Monday December 2, 1996. Early Afternoon. Gibson Glassworks Facility

Harry found himself standing with Snape on an Apparating Platform next to a large sign. Glowing magical letters on the sign proclaimed that it was the "Gibson Glassworks", first in English, then in Latin, then several other languages which Harry didn't know. There was a great deal of noise, the sounds of swearing, spellcasting, and large objects being moved about filled the air. There were several building which seemed to be little more than copper roofs supported by iron pillars. There were walls, but they had so many large sliding doors that were opened that they did little to seperate the interior of the building from the outdoors.

Harry followed Snape as he stepped off the Apparating Platform and entered. A smaller sign just inside advised them to 'Ring Bell for Assistance." There was a bell on a stand with a rope dangling from it, which Snape pulled. The bell clanged several times, and about a minute later a man came running up to them. He was the most peculiar looking wizard Harry could have imagined. He wore faded red robes that were mostly covered with a large apron made of dragonhide. Knowing the high price of Dragonhide, Harry knew that that apron cost quite a bit of money, yet the man did not seem to take very good care of it, as it was rather dirty and covered with scorch marks. He was also wearing dragonhide gloves, a hood of dragonhide, and goggles of magically darkened smoky quartz.

"What ken I do fer you then, mates?" the wizard asked, pushing back his hood. He had a mohawk haircut that was dyed a bright purple color.

Harry gaped at the wizard's peculiar clothes and haircut as Snape studiously ignored both and answered him, nearly shouting in order to be heard above the din of the glassworks. "We're looking for Andre DeVries! He's expecting us!"

"Oh, yeh. The Parselmouth. Yeh, today's his day here, mates. Up on the hill by the snakepit, he is. I spec he's almos' done then, right? You go on up." He gestured towards a hill about a hundred yards away where a bright orange glow was coming from, as if there were a fire somewhere on it. "Wait, though, you'll be wantin' these."

The wizard dashed into on of the nearby buildings and came out with two sets of smoky quartz goggles such as he was wearing. "Gets a bit bright up there, mates. Hot, too. But since you are just here to see him, you probably won't be here for long, so I 'spec you won't need an apron, right? A cooling charm'll do yer for just a few minutes or so."

Harry looked towards the hill with trepidition. He was not sure just how hot the wizard meant it got up there, and without his wand, and very little magic left in him, he could hardly cast a cooling spell. And he was damned if he would ask Snape to cast one for him. He took the goggles and followed Snape towards the hill. He took in the operation of the Glassworks as they moved past the various buildings. A slender trough filled with molten glass came down the hill and entered a large building. Harry assumed that they turned the glass into bottles, phials, and other things there, because he saw a wizard levitating about twenty of them out of the building, and into another one. There were other things going on at the other buildings. Harry saw one building with several bales of straw piled inside. From yet another building, a large flying carpet loaded with large crates emerged, and the wizard on it flew on past the sign at the entryway, and continued down the road, vanishing past a curve. Most of the wizards here seemed to be wearing either red or blue robes, and the color they wore was sorted by building. Harry passed a building where several wizards were transfiguring small plain-looking bottles into miniature jars, and they all wore blue robes. On the other hand, there was a building where several wizards were scourgifying thick sheets of iron, and they all wore red robes. It was all very strange. Harry wondered what it meant.

As they approached the hill where the wizard had said DeVries was, Harry began wondering again just what sort of job a parseltongue would do at a place like this. He decided to risk asking Snape once more.

"What did that wizard mean by a 'snake pit'?" Harry said. "You never did tell me. What do they want with snakes so badly that they've got to have a parselmouth down here to talk to them?"

Snape shook his head. "How do you think they melt the glass, Potter? With a muggle blast furnace? They use a rather dangerous creature found on this continent called a Firesnake."

"Oh." Harry started to understand. "Hagrid taught us about them. They're supposedly related to both Ashwinders, and fire salamanders. But they're hotter than both. Are they really hot enough to melt glass?"

