Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Twenty-Four—More Than One Snake

"I don't understand how people started thinking that Salazar Slytherin was the only Parselmouth among the Founders."

Gryffindor snorted. Theo watched him. One of the things that fascinated him about the portrait was how dynamic Gryffindor was, making lots more noise than other portraits and moving around more. Even his boots clumped when he was striding up and down the unseen floor of what seemed to be a library.

"It happened because people hate snakes," Gryffindor said. "And they revered me—why, I never understood exactly. Because I created the Sorting Hat? Because I left the Sword of Gryffindor behind at the school and wielded it against dangers attacking us a few times?" He scratched his cheek to the side of his red beard. "So they naturally decided that someone they revered couldn't have spoken the tongue of the beasts they loathed."

Harry was leaning forwards across the small table they'd half-Levitated, half-dragged to the obscure side corridor where Gryffindor's portrait hung. The twins had helped them secure the entrance with shimmering charms Theo didn't really trust. "But no one ever questioned it?"

"Things people know as history get lost to that history all the time, Harry. You should know that."

Theo cocked his head. Gryffindor's voice was chiding, but also personal. "What do you mean, sir?"

"He's a Parselmouth who hasn't looked enough into his own history. And he's an elemental wizard who's letting his powers wither on the vine."

Harry stiffened. Theo had to batter down his own outrage. In some ways, Gryffindor was telling Harry exactly what Theo had been telling him for almost a year now, and Theo should be glad that he was. Maybe Harry would actually listen to someone who was older and wiser.

But Theo also didn't like seeing Harry hurt.

"I'm learning as best as I can!" Harry snapped. "It's not exactly easy, what with everyone being afraid of Parselmouths and thinking they're evil!"

"They don't think the same of elemental wizards, lad."

"No, but they would think I was dangerous. And drop me back in the Muggle world."

"You would let them?"

Harry leaned back abruptly, shivering. Theo sat close to him, wishing he could help, but he was pretty sure he couldn't. The cold didn't come from anything in the corridor or even anything Gryffindor had said, but from Harry's inner conflict.

Theo put a hand on his shoulder. Harry leaned a little towards him, but didn't take his eyes from Gryffindor's portrait.

"I'm twelve years old," Harry whispered. "My own parents gave me up. Maybe they would again. But then what? The one person I might want to adopt me is Theo's dad, and everyone would get all outraged about that. My godfather won't stand up to the Potters. Dumbledore won't let me go where I want, or just vanish somewhere. He would track me. He knows a lot more magic than I do."

Gryffindor abruptly stepped back in his portrait until he was almost resting against one of the library shelves behind him. Theo blinked, both at the gesture and at the expression of remorse on his face.

"I'm sorry, Harry," Gryffindor murmured. "In my day, standards of adulthood were different. Twelve years old didn't matter so much to your ability to defend yourself."

Harry nodded, his head bowed. Theo put one hand on his shoulder. Harry started a little, then gave him a small smile.

"But in truth," Gryffindor started again a moment later, flicking his hair out of his eyes as he glanced down at Harry, "you are still one of the most powerful wizards alive. Your combined gifts mean that you could call serpents of fire if you wanted, or serpents of earth. You could conjure venom in your enemies' lungs the way you can transform the air."

"I don't think I'm that skilled yet."

"Then I will teach you."

"Why?" Theo had to interrupt. He was glad that Harry was going to find a mentor who wasn't the Dark Lord in disguise, and really glad if it meant that Harry wouldn't be hiding his magic any longer. But it did seem weird that this portrait would tutor Harry out of the kindness of its canvas. "Just because he's in your House?"

"Because he will combat the Enemy."

Theo swallowed. "You're talking about the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets."

"As some things come closer and closer to realization, there is no stopping them, any more than you can stop gravity's pull on a rock rolling downhill." Gryffindor's eyes were hooded. "At this point, yes, the basilisk will be released. I don't know who will do it or how, but someone must be there to stop her."

