It seems like I only start to realise I've forgotten to upload my chapters here when I'm about to upload a new one on AO3.

Hence, please refer to the A/N at the end for an announcement.

For now, enjoy?

Pairings: Potential Hadria (FemHarry) x Tom Riddle, but more platonic than romantic, other pairings undecided.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter

Currently un-beta-ed. Let me know if you spot any mistakes, thanks.

Chapter Four: There Are No Rules That -

"Quem não tem cão, caça com gato." The one who does not own a dog, hunts with a cat. — Portuguese Proverb (modern? alteration)

By the time the Hogwarts Express left the station, there were six children seated in the train compartment. Draco, Blaise and Pansy were seated in a row, while Ginny had taken the seat between Hadria and Neville, who had relocated the sleeping fungi to Ginny's lap.

"Don't worry, he really doesn't bite," he had said to Ginny, who didn't even know what it was, let alone develop enough wariness to wonder if it'll eat her face if it wakes up, but as these things tend to go, she now appeared extremely concerned about the thing on her lap because if she wasn't worried before, she certainly was now .

And the Weasley twins, after recovering from their laughing fit, had left to look for Lee.

("Just holler if they so much as look at you wrong, and we'll be there," Fred had said vehemently as they left, after Ginny said she'd like to stay with four Slytherins—Hadria reckoned Ginny was indeed a Gryffindor, because that must have taken some measure of guts and bravery. Ginny merely rolled her eyes at him in response, and they were gone.)

"This is ridiculous, first those damn twins, now their sister too?" Draco was saying.

"I mean, Hadria hangs out with a Muggleborn of all things, and by extension so do we." Pansy waved a hand dismissively. "This isn't anything worse. Your family is the one with a feud with the Weasleys, not us."

The train fell silent as all four Slytherins collectively recalled the unforgettable scene of Mr Malfoy getting into a brawl with Mr Weasley on the streets of Diagon Alley. Hadria glanced at Ginny to gauge her reaction, but she was preoccupied with the huge pumpkin-sized oyster shell in her lap.

It was mostly grey, with streaks of darker grey, black and silver, and was rough, knobbly and layered, much like a normal oyster shell, but it was also rounder and bulged out in the middle, the curvature more akin to cockles than the flatter oysters. Through a small crack in the closed bivalve, something pale and fleshy could be seen.

"It doesn't eat humans, if that's of any reassurance," said Hadria. Or at least, she had never heard of any eating humans before, but she also hadn't heard of them growing to this size this quickly. Of course, she said none of that, because it certainly wasn't reassuring.

"But what is it? Is it… a pet?" Ginny had never seen a pet like that before, and it was written all over her face.

"King is a fungi," said Neville proudly. "He mostly eats small animals, so Gran and I had to spend quite a while training him not to eat the post owls."

Hadria had also never heard of anyone training a plant or fungi—magical or not—like they would train a dog. But she was taking no risks; Snag could continue sleeping in her robes, where it was safe from flesh-eating mushrooms.

"That's… cool," said Ginny, contemplative now, with a slight furrow between her brows. "You guys have such interesting pets."

"Oh no, that's just Hadria. And Longbottom," Draco drawled as he leaned back in his seat. "We're not as crazy as they are."

"You should introduce her to Snag," said Neville to Hadria, conveniently ignoring Draco. He turned to Ginny, "Snag's Hadria's Jarvey."

Hadria made a face. She wondered if Neville could read her wariness of his large fungi on her face, nevermind that she was the one who got it for him. "Snag can wait. You'll see him in school, when he's awake and being a nuisance."

Instead, she chose to coax Estía from her coat's other inner pocket—the one without the overgrown ferret—where she had become a mini heater, radiating more warmth than Snag, the warm-blooded mammal.

"This is Estía," she said, holding the Ashwinder in her hand to Ginny and Neville. "She's a volcanic variant of the common Ashwinder." And thus, unlikely to be eaten by a mushroom, was left unsaid. The fungi was somewhat fire-resistant—not entirely, though Hadria had yet to test this, and she didn't think Neville would appreciate her setting his mushroom on fire—but it still disliked high heat.

"Oh," Ginny was surprised. "I remember this snake! It's yours?"

"Huh?" Hadria blinked. "When—Oh. The day at Diagon Alley?"

Ginny nodded. "Yes, I thought she was um, Zabini's snake."

"But it is," said Blaise with a mischievous almost-smug grin. "She chose me."

"What he means is that I'm letting him be a co-owner of Estía while at Hogwarts," Hadria huffed a short laugh and explained when Ginny looked even more confused.

