"Is there a reason you didn't mention to anyone that a dark elf assassin was after you?" Dumbledore asked from across his desk the next morning. Harry was once again in the headmaster's office, having missed his early Monday classes. His arm was still in a sling for safety, but seemed mostly repaired.

"Well, I don't think he's after me, sir," Harry explained. "At first we weren't totally sure whether he was after my aunt's boss, and then we didn't know he'd followed us from Midgard. But he told me last night someone tried to hire the Dahvee to kill me, and they said no. As crazy as he is, I think he's trying to protect me. He said something about being destined to do something for them."

"Hmm," the headmaster said, considering. "I shall have to consider this. I can well assume that someone in particular would want to hire assassins against you, and I wonder if whatever is going on in the school is their fallback plan."

"You think it's Voldemort's people, don't you sir?" Harry guessed.

"Perhaps. You did recently thwart an attempt likely connected to him. It's possible that individuals with enough money to hire elite assassins have decided you need to be removed from the board." He gave Harry a tired smile and suggested, "Please do inform us of anything else that seems important."

"I didn't hear the voice again before Colin," Harry slightly changed the subject. "But I was asleep and then I was distracted. So maybe I missed it." He gave it a moment, then tried, "What happened the last time?"

"Similar events," Dumbledore admitted. "Students falling unconscious and unable to be revived, with no clue as to the perpetrator. Until finally one student died, and we were about to close the school. At that point, a student was turned in for the crime, but I have never believed the accusation. Tell me, have you ever heard the name Tom Riddle?"

"It sounds vaguely familiar," Harry admitted. "Wait, isn't that a name on one of the school trophies in the trophy room? I thought it sounded strange."

"It is, indeed. It was a trophy awarded to a young prefect for turning in the supposed perpetrator of the crimes…"

Harry took a moment to try to figure out what the headmaster was telling him, then worked it out, "But if the person that got blamed was innocent… you think Tom Riddle was actually responsible, and framed someone else?"

"Young Tom was an orphan from London, a place which at that time was in the middle of constant bombing attacks from your Germans. I believe that even with his magic, he feared returning to his home during the war. And there is also the small matter of his full name." He flicked his wand to summon a bunch of what appeared to be Scrabble tiles from a bag. "An interesting Midgardian game…" The tiles formed on the edge of the desk to spell out TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE. Dumbledore flicked his wand again to cause the tiles to rearrange themselves into I AM LORD VOLDEMORT.

"The name of the scariest dark wizard on Vanaheim… is just a made up anagram?" Harry checked.

"That has been my supposition. Tom was always a troubled boy, though he put on a fine showing for the other professors and the headmaster at the time. He was a quick study of dark magic, and," he squinted at Harry as if making a decision to share a piece of information, testing a personal theory, and then finished, "I am fairly certain he possessed the ability to speak to snakes."

"Is that weird?" Harry checked. "I talked to a snake, once. Seemed nice."

"Have you now? Have you indeed?" Dumbledore smiled, his supposition vindicated. "It is a rare gift, being a parselmouth—one who can speak Parseltongue, the language of snakes. Because it is most common in the bloodlines of dark families, it is widely considered dark magic itself, though it is merely a magical gift like any other. I would suggest you do not reveal this power to those who might think less of you because of it."

"It will make people think I'm dark? Did my family have it?"

"Perhaps. The Potters were an old line, though I cannot prove they had such an ability, and it's also possible your mother's family had gifts we were unable to test. But, no, my simplest theory is that the power was passed to you during your defeat of Voldemort as a baby. To the victor, the spoils, and that can sometimes include magical talents."

"I hope I didn't get anything else from him," Harry frowned, though he thought the way Dumbledore had phrased that was a little odd. It sounded like it was entirely possible it was a Potter gift. He dropped that thought as he realized something, and asked, "Okay. So… wait… you think I'm hearing a snake, and that's why nobody else heard it?"

"It would simply sound like hissing to them," the headmaster nodded. "Unfortunately, suspecting that the monster is a snake gives us little enough information about how it's getting around without notice or triggering the school's wards."

"Plumbing in the walls?" Harry guessed.

Dumbledore shook his head, "While our lavatories give the appearance of being similar to Midgardian facilities, they are heavily-enchanted objects. There is no need for pipes to deliver water or remove waste, and attempting to install such would have been a monumental undertaking given the resistance of the castle's stone and its tendency to slowly rearrange itself."

Out of ideas, Harry said, "Well, if I hear any more snakes talking or anyone mention Tom Riddle, I'll let you know." He glanced at the red bird perched on the stand near the desk, as a feather fell out. "Your bird doesn't look so good."