"And the snake in the Forbidden Forest?" Harry asked, raising his head and staring directly at the portrait.

"She is probably the only one who can help you."

"But you don't want me to release her yet."

Gryffindor smiled sardonically. "She is a spirit of fire, Harry, one that coalesced into the form of a snake to help me. I don't know which Slytherin descendant bound her. I don't remember that, so it may have happened after this portrait was painted. Spirits of fire were barely meant to assume solid form, let alone to be trapped for as long as she has. She would still fight the basilisk, since that's what she came for, but I don't know what she would do to other people."

"You think she might be mad," Theo said.

Gryffindor nodded to him. "And I think that Harry being an elementalist as well as a Parselmouth might be the only thing that would make him able to survive her."

That did not actually make Theo feel any better.

You should not listen to the portrait, Riddle hissed in the back of Harry's mind.

I suppose I should only listen to you, right? Harry sat in front of the fire in the common room and stared into it. He had made a decision a little while ago, one that he hoped he wouldn't regret, and now he was waiting for the person he was going to tell.

It would be preferable. Have you not thought how Gryffindor seeks to profit from your combination of gifts? I could tutor you to use them, and my motives would be disinterested, because your success has to be mine, buried in your skull as I am. But he only wants to see the basilisk destroyed and the name of my family blackened—

"Harry?"

Harry smiled and turned his head. Felix had come down the stairs slowly, probably looking to see if any prefects were about, but now he shivered and hurried over to the fire. "Didn't realize how cold the stairs would be," he muttered, hurling himself into the chair opposite Harry.

"It's okay," Harry said. He watched Felix for a long moment, as his brother blew on his hands and held them out to the flames. Theo would probably say that Harry shouldn't tell Felix, because Theo didn't trust him.

But Harry had to trust some people. He was learning that now. When he had thought he could drift through Hogwarts in a bubble of silence and people ignoring him, he hadn't thought it would be necessary. Who would want to trust someone as distant as he was? Who would care? Being in the shadow of the Boy-Who-Lived would actually have made that plan easier, no matter how awful Harry had first felt when he'd discovered he had parents and a twin brother he'd never heard of.

It would never have worked, Riddle snarled softly, sounding offended.

Harry hated to agree with Riddle, but he sort of did, if not for the reasons that the git thought. Harry had powers that he had to use, because he had to feign wanded magic. Sooner or later someone might figure out that most animals fled from him because of his Parseltongue, and he had to have a plan to deal with that.

He had to have friends. He had to have a mentor, like Gryffindor. And if he had a twin brother who loved him, Harry wasn't stupid enough to reject him.

It wasn't the parents or godfather who loved him that he should have had. But it would have to be enough.

"So what is it?" Felix asked, finally distracted enough from his cold fingers to look at Harry.

Harry took a deep breath as he held out a hand. But he had some practice in talking about his elemental magic to the twins, he thought, and Ginny, and Luna, and Blaise. Theo was a special case and different since he'd been the first.

At least it meant he wasn't panicking as he said, "I have elemental magic, Felix," and called fire to dance above his palm.

Felix gaped at the flame, and then looked at Harry with wide eyes. He could see how tense Harry was, as if he expected Felix to break away and run out of the common room yelling the truth to all and sundry.

In truth, Felix thought, he wasn't as surprised as Harry probably expected him to be.

Harry's "accidental" magic wasn't that accidental, from what he'd said a few times. And Felix had noticed that Harry didn't keep his wand close by or touch it for reassurance the way that Felix and everyone else with wanded magic did. Felix had gradually become convinced that the wand was really just a piece of dead wood to Harry, one he kept because it was necessary to lie to people.

He felt he had to lie to people.

But it wasn't that surprising, with the childhood Harry had had. And at least he had better reasons for lying than Mum and Dad.

Felix felt a terrible anger move inside him, and it was a bit hard to snap his attention away from thoughts of their parents and to Harry. He realized abruptly that Harry was leaning back in his chair, and looking nervous. The flame had gone out.

