AN: Hello and sorry for being a week late with this update – don't you just hate it when RL gets in the way? Next update should be on time.

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Looking at all the future Ancient families first years together, Harry thought about what the year was probably going to be like. Hannah Abbot sat with Susan Bones, and they both declared firmly they were headed for Hufflepuff. It was unlikely they wouldn't get their wish. Ernie McMillan and Zacharias Smith were planning to be there with them, though Ernie looked like he would appreciate it if there was some other boy to keep him company. Draco was headed to Slytherin, together with Vincent and Greg. Neville and Ron were hoping for Gryffindor, like him. And then there were some undecided. "My family is traditionally Slytherin," Theo was saying, "and I want to go there, but I wouldn't exactly mind Ravenclaw."

"I know what you mean," Daphne replied, and repeated her own preference for anything but Hufflepuff. "No offence," she added.

Millicent joined in. "We used to be a Gryffindor family too, but now it's been really all over the place for generations. My uncle was a Gryffindor, but neither of my parents were...I think I like Slytherin best, like my mum did, but we'll see."

"Oh, do let's agree that we will be Slytherins! I mean, my family is not really that clearly decided, like Millicent's, but most of the Parkinsons have been in Hufflepuff, and I'm so not going there!" Pansy did not add a 'no offence' a the end of that statement, surprising no one at all. "But my parents were Slytherin, and I like that."

Daphne seemed to reconsider the idea that Slytherin was a good choice, in light of this idea of Pansy's. Then, predictably, Zacharias joined in with an offended remarked towards Pansy, and the amusement was arranged for the following thirty minutes, at the end of which Pansy stormed off, enraged, and Zacharias was not talking to anyone. In spite of some of Ron's issues, and Neville's excessive shyness, Harry was very grateful for the House that was likely awaiting him at Hogwarts, compared to what the other options were.

The storm blew over after a while, though, and the future first-years sat all together again, and compared their new wands. "Hawthorn with unicorn hair," Draco was saying. "I had hoped for dragon heartstring, but at least hawthorn is cool."

"Yeah, dragon heartstring would have gone with your name," Harry agreed. "I have holly and phoenix feather."

"Good luck with that! I heard the strangest things about holly..."

"I have willow and unicorn," Ron boasted from his place next to Neville.

Draco sniggered. "How innocent and fragile of you," he said.

"Oh, lay off, Draco," Harry said, rolling his eyes. "It's not like yours is the essence of toughness." Harry knew that Neville's grandmother made him use his father's wand, so he turned to the other side and asked: "And you, Theo?"

"Walnut and phoenix feather," the boy replied, sounding rather proud.

"Another phoenix! I'm glad. But do none of you have a dragon heartstring one? The Traverses both do, so I thought it was quite common..."

"I do," Pansy said immediately. "And I," Susan added from the other side of the table, surprising Harry greatly. "I have a dragon heartstring wand," Zacharis Smith said, and they glared at each other with Pansy, apparently both considering getting a new one because they were unwilling to share anything with the other. "My father's wand has dragon heartstring core too," Neville said, attracting their attention. "And that's what I will be using."

"Your grandmother is very traditional, isn't she?" Susan said diplomatically.

"So, all the rest of you have unicorn wands, or…?"

"No, I have a phoenix core," Daphne explained. "Me too," Millicent added.

"We seem to be divided pretty equally," Daphne continued. "What about woods, do we all have different ones, or is there a match?"

She herself had elm, which was much admired by Draco. Hannah's alder also inspired a surprised and impressed murmur. Susan had apple, Zach had ash and Pansy had chestnut. Greg boasted an English Oak, which earned him a prolonged whistle from Ron and a "behold the new Merlin!" from Draco. Milicent had Larch, which met with quiet approval, as well as Ernie's poplar. The only match was Vincent, who had ash like Zach. He did not seem to be too pleased with the discovery – neither of them was, in fact.

"And Daphne has elm like my cousin Alexandra."

"And like my dad," Draco added. "What does your cousin – Mr. Travers, I mean – have?"

"Fir. Your mum?"

"Acacia."

"Oh, wow!" Daphne looked dreamy. "I really wanted an acacia wand, but this one chose me instead, so, well, ..."

"You're not going to complain about having elm, are you?" Draco asked, amused.

"You only think it's the best because your father has it," Harry commented, laughing, and then said: "What core does he have?"

"Dragon heartstring."

"Oh, really? That means he has the same combination as cousin Alexandra, too. How strange..."

"Why strange?"

Harry shrugged. "I don't know, they just seem really different. Your father just seems to have a sort of heavy dignity around him – a little like my cousin Alduin – and Alexandra never seems to be solemn at all."

