Hello and welcome to chapter thirteen of The Memento!
I'm sorry it too me so long to get this one out, hopefully the length helps make up for the long wait!
I've had a crazy month and a half that started with a mild ear infection and flu that left me trembling as though I'd been dunked in the Arctic ocean; followed by fatigue, muscle weakness, uncontrollable weight loss, a swollen thyroid, and a great deal of blood-work; and ending in a diagnosis of Graves Disease (hyperthyroidism). Fortunately I've started medication for it now and feel much, much, much better. In fact, I feel even better than before my symptoms kicked in, as I think it's been causing me to suffer a mild form of insomnia for years that kicked my energy levels way down for the amount of hours I was (trying to) sleep.
As always I'd like to give a huge thank you to everyone who favourited or followed this story, as well as to Gime'SS, Trougue, Akatsuki's Kyuubi, Ecomonococo, DuchessBatCat, Cat Beats, Millie, Cered, CrazyFanYaya,Rayne Arianna Maranochi, AnoraMakani, Love Faith Embers, SuperSaiyanTeemo, and Sam est classe for all your amazing comments!
And so we begin the fabled potions master chapter! Look close enough and you'll see a couple homages to the Harry Potter video games! :D
~Chapter Thirteen: The Potion Master~
The worry Harry felt when he contemplated his first Potions lesson turned out to be both well founded and not applicable. In fact, as he ghosted back to the common room late that evening, he concluded it had been one of the best things to happen to him thus far — which was saying a lot as it had also left him utterly perplexed and questioning things about himself he'd never before thought to question.
His housemates would have disagreed with his sunny disposition — having had an all-round terrible day themselves — but fortune was on Harry's side for once as they still refused to speak to him, and so there was no one to rain on his parade.
After his enlightening (and frightening) conversation with Fred and George the night before, Harry took their advice on appeasing the giant blood-drinking, point-stealing dungeon bat to heart. He arrived at the door to the laboratory as the clock-tower tolled the start of morning break — well in advance of the rest of his class. His memory of the hateful glare he'd received during the start of term banquet had grown darker and more ominous the closer he drew to the dungeons, and he was determined not to give Snape an opportunity to dock points right off the bat.
As it turned out, he arrived a little too early and was nearly bowled over when a sandy-haired seventh year with bleary eyes and green-trimmed robes pulled the door open and stepped through. So intent on grabbing a bite to eat from the Great Hall before his next class, he missed seeing Harry, whose most rebellious spike of hair was barely tall enough to become tangled in the lacing of his overcloak.
Fortunately, they had enough early-morning reflexes between them that neither ended up on the floor, though the bridge of Harry's nose throbbed from where the frame of his glasses had dug into the cartilage. There was a moment of confused apologies as a crowd gathered behind the Slytherin and peered around his shoulders for the source of the hold up.
They weren't sure what to make of the small, wild-haired child with a bulky satchel slung over his thin shoulders and a cauldron packed full of ingredients floating serenely at his side. They all recognized him as Harry Potter, and the more astute among them could even guess why he was standing outside the potions laboratory a full half hour before the start of his lesson.
No, it was the cauldron that stumped them.
"Is that a levitation charm?" the Slytherin at the head of the line asked. He stared at it in utter bewilderment, aware the first years wouldn't start on that charm until well into October.
Harry, who'd been expecting a fierce scolding, melted in relief that no one was yelling at him for being in the way.
He glanced between the cauldron and the young man. " Uh... probably?" he said, provoking a wave of dubious frowns from the gathered seventh years. He felt obligated to try and explain.
"It's just… it was really heavy, and there are so many stairs between here and the common room."
There were nine flights, to be exact. Some of which moved at inopportune moments — like the instant before he stepped onto a landing, leaving him dangling over a fifty foot drop. Navigation was a trial even with the shortcuts he'd learned from the Weasley twins. Doing so with a twenty pound cauldron over one shoulder and a five pound bag over the other had proved enough to turn his legs into wet noodles before he'd made it more than thirty meters from the Fat Lady's portrait.
He saw a Ravenclaw girl nodding her head in agreement. The Ravenclaw common room was located in a tower even taller than Gryffindor's, and she well understood the pain of running from one end of the castle to the other before her first class of the day.
Seeing he still had their attention, Harry continued, "I thought my arms were going to fall off, so I told myself it was floating. And, well... I must have really wanted it because it hasn't stopped yet."
To demonstrate, he prodded the cauldron with one hand. It drifted a couple inches, slowed to a crawl, then halted.
"I'm not even sure how to get it down," he admitted.
He'd tried several times upon arriving at the bottom of the stairs, but a nagging voice in the back of his head had pointed out that if it stopped floating now he'd be in a pickle. He'd need to either carry it into the classroom later, or break the promise he'd made to himself not to flaunt his wandless magic when his classmates were there to bear witness. However, if the cauldron was already floating when they arrived they'd be none the wiser, and as a result, his de-levitation attempts were halfhearted at best and the cauldron remained buoyant as ever.
Understanding dawned on the faces of several seventh years, but before they could say anything a voice, all silk and venom, slithered over their heads.
"What are you all still doing here?" it asked in a tone promising a swift death to everyone between it and a strong mug of tea. "Class is over. Move along."
Harry shoved his cauldron out of the way and pressed himself flat against the wall as the students surged forward, none of them willing to anger the owner of that deadly voice. Harry caught a glimpse of the man as he swept past, black robes billowing around him like smoke, and Harry was again reminded why he wanted to stay on Professor Snape's good-as-possible side.
The classroom door swung shut behind the Professor and a lock clicked into place, resigning Harry to wait out the break at the base of the narrow, curving staircase. He sighed, and started to slump to the ground, when he realized that the sandy-haired Slytherin had remained behind.
"May I try something?" he asked, motioning to Harry's floating cauldron and drawing a long mahogany wand from his sleeve. A silver badge on the lapel of his cloak caught the flickering torchlight and gleamed bright as a beacon, but Harry's eyes remained glued to the wand.
Harry tried to weigh his options, but the young man's expression was pleasant and he didn't look untrustworthy — which was a novelty considering his experiences of late — so he nodded his consent.
The young man crouched down and took the cauldron by its handle before tapping it with the tip of his wand.
"Finite," he intoned. The cauldron shuddered then sagged in his grip, no longer floating. He set it down next to Harry's feet, tucked his wand away, and stood up. "There," he said. "Now you'll be able to use it for brewing."
"Thank you," Harry replied, ducking his head as a warm feeling bubbled up in his chest. It was nice of the young man to help him, and it gave him hope that there might be some people in the school who didn't hate him on principle.
The Slytherin caught Harry's chin gently between thumb and forefinger, nudging it up until he had no choice but to meet his gaze.
"Keep your head up," he said.
With that encouraging remark the young man left.
Harry rubbed his chin and wondered if this meant the older students hadn't joined in the hysteria dogging the parselmouth rumours, and if the light at the end of the tunnel was approaching faster than he'd anticipated.
Harry was still wondering half-an-hour later when the clang of a heavy object barrelling down the stairs announced the first bump in the road of what had been an otherwise pleasant morning.
