The entirety of Slytherin had gathered in the common room, for the first years to be introduced to the rest of the house. Harry was itching to go off and do his own thing, be it reading or looking around this huge castle, of which almost half was barely used. It felt like a long time since he'd made progress in TTC, and he also wanted to get back into that.
"Pssst... Harry? Are you even listening?" Draco asked, nudging him in the side.
"Yeah, I heard all the introductions anyway. I don't see why the keep us here, all us first years know each other, we'll have classes together every day too and the second years have been pretty social already. It's not like we're alienated in our own house is it." He complained in return.
Draco could tell Harry was still grumpy over his interrogation earlier, by some of the older students.
"A Potter in Slytherin... Are you sure?" an older student, perhaps fourth year, had asked. "We never get Potters, and I mean never. They always go into Gryffindor. Not even the Ravens get Potters, despite your line having had some real intelligence characters over the generations.
"Yeah, well, I don't know do I," Harry retorted, "the stupid hat didn't even get put on my head, how am I supposed to know?"
"Yeah, that was odd. Why didn't you need to wear the hat anyway? None of the staff questioned it, and we're wondering why they didn't. Also, what about the banner snake? That never happens, what made it do that?"
They'd just kept digging and digging and Harry was getting more and more annoyed.
"I. Don't. Know." He'd emphasised. "How the hell would you expect me to know, i only set foot in this castle for the first time twenty four hours ago, I don't hold all the answers!"
"Yeah, but..." the same fourth year started, "you have to admit it was pretty odd, I mean, it didn't do it for anyone else and you know," he stopped for a minute – thinking, "no-one else in all my time here has ever been sorted without putting the hat on. We should go ask Snape, he knows everything that goes on round here."
"No, don't go and ask Snape anything. Besides, how would he know either. Just drop it, will you, it's hardly important."
"No," the fourth year went on, "it clearly is. It's never happened before, and not for any other house. Only ours. Of course it means something! Maybe you're special and Hogwarts could tell or something!" He was looking around, trying to drum up support for his idea, but the rest of the Slytherins were keeping quiet, mostly looking tired and pensive. The boy's idea was dangerously close to the truth, and Harry was panicking slightly. It wasn't a huge jump from 'someone special that Hogwarts recognises' to 'Hogwarts recognised you so you're a descendant, clearly!'
At that moment, Esurio surfaced, sliding up the arm of the chair and round to the back over Harry's shoulders, whispering in his ear.
"They've annoyed you have they, Speaker. I can see it. Do not worry, they'll drop the idea soon, just continue to give them nothing to work with and they'll be unable to form any solid conclusions. Once thy tired of a subject they'll soon enough forget it," the snake whispered.
Fortunately, Esurio was capable of hissing so quietly into Harry's ear that unless you were crouched next to the snake you'd simply never hear it. The bond between them made certain that Harry did, though. Harry took in what the snake had said, but didn't answer it. He hadn't quite mastered the low volume hiss that Esurio used.
Eventually, like the snake had implied the students left to do their own thing, so Harry felt at ease to withdraw for some time. He still wanted to explore the castle, and he certainly wanted to map out the classrooms before the end of the day, there'd be no time before breakfast. For now, however, TTC was beckoning. Harry could tentatively feel the magic of the castle, and it made him want to study even more, to learn what others couldn't and to push himself past the boundaries of magic, and the only way he could do that was get the basic stuff out of the way – fast.
"Draco," he called, "come on, I have something interesting to show you," he said, giving the boy a pointed look. Draco caught on instantly, and followed.
Harry waited till the door was closed, sealing the room from outsiders somehow, sighed, and sat down on his bed. "That was a lie, by the way. I don't have anything to show you, but I want your help in something. The next section of TTC, and something i've done literally no work on, is using parselmagic to transfigure others. The same things I can do to myself, but to other people. Up for it?"
The question may as well have been rhetorical; Draco's eyes gleamed at the suggestion.
"Yes! Give me those eyes you had last night, I want to see how they differ! And you could secretly give me them before I duel too! If this stuff works on others you simply can't keep it to yourself!" He was almost bouncing on his bed. Harry hadn't mentioned last night that this stuff could be done on others by a learned parseltongue.
