Welcome to chapter eleven of the Memento! I didn't think I'd get it out this quickly considering I only kept the first 755 words from my original draft, but my muses decided that it was to be and I managed to write a skeleton draft (dialogue and brief descriptive passages) of the rest of the chapter in two sittings. Thank you muses! :D
As always, I also want to say a big thank you to everyone who favourited or followed this story, and to Fae0306, Gime'SS, setokayba2n, Trougue, Cered, Valkyrie-Sythe, Cat Beats, xXxblacklilyxXx, yorush, and my two guests for your lovely and insightful reviews! You guys keep me motivated and help me reflect on my writing. Never stop being awesome!
The shit really hits the fan in this chapter, so hold on to your boots!
~Chapter Eleven: Parselmouth~
Harry woke to a loud shriek.
For a moment he thought it was his aunt come to wake him up, but the bed beneath him was too comfortable to be the cot under the stairs and the golden sunlight pouring across his face was from a gap in crimson drapes not the narrow slates in the cupboard door. He could feel Basil's familiar weight as she coiled in her favourite sleeping place — head resting below his chin and body coiled on the blankets over his chest. She hissed in irritation, as she always did when woken before ten.
The shriek came again, and the events of the previous day returned to him in a rush. The train, the boat ride across the lake, and the voice of the Sorting Hat in his ear. He was at Hogwarts, in the first year Gryffindor dorm. He barely remembered arriving at his bed. There had been a painting that talked, and then a long twisting staircase into a circular room with five beds and an old cast-iron stove.
"Blimey! A snake!"
Uncomprehending, Harry blinked at the ceiling, his brain fuzzy with sleep. Basil was here, but that shouldn't be a problem… except witches and wizards believed snakes were evil. There was a flurry of movement in the room and he threw his arm towards the small wooden stand next to his bed, groping blindly for his glasses.
His dorm-mates were silhouetted against the rising sun in the gap between the hangings, four tall figures, outlines blurry. "How'd it get in?" That sounded like Dean.
One of them dashed out of sight. "Don't worry Harry!" they said, before returning with a thin object clutched in their right hand. "I'll get it off you!"
He pointed his arm towards Harry's chest and was immediately tackled by the others. "What are you doing Seamus? You'll hit Harry too!"
Basil was still half asleep. "What's going on?" she murmured. "Why are they making angry sounds? Are we in trouble?"
Harry couldn't speak, his heart was lodged in his throat, hammering wildly. He pulled her body close with his left hand, still groping for his glasses with the other. Where had they gone? He couldn't deal with this blind!
Basil coiled herself around his chest and neck. "I didn't unlock the latch," she said. "I promise!"
"It's trying to strangle him!"
He threw a protective arm over Basil as a barrage of hands grasped and pried at them, catching his arm with their nails as often as Basil's body and crushing him with their combined weight. He gave up the search for his glasses and curled into a ball. "No! Stop it!" he cried, finally finding his voice. "Leave her alone!"
The grasping hands didn't relent. "He doesn't know what he's saying!" That sounded like Ron.
Someone caught hold of Basil's tail and tugged hard. She let out a terrible hissing shriek and her head shot out from between Harry's arms, grazing his cheek. There was a soft snap, and then a scream.
"It bit me!"
"Are you bleeding?"
Sniffling. "A little."
A latch rattled, and then a gust of cool air brushed over him. "Quick, we can throw it out the window!"
The thought of Basil lying broken on the ground far below Gryffindor tower was too much. The panic rising in his chest boiled over into an insistent cold prickling that ran along his limbs. "No!" The word hissed from his numb lips, and he couldn't tell whether he was shaking from cold or from fear. He wanted the hands to go away.
"Get off of me!"
A shockwave ripped the hangings from his four-poster with the sound of a cannon and sent them billowing across the room. The hands were gone from his body, and when he raised his head he could make out four blurs slumped haphazard against the wall and opposing bed, emitting soft groans. He jumped up, still clutching Basil tight and found his glasses where they'd been knocked to the floor. Jamming them onto his face, he turned a glare on his dorm-mates.
Neville's back was against the window sill. He was clutching his thumb and looked close to fainting. Dean and Seamus had landed across Ron's bed and were pushing themselves up slowly — blood oozing between Seamus's fingers as he clutched a bump forming over his temple. Ron was half on his trunk, half on the floor. His face was snow white and he looked up at Harry with wide eyes.
"You were hissing," he whispered, voice rough with nerves.
