~To the Waters and the Wild~
~The Mandrake's Prophecy~
Author's Note: Thank you all so much for the reviews and comments! I can't believe I put Luna in Harry's class right after I had said that she was a first year! *forehead slap* Thank you to everyone who pointed that out. The previous chapter has been corrected.
In this chapter, we get to meet some mandrakes. The idea that mandrakes can predict the future is not original to this story; it is an ancient folk belief recorded in the Grimm Brothers' tale Alraune.
...
"Mandrakes!" Harry lit up. "How wonderful, professor!"
For some reason, Professor Sprout stared at him, her mouth slightly ajar. "Wonderful, Mr. Potter? What?"
Mandrakes were Harry's favorite plants - if they even were plants, which was of course a very controversial issue. Fairies were generally of the opinion that mandrakes were plants, as evidenced by the leaves on their heads and the fact that their language seemed to be an archaic dialect of Fern. The mandrakes, of course, disagreed strongly with this, and pointed out that they had two legs and could walk around if they felt like it, so therefore they were clearly related to fairies and humans. In fact, one of Harry's mandrake friends had the theory that humans and fairies had all evolved from particularly restless mandrakes who were too unfocused and lazy to put their roots down properly in some nice deep soil at the end of a long day. Before long, said Harry's friend, these poor mandrakes lost their connection to the earth altogether and began to live their entire lives aboveground, which was so stressful that their leaves fell out, and they turned into humans or fairies. Harry found the theory fascinating, although he wasn't quite sure it was accurate. Mandrakes were terribly clever about predicting the future, of course, but he wasn't sure they knew as much about the past.
"You need to put your earmuffs on, Mr. Potter," said Professor Sprout quickly. "The cry of the mandrake can be fatal to anyone who hears it. These are not fully grown yet, but still... "
"Oh, I wasn't going to make them cry," said Harry quickly. "Why would anyone do that?"
Professor Sprout blinked slowly at him. "What-? Listen, everyone. We are going to re-pot the mandrakes. You need to yank them out of the pot they are in and put them in a larger pot. They always cry when you do that."
Harry frowned. "Well, that's not surprising, is it? They probably don't like the yanking part. They like pulling their roots out nice and slow when they are going somewhere. Mandrakes just hate being rushed. Maybe we could just ask them nicely to walk into a larger pot?" Harry turned to a nearby mandrake, whose greenish-purple leaves were poking up from the soil. *Hello! I'm Harry. I am so sorry to disturb you in your restful state, but you seem to be getting a little squished in there. There are some larger pots over here, if you would care to move to a bigger pot.*
Professor Sprout stared at Harry. "Why are you making that peculiar sound, Mr. Potter? You sound like a rustling leaf."
Harry smiled. "Oh, I'm just talking to the mandrakes."
"Talking to the mandrakes?" Professor Sprout just gaped at him.
*A bigger pot?* came a small leafy voice from deep inside the soil. *Sounds like an excellent idea; it's getting very crowded in here. Some of my brothers and sisters have rather sharp elbows, which makes it hard to get proper rest down here.*
*You are one to talk, Ththffth,* muttered another underground voice. *You can't sit still for more than a month without wriggling your toes and poking a fellow in the hip. If you keep squirming like that, you are going to Uproot For Good and become Human.*
A hush fell over the mandrakes for a long moment after this horrible prediction of doom. Then Ththffth whispered: *So, there are bigger pots nearby, you say? With good soil?*
*That's right.* Harry nodded, even though the mandrakes couldn't really see him, of course. *Professor Sprout has prepared some beautiful roomy pots for you so you don't have to be quite so crowded. Do you wish to see your new living quarters?*
A silence followed, and then there was a stir among the leaves, as if a faint wind had swept through the mandrakes, and a few small wrinkled faces peered cautiously out of the soil.
"The mandrakes!" wailed Professor Sprout. "Oh, no! Children, put your earmuffs on right away! Plug your ears!"