For Harry, this was a vital next step. The internal transformations required no incantation whatsoever, just focusing on the change and using his parselmagic to make it happen. Because Draco had no parselmagic, however, Harry had to incant the spell at him.
"Serpens oculus transformare!"
Draco knew it'd worked the instant Harry finished the last word. His sight became intensely clear, and he could see already how Harry saw everything as it happened. He could also see very lightly into the infrared spectrum, though the ability was clearly weak.
"Harry, can you make the infrared part stronger? That could be immensely useful, you could use it to see through invisibility spells by sensing the body heat of a human!"
"I probably could, or I can just find a snake that has full infrared vision and learn to transform my eyes into theirs. Parselmagic is unrestricted like normal casting, because there has been no regulatory body to restrict it. We're taught material that the ministry has filtered over the centuries, whereas because parseltongue was limited to Slytherin lines close enough to the main male line, no-one has ever been able to filter it. Effectively, the possibilities are endless.
Suddenly, he had a flashback to seeing the ritual of one of the books – surviving the killing curse. Draco would know far more about it, because of his family history, and could probably help Harry make more sense of what he read. Pulling a 'Draco', and not sharing his idea until necessary, he jumped over to his trunk to retrieve the third book, and opened it.
"I'm going to read a passage to you, and I need you to tell me what it's about, if you know. Ok? It's from a book I've not yet begun to study from, I've only flicked through – most of it is insanely advanced."
Reading the parseltongue into his mind, then translating it and speaking aloud for Draco's benefit, he began.
"A most delicate entity, the soul remains. Untouched it shall be unchanged for a lifetime, only revealing another past to its collection once a host passes beyond. Undesirable that this is for those who wish to remain, only our line has conquered the withering passages of decay. This ritual shall be undertaken lest one wishes to pass in peace." Looking at Draco now, he spoke again, this time not reading from the book. "Understand that?"
Silent for a minute, he then nodded. "I think I do. Since you've not told me anything about this book, including its title, I can only guess – I think it's about death. It refers to death – 'withering passages of decay' – but i'm sure that's what it is. 'Undertaken lest one wishes to pass in peace'... That sounds like something you'd do to stop yourself dying, but that's impossible, however something earlier...'Undesirable that this is for those who wish to remain, only our line has conquered the withering passages of decay'..."
He fell silent again, and for longer this time.
When he did finally speak again, it was a quiet whisper, but one that carried across the room easily, not unlike Professor Snape's typical voice. "It's about surviving death. Isn't it. I know it is. No-one has ever managed to survive death, but you're implying your line – the Slytherin line – has found a way."
Harry was impressed. Draco really was an intelligent person for his age. The book wasn't particularly clear, and they were still young. "You're right. It is. I can tell you what the book is called, I guess. It's named 'Of Death, Of the soul, and of immortality.' And the contents are as you'd expect, with some odd additions like what appears to be healing magic of sorts. The name of the ritual is something I've never heard of or seen in any other book – a Horcrux. Recognise it?"
Draco just shook his head. "Why would I, if it's a parseltongue thing."
Well, that stumped Harry. Perhaps the elder Malfoy's would know something, though how he'd get it out of them was a complete mystery.
"So, " Draco broke the silence, "what else is in there? Anything we can do now?"
Despite an incorrect pronoun - after all Draco couldn't do anything from any parselmagic book – Harry shook his head. His original intention of hiding that book away for a few years remained true, and he placed it back into his trunk.
"Enough of that anyway, we've got classes tomorrow, we should go over the basic stuff for the main classes, you know, in case we have them first thing Monday." Harry suggested.
This was more Draco's element. He'd practiced casting at home many times at the urging of his parents and family friends. No real magical child waited until Hogwarts to cast magic, it was like trying to stop a child sneaking a look into Christmas presents!
Bursting into action, Draco started up. "Right, so... Say charms, transfiguration and defence, they're the most practical subjects! I know what you do in each of the classes for the first few lessons, my Mother told me. Charms is 'wingardium leviosa', a basic levitation spell. McGonagall's is just a matchstick into a needle and back, although most of these idiots won't be able to do either in the first lesson. Defence... Usually they set you on 'reducto', simply because it's the most basic type of magic and at this point no-one can put enough power into it to do more than scratch wood."