Dumbledore smiled like the parent of a fine pet and explained, "Fjalar has recently returned from Niflheim by his own secret routes. He'll be in fine form again after more time in the world of the living, won't you, old friend?"

What Harry had taken to be some kind of hawk lifted his head and turned to face them. He suddenly looked much more like a rooster, though with large wings clearly capable of long flight. He fluttered those wings and made a trilling series of clucks with a whining crow at the end.

"He's a mighty bird, as long lived as any of the Aesir, and I'm glad to call him my companion," Dumbledore explained to Harry. "He's famous, you know. They say he's one of the birds whose crowing warns of Ragnarok. Anyway, at this point I'm keeping you from lunch. As you said, please keep me apprised of any more incidents."

Harry, despite his first inclination, was careful with whom he told about the Dahvee assassin, the attack on Colin, and what Dumbledore had shared with him. A large part of that caution was that the entire story involved revealing that he could speak to snakes, and the headmaster's warning that people might take that the wrong way. Ultimately, he only told Dean and Hermione, swearing them to secrecy. If he told any of the rest of the study group, it would make its way to Parvati and Lavender, and shortly be known by the entire school.

As much as he liked them, they were unstoppable gossips.

A few days later, during a cold afternoon practice outside, it was just Harry and his two best friends. Hermione mentioned, "We should trick Draco into telling us who the actual heir is. It could even be him."

Dean gave her a suspicious look and said, "It sounds like you already have a plan."

She grinned, explaining, "I heard about this potion that gives anyone access to the kind of illusion magic that normally only Aesir royalty can practice. It's said that Loki can disguise himself as anyone he's ever seen."

Harry was as skeptical as Dean was and asked, "So we'd just pretend to be one of his friends and say, 'Hey Draco, remind me about all this Heir of Slytherin business. It's you, right?'"

She lost her smile and admitted, "Well… we'd be more subtle than that. But basically."

"How hard is the potion to make?" Dean asked.

"Pretty hard. We'd need to get a copy of the book from the restricted section of the library. And it may require some obscure components. And it takes at least a month to brew, so we'd need to set up a brewing lab somewhere…" her expression continued to fall as all of that didn't win her any nods from the boys. "But I think I could do it," she finished, lamely.

Harry said, "Hermione. If you want to brew a hard potion, that's great. But you should do it for extra credit, not to try to trick Draco. I doubt he knows anything. He's an idiot."

"And we're not actually supposed to be investigating. That's pretty much investigating," Dean added.

Hermione huffed in frustrated agreement. "Fine. You're right. I just wanted to see if I could make it. It sounded neat."

"Actually…" Dean realized. "If you want to brew some advanced potions, why don't you find some that would be useful to us if we get in trouble? You know, like holdouts for spells we can't do?"

"That's… a really good idea," Hermione admitted, considering. "I don't know if I could make healing potions yet, but there are even some in the non-restricted books that would keep for a while and would work on Earth…"

While she was thinking about brewing up a utility belt for them, Dean asked Harry, "Did you get the pictures back from your aunt?"

Harry shook his head, "I just got the film canister from McGonagall a couple of days ago. It may be a while before I hear from Aunt Pepper."

It wound up taking even longer than he'd expected, and the message wasn't what he'd hoped.

It was several days into Vanaheim's Holy Month, or sometime in late November by Earth reckoning. Dean was really missing Thanksgiving, but all the American students were adjusting to the idea that they wouldn't see that again until they were done with Hogwarts. Hedwig dropped off a letter but no photographs. Written in Pepper's handwriting, it said:

First off, everyone's okay. Well, except for Obie, but it's his own fault. I wish the sorcerers had done more to him, but I bet they knew he was needed for that absolute time thing. Turns out it was him that got Tony kidnapped. He was trying to pay insurgents to kill Tony so he could take over the company. Long story short, Obie made his own suit of flying armor, Tony finished his, and they had a giant flying fight over LA.

Honestly, Harry, it was like one of those robot battles in your video games, only way scarier.

They blacked out LA blowing up the big arc reactor under SI (and that building is going to need a bunch of repairs). Then, like an idiot, Tony admitted it was him in the suit at the press conference after. (He painted the armor in Gryffindor colors, by the way. He must have seen the art on your notebook?) He's not in jail, but we've had to call in every lawyer we have. And the paparazzi is everywhere.

