A/N: After a two-week trip, a new job, and getting sick, I feel like I'm beating the odds by posting a new chapter about a month after the last. It's a bit of a longer one, too. I hope you all enjoy it!
The air inside of Hogwarts felt heavy; the dark corridors smothering. Neville's footsteps, echoed by Terry Boot's, seemed strangely muffled by the oppressive quiet as they came out of the dungeons.
They were just finishing their rounds. Prefects' patrols had resumed now that construction on the massive tank had finished. The sheer size of the aquarium was breathtaking - a monolith that dominated the center of the Entrance Hall and the main chamber filled with staircases above. It had been filled with water and decorated with shelves of coral and stands of kelp, and loaded up with varying species of fish ranging from tiny to larger than Neville's chest. It was no longer shrouded in mystery, though, since the Prophet had run its story about Harry's fate two days ago. Now the students whispered about when the boy-turned-mer would be brought to Hogwarts. No one yet had openly wondered what it meant for the scraps of resistance remaining.
Terry, a part of the DA past and present, hadn't said a word about it to Neville all night.
Neville hadn't said anything either. Perhaps he was afraid that without Harry, all hope was gone, and the resistance finished. Harry had been a symbol of hope and light since his infancy, but Voldemort had taken that symbolism and twisted it into a monument of his own victory. Neville didn't know if England's witches and wizards could find the heart to keep fighting, and a part of him didn't yet want to know the answer.
For now, the tank was silent, glowing faintly blue and casting shifting lines of light on the bleak walls of the Entrance Hall. Neville glanced at it as he passed, as did Terry - both on their way up to the upper levels, where their beds waited for them.
Noise.
Both Neville and Terry froze. It had sounded like something falling against stone, and had come from the Great Hall behind them.
Silence.
Neville's first, paranoid thought was that the Carrows were stalking up from behind, wands drawn, that horrible excitement lighting their eyes at the prospect of catching two students out of bed.
His second thought was that - because of pureblood snobbery alone - he was a prefect now, and rightfully out of bed.
Finally, when he met Terry's eyes, he realized that if it had been the Carrows, they would have revealed themselves by now. This was a student out of bed, and not likely to be some midnight tryst if their presence in the Great Hall was any indication. There was only one reason someone would be there after curfew: trouble.
"Check it out?" Terry whispered, head angled back towards the Great Hall. Now that his initial panic was fading, Neville could see a faint yellow light from under the doors. Better the troublemaker be found by him and Terry rather than Filch or the Carrows.
Neville sighed quietly and palmed his wand. "Yeah."
The door to the Great Hall swung aside silently at Neville's light push. Neville poked his head in, cautious, and then sighed in frustration when he saw torchlight glinting on a sheet of red hair.
"Ginny," he whispered, coming into the room fully. The girl jumped and spun around, wand drawn and lips open to fire off a curse before recognition lit in her eyes. She slowly lowered her wand again, and shifted to cross her arms stubbornly instead. There was something dark on the wall behind her, but in the flickering light, Neville couldn't yet make out what it was. He stumbled in the darkness past the Slytherin table, feeling slightly queasy at the lack of an opaque floor underfoot. The stones had been replaced with glass here, too, and now, the Great Hall sat upon a deep tank with a sandy floor. Neville knew it was full of fish and eels and crustaceans, but in the dark night, they were only shadows far below, and it felt like Neville was stepping out into nothingness. He grabbed onto the table's edge as he moved, steadying himself as much as reassuring himself that he wasn't about to plummet into nothingness.
Terry followed, glancing behind them nervously.
"What are you doing?" Neville asked, hushed, as he came near to his housemate. She shot him a heated look, her hair in disarray, splashes of dim color marking her face and robes.
"I'm telling those Death Eaters what I think of the tripe they put out in the Prophet," she hissed, gesturing around. On the bench behind her and tipped over on the floor were several strange metal cans with little fixtures on top, some of them stained the same colors that marked Ginny's person. Paint, it looked like, though Neville had never seen paint in containers like these.
"Merlin, Weasley," Terry breathed behind Neville, making him jump. "You've got to take that down."
Neville followed Terry's gaze to the wall and squinted at the marks Ginny had left. It took him a moment to make it out, but when he did, his mouth went dry.
"Ha," Ginny laughed scornfully, keeping her voice low. "Good luck to anyone who tries."
"Ginny, they'll kill someone for that," Neville whispered.
Terry started to gather up Ginny's strange paints, shoving them into a satchel laying empty on the floor. "Come on, Weasley, I know you're pissed, but you can't - "
"Someone has to call them on their -"
"Not like this," Terry hissed, the whites of his eyes flashing. "Do you have a death wish?"
Ginny jutted out her chin stubbornly, eyes blazing, and didn't respond.