He stopped, considerate for a few seconds, then whipped his wand out. Digging around into his trunk, he was mumbling to himself. "No matchstick... but a needle will suffice for now..."
Placing the needle onto Harry's bed, while Harry watched intently, he incanted 'wingardium leviosa' and sure enough the needle rose. Dropping his concentration, and thus dropping the needle, he prompted Harry to try.
"Wingardium Le – " and the needle was in the air. Draco actually looked surprised, but they both knew at this point not to be. Harry had demonstrated his ability in casting already, albeit in parselmagic, but this was multiple degrees easier and it showed. Draco was onto it already.
"Harry, you don't need to speak! All the work on parselmagic has clearly made you good enough at visualizing your intent that you don't need the words! It's called silent casting and it's a skill most people can't do until they're much older! Of course... You might only be able to do simple spells silently at the moment too. Try it!"
Sure enough, without saying a word and staring unreservedly at the needle it rose into the air, no less or slower than it did when he'd spoke the words. Fantastic!
"Yeah yeah, ok, show off!" Draco burst out, causing Harry to drop the needle as he had earlier. They both knew Draco wasn't envious, it was just playful banter, and Draco was far too good at this easy stuff to be jealous yet. "Next up, transfiguration. Should be a bit harder, but I can do it and that means you'll easily manage. The incantation is simple, since you only ever focus on the object you desire, not the object you have. It's 'muto matchstick'. The thing everyone fails on is their intent, willing the needle to become a matchstick, because it's intent that focuses magic, it's all really interesting!"
Draco was a huge academic, and Harry was glad for the competition. It meant he'd have someone to challenge him throughout Hogwarts, and he'd be sure to make acquaintances with others of high level intellect, most likely Ravenclaws. Being held back by the masses was not his intention, he and those worthy would learn at their own pace, he'd make sure of that.
Clearly enough, Harry could also do the transfiguration without uttering a word. Draco had to speak the incantation, but he was calm and collected and obviously found it beneath him. At this point, Draco was gleaming. He'd dreamt of having someone his level with him to push ahead and be better than the rest. Being a Malfoy wasn't all ponce and attitude, one had to be worthy of it, and he intended to be more than just worthy, he wanted to push the boundaries, just like Harry. It still amazed him that he'd be spending the next seven years with a true Slytherin heir at his side.
"Ok, what did you say was the defence spell? 'Reducto' right? Never tried this one, bit dangerous to try at the inn I was staying for obvious reasons!" he laughed.
No surprises, he could cast it without a word. The odd part however, was the strength of the spell. Previously, Draco hadn't really known that Harry's magical core was already stronger than normal, partly due to heritage and partly his training in parseltongue, but the hole in their wall was testament to it. Draco had puzzled out how Harry was able to damage the castle despite warding in place to stop such happening – he was recognised by the castle as a friend. The wards didn't restrict him, and they'd eventually realised this was the second time. He had caused the Slytherin common room door to open without a password, something which was blocked by – you guessed it – a ward.
The Sunday passed in a haze of talking more with their house, magic in their shared, private room and exploring the castle, while memorising the paths to each classroom.
The sun was peeking from behind the mountainous horizon come Monday morning, and it looked set to be an amazing, warm day – a rare sight in northern Scotland. Everyone was buzzing, the first day of classes. For the first years it was the first time practicing magic at Hogwarts and for the older years it meant more advanced magic than last year, everyone was happy. The Slytherin groups started leaving for the great hall, and Draco was waiting on the sofas, with Tracey, for Harry and Daphne. Tracey was a no-nonsense type who'd happily go to breakfast with minimal effort, but Daphne wouldn't be seen dead without straightened hair and pressed robes.
Perhaps not as excited as the other first years that had been sent to Hogwarts' other three houses, many of which would have done no magic whatsoever yet, Draco was contemplating his potential teachers. Of course, teaching a class was much more demanding and less effective than the one-to-one tutoring he'd come to expect from his parents and others, so he knew the first term – or even year – would be a breeze. Still, classes had to be at least some fun right?