("Spoilsport," Blaise muttered none-too-softly, but Hadria ignored him.)

"Oh," said Ginny. She hesitated. "So, you like snakes?"

The Slytherins exchanged glances. It wasn't a requirement to like snakes by any means—the Sorting Hat certainly shouldn't be taking "likes snakes" as a criteria for Sorting—but there were indeed rather few Slytherins who didn't like the serpent family. Or at least, there were few Slytherins who would admit that they didn't like snakes.

"Yes," said Hadria at last. "They're sleek and beautiful, and also surprisingly good conversationalists." Estía hissed as if to prove her point. Nobody needed to know that Estía had merely been making meaningless sounds rather than actual words.

"Right," said Ginny, looking like she didn't quite believe her. She opened her mouth, closed it again. Then, "But don't… most other animals uh… converse more?"

Hadria gave her the flattest stare she could manage, and said, "My Jarvey only spews insults, and the only cats I've met just give me judgemental glares. Holly only ever makes sounds when she's demanding a treat… And I'm pretty sure dogs just hold one-sided chatter without needing your input."

Ginny had a funny look on her face and was about to say something before Draco cut in, "Save us the trouble and don't bother, Weasley. Next thing we know, she'll launch into a nonsense-filled argument just to be contrary."

Neville, surprisingly, nodded sagely in agreement.

"Don't worry," he consoled her. "You'll learn. We're all still learning. It's part of being friends with Hadria."

Ginny didn't quite look as if she had been consoled at all. To her credit, her look of alarm was soon shaken away and replaced with such determination that Hadria wondered if she should be concerned.

"That settles it, then," she said, and did not elaborate. Instead, she asked if she could hold Estía for a bit, and Hadria let her.

For a moment, the lot of them were just watching in awkward silence as Ginny stroked Estía placidly, until Pansy decided, rather loudly, to go, " Anyway ."

"Anyway," she repeated, turning to Draco, "You still haven't explained your irrational fear of Hadria's lateness and absence."

Draco only groaned, as they turned their attention to him. He wiped his face with a hand, and breathed out, " So … That is… Uh.. Well, have you ever been emotionally manipulated by a House Elf?"

They stared.

"What," said Pansy. Even Neville looked like he'd never heard of such a thing before, let alone experienced such a thing, let alone associate such a thing with a Malfoy.

"Right." If anything, Draco looked even more pale and tired than he had been before. "So, you all know that we've got a barmy House Elf named Dobby—"

"I don't, but go on."

Draco sighed, longsuffering, "Blaise, you've literally met the thing every time you come over."

Blaise snorted. "Look, you have three House Elves and I swear they are all barmy. How am I supposed to know which one and what their names are?"

"Well," said Draco, scrubbing his face more vigorously this time. "Dobby is the—nevermind. Irrelevant . You just need to know one of them is the worst of the lot, and his name is Dobby. He's also the oldest, so for all I know it's an age thing.

"Anyway, the thing is, he has been enamoured by Hadria ever since her visit, and is constantly insisting she's in danger—which I cannot disagree with—except he was particularly vocal this summer. And it's not like he outright says it. He justs—he goes around muttering to himself about poor Hadria Potter, how sad she is, that no one knows how stressful it must be, to be targeted by bad bad wizards, poor Hadria Potter, who is always in danger but no one knows, so anything could happen to her, and it would be such a shame, that those who claim to be her friends aren't worried for her at all.

"Father has tried to punish the Elf for… I don't know, fear-mongering or slander or something. Anyway, it doesn't work. He just continues to mourn his lack of faith in the Wizarding community in general while applying his head to a wall."

He took a breath.

"And, this morning, he was actually sobbing to himself—I don't even know if the tears were fake or not—saying things like maybe it would be better if Hadria Potter doesn't go to Hogwarts this year, that she'll be safer with her Mister Grinsen, away from the very not-safe Hogwarts, because her friends are just little kids who can't actually protect her from the big bad, and it's a pity the King's Cross barrier won't magically stop working and prevent her from boarding the train on time ."

Draco had practically hissed out the last line, and he looked… demented, Hadria thought. But it was no wonder, if Dobby had somehow learned, from years of Malfoy exposure, to Slytherin well enough to drive Draco to worse paranoia. Granted, she didn't recall Dobby being this particular brand of terrible in her previous life.

"Tell me," said Draco, a manic light in his eyes. "Tell me you don't hear that as a threat from the House Elf."

"Uh," said Blaise, actually looking surprised. "That…Uh."

"Wow, I… never knew House Elves could be so… passive aggressive," said Pansy, blinking rapidly.