He pressed himself back against the wall as a cauldron ricocheted around the bend, spewing potion ingredients hither and thither, before it crashed against the door with enough force to leave them both sadly dented. It wasn't the first dent the door had received, Harry realized as he peered closer, but the cauldron was otherwise pristine in its newness.
Feet thundered down the stairs and Harry was almost trampled again as Ron and Neville burst around the corner in pursuit.
"My cauldron!" Neville cried in a mix of despair at the damage and joy at having found it in one piece at all. A heavy bag tugged on his right shoulder as he tottered over and scooped the cauldron up. Ingredients crinkled beneath his palms — the fragile dried herbs and flowers crushed as he struggled to shove them back inside. He was so focused on reclaiming his scattered possessions that he didn't notice Harry until he turned around and they came face-to-face.
Neville froze and the colour drained from his cheeks faster than Uncle Vernon's patience. He stammered something that may have been a "hi," or "hello," but by that point Ron had decided he needed saving and blustered over. He pushed Neville aside and glowered down at Harry, whose height once again left much to be desired.
"This is your fault, isn't it?" Ron said, jabbing a finger into Harry's chest.
Harry bristled, the lingering warmth from the upperclassman's kindness surging through his veins and infusing him with courage. His fingers flexed then curled into claws as Ron repeated the jabbing motion, catching him between ribs.
He'd had enough — enough of Ron's arrogance — enough of his wagging tongue. He slapped the offending hand away hard enough to break skin and leave the redhead with four pink lines running from wrist to thumb.
Ron staggered back and stared in disbelief as drops of blood blossomed along the back of his hand. Having grown up with five older brothers he was used to playing rough. Between Charlie practicing to wrestle dragons and the twins' cruel sense of humour, he'd been put through the wringer ever since he was old enough to crawl out of his mother's sight. There was little mercy for the boy on the lowest rung of the familial ladder, but he'd never been hurt intentionally.
Not physically, at least. His mum had extracted oaths from the lot of them after the teddy-bear debacle that left him terrified of spiders great and small.
Looking into Harry's bright green eyes he saw a feral gleam that made no such promises.
Ron deflated and might have backed down if the rest of the Gryffindors hadn't rounded the bend in the stairs. They looked between the three of them with a mix of curiosity and apprehension. The girls had heard of the confrontation in the dorm, but none of them had dared sneak into the boys' wing to get a look at the damage before the house elves set everything to right. Now it seemed a new fight was brewing, one which they would bear witness to — for good or ill.
With the threat of losing his status as a dorm-room hero looming over his head, Ron propped himself up for a second round. "You used magic to make Neville drop his stuff, you slimy snake!" he said.
"Snakes aren't slimy," Harry retorted. "They're actually quite rough."
"You would know, wouldn't you? Since you sleep with them."
Ron, whose many older brothers had — at times inadvertently — introduced him to such subjects, thought this to be a very clever insult. Harry, whose knowledge of the subject was more practical thanks to his schooling and Basil's stories of serpentine wrestling matches, took him literally.
"The same way you sleep with Scabbers?" he asked, referring to Ron's old grey rat who seemed to live on his pillow.
This caused Ron to flush bright red. "It's not the same!" he said, drawing his wand and waving it about. "Take that back or I'll curse you yellow!"
If Ron had thrown a punch he might have won. Years of conditioning had imprinted the futility of fighting a larger opponent so deep in Harry's psyche that he no longer had any control over when his body locked up.
Magic was a whole different story.
Harry's wand sang as he whipped it out, eager to prove it was as powerful as its brother. He gripped it tight — praying that the spell he'd learned from his book on curses and counter-curses would work — and pointed it at Ron's chest.
"Right then!" Ron said. "Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow—"
Harry didn't wait for him to finish. He jabbed with his wand, using what Professor McGonagall had taught him about coordinating his timing, and shouted, "Flipendo!"
A bolt of blue light blew Ron backwards. He slammed against the wall with a breathy oomph and then slid to the floor in a heap, clutching his ribs and moaning pitifully. Beside him, Neville was deathly pale and looked like he was about to be sick into his cauldron.
The girls shrieked while Seamus and Dean rushed to Ron's side and hauled him back to his feet.
Ron took several rasping breaths then staggered free of his friends' grip. His face was the same bright red as his hair, and there was a vein throbbing in the side of his neck as he readied his wand once more. Seamus copied him, brandishing his wand like a whip while Dean reluctantly followed suit.
It would have turned into a full-blown melee if Harry hadn't received some rather unexpected reinforcements.
"Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow?" drawled Draco Malfoy as the Slytherin first years shouldered their way down the crowded stairwell. "That's the most pathetic curse I've ever heard Weasley. Does it even work?"
Ron opened his mouth, ready to shout something in his defence when Draco cut him off with an upheld hand. "No, don't answer that. It's too early in the morning to be subjected to that level of stupidity."
Harry drew into himself at the sight of Draco, almost missing how the other boy flashed him a quick smile.
It seemed he'd been fretting over nothing.
"Shut up, Malfoy!" Ron said, making the mistake of brandishing his wand at the Malfoy heir. Instantly, every Slytherin on the stairs had their wands out and pointed at the armed trio.
"Would you like me to show you some real curses?" Draco asked slyly.
"I'm not afraid of you, Death Eater scum!" Ron bellowed.
It was his second mistake, and by that point both Seamus and Dean realized they were in for more than they'd bargained for. They slunk back to the main Gryffindor group, all of whom were shifting anxiously — unsure whether they should get involved when in most cases their spell repertoires were limited to the lumos charm.
A girl standing beside Draco bared her teeth, a low hiss whistling through a small gap where a baby tooth had recently fallen out. Her hand quivered as it clenched around the handle of her wand hard enough to split wood.
"Too much, Pansy," Draco warned, his voice low.
Pansy forced her painted lips back together, a false calm sliding over her face like a mask. A thickset girl in the second row pressed a hand on her shoulder. Their eyes met and Pansy nodded.
"You should be afraid," Draco said, projecting for all the Gryffindors to hear, his wand trained on the crease between Ron's brows. "After all, only a fool would face off ten against one without knowing any decent spells."
Ron stiffened, and Harry could tell he was trying not to look away from the wands trained on him. He struggled for a heartbeat, but in the end nerves won out and he glanced over his shoulder. When all he found was a ghastly ill Neville pressed into the corner he realized how badly outnumbered he was and the blood drained from his face. He wet his lips with his tongue, faced with an impending decision between cowardice and hospitalization.
"You know," said Harry. "I think I'd much rather eat a dead chicken than a live one."
The tension in the stairwell shattered as the others turned to him in confusion.
"What?" said Ron.
Harry blinked owlishly. "You called them 'Death Eater scum'," he replied. "But when you think about it everyone eats dead things. Bacon and pork chops used to be pigs, roast beef used to be cows, and bread used to be wheat."
Ron was staring at him open-mouthed, so Harry pressed on. "You're a Death Eater," he said. "We're all Death Eaters."
No one said a word until Pansy murmured, "I've never heard that one before."
"Wait!" cried a chubby Gryffindor girl with dirty-blond hair. Her face held an expression of horror. "Roast beef comes from cows? Like, real cows?"
"Of course it does, Lavender," replied Hermione Granger, shaking her mane of bushy brown hair. "Where did you think beef came from?"
