around his team, painting the Gryffindors an orange-red, and casting dark shadows over Ron Weasley's face. Fay snapped her wand once, and three tripod chairs appeared in her arms. She handed two to Ernie and Ron, and all three Gryffindor players unfolded their stools and sat, with Ron at their center, towering high above the other teams.
The Ravenclaws were all seated along one wooden bench that did not seem awfully comfortable, but at least looked clean. Plum-sized spheres of ball lightning floated over their heads. Harry did a double take when he recognized one of their players. It was that guy, the weird rabbit-faced boy he'd met in the kitchens on the night of Samhain, the man whose name was not Theodore. Harry blanched. Not-Theodore noticed him and smiled back with a friendly wave. His brown hair shone with a blueish tinge under the cold light from the spheres of ball lightning.
"Hey-a Harry," he said leaning forward, without getting up from the bench. He didn't need to, as the Ravenclaws and the Slytherins were seated pretty close together.
"Hi," Harry muttered.
Looking further down the line, he thought he recognized Michael Corner. The boy with shoulder-length black hair who was a Transfiguration study buddy of Pansy's, and the main reason why Harry and his friends passed that class. Not-Theodore caught him staring.
"I see you've met Mike," he said, tapping Corner on the shoulder, causing the guy to look over.
"Yeah... hi," Harry said, feeling even more out of place than he had upon walking onto The Quad.
Mike's dark brown eyes crinkled in a smile.
"And this is Tony," not-Theodore grinned, tapping another one of his friends on the shoulder.
A blond haired boy whom Harry had never noticed before looked up. Tony had a sparkling silver marble in his hand. Opening and closing his blueish grey eyes a number of times, he studied Harry with interest.
"You're... Harry Potter," he finally said. He sounded surprised.
Harry twisted his lip in an awkward smile, "in the flesh."
A frown settled on Tony's brow. "As in, a separate entity residing within Harry Potter's physical body, ...or ...as in, you are Harry Potter?"
For the longest time Harry just stared at the Ravenclaw boys. When it became clear to him that Tony was not pulling his leg, and had in fact asked this question in full earnest and was waiting for a serious answer, Harry forced a small smile on his lips and said without a trace of sarcasm:
"Yeah, it's really me."
Merlin, those Ravenclaws sure were a weird bunch. Harry did not know how Pansy put up with this on a daily basis, but from that point on, he would value and respect her as a Saint. Tony blinked again, then offered him a warm and welcoming smile.
"Call me Tony. I know you might not remember the night You Know What happened, but all of us really appreciate what you've done for the Wizarding World. I don't think my parents would be alive today if it wasn't for you, so... thank you Harry."
Harry... had no clue what to say to that... It sounded so sincere, so heartfelt, he feared he might break the boy with a crude word flopping from his mouth, even a basic 'thank you' sounded cheap. So Harry just awkwardly bobbed his head in what he hoped passed for a nod. The guy smiled sweetly at him. Harry reckoned he must've done something right.
"This game sure is fun though," said Tony, cracking up. "Who would've thought playing marbles could be more entertaining than Pokemon?"
Harry raised an eyebrow. "Pokemon?"
The lady in the toy store had talked about Pokemon, but that was in Muggle London... that meant... That meant Tony had to be at least partly familiar with the Muggle World. Harry frowned. But how?
"Yeah," Tony laughed, entirely oblivious to the mental gymnastics going on inside Harry's head.
"Don't know what it is, maybe the way these marbles squirt gunk at the losers," said Tony, rotating the silver gobstone in front of his face. "But there's a ton more thinking and strategy involved in Gobstones than Pokemon. Ha! I beat Sword and Shield on a Nuzlocke run without even whiting out once, all within one day. Pokemon lacks the challenge. Gobstones really makes you think, weigh all your options. You can't just brute force your way through Gobstones. You need a good strategy, and to adjust your strategy based on what you see the others do. It's so much fun!"
Harry nodded along numbly.
"Oh, eh heh, sorry," a shy smile crept on Tony's lips. "I just love this game so much. Please, stop me if I'm rambling."
"No, ...uhh, it doesn't bother me," Harry hastened to say, "you... you weren't rambling, it's umm... it's cool."
"Ahh, thank you! Gobstones has so many facets. A lot of different factors determine who's gonna be the winner. Most of it comes down to a mind game between the players, and knowing the right tactics to use, but being good at tossing marbles is also quite important. I didn't actually play the game until a couple of months ago, when Theory got me into Gobstones."