"When there's enough of them, Potter, yes. But the trick is to convince enough of them to stay in one place long enough to do so. Left on their own, they'd rather crawl all over the place and set things on fire. So they need a Parselmouth to talk to them."

Harry said nothing, remembering what Hagrid had had to say about Firesnakes. The half-giant had said he actually had one once, several years ago, and kept it in a cauldron. But it had melted the cauldron and gotten away, nearly burning his cottage down in the process. Dumbledore had managed to catch the creature, and returned it to his native country, admonishing Hagrid not to attempt to keep such a thing again.

It was starting to get very hot and bright now, and as they got over the crest of the hill, Harry saw a man wearing a dragonhide apron, hood, and gloves kneeling down next to a large fiery pit. He was speaking to something that was so bright, it hurt Harry's eyes to look at it. He slipped on the goggles, and saw that it was a gorgeous, fiery snake, that was flicking out it's tongue and regarding the man with glowing, ruby eyes as he spoke to it, and several other snakes, that were milling around in a large pit filled with lava-like molten glass. Those must be the firesnakes, Harry realized. They were actually quite beautiful, for such dangerous creatures.

"So you blokes have to see," the man said to the firesnakes, as Harry approached, "You have a really sweet deal here. A nice warm home. All you have to eat. No dingoes or other nasties to chase you around or dig about in your nests. All you have to do is make sure that you stay down in your pit most of the time. You can come out and play occasionally, so long as you don't burn any wizards or buildings, but it's best if most of you stay here, and help melt the glass. And that's not hard, is it? You just have to sit there is all. So there's no need to wander off, or try to build nests down in Hexagon City. That would be bad, then someone might pour water on you. It's much better to sit here, and enjoy all the free food. See, I even brought you some."

The man opened a large sack next to him and began taking out several dead rats and mice. He lined them up next to the edge of the pit, and stepped hastily back as several of the burning snakes came out to devour them.

"Good food, good food." said one of the snakes. "We be good snakes and stay in the pit, for good wizard friend. We melt glass and get good food."

Just then Harry was startled by Snape speaking to him. "I take it that you understand him, Potter."

Harry realized then that the man had been speaking Parseltongue. He had barely even noticed the hissing tones under the words.

"Yes, is that DeVries?"

Snape nodded. DeVries finished up handing out the dead rodents, and making sure there were no holes in his dragonhide gloves, dared to stroke a few of them on the head. The snakes hissed their appreciation.

"Good friend wizard snake-talker." One of them said. "We be good snakes and stay here. You come back soon with more food for us."

"I'll be back in a week." DeVries promised. He got up, and turned to face Harry and Snape. For a moment he looked puzzled, then a broad grin split his face.

"Severus! What the hell are you doing down here, you bastard! Finally decide to quit the rat race up in England?"

Snape shook his head. "Hardly. I believe that Dumbledore told you we were coming."

"Yeah." DeVries grin faded away. "I owe him a favor. He wants me to take Potter to Wilson. Well, I'll do it. But I just owe him the one favor. You can tell him for me not to ask me for any more, ever."

Then DeVries looked at Harry, and switched to speaking in Parselmouth once again. "So, you must be Harry Potter. Pleasure to meet another Parselmouth like myself. What do you think of Gibson Territory?"

Harry did not want to say anything bad to DeVries, who seemed to be friendly enough. He answered him, making an effort to speak in Parseltongue, as he had been addressed. "Well, it's a lot different than England. I'm not quite sure I'm used to it yet."

"Oh, you'll like it well enough in a few weeks." Andre said, switching to English. "Best place in the whole world to be a wizard. Or even to be alive. But come on, lets get away from these snakes. They're nice enough chaps, but they can burn the skin right off a fellow, I tell you."