"Clean yourself up," Neville whispered, trying to find a way to get through this without someone ending up chained in the dungeons. "Ginny. We can't be seen here."
Ginny snatched up a can on the bench next to her, and pressed down on the fixture at the top. It sprayed a pale mist in a slashing motion at the wall. It clouded the dark air with a cloying smell that had Neville trying not to gag.
"Done," Ginny whispered, and then stuffed the paint into the satchel with the rest and turned to look with satisfaction at what she'd done.
The dark mark was emblazoned above the Slytherin table, but Ginny had taken the symbol and twisted it. The usually forbidding skull had been given a clown's nose and rainbow wig. Instead of a hissing serpent crawling from its mouth, there was a siren. Its tail was in the skull's maw, but it had twisted upwards to thrust its clawed hands into the skull's empty eye sockets, which dripped blood.
The siren had a lightning bolt painted in glittering gold over its head.
Terry looked nervously towards the staff entry door near the head table, then back to the main doors. "Look, I won't tell, but I'm not going to be complicit in this. You're going too far, Weasley. If you want to risk your neck just to insult You-Know-Who, that's your business, but… forget you even saw me here tonight, okay? I'm going to bed."
Terry turned and hurried away, glancing back over his shoulder every few steps.
Ginny rounded on Neville, fists clenched. "You too?"
Neville forced himself to look away from the crudely done mockery, swallowing. "Let's just get back before someone comes."
Ginny's grin was a pointed moon of glinting teeth in the dark. "Don't let anyone tell you you were a mis-sort."
"Who did it?" Alecto Carrow's scream silenced the Great Hall. Spittle clung to her lip, and her eyes were wild with fury. Her wand was in hand, and the students nearest to her flinched away. Amycus stood just behind her, arms crossed and empty eyes surveying the students.
No one dared lift another forkful of breakfast to their mouths. It was as if everyone held their breath, waiting for Alecto to explode.
One seat away from Neville, Ginny kept a convincing look of startled innocence on her face. Neville knew he wasn't as good of a faker. He kept his head down, knowing he wasn't the only one using that method to avoid drawing the twins' ire. Innocence didn't usually matter, where they were concerned.
"What is this about?"
The unease in the room rippled as Snape strode through the great double doors, black cloak flared like bat wings. He stopped dead when he saw the painting on the wall - now fully revealed in all of its colorful, treasonous glory by daylight.
Snape's lips tightened.
"I see," he said, lowly. He swept up towards the staff table, heels clicking ominously on the glass. If he was discomfited by the appearance of walking on water, he didn't show it. Just past the Carrows, he whirled to face the students, robes snapping at the movement.
Neville watched Snape's hands for a wand, but if it was drawn, it was hidden by his voluminous sleeves.
"Most of you are… unaware, that Lord Slytherin will be visiting Hogwarts… in a mere half hour's time." The headmaster's voice was a calm, disdainful drip, no different than the tone Neville remembered so well from potions lectures. Perhaps that was why it took a moment for Neville to process the meaning of the words.
When he did, he felt the blood drain from his face. Dumbledore's announcement the previous year had made sure that most Hogwarts students knew the Dark Lord's birth name. As a result, Neville knew that most of the DA, at the very least, had realized the true identity of the new Lord Slytherin. Many others likely had as well.
Snape let them simmer in their fear for a moment - obviously well aware of their knowledge - before he continued:
"If the students responsible come forward… now… and remove their poorly rendered graffiti in… the next half hour, then you will receive this mercy: you will be expelled quietly, and leave Hogwarts with your belongings and life." Here he paused again, sweeping them all with his beetle black eyes. "However, should you choose… not… to come forward… then the Dark Lord will be informed of this disgrace, and he… will… not… be so merciful."
Snape held them all under his gaze for another breathless eternity, before he raised his eyebrow.
"It is no matter to me. However… time… is… tick-ing."
Students jumped as the headmaster abruptly swept his robes aside and strode, without a backward glance, to his place at the head table. It had been empty since the welcoming feast, but he sat there now, expressionless, and meticulously served himself a cup of tea.
The Carrows descended on him, but had the sense to put up a privacy ward before airing whatever disagreement they apparently had with his course of action. Snape hardly even granted them a glance over the rim of his teacup as Alecto ranted, her hands gesticulating wildly.
Snape had not confirmed Lord Slytherin's identity, Neville blankly realized. He had been careful to separate the supposedly new lord's visit from Voldemort's potential involvement, so that if this were to somehow get back to the Prophet (it wouldn't - security in and out of the castle was unbreakable), it could be easily dismissed as speculation. Yet, the connection had been implied heavily enough that Neville knew, from the wide eyes and terrified faces around the Hall, that not many students were still ignorant about Voldemort's newest pseudonym.