"But they are not crying, Professor." Ron was gazing at the small soil-smeared faces in fascination. "In fact, they are looking sort of cheerful." He swallowed. "We are not going to ... you know... cut them up, are we? My brothers said that they had taken Herbology before and... "
"Of course not!" Harry was shocked. "I know your brothers say some strange things to tease you sometimes, Ron, but that's the most bizarre idea I've ever heard. Cutting up mandrakes! No one would do something like that. What a horrible thing to say!"
"Erm." For some reason, Professor Sprout was flushing bright red now. Then she emitted a small squeal. "Oh, good heavens! What are those mandrakes doing?"
"Walking over to their new pots, of course." Harry smiled. "They are ever so pleased with their new homes."
The children stared in silent wonder as the mandrakes climbed slowly out of the soil, stretched a bit and continued at a leisurely pace towards their new homes, humming a little rustling leaf-song to themselves as they walked.
*Thank you so much, my friend.* Ththffth bowed a leaf politely at Harry as he walked by. Then he paused and glanced at Harry in consternation. *Oh, no! You seem to have lost your leaves, sir. By the Soil, you look like one of the humans! So sad... Would you care for a prophecy to cheer you up?*
Harry shrugged. He didn't really have much use for a prophecy, but he didn't want to be rude, and he knew that mandrakes were very proud of their prophetic powers. *Sure, that would be very nice.*
*Ahem.* The mandrake fluttered his leaves impressively and cleared his throat. *Ready? Here we go:
Hidden lies his wounded soul,
splintered through the darkest art.
No charm or spell can make it whole,
except the magic of your heart.*
*Oh.* Harry stood still for a moment, pondering the strange words of the Mandrake. Something about the verse - perhaps the part about "a wounded soul" - made him think of Tom, and of Shard. *Thank you. That was quite lovely.*
*Any time.* Ththffth rustled a bit, obviously pleased with the compliment. *You know, if you should ever feel the need to settle down a little, sir, there is a nice empty pot right next to mine...*
*I will keep that in mind,* smiled Harry.
...
Harry stayed after class for a bit, tending to Professor Sprout, who didn't seem to be feeling well.
"The mandrakes can talk," she muttered over and over. "And one of them stopped to greet you, Mr. Potter! And here I was, all these years, teaching the children that mandrakes were plants, to be used in potions!" A tear trickled slowly down her face. "Oh, Merlin help us!"
She looked so heartbroken that for a horrible moment Harry really began to wonder if there had been some truth to what Ron's brothers had said about cutting up mandrakes. He shuddered.
It took a bit of Cheering Magic to make Professor Sprout feel better, but by the time Harry left, she was petting the mandrakes' leaves tenderly and promising to look after them better in the future.
By the time Harry found his way back to the Slytherin dormitory, Basil had already decided to take the matters into his own hands (figuratively speaking, of course, since he didn't have any hands) and meet Harry's friends.
"There is a snake in your bed, Harry!" Draco informed him the moment he opened the door to the dormitory. For some reason, he did not seem terribly pleased at this exciting news.
"He seems to be very found of sausages," said Ron, petting the little basilisk fondly on the head. "Friendly little fellow, isn't he?" Basil licked the last remnants of sausage grease off Ron's hand and hissed contentedly. Harry could see Basil's stomach bulging out at interesting angles, and he could tell that Ron had been very generous with the sausages.
"It's been hissing and carrying on as if it owns the place." There was a slight note of complaint in Draco's voice.
"Well..." Harry scratched Basil thoughtfully on the head, "I suppose that he does own the place, in a way. He said he used to belong to Salazar Slytherin, and this is the Slytherin dormitory, after all."
His words were greeted with a stunned silence.
"He used to belong to Slytherin?' Ron withdrew his hand quickly, much to Basil's dismay. "But Slytherin lived ages ago! Snakes don't live that long, do they?"