Harry frowned. Sure some of his schoolmates had rather unusual names, but he'd never heard that one before. "Who is 'Theory'?" he said in a perplexed tone.
"Oh!" a wide grin bloomed on Tony's face. "That's just what we call Theodore, a fitting nickname seeing as he comes up with dubious untestable wild theories all the time."
Harry tilted his head in amazement. So... the boy he'd met in the kitchens on the night of Samhain was indeed called Theodore... Then why had he said his name was not Theodore? This Theory fellow was proving to be even more confusing than Tony, who had seriously considered Harry's body to be possessed by some 'entity'. While Harry was pondering these things, Michael Corner leaned around 'Theory' not-Theodore, and joined the conversation.
"Your name is too fracking long!" Mike laughed, poking Theory in the ribs.
"Hey!" said Theory in mock protest, quickly dissolving to laughter.
Harry shook his head slowly, smiling at them in amusement. He was perfectly certain he would never really come to understand Ravenclaws, but they sure were a goofy bunch. When their whinnying died down, Tony told Harry more about the game they were all about to play, and assured him that Gobstones was not purely pay-to-win. A player could increase his chances of winning by playing with better stones, but one did not need to own good stones in order to win. You could play with the cheapest set of gobstones, and still beat another player who had far more valuable stones, if you played your marbles right. That's how Tony had won this silver colored marble from Greg a couple of weeks back.
He proceeded to recount various strategies he'd read in this Gobstones zine he was subscribed to. Harry tuned Tony out halfway through. It was plain to him that Gobstones was not his thing, and wouldn't be for the foreseeable future. He watched the House teams each lay out a small sum of money on the ground. Of all teams, Team Slytherin placed the least amount of cash in the pot, while Team Gryffindor gambled the most.
Nestor called the Gryffindors 'too big for their boots'.
Ron accused the Slytherins of being 'Dark Wizards', for they had hitherto not arranged lighting of any kind, and still sat plunged in darkness. Fay and Ernie glanced nervously from Ron to Harry and back at Ron. One or two Hufflepuffs laughed.
"Fiat Lux," with a sly smile Draco waved his wand, and what had to be ten million fireflies swarmed the air around them, making Team Slytherin bask in a lime green glow.
Ron narrowed his eyes at Draco. "This game won't be over as fast as our last," he warned.
"I would hope so," Draco snarked back. "Unless your brother sent you another Transylvanian Quidditch card for Samhain?"
Ron gnashed his teeth and requested a one-on-one match against Draco, right here, right now, despite Greg being Captain of the Slytherin Gobstones team, and Ron being Captain of the Gryffindors... The other players exchanged furtive glances, but otherwise said nothing at all, letting Draco and Ron indulge in their frenzied rivalry. Five nail-biting minutes later, well... Greg had been chewing on his nails, Ron was covered head to toe in dripping green Gobstone juice that smelled vaguely of rotten eggs, and Draco had a smug self satisfied grin on his face. He stood from the rug and strolled over to Ron's side of the circle, holding out his hand.
"Pay up."
Ron uttered strangled curse words as he performed a cleaning spell, then reached inside his breast pocket and slapped a Quidditch player card into Draco's hand. Excitedly Draco rushed back to his own team, dropped to his knees on the rug and proceeded to show off his winnings: a brilliant sparkling card that depicted Aurel Nechita, current Keeper for the National Quidditch Team of Transylvania, dressed in a uniform of dark green dragon scales.
After boasting about it and letting the Quidditch card glitter in the faces of everyone who would come over to look, Draco handed the card to Harry for safekeeping. Feeling Ron's heated glare on him, Harry stashed the card away in his own breast pocket. Subsequent games passed smoothly after that... little thing between Malfoy and Weasley. People got covered in gunk, people cleaned themselves up. It became apparent that no one was to touch the pot until all games were lost and won. The Gobstones team with the highest score by the end of it would take the pot.
Nestor progressed to the next round, beating both Mike and Ernie with ease. Greg faced a little more opposition. He was in the same pool as Fay and Theory, who really put Greg's skill to the test, despite possessing a lot less valuable stones.