"Who did it?" Dean Thomas croaked, drawing Neville's attention back. "I know it was one of us, and they'll know it too."
"Don't be a coward," Ginny hissed. She'd managed to scrape all the paint off last night, but the bags under her eyes were a little bit darker, and a little bit puffier, than they'd been the day before. Neville hoped only he noticed.
"They don't know who did it, or they'd be coming after them directly instead of making vague threats," Ginny said.
"You-Know-Who is coming," Lavender Brown whispered, shaking visibly where she sat next to Dean. As muggleborns, Neville couldn't blame them for being more afraid than most.
"He isn't going to ask who did it politely," Dean agreed. "Better fess up now and get away with your life rather than get discovered when he starts torturing us all."
"Probably use veritaserum, too," Seamus said grimly. "Snape probably has a massive stock on hand."
Ginny's freckles were now in stark relief against the paleness of her face.
They were all staring at her. Neville glanced at Seamus, then to Dean, Lavender, Parvati, and down to Colin Creevey, Demelza Robins, Romilda Vane, Toby Pritchard, and Gus Falkner. He saw it in their eyes: they all knew who'd done it.
No one said it, though, because suspecting someone and knowing it without a shadow of a doubt were two entirely different things, and as Seamus had said, they'd likely be facing veritaserum soon. That had been bad enough with Umbridge that they all remembered it.
Ginny, however, did not confess. They all went back to picking at their plates, silent for another five minutes, before GInny whispered, "You-Know-Who must be bringing… you know."
…Harry.
Across the Hall, McGonagall and Flitwick were conjuring a curtain to hide Ginny's treasonous artwork. The Carrows' earlier attempts to vanish and clean it had only caused it to grow in size until it took up half the wall. There was no way Voldemort would miss it, even covered in curtains.
Neville looked down and saw the nauseating depth of the tank below. Harry would no doubt be swimming down there, soon enough - imprisoned in the body of a magical creature and put on display under the pretense of magical education. Harry, who hadn't come back to school because he needed to finish something Dumbledore had started. Harry, who'd had private lessons with Dumbledore for a year before the previous headmaster's death. Harry, who had been one of the last ones resisting Voldemort. Harry, who clearly knew something the rest of them didn't.
Neville's mind sharpened, and he looked up, catching Seamus and Dean's eyes.
"We need to know where the entrance is," he whispered.
Despite the lack of context, the two of them nodded almost immediately.
"It's probably going to be public, but I'll follow them if it isn't," Seamus whispered.
"No, I will," Ginny said, leaning into their conversation.
Dean opened his mouth to argue, but Ginny rounded on him with flashing eyes.
"We all know I'm probably headed for the dungeons soon enough anyway. Let them think I'm the only one."
Perhaps in less desperate times, a group of Gryffindors would argue, each fighting to be the one to take the risk. Now, they all saw the sense of it, and only exchanged troubled looks.
Snape stood, and the Hall fell silent. He only swept his eyes over them once again before he swept down the central aisle and out the double doors - presumably to greet the castle's esteemed guest.
Alecto Carrow shot off a bang from the tip of her wand, drawing their attention back to the head table.
For a split second, Neville scoffed that she had to use such crude methods to make herself known, whereas all Snape had to do was stand from his seat.
"Wait in the Entrance Hall until you are recalled!" Alecto bellowed. "When you return, form lines according to House and then year. Attendance is mandatory!"
She attempted to glare at them the same way Snape had, but it lacked the same cool disdain. She was threatening, without a doubt, but it was a wild threat rather than a menacing one.
"Go!" she yelled.
The Great Hall rose as one. Students pressed together, bottlenecking at the Great Hall's doors as they all hurried to follow the orders.
Neville was pushed into Ginny in the press.
"Well, we know it will be public," he muttered.
Ginny didn't answer.
Out in the Entrance Hall, Dean and Seamus rejoined them, and they waited while the professors rearranged the Great Hall.
"You think he's still… him?" Seamus asked, looking at the monumental pillar of the tank.
No one had an answer.
In a few minutes, they were called back and divided up by house, then year. Gryffindors had the front right corner, across the aisle from the Slytherins and in front of the Hufflepuffs. In each house's group, the first years were in the front row, the second years behind them, and so on.
The seventh-year Gryffindors shuffled so that their muggleborns were nearest to the wall, where they might avoid notice easier. Neville took the place next to the open aisle wordlessly, and Parvati would have stood next to him as the other pureblood, but Seamus waved her away with a scowl and held his spot.