"Oh, he's not a regular snake, Ron." Harry beamed at his friend. "He's a basilisk. I think they live for a really long time. I found him down in the Chamber of Secrets, next to the huge statue of an sad-looking old man with a beard."
"This is Salazar Slytherin's basilisk-?" Draco stared at Basil with something resembling awe now. "From the legendary Chamber of Secrets? Just... Just wait till my father hears about this! They didn't have anything like this in the Slytherin dormitory when he went to school!"
Blaise Zabini frowned. "But I thought basilisks were usually much larger than this, Harry. Are you sure he's a real basilisk? My second cousin's wife's ancestors used to have one in their dungeon, and I believe that theirs was quite enormous."
"Of course he's a basilisk!" said Harry eagerly. "Basil was a lot bigger when I found him, but I used some shrinking magic. I also dimmed his vision a bit so he won't turn people to stone all the time."
"Ah." Blaise looked rather impressed. "Too bad my cousin's wife's family didn't think of that. They had some casualties over the years, I believe."
*And too bad Salazar himself didn't think to use some of that Night and Mist Magic on my eyes,* chuckled Basil sleepily, curling into a ball. *Then we could have avoided that whole unfortunate accident.*
*Accident?* asked Harry curiously.
Basil rubbed his head lazily against Harry's hand. *Salazar was not a bad wizard, and he spoke Snake very nicely, but we had a little bit of a run-in one day. I said something about his friend Rowena looking rather tasty, and he took it completely the wrong way and started screaming at me. I informed him that I wasn't going to let some human tell me what I could have for lunch, and one thing led to another. Instead of shrinking me down to his size, Salazar decided to use his magic to make himself my size, and we had a bit of a shuffle..." Basil sighed. "Too bad. I was rather fond of him, in a way, in spite of his absurd attachment to that female.*
*What happened, then?* Harry stared at Basil.
The basilisk squirmed a little, obviously ill at ease. *Well, it was an accident, more or less. You know how one's temper can run away with one sometimes? Well, the long and short of it is... I'm afraid the giant statue of Salazar Slytherin down in the Chamber of Secrets is... well, not really a statue.* He looked down. *I mean, who wouldn't glare a little when someone turns into a giant and tries to attack you? I did feel quite bad about it for many years afterwards, although Salazar did have himself to blame for it, really. Erm... I would of course appreciate if you did not mention that unfortunate incident to your Slytherin friends. Sort of embarrassing, the whole thing.*
Harry shook his head slowly. *All right, Basil. I won't say a word. But you do have to work on controlling that temper.*
...
As soon as all the other boys were asleep that evening, Harry pulled out his diary and began writing to Tom. At first, Basil was a little jealous and hissed a few nasty things at Tom, but when Tom explained that he himself was a descendant of Slytherin's and a great admirer of snakes, Basil began warming up to him. Harry had to translate what Tom wrote for Basil, of course, since the basilisk didn't read Human. But then Tom had the excellent idea of trying to write in Parseltongue, so both Harry and Basil could read it. As far as Harry knew, no one had ever tried to write in Snake before, and all the writhing chains of ssssSsss looked very weird on the page. Before long, all three of them were laughing so hard that they had to use Silencing magic not to wake up the rest of the dormitory.
Hours later, as Harry was finally drifting off to sleep, with Basil wrapped around his head and the diary open across his chest, Basil hissed softly in his ear: *Your friend Tom is actually rather charming. Even if he does seem as strangely obsessed with you as Salazar was with Rowena...*
Harry was too sleepy to answer, so he just closed his eyes and smiled. For a moment, it almost seemed as if the diary was thumping slightly against his chest, as if a heart was beating against his own.
...
"So you missed potions class yesterday because...?" Professor Snape was staring blankly at Harry and ran a hand warily through his hair. Harry admired Snape's hair tremendously; it was black and smooth as a cormorant's wing.
