A/N: Yes, that was a ridiculously long time. I'd pretty much abandoned this story for a while, but then I got a new beta, SynFoNi, who motivated me to post this chapter.

Chapter 19 - Neville Longbottom

Hmmm. Difficult. Very difficult. A small voice said in his ear. Harry almost jumped up in surprise. Tom hadn't mentioned that the hat talked.

Though that was more likely due to the fact that the hat didn't need a conversation with Tom to determine his house – Harry could swear that the hat was still dropping when it started screaming Slytherin.

Ahh, yes, your friend. A pure Slytherin that one is. You take after him rather strongly and you are a snake-speaker as well…

Gryffindor, Gryffindor, Harry chanted in his head, trying not to think that Tom would never know if he had asked the hat to put him in Slytherin.

You ask for Gryffindor, despite what you want. Perhaps my first thought was wrong – you have the ambition, the cunning, and the thirst to prove yourself – but all of that is driven by loyalty. You have no ambition for yourself, and your only desire is to prove yourself to your friend. Not quite the strongest work ethic, but you have more than enough loyalty to make Helga proud. Perhaps Hufflepuff is the place for you.

Before Harry quite had a chance to think up an argument against Hufflepuff, the hat spoke again.

But in Gryffindor there would be chances to heal the rift that has stayed between the houses since Slytherin left, a rift that has only grown wider since your friend's time at Hogwarts. A rift that was not meant to be in the first place.

And in the end, you have all the characteristics of Godric's house, despite trying your hardest not to cultivate them.

Harry didn't have time to ponder the hat's words about Tom, or anything else.

"GRYFFINDOR!"

As he walked towards his new house's table, he noticed his sorting had received the loudest applause by far – the Weasley twins were shouting "We got Potter! We got Potter!" while another, older Weasley shook his hand when he got to the table.

He sat down in the free spot between Hermione and Neville and sat quietly, observing the way Tom had trained him to.

He grinned at Tom – he hadn't let Tom down. He briefly relayed his conversation with the hat. Tom seemed relieved and shot him a brief smile before he turned his attention back to his housemates.

Ron was sorted into Gryffindor – he seemed to have at least partially forgiven Harry for the incident on the train, shooting him a smile before sitting a few chairs down.

Harry tried to decide if he was happy to be at Hogwarts or if he'd rather be home with his family.

On one hand he was at a magical school. He would soon be learning proper magic. He was surrounded by people who he might potentially make friends with, people with whom he might have more in common with then Tom. People who didn't occasionally seem like they were on the verge of snapping and causing massive amounts of harm. People that weren't potentially a reincarnation of a Dark Lord that had killed his parents.

On the other – he couldn't care less who Tom was or how short his temper was. Tom was his best friend and brother. Tom protected him and looked after him and gave him a family. No matter what, no other friend he would have would ever matter to him as much as Tom did.

He wanted to be back home, with the Mason's and the twins and Tom. He couldn't imagine that this school offered more happiness than sitting at dinner surrounded by his family.

These thoughts distracted him as Dumbledore made a speech and food appeared. He ate dinner without much enthusiasm, trying to fight of the encroaching homesickness.

He reminded himself of everything that Tom had told him, of how fantastic the school was. He reminded himself of how happy Tom was to be here. Everything was better when Tom was happy. He didn't have a headache, things didn't explode at random intervals… maybe school would make Tom more even-tempered. And if he got other friends, that didn't mean he cared about Tom any less – after all, Tom wanted him to make as many friends as he could. He began to cheer up.

He was paying only a bit of attention to the conversation on parents, when something Neville said made him jerk up.

Harry stared at Neville for a moment, slightly incredulous. "Your uncle dropped you out a window? That could have killed you!"

Neville still didn't seem to find anything unusual about that statement. He simply shrugged.

Before that moment, Harry hadn't realized what it meant, to be a Squib. He had never really considered what it had meant, that Julie had been abandoned and her memory wiped. He had just accepted it and moved on.

"What would your grandmother have done, if you really had been a Squib?"

Neville was horrified by the very thought. "I don't know," he stuttered nervously. "It would have been horrible though. My gram would have been furious that I'd disgraced the family name."

The people that said they'd grown up in magical households all nodded at that, as if it were an understandable idea. That being born without magic would be the worst thing that could possibly happen.

Hermione, on the other hand, was frowning. She didn't say anything, but she pursed her lips and looked like she was thinking.

He hid his fury at Neville's relatives. His tone was simply curious as he asked, "Did they do anything else to see if you had magic?"

"He pushed me off the Blackpool pier when I was eight. I nearly drowned, that time. Didn't do anything magical at all."

Harry stared at Neville and blinked. He sounded more upset at his lack of magic then at the fact that his relatives had tried to drown him.

Admittedly, Harry wouldn't have been very concerned or surprised if his aunt and uncle tried to drown him, but he had always assumed that that was something unique to his family.

He eyed the round faced boy again, two different thoughts passing through his mind towards the same purpose.

