Having a basilisk for a friend turned out to be a mixed blessing for Harry. On one hand, it was another excuse for people to want to talk to him, as if being the "Boy Who Lived" wasn't bad enough. On the other hand, having a basilisk for a friend also tended to drive people away under certain circumstances.

When the winter break ended, Dumbledore had Eve moved to her new living quarters at the school. It was a large, enclosed section of the grounds, near the forest. Dumbledore had used powerful warming charms to keep the area comfortable for Eve even in the cold winter nights, much to the chagrin of students who wished he would do the same for the entire castle. Eve said she would have preferred being able to roam around the grounds at her discretion, but she was content with staying there if that was how things had to be.

Eve was very curious about the world she was hidden away from for centuries, and had a cavernous appetite for stories, both real and fictional. Harry didn't have a whole lot of fictional stories, but he did have plenty of historical ones, and Eve loved to hear those. Harry found that talking to Eve was an oddly relaxing experience. Perhaps it was because Harry didn't feel the same pressure he did when he was talking with people to always be polite enough to not anger them. Or perhaps it was because he didn't need to maintain eye contact with her, a task that Harry had always found difficult.

Harry was distinctly reminded of that shortcoming when a deluge of people came to visit him after returning to Hogwarts from their holiday. Malfoy was the first to find him in Charms class, not even having the courtesy to wait for an opportune moment in a hallway.

"Hey, you!" Malfoy snapped, when he realized that Harry wasn't looking at him.

"What is it?" Harry muttered.

"I want my book back. The one I gave you on the Hogwarts Express."

"Oh, you mean that magic diary?"

Malfoy rolled his eyes. "Yes, that magic diary. I want it back."

As far as Harry knew, the Malfoys had claimed to be innocent when they were questioned about the diary. How odd of them to make such an open attempt to get it back.

"If you really want it back, you'll have to ask Dumbledore," Harry said. "Of course, I doubt he would give it to you, since it's apparently cursed. Not that I could tell, though."

Malfoy frowned. "My father has power, Potter. Money and power. Please take it seriously when I say that I want that book back."

"Look, Dumbledore isn't going to give that book back to me. If you're that desperate, go take it up with him."

"You're going to regret this, Potter. Mark my words."

Malfoy went back to his seat scowling for the second time in Charms class. Harry thought about telling Dumbledore about it, but it seemed like it would turn out to be more trouble than it was worth.

Harry's run in with Slytherins didn't end there, as there were a number of students who wanted to know if he was really the heir of Slytherin. One Pansy Parkison in particular was absolutely convinced that he was, and proved rather difficult to shoo away. The degree to which those people would show admiration for some nobody whose only claim to fame was being allegedly related to some thousand year old dead man was stunning.

Not everyone viewed Harry's abilities as positive, either. There were a number of students who thought that he was dangerous to the muggle borns of the school. They were often headed by some brute named McLaggen, who made a great show of cracking his knuckles whenever he saw Harry. Once again, the invisibility cloak proved its weight in gold for avoiding him, although he had a knack for appearing in places where Harry would often be.

And then there was Creevey. He really went out of his way to see Harry, by interrupting him when he was telling Eve the story of Herpo the Foul.

"Woah!" Creevey shouted, breathing heavily from running all the way from the castle to the grounds. "Is that a basilisk?"

"Yes," Harry said.

"You don't mind if I take a picture of you, do you?"

"Yes, I do mind-"

Creevey didn't listen, and snapped a photo, much to Eve's annoyance.

"Oh, it didn't turn out quite right," Creevey said. "Both of you were blinking."

"Oh, I bet," Harry growled.

"Here, let me take another one-"

"Why does the child keep trying to blind me?" Eve said, wincing as another bright flash from the camera filled the air.

"Snarl at him and he'll go away," Harry said.

Eve suddenly moved forward and hissed at Creevey, who took off back to the castle in a fright.

"Nice one," Harry said, and patted her on the head.

Later that day, Professor Flitwick went out of his way to have a word with Harry.

"I have heard that the basilisk made an aggressive movement towards one of the students today, Harry," Flitwick said. "Would you happen to know anything about this?"

"Oh, don't worry about that," Harry said. "I told her to do it."

Flitwick was outraged. "What? Why?!"

"Because the kid was getting on my nerves."

That lost him 20 points from Ravenclaw, which Harry thought was a perfectly fine exchange.

The red haired girl that used to hang around the library also paid him a visit a few days later, although she wasn't nearly as enthusiastic about it. She didn't seem to like Eve that much.

"Oh, uh, hi," she said, keeping her eyes on the ground.

"Hi," Harry said.

When she didn't respond, he went back to telling Eve about Caligula. When she heard him talking to the basilisk, her demeanor suddenly changed.

"A-are you talking to that t-thing?" she said, looking extremely pale.

"Yeah," Harry said.

She laughed nervously. "That's r-really weird."

Harry shrugged. "I guess so."

That was the last time the red haired girl went looking for him.

One of the major goals Harry had in talking to Eve was not just to give her a working knowledge of the world, but also to give her a functioning sense of morality. This proved to be quite frustrating at first, since to her, right was what an heir told you to do, and wrong was what you weren't told to do. She expressed that quite strongly when he tried to chastise her for the death of the girl in the bathroom.

"Why does it matter what happened to her?" Eve said. "The heir told me to look at her, so I did."

Harry sighed. "It shouldn't matter if an heir told you to do it. Killing people is wrong."

"Why?" Eve said innocently.

"Because... because you're taking their lives, and they can't get them back, okay? You wouldn't like it if someone took your life, would you?"

"I guess not..."

Nevertheless, Eve had a mind capable of grasping such concepts, if they were repeated often enough, and Harry felt that he was making progress as time went on. By the end of term, she was understood that hurting people was wrong, assuming that she wasn't just lying. Of course, Harry didn't think that lying was something she could do without instruction.

The silencing charm the diary had given proved to be of much use to Harry, who made sure to practice it often whenever he had an upcoming Herbology class. It proved to be quite effective on the mandrakes, although Professor Sprout gave him more than a few disparaging looks when she saw him casting it.

There was nothing as exciting as opening the Chamber of Secrets that happened for the rest of the year, which was fine with Harry. One thing that did crop up near the end of term, though, was the requirement that he take two additional classes. Hogwarts offered five: Divination, Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, Care of Magical Creatures, and Muggle Studies.

Divination sounded interesting at first, being a way of magically predicting the future. However, Harry's head of House admitted that the subject was essentially the magical equivalent of pseudoscience (pseudomagic?), which made Harry wonder why it was even taught at the school.

Arithmancy was stated to be the foundation of all wand based magic, which dealt with how to create and modify spells. That definitely sounded like a keeper to Harry, so he signed up for it.

Ancient Runes held little interest for Harry. While he was quite into history, translation was something that he did not care for in the slightest.

Care of Magical Creatures was right out for being an incredibly hands-on class, which left Muggle Studies. If Arithmancy turned out to be a lot of work, having a class he could effortlessly succeed in would help him keep his grades up. And if it wasn't, then he could at least use it as an excuse to learn more about legitimate muggle topics of study he had since left behind, like physics and biology. He signed up for Muggle Studies as well.

It was with surprising speed that Harry's second year at Hogwarts drew to an uneventful close. He did feel a bit sad knowing that he had to leave Eve behind, but it wasn't something that really bothered him.

Harry could have sworn that Dumbledore seemed much more weary when he gave the closing speech at the last day of school, but he could not guess why. Perhaps it was something to do with that diary.