Harry followed DeVries and Snape back down the hill. As they got away from the heat of the snakepit, DeVries stripped off his dragonhide apron, revealing a bright yellow robe under it. It was knee-length, like most of the robes the Gibsonite wizards seemed to wear, and he had worn khaki pants underneath.

"Excuse me, Mr. DeVries," Harry's curiousity about the meaning of the different colors of robes finally got the best of him. "But how come different wizards here wear different colored robes. I've seen red, yellow, and blue robes here. Do they mean anything? Do they have to do with a person's job, I've noticed here that wizards in one building all seem to have the same colored robe. And you have the only yellow robe I've seen here. Why is that?"

"Oh, that." DeVries laughed. He pulled off his goggles and hood, revealing eyes bright with humor, sparkling as if at some private joke. Harry was a bit surprised by his appearance. The only other parselmouth he had ever met was Lord Voldemort himself. DeVries looked nothing like that. His skin was a bit dusky, and his hair was dark brown, nearly black, which Harry supposed could have been sinister. But he also had a slight scattering of grey in it, and a slightly heavy build. He looked like a middle-aged gypsy, who could have been selling trinkets or telling fortunes, rather than anything very sinister. "The colors have to do with their system of classification at Gibson Academy. You don't get sorted according to your personality like you do at Hogwarts. You get sorted according to what sort of magic you're best at. If you ask me, it's a much better system."

"But Snape said he knew you. That you went to Hogwarts. And you think this is better? How come?"

DeVries looked at Snape almost sadly for a moment. "Well, it's like this. I was in Slytherin. Surrounded by other Slytherins, who were there, because they shared the same attitudes and ideas I did. And we never associated with students from other houses if we could help it. The other houses were the same."

"The problem with that, is that if all the people around you think exactly the same way you do, you're not being exposed to any new ideas, and no-one is likely to tell you about any mistakes in your way of thinking, because they are all making precisely the same mistakes themselves. The end result is that whatever innate personality flaws you have to start with become progressively more exaggerated. The Slytherins at Hogwarts become more and more hateful of muggles. The Gryffindors become more and more foolhardy and arrogant. And so on."

"Anyway, about the colored robes. At Gibson Academy, they have a sorting ceremony where they put you on something called a 'Tri-balance'. It's like a giant golden scales with three arms instead of two. It weighs the magic in you, and decides which sort is strongest. Depending on what you are best at, you get put into one of three houses. Mercury, Mars, or Apollo. It's a bit complicated, but Mercury house wears blue robes, and you have wizards there who are good at things like Apparating, transfiguration, a few other things. Mars house wears red robes, and the wizards in it are good at charms, curses, and elemental magic. Apollo house wears yellow robes, and has wizards who are good at divination, aura reading, potions, herbology, arithmancy, and Parselmouths like myself."

"But you didn't go to Gibson." Harry pointed out.

"No, but I'm a Parselmouth, and a very good one." Andre pointed to a row of three pins on his robe which were inscribed with symbols meaningless to Harry, but which undoubtedly indicated that he was an expert at speaking to snakes. "So I wear the yellow robes. When I wear robes at all, and not other sorts of clothes. That way people know what sort of wizard I am."

"But what if you don't want to? What if you'd rather wear blue robes, or red?"

DeVries seemed a little puzzled by the question. "I'd look rather stupid, pretending to be something that I'm not. It'd be kind of like buying someone else's trophies and putting them on your mantle. Sooner or later you'd get found out, and then everyone would laugh at you. I suppose I might get away with wearing a blue robe. I've quite a talent for transfiguration. But it wouldn't make any sense. Telling people that I am better at Transfiguration than Parselspeech would not improve my talent for either one."

They had now reached a low table. Andre put his dragonhide apron and other protective garments on it. "Leave your goggles here, someone will be by in a bit to put them away."