"It's all right, Harry," he said quickly. "I think it's really brilliant."

"You—do?"

Felix sighed and swung his leg. He sort of wished Harry had kept the flame. Why was it so cold all the time? "Sure. I mean, not brilliant that you have to keep it secret, that's terrible, but it's great that you have it, and that you're not left helpless because some people are idiots. But I don't know how you're doing some of the spells in classes, if it's all elemental?" He looked at Harry inquiringly.

"In Transfiguration, sometimes it's elemental," Harry said faintly. He was staring at Felix with wide eyes. "But mostly I use illusion. And in Charms and Defense I can feign the effects of the spell. I use wind for the Knockback Jinx."

"That's going to be harder to do as we learn more complicated spells."

"Um. Yes. You're taking this a lot better than I thought you would."

"I'm glad you have something," Felix said, folding his arms. "And I already suspected your accidental magic wasn't so accidental after all. But it is going to be harder to keep this secret as you progress in classes."

"Yeah. I'll take as many non-wanded classes as I can and probably drop Transfiguration and Charms and Defense after the OWLS."

"I'm glad you plan to take them," Felix said, and swung his legs while he thought about what it would mean for an elemental wizard to take OWLS. It probably wouldn't test Harry at all. The thought made Felix frown. "But I don't know how good Hogwarts is for you when you can't learn the kind of magic you have."

"Most of it isn't, really. But I, um, I sort of found a mentor. Dumbledore doesn't know."

"Really? Who?" Felix couldn't imagine most people in Hogwarts keeping the secret from Dumbledore.

"A portrait of Godric Gryffindor."

Felix stared at Harry, but his brother apparently wasn't joking. He stared back, holding Felix's gaze, and Felix finally shook his head and said, "Okay, this is. Um."

"Um?" Harry asked, and he was smiling, that kind of smile Felix didn't get to see often but was happy to see when he did.

"Yeah." Felix leaned back in his chair and exhaled. "I didn't know that the portrait of Gryffindor would talk to anyone who wasn't a Headmaster. And the history books never said that he was an elementalist." Felix thought he would have remembered that even if he didn't have a memory that would let him remember everything he read.

"He's not an elementalist, but he knows about their magic. My magic." Harry still shifted as if he didn't like to apply the name to himself. "And, um, he's actually mostly teaching me something else."

"What?"

Harry swallowed. He glanced down at his hands and then up at Felix. "I know the reason all the owls and cats keep avoiding me," he said. "I'm a Parselmouth."

Felix did feel his mouth fall open this time, all the way. He gaped at Harry. Harry stared right back, and his fingers wound together as if he was clenching something small and precious to hide it away from Felix.

"How?" Felix whispered.

"I don't know how." Harry sounded a little exasperated. "Maybe someone in our family a long time ago was. Maybe it had something to do with the Dark magic that everyone said was flying around after Voldemort came after us. I don't know." He shook his head and leaned back to stare up at the ceiling. "But I know that it's damn annoying, and it's getting harder to hide with the way that animals are avoiding me and no one can find a Dark curse on me."

Felix shook his head, too. Part of him wanted to say that it was Dark. He'd always learned that. Voldemort had been a Parselmouth, and it had been part of the legend that convinced people to follow him, even though it was also a lot less dangerous than some of the Darker magic he'd worked.

But the rest of him thought how cool it would be to talk to animals, and that made him open his mouth and say, "I read once that other people could learn elemental magic. Can you teach me Parseltongue?"

Harry stilled for a moment, then blinked. "You'd want to learn it? You wouldn't want to learn elemental magic?"

"I think Parseltongue is cooler."

Harry looked regretful for a second. "Sorry, but I don't know of any way to teach it to you. Even Godric said he couldn't have taught it to me if I didn't already have it."

"You call Founders by their first names now?" Felix teased, and managed to smile through his disappointment.

Harry shrugged, looking a little awkward. "He got bored of me calling him by his last name and 'sir.' That was the compromise."