"Finally, what took you two so long?" he moaned, as Harry and Daphne appeared on the stairs... At the same time.
Harry looked round at the almost deserted common room and realised they were actually a little behind schedule. "I finished getting ready and went to collect Daphne – Problem?"
Draco snorted. "I didn't realise Daphne needed assistance reaching the common room. Treacherous hallway, fraught with danger unthinkable for such a damsel!"
Harry just smirked at his flair and joined Draco and Tracey in leaving for the hall. He'd taken a little longer on his uniform than most did. Indeed, half the first years looked like they'd taken it from their trunks and thrown it on regardless of how it looked. Having been forcefully dressed rough and scruffy for ten years with the Dursleys Harry was conscious of how he appeared now.
Breakfast consisted of a slice of toast. Nerves didn't bode well for eating and despite his successes with magic so far, first day of classes – magic in front of other people and being judged and watched – was a different matter. He thought back to the advice Esurio had given him during a fleeting moment this morning.
Esurio had hardly been seen lately, which Harry had figured was for two reasons. First, the forest teeming with food for the snake, who Harry could swear was getting heavier. Secondly, to avoid too many questions. Sure, the majority of Slytherin knew he had a snake familiar, but the common phrase 'out of sight, out of mind' applied perfectly and made life a little easier for Harry.
In one small moment that Esurio had returned – checking in with Harry, as the snake had made a habit of doing – he'd realised that Harry was nervous and given a small motivational speech, which was largely bollocks. It consisted of about six different ways of saying 'You're a parselmouth, you're better than all of them' or 'You're a Slytherin, you're better than all of them,' which was fantastic for making Harry laugh, and absolutely useless for settling nerves. Surely being a Slytherin simply made the expectations even higher!
First years had eight classes, each taking either a morning or an afternoon, resulting in a total of three full days and one half day, and of course Astronomy not being in the timetable due to taking place at midnight on one day a week. Harry had it easy. Monday, Wednesday and Friday were full, with Tuesday afternoon free and all day Thursday off. Astronomy on a Wednesday evening.
Monday was Defence and Charms, in that order. What a breeze, and looking at Draco –and then around the table – it seemed the rest of the first year Slytherins agreed. Excluding Harry, the others in their group had all had tutoring for at least a year and would breeze it, and Draco wasn't worried about Harry's lack of experience – he was above them all already.
"W-w-welcome t-to defence against t-the dark arts," Quirrell stuttered out. It'd taken one glance and one famous smirk between Harry and Draco to decide that the man was totally useless, but they took seats on the left side of the room towards the back anyway. Walking out of a class on your first day wasn't the fastest way to the headmaster's office, but it was up near the top of the list! "T-today we'll j-j-just be learning a b-basic charm... 'Reducto'. N-now, that's the incantation, a-and there is targets a-around the w-walls. Give it a g-g-go!"
Damn, Harry thought. Seven years of that stupid stutter? Magic could cure stutters in an instant, what kind of fool would keep it?
Harry and Draco took turns blasting other people's reducto targets and purposefully missing, which usually earned them a personal five minute lesson on aiming your wand from Quirrell, which was five minutes of torturous stuttering you couldn't get away from. Draco was clutching his ribs in agony after laughing too much, he'd taken to bullying a red head from Gryffindor and Quirrell was now laying into the idiot for missing four times in a row from just ten feet away; each one of course being Draco's fault. The idiotic teacher never noticed them creeping behind Weasley and firing the spell silently!
Draco was ecstatic at his progress. At seeing Harry cast silently last night, he'd wanted to get the basics in silence and he'd managed it. Who knew that annoying other people could help your silent casting training!
Two gruelling hours later the class was over, and Harry was grumbling to Daphne about the wasted time. First day and first lesson in Hogwarts and they'd spent two whole hours aiming at a target the size of a world-class pumpkin that was entirely stationary. I know we're young, Harry thought, but we're not quite retarded!
"Harry," Draco addressed over the table, "charms this afternoon right? We're gonna do the same thing, it'll be hilarious and I can do leviosa silently now too. We'll sit together right at the back so we can see the whole class and just levitate stuff everywhere, ok?"