Harry's breath caught in his throat. Had he spoken in parseltongue? He couldn't tell, but from the horror dawning on his roommates' faces it seemed more and more likely that he'd messed up.
Ron pushed himself backward until he was pressed against the foot of his bed. "I heard you. Hissing." A long, horrible pause followed where the redhead's mind churned toward a single, damning conclusion. "You're a parselmouth!"
Neville and Seamus gasped, blood draining from their faces. Dean, the muggleborn, just looked confused.
"A what?" he asked.
"A snake speaker!" Seamus hissed. "Means he's a dark wizard — just like You Know Who!"
Dean's brow furrowed. "Who's You Know Who?" he asked, clearly at a loss when it came to wizarding history.
Seamus looked at him like he was insane. "Only the most evil wizard of all time!" His voice dropped to a murmur as he laid out for Dean the extent of this feared wizard's evilness. Harry only caught snatches. His eyes were fixed on Neville — his friend.
"You can talk to snakes," Neville said weakly. "That's why you were asking about them in Diagon Alley."
"I'm not evil," Harry beseeched him. "Please… just believe me."
Ron growled. "You will be, though! All dark wizards are!"
"No... I won't…"
Neville's face crumpled, round cheeks buckling into a mask of despair as tears slid down his cheeks. He met Harry's gaze for a moment and said, "I trusted you."
It was worse than a physical blow. Worse than anything Harry had ever experienced. The hope he'd nurtured deep in his chest shattered, exploding into tiny stinging shards that burrowed through his flesh to burst out as sparks of hungry, aimless magic. The sheets of his bed smouldered where the sparks landed, and the stone walls hissed as though splashed with acid. His roommates backed away further, putting Ron's bed between themselves and Harry.
The door burst open, revealing Percy Weasley in a white nightgown.
"It's six-thirty in the morning!" he shouted, swelling up like a bullfrog. "There are people still trying to— what in Merlin's name happened here?" His eyes went from the downed boys to the ruined bed hangings and then finally came to rest on Harry and the snake in his arms. His mouth dropped open.
Harry didn't wait to hear what Ron's brother had to say. He scrambled around his bed and bolted for the door, bare feet slapping against the cold tiles. Basil bared her fangs and hissed at Percy, causing the older boy to stagger back enough for Harry to slip out the door.
Ron's voice chased him from the room. "He's a parselmouth!" he shouted for all the dorm to hear. Harry ducked his head and ran on.
There were other students standing on the stairs or peeking out of their rooms to see what the racket was about, but they were slow with sleep and Harry barrelled past them before they could think to grab him. He ran through the common room, dodging plush red armchairs and sneaky side-tables who seemed intent on tripping him as he made a break for the portrait hole. He slammed into the back of the painting hard, leading with his palms, and the voluptuous woman on the other side let out an undignified shriek as her painting flew aside. There was a crash, and the sound of breaking glass from inside the painted world, but Harry didn't look back as he picked a direction and ran.
He was halfway down the hall when the first Gryffindors spilled out of the portrait hole and took off in pursuit. Harry easily outpaced them, but they had the advantage of knowing the school's layout — its shortcuts, tricks, and dead ends, of which there were many as Harry discovered when he threw himself down a corridor, turned a corner, and slammed his knee against a bench sitting below a red and silver shield decorated with a trout jumping over a crescent moon.
He drew in a sharp breath between clenched teeth and dropped onto the bench, clutching his leg. "Ow ow ow!"
"We are still being pursued," Basil warned. "Can you run?— Oh a mouse!"
Harry pried his eyes open and saw a small grey mouse scamper across the floor and disappear next to the bench's leg. He leaned down and peered beneath the seat. In the corner of the wall was a hole where one of the small stones had been pushed loose. The mouse vanished inside. It reminded Harry of his cupboard and the small hole in the corner — a threshold between the safe darkness and the frightening, cruel world outside — and suddenly he knew what had to happen.
"Basil, you need to hide!" he said, prying her off his shoulders and setting her down just beneath the bench. He pointed at the hole. "In there, quickly!"
"Why?" she asked, though her head snaked forward, tongue lapping at the scent trail the mouse left behind.
"Because they'll kill you if you're caught."
She looked between him and the hole. "You will not fit."
"I know. I'm not going with you."
"But you are my Speaker!" she said, rearing back. "I cannot leave you to fight alone!"
Footsteps echoed through the hall as the Gryffindors grew closer. "Please, Basil. They're coming. I'll be fine."
"I do not like this."
"I know. Please. I'll come back for you as soon as it's safe, I promise."