In the end Greg lost to Fay, and got swamped with a foul smelling burnt sienna slime. He did not look too happy about that, particularly to have been beaten by a girl. That must suck. Greg played Gobstones since he was five years old, he'd been steadily building a good set of stones over the years, adding to his collection with each new conquest. To lose his best marbles all in one go, that had to hurt. Ron pointed at Greg and laughed. Tony looked over at Greg with a commiserating smile; no one liked it when Ron picked on people. Ernie shifted uncomfortably on his tripod stool.
Theory and Fay moved on to the next round, while Greg wound up in the losers pool. Ron held his ground against Draco in their revenge match, both boys defeated the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw players in their pool, advancing to the next round. A wicked smile crossed Draco's lips as he leaned in and whispered something in Nestor's ear. The other Slytherin grinned back.
"Oi, what you Snakes plotting?" said Ron leaning forward, perched on the edge of his stool that tipped over with two legs off the ground.
"We're discussing strategy," Nestor calmly said, "something I would suggest you also do."
Ron bared his teeth at them. But when his turn came to toss a stone, he was calm as still water, eyes narrowed, hand poised over the Snake Pit. Then he pitched a ruby gobstone right in the center of the four circles. Ron looked up and smiled.
It was a smile to be reckoned with, like he would take them all on if he could. Fay tossed her stone next, and while it didn't travel quite as far as Ron's had come, she landed an impressive strike in the second ring. With his first marble Nestor knocked the sole Hufflepuff player out of the pit. Draco proceeded to kick Fay's marble from the second circle, taking her place.
Fay mashed her lips together and narrowed her eyes, focusing on the Snake Pit as her fingers drummed nervously on her gobstone purse. Ron scowled at Draco, who returned his heated glare with a diabolical smile. The winner's pool played on.
They were down to the final marble toss, by which point Ron and Draco were the only remaining players with gobstones inside the two inner circles. Everyone else had been pushed to the peripheral rings, or entirely out of the pit. It was all down to Draco and Ron. Harry watched Ron search through his pack for a suitable stone, and Draco experimentally flick his wrist back and forth. Fay raised her wand to cast an umbrella charm against the gunk that would inevitably hit her. Greg and Nestor watched the money pool with anxious eyes. None of them noticed the plain obsidian marble in Theory's nimble fingers.
That is, until Theory tossed his marble.
The glassy black gobstone felt like it had come out of the blue. As it sped into the fourth ring it touched one of Theory's earlier marbles, and bounced off of that, gaining momentum. The dark stone rolled into the third ring, and knocked into another one of Theory's marbles, but instead of sending the other marble scattering away, this impact launched the obsidian gobstone into the second ring. A collective intake of breaths could be heard around the pit. Harry too, found his throat constricted as he watched true mastery at play.
Theory had purposefully spread his marbles over the pit so they could serve as stepping stones for the final gobstone in his arsenal.
Draco gazed at Theory with unrestrained awe.
With amplified speed the obsidian gobstone got propelled into the central ring. If it kept on rolling like that, it would reach the other side and roll right out of the pit for sure.
"Clever," Ron decided to acknowledge, he looked over and nodded at Theory, "but you should've used a higher quality gobstone for that. Sapphire Noisy Hitter would've done the trick."
Theory shrugged. His face was an impassive mask. "A plain gobstone should suffice. You wouldn't swat a fly with a Quidditch bat, would you?"
Ron frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?" he said just as the dark gobstone crashed into his blood red marbles, sending them flying out of the ring.
Draco barely had time to gasp as the impact set off a domino effect, making Ron's marbles collide with his. Their stones absorbed the crazy speed of Theory's marble, which slowed and came to a full stop.
Moments after, Theory's black gobstone was alone in the central ring. Draco ducked his head just in time. The obsidian marble started pelting all players in the winner's pool with a thick black liquid that smelled a lot like tar. Streaks of coal colored grease landed on Draco's knees and muddied his hair. Fay's transparent umbrella worked like a charm, keeping her dry. Nestor shielded himself with a large frying pan that he must've conjured from somewhere. The Hufflepuff player turned away, so that only his back got sprayed with goo.
Ron had been staring at the Snake Pit with a slack jaw. He got a mouthful of the crap. Spitting and spurting, Ron bent over, coughing up the gobstone gunk that had gotten inside his throat. When he finally managed to breathe and see through the dirt on his face, he looked up at Theory, swiped the back of his hand across his mouth, grinned and said:
"Don't tell me you started playing Gobstones from the cradle."