Neville saw many other students organizing themselves in the same way. Even the Slytherins seemed to have organized themselves into an order of importance, which meant that Neville was directly across the aisle from Draco Malfoy. He was no longer the same braggart and bully he'd been. Becoming a death eater had turned him sullen and reclusive, even though he also held the position of Head Boy. Neville had hardly seen him since the prefects' meeting on the Hogwarts Express - Malfoy hadn't come to a meeting since.
While Neville was looking, Malfoy looked up briefly. He looked exhausted, but he lifted his lip in a sneer before he turned to say something to Parkinson at his side.
The great double doors slammed open. Any soft sounds amongst the students died as clicking heels announced the entering procession: aurors in red robes led the way, followed by Lucius Malfoy and three others Neville vaguely recognized as school governors. They were followed by Snape, taking up the whole aisle with his billowing robes, and then a clear glass tank, surrounded by eight more aurors who blocked the contents from view. Neville only saw a glimpse of a massive, fan-like tail fin, faintly translucent and green, before they were moving past.
Immediately behind them was a wizard Neville had only seen in photographs before. Tall, with carefully styled black hair, haughty dark eyes, and clean pale skin. His dress robes were shimmering black silk, trimmed in dark green, and he wore a pin bearing the Slytherin crest affixed to his tie. Power rolled off of him in waves, prickling against Neville's skin like sharp ice.
Voldemort.
The entire procession came to a stop up on the dais which usually supported the head table. The governors stood towards the back, near where the Carrows had waited. The aurors and their load went to the center, while Snape and Voldemort stood at the very front facing the students.
Voldemort's eyes raked over them before a cold smile crept onto his face.
Snape's voice came as somewhat of a surprise.
"For those… who managed… to remain ignorant of the news, Lord Slytherin has generously donated a siren, formerly the wizard known as Harry Potter, to the newly established Hogwarts Aquatic Research Program. He is here today to oversee the transfer of his… donation… to the aquarium we have constructed here, and, afterward, will be touring the castle and… visiting… classes. Represent your school… well."
Snape stepped back, and Voldemort smiled. It was an expression so perfect it likely could have made it into Witch Weekly, but it made Neville shiver.
"Thank you, Headmaster. It… warms me, to be here after so long away."
Neville's hair stood on end at the sound. Voldemort's voice was breathy and gentle - strange, but on another man, it could have been pleasant. Knowledge of who was speaking, though, caused the sound to feel about the same as an acromantula drawing a leg down Neville's spine.
"As many of you know already, I have a special attachment to this school, despite never having attended myself," Voldemort's voice lifted, projecting easily into every crevice of the room without losing its quiet quality. "Thus, I am pleased to lend my support to the education of England's young witches and wizards, in the tradition of my House's founder. Equipped with new resources, and revived by a revised curriculum, you will be given every opportunity to grow into the wizards and witches of the future."
There was a glacial moment of silence before Snape clapped his hands together. The Carrows caught on, and the governors, and then the Slytherin students, and finally the rest of the room - applauding for their new dictator in disguise. Neville watched Voldemort. Despite the fear which locked his feet to the floor, Neville could only see the manwho had decimated the Longbottom family along with many others. Like the Potters.
Neville couldn't have lifted his hands to clap if he'd wanted to.
Voldemort motioned sharply to the aurors (and they'd been so careful to maintain the charade, but wasn't it telling that the visiting aurors took orders from Lord Slytherin and not Headmaster Snape?) and they turned to the tank behind them, wands lifted. Snape and Voldemort moved aside, and the aurors stepped backward nearer the edge of the dais. Something heavy thunked to the glass when they again stopped.
The room held its breath. The aurors stepped away to the sides, and in front of Neville, Ginny gasped out a sob. Someone, somewhere, screamed.
It was Harry, but not. He stared out at them all, hands and face pressed to the glass separating him from the students. His eyes were wide, the same green as they'd always been, but now more noticeable thanks to his lack of glasses. There was something wrong with them. It took Neville a moment to realize that Harry's pupils were no longer round but were slitted like a cat's. Combined with the pointed teeth visible in his open mouth (was he trying to speak?), it gave his face an animalistic appearance despite the underlying familiarity. If anyone had any doubts, his famous scar was plainly visible - pink and slightly enflamed - on his pale forehead.
Aside from the merpeople in the Black Lake - who were very different from their saltwater cousins - Neville had only ever seen artists' depictions of mer. There were the beautified female depictions found more commonly in fairytales, and then there were the monstrous renditions more common in wizarding literature. They were usually given claws and large yellow eyes, with gaping jaws filled with long, needle-like teeth.