That's all to say, it may take me a minute to find a trustworthy photography studio for that film. Send Hedwig back in a week or two and I'll do my best. More importantly, you might want to stay at the school for Christmas. The media has definitely been trying to talk to families of anyone important in SI, and I don't want them to hound you. Plus we probably can't really go anywhere while this is going on. I'm sorry! We can try to figure something out if you don't want to stay. Maybe you can stay with one of your friends? I could email the Grangers, or write to Molly Weasley?

Let me know. Love you.

Pepper

Harry showed the letter to his friends at the breakfast table and Hermione admitted, "I don't have any context for this. Flying armor?"

Lavender said, "There's supposed to be a giant suit of animated armor that guards Odin's treasure vault?"

"I guess I can talk about it now, if Tony's let the world know," Harry sighed. "That was what I was helping him with over the summer, and why I was at his house when that elf attacked us. And how I was able to fight him off. Tony's basically made a wearable airplane." He checked with the Vanir at the table that they more or less understood what that meant. "It has super-high-tech rockets on the hands and feet, and machinery that you wear so you can carry all of that weight, and it makes you stronger. I guess after I left he strapped armor onto it, too."

"I want one," Ron said.

"It wouldn't work here," Harry shook his head. "It's completely powered by electricity. If he flew it into Vanaheim he'd probably be basically trapped in a metal coffin. I hope he put in the quick-release I suggested after I ran out of power."

"Wait, you got to wear this?" Dean asked.

Harry answered, "Just an early prototype. The hand and foot rockets and enough exoskeleton to let me carry everything. He's probably added a lot more stuff to the final version."

Everyone at the table was clearly fantasizing about having their own suit of flying armor, and there were several more follow-up questions asked, which Harry tried to answer as succinctly as possible. Unsurprisingly, it was all over the school by dinner.

"Where's your flying armor, Potter?" Draco called at him as they were leaving. "Bet that would have saved you from that bludger!"

"And yet, it was me that got the snitch," Harry told him, barely breaking stride. Honestly, he had bigger problems than Draco Malfoy.

"Yeah?" Draco yelled, possibly even paler than usual at the dismissal. "We'll see whether you're so confident at dueling club!"

"There's a dueling club?" Harry asked Dean.

"Dunno. That could be fun," his friend answered, as they both ignored Draco and walked with the rest of their house back to the Gryffindor dorms.

Sure enough, when they got back there was a sign up sheet posted on the bulletin board for said club, with an initial meeting the week before holidays.

Basically all of Gryffindor and at least half of each of the other houses turned up to the great hall the night of the event. All the dining tables and chairs had been removed and dozens of dueling spaces had been set up around the room. These were rectangles on the floor about three by eight yards, defined by runes chalked on the stone to designate the space and try to keep stray spell energy from hitting someone in the adjacent duels. A larger version was set up along the dais where the teachers' table usually sat, clearly for the signature duels.

"I wonder who'll be teaching us," Hermione mused as they walked in, distracted by examining the warding runes. "Someone told me Magister Flitwick was a dueling champion when he was young—maybe it'll be him."

"As long as it's not–," Harry got halfway out, before he saw Fandral striding up to the main dais. "Wait, is this a weapons dueling club?"

Though he could in no way be heard over the crowd, Fandral answered Harry's question anyway, shouting out, "Welcome, everyone, to the first spell dueling club meeting of the year. 'Spell dueling?' I hear you ask. Perhaps you assumed this would be a fencing tournament?"

"You haven't taught us any fencing yet!" one of the upper-year boys shouted at him from across the crowd.

"It's coming," Fandral held up his hands in placation, but continued with only a slightly-broken train of thought, "but tonight is about something of which you should be on a more even footing. We'd like everyone to try out some basic combat magic. Nonlethal! No permanent injuries! This club is mostly about precision in attacking, dodging, and blocking. And to show you how important dodging and blocking is…"

With a sneer, Professor Snape strode onto the dueling platform from the shadows. There was a general murmur of distaste from most of the school, some sounds of worry from Fandral's fans, and approval from the Slytherin contingent. Harry, like most of Gryffindor, was still being regularly bullied by Snape in classes. But, after his early complaints and a year and a half of proving he could do the work without disrupting class, Snape was no longer singling him out nearly as badly as he had their first day. Harry still didn't particularly like the guy.

"Yes, our very own Professor Snape," Fandral continued, as if Snape needed the introduction. "I understand that the man is an accomplished sorcerer with combat experience, so I thought I'd show off how much simple footwork and defense can matter in even a fight with a skilled opponent." While he was officially lauding Snape's praises, there was an undercurrent of contempt that Harry was getting used to. Fandral, despite teaching at a school for magic, didn't seem to think it was that great. He took the opposite end of the platform from Snape, so he was on Harry's left and Snape on his right (the Slytherin side of the room). Drawing his extremely shiny saber, Fandral called, "Whenever you're ready, professor."