She stared him down. "If you do not, I will find those who hurt you and I will squeeze them until their breath stops. Every. Last. One."
"I'll come back," he assured her. "Now go!"
With a final disgruntled hiss, Basil slithered into the hole, eliciting a panicked squeak from the mouse who'd lingered near the entrance. Harry watched until her tail disappeared and then stumbled to his feet, turning to face the students just coming around the corner.
Percy Weasley was in the lead. When he saw Harry he planted his feet and held his arms wide, stopping those behind him in their tracks. They peered around the Prefect, but didn't dare push past him to come closer.
"Where is it?" Percy demanded.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"The snake!" Percy blustered. "I saw you holding it in the dorm. So I'll ask you once more: where is it?"
Don't look down, Harry chanted silently. Don't look down. Don't look— his eyes flitted towards the mouse hole, just to be sure Basil had remained hidden. He forced them away at the last second, choosing instead to stare at the faces behind the draping sleeve of Percy's night gown.
One of them was Neville's.
Like a breath of air on smouldering coals, the fear on Neville's face fed the painful feeling of loss clenching Harry's chest until it flared up into anger. "I don't betray my friends," he snapped.
Neville flinched and looked away. He pulled his injured thumb closer to his chest, until it was covered by the folds of his housecoat.
Percy's face drained of colour. "Your friend? So you can speak to it."
"I told you so!" Ron said, ducking under his brother's arm and pointing a finger at Harry's chest. "I told you he was a parselmouth!"
Frantic muttering broke out among the gathered Gryffindors as the validity of Ron's claims were questioned, discussed, and, in the end, accepted as truth. Harry tried to close his ears, but fragments wormed their way into his head and stuck there, feasting on his doubts and fears. He took a deep breath and limped forward a step, then another. The Gryffindors melted away as he grew close, pressing back against the walls.
He passed through the crowd uncontested, their reluctance to touch him a cold comfort in the face of their fear.
The Hogwart's rumour mill was a terrifying contraption of faulty relays and crossed wires. It spanned between houses, a tangled web that tapped into every student and splintered the truth into a hundred differing accounts built and elaborated on by the imaginations of its captive audience.
Harry caught Ron boasting to the Ravenclaw first years outside their Charms class first thing that morning — telling them how he'd tried to toss Basil out a window only to be thrown away by a blast of magic. The Ravenclaws looked skeptical, but it didn't stop them from keeping a safe distance from Harry during class.
By the time he walked into Defence Against the Dark Arts — his second class of the day — whispers skittered after him like a swarm of hungry spiders.
Professor Quirrell had donned the same absurd purple turban he'd worn at the Welcoming Feast. Now that they were trapped in the same room as him for an hour and a half they learned — much to their dismay — that it reeked of garlic and rotten eggs. He stuttered terribly, and when Ron accidentally knocked his text off the corner of the table, he jumped like a startled rabbit and had to take a minute to calm his nerves before he was fit enough to continue the lecture.
By the end of the class Harry had a pounding headache he attributed to Quirrell's reedy voice and the stench of his turban. He'd kept his head down during the lecture, unwilling to draw attention to himself, but he'd still felt the man's watery eyes studying him too often to be put off as a coincidence. It was unnerving, but Harry bit down on his discomfort and willed it away as yet another consequence of his unasked for fame. No, infamy.
Ten minutes after they were dismissed from Defence, Harry arrived at his History of Magic class and was once again witness to Ron's boasting — this time to the Hufflepuffs. The story of the confrontation in the dorm had grown to an epic tale of wrestling a six foot monster snake and then fending off a wave of killer magic. The Hufflepuffs lacked the scepticism of their blue-robed classmates and listened with a wide-eyed awe that left Harry feeling like he was back on Privet Drive watching his aunt spread her lies to the neighbours.
After Ron was done the Badgers huddled together, well clear of Harry, seeking safety in numbers. Not that Harry would hurt them, but any attempt to explain that was met with blank, terrified faces and he quickly gave up.
Their History professor was the ghost of a stuffy old man who read the roll-call for a class ninety years graduated and droned on and on in a voice like nails on a chalkboard. It was worse than Defence, and Harry could barely pay attention to their primer on wizard-goblin relations. His only consolation was that no one else seemed able to either.
He didn't attend lunch or dinner. He wasn't sure he'd be able to keep anything down. His stomach was aching as though he'd eaten something rotten, and his headache from earlier lingered as tingling fingers and scalp. Worse than any physical woe, Draco would be in the Great Hall and Harry's heart was seized with terror whenever he imagined losing his only other human friend.