Though they were exaggerations, Neville could easily see how the artists arrived at those depictions. If his changed facial features weren't enough, his thick, green-black tail looping in the water like a giant snake, or eel, drove home the impression of something alien. The light glimmered on the scales, causing barely-discernible patterns to emerge in amber. His gills - raw-looking slashes that opened and closed over the top of his ribcage - reminded Neville of open wounds, and the glint of light on barely-visible scales covering Harry's torso and face erased any impressions of softness that might have been given by Harry's more human features.
"Merlin's beard," Neville whispered.
It hadn't seemed real until now. The entire scene broke against Neville's mind, jarring, wrong. How could Harry still be Harry, looking like that? He was hardly recognizable.
"Would you do the honors, Headmaster?" Voldemort asked, having let the students settle into their shock.
Snape stepped up next to the tank and drew his wand. Harry rolled to his back at the movement and opened his mouth in an expression similar to a snarl, while Snape ignored him and incanted towards the tank.
Recognition kindled in Neville, then. That expression of hate, directed at Snape, was so classically Harry. Suddenly, it was easier to see the similarities to the wizard Neville had known: Harry's clenched fists, the set of his jaw, the resentful flash of his eyes.
"He's still him," Neville breathed.
Snape stepped back, and Neville frowned at the lack of visible effect. Then Harry twisted his body so he was facing downwards again, frowning, and reached his hand down. It passed through where two layers of glass had separated him from the large tank below, revealing that Snape had opened the two tanks to each other.
Harry, though, did not dart downwards into the more expansive waters waiting for him. He turned to look back up at the students, a mournful cast to his mouth and grief in his eyes.
"Harry," Ginny whispered.
"We need to find a way to talk to him," Neville said quietly.
"Good luck with that," Seamus murmured beside him. "Even if you can get past the Carrows, they'll have soundproofed the entire tank. Mersong, remember?"
"Harry wouldn't," Ginny hissed, turning to look at them.
Snape flicked his wand, and Harry's transport tank sunk slowly into the Great Hall's floor. Harry slammed his hands against the glass, appearing to shout something angrily, as he was pushed forcefully down beneath their feet. The gleam of light reflecting on the surface of the glass obscured Neville's vision, for a moment. He saw a flash of amber and green under the head dais as Harry moved.
The Carrows began clapping and glaring out at the students. The Slytherins picked it up quickly enough, but the rest had just barely begun to lift their hands when another sound - low at first, then rising, then falling again - crept into the Hall. The applause died almost instantly.
The hairs on the back of Neville's neck stood up as a shiver raced down his spine, so strong that it felt as if his joints had locked. The sound repeated, barely perceptible to the ear and yet potent in its representation of grief and mourning and… agony.
Ginny gasped a sob and choked it back again. Seamus had gone pasty white, and across the aisle, Malfoy's eyes had blown wide as if in terror. Neville's eyes stung with tears, and he clenched his fist around a phantom gum wrapper.
"Mersong," Parvati whispered. "Not so soundproofed."
"It isn't like he's trying to kill us," Ginny hissed without turning to look at them. Neville could still see her puffy eyes. "No one's tried to off themselves if you hadn't noticed."
"Of course not, they couldn't expose us all to that," Parvati hissed back. "It's dampened enough that we aren't controlled by it."
Another flash of green and gold caught Neville's attention in the open space of the aisle. He glanced to the side and saw a muscled tail curved in a graceful arc toward Neville's feet.
Neville jumped backward at a flash of spines and claws, bumping into Seamus. Another mournful swoop of notes crawled into Neville's ears, and a moment later, Harry's inhuman face came up from the depths of the water below to stare directly up at Neville. Harry's pale skin, distorted and faded by the glass and the water, made Neville feel as if he were looking down into a grave on a corpse.
Harry remained there, looking, and Neville slowly stood up straight again, heart beating quickly. He felt the weight of eyes on him, watching. Harry's mouth moved as if he were forming words, yet all that could be heard was a low musical trill: hesitant, questioning, uncertain. Neville's mouth was dry. The movement of Harry's lips was familiar… was he saying Neville's name? Calling out for a friend?
At least four death eaters and Voldemort himself were watching, though. Neville flicked his eyes towards them and noted that, as he'd thought, nothing was blocking his face from their view.
Neville swallowed hard, straightened his body, and looked away from Harry.
An ululating note warbled into the air, making Neville feel as if the ground itself were unsteady. He closed his prickling eyes and tried not to choke on the guilt tearing him up from the inside.
"They're watching; don't do anything," Colin murmured from the next row. Neville cracked his eyes open enough to see that Harry had moved underneath them to peer up at Ginny, his hands pressed against the glass. Her shoulders were shaking with her efforts not to sob, and she was clutching Colin's hand so hard that his fingers had gone white. Her head was tilted down to look at Harry, but she didn't speak.
The same sound, which seemed as if it could melt the entire castle with its pain, filled the Hall again, louder this time. There was another flash of emerald and gold, and then Harry's figure faded under the weight of saltwater, his anguish echoing in their ears.