Theory casually reached forward to pick up his marbles, dropping them back in his pouch. While Draco and the Hufflepuff player cast cleaning spells, Harry noticed that Theory didn't bother with claiming their gobstones as his prize. His pale sun-deprived hand moved only to collect the stones he had previously owned. They were all of a dark, desaturated color, and looked fairly cheap. Some were cracked in places, a testament to time.
"Why should I lie?" said Theory, eyeing Ron with a mild smile. "I started playing Gobstones exactly one year and six months ago, Malfoy taught me."
All heads turned on Draco.
"You know each other?" Nestor said in a soft voice Harry could barely hear.
"Not really," Draco muttered under his breath, reaching forward to gather his gobstones.
They did not get discovered on their way down to the Dungeon, despite how Draco kept bewailing the money they'd lost to Team Ravenclaw. Though when they arrived at their dorm, clinking gobstones hidden deep inside the folds of their robes, Blaise, who was just getting ready for bed, looked very surprised indeed to see all three of his roommates together. He pestered them about it non-stop, wanting to know what they'd been doing.
"We played dodgeball," Draco said with a sarcastic drawl.
"Yeah right," said Blaise. "C'mon, what've you been up to?"
Greg looked really uncomfortable. He bit his lip and hurried to hide his gobstone pouch inside his trunk that he kept under his bed. His face had turned a sickly shade of grey.
Before Blaise could interrogate them any further, Harry tapped him on the shoulder and fabricated an elaborate story on the spot. The story involved the Potions prep room, Herbicide, and two Hufflepuff Fifth Years who had been distraught to learn their halochromic pet cactus was no longer alive. By the end of it Greg had safely stashed his gobstones away and was sat on his bed, giving Harry a look that said 'thank you', while Blaise was laughing his head off. Some ten minutes later the boy Prefect Aegis Rowle popped in to say lights out in five.
Staring up at the ceiling Harry fell into a restless sleep. His talk with Professor Dumbledore was scheduled for tomorrow.
The list of questions he had for the Headmaster kept running through his mind all morning, he could think of little else in class. Even misheard the assignment Professor Snape had given them, and nearly ruined his own Pompion Potion by chucking lily of the valley berries in their cauldron. As luck would have it Draco saw that, and made the red berries levitate back inside the jar before these could drop in the sputtering depths of their brew and make the potion explode in their faces.
Professor Snape wrinkled his hooked nose in distaste as he passed their table, but otherwise ignored Harry's absent-minded antics. As soon as he'd crossed over to the other side of the classroom to berate a Hufflepuff student for failing the class, Draco leaned in close and said in a hushed whisper:
"You feeling alright mate?"
With a mutter of "I'm fine," Harry turned back to his Potions textbook that lay on their table, opened at the wrong page, and pretended to read.
He was forced to look up when Draco's fingers appeared between the pages.
"Wouldn't hurt to pop by the Hospital Wing," said Draco, leafing backwards to the correct page.
Harry tuned out his friend and carried on brooding. If he was seeing Dumbledore today, there was no reason why he shouldn't bring up any of the things he really wanted to know. He had a scheduled appointment of thirty minutes. That gave plenty of time to ask the first five questions on his list, and bring up that business with the snaky Snitch.
At precisely five to four Harry walked through the anteroom and knocked on the frame of the portrait. He had to wait a couple of minutes before the portrait hole swung open, letting him in.
"Ah, Harry Potter," said the Headmaster. He wore soft pantofles with long pointy toes that curved up and curled in at the end. Deep purple robes enveloped his whole body like a wide unshapely woman's dress. His snowy white beard fell carelessly over his chest and stomach... Harry thought he spotted an orange ladybug crawling up that beard.
"Please, do have a seat." His ringed hand gestured toward a set of high backed chairs that were placed in front of his desk.
Harry bobbed his head and slowly wobbled toward one of these chairs, then sat at the very edge of it. He nervously played with his tie. Did he have the courage to ask the questions that haunted him? To bring up the stuff that really mattered?
Dumbledore casually strolled around his desk and plopped down in the chair behind it. The ladybug in his beard took flight and buzzed around the room. Harry followed it with his eyes for a few moments.