Snape made a slight bow as he drew his wand and Fandral matched it, then slid aside as Snape flicked his orange energy whip all the way across the platform, clearly trying to disarm Fandral. Faster than any of them had managed in class, Snape let the whip dissipate and flicked off three bolts of the teal energy of Vanaheim staggered in direction. Fandral dodged two of them and actually managed to deflect one off toward the ceiling with his sword before it could hit him.

Obviously somewhat nonplussed by his quick barrage being so easily dodged, Snape twirled and whipped his wand in a circle to create a large and fast moving spiral of blasting orange energy that filled enough of the platform's width that Fandral would have a hard time dodging. The defense teacher's eyes widened and he dived prone to the floor, the cascade of energy nearly hitting him anyway and loudly detonating against wards at the far end as it barely unraveled the spell.

"I yield!" Fandral said, jovially, as he clocked that Snape was about to unleash something more terrifying at him now that he was prone. Seeing that Snape managed to check his bloodlust and lower his wand, Fandral easily rolled to his feet and bowed to his opponent, who grudgingly returned it. "Now, were this an actual fight, we'd have had more room to move and I'd have been trying to stab your professor, so it might have gone far differently." Snape's sneer conveyed that he would also have been going harder in a real fight. "Also, I wouldn't advise trying to parry spells with just any weapon, as those made with Asgardian ingenuity are more than just cold steel. All of that said, I hope everyone noticed how I was able to avoid four of those strikes through simple defense that any of you can learn.

"Which is to say, everyone pair off and choose a space to duel. Same rules as we had: you're using simple attacks, and trying to perfect both your precision and your avoidance."

Harry and Dean paired off, with the rest of their friends taking spaces near them. Hermione and Padma faced off next to Parvati and Lavender. Ron and Seamus obviously chose to duel one another, which left Neville the odd-Gryffindor-out, but he eventually wound up with Justin Finch-Fletchley, one of the Hufflepuffs in their year. Harry was pretty sure the boy was from Earth, and didn't know why they'd never seen him at the London sanctum.

After half an hour, Dean and Harry were mostly trying for the spirit of the thing, throwing low-powered bolts and the occasional energy whip to try to disarm each other, but mostly focusing on their accuracy and dodging. "This is actually kind of fun," Harry said as he dodged a shot.

"Right?" Dean agreed. "Why don't we do this in any class?"

"We could probably add this into our normal training?" Harry suggested, flinging his own shot at Dean, who just barely managed to step out of the way. Overall, Harry was up on hits by a little because his superior ability to dodge was trumping Dean's better accuracy.

"That's what I like to hear!" Fandral said, somehow having gotten close enough to eavesdrop without them noticing him wending through the rows of duelists. "That's the real secret: personal initiative. Professor Snape!" he yelled across the room. "Why don't we do an exhibition of the second years. I'll put up Potter and three galleons' wager against another second-year of your choice."

Harry tried, "I didn't agree–"

"Nonsense," Fandral cut him off. "Best to get used to the limelight. Head up to the main podium."

Harry rolled his eyes as he realized that Snape was having a conspiratorial conversation with Draco, before sending the rich boy up to the platform. Taking the Gryffindor side as his opponent took the other, Harry said just loudly enough for Fandral and several nearby members of his house to hear, "But Draco is Ron's nemesis."

"Another lesson is that you don't always get to pick your nemesis," Fandral grinned. He moved to face the crowd between the boys and shouted, "Now! Make sure to get your friendly wagers in for this exhibition duel. Harry Potter versus Draco Malfoy. Winner is first to three hits, incapacitation, or yield. Yielding is verbal or two hand taps on the floor in submission, if you can't speak at the time. As before, nothing deadly or that will require us to call the matron down to fix. On my count. Three… two…."

Draco was already throwing a spell on "two," a small but fairly evil-looking knot of Vanaheim's energy that Harry recognized as a dancing feet jinx. He danced, but not like Draco had wanted, just shifting away from the attack. As the boos of the crowd started and Fandral actually counted down to one, Harry tossed out an energy whip to try to disarm his opponent, but Draco managed to barely dodge as well. Harry realized he really needed to improve his accuracy.