Felix sighed. "Oh, well. It's too bad that I can't learn Parseltongue, but I'm glad that you have someone you trust teaching you. Better than having Dumbledore do it."

Harry made a face. "Yeah, he's bad enough for Potions." He paused, eyeing Felix. "You're really okay with Parseltongue?"

"Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Come on, Felix."

"Yes, all right, Voldemort spoke it. But I've always thought that the way he could get people to abandon their ideals and follow him around like a string of Crup puppies was scarier. And he didn't even have a snake familiar for most of the war. He only got one near the end, and it died when I—did whatever I did. We did whatever we did." Felix frowned and shook his head. He still had no idea what had really happened on the night that Voldemort had gone after him and Harry and been defeated, but obviously it was a lot more complicated than the version he'd grown up with.

"Okay."

Harry was staring at him with shining eyes. Felix started to smile back, and then paused when he realized it was his own trained smile. The one Mum and Dad had taught him to use whenever someone looked at him like that, because it meant they were taking him for their Lord.

He shook his head violently.

"Felix?"

"I don't want to be your Lord."

"Well, you don't need to worry about that. I'd hardly want one."

"No, I know that! I just mean—it's like I wanted to smile at you and treat you like you were someone who could be a follower. Because that was the kind of smile and response Mum and Dad taught me to have."

Harry studied him in silence for long moments, then said, "I still wish they hadn't put me with the Dursleys. But it sounds like Lily and James really fucked you up, too."

Felix nodded, and for a few moments they sat in silence. Then he reached out and put his hand on his brother's shoulder.

"Thank you for sharing that with me," he whispered. "I know it had to be hard, with as many secrets as you keep. And if you want to teach me elemental magic, then I'd be honored to learn. Even if it's not Parseltongue."

Harry hesitated for a moment. Then he said, "Well, there is this group of us who gets together in the kitchens…"

"What's he doing here?"

Ginny asked the question the minute she came through the door into the kitchens and saw Felix sitting on the bench next to Harry. She could feel her cheeks turning red, but not so much with her crush. It seemed like a million years ago that she'd had a crush on Felix. She was so busy at Hogwarts with studying for regular classes and going to the classes and defending Luna and learning to defend Luna that she'd forgotten all about him.

But it seemed wrong for Felix Potter to be in the middle of what Ginny had come to think of as their private elemental magic training session. He was part of the world that loved good and gentle magic and smiled and patted children on the head when they talked about bullies. Not the part that learned magic to defeat those bullies.

"I can be here if I want," Felix said mildly, and bit into a biscuit that was steaming gently on a plate nearby. One of the house-elves must have brought it, although Ginny hadn't seen that happen.

"He's learning elemental magic with the rest of us," Nott said.

Ginny sneaked a sideways glance at Nott. Oh, he wasn't happy about this. At all. His eyes were narrow and maybe he thought he was controlling the magic that radiated out around him, but in reality, his hands were clenched and he looked as if he might be a few inches from beating Felix to death with them.

"Calm down, Theo."

Harry's voice flowed out over the situation and at least did calm Nott. Ginny saw the way Felix's eyes narrowed as he watched that and decided that Felix might not know everything about Harry's leadership here, but he knew enough.

"Felix is here because I invited him, and he does want to learn elemental magic."

"Why? He has power enough."

"You think that? When I've been one of Voldemort's targets since I could barely walk properly?"

Nott bared his teeth. "If you were barely walking properly by the age of fifteen months, I have to wonder—"

Something seemed to surge past Ginny, and she blinked. Nott had fallen silent, but she hadn't seen anything happen. She watched as Nott flushed and Felix blinked a little and then eased back, as though something invisible was hovering in front of him.

"Stop it, both of you," Harry said evenly. He was sitting on one of the kitchen tables, the way he usually did, and he had turned so that he could stare at both of them. "Or I'll slap you with something harder than a bit of wind."