The first, lighter thought was simply one of sympathy and protectiveness. He simply wanted to look after the boy that didn't seem to have had much better relatives than his own, someone who'd be able to understand him. The very thing that made him follow Tom also made it hard for them to relate. Tom couldn't understand what Harry felt about his relatives, because no one had ever used him as a punching bag. Metaphorically, if someone punched Tom, they weren't just punched in return. They were kicked, knocked to the ground, and then pummeled with metal objects.

But Harry's second thought wasn't as innocent. It was a thought that could have come straight out of Tom's head. Neville would be simple to control – somehow, possibly the same way that Tom had instinctively known how to control him, he knew that Neville never had had a friend. And he knew personally what lengths a person would go to keep a friend when they had no other options.

This darker train of thought continued, as he looked at Hermione chatting with Percy about classes. The bushy haired girl probably hadn't had much in the way of friends either. And he wouldn't have to argue this one with Tom – convincing him that Neville was worth befriending might take a bit, but he would see the value of Hermione immediately.

He watched the students talking, analyzing all of them, trying to decide who was powerful and who wasn't, who would be easy to manipulate and who would be impossible to control.

Eventually, he had to give up. He wasn't Tom, he couldn't tell everything about a person from a single glance. He could see that Hermione and Neville would both be useful, but that was it.

…

Sudden searing pain shot through Harry's forehead as he looked at the teacher's table. The kind of pain that only happened when Tom was furious and not even attempting to control it. He glanced at Tom, afraid as to what he would see.

Nothing.

Tom was leaning back in his chair with a slight smirk on his face, clearly content with the situation. He watched Tom for another minute… but he could tell that there was no way that the pain had come from him.

He turned back to the table, puzzled. Only Tom had ever affected his scar before… he pondered that momentarily, but soon pushed it out of his mind. The sheer number of people that he was conversing with was slightly overwhelming.

He didn't get a moment of peace until he got up to the dormitories,

…

Finally, a moment of silence. Harry was sure that his bunkmates were asleep. He could hear their rhythmic breathing.

He prodded Sal awake – Sal had been sleeping, wrapped around his neck, for most of the day.

Both the snakes had been fed this morning, partially in order to make the trip easier on them. Neither Harry nor Tom wanted to keep them locked in the luggage – someone might search it, it didn't have much air, the snakes might get squished - but the snakes tended to grow uncomfortable if they stayed wrapped around an arm or neck, hidden underneath clothing, for long periods of time.

In the end, they decided that carrying them was the best option available – it was easier for someone to search their luggage than to search their person, and they'd always be able to drop the snakes so they could slither away if someone searched them, while in the luggage they'd be trapped and helpless.

Sal slithered down Harry's arm and on to the bed, hissing happily about finally being able to move.

Harry watched, fascinated, as the snake grew lighter and redder, blending in with his surroundings. This was something that Sal had only been able to do for the past couple of days. Tom theorized that Sal and Slyth were getting new powers because they were bonding with Parselmouths.

Initially, Slyth's and Sal's only magical ability was the ability to sense each others' locations and, at short distances, communicate mentally. In the month that Harry and Tom had had the snakes, they developed the ability to camouflage themselves, though imperfectly (Harry could still fairly easily tell that there was a snake on his bed), as well as the ability to communicate with each other much more clearly over longer distances.

Tom had told Harry that he was hoping as they learned more magic and grew more powerful, the snakes' abilities would expand even more as well.

In Harry's opinion, they didn't need to get any better. They were quite brilliant already. Especially now that Tom and Harry were staying rather far away from each other, the snakes were extremely useful for communicating.

He hissed to Sal, "How is Tom?"

After a moment, the snake hissed in reply, "He is well. He is going to sleep now and says you should too, so you are well rested for your first day of classes."

Harry smiled slightly. Not quite the same as spending time with Tom in person, it was still reassuring to have some kind of connection with him.

Tom often mocked him for worrying, saying that Harry was more likely to get himself killed than he was. It wasn't that Harry was worried about someone hurting Tom, exactly. More that he was worried that Tom would loose his temper entirely and harm someone else, and the potential consequences of that.

Harry yawned.

Tom had a point. It was time to sleep. He hissed good night to his snake and lay his head on his pillow, asleep within minutes.

Sorry about how it took me forever and a half to get this up - thanks to everyone who reviewed, sorry about not replying.

Thank SynFoNi for this chapter - without their help I would never have gotten this up. I expect to be updating again now, though I can't make any promises about the pace. I should have the next chapter up in at least a month, potentially a week or two.

Once again, sorry for the really long absence and thanks so much, everyone that reviewed. Sorry I kept you waiting for so long!

(Forgot to put this in the initial upload - I now have a wordpress, though not all the chapters are on yet, they will be soon, and will probably be getting chapters up slightly faster then on fanfiction. also, I'll probably be better at responding to comments there. snakesandlionsunite-dot-wordpress-dot-com