This revelation seemed too much for Lavender, who burst into tears and had to be comforted by her dorm mates.
Ron took the lull in open hostilities as an opportunity to get out of his unwise challenge. "Whatever," he said, "I don't have time to deal with this. Come on, Neville."
The two of them slunk up the stairs, where Ron almost lost his own cauldron as Goyle lurched to the side and shoulder-checked him into the wall. Neville whimpered and ducked past as soon as Goyle was out of the way. He retreated out of sight, tail tucked between his legs. Ron limped after him.
The Slytherins watched them go even after they'd vanished from Harry's sight. A dark skinned boy made a rude gesture with his hand whose meaning was unmistakable even in the wizarding world.
Once their ire had passed, Draco settled against the wall beside Harry, his back pressed into the oily film coating the bricks. He gazed straight ahead, watching the others silently squabble over who would get to stand nearest to the classroom door.
Harry picked at the hem of his sleeve, unsure of how he should greet a possible-friend after having spent the week avoiding them.
Apologies were, no doubt, in order.
He clenched the fabric between his fingers, needing something to hold on to as he whispered, "I'm sorry."
Draco raised his right hand and knocked the knuckles gently against Harry's forehead, making him flinch.
"Took you long enough," he replied, a long-suffering smile pulling at the corners of his lips. "Here I was worrying I'd need to barricade you in Professor Snape's storage closet to get a word out of you. Did you honestly believe we weren't friends just because that weasel decided to run his mouth?"
It was exactly what Harry had believed, and he dropped his gaze, embarrassed at his lack of faith.
Once bitten, twice shy was a saying that had ruled Harry's life up to receiving his Hogwarts letter. Betrayal after betrayal had led him to cast away the first part and proceed immediately to suspicion.
His experiences in the wizarding world hadn't done much to change his views thus far.
"I just…" He searched for the words to explain the despair and suffocating loneliness that had gripped him Monday morning, but Draco interrupted him.
"You don't need to make excuses," he said. "No one here expects them. You owned your actions. That's all that matters."
Harry pressed his lips together, all too familiar with that rule. His relatives didn't like excuses either. Unfortunately, he'd never been able to figure out the difference between an excuse and a reason. In the end it was safer and easier to keep his mouth shut. So he didn't try to explain his feelings to Draco, even if they'd been the reason behind his abandonment.
They fell into a companionable silence, and Harry took the opportunity to study the children across from him.
Pansy had set her cauldron on the step at her feet. She was picking at the nail-polish on her left thumb, sloughing off slabs and flicking them to the ground, where they mixed with the clumps of dirt and sandy grit meant to keep the steps from growing as slick as the walls.
She looked up, sensing that she was being watched, and then quickly turned her head aside.
"Pansy Parkinson," Draco whispered in his ear, having noticed the direction of his gaze. "Weasley's lucky she didn't curse him. She's had her wand since she was nine and knows more spells than anyone in our year. I saw her hex a man's eyes out once!"
"Why?" Harry asked, sure she must have had a good reason to do so. "Who was he?"
Draco rubbed his left shoulder. "Some low-life halfbreed looking to make a quick galleon."
Harry didn't understand, and after a moment of tense silence Draco surmised that living among muggles hadn't prepared him for the realities of life as the heir apparent of a well-to-do family.
"He tried to kidnap me," Draco said. "I'd… become separated from my parents at Diagon Alley. Quality Quidditch Supplies had received a shipment of Comet 360s and they were putting up a display in the window…" he trailed off as a grin pulled at Harry's lips. "What?"
"You wandered off."
Draco huffed. "Even if I did, it doesn't make him dragging me off okay."
That was a given. "What happened next?"
"Pansy happened, that's what. He had one foot past the alley's apparition wards when his eyes popped out and started bouncing around my head like bloody yo-yos. Apparently, she'd recognized the family crest on my cloak and hit him with the first debilitating spell that came to mind."
"You'd never met her before then?"
"No. Our families weren't allowed to associate because her father is—" Draco cut himself off, and cast a nervous look Pansy's way. She continued to pick at her thumb, oblivious to their whispered conversation, and Draco sighed in relief. "I shouldn't be the one to tell you about that," he said, and Harry accepted that it would remain a mystery unless he befriended the girl himself.
Everyone had secrets, he was no exception. It wasn't his place to butt in and demand answers neither Draco nor Pansy were prepared to give.
"What about the others?" Harry asked, eyes skimming the rest of the children across from him. He didn't recognize any of them — which wasn't surprising as his focus during the Sorting Ceremony had been patchy at best. "Do you have exciting stories about them too?"
"I wouldn't call almost being kidnapped exciting," Draco muttered even as he leaned in conspiratorially. "The boy to the left of Pansy with the bags under his eyes is Theodore Nott. We've known each other for years. He used to be cheerful, if you can believe it, but when his mother died a few years ago he shut down completely. Won't even answer my letters. Now all he does is read and be generally unsociable."
He looked at Harry pensively. "Maybe you could talk to him. You know, since you've both lost… parents."
Harry raised one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. "I don't remember my parents at all. I'm not sure I could say anything that would make him feel better."
And yet, looking across the way at the reedy, dark-haired boy, there was a niggling in Harry's chest — a sense of wrongness coiling beneath his ribs — that whispered: look deeper, not everything is as it seems.
Straining, Harry looked.
The boy slumped against the wall, shaggy black hair falling in his face in jagged, feathered spikes too asymmetrical to be deliberate. Beneath his fringe, a pair of bloodshot eyes dragged themselves over the page of an old yellowed book propped open on the lip of his cauldron.
His outer robe was crumpled and had several long creases running its length. While the fabric was of good quality wool, there was a spattering of dried mud on the hem too old to have come from a romp around the loch at first light.
Surrounded by children like Draco, who had not a hair out of place, Theodore looked as though he'd crash landed from a different plant. Even Harry fit the proper schoolboy mould better than he did, which was astonishing to Harry who'd never looked proper before this in his life.
"What's he reading?" Harry asked, eyeing the book, which he didn't recognize from their course-mandated texts.
Draco shrugged. "I never got a good look at the cover. He found it in the library yesterday and hasn't put it down – even to sleep."
Harry wasn't the only one curious. The tall boy with dark skin and the sly eyes of a fox leaned in to read over Theodore's shoulder. He inadvertently cast the page into shadow when his head passed in front of an alcove holding a flickering torch.
Theodore swiped at him without looking up, catching him on the cheek and forcing him back to his own step. The tall boy shrugged at the girl standing above him and grinned, exuding charm. She giggled and her cheeks flushed pink.
"The one who looks like he stepped out of an article of Witches Weekly is Blaise Zabini," Draco whispered. "He's had more stepfathers than Weasley has brothers, none of whom came to a good end. The girl he's smiling at is Daphne Greengrass – who should know better."
Far above them, the bells ensconced deep within the rafters of the astronomy tower began to toll the hour.
The temperature in the stairwell plummeted. Clouds of vapour plumed from their noses and mouths as Professor Snape swept into their midst. He reached the door as the tenth bell sounded and pivoted on his heel to survey their pale faces.