Overextended with his whip, and not able to drop it as easily as Snape did, Harry wasn't ready for Draco to fling a small blip of orange his way, and he took the spellfire to his right shoulder in a painful sting before he was able to dodge the next couple of follow ups and crack his energy whip to make Draco leap to dodge it before finally releasing the energy. "One point Malfoy," Fandral announced, though didn't seem happy about it.

As Draco came down from his leap, Harry hissed out, "Flinging Flip of Forseti!" and managed to nail the boy when he was unable to dodge. The knockback jinx caused him to tumble and roll to a stop just shy of the end of the platform, but Harry had underestimated how far Draco would fly and two follow-up bolts of energy missed the Malfoy heir before one finally landed as Draco finished rolling.

"Two points Potter!" Fandral announced, more happy than he'd been before.

Draco was proving his seeker's reflexes by managing to dodge Harry's next attack and roll to his feet, throwing a couple of bolts of energy that made Harry cut himself off and dodge. He was trying to find an opening to attack when Draco yelled out, "Servant of the Serpent Sorcerer!" Teal energy rushed in a torrent from the end of his wand before congealing into a two-yard-long green-blue snake with flashing fangs, still faintly glowing from the magical summoning.

As it bore down on Harry, rearing up to foul his aim on Draco, he could understand it telling him, "Bite the master's enemies! Protect the master!"

The crowd shrieked in surprise, moving visibly backwards, and Harry idly wondered why so many teen wizards with access to magical healing were terrified of a snake. He guessed he knew plenty of people on Earth who were scared of slithering things too, but he wasn't personally worried.

"Don't move, Potter," Snape called out, "I'll get rid of it." But he seemed to be in no hurry. That seemed suspicious to Harry.

"Allow me," Fandral said, his sword striking out to decapitate the rearing snake. However, whatever spell-fouling materials the sword was made of interacted oddly with the magical construct, and the snake was instead blown backwards by the impact without being cut apart. With the positioning, and Fandral's swing direction, the oversized snake landed in the empty space that the Gryffindors had just backed away from, right in front of all of his friends.

If they'd freaked out about the snake being summoned, everyone really stumbled backwards as the snake was launched into their midst. It was not Gryffindor's bravest hour. Harry watched as Neville, in particular, cowered behind his dueling partner, accidentally thrusting Justin Finch-Fletchley into near proximity of the magical serpent. "Pain! Pain and vengeance!" the serpent screamed, rearing up again and seemingly about to bite the boy in front of him.

"Hermione!" Harry caught her eye. "Counterspell?" He didn't trust himself to interact with the snake directly, just in case someone noticed that he could talk to it.

"Oh, right," his friend nodded, shaking off the contagious fear that had grasped the hall. She made the elaborate wand gesture that was sufficient to unweave most low-powered magics, and the snake evaporated into motes of teal light just before it could strike at Justin.

"Do not," Harry heard Fandral shouting at Draco, and turned to see that the boy had been about to curse him in the back while he was distracted by the snake in the crowd. "Bad sportsmanship all around, young sir! That did not look like a spell designed not to seriously injure. I'm calling this duel for Potter."

Snape's lips drew back to reveal barred teeth, as if he was about to fight that declaration, but instead he gritted out a smug, "But ten points to Slytherin for a complex construct above your year level."

"And a similar ten points to Gryffindor for an excellent spell unraveling by Hermione Granger," Fandral announced, with a look at Snape as if two could play that game. Harry glanced over to see her blush of pride at the recognition from her newest favorite teacher. "Well, I think that we may need to rethink some of the rules of this, but a brilliant first dueling club everyone! We'll try to schedule another in the spring term. For now, everyone back to your dormitories and have a wonderful holiday!"

Harry was congratulated by most of Gryffindor on their way back to the dorms, so it took until bedtime for Dean to get a moment alone with him while Seamus and Ron were in the bathroom and Neville was still dawdling getting into the room. He pointed out, "I bet Snape told Malfoy to cast that spell. You think he knows about you? And wanted everyone else to?"

"How could he?" Harry asked, then added, "Unless Dumbledore told him…"

"Just saying," Dean said. "But some folks in the basement would be real happy if everyone thought you were the heir."

Harry nodded. As much as he didn't want to think that Dumbledore had told Snape about his secret, part of his brain was beginning to realize that the headmaster did a lot of things to try to push him to take certain actions. If he'd engineered the previous year's course to Vormir, why not some plan that put Harry front and center against the Heir of Slytherin? "I'll watch out for snakes," he agreed.

He was especially glad he hadn't revealed that he was a parselmouth the next morning, when the rumor spread that Justin Finch-Fletchley had joined Colin Creevey in the hospital wing, another victim of Slytherin's monster…