It's better to wait, he decided as he plodded along unfamiliar halls. Maybe when I see him in Potions on Friday everything will have blown over. Maybe... he won't hate me.
It seemed a fool's hope. A beautiful, fragile dream that would be crushed mercilessly under the heel of reality. Still he clung to it, sheltering it beneath the weave of his fingers so it would live just a little bit longer.
His meandering path through the school led him past old classrooms — their desks draped with dusty white cloths — and supply cupboards full of rusting pails, wormy brooms, and jars of strange coloured goo with pictographic labels showing stick figures scrubbing floors, walls, and picture frames. He felt a peculiar kinship with these rooms, so obviously abandoned to the slow, destructive march of time. They'd been neglected, not through any fault of their own, but because they were unneeded — superfluous in a school whose population could fit into a single hall.
Much like a hero who could talk to snakes.
A pair of oak doors no different than the rest opened onto a balcony overlooking a labyrinth of bookshelves that put even Flourish and Blotts to shame. He stepped inside and walked beside the banister until he came to a staircase leading down to the main floor. Descending, he came out near an empty reception desk with an 'Out to Lunch' sign on its polished counter. The desk looked out over an open workspace full of equally empty tables and hard-backed chairs. It was lit by golden sunlight that poured through tall, arched windows running along the far wall. Shelves of books crowded against the outermost tables, pushing the four-legged obstacles aside in a turf war they were clearly winning.
Harry wandered into the shadow of the shelves and lost himself between rows of tomes wrapped in leather or stiff buckram. He'd always felt safe in libraries. They were one of the only places Dudley and his gang dared not tread. His cousin claimed to be allergic to books, but Harry didn't believe him. He knew Dudley was afraid of words, the longer the scarier — as spelling tests had always sent him running to the nurse's claiming a stomachache. Whenever possible, Harry had spent his free time in primary school hiding behind the single low shelf in their tiny library.
This library was far more magnificent, and if he wished to disappear for an hour or a day, he was sure no one would ever find him in the endless rows of stacks.
This proved not entirely accurate as the librarian, Madam Pince, managed to corner him in the transfiguration section late that evening after a prolonged game of cat and mouse. When she found him the expression on her angular face was sharp enough to cut steel, and Harry didn't resist when she kicked him out and slammed the door shut hard enough to set his robes aflutter.
Sighing, he slowly made his way towards Gryffindor tower, dreading the moment when he'd face Neville and the other boys from the dorm.
Arriving at the portrait of the Fat Lady he realized he had another problem.
"Password," she said, her swan-feather fan wafting gently below her double chin. The corridor was cold, but inside her painting it was summer, with a brilliant blue sky and trees hanging heavy with fruit.
Harry's heart sank. "I don't know," he admitted. No one had told him the password. The portrait had been open when he returned from hiding Basil, and he'd missed the first year orientation the night before because he'd stopped to talk to Draco.
"I can't let you in if you don't know the password." The Fat Lady looked at him pityingly.
"Don't you recognized me?" he asked, hoping to find a loophole.
She peered at him, and for a moment Harry thought she'd open the passage, but then she shook her head. "Looks can be deceiving here in the castle. You can never be too careful."
"So now what?"
"If you want to get in, you'll need to find the password." Harry stared at her blankly, and she took pity on him. "Ask one of your housemates, or go to Professor McGonagall. She's the head of Gryffindor House."
Harry slumped. He was no longer on speaking terms with his housemates and Professor McGonagall was too intimidating to approach. If he asked her for the password she might realize something was wrong, and that would send her digging into the truth behind the tall tales Ron spouted at every opportunity. If she learned they weren't just the products of an overexcited imagination she could send him packing.
"There's no hidden third option?"
The Fat Lady tapped her fan against her plump lips. "Professor Dumbledore maintains a list of passwords," she offered. "But he's only to be disturbed in the event of an emergency."
Walking into the Headmaster's office would be even worse than seeking out Professor McGonagall. "It's not an emergency," he assured her. "I'll find someone to ask."
"You ought to hurry. It's nearly curfew and you don't want to be caught out of bed." She paused, then added. "If you can't find another Gryffindor, Professor McGonagall's office is down one floor, second-to-last doorway on the right."
Harry nodded, fixing the location of the office in his memory so he'd know to avoid it at all costs. He turned left and started down the corridor, retracing the path he'd run that morning until he was once again facing the shield with the jumping fish. There were no torches or windows nearby. The corridor should have been pitch black, but the moon painted on the shield was glowing softly, bathing the bench beneath it in silver light that gave the impression of shapes while withholding details from his straining eyes.