"When I open this door, you will follow me to the storeroom in a calm and orderly manner," he said without preamble. His voice was barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word. "Once there you will wait, silently, for further instructions. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, Professor," they chorused, Harry taking cues from the young Malfoy at his side.
Snape looked doubtful, but loath as he was to let them into his classroom, he couldn't keep them out forever. Turning back to the door he pressed his palm against the pitted wood and paused. "Oh, and Mister Longbottom?"
Neville gulped. "Y-yes, sir?"
"Ten points from Gryffindor for damaging school property." He pushed the door open and vanished inside, leaving them scrambling to collect their heavy cauldrons and bags from where they'd deposited them.
Harry needed both arms to wrangle his cauldron high enough to get a good grip on its swollen metal belly, and even then he couldn't move faster than a crawl as his knees wobbled beneath its weight.
He struggled and puffed to the front of the queue, filing through the doorway behind Draco, whose physique was as bad as Harry's for lifting heavy objects.
Yet, Draco wasn't one to suffer the indignity of a red face and sweaty brow. He'd once again managed to pass off that task to Goyle, who was lugging a cauldron in each of his meaty fists as though they were packed with down feathers rather than half a garden's worth of plants, insects, and miscellaneous amphibious body parts.
They passed into a hub ringed by eight doors. Seven of them were labeled numerically, while the eighth had Storeroom printed in sensible letters across its face. It was to the latter door Snape led them, before he unlocked it with a complicated flick and shimmy of his wand.
When Harry thought of storerooms, he thought of the small crowded closets Dudley was so fond of locking him in during their primary school days. He was expecting mops, pails, and vats of cleaning products — or perhaps rows of jars overcrowding rickety shelves, like the apothecary in Diagon Alley. What he got was a cavernous expanse of hardwood panelling and the fragrant smell of sandalwood.
The room had eight sides. Seven were lined with tall wooden lockers, while the eighth held the door and two curving staircases that led to a balcony. Beyond the balustrade Harry could see yet another set of lockers. In the centre of the room was a thick pillar built of drawers, the highest of which were only accessible using one of the two ladders set in tracks round its base. The ladders were each equipped with a wicker basket and pulley, so students could transport their supplies up and down safely.
"Welcome to the student storeroom," Snape said once they'd gathered before him and set their gear back down.
"Each year of students has been granted a wall of lockers. You will share your locker with one of your classmates until the end of fifth year, at which point many of you will not be coming back. Until that joyous day, you will brew potions and complete group assignments with your locker partner, so I suggest you choose them wisely once I'm finished speaking, Miss Brown!"
Lavender, who had started quiet negotiations with her dorm mates the moment he mentioned partners, cringed and snapped her mouth shut.
"You will store all your potion ingredients here," he said, his black eyes narrowing as they swept over the ashen-faced students before him. "Even the ones you'd rather I not know about. If you order fresh ingredients half-way through the year you will bring them here. If you receive ingredients as a gift you will bring them here. If I catch any of you brewing so much as a pepper-up outside your designated laboratory I will see you in detention for a week.
"Common ingredients, or ingredients needed in bulk, are provided by the school. These are found in the central pillar behind me, listed alphabetically. I expect you to treat these supplies with respect. Anyone found tampering with or intentionally wasting them will be charged the full cost for their replacement." He paused to let the threat sink in.
"Admittance to this room is restricted outside your assigned class period," he continued when no one raised any objections. "That being said, if you have a burning need to access your stores at some other point during the week, you may try to book an appointment with me. I also grant general access to this room from noon until five every second Saturday.
"Your lockers are those on the third wall moving clockwise from this point. You and your partner will put away all but one cauldron and your potion preparatory supplies. You have ten minutes. Begin!"
Chaos broke loose amongst the students, and Harry was jostled as people made a run for the lockers. "Upstairs," Draco said in his ear, and Harry looked at his cauldron doubtfully. The Gryffindors had come to the same conclusion he had, and had taken off towards the lockers on the main level, not willing to risk another flight of stairs.
Draco was unconcerned. "Crabbe, grab this for me," he said to the second burly boy, who was standing next to Goyle while they waited for Draco to decide where he wanted to go. Crabbe grunted his assent and picked Harry's cauldron up, and this time Harry didn't complain about the unfairness of using the other boys like pack mules.
He followed Draco up the leftmost flight of stairs. "Are you excited for our first class?"
Draco skipped up the last three steps and twirled around to face him. He was beaming. "Of course I am! Potions are amazing! A lot of wizards look down on them, but they can do all sorts of things that are impossible with spells."
"Like what?" Harry asked, curious. A lot of what he remembered from their first year textbook was about treating potion-induced injuries like boils, rashes, and the occasional bout of insomnia.
"Well, there's the Wolfsbane Potion that keeps werewolves from going berserk when they transform," Draco said, counting off on his fingers. "Felix Felicia that makes you so lucky everything will go your way until it wears off, and the Polyjuice Potion that lets you turn into someone else for an hour!"
"That does sound pretty neat," Harry said as he crested the last step and fell in beside the blonde, who'd started counting the walls until they reached the one with their assigned lockers.
"Of course it does!" Draco replied. "And the best part is that you can use a potion even if you can't brew it yourself. Licensed Potions Masters like Professor Snape can make a small fortune brewing healing potions on the side for St. Mungo's Hospital. Some of them even accept owl-orders from private individuals!"
"Do you want to be a Potions Master when you grow up?"
Draco's cheeks flushed. "Maybe… My father wouldn't like it though. He wants me to go into politics, like him and grandpa."
"Politics?" Harry echoed, thinking of election campaigns and waiting in long lines for his aunt and uncle to cast their ballots — except he'd never understood why as Britain had a Queen who couldn't be voted out, and having an additional government on top of that was a bit superfluous.
Then he wondered whether witches and wizards were subjects of the monarchy, as he hadn't yet been forced to stretch his vocal chords in a shaky rendition of God Save the Queen. Did the Queen know she had a conclave of magical peoples potentially swearing allegiance to the crown? If she did, she was very good at keeping secrets.
He snapped out of his musings when Draco cleared his throat. The blonde had the pointed look of someone waiting for a response, and Harry scrambled to remember what they'd been talking about before he was sidetracked. Something about Draco's father wanting him to follow in his footsteps.
"You've never mentioned your grandparents before," Harry said, evading asking Draco to repeat himself. "Are you close with them?"
Draco shot him a look that said he knew exactly what he was doing, but let it go. "They died before I was born. Casualties of the war…" he trailed off, words hanging between them, unspoken, but Harry knew how the sentence ended.
Casualties of the war… just like your parents.
"I'm sorry," Harry said, guilt rising in him unbidden.
"You don't need to apologize for something you had no part in," Draco said, stopping in front of their row of lockers. From beneath their feet came the rustle and thunk of the students below stuffing their lockers full of supplies. He ran his hand along the thick wooden door. "It isn't like I remember them," he said wistfully, and Harry understood full well that not being able to remember someone didn't stop you from wanting to.
They studied the available lockers in silence, neither willing to carry on a conversation that had quickly turned depressing. They were the first to reach the upper landing, and while the rest of the Slytherins were filing up behind them, they had first pick.
They walked along the row, subdued as they opened each door and peeked inside.