Their first class had been canceled thanks to the spectacle of Harry's move-in. Neville was relieved at the opportunity to miss Muggle Studies with Alecto Carrow, and at the fact that the rest of his morning classes were relatively easy. History he spent with his head in his hands, numb with shock, staring at the desk in front of him. Flitwick could only muster a half-hearted effort in Charms, assigning them all to review before sitting up at his desk with a stack of essays. When the class finished, he was still on the first.
By some miracle, Voldemort had evidently decided to visit other classes in the morning, and Neville didn't worry about him until he was trudging back into the Entrance Hall. The large column of the aquarium took his attention almost immediately, but there was no sign of Harry or Voldemort.
In the Great Hall, the tables and benches had been replaced, and platters of sandwiches and battered fish with chips were laid out for lunch. Neville fell heavily into his usual seat at the end of the Gryffindor table along with his year mates. A glance proved that Ginny's artwork was still present and smothered by curtains, and that Snape and Voldemort were not present at the head table.
"Where's Ginny?" Neville asked, eyes flicking over the sixth years. She wasn't there, and neither was Demelza Robins, Toby Pritchard, or Colin.
"They had Transfiguration last," Vane said, poking her fork into the top of a cucumber sandwich.
"And you didn't?" Dean asked.
Romilda gave him a poisonous look. "I failed the O.W.L."
"Maybe they just ran late," Lavender murmured, putting her hand on Dean's arm.
Neville gripped his knees. Lavender was probably right. The fact that half the sixth years were still missing indicated that their class had been held up by something, not that Ginny had already been sniffed out and dragged off to face Voldemort's wrath.
It was an effort to stay seated at the table, though. Neville poked at his food, not even sure what he'd taken, eyes constantly roaming towards the doors.
Finally, Ginny and the other missing sixth-years appeared in the doorway, looking pale but unharmed.
"He was visiting our class," Ginny said, a shake in her voice, while she took her seat.
"What happened?" Seamus asked.
"Nothing bad, really," Colin answered.
"He just sat at the back, watching, for most of the class," Ginny said quietly. "McGonagall was shaken up, though, so when we got to the end he asked her if he could ask us all a few questions. Gave us a… a quiz."
"A quiz?" Neville blinked.
"Yeah," Ginny laughed shakily. "A bloody quiz."
"Blimey," Seamus muttered.
"The worst was that he knew what he was talking about," Toby Pritchard said, eyes wide. "He knew what we'd covered and what we hadn't, and he knew the answers to the questions he asked just as good as McGonagall."
"And no one got hurt?" Neville asked.
"No one," Ginny confirmed. "Though he was talking to McGonagall when we were dismissed, and she looked caught between terror and wanting to set him on fire, so I hope she's okay." Ginny glanced towards the curtains across the Hall, then back to the rest of them. "Has anyone seen Harry? I thought he'd try to talk to us again."
There was a beat of silence before they each shook their heads.
"Ginny, we can't be seen trying to talk to him anyway," Neville reminded her lowly. "Not by the Carrows, or Snape, or You-Know-Who, or even the Slytherins."
"But he's hurting. We ignored him earlier," Ginny whispered, pained. "I have to - "
"He's a siren," Parvati said harshly. "You have to stop thinking like that."
Ginny rounded on the older girl, mouth open and fury in her eyes, but Neville beat her to it.
"He's Harry," Neville said. "Didn't you see the way he looked at Snape? The way he looked at us? They may have changed him, but he remembers us; feels the same way about us as he used to. He's still him."
"You all heard the mersong," Parvati hissed. "You, of everyone here, can't tell me you don't know that sirens are dangerous, Longbottom."
"He would never hurt us," Ginny hissed.
"Didn't your gran tell you the stories about mer?" Patil pressed, ignoring Ginny and staring at Neville.
"Yes," Neville said tightly. "I know. But there's still a huge difference between a mer who's had no interaction with wizards before and our classmate."
"What stories?" Dean asked.
Neville grimaced, but Parvati leaned over the table to explain.
"The sea is full of things we don't understand. It's deeper than the highest mountains and as endless as the sky. On land, you might worry about monsters creeping around in the dark. Vampires can be killed by a stake to the heart, and werewolves can be poisoned by silver… but if you're swimming in the sea, or sailing across the ocean, what do you have to protect yourself against creatures that can make you kill yourself? You might hear one note of mersong, and you'll willingly throw yourself into the waves. They can swim faster than dolphins and tear you apart more easily than a pack of sharks, and the only thing anyone will ever see of you again is your blood clouding the water."