Basil was waiting impatiently for him. "You were away too long," she said, climbing onto the bench's seat. "Though it is good your den mates did not eat you, for I would not have been able to swallow them all, though I would have tried."
Harry snorted, but his mirth was short lived. He dropped down beside her and leaned back agains the wall. "It's been a long day."
She raised her head. "There is pain in your voice."
He took a deep breath, his chest clenching as he admitted, "I don't think Neville's my friend anymore. He thinks I'm evil, just like the rest of them... Basil, I don't know if I can do this."
He didn't want to leave, but he'd reached the brink of what he could bear and one more push would be enough to send him over. The thought of leaving the magnificent castle behind made his voice tremble. "I thought it would be different here, but it's just more of the same. Over and over again."
"You wish to return to your not-family?"
"No," he said. But I don't have anywhere else to go.
Basil's head swayed and bobbed. "Then you must show these humans how foolish they are! If they believe you are evil, and that evil is causing harm, then you must do the opposite!"
It took a long moment for him to realize what she was suggesting, but when he did his brow drew down in incredulity. "You think I should... protect them?" he asked. "Protect them from what, exactly? This is a school, I doubt there's anything dangerous lying about..." Except there was. Hadn't the Headmaster warned them there was something deadly hiding in the third floor corridor?
"I doubt they'd need my help. They've been studying magic for years, after all."
"I tasted them while you were gone," Basil said. "Many pairs came to this place and tried to eat one another." She paused. "Or mate, perhaps, though they were doing it wrong."
"Did they see you?" he asked, ignoring the part about eating or mating as something he really, really didn't want to touch.
"Of course not, they were far too busy!" she replied. "I could have slid beneath their robes without them noticing. I did not need to — so do not scrunch your face at me. Even from afar I could taste that their magic is buried so deep beneath their skins that it is nearly flavourless. They do not know how to call their power without their magic sticks — not like us."
"It's supposed to be hard to use magic without a wand," he pointed out. "Nev— they told me that much."
"And that is why you will be able to protect them," she insisted. "Magic sticks are not reliable. You tell them to do one thing and they set your bed on fire!"
Harry winced at the reminder of his less-than-profitable practice sessions. "They can't all be rubbish with their wands. They built all this, didn't they? I'm probably just worse than most."
Basil started to reply when there was a soft thunk and an even softer curse as someone stubbed their toe just around the corner from where they sat.
Harry jumped to his feet. "Quick Basil, get back in the wall!"
"I do not want to!" she protested. "I want to stay with you!" She coiled her powerful tail around one of the bench's legs, intent on remaining where she was.
Footsteps now. Growing closer.
Harry scrambled to come up with a reason for her to get back in the mouse hole. He needed her to be safe, protected. To stay away from the students and professors the same way they were supposed to stay away from the third floor corridor. The idea that came to him was both brilliant and brilliantly stupid, but he didn't have time to consider the possible outcomes.
"Basil, you're right. The best way to get everyone to like me is to protect them, but to do that I need to know what they're keeping on the third floor and I'm not allowed to go there."
"I could find out," she said, her coils loosening. "There are many paths behind the walls. No one would see me."
"I don't know. It might be too dangerous."
"I can do it!" she insisted, sliding off the bench. "And when I have sought out this thing for you, you will not ask me to hide in walls anymore."
As her body vanished back into the mouse hole, Harry turned around and peered into the darkness beyond the painted moon's light.
"I know you're there!" he called. "Come out!"
A pair of gangly shadows appeared at the edge of the light. They stepped forward, revealing the identical faces of Fred and George Weasley, both of which were slack with amazement.
"You really can talk to snakes!" said Fred. Harry's stomach did an unhappy flip at the realization they'd been close enough to hear him speaking parseltongue, which meant there would be no bluffing his way out of this.
George shook his head in disbelief. "And here we thought it was just a show you put on to make dear Ronnikins wet himself."
They looked at each other and grinned. "Wicked!"
"It's not evil!" Harry protested.
They blinked at him in surprise. "Uh, no. Wicked, you know—"
"It means awesome."
Harry recoiled, taken aback. "You don't... hate me?"
"Potter, my man. Don't think so low of us—"
"You see, unlike the rest of the poor fools in this castle—"
"We see the bigger picture!"