"Hm. Maybe it's the difference in length. How long is your cousin's?"

"Kinda short – something like ten inches, I think."

"There you go. My dad's over fourteen, and a lot less supple, I'd bet."

Harry imagined the same. There was nothing that seemed the least supple about Mr. Malfoy.

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Harry was a little unsure when the Traverses asked him what he wanted to do for his birthday. There would be a garden party in any case, they explained, but apart from that? What did he, personally, actually want to do?

Harry considered this difficult problem. He got an owl from Hagrid, asking him to Diagon Alley for the day, but while he didn't have a problem with Hagrid, it wasn't exactly what he imagined he'd spend his birthday doing. "You don't have to go," Alduin assured him when he told him of his dilemma. "Just write back and thank Hagrid for the offer, but tell him you have other plans. Do you, by the way?"

That was, of course, the crux of the matter. He remembered what Dudley used to do for his birthday. Usually the Dursleys took him to a cinema or an amusement part or a zoo. Harry didn't think a cinema or an amusement part would sound like too good an option to Alduin, but perhaps he had a chance with the zoo?

When he presented the idea, it turned out there were actual zoological gardens in the wizarding world as well, and Harry swiftly decided that he was more interested in seeing that than in seeing a regular Muggle one. And so, the day before his birthday, they all set out to see one of the biggest collections of magical creatures in the world.

Harry was enchanted. It was difficult to pick favourites among the many species he found here, but Clabberts were amazing, and Diricawls were just cute, and Horklumps weird. Harry wandered among the enclosures, watching the creatures and asking his cousins lots of questions – questions they were sometimes, to his astonishment, unable to answer. "Magical creatures," Alexandra said, rolling her eyes. "Not really our field." Harry considered that he had truly got used to them always knowing everything.

Something even more interesting than the Traverses being unable to give him answers, however, happened when Harry was inside the pavilion that housed smaller animals in aquariums and terrariums. They were alone there, since it was a beautiful day and most people seemed to wish to avoid the indoors. Harry found a three-headed snake apparently called runespoor in one of the terrariums, and as he approached, he heard it hissing – and then he heard it speak! "That was a damned idiotic idea," one of the heads was saying. "What are we going to do now, eh, tell me that!"

"Alduin!" Harry turned to his cousin, amazed. "It can speak!"

"What?" Alduin turned to him, his eyes widening.

"The runespoor! It can-"

But now Harry suddenly found out that while the runespoor could speak, he, at the moment, could not.

Alduin approached him with a very serious expression on his face. "Forgive me, Harry," he said quietly, "for silencing you. Did you say the runespoor could speak? Just nod."

Harry nodded, rather angry at this treatment.

"Very well, then," Alduin said, exchanging a look with Alexandra. "I'll take the spell off of you now, but please do not converse with the runespoor, and do not mention this again until we're back at the Manor. I know this is irritating, but trust me, I have a very good reason for the way I act."

Very reluctantly, Harry nodded. He really didn't think silencing him had been necessary, but he grudgingly conceded that there were still things about the wizarding world his cousin knew that he didn't.

He stayed listening to the heads of the runespoor arguing for quite some time, and the animals he saw after that seemed rather dull in comparison, especially with the added flair of mystery.

Once back at the manor, Alduin sat Harry down in one of the drawing rooms and said: "Harry, what you discovered today is a unique and wonderful ability – being a parseltongue, being able to talk to snakes of all kinds. Unfortunately, it's also one people are very prejudiced against. You see, you share the skills with Riddle, and because people are so afraid of him, they are afraid of this as well."

Harry stared. "So...just because Riddle could talk to snakes, people are now afraid of talking to snakes? Seriously? Did they start being afraid of using magic too?"

Alduin smiled a little. "No, because that, they can do as well. Don't doubt that if Muggles learned about Riddle, they'd be afraid of magic. With rather a better reason, too. But anyway, I know it's stupid, but this is how it is, and so I'd ask you not to tell anyone about this. And I mean absolutely no one."

"Not even Neville?"

Alduin hesitated. "If you can swear him to secrecy, and are confident he'll keep his word, then yes, you can tell Neville."

Harry smiled, and nodded. "Thanks, I will. I know I can trust him, and he'd never be so silly about this as you say some people are!"

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The garden party for Harry's eleventh birthday was huge, and an enormous success.

Harry had insisted on having the Weasleys that time, since it was supposed to be his birthday and all, and Alduin acceded to his wish, but only Ron, Ginny and their father were asked, on some excuse Harry was not entirely capable of comprehending. Apart from this, it was mostly the same group of people who had been present at the first garden party in mid-July, so Harry took the opportunity to introduce the Weasley children to all his other friends. Ginny was too shy to say much, and Harry only noticed her becoming a bit more lively when Harriet Bulstrode asked her something privately. The two girls soon took off somewhere alone.