Dean, Lavender, and Colin all looked as terrified as Neville had felt, listening to those sorts of stories from his gran as a child. Strange, that they hadn't heard them before.
"My mam told me different kinds of stories," Seamus said stubbornly. "About girls who fell in love with handsome mer who could come onshore in the moonlight, and found ways to go live together beneath the ocean."
"That's selkies," Parvati said pointedly. "Not sirens."
"And this is Harry," Ginny reminded them stubbornly. "I don't care how bad of a reputation sirens might have, I know him, and I know he would never hurt us."
"I agree," Neville added, and received a tersely grateful nod from Ginny. "Besides, we know we can't believe everything in the stories. Professor Lupin was one of our best teachers, but if we'd believed the stories, he would have eaten us while we sat at our desks."
Parvati let out a strained breath. "All I'm saying is that you should be cautious until you can prove it. The last thing we need is someone getting themselves killed because they threw themselves into the water with a Morgana-cursed siren."
Far below, Harry hid.
Seaweed stroked his scales and skin as it was moved by the current, and slid between his body and the soft sand beneath. He drove his fingers into the grit and hoped that the depth of the tank and the scant covering of the weeds would be enough to conceal him from curious eyes above. He thought the color of his tail blended well with the dark green seaweed, and the light was dim enough down here that his scales only reflected it dully.
He shuddered. He hated the way the seaweed felt like ghostly groping hands. It was cold in the shadows; he couldn't stay much longer. Only the memory of Neville ignoring him, Ginny's helpless fear, and everyone else's terrified gaping had made him tolerate the grasping sea plants for as long as he had. He could convince himself that those memories, as hazy as they were, were bad dreams, but his friends' rejection had been crystal clear.
He braced himself and waited (thinking coward, coward, coward) until the echoing blasts of sound sent by feet above abated. When he looked up, he only saw a few scattered soles of shoes pressed against the glass. Most of the students had gone.
Deciding that that would have to be good enough, Harry propelled himself with a single kick out of the bed of seaweed, startling several small bluish-brown fish and a crab. He slid his arms over themselves and then down to his waist, brushing away phantom hands while he surveyed his new surroundings.
The tank was enormous. It shared the same dimensions as the Great Hall above and was almost as deep as the Great Hall was high. The walls were plain gray, but the spaces between were teeming with life. Harry's senses felt electrified and buzzing as he saw the sand shifting from the movements of crabs, lobsters crawling over the mounds of rock around the edges of the room, eels poking hesitantly from holes drilled into the rock, and schools of fish as big as his forearm in shimmering schools towards the ceiling. His sharp eyes saw a tentacle draw into a crevice - an octopus, hiding away. Smaller fish in different hues of gray, brown, pink, orange, and blue flitted like butterflies between the seaweed and stands of coral perched on the rock.
Shafts of light from overhead striped the entire room in hazy light and shadow. Harry flicked his tail and drifted into the artificial sunlight, and felt his muscles loosen slightly at the renewed warmth.
There was a muted beauty about the entire thing, he thought. He'd never been to an aquarium, and his experiences with swimming had been limited to the second task in the Triwizard Tournament. Harry wondered if Hermione would know what all the different species of things around him were, if she could see.
Probably.
He brushed his hands down his arms again and turned. Behind him, set underneath the doors above, was a tunnel. He'd noticed it as soon as he'd been pushed into the tank, but the enormity and strangeness of his new environment, combined with his grief at being barred from the world above, had kept him from exploring. What if there were sharks? Or poisonous things? Harry didn't know the first thing about the sea, and yet here he was, living in an imitation of it.
He drifted in the current, staring at the tunnel, until he finally shook himself. Voldemort clearly wanted him alive. He wouldn't have gone to the trouble of building this massive, prettied-up prison cell only to lock Harry in with things that would kill him. Besides, Harry needed to check over his new cage for weaknesses and potential ways to escape. A bigger tank meant more possible places where the builders had screwed it up, didn't it?
Harry looked up once more and saw that the Great Hall appeared to have emptied of students. Reassured that his movements weren't going to draw attention, he kicked over to the edge of the room and swam carefully above the sloping rock against the walls. The school of silver fish wheeled out of his way, a hundred beady little eyes watching him with a collective wariness a single fish hadn't been capable of. They were the same kind that Voldemort had given him to eat, Harry thought, but they seemed much more intimidating as a group. They kept well out of his way as he circled the room, and he reflected that it would be much more difficult to catch one here.
Any eels that had been poking out of their burrows quickly withdrew as Harry approached. Lobsters shuffled further down the rocks as if they were trying to escape unobtrusively, and he saw another octopus tentacle withdraw into a small crack.
Everything in here is scared of me, and there are no loose rocks I can use as a weapon.