Harry thought on that for a minute, but like the 'poor fools' the bigger picture eluded him. "What do you mean?"
Fred waggled his eyebrows. "Well, if you're really going to be the next Dark Lord—" he said.
"We'd rather be on your good side," finished George.
Harry clenched his jaw and took a step back, anger flaring up in his chest. "In the end you're no different than the rest," he spat. Confusion blossomed on their faces and he plowed on, words spilling from a dark place inside him. "You think I was born to be a Dark Lord just because I can speak to snakes? Well, what if I want to do something else with my life? What if I want to be a chef, or a gardener? Will you let me? Or will you keep pushing and pushing until I have no choice but to kill you all so you'll leave me be!"
"Whoa!" George raised his hands. "Easy there mate. We're only teasing."
"No one wants you to turn into a Dark Lord," Fred said. "I mean, you're Harry Potter. You're a hero!"
Harry's hands curled into fists. "Then why don't they trust me? If they're all so grateful, why does everyone turn their backs on me when all I want is to be their friend?" His voice wobbled dangerously at the end, and his eyes burned with unshed tears. He pushed up his glasses and rubbed a sleeve over his face.
"You were gone a long time," George said gently. "No one knew where you were or what you were doing, so we'd tell each other stories about how great and wise you'd be when you finally returned to the wizarding world. Our parents especially, they'd tell us how you'd lead us all to a brighter future. They were so... fervent, I guess. Even though we don't remember anything from the war they made us want to believe."
"I think," said Fred. "You just turned out to be a bit different than everyone expected, and they're having a hard time coming to terms with it."
Harry let out a harsh breath. "They don't know anything about me. They'd rather listen to your brother's stories than hear what I have to say."
The twin's rubbed the backs of their heads. "Ron can be a right git at times—"
"But the others will calm down soon enough when they realize you're not as big and scary as they've come to believe."
Harry envied that they could see a light at the end of the tunnel, because no matter how hard he looked all he saw was darkness. "How long will it take?"
They shrugged. "Don't rightly know," said Fred. "If the sixth and seventh years join in the hysteria you could be in for a long haul, because if they're panicking everyone below them will too."
"What about the professors? Or the Headmaster?"
George snorted. "We'd have been expelled years ago if they weren't so good at turning a blind eye."
Behind the twins the darkness was pierced by flickering yellow shadows, as if someone beyond the bend had lit a candle.
"What did you do?" Harry asked.
George smirked. "Oh, all sorts of things—"
"Funny you should ask, really."
The shadows grew more pronounced and a gruff voice called, "Who's there!"
The twins snapped their mouths shut and scurried to the corner. Harry followed them and peered around their backs. A shabby man with stringy brown hair and a mean eye was shambling down the corridor, a lantern held aloft in his hand. He squinted in their direction, but couldn't see anything outside his circle of light.
Fred caught Harry's elbow and tugged him back towards the bench. "Crap, it's Filch!" he whispered.
"I know you're down there!" Filch shouted, and then they heard him draw a whistling breath in through his nose. "I can smell your fear."
That, Harry decided, didn't sound good at all.
"We'll need to make a break for it.," George whispered, pulling the hood of his cloak up over his head. Fred and Harry followed suit.
"How fast can you run?" George asked him.
"Fast," Harry replied.
Filch was nearly at the corner, his lantern's light devouring the shadows that hid them. "Okay, keep close behind us. On three. One. Two. Three!"
They leapt forward all together, bolting through the puddle of light around the Hogwarts caretaker. Filch dropped his lantern and lunged at them, his arms snapping shut like a pair of shears. Fred ducked past, but George wasn't so lucky. Filch grabbed him by the shoulders, his mouth opening wide to let out a jubilant laugh when Harry took a step to the left and barrelled into his hip. Filch lost his balance, further aided by Harry who grabbed his belt and gave it a yank as he danced around behind him. His arms slipped and George struggled free, running into the shadows where his twin waited anxiously. Harry joined them and the three of them ran on before Filch could recover his balance and lantern.
"Get back here!" Filch hollered, then, "Alert! Students out of bed down the seventh floor corridor!" His voice echoed down the hall, magically augmented so every professor and prefect in the area would hear and come running.
Harry stumbled on the hem of his robes and hoisted them up in his left hand as he followed on Fred and George's heels, his speed more than a match for their longer legs.