As for Ron, he stayed with the main group, but gave Harry some opportunity to wonder if this had been a mistake. Perhaps Alduin knew what he was doing when he kept some of his friends separate. Horatio and Roger, in particular, looked very unimpressed with this new addition to their party. "Will you tell us what the Sorting is?" Ron asked them. "Fred and George told me you have to wrestle a huge troll."

Horatio and Roger rolled their eyes almost in unison. "Not that this surprises me from your brothers," Roger muttered.

"You know them?" Ron asked curiously.

"Of course we know them," Roger said, and Harry could sense the slight disdain in his tone. "They're in our year, and rather hard to ignore, unfortunately."

"Though thank Merlin we don't have any classes with them," Horatio added.

This made Ron frown. "You have something against my brothers?" He asked.

Harry sighed. Yes, maybe Alduin did have a point, and not just with the Weasley children either. Harry had heard from his cousin that the senior Malfoys and the senior Weasleys really disliked each other – even more than the Traverses disliked the Weasleys, that was to say – and had been dreading the meeting. When it took place, as people were starting to gather to watch Harry blow out the candles on his cake and unwrap his gifts, Mr. Malfoy shot Mr. Weasley a look of pure disdain and said: "What are you doing here?" And then, before Mr. Weasley managed to answer, he continued: "Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot. You're part of respectable society now, aren't you?" His tone made it clear he did not believe that himself.

Harry was desperately trying to think of a way to diffuse the situation when his cousin miraculously appeared. "Lucius, do not bait other people's guests, it's bad form," he said like it didn't matter.

"But when you ask such guests..." Mr. Malfoy replied.

Alduin only gave a short laugh and shook his head, and then turned to Mr. Weasley. "Arthur, I wanted to talk to you about something in the Institute, if you could spare a minute?" And he led him away.

Harry looked at Mr. Mafoy's face and saw cold amusement there. "Your cousin Alexandra has my deepest sympathies. I hope you are conscious of the sacrifices your relations are making for you," he said and left to talk to someone else.

Harry was confused, but his friends rejoined him soon afterwards and they drove the scene out of his head by speculating about the presents he was going to get. Most of them turned out to be sweets and books and displayers, but there were a few that stood out. For one, there was a beautiful snowy owl, with a note attached to it that said it was from Hagrid. Harry was touched. He had only seen the man once, really, and then refused to spend an afternoon with him, and he was giving him this amazing animal. Harry would need to write a thank-you note – at least he thought that was what Alduin had told him was done on such occasions. And maybe he should arrange that outing with Hagrid for some other day.

He admired the bird for a moment, but then he remembered himself and turned to the remaining gifts. There was one very small package, and as he reached for it, Alduin told him: "And this is for a more instantaneous form of communication."

It was a small mirror. "What does it do?" Harry asked.

"It's a two-way mirror," his cousin replied. "I have the other one of the pair. If you speak into it, I will be able to hear you, and see your face if you look into it. It's quick, but the disadvantage is that it doesn't always have to be convenient for the recipient of the call to talk when you call them. That is the great advantage of owls – you can read the letters at leisure."

So it was like a phone, only you could only call one person with it. "Do they make mirrors with which you can talk to more than just one person? I don't mean at the same time, but..."

"Multi-way mirrors?" Alexandra asked. "They're very much a novelty, they only came out last year, but yes, they do make them, and you can, in fact, talk to more people at the same time with them. But the mirrors in general aren't really that widespread – I mean, most people just Floo call."

"I have a multi-way mirror," Draco boasted as soon as the gift officialities were done and the children were talking alone again. "It's a pity yours is only two-way, otherwise we could pair them."

Harry shrugged. "Well, we'll see each other all the time at Hogwarts anyway, won't we?"

"Yeah, but given your stubbornness about it, we're unlikely to be in the same house."

"What, you tried to make a snake out of him?" Ron sniggered.

"Ron, please," Harry said, rolling his eyes. "No one's been trying to turn me into anything, in spite of what you or Neville's grandmother might think."

"Neville's grandmother?" Ron asked, confused.

"She insisted Alduin was trying to turn me into an eagle."

"But that would have been idiotic," Draco pointed out. "This way, he will have a strong ally among the Gryffindors one day. He doesn't need more allies in Ravenclaw, he already has those."

"I do not quite think Mrs. Longbottom considered it in this light," Harry said diplomatically.

"Of course not," Draco replied, sniggering again. "If she did things like that, she wouldn't have been a Gryffindor."

Harry rolled his eyes again.