(Hadria made a note to introduce them all to Kreacher one day.)

Neville, who didn't have a House Elf, had no comment on this, though he looked similarly wide-eyed. Ginny was still stroking Estía, with a smile on her face that suggested she didn't care at all whether the Malfoy's Elf was acting up or not.

Hadria raised a hand. "Well, I'm grateful for his… thoughtfulness, at least."

Draco continued to stare at her.

"And I'm also very sorry that you have suffered as such for my welfare," she hastily added, then belatedly realised that still didn't sound quite right, and amended, "What I mean is, your sacrifice is greatly appreciated and—"

" Silencio. "

Hadria remained obediently quiet for another good half hour of the trip, even though she had lifted the spell off herself a second after it had been casted. Instead, she had settled for smiling winningly at Draco whenever he glanced her way, in what she felt should be a remarkable imitation of Lockhart.

And their topic of conversation eventually, inevitably, did turn to Lockhart. He was after all their new Defence teacher, and had already caused quite a stir before they even boarded the Hogwarts Express.

Actually, they had initially been discussing their magazine, because Pansy had been receiving subscription orders and questions about the series from students even over the summer break, and she wanted to review their current price scheme. They were currently charging three sickles per annual subscription, without any delivery cost, as the assumption was that anyone subscribing would be in Hogwarts anyway.

"I was thinking of adding a minimum delivery cost of one knut, for anyone outside Hogwarts, and the cost will increase based on the difficulty of the delivery," Pansy was saying, because some of their new subscribers were apparently alumni who had heard about the paper from their younger friends or siblings still in school. "And ten knuts for each individual issue bought outside subscription."

This was, as Hadria understood it, around one-third of the price the Daily Prophet was charging, which was fair, considering how their Hogwarts entertainment magazine could hardly compare to an actual newspaper. Each individual issue of the Daily Prophet costs two sickles, though you could subscribe to the Daily Prophet for a galleon and a half per month, and the delivery fee ranged from one to ten knuts. With a subscription, you would essentially be paying around twenty-four knuts per issue, compared to the seven knuts per subscription issue of Hogwarts: a Mystery .

Then, because Pansy was in a rather avaricious mood, she went on to comment, "Do you think we could charge more for a special edition featuring Lockhart?"

(Draco made an exaggerated gagging noise that led to Blaise thumping him heavily on the back and that somehow devolved into Draco choking for real.)

"Like, an interview?" Hadria wondered hesitantly. She did not want to know how Lockhart would react to that. No, scratch that, she knew exactly how he would react and she did not want to be there if it happened.

Pansy thought about it and shuddered. "Actually, scrap that. I don't know what I was thinking."

Then she went back to organising the stacks of parchments she had—her notes for the magazine.

"Do you think I'll be allowed to bring King around? In school, I mean." Neville suddenly asked.

Blaise huffed, amused. "Like, to classes?"

"Yes, I figured it would help with Lockhart's fan crowd. Is there a rule against this, do you think?"

"You'll have to ask Granger," Draco snorted. "But if you ask me, I doubt there's a rule, simply because nobody expects a student to carry carnivorous plants around like pets. There's probably a rule against removing plants from the Greenhouses without permission but if the plant is yours …"

"Fungi, actually."

"Same difference, Hadria. Or you could just get permission from your Head-of-House. I don't think anybody says anything about Weasley carrying his damn rat around and I bet that dirty thing could start a plague or something."

(Ron didn't actually bring Scabbers around all the time, though it was true they'd seen the rat with him a few times before. Hadria would have to see what their class schedules were like and plan her abduction of Wormtail correctly.)

"Great," Neville beamed. "This fungi's the best gift I've gotten this year. I love it." He turned to smile so warmly at Hadria that she thought he could give Lockhart a run for his money. "Thank you, again."

"Um, you're welcome? Again. Though… Didn't you mention in your letter that it nearly ate Trevor?"

Neville was still smiling. "It's alright, it was just tasting Trevor, I think, when I discovered them together. And Trevor doesn't seem particularly bothered by it, so no harm done. I had to leave him at home though. Gran insisted I could only bring one of them to school, and I love Trevor too, but I figured he's more likely to get lost and maybe eaten again, and King can't wander off on its own, so it's probably better this way."

Hadria resisted the urge to point out they would have a whole new Problem if the carnivorous fungi could wander off and search for food on its own.

"Good choice," said Pansy absently as she finally packed away her notes.

"No offence," she said in the way people did when they did mean offence but wanted some pretence of politeness all the same. "But toads are rather old-fashioned. Nobody keeps them as pets these days. I can't say I like that clump of fungi you've got but at least it's—" She grimaced. "—At least it's unique ."