They made a sharp left-hand turn towards a solid wall, and before Harry could shout a warning Fred slammed his hand against a rough brick and the wall slid aside to reveal a narrow dark staircase leading down towards the sixth floor. They plunged through the threshold and into true darkness as the door slid shut behind them. While the twins rustled through their pockets in search of their wands, Harry held out his right hand, imagining the pale skin growing paler and paler until it gleamed like the moon on a cloudless night, bathing the passageway in a soft silver light.
He blinked, able to see once again, and the twins gave up their search and started quick-stepping down the stairs. George glanced back over his shoulder and then did a double take, eyes wide as saucers.
"Merlin's beard!" he exclaimed.
"Keep running!" Fred chided. "Filch knows this passage as well as we do!"
Despite the threat, George couldn't stop shooting astonished looks back at Harry's glowing hand as they ran through the school. Filch's alarm had spread, and the halls were alive with the sound of professors and prefects hunting them down. On his own, Harry would have been caught five times over, but the twins seemed to know every secret passage in Hogwarts, and Harry quickly gave up being surprised when they ran headlong towards solid walls or ducked behind hanging tapestries.
Down and down they went, until Harry's legs were burning and he'd lost track of how many floors they'd passed. The pursuit was closing in behind them, following the rapid tap tap tap of Harry's shiny new dress shoes against the tiled floors. The twins ran silently, having changed into sensible footwear for mischief-making, and Harry couldn't understand why they hadn't left him behind as bait.
They skidded to a stop outside a door with a list nailed to its pitted face. Harry saw the words 'Illegal Items' in red at the top before Fred tapped the doorknob with his wand and mumbled a spell under his breath. The lock released with a click and they pushed inside. George pulled a leather bag out from beneath his robes and reached through the neck, drawing out a handful of black balls that smelt faintly of manure. He and Fred rushed about, hiding them on top of a set of filing cabinets, on the chair at the beat up old desk, and in the links of a collection of chains hanging against one wall.
"What are those?" Harry asked.
"Dungbombs," Fred replied, tucking another of the balls into an umbrella holder by the door. Finished, he turned to Harry. "They'll give Filch a nice little surprise and— your hand is glowing!"
"I tried to tell you before!" George said. "But you wouldn't listen!"
"Better put it out," Fred advised. "Sounds like they're at the mouth of the hallway. Come on!"
Harry stuffed his hand deep inside his robes, muffling the light rather than extinguishing it in case they needed to make a quick getaway. They crept out the door and away from the bobbing wand lights growing ever closer. Ducking into an alcove they hunkered down to watch.
Five people were making their way down the hall. Filch was in the lead, followed closely by the dark haired wizard who'd scowled at Harry during the feast. A gaggle or prefects followed after them, holding their wands high in an attempt to be the first to spot their quarry.
The twins started bouncing with glee. "We're gonna get Snape!" George whispered, clearly excited by the prospect.
"And Percy too," Fred replied, pointing towards his older brother who was trailing two steps behind Snape.
"My office!" Filch yelled upon seeing the open door. The five wizards rushed inside and Fred — grinning like the cheshire cat — whispered another spell.
"Dispergat!"
There was a loud splat from inside the room and a dark, runny substance sprayed through the open door as the dungbombs detonated simultaneously. The stench of manure struck them like a battering ram, strong enough to make them gag — which from the sounds of thing was exactly what the people inside Filch's office were doing.
"Mission complete!" Fred said.
"Come on, time to get back."
Harry quickly pulled off his shoes and socks, tucking them under one arm as he followed the twins back up a mountain of stairs. Ten minutes later they popped out from behind a tapestry right in front of the Fat Lady.
"Password," she asked lazily.
"Caput Draconis," Fred replied. The Fat Lady curtsied and the portrait swung open, revealing the entrance to the Gryffindor common room.
"Is that our password?" Harry asked as they scrambled inside.
"Didn't anyone tell you?"
"No," he admitted. "We aren't exactly on speaking terms."
The common room was empty except for a marmalade cat curled up on one of the armchairs in front of the fireplace. It didn't rouse as they walked into the room, nor when the twins converged on Harry, grabbed his glowing hand, and turned it this way and that, studying it. Harry dropped his shoes in shock. They landed half on the plush red carpet and half on his left foot.
"No runes," said George, his nose nearly pressed against Harry's palm as he squinted into the silver light.
"But that means... That's wandless magic!"
Their mouths dropped open in awe. "You can do wandless magic?"
Harry pulled his hand from their grasp and willed it to stop glowing. "Yes."
"How did you learn?" asked Fred.
"We've begged our parents to teach us for years, but they always made excuses,"George complained. "Told us we were too young, or that it was too dangerous."