The lockers were three feet wide and twice Harry's height. They were split in two sections, the bottoms were open with a pair of pegs on which they could hang their cauldrons when not in use, while the tops were a series of shelves and cubic cubbies.
When they reached the final locker and pulled open the door, Harry knew immediately that this was the one he wanted.
A homemade wire rack hung at chest height, tucked between the bottom shelf and cauldron peg, that would keep their glass vials from knocking together or falling over. One of the locker's previous owners had written labels in a neat, flowing hand and affixed them to each cubby.
There were a great many names Harry didn't recognize, and he wondered whether this locker had once belonged to an upperclassman — perhaps one who'd gone on to be a Potions Master, like their Professor, or like Draco hoped to one day be.
Draco must have mirrored his choice because he waved Crabbe and Goyle over.
"Put our cauldrons here," he instructed.
The two burly Slytherins set down their cauldrons without a word and trundled off to find their own lockers.
Draco had also chosen to pack his ingredients in his cauldron rather than his bag, and he now bent down to retrieve several neatly wrapped packages. He held them up to the light pouring down from an unseen source set back into the wall above the lockers, read their labels, and then slipped them into the correct spots on the shelves.
"I wish I was working towards a goal," Harry said, reaching up to run a finger along the label for mugwort. "But I don't know what sort of jobs are out there, and I doubt anyone would want to hire a…"
Draco's eyes narrowed speculatively and Harry could see the cogs in his head turning. "A what?" he prompted, fishing none too subtly.
The word stuck in Harry's throat, so he bent down to retrieve one of his own packages. It was the width of his wrist, and beneath the waxy brown paper he could feel a thick, knobby root. He brought it to his face and took a deep breath, smiling at the sharp tang of ginger that tickled his nose.
Draco huffed in annoyance at the delay. "I believe the word you're looking for is parselmouth."
So he'd heard after all.
Harry nodded, his heart sinking toward the floor. He braced himself, waiting for a palm to thrust against his shoulder as Draco pushed him away.
It never happened.
Thin fingers reached for the ginger still clutched in his hands and pried it free one digit at a time. They carried it up, and Harry's gaze followed, transfixed as they deposited it on a shelf next to Draco's own ginger root.
"Not everyone thinks badly of parselmouths," Draco said as he drew back his hand, a small smile on his lips. "Some of us even admire them. I do."
"What did you just say?" Harry asked weakly, not trusting his ears. It had sounded as though Draco looked up to him for being able to speak to snakes… but that couldn't be true.
"Don't make me repeat myself," Draco said, voice flat. "I know you heard the first time — and I expect you to keep that to yourself. There's no shortage of people who'd blackmail me if it became common knowledge."
Harry's eyes filled with tears, and he pushed up his glasses to wipe them away.
To be admired, not for his role in a war he couldn't remember, but for who he was – parseltongue and all… it made his chest ache with happiness and relief and gratitude that someone was willing to look beyond his past.
"Thank you," he said, voice shaking. "Thank you."
Harry threw himself into organizing, feeling better than he had in a long time.
He'd wanted to work with Draco, but had never expected it to happen. Draco was confident and well versed in the wizarding world — unlike himself. The young pureblood had grown up among friends like Crabbe and Goyle, and while they weren't the most academically inclined individuals, they were familiar and their friendship wouldn't require any extra effort to maintain. There was no reason he should choose Harry over them… but he had, and for the first time in his life Harry wasn't that partner the kids at school were stuck with because everyone else was accounted for.
They made a game of identifying their ingredients by sight and smell alone, and while Draco won most of their exchanges — as he was far more familiar with plants used in the wizarding world — Harry scraped together a handful of points for herbs and flowers he'd tended in his aunt's garden.
Harry laughed as he mistook newts' eyes for pomegranate seeds. The sound was so infectious that soon Draco was chuckling as well, teeth flashing and eyes scrunched with mirth.
"Wormwood," Draco said, tossing Harry a loosely wrapped packet. Harry pulled up one corner of the brown paper and peeked inside at a pile of bitter smelling silvery leaves.
He wrinkled his nose, which brought on another fit of giggles. "I think the lady two houses down from us had some in her garden," he said, placing the packet away.
"What was a muggle doing growing wormwood?"
Harry rolled his eyes as he dug through his cauldron, carefully nudging supplies aside until he found a promising package. "Using it to divide orange nasturtiums and purple pansies so her eyes wouldn't bleed each time she looked at the flowerbed," he replied, holding the package under his nose. He paused a moment, then sniffed again. "Tarragon."
Draco arched a brow as Harry tossed him the package. "Tarragon," he agreed before tucking it away.
Before they could begin the next round, Pansy Parkinson poked her head around the edge of the neighbouring door. "Did someone call me?" she asked.
"Only if you're a small purple perennial," Draco said.
The girl sniffed and stepped around the end of her locker door. She towered over them, and when Harry glanced down at the hem of her robes he caught sight of a pair of kitten heels. "I'll have you know that I look fabulous in purple. It matches my eyes." She batted mascara-dark lashes Draco's way.
Draco didn't miss a beat. "Harry, this is Pansy Parkinson," he said, motioning to the girl as he formally introduced them. "Pansy, Harry Potter."
"It's nice to meet you," Harry said, taking the initiative to hold out his hand.
A moment later he wished he hadn't.
As their palms brushed Pansy jerked away, arm bending at the elbow to tuck behind her head. He was left grasping at nothing, embarrassed and ashamed to have fallen for the fake out.
Pansy's partner — a stocky, strong-jawed girl named Millicent Bulstrode who could have been Crabbe or Goyle's sister if not for the spark of intelligence gleaming in her eyes — guffawed, drawing the attention of the ever-nosy Slytherins with them on the landing. The other students paused their organizing to peer over at the small group.
"Pansy!" Draco said, the alarm in his voice prompting Crabbe and Goyle to drop several packages and rush to his side. They took up flanking positions behind his shoulders. "What did you do that for? Do you want Harry as an enemy?"
In the silence that followed they could hear the low snarl of Professor Snape's voice tearing into a Gryffindor as she pleaded with him about her locker situation.
"Some might call you a traitor," Pansy said to Draco. "Befriending a Potter."
"A Potter who is also a parselmouth!" he insisted. "A Potter who has Dumbledore's sheep eating from the palm of his hand… when they aren't running away screaming in terror." He glanced at Harry. "No offence meant."
Harry shrugged. It was, unfortunately, true.
"Imagine what you could accomplish with a friend like that. One who shared your vision for the world. You could keep our culture from degrading, or restore a name from infamy." A sly expression slid onto his face. "Or even free something long locked away."
Pansy froze mid-eye-roll. "Do you have any proof he's a parselmouth?" she asked, her previous disbelief tainted with reluctant optimism.
After giving such a passionate speech, Draco wasn't willing to admit he was flying on a hunch. He grit his teeth, grey eyes pleading for backup, and Harry found himself in a most unhappy predicament.
The majority of his classmates would ignore him if he were a parselmouth, while the Slytherins, it seemed, would ignore him if he were not.
He'd be an outcast either way… yet even outcasts could have friends.
"I'll prove it," he said defiantly, straightening to his full height. "I'll prove I can speak Parseltongue!"
"Just like that?" she asked, startled. "No bargains or delays? No vows of secrecy?"