Ginny stared enviously. She was getting control of wind little by little, since it seemed to be her best element so far, but she was still meditating for both strength and any control of other elements. And Harry just wielded it like he was Mum casting a cleaning charm at the dishes.

Harry glanced at her and winked with the eye that was out of sight of Nott and Felix, then turned around to face them again.

"Everyone is here because they want to be," Harry said, glancing around. Luna was paying attention, although Ginny didn't know if Harry knew that, since her wide, wondering eyes tended to make people think she was staring at something over their heads. Felix watched his brother closely, Zabini with languid boredom that fooled no one, Fred and George with fierce grins. Nott with that burning way that he always seemed to watch Harry. "And because I invited them. If I didn't want them here or I thought they were a threat, they would be gone. Do you understand?"

I understand that you're saying a lot more than you probably think you're saying, Ginny thought, but nodded along with everyone else. If Harry wanted to do more things to protect and teach them, she was hardly going to say no.

"Good." Harry leaned back. "I've been reading some of the books on elemental wizards and witches, and it says that most of them only controlled one element. Not all four."

"That's what makes you a bloody prodigy," Zabini muttered.

Harry went on as though he hadn't heard him. "I don't think that's true of people who learned elemental magic from someone else, though."

"How do you know?" Nott asked. "The books don't make that distinction."

Ginny frowned. Had Nott read those books? She hadn't. She would have to ask Harry to share them around.

"I think you might be able to concentrate on all the elements and learn the ones you really want to learn." Harry glanced down as if hearing Ginny's protesting thought about that, and smiled at her. He could look really nice when he smiled, Ginny thought. Not that she was fooled about how nice Harry Potter was. "It'll take a longer time, though."

"So I might be able to do more than wind?" Ginny asked. That would be brilliant. Then she could do more than just slap the girls who took Luna's things or knock them over.

"And I could do—"

"More than fire?" George was grinning at Harry, and Fred looked as if he might bounce up and down and start whooping any second.

"If you wanted to," Harry said. "But like I said, it takes longer. And it also takes longer to get good at all four of them if you split your attention between all four. So that's the trade-off you make. Do you still want to learn?"

Nott nodded at once, followed by Fred and George. Luna stirred and leaned forwards, and Harry turned to her. Ginny was reluctantly impressed. It was unusual for people to pay that much attention to Luna when she spoke up rather than just discount her.

"I think I will concentrate on wind," Luna said dreamily. "It would allow me to drive away the largest number of Wrackspurts."

Harry cocked his head, but only shrugged. "If that's what you want to do," he said, and looked at Ginny.

"All four," Ginny said firmly. She didn't care if it would take her longer to master. In the end, she would do it, and get even with all the girls who thought it was just so easy to bully her and Luna.

"All right," Harry said, with a glance at Zabini, who shook his head. "And you, Felix?"

"Just fire, for right now." Felix's voice was a little breathless. Ginny wondered snidely if he'd thought elemental magic was impossible to master until he came to the kitchens. It seemed he was in the habit of thinking his brother was weak. "This is—wow, Harry."

Harry shot him a smile that was calm and bright, and said, "Okay. My weakest element is earth." Nott visibly twitched. "So I won't be able to help you as much when you get to that. But I can help a lot with air and fire and water."

"What can you do with earth?" Ginny asked. Might as well how good his teaching is.

Harry closed his eyes and turned his right hand over, parallel to the floor. Ginny jumped as the whole floor rumbled. From beneath it came a grumble and a snap, and then the stones mounded up, and something that shone and twisted back on itself rose from between them.

"Is that gold?" Zabini squeaked.

"Yeah," Harry said, opening his eyes. A little sweat stood out on his forehead. "There's a vein of gold underneath Hogwarts. This is about all I can do with it, though."

"That's still pretty impressive," Felix said, and smiled at Zabini as if they were friends now. From the long look Zabini gave Felix, Ginny didn't think they were. She'd heard conflicting things about Zabini: that he was nice if you caught him in the right mood, that you should be scared of him because his mum killed people, that he was one of the smartest people in Harry's year, that he was one of the most prejudiced.