He finished his circuit and turned back to the tunnel, considering it. The entrance was dim, but a column of light shone down from where it let out somewhere above. How much bigger was this place? What would he do if there were sharks?
Just get on with it.
He sent a decisive kick rippling down his tail, and shouted in surprise when he crossed a third of the tank. He twisted and looked down the length of his body, observing the way his pectoral fins rippled in the currents and his wide tail fin sliced easily through the water. His new body was built for swimming. Just how fast could he move?
He blinked and shook himself out of it. He could figure that out later. For now, sharks and weaknesses.
Another kick took him to the tunnel. He caught himself on the edge with his hands and peered inside. He had to twist to look upwards, as the tunnel curved. Far above were indistinct, rippling shadows of things moving, but nothing that seemed inherently dangerous.
There was nothing for it. Harry swam carefully into the tunnel, easily twisting his flexible body into the curve and flicking his tail fin just enough to push him upwards. He stopped himself at the lip of the tunnel's mouth with his hands once again, peering upwards with an open mouth at what lay above.
He couldn't see the top of the tank. Shadowy shelves of rock and coral were attached to the sides of the column-shaped aquarium every few dozen feet, providing plenty of places for fish to shelter. A stand of kelp, reaching perhaps a hundred or more feet up, swayed gently in the current to Harry's left. Anemones and corals blanketed the floor of the tank, and colorful fish swam above and amongst the shelter. A larger slate-gray fish, the size of Harry's chest and thicker, swam lazily a dozen feet above, looking down on Harry with tiny beetle eyes. Its mouth was small, though, and seemed ill-equipped for causing any damage to a creature as large as Harry.
Might be able to take a chunk out of my fins if I pissed it off somehow, though.
Harry didn't see anything swimming around with shark fins, so he hesitantly emerged from the tunnel into the space. It was perhaps twice as wide in diameter as Harry was long, and decorated to look like a tropical reef rather than a seabed.
A very spiky-looking fish, striped with brown and white, swam lazily in front of Harry's face. It had large eyes, with pupils that matched the stripes on its body. The more delicate portions of its many fins rippled with each movement, and Harry watched, transfixed by it until a larger movement to his right caught his attention.
He spun his head, fins stiffening into blades, but froze when he realized that what had drawn his attention was not a sea creature, but a human outside of the tank. One he recognized.
"Hannah," he murmured, forgetting, for a moment, that the odds that she could hear him were probably impossible. Another girl moved behind her, becoming more distinct the closer she came to the warping glass and water.
"Susan," Harry breathed.
The two of them were staring at him, expressions frozen. Harry almost swam to them, but then he remembered the reaction his appearance had garnered that morning. Neville and Ginny hadn't been able to bear him, so why should Hannah Abbot and Susan Bones?
He whipped upwards in an arc and dove into the stand of kelp, grief keening in his chest even though he had no words.
The thick kelp leaves wrapped around him, obscuring him almost completely from view from all sides. He clutched the rough, leathery leaves in his hands, steadying himself while his heart jackhammered in his chest.
He couldn't hear anything happening outside of the tank. He heard the dull roar of the water around him flowing, and the fluctuations in that sound as silent creatures altered the water's course with their own movements. The kelp leaves were cold and rough, and slapped against his skin like wet, unwanted kisses.
Harry's stomach clenched, and he kicked back out into the open water. Hannah and Susan were gone, much to his relief, and the Entrance Hall around the tank seemed empty. He drifted into the center of the silent tank, alone, small, and feeling awfully powerless.
He brushed his hands down his arms and then down his tail, reassured by the touch of his own skin. He gathered his courage back up and focused on the taste of salt ever present on his tongue, which was noticeable only if he concentrated. He shouldn't have run from Hannah and Susan. Even if they did think he was a monster now, what was he going to do from now on? Run and hide every time someone looked at him?
He needed to focus on what was important. He needed to examine his prison, find any openings or weaknesses, and find a way to communicate to someone that the muggleborns were in danger. It didn't matter that his cell was open to the public. He had to get past that shame and do what he could.
Rubbing his arms one more time, Harry finally felt the panicked racing of his thoughts slow, and his focus return. If he could find some opening, he might be able to lead someone on the outside to it so he could explain what had happened, and warn them about the planned camps for the muggleborns. For now, he did not have to know who that "someone" would be.
He turned his face upward and saw crystalline waters stretching up further than he could see. It was filled with unfamiliar things, but it was room to move and stretch and test himself. Who knew? Maybe Voldemort could have gotten sloppy and left something useful somewhere in there.
It was time for Harry to put his cursed tail to use.
A/N: Does anyone have particularly strong opinions about the Gryffindors not in Harry's immediate orbit? We don't know much about them as people from canon, so I've got a lot of room to play with, here.