Fred crossed his arms. "Not sure they know how themselves, honestly," he muttered.
Harry decided to give them the benefit of the doubt. They'd earned that much by not running away screaming when they heard him speak parseltongue. "Basil taught me," he said.
The twins tilted their heads in unison. "Who?"
"My friend. She's a snake."
"A snake taught you wandless magic?" asked Fred incredulously.
"Well, a boa constrictor at the zoo helped too. He was really good at explaining everything so it made sense."
The twins looked at each other in shock and a silent conversation must have passed between them because they were both suddenly alert, eyes far too bright and reflecting a red gleam from the embers glowing in the hearth. They looked devilish in the half-light and sweat tickled Harry's scalp as he imagined what that could mean for him.
"How about we make a deal?" said Fred. "Teach us wandless magic and we'll stick by your side through thick and thin."
"Might even be able to stop the rumours circulating about you too," George offered slyly.
It seemed too good to be true. Harry didn't know if the twins would be able to learn wandless magic, but he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. "I don't know if I'll be a good teacher," he said, "but I can try."
"That's all we ask," they replied.
Harry nodded. "Okay. It's a deal."
The twins held out their hands and Harry shook them, sealing their alliance.
It felt nice to have allies, he decided as he climbed up the stairs to his dorm. Even if they weren't really friends — or at least he didn't think they were — to know that he'd be able to count on someone being on his side was reassuring, and he'd do his best to keep it that way.
Harry slipped through the door of the first year dorm, shutting it softly behind him. His roommates had pulled the hangings around their beds closed, and while there were loud snores coming from Ron's bed, candle light was reflected on the ceiling above both Neville and Dean's. Harry crept past them and was surprised when he saw the hangings around his own bed had been repaired. They hung from the brass railings as though the confrontation that morning had never happened. Exhausted, he changed into his pyjamas and slipped under the covers.
He fell asleep feeling a little more hopeful that there would be a light at the end of the tunnel for him after all.
~End Chapter Eleven~
So Harry's been found out, his friendships shaken up, and a new alliance forged! Ron is just as much a braggart as he was during the later books, and Neville's Hufflepuff loyalty was overriden by a deeply ingrained fear. To top it all off, Basil's set off on a mission to find the Cerberus (though first she'll need to find the third floor as I'm not entirely sure snakes can count...)! Will the rumours ever calm down? Has Draco forsaken Harry as well? Why did Fred and George's parents consider wandless magic too dangerous to teach? The answer to these questions will come up in the next couple chapters! :D
On a lighter note, I wanted to lay out my conception of the Hogwart's timetable, because the canon version makes absolutely no sense. I mean, it's a bit crazy that there's apparently only one professor per subject, especially for core subjects. If there's 2 classes per year and 5 mandatory years (up to the OWLS examination) that's 10 distinct classes of students, plus an addition 2-4 for NEWT level. So, professors would need 12-14 class slots in their schedule if their subject ran only once per week, 24-28 slots if it ran twice per week, and 36-42 slots if it ran three times per week. There's also the matter of astrology, which takes place around midnight. As midnight only occurs 7 times per week, and there are seven potential years taking it, it's impossible for each year group to have been split up, and there are some poor (probably sixth and seventh years) who must be taking it on the weekend.
I've based the timetable for this story off university time requirements for classes. Basically, all classes are one and a half hours long, and there are five class slots per day (six if you include the astronomy block). Set up this way, a core professor could teach their class twice a week (or one double class) without being overburdened. I really wish I could code a table in here, but as I don't believe fanfiction supports html tables I'll make due with listing Harry's schedule for those who are interested. :)
Thanks again for sticking with this story, and I'll see you next time for Harry's first Transfiguration class!
Block Schedule:
8:00-9:30 am - First Block (1)
9:30-10:00 am - Morning Break
10:00-11:30 am - Second Block (2)
11:30 am-1:00 pm - Third Block (3)
1:00-3:30 pm - Lunch
3:30-5:00 pm - Fourth Block (4)
5:00-6:30 pm - Fifth Block (5)
11:00 pm-1:30 am - Midnight Block (M)
Harry's Schedule:
Monday: 1 - Charms, 2 - DADA, 3 - History of Magic
Tuesday: 1 - Herbology, 2 - DADA, 3 - History of Magic
Wednesday: 1 - Herbology, M - Astronomy (starts in second week)
Thursday: 1 - Charms, 2 & 3 - Transfiguration, 4 - Flying (starts in second week)
Friday: 2 & 3 - Potions