On the other hand, maybe he just didn't think Felix was going to keep coming to these teaching sessions. Ginny wasn't sure she believed it herself.

"I used it in Transfiguration to make McGonagall think I'd completed a Transfiguration into metal," Harry explained, and then flicked his fingers. The gold dropped out of sight again, and the stones of the floor slid back together. "Don't know how long I can keep that up, though."

Nott definitely twitched this time. Ginny eyed him, but she didn't know that she would ever figure him out. "I'd like to learn earth," she said.

"Okay. You know where you start."

"Meditation," Ginny said with a little groan, but she sat down and closed her eyes and started working on her breathing. From the sounds outside the little world of her closed eyelids, other people were doing the same.

Ginny thought wistfully about making the stones mound up underneath Marietta Edgecombe's legs and trap her. Or maybe toss her all the way down the stairs.

Or make her vanish forever.

But she couldn't do any of that if she didn't meditate.

Ginny concentrated.

"When I said that you should tell more people about your powers, I didn't mean that you should tell them your weaknesses."

Harry eyed Theo sideways as they ducked into the corridor where Gryffindor's portrait waited for them. "I have to tell them what I can't do. Or someone will expect me to teach them something I can't teach, and then they'll think I lied to them."

"So what?"

Harry shook his head. He didn't know how to explain to Theo that what he needed was for people to trust him. Maybe they would become good friends, maybe not, but at the very least, he didn't want them to betray him and go running to the teachers. So he was going to tell them the truth.

"You wanted me to share my secrets," Harry said a little testily as he turned and created the web of wind behind them that would carry any sounds of voices or footsteps to him. "That's what I'm doing."

"Carefully, Harry. I said carefully. I—"

Theo's voice disappeared in a croak. Harry whirled around, coming down in a crouch. If there were already people like Dumbledore here waiting to stop them from talking to Gryffindor's portrait or accusing them of something, he was ready.

But Dumbledore didn't stand in front of the portrait. Instead, there was a coiling, shimmering snake made of fire that stared at Harry with bright expectant eyes. Gryffindor had a nasty grin on his face.

Harry suspected this was a test, although he wasn't sure how Gryffindor expected him to pass it. He already knew that Harry was a Parselmouth, after all. Harry stood back up with fire entwining around his fingers. "Hello," he greeted.

The snake's tongue flickered out of his mouth, a darting flame. And then it slithered straight at him.

Harry reacted without thinking. His hand flew up and then came down, and water condensed out of the air and slammed into the snake. There was a flurry of steam and hissing that Harry didn't think came from a serpent's mouth, and when he could see again, there was a much smaller coil of flame in the middle of the air, ruddy and golden.

And Gryffindor was no longer smiling.

"When elemental spirits come to you in the form of allies, you are supposed to welcome them," he snapped. "Not destroy them."

"It was attacking me," Harry snapped back. He was aware of Theo stepping up behind him, his wand drawn, and his gaze going back and forth from the Gryffindor portrait to the splash of water on the floor. "And I saw the way you were smiling. This was meant as a test. I thought it was a test of how to defend myself."

The fiery snake still hovering in the air hissed at him, but its hisses were weak, barely distinguishable from the crackling of a fire. Harry ignored it and continued to stare at Gryffindor, who blew out an angry breath and looked away.

"Are you all right?" Theo asked under his breath, touching Harry's shoulder for a second.

"Yes, fine," Harry said, glancing away from the snake so that he knew the words wouldn't come out in Parseltongue. "We're just having a disagreement about what kind of test Godric wanted to subject me to."

"It was a test of diplomacy," Gryffindor said tightly. "You will have to learn how to speak with elementals if you are going to on practicing as an elemental wizard. Destroying them, attacking them with their opposing force, is nearly the worst error you can commit."

"And you never said anything about that before."

"It's explained in the books I recommended to you."