"Coccinellidae, lovely creatures," said Dumbledore, making Harry refocus his attention back on him, "they are the best natural deterrent against greenflies. Professor Sprout would not get anything to grow without these little workers."
Harry frowned. "Right..."
The expression on Headmaster Dumbledore's face was oddly peaceful, like he was in an exalted state of happiness, void of all trouble. If Harry didn't know any better, he would've guessed the Headmaster was drunk, or under the influence of some magical drug.
"I umm... I had a number of questions for you, Sir."
"Shoot," said Dumbledore, leaning back in his chair and making a finger gun at the ceiling. Little golden sparks crackled up from his finger, dissolving in the air above his head.
Harry stared at the sparks. "Well... you see, I was wondering if you'd known my parents? When they were students here?" he crumpled his tie in his hands.
"Oh, yes," Dumbledore nodded sagely. "Your parents were very good people, and outstanding students during their time at Hogwarts."
"What Houses were they sorted in? Were they any good at Quidditch?" Harry leaned forward, tie forgotten, fingers drumming anxiously on his knees.
A curious smirk crossed the Headmaster's lips. "Your father... might have been a Chaser on his House Quidditch team. Your mother was a Gryffindor. You truly knocked our socks off at the opening ceremony, Harry, most people thought the Hat would place you in House Gryffindor."
With a bashful smile Harry admitted that the Hat had indeed tried to put him in Gryffindor, but the thought of having overbearing Professor McGonagall as Head of House had averted that outcome.
Dumbledore threw his head back and laughed a jolly, hearty laugh that would befit Santa Claus. "I've been meaning to ask you, how did your summer with Professor McGonagall go? Did you like it there? She wants you to stay with her for the following four summers, until you come of age. But I should like to hear your thoughts before I make my decision on the matter."
Harry conceded that he quite liked it at McGonnie's. She was strict with him but also fair, and while he really enjoyed staying at Hogwarts with his mates, he would much rather prefer being placed under Professor McGonagall's care, than to be sent back to the Dursleys.
Headmaster Dumbledore nodded while pensively stroking his beard. "Yes, I have no objection against your staying over at Professor McGonagall's. She has never had any kids... I suppose this is her making up for lost time."
Now seemed like as good a time as ever to pop the big question.
"Professor,"
The Headmaster pulled himself from his musings and trained his eyes on Harry, who bit his lip, suddenly feeling rather uneasy. Could he even bring up this dreadful topic without spontaneously bursting into tears? The last thing he needed was to look fragile and vulnerable, because then Dumbledore would never believe him about the Basilisk and what he'd heard...
"...why did you have me placed with my Aunt and Uncle after what happened to my parents? Did no magical family wish to adopt me?"
"The offers to take you in were loud and many. Harry, after what you did for the Wizarding World, every Witch and Wizard in Britain wanted you as their son."
"Then ...why?"
Dumbledore let out a deep melancholy breath. A guilt-ridden look of sorrow crossed his weathered face.
"Well you see..." and then the old coot proceeded to regale him with an incredible tale of the Dark Lord being vanquished, but how they could not be 100% sure he was really gone.
While Harry listened, his eyes went wider and wider, his temper flared hotter and hotter till it ascended to a white-hot fury that threatened to spill out, spread all over and totally wreck his mask of unassuming friendliness. He dug his hands inside his pockets, grabbing fistfulls of robe in frustration, but held his tongue.
Professor Dumbledore was crass enough to spin him some hogwash about his mother's 'Luv' acting as a magical shield that kept him safe from the Dark Lord, should he return from the dead. A shield that supposedly was strongest when Harry lived around blood relatives... for somehow his mother's 'Luv' had gotten in his blood, (she must've given him a whopping dose of 'Luv' by way of direct injection into his main vein) ...and since they could be absolutely certain he was his mother's son, they had left him in the care of his mother's little sister Petunia Dursley, in spite of her (unfortunate) disdain for magic.
Harry just sat there, staring at the quills on Dumbledore's desk as he listened to the man talk. If he'd had any expectations of how his meeting with Professor Dumbledore would go, this was not it. Felt more like listening to the ravings of a lunatic in a home for the elderly, than the responsible voice of an adult who was hailed as the greatest Wizard of modern time. Harry's shoulders sunk in despair. His whole point of going here, of talking to the Headmaster, seemed to disintegrate into nothing.