Harry and Snape set their goggles down. "So, why did you come from England to Australia, to talk to snakes in a noisy place like this. I mean, this looks like, well,"

"A muggle factory?" Andre laughed. "You needn't be embarrassed to say it. It's quite true. You'll see a lot of things down here like that. You have to understand, that in order to survive down here, the Gibsonites have had to find magical ways to duplicate muggle industrial processes."

"But why do it at all? Why come here? Why not stay in England? You were born there."

Andre shook his head, and again gave Snape a rather sad look, which Harry found quite peculiar. "Because I'm better off down here than up there, Harry. England is dying. I'm Slytherin. I don't care to die with it."

"That's not true!" Harry said fiercely. Andre and Snape exchanged glances over his head.

"Wait till you're ten years older, Harry. Then tell me what you think." Then he gave Harry a broad grin. "Besides which, I'm getting paid more money for easier work than anything I'd be able to do in England. All I have to do is visit a few snake-pits every morning, chat the firesnakes up, give them a few bites to eat, and I get a ton of money for it. Then of course, there are the girls. The pretty Australian girls. I wouldn't want to give any of them up. I'm quite the romantic, as your professor could tell you."

Harry rolled his eyes. "According to what Professor Snape told me, I thought that the Gibsonites are into some kind of weird selective breeding. They want to have the smartest and best parents for their children. That doesn't sound really very romantic."

Andre frowned. "I never really thought of seperating the two concepts. I doubt if any Gibsonite does. Despite my being from England, I'm rather like the people here, in that I am attracted to the best and brightest women I can find. Whom also would be the best choice for having any children of mine. I can't really imagine being attracted to a woman who was stupid or weak. I think it would say something rather ugly about me as a person, if the only women I wanted were those who mindless and otherwise lacking in any decent qualities. Being romantically involved with someone like that would be a bit degrading, I should think."

Harry thought about this. It sounded very much like the Slytherin prejudice against marrying those of 'impure blood'. Except that he could not imagine the Slytherins caring much about 'romance' and the Gibsonite ideas of whom they wanted to marry were somewhat skewed from the Slytherin ideas. He recalled that Michael Von Richthoven said that he had married a muggle. What sort of qualities had she had to make her one of the 'best and brightest, so that she would attract what apparently had been one of the most important wizards in Gibson Territory? Certainly no Slytherin that Harry knew would ever have considered marrying a muggle, and he was rather surprised that a Gibsonite would, as they seemed so much like Slytherins in so many other ways. Or perhaps Richthoven was simply more deranged than the rest of the peculiar Gibsonites. Certainly he was quite demented now, and Harry had serious doubts about the sanity of someone who could be responsible for the merciless slaughter of people trying to surrender and escape, even if they were Death Eaters.

He recalled Snape stating that they had had a reason for doing so, to frighten the Death Eaters badly enough that they would never dare repeat their attack. And it had worked. Now he had to ask himself, the question that he had not wanted to before. If it were him doing the deciding, if the only way to keep his friends safe, to keep Ron, and Hermoine, and the Weasleys and everyone else he cared for safe, was to do the same thing as Richthoven, and kill Death Eaters who were no longer a threat, would he do it? He was very much afraid that he was. Did that say something bad about him, he wondered? He did not feel any more evil than he had a moment ago. Or did it merely say something bad about the world, that there were people in it who made such things necessary? He did not want to live in an evil world, any more than he wanted to be evil himself.

Lost in thought, Harry did not even notice that they had now come to the Apparation Platform, outside the gates.

"Come along." Andre said as he mounted the steps up it. "Snape, if you'll take Harry with one arm and me with the other, I'll guide our apparation to my home. The boy looks a bit peaked, and could probably use a decent dinner."

For some reason, Snape did not look at all pleased with this prospect, but did as he was told. There seemed to be some sort of problem between him and DeVries, but Harry did not understand what it was. He gestured impatiently towards Harry, and almost as soon as Harry had placed his hand on Snape's arm, they apparated away again.