"You should ask for the vow," Draco advised in a low whisper. Harry stepped away from their locker, putting himself in the middle of the balcony. He shook his head.
"Everyone suspects me already and pretending to be something I'm not is exhausting. I may as well get it over with."
The Slytherins crowded around him, suspicion riding their brows as he gathered himself, spine too straight and hands buried in the thick fabric of his cloak.
"What should I say?" he asked.
Draco hummed thoughtfully. "How about… Slytherin is the best house?"
Harry concentrated hard. He still wasn't sure how to switch between English and Parseltongue, but he'd done it easily enough with Basil. He brought up a memory of her coiled at the foot of his bed, watching as he practiced magic in the dimly lit interior of his cupboard.
"Slytherin is the best house."
Blaise scoffed. "You call that parseltongue?"
Harry's shoulders drew up defensively and his face grew hot. "I can't tell when I'm speaking it!" he protested, frantically trying to remember all the times he'd spoken Parseltongue, and how they were similar.
The answer struck him like a bolt from the blue. He turned to Draco. "Let me see your crest."
The boy looked down at the breast of his overcloak, where the Slytherin crest lay. "Go ahead?"
The mascot of Slytherin house was a serpent, and on the crest a small green snake curled in a backwards letter 's'. Harry bent his head down until the crest was right in front of his nose. He heard some of the others sniggering, but he ignored it and focused on imagining that the embroidered snake was alive.
He took a deep breath and Spoke. "Slytherin is the best house."
He knew he'd done it right this time when the Slytherins burst into frantic murmurs.
"Merlin!"
"You really are!"
A bossy voice lanced over their heads from outside the circle. "What a curious language," it said. "Can you say anything else?"
They turned to see a girl with a mane of bushy brown hair and red-trimmed robes. Her arms were crossed and a full cauldron rested at her feet.
It was Hermione Granger.
"Is anyone up here missing a partner?" she asked, looking them over critically. "Only, there's an even number of students and everyone downstairs is already accounted for."
She looked straight at Harry, and he had to fight off the urge to raise his hand even though he already had a partner — one he was more than happy with. He knew what it was like to be the person who was never chosen. He wouldn't wish that on anyone, but in this case there was nothing he wanted to do to try and fix it.
None of the Slytherins admitted to being partnerless, and Harry saw them count themselves to make sure the girl hadn't been mistaken. She beat them to it.
"There are eleven of you. And Professor Snape was very clear when he told me everyone needed a partner!" She looked bitter at having to search for a partner among the Slytherins, and Harry wondered if she was the one they'd heard arguing with the Professor when Pansy faked him out. If she was, then she was either a great deal braver than himself or had substantially less instinct for self preservation.
On the right side of the slowly disintegrating circle around Harry, Theodore Nott looked horrified. His cauldron, easily spotted due to the book still perched on its lip, was all alone in front of one of the lockers.
The girl perked up at the sight of the lone book-bearing cauldron. She darted over, and before Theodore could stop her she'd picked up his book, glanced at the title, and then flicked it open to the thin strip of etched leather the scruffy pureblood had been using to mark his place.
He marched up to her, all signs of fatigue vanishing, his arm extended. "Did your parents not teach you to keep your hands to yourself?"
"This isn't your book," she said, holding it up and pointing to the large red and white 'Property of Hogwarts Library' sticker affixed to the back cover. "And my parents taught me quite well, thank you very much."
He took in her black running shoes and the synthetic fabric of her satchel. "Thereby proving that muggles are only moderately more civilized than the average troll."
The Slytherins jeered at the girl, who tossed her head haughtily. "My parents say that only people with low self esteem insult others."
"Then you must have a low opinion of yourself, because your refusal to return my book is insulting."
She snapped it shut and shoved it into his hands. "No need to be rude! I love reading. You must too if you have a book like that."
Theodore didn't say anything as he clutched the book to his chest and shouldered her aside, bending down to lean it against his cauldron.
"My name is Hermione Granger, by the way."
"I don't care what your name is, just go away…"
"But were partners!" she protested, making Theodore groan. He looked up at Harry with a 'why did you have to go and mess up the numbers and get me stuck with her' sort of look, and Harry hoped they'd both survive the year.
No help was forthcoming from Theodore's housemates, who were torn between amusement at his plight and ill-disguised disgust at — Harry assumed — the girl's brash personality.
He could only ponder this for a moment, as on the floor below them Professor Snape was watching the minute hand on an old pocket watch tick forward, and was growing tired of the delay.
"If you would all finish unpacking some time this century," he called. "I still have a lecture to give."
His cold reprimand snapped them back to reality and they remembered they were technically in class, and that it wasn't wise to try their professor's patience.
They rushed through the last of their organizing — accompanied by a great deal of grumbling from Theodore, who'd ended up stuck with Hermione after all — and then rushed down the stairs, where they found Snape and the Gryffindors waiting for them.
Pansy caught Harry's shoulder during the stampede. "I apologize about earlier, it was petty of me. No hard feelings?"
This time she was the one to hold out her hand.
Harry shook it, preferring to make the girl an ally rather than an enemy. If she was as frightening as Draco made her sound, then he didn't want her casting curses his way.
Snape didn't look impressed at their lallygagging, but he wouldn't reprimand his house in front of the Gryffindors, so settled for a short glare before leading them back through the hub and into laboratory one.
Their classroom was long and squat, befitting its location in the dungeons, with heavy wooden tables in place of desks and stools insidiously shaped to keep their backs ramrod straight. The walls were bare except for dark green chalkboards, while the porous ceiling shimmered like oil on water — rainbows imprisoned in Hogwart's deepest cell.
"This way," Draco said, leading Harry to a table right in front of Snape's desk.
Harry would have preferred to sit at the back, but he set down his cauldron and fished out Magical Drafts and Potions and One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi. He wasn't sure the latter text was required for the class, but after Dudley's aconite misadventure he felt more secure having it on hand anywhere he had to deal with potentially poisonous plants.
Snape had a roll of parchment in his hands. "When I call your name you will answer, aloud. Now…" He started the call, working his way down the list until he reached Harry's name.
"Ah yes," he said. "Harry Potter. Our new… celebrity."
The natural rivalry between Gryffindor and Slytherin had divided the room in two — the Gryffindors on the right, as far away from Snape as they could get; and the Slytherins on the left. His eyes scanned the Gryffindor tables and his lips curled.
Well, Harry mused, it was better than some of the other titles bestowed upon him over the years. "Present," he said as loud as he dared.
Snape's head whipped around. "Are you lost, Mr Potter?" His voice was deadly soft.
"No?" Harry replied. He jumped when Draco elbowed him in the side and then quickly corrected himself. "No, sir."
Snape's expression was unfathomable as he finished the roll call. He banished the scroll to his desk with a flick of his wand and then began to pace back and forth across the front of the room.
"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion making. As there is little foolish wand-waving in this class, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses…" He paused next to a large cauldron tucked in an alcove and waved one pale hand through the thick green fumes rising from its surface.
"I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, and even put a stopper in death — if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."
His steps brought him back in front of his desk. He whirled on Harry, slapping both hands on the table as he leaned close. From this distance Harry could see Snape's yellow teeth, and he could smell formaldehyde lingering on his billowing black robes.
