EIGHT

Back in the castle things were building up tension. Everyone wanted to know about the Chamber of Secrets and rumors were running rife. Harry was the biggest suspect for Slytherin's heir, but there were some funny ones going around, especially in Slytherin, where Grace Weitts had pretty much made it taboo to suggest it was Harry. Grace hardly ever talked to Harry, but for some reason she seemed to have taken a liking to him. There were few more convenient people to have done so. Several of the older years were obviously wary about Harry, and quite a lot of Slytherin still didn't like him, either because he brought down their Dark Lord, because he was a half-blood, or because he was 'light'. Harry had no doubt that third year and up would be filled with plenty of political battles, and he wouldn't have an easy take-over, as Grace would be gone, but he was amused to see that the more the rest of the school hated him, the less people in Slytherin seemed to have a problem with him. Most of the teachers were turning blind eye to the near-constant bullying that was happening to Harry. The only two who were doing any different were Flitwick, who was now actively calling on Harry much like Snape, asking highly complicated questions and trying to award enough points to make up for his colleagues constant deductions. Snape too was standing up for Harry, although he did so with a pained look on nearly every occurrence. Harry suspected that his desire to see James Potter's child down-trodden was outweighed by the combination of seeing his own house suffer, and seeing Harry as a parallel as himself as the school's most hated Slytherin.

The bullying was stepping up day by day, and eventually Daphne broached the topic one evening after Harry returned to the common room dyed orange and with a large bruise forming on one arm.

'Doesn't it bother you?' She burst out. Theo and Blaise, who were sitting with her sat up and waited for his answer. Harry just shrugged, waving his wand in a complicated jab and fading his skin back to normal.

'Honestly,' Harry thought about it for a moment. 'Not really. I'm used to it mostly, and have other things to worry about or plan over. It will pass.'

And really, Harry wasn't that fussed. It was annoying having to be constantly on the look-out for trouble, but he'd been doing that for years, never able to shake the habits he learnt on the horcrux hunt. He had ten years at the Dursleys being below the bottom of the food chain, and he was used to Hogwarts staring at him, and the magical society hating him. But beyond that, he just had bigger fish to fry. Besides, he was learning some interesting spells.

He was still trying to figure out how to get the diary, and had started researching ways to get the cup from Gringotts. He had been trying to figure out how to get Sirius free, and planning how to let the public find out about the Potters without putting himself under their power. He was trying to figure out who had the diary, and to get that, and needed to find a way to get to Riddle manor and the Gaunt shack to get the ring and remove Tom Riddle (senior)'s bones. He also wanted to find a way to get Frank Bryce, the muggle living there, to move away just in case. All in all, to a 29 year old who was used to Rita Skeeter slamming him in the prophet every other day, a bunch of prejudiced school kids really didn't bother him. It did hurt when Hermione or Ron, or one of his original timeline friends were the ones attacking him, but he would just think of them as they were in the future. Dead, permanently injured, emotionally screwed and none of them talking to each other. He had hated his life in the future, and every moment in the past was invigorating in comparison. Besides, the Gryffindors had recently toned things down a bit. He wasn't sure what had happened, but Ron was a lot less vocal against Harry. Seamus was Harry's biggest anti-advocator now, and that was a lot easier to deal with than Harry's ex-best friend. Hermione seemed to have finally come to terms with the fact that Harry was better at her in pretty much all the subjects. She still rubbed it in a little when she beat him, or knew the answer, and without the golden trio bonding she was still a bit of a know-it-all-snob that annoyed quite a lot of people, but now some of their banter was mostly almost friendly. Neville was still on Harry's side (which was probably helping Hermione's position), although Nev was still much to shy to support Harry in public. It was Hermione and Dean's side-glances towards Neville that told Harry Neville was supporting him in private.

'But they are horrible to you!' Daphne insisted, continuing with her rant against the school, and bringing Harry out of his musings.

Harry shrugged and smiled. 'You guys are alright.'

'Don't you see the way they are all expecting you to turn around and turn into a monster if they stop looking. No one was even pretending to listen to Binns when he answered Bones.'

Harry had been amused earlier that day when Susan Bones had asked Binns about the Chamber of secrets much like Hermione had in the original timeline. Most of the Hufflepuffs had been watching Harry in fear and horror throughout the whole explanation, and Hannah abbot actually feinted when Binns mentioned that no one knew what the monster was and Harry hadn't been able to help but snort loudly.

'Maybe I will. I've always wanted to spontaneously be able to petrify people.'

'Who do you think is doing it? You don't really believe it is the Dark Lord do you?'

'He has to be involved. But I don't think it is him personally.'

'So you think it's a student? It would have to be an upper year for advanced enough magic to petrify people-'

'It's not a spell.'

'-I mean, otherwise Dumbledore or Snape would have been able to fix it-… wait, what do you mean it isn't a spell?!'

Harry shrugged. 'There is a Basilisk in the school.'