He couldn't trust this man with his knowledge of the Serpent and the hexed Quidditch Snitch. So when Dumbledore finally fell silent, Harry thanked him for the information and stood to go.
"Ah, Harry my boy, listen."
Harry paused mid way between desk and portrait. Professor Dumbledore leaned back in his seat, steepling his wonky old fingers.
"It has been brought to my awareness that some... Slytherin students... have attempted to cheat at their tests last term."
A chill ran down Harry's spine, making him shiver.
The Headmaster looked him directly in the eye. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"
Harry willed the fear from his face and calmly said "no Sir."
Dumbledore's bright blue eyes twinkled. "Okey-dokey, sorry for pestering you with this nasty business. Run along now."
Harry bolted out of the Headmaster's office, his face burning with shame.
But the Serpent's foreboding words remained in the back of his mind all afternoon. The next game in the Hogwarts Quidditch League was just two days away. Harry felt like he had to do something, yet he didn't know what.
As he sat cross-legged on Draco's bed, playing a card game with his friend, he thought of ways how to lure the stealthy Serpent from its hiding place. And how he'd get the Serpent to talk...
Draco slapped a Beater card on the space of bedspread between them. "And I win, again."
Harry blinked, pushing his glasses further up his nose as he studied the Quidditch Player cards laid out before him. "Oh, yeah... I guess you do," he shrugged, stacking the cards back together. "Up for another round?"
With a displeased scowl Draco raised an eyebrow at him. "What's with you today? You normally put up more of a fight, I might as well be playing against the wall," he gestured at it, waving his hand in frustration.
"Ehm..." any thoughts of slipping out of this and pretending he was totally fine vanished from Harry's mind when he noticed the worried look on his friend's face.
Harry looked down at the Quidditch Player cards in his hands. England's team Seeker Blythe Parkin was on top, holding a golden Snitch in her hand and offering Harry a soft smile of encouragement. He shut his eyes and let out a heavy breath, setting the stack of cards down on the bed.
Telling Draco about the Serpent would be a terrible idea, and a terribly appealing idea. No longer would he have to walk around with this secret weighing him down, this knowledge would become their shared burden.
Still Harry hesitated to tell Draco... he eyed his friend sceptically. Could he really trust Draco? Perhaps if he only told him a little bit, just enough to sate his curiosity, and not to spark a hunger for more.
"I have concerns about the upcoming Quidditch game," Harry stated, without fibbing a word. He truly was worried about the Quidditch players of Hogwarts. "What if whatever happened to Diggory happens again?"
"Well yeah," said Draco leaning back, "that was brutal. I hope they catch the bastard that did it. But I don't see why it should happen again. I mean, Diggory is popular... very popular. The guy both has many supporters and plenty of haters. A guy like Diggory is sure to ignite some envy." Draco smirked, listing the points off on his fingers: "he has good looks, good grades, a perfect record, was great at Quidditch and just about any other sport." Shaking his head, Draco let his head rest on his pillow and stared up at the back of Harry's bunk, as he stretched his hand out and made a floating gesture through the air. "You fly too close to the sun..."
Harry pursed his lip. "What if... what if it wasn't about Diggory?"
Draco looked at him. "Who would it be about, then?"
"What if this was bigger than Diggory? What if someone was after... after the Quidditch House Cup!"
Draco frowned at that. He sat up slowly, neck held at an odd angle. "You know something."
"Yeah," Harry breathed out, slumping forward in defeat. He was going to tell Draco everything; there was no way around it.
To his credit, Draco remained silent and waited for Harry to talk, not urging him on or trying to pull the secret out of him. Maybe that was what did it, because before Harry knew what he was doing, he looked his friend in the eye and said
"The Serpent of Slytherin speaks to me."
Author's Note:
Yes, in this story Petunia Evans was one year younger than Lily Evans (who was the same age as Severus Snape, that is, nineteen years older than Harry and Draco). Also, I've aged up Dudley to be about two years older than Harry. So (in this story) Harry was born when Lily was nineteen years old, fresh out of Hogwarts... and Petunia would have been eighteen years old at the time... and already have two-year-old baby Dudley crawling around... So yeah, Petunia Evans was a teen mom. (Dudley may or may not have been Vernon Dursley's biological son;) perhaps Vernon married Petunia later on, after she had a child, (after Dudley's daddy broke up with her), and adopted Dudley as his own son.
So basically !cucked Vernon.