Harry smirked, affirming their plan. If you weren't learning one might as well have fun, and if you really wanted to push for an educational conclusion you could say they were still practising and perfecting magic in some form.
Charms was a riot. They'd let Tracey and Daphne in on the plot, although the two girls couldn't cast silently at all. They'd still enjoyed watching the havoc. Flitwick had distributed feathers to everyone in the room, of which both Harry and Draco silently levitated theirs immediately, then dropped them, given each other 'the smirk' and turned to survey the class.
"Ok, " Draco said. "Watch this – look at McMillan." Ernie McMillan was a Hufflepuff, who'd boasted for everyone to hear about how talented he was at breakfast that morning, which was presumably why Draco had targeted him first. Draco simply looked at Ernie's feather, pointed his wand discreetly and the feather levitated all the way to the ceiling...And stayed there. The spell required absolutely minimum effort to maintain, and Draco was clearly the stronger wizard of them, since McMillan couldn't get his feather down or around or anything. As Flitwick walked forward to bring it down, Draco released the spell, which just made Ernie look incompetent as Flitwick levitated it down softly. Everyone was sniggering at what they perceived were his empty boasts from earlier.
"Ok," Harry whispered, "my turn." Scanning the class, he chose the buck-toothed girl, who had successfully levitated her feather and was now bossing her housemates around. He'd heard the Weasley boy command her to 'do it again if you're so good at it,' which was a perfect opening. Keeping his wand by his leg, to the side and bottom of his desk, he applied the spell, but instead of levitating it, he just held it still. Unless Curlygirl was magically stronger than him – hah, don't jest, he'd thought – then her attempts to levitate it wouldn't do a thing, since the feather was under his control!
Draco was blowing his top laughing. Bucky had failed about six times before deciding the feather was actually inefficient for levitation! What kind of bollocks was that? Redhead and his pets were openly laughing at the girl now, and she was on the verge of tears. For the slightest second, Harry felt a modicum of guilt before realising – hey, she's a no-one, what does her success in the simplest spell matter anyway. Everyone masters the spell within the day, who cares.
"Harry!" Draco nudged him across the small isle. "Let's go for the ultimate prize – Flitwick! Here's what we do. We're not strong enough to command his feather if he does it, but we can mess with his feather making it look like poor spellwork, so when I say three two one command the feather to move around, wobble or vibrate or something. The combination of both our spells will make it look like a total inability to control the spell!" Draco was gleaming again. His penchant for causing other people misery was only second to learning, and since they couldn't learn... This'd have to do!
On the countdown, both Harry and Draco cast silently towards the feather Flitwick was floating round the room. True enough, the feather went haywire and everyone instantly begun to whisper between themselves. Draco was right, it really did look like Flitwick – a charms master – was struggling to levitate a feather and maintain the spell! Sharing a grin, they both let their spells drop, the damage was done. They just didn't realise how much.
After dismissing the class, the half-goblin tutor had retreated to his office and begun to levitate light objects, to complete success. What had made him struggle with that feather, he'd wondered? Was his magical strength waning? He'd never heard of an individual losing magic, that was absurd, but what other explanation could there be for struggling to maintain a simple levitation? He'd have to speak to Dumbledore in the morning, perhaps the headmaster knew something.
Not once did he even suspect that a first year could possibly challenge his active control of a spell. Would Dumbledore consider it?
Just a few answers to some reviews (thanks for those btw guys!)
* Had a few people asking about Voldemort and Harry's backstory regarding Potters and Slytherins. It's a mystery so far, perhaps you'll find out in time.
* It's not going to be slash. Very few slash relationships add to a story, and relationships for the sake of relationships isn't cool. I can't stand seeing dark Harry then going to his boyfriend and being fluffy, it's nuts. In fact, in all the time i've been reading fanfic, only one story (and it's sequel) has ever IMO done a slash relationship + dark Harry right, and that's The Black Heir and Vindico Atrum(the sequel to Black Heir).
* Regarding the 'dark' part. They're eleven, don't forget that. This chapter had some small hints towards Harry's attitude, so it's coming. We're still only on first day of first year, patience!
R+R please! School has started, Draco and Harry are becoming fast friends already and they're ahead of their classmates by a mile! What's going to happen? What do you want to see happen? Let me know!