"Potter! What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"
Harry fumbled through what he remembered of his texts and came up blank. "I don't know, sir," he said.
"Tut, tut — fame clearly isn't everything." Someone sniggered on the far side of the class and Snape looked gleeful, like Christmas had come early. "Thought you wouldn't open a book before coming, eh, Potter? Let's try again. Where would you look if I told you to find a bezoar?"
Harry's heart gave a panicked flutter before he realized he knew the answer to this one. "In the stomach of a goat, sir," he said. Then, feeling a bit bolder. "You use it to cure most poisons."
Snape's eyes flashed dangerously. "I know what it's used for!" he snapped. "Once more! What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?"
Harry's heart leapt with relief. He knew this one too! "They're the same plant, sir. Also known as aconite." When Snape didn't reply Harry decided to press his luck.
"They're very poisonous. Large doses cause instant death, and the poison can be absorbed through your skin if you're not careful."
The Potions Professor was staring at him as if he'd grown another head. "You're certain of your answer?" he asked, trying to trick Harry into changing his response.
Harry glanced around the room. The rest of the class was riveted, watching with the intensity of fans at a big football game. "Yes, sir." He met Snape's eyes again. "You see, my cousin picked some this summer. He and my aunt had to go to the hospital."
"And… did they recover?" Snape didn't look like he cared either way, so Harry went with honesty.
"I don't know, sir."
"You don't know?"
Harry shrugged. "They didn't come back before I left for the train, sir."
Snape didn't say anything for a long moment, and Harry stared into the man's black eyes with as much conviction as he could muster. To his relief, Snape soon straightened and resumed his pacing.
"As Mr Potter has so eloquently explained," he drawled. "A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and will save you from most poisons.
"Monkshood and wolfsbane are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite.
"What he didn't know is that asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. Well? Why aren't you all copying that down?"
Unlike Professor McGonagall, Snape didn't allow them a break after his in-depth demonstration on proper cauldron safety and ingredient preparation. No one minded, as they'd been forced to run through the evacuation drill five times over before he was satisfied most of them would survive if anything went catastrophically wrong.
Neville tended to trip over empty stools on the way to the door, while Crabbe and Goyle gleefully used their bulky frames to block the Gryffindor students inside until Snape — in spite of his favouritism towards the students of his house — ordered them to stay behind after class, which in Slytherin-speak equated to at least one detention spent scrubbing cauldrons.
They'd taken the drills seriously after that.
"I don't think your head of house likes me much," Harry whispered to Draco once Snape finally set them to mix up a simple potion to cure boils over an hour and thirty minutes into the class.
"Don't be so sure," Draco whispered back. "I think you impressed him by answering those questions. Most times no one does."
Harry shook his head. He knew animosity when it was directed at him, and though he'd caught Snape off guard when he answered some of his questions correctly, there was still something not at all friendly in the man's eyes. Thinking back, it had been there at the welcoming feast as well, before he'd felt a stab of pain in his scar… at least the pain hadn't returned.
He peered at the blackboard, where the brewing instructions were written in a small, cramped hand. "We need horned slugs, dried nettles, snake fangs, and porcupine quills," he said, trying to ignore that the fangs would have come from snakes who'd once been very much alive.
"Why didn't you tell me about your cousin picking monkshood before?" Draco asked as they joined the train of students making their way to the supply room. "That was hilarious. Serves those muggles right!"
"I don't like talking about them… They aren't very nice people."
Draco looked curious, but to Harry's relief he didn't push. "Fair enough."
They retrieved their supplies and got to work. An hour later they were well on their way to producing a finished potion, and Harry was enjoying himself in spite of Snape stalking between the rows, criticizing their efforts. He was especially hard on the Gryffindors, though he didn't seem to know what to do with Harry. This was, no doubt, due to the fact he couldn't say anything negative about Harry's potion-making skills without it reflecting on Draco as well.
"You're surprisingly handy at this for someone who's never brewed a potion before," Draco remarked as Harry prepared their porcupine quills, grinding them to a fine powder with his pestle and mortar.
"Well, it's a lot like cooking." And it was, apart from the specific count and direction for stirring, and that it made a large difference whether you diced or chopped the ingredients.
"You can cook?" asked Pansy from the table behind him.
Draco looked scandalized. "But that's servant stuff!"
Harry smiled faintly at them before turning back to his work. He'd reduced the quills to a gritty brown powder and, deeming them done, set them aside. "My relatives made me cook for them all the time. I can make all sorts of things."
"Can you make pie?" asked Pansy. She sounded genuinely curious.
"Yes. Strawberry-rhubarb, and apple, and mince."
Pansy sighed. "My grandmother used to say the mark of a proper lady was the ability to make a decent pie. She was so old fashioned."
"So muggleborn, you mean," said Theodore from the table to Pansy's right. He'd given up trying to work with Hermione, who seemed more than happy to do it all on her own, and was once again reading his book. He scribbled down notes on a scrap of parchment every once in awhile, brow furrowed in consternation at its contents.
Pansy smacked his arm with her ladle in response. He sighed and calmly requested that she not burn holes through his robes.
Draco cackled. "Hear that Harry? You're a proper lady."
Harry rolled his eyes, having gained more silly epithets that day than he knew what to do with. No response came to him, so he checked their hourglass instead. "We're at the five minute mark."
Draco turned a dial at the base of their burner, extinguishing the bright blue flame.
Harry waited patiently for the potion's surface to still. The instructions on the board stated that it had to be taken off the heat before adding the porcupine quills, and he didn't want to risk ruining their work by rushing. When the last of the bubbles quieted he carefully poured the powdered quills into the cauldron. Draco was manning their ladle and stirred five times clockwise as soon as Harry was out of the way. The potion turned from brown to deep purple, and the steam rising from its surface took on a rosy hue.
Draco was grinning as he withdrew the ladle. He tapped it against the cauldron's rim to shake off extra droplets, and then set it aside.
"The colour looks right," he said, checking it against his text. "Though that's hardly a surprise with me as your partner."
Harry ignored his smug tone. Now that they'd finished brewing his mind was free to wander. It went back to their conversation in the storage room and the longer he pondered it, the more questions sprang up. Draco didn't seem the type to risk his neck on a whim, not without the promise of personal gain. He'd granted Harry permission to call him by his first name, which implied that they were friends of a sort, but Harry was in Gryffindor, not Slytherin. Even with the boons he'd pointed out to Pansy, were they enough to risk facing his schoolmates' ire?
"Hey, Draco..." he said, plucking up his courage.
Draco didn't look up from his text, but he tilted his head in Harry's direction to show he was listening.
"Why were you so sure I was a parselmouth?" That caught his attention, and behind them Harry heard Pansy and Theodore's bickering die as they leaned in to eavesdrop.
Draco pursed his lips and tapped his index finger against the table. "My father says that no matter how farfetched a rumour is, it always contains a shard of truth," he said eventually. "I already knew you had a snake, so when people started whispering that the famous Harry Potter had set one on his roommates, I knew it was likely true." Harry opened his mouth to protest — he hadn't set Basil on anyone — but Draco was picking up speed.