Theo, Blaise had returned to their chess game, but with that statement the board went flying and the pieces remained on the floor complaining loudly.

'Wh- what? How do you know?' Daphne said weakly.

'I can hear it talking.' Harry said with a shrug. He had decided last night that if his close friends already knew he could speak parseltongue he wasn't going to hide it. He loved Apep, and wasn't going to le it be some dirty little secret this time around. His friends weren't taking his new approach quite so calmly… or maybe that was the Basilisk.

Harry was getting quite good at undermining Daphne's mask, although in the process he was making it harder for other people to do so, as she grew accustomed to having people (Harry) springing shoking things on her randomly and with no warning.

'You can hear the Basilisk talking.' She deadpanned.

'Yep. She doesn't know who is controlling her.'

'SHE?!'

'Harry mate, have I ever told you you're a bit crazy?' Theo spoke up in a squeaky voice.

'Once or twice.' Harry grinned.

'So you can talk to snakes.' Blaise, as usual, cut to the chase.

'You already knew, didn't you?'

'We suspected. Theo heard hissing from your bed that sounded like conversation between you and your snake. Taking turns and such.'

'Does it bother you? I can not do it near you guys.'

'I'm still not going to let Apep slide all over me like you do, but actually I think that's kind of cool.' Theo said, eyeing Apep's pocket warily.

'I wish I could talk to my familiar.' Blaise agreed. He had a toad. Unlike Neville's he kept his in a tank next to his bed, and it was a magical toad. It kept away nightmares (sadly not visions or Harry would have bought one) and was meant to be good luck. Apep had told Harry that magical toads were not to be hunted either, as their blood would affect the predator stupid enough to eat them and force it into slavery to the magical toads owner. He hadn't told Blaise this, as he suspected Blaise would forfeit his toad in order to force a 'cooler' creature into his control.

'I don't know, Apep can be pretty sarcastic and annoying sometimes.' Harry joked. Apep squeezed Harry's middle.

.:Oi! I was joking!:.

Despite their conversation his three friends jumped a little as Harry switched to parseltongue.

'Wow. Can Apep understand us?' Daphne asked, being close enough to have realised what was happening round Harry's middle.

.:Of course I can silly human. I take back what I said about liking this one. Find a different mate master!:.

Harry snorted at Apep, then looked sheepishly up at Daphne. 'Yeah he can. Apparently he is disappointed in someone so promising not knowing.'

'He thinks I'm promising?' Daphne sounded rather awed.

'Promising for what? Dinner?' Blaise asked with a grin. Harry laughed.

'As a potential nest-mate for me.' He deadpanned. Daphne went instantly bright red.

'Harry!' She groaned, whacking him on the arm.

The four of them dissolved into laughter.

It wasn't until he was lying in bed that night that Harry realised how much of a relief it was to be able to just chat about being a parseltongue, and how nice it was not to have to be constantly ashamed of something about himself.

The weeks seemed to slip away from Harry, and soon it was almost time for the Quidditch season. Flint had been drilling them almost as hard as Oliver Wood had done, and Harry noticed the Gryffindor team was definitely looking to be in a similar situation. It was looking to be a great game. The taunts and pranks against Harry were increasing to the point where even Draco had insisted he was in danger, and had started dragging Harry around with him so Greg and Vince were close by. It was strange being in Slytherin. Because they always kept a united front up as a house, it was nearly impossible to remain at odds with someone, even if you were involved in opposing political play (which was quite common). Harry wasn't, and probably never would be, great friends with Draco, but somehow that made it even stranger. He and Draco had always been at the extreme end of things, and it kept throwing Harry off when Draco greeted him cheerfully of a morning.

Harry was starting to get twitchy, as Slytherin house had decided their seeker needed an escort at all times, and he wasn't getting any time to himself. In his original timeline Harry had ended up being a relatively solitary being. He did spend quite a lot of time traveling with Luna, or with different tutors every day, but mostly he training by himself. He only had a few close friends, and the most socializing he had done was with the Weasleys, mostly Bill and George, but that was usually spread out. The most hours were spent with Luna, but they were comfortable in each others presence, and didn't need to talk a lot.

It had only taken a few days for Harry to snap under the constant surveillance and start sneaking around under his invisibility cloak. He spent a bit of time talking to Belleza when he could (talking to a 2000 year old creature was always interesting), but mostly spent time in the room of requirement studying at NEWT level or higher. He was playing with the idea of creating an entirely separate identity with Harris Noir, and sitting his NEWTS over the holidays (and he was getting bored again in second year classes).

He mostly entered the Chamber of Secrets through the dungeons, as he didn't want to transfigure himself ever again if he didn't have to, but one day coming back from the room of requirement he saw Percy floating around myrtle's bathroom looking suspicious. He was quite sure Percy didn't have the diary, as he would have told after Penelope got petrified, but it was odd that he was hanging around. Harry followed him for a while until myrtle came out and told Percy off for being in her bathroom. Percy had gone a horrific shade of red (as only a Weasley could) and had high-tailed it out of there so fast that Harry couldn't help but laugh out loud. Myrtle had given the empty air where Harry was standing a strange look, then gone off muttering about having too many boys in her bathroom, and how it never amounted to anything good.