"The books that I haven't been able to find copies of because they're all a thousand years old?"

Gryffindor cursed quietly. Harry sat down at one of the chairs he and Theo had dragged in here and went on staring at the portrait. Theo eased up next to him, a question in his eyes, and Harry nodded at the other chair. Theo sat down with a quiet grumble.

Gryffindor turned around and stared at the background of his portrait again. Harry wondered idly if he had copies of the books there, and if there was some way you could make copies of a book that only existed in a portrait.

"You could have responded politely," Gryffindor said at last.

"When it didn't respond to my greeting and came straight at me?"

"I was—testing your reflexes," Gryffindor finally admitted grudgingly, turning around. "But I swear to you that I didn't mean it as an attack. I thought you would dodge, and the serpent, having seen that you could move fast, like a flame, would then greet you properly."

Harry shrugged. "And I suppose there are different ways that you have to greet spirits of water and earth and wind?"

"Yes, of course."

"I'll learn them, then."

Gryffindor waited, and waited some more. Theo had leaned back in his chair and had his arms folded in a way that said no one had better try to involve him in this. Harry had to grin. His friend was honest with Harry, at least, and once you knew him well, it was easy to read Theo.

"You're not going to apologize," Gryffindor said at last.

"No."

"Why not?"

"There isn't any power that you have over me except to get angry and stop teaching me. And you want me to stop the basilisk and help the snake that's bound in fire form in the forest, so you won't do that."

Gryffindor leaned nearer, so that he appeared to rest his elbows on the front of his portrait. "You really think…you really think I would do that?"

"I listed the reasons why you wouldn't. But if you didn't have them? Yes."

"What kind of life have you led, where apologies are to be used that way?"

Harry grimaced. He hadn't really touched on his childhood with Gryffindor, except when he'd had to explain why he'd kept Parseltongue secret from his parents or why he'd grown up in the Muggle world. "Because those were the people I knew."

Gryffindor considered that for a little longer, then nodded abruptly. "Very well. We'll include contacting elemental spirits in your lessons, then. These are the main conduits of elemental magic for wizards and witches who were born without your gift."

Harry kept back a groan. He wasn't sure why he needed to learn how to speak with these spirits if he could just control and conjure the elements naturally.

But if the portrait thought it was important, then Harry would keep at it. Unlike his lessons with Dumbledore, these actually provided him with important information.

Theo did pull him aside when they left the corridor and leaned a little closer. "Are you—all right? What with the deception that Gryffindor pulled on you today?"

"You think it was a deception, too?"

"Of course it was. He has to know that he's never mentioned elemental spirits to you except when he talked about the one trapped in the forest, and he's never mentioned that you have to be polite to certain ones."

Harry smiled grimly. "I think he wanted to test me. See how I'd react, and where the gaps in my knowledge were."

"I wish you'd let the Hat put you in Slytherin."

Harry shrugged. "I don't mind being tested like that—if it results in useful information. And Godric hasn't lied to me so far."

If that changes, Harry thought, ignoring the twinge in the back of his mind that meant Tom Riddle had an opinion about this, then I'll find a way to make a portrait hurt.

He tried to ignore the way it felt as though Riddle approved of that.

Felix stared at the letter in his hand in stunned bewilderment. He'd written to Remus Lupin again after his and Harry's initial letters hadn't produced any result, and this time, he'd specifically asked for a response, or at least a reason why the man didn't want to write to them.

He'd got a response, all right.

It was written on the back of the letter Felix had sent, in something dark that Felix had thought was blood at first. But he'd changed his mind about that. This looked…thicker.

Contact me again and I'll rip your throat out, prey.

Felix folded up the letter with a frown and turned in the direction of Gryffindor Tower. He would show the letter to his brother and ask what Harry wanted to do. He was almost sure that Harry would vote in favor of stopping any more letters.

Felix intended to argue against that.

Remus Lupin seemed to be another victim of their parents. Felix was determined to keep on reaching out to him.