"Then I remembered you whispering to yourself on the train. It sounded strange, more like hissing than proper English. It didn't seem important at the time, but then I thought: what if he wasn't talking to himself?" He shrugged. "It was still a bit of a leap, of course. Father wasn't aware of any parselmouths in the Potter line, and it couldn't have come out of nowhere."
Draco's reasoning was sound considering the circumstances, but it was the last bit of his explanation that stuck with Harry. "Why would it matter if I'm the first Potter to speak parseltongue? I thought the ability was the mark of a dark wizard."
"If that were true, parselmouths wouldn't be so rare," Draco said. "There are plenty of dark wizards about, even here in Britain, but only those descendant from the Slytherin bloodline can speak to snakes."
Harry tucked his toes against his stool's crossbar and leaned back, eyes unfocused as he pondered this new information. It was a relief to find another person who didn't believe speaking to snakes was evil, even if he hadn't done anything to dispel Harry's worries over being a dark wizard. From what he'd learned of the Slytherin founder from the twins, the man was considered quite dark, and if he'd passed that along to his descendants with his other abilities…
"Wait a minute!" He bolted upright and had to catch himself on the workbench as he nearly went too far the other way and toppled onto the floor. He fixed Draco with a wide-eyed stare. "So you're saying that only people who are part of the Slytherin family can speak parseltongue?"
Draco smirked. "Yes."
"Which means… I must be a Slytherin!"
It was as though he'd been presented with pieces from two different puzzles and told to make them into a whole — nothing fit together. Neither of his parents could have been descendants of Slytherin; the Potters had no history of producing parselmouths, and his mother was born to muggles. Unless, of course, one of his parents wasn't really his parent. The thought made his head spin.
"That's what it implies," Draco said, looking pleased that Harry had caught on so quickly. "But the real question is how. The family is supposed to be extinct. The last living member would have been—"
"Voldemort!" Harry exclaimed rather louder than he'd intended.
If Harry hadn't been in the middle of an identity crisis he would have found the chaos that erupted in the wake of his utterance hilarious. Every child who grew up in a wizarding family jerked as if stung, some of them letting out startled squeaks or cries. Ladles and silver paring knives slipped from nerveless fingers and clattered to the floor, potions turned black as they were stirred in the wrong direction, and a loud splash announced Fay Dunbar's mortar falling into her cauldron.
Snape, who was watching the ruin of his class with a profound grimace, swooped to her desk, scattering Gryffindors like leaves before a storm, and cast a containment charm in time to keep the potion from spewing mud brown froth over half the dungeon.
The Slytherins, many of who had been following Harry and Draco's conversation, fared better than their Gryffindor counterparts, though there were still many bruised elbows and knees from where they'd collided with the hard surfaces of the workbenches.
"Merlin, don't just shout out his name for all the world to hear!" Draco hissed.
Harry came back to himself and looked around in bewilderment. "Sorry," he said meekly. "I just... do you think I'm related to him?"
Draco scanned the class, ensuring that the bulk of the students were still distracted by their own woes before confiding, "The Dark Lord never took a wife, but that doesn't rule it out as a possibility."
Harry slumped in his seat. "I don't understand. Even if Slytherin founded your house, why would you want to work with someone who could be related to Vol—" He caught himself before he sent the room into another fit. "To the Dark Lord?"
Draco picked at a chip in one of his manicured nails, feigning disinterest, but Harry could see grey eyes watching him from beneath lowered lashes. "Only those loyal to his cause call him the Dark Lord," he said, voice bland. There was a gasp from behind them, and Harry turned to see Pansy staring at Draco in alarm.
"But you call him..." Harry trailed off, his mouth dropping open. "Oh," he breathed as the implications sunk in. Draco had all but admitted to supporting Voldemort's ideals, and if Harry had any idea what those were he might have found enough heart to protest. As it was, he couldn't fault Draco for his choice, and looking around his green-clad classmates he wondered how many of their families had fought alongside the Dark Lord. How many had also lost parents, or siblings, or cousins to the war? How many more would have died if the fighting dragged on another year? Another ten years?
"Enough chatter!" bellowed Snape, making the students jump again. "Potter, twenty points will be taken for distracting your classmates." Harry opened his mouth to protest, but the vicious look on Snape's face made the words stick in his throat.
The Potions Master stalked toward him, gait smooth and predatory as he wove between the desks without taking his eyes from Harry's frozen form. Harry fought against the urge to cower as the man leaned in close again, barely managing to hold his ground.
"Be glad my classroom is intact," Snape hissed. "Else I would have taken enough points to set Gryffindor into the negatives."
Harry shivered at the thought of what his housemates would do to him if he set them into last place for the House Cup. Tensions were already running high in the common room — a betrayal of such magnitude would likely push them over the edge and land him in a world of pain.
"I understand, sir," he said. "I won't let it happen again."
"Don't make me empty promises, Potter," Snape snarled, revving up for a rant that he was sure would put the misplaced Gryffindor into tears.
He never got to deliver it.
In the back row, Seamus's cauldron erupted in clouds of acid green smoke. There was a hissing noise, a startled yelp, and then the Gryffindors jumped up on their stools.
Neville had somehow managed to melt Seamus's cauldron into a twisted chunk of metal. He was groaning pitiably — the potion had drenched him from the waist down and angry red boils were springing up on one of his hands.
The Slytherins burst out laughing. Harry, still in the shadow of his professor, didn't dare make a sound in case it further incited the man's ire. He wouldn't have laughed anyway, those boils looked painful, and Neville had been kind to him before everything started to spiral. Even if there was no chance of them moving past their current hostility, he would honour those few hours of companionship for the precious gift they were.
"Idiot boy!" Snape snarled. He let Harry be in favour of striding over to Neville and Seamus's table, clearing the spilled potion away with a wave of his wand as he went. "I suppose you thought it wise to add new ingredients to a ruined and volatile potion?"
Neville whimpered, now bent double in pain.
"Take him up to the hospital wing," Snape spat at Seamus. Then he rounded back on Harry, glaring as if this was all his fault — which it sort of was. He must have failed to come up with a new reason to take points, because he stalked back to his desk, slammed a roll of parchment down, and took up his quill.
"You have ten minutes remaining!"
Harry looked to Draco, who was still giggling, and held out a pair of small glass vials for their submissions. The melted cauldron at the back smelt terrible, like something had curled up and died, and he wanted to be out of the classroom as soon as possible.
Draco accepted a vial and clinked it against Harry's. "Cheers."
~End Chapter Thirteen~
And so the confusion around Harry's parentage begins! Suitably enough on Father's Day (at least it still is in my time zone).
Also, a host of new characters are introduced! I'm quite pleased with the interactions between Hermione and Theodore especially - in the original draft the tension between them was no where near as obvious, which bothered me horribly. And Pansy's a badass. I'm not entirely sure where that part came from, but kind of like it. :)
For all the Basil fans, I've been contemplating whether to bring her back into the story sooner rather than later. It wouldn't change all that much as I've reached the point where my outline is still super flexible, and I miss her silly asides!
So, which of the new characters are your favourites? Shall Basil make a rapid reappearance? And perhaps most importantly seeing as how this is the potions master chapter - what did you think of Safety-Guru!Snape laying down the law?
See you all next time!
~Theine