Harry sighed and tried again: "Because I went to see if Professor Lockhart was all right after the pixies crashed through the window, and then I heard someone speaking Snake in the plumbing, and I walked through the marble of the misty girl's bathroom, and Mr. Malfoy's diary fell out, and the words became a beautiful boy with curls, and I shrank the basilisk and gave him an apple, only he seems to like sausages better. He's in the Slytherin dormitory now, resting."
Snape blinked slowly. "Mr. Malfoy is resting in the Slytherin dormitory?" He sounded very confused.
"No, the basilisk is resting in the Slytherin dormitory," explained Harry patiently. "But he is small now, so he will fit under my pillow."
Snape ran a hand over his forehead. He looked very tired. "There is a basilisk under your pillow?"
"That's right!" Harry beamed, relieved that the potions master was finally understanding him. "And he's very sorry about turning Slytherin to stone, but he wouldn't let him eat Ravenclaw, and he's got a bit of a temper."
Snape looked baffled again. "Eat Ravenclaw? I don't quite follow... Oh, never mind, Harry." He sighed deeply and muttered to himself. "I suppose you are speaking the truth; even your blasted godfather couldn't have come up with a fib like that..."
"Godfather?" Harry was curious. "What's that, professor?"
Snape rubbed his temples as if the subject was almost too painful to contemplate. "A godfather or godmother is a person appointed by the parents to look after their child in case something left them unable to care for the child, a guardian of sorts. A godfather is supposed to watch over the child, protect him, and keep him safe. Most parents would naturally choose someone mature, stable, and sane for this responsibility, but your deluded father, for reasons no one will ever understand, instead chose his old school friend Sirius Black. Even their homicidal wolf friend would have made a better godfather than that! I have always wondered if James didn't imperius Lily to make her go along with such a preposterous suggestion. And then they even trusted Black with the secret of their hiding place..." Snape's voice sank to a whisper.
"I have a godfather called Sirius Black?" Harry looked up at Snape in wonder. "How wonderful! I have never heard about him until now. Where is he? I want to find him right away."
"You will not find Sirius Black," said Snape curtly. "That cruel villain is finally where he belongs, Harry. In Azkaban."
"Azkaban?" Harry loved the sound of the name; it sounded like an enchanted faraway land. "Where is that, Professor?"
Snape's pale face was emotionless. "Azkaban is a prison, located on a small remote island in the North Sea. Black is locked up there, and will remain there till the end of his days for what he has done. He was secretly devoted to Lord Voldemort, Harry, and he is the one who told the Dark Lord where to find your mother and father..." Snape's voice trembled. "He will stay there, imprisoned behind those stony walls, until the day he dies. Too bad, in a way. I would have liked to see him, just so I could tear him limb from limb." Snape got up abruptly and turned his back to Harry. Harry couldn't see his face, but he saw Snape's shoulders shaking slightly, as if he was crying silently to himself.
"Oh." Harry didn't know what to say, so he just patted Snape's back gently and left the teacher's office.
Harry's heart was hammering in his chest as he walked towards the Slytherin dungeon. He had a godfather! What a wonderful surprise! Of course he had Leaf, who would always love him like a parent, and Twig as well - but to imagine that there was another guardian out there, one who had been chosen by his fist parents! And this mysterious godfather seemed to love Voldemort, just as Harry himself did! Harry could feel something warm stirring in his heart, just thinking about Sirius Black. How he would love to meet him!
How strange, though, that Snape seemed to dislike him so! Oh, well - Harry was sure that he himself was going to like his godfather very much. But for some reason, Sirius Black was trapped somewhere, on a distant island. Harry realized that he had to go there right away and help his poor godfather.
He reached down and patted the diary in his pocket gently. "We are going on a journey, Tom!" he whispered excitedly. "To a distant place called Azkaban!"
Tom stirred moodily in the diary, and Harry could sense that for some reason Tom was not very thrilled about going to Azkaban and freeing poor Sirius Black.