"Trevor is unique too," Neville mumbled defensively, petulantly, but it was probably only loud enough for Ginny to hear. (And herself, because it wasn't uncommon for Animagi to retain traits from their animal self after their first successful transformation, and almost every mammalian Animagus Hadria knew—Professor McGonagall, Sirius, and Wormtail—seemed to have better hearing than an ordinary wizard.)

But that was alright; Hadria figured it was only a matter of time before Neville would say these things louder. And then it wouldn't matter anymore whether he got a new wand or not.

Magic was a science, and wands a technology. But magic was also an art, and the only thing you really needed for it was imagination and belief.

They arrived at Hogwarts without much fuss. There were no boats to be taken, and were instead introduced to the Thestral-driven carriages. Of course, by "without much fuss", Hadria actually meant "aside from the short interval where they discovered with some measure of perturbation that the Thestrals appeared to eye Neville's King with a certain gleam of gluttony."

Though Neville was the only other student in their group who could see the Thestrals, and despite having heard of them from his Gran before, was still rather uncomfortable with their appearance in general, so it was really only Hadria who was able to appreciate how weird it was that the Thestrals—who were carnivorous, mind you—seemed to see the Giant Oyster Mushroom as an actual giant oyster creature.

Nacht had never given King any more attention than she would an ordinary toadstool, but that had also been before the fungi was introduced to Neville and whatever he did to grow it to the size it currently was.

Still, aside from the school Thestrals eyeing the fungi like it was a delectable piece of meat, they reached Hogwarts safely and on time, no flying cars or temperamental trees involved. Or incriminating newspaper articles and unpleasant meetings with the Professors.

Then they were in the Great Hall, waiting for the Sorting Ceremony.

The first-years were led in, curious and bright-eyed—Ginny was easily spotted with her vivid red hair, a look of contemplative concentration on her pale freckles face—and the Sorting Hat began singing a new song, probably composed over the past year.

They hadn't really spoken about Ginny's Sorting during the train ride. In fact, it had apparently somehow slipped their mind that there was even a Sorting to mention. But perhaps this could be attributed to the fact that there wasn't quite a point to ask about it, when practically every Weasley had only ever been in Gryffindor, even the Twins, when they probably could have fit in Ravenclaw—they might not be studious but they certainly had the curiosity and wittiness for it—or Slytherin—what with their shrewdness and resourcefulness. They'd probably run circles around the other Slytherins if they'd been Sorted there.

And yet.

And yet, "Weasley, Ginny" was called up, and the large Hat was placed over her fiery hair, and the Hat opened the folds of its mouth and announced, "HUFFLEPUFF."

The other Weasleys over at the Gryffindor table had also readied themselves to clap, and there was a moment when they seemed to freeze mid-action. They weren't the only ones—many students had begun clapping politely only to double-take when they registered the fact that it was a Weasley being Sorted and said Weasley was not going to Gryffindor.

(Ron stared and gaped like someone had told him, "You're a spider, Ronald.")

Then the Twins began cheering and hooting anew, and the Hufflepuffs joined by clapping with all the warmth and enthusiasm characteristic of their House. Neville—well, Neville was clapping lightly with an easy smile on his plump face but the fungi behind him had awoken and was waving its tendrils enthusiastically.

As Ginny began making her way to the Hufflepuff table, Hadria chanced a glance up at the High Table and had to turn with effort away from the human-shaped light bulb sitting beside Professor Snape who looked positively dark and thunderous by comparison—Hadria would bet a Galleon that if someone were to crash a flying car into the Whomping Willow right about now, he would eagerly leap at the opportunity to get away from the smiling man and towards a student or two that he could lecture (read: vent his frustrations on).

Professor Sprout, Hadria noted, looked torn between beaming warmly at Hufflepuff's newest human addition and staring in horror at Hufflepuff's newest fungi addition. As it was, her eyes were very wide and her smile sat frozen on her face. It seemed nobody had warned her that one of her favourite students was bringing a biological weapon to school.

Perhaps there would be another rule in the students' Hogwarts letter next year.

That's all for now. Feel free to let me know if you have any comments or questions!

As some of you might realise, I've been more active on AO3 than here, recently. And cross-posting is starting to get a little tiresome. As such, I am now considering halting all activity here. If I do so, I will not remove any works or chapters already posted here, I will simply not update them anymore, and future updates can only be found on AO3.

I have not yet decided if I will actually do so, but this is a warning that it might happen. After this, I will post one more chapter of Danse Macabre here, and decide by then.

Thank you for reading, and have a pleasant weekend.