Considering Tom Riddle and the Basilisk killed her in once such situation Harry couldn't blame her.

Harry couldn't help but be happy by the Friday the afternoon before the match. He had every intention of putting a stop to the entourage after the match, and even Lockhart's attempts to involve him in the daily torture of role-play classes couldn't bring him down. Lockhart had started involving Harry even when Harry refused to leave his chair, and it was cutting in to his time spent learning Arithmancy. The Gryffindors took great pleasure in laughing at him, and had somehow managed to talk Lockhart into playing out the time he beat a baby Nundu using nothing more than a bludger and three bottles of vodka using Harry as the Nundu. Lockhart spent the whole lesson shooting things at Harry as a way to demonstrate the various ways in which the bludgers had attacked. Harry had been ignoring it quite well until Ron said he wished real bludgers would target Harry like that. Ron had been relatively quite on the verbal abuse front, so the comment actually got enough of Harry's attention to zone back in to the real world for long enough to listen. After that Harry couldn't have focused on reading if his life depended on it.

Dobby's rouge bludgers!

Harry spent the rest of the lesson blatantly ignoring the soft-toy bludgers hitting his face, arms and back, and kept glancing at Draco, enough so that at the end of the lesson the blonde left in a hurry taking Greg and Vince with him. Harry was free of his guards for the first time in weeks and he couldn't even appreciate it. He was too busy trying to decide whether to make Draco stop Dobby from using the bludgers, or whether or not he wanted to risk Dobby doing something even more crazy. Harry barely even noticed as people took advantage of his lonely state in the halls, automatically stepping side to side and dodging the various hexes thrown at him as he made his way to the hall. Marcus Flint nearly had a heart attack when he saw his seeker on his own, but Harry only registered enough of Flint's rave to decide he'd rather deal with bludgers than anything else tampered with (like the players), as they were angry enough.

Harry wasn't so confident the next day down at the pitch. The rain had eased up some, which helped, but it was still there, and Harry was even less confident about out-flying bludgers in the rain. When the bristles of a broom got wet the broom took a more forceful hand to turn it, and while the difference was normally minimal, Harry really didn't want to get his arm vanished again. The mood in the locker room was a little bit similar, though for different reasons. Flint was especially on edge, and was channeling Oliver Wood's spirit, right down to the speech.

'It'll be down to you, Harry, to show them that a Quidditch player really knows how to make the most out of their brooms. I want some serious stunts, and get that snitch or die trying, Harry, because we've got to win today, we've got to.'

Once Harry had pointed it out, Slytherin had realised that a loss with such a big advantage would be an awful insult to their house. Draco had, to be fair, held his own on the field as a Chaser. So much so that Harry couldn't really understand what the blonde had been doing in the role of Seeker in the first place. None of the Slytherin's would admit it outwardly, but this game was huge, and they were all very nervous. Flint said something about their being a rep out there to look for possible graduates. Harry couldn't help but be amused, as if it went much like last time, Harry was in for some amazing flying.

'You're a great Chaser.' Harry said quietly, as he noticed Draco was clutching his broom rather tight, and looked even more pale than usual.

'Father is here.' Draco offered, which explained his nerves. 'He's on the school board. Maybe you can meet him.'

'After we win.' Harry said lightly. He didn't really want to meet with Lucius, but he wouldn't mind meeting with Narcissa.

'After we win.' Draco repeated. It sounded almost like a mantra to Harry.

'Is your mother here? She was a Black wasn't she?' Harry watched very carefully, and didn't see a flinch, so either Lucius hadn't told Draco he wasn't the Black heir, or he hadn't known to begin with.

'Er, yeah. How did you know she was a Black?'

'My grandmother was a Black. Your mothers Aunt I think.'

'We're related?!'

'Yep. Second cousins once removed.'

'Then why were you brought up with muggles?' Draco demanded angrily. Harry couldn't help but gape at him.

'Draco, why on earth would they put the person destroyed Voldemort, in the power of one of Voldemort's supporters? That's ridiculous.'

'My dad was under the imperious!' Draco raised his nose snidely.

'You can't get the mark not under your own free will.' Harry said quietly. Draco stilled.

'You have no proof.'

'I'm not trying for any. But even if you accept the imperious, your father had still been under some sort of influence of Voldemort - oh do stop flinching! – for some time.'

'I suppose.' Draco said mulishly. Suddenly Harry realised Draco was sulking! Actually sulking about Harry not living with him. Harry couldn't help but laugh.

'Come on. Let's go kick some Gryffindor ass!'

Draco looked up in shock, and paled again, but at least Harry had distracted him for a bit. Harry would know not to avoid meeting Lucius too, now that he knew Narcissa was here. He needed to see how much Black blood meant to her.