I found the information for the symbol I'm using - triquetra-, and I am going with the concept that "in the pagan mindset this design symbolized the connection of the three planes of existence: mind, body, and spirit" If you would like information on it please just ask in a review!

Chapter 20: Plans, Training and Weird Hair

March 30

The next day the four took some time to finalize all the details of the first prank they were going to pull. They each had a good laugh over the images they conjured as they hammered everything out after breakfast. Harry was really looking forward to the pranks, and his enthusiasm over it was evident. He decided to hang around his friends for the day, and pushed his research to the back of his mind. He needed to make up for the neglect of his friendship in the last several months, and he felt this was a good idea.

He spent the time after breakfast, and after the discussion on pranks, playing a few games of Wizards Chess and Exploding Snap with Ron. He could see the happiness in Ron from him being around and not being as defensive as he had been, and felt that twinge of guilt inside of him. At least neither was asking him annoying questions that he didn't want to answer. So far the break was turning out to be a good one.

After a hearty lunch he and the two Weasley siblings gathered a few others, and held a mock Quidditch match on the pitch. They played for two hours, able to get in two matches. The first one Harry played Seeker against Ginny who put up a good challenge before Harry caught the snitch. The second match they switched positions on the Seeker, and Harry played against some fifth year Ravenclaw, while Ginny took up Chaser. When the match was done, and everything was cleaned up, the group departed and headed back to the castle. When they got back to the Tower the one's who played separated to shower before dinner.

While showering, Harry decided to sneak down to his secret rooms that night, and start a bit on what he had had planned. He would probably exhaust himself with everything he had done that day, but he wanted to get started on his research. After he was done he headed back to the common room, and sat with Hermione to wait for Ron and Ginny.

"You've been a lot more upbeat lately," Hermione commented with an appraising look as Harry folded his legs Indian style under himself. He looked at her, and made a noncommittal noise. "I've just been wondering about it is all. What's got you acting so much like the Harry of before? Are you just coming out of the depression you've seemed to of been in, or is there someone that's contributing to it?" she continued, tone speculative, but a smile playing around her lips.

"Nothing, just coming out of the bad mood I was in, I guess. I mean, you can't expect me to be happy and carefree all the time with everything's that happened can you?" he asked with a helpless sort of shrug, hiding how uncomfortable he felt about the questions.

Hermione hummed quietly and shrugged herself. "Maybe," she said reasonably enough. There was silence a moment, before she spoke again. "But whatever it is I'm glad to see you happier than you have been." Harry gave her a small smile and nodded, not saying anything. If she knew part of the reason was their rival and enemy Draco Malfoy, he doubted she would be so glad.

Not long after that conversation Ron and Ginny came down. They stayed in the common room talking quietly about nothing particular until dinner time came around. They went down to the Great Hall and feasted on the Easter meal that was presented to them. It was a scrumptious meal with talking, laughter and merriment, though Harry was slightly preoccupied. Between his thoughts on his research and his worry for Draco he was torn in three directions as he tried to keep in the conversations.

Dinner ended and they headed back to the Tower, full and sated after a good meal. As soon as they entered Harry turned to Hermione with a small smile. "Could I borrow that book you got from the library for my Charms essays?" He asked.

Hermione returned the smile. "I took out several for my Charms essay, you can look through them for yours, and use them as you wish," she said, and hurried up to the girl's dorm. Harry went to his own dorm, retrieved his own materials, and when he came back down Hermione was there with four books in her lap.

"I've already completed my Charms essay so you can use these," she said, and handed the books to him. He nodded, setting them on the table in front of him.

"Thanks Hermione, I appreciate it. I'll give them back as soon as I'm done," Harry said before getting to work. Hermione was also working on something, and that was how things flowed until people began to turn in for bed. Harry worked on his essay, storing bits of information away for later use. He worked as the common room began to become sparse of people as the other Gryffindors went to bed. Hermione finally departed herself, claiming tiredness, kissed Ron who sat across from her and left for bed. Harry cleaned up his work, gathering everything together, and with Ron in tow, they headed for their dorm.

Harry mimicked, slowly, like he was going to change for bed as Ron changed, climbed into bed and mumbled a half coherent 'good night' to him. He pretended until he was sure Ron was asleep and then pulled his shirt back on, and knelt in front of his trunk. He grabbed out his map and cloak, rummaged through, and pulled out a pen and a spiral notebook, and shoved them into his bag that he had also pulled out. With a narrow-eyed look at the trunk, he nodded to himself, closed and charmed it shut, and then glanced around to make sure Ron was asleep. Tapping the map with his wand he whispered, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good," and waited. As he did so, he wrapped his invisibility cloak around himself. With the all clear for the Tower and the sixth floor, he quickly made his way out of the Tower.

He was careful as he made his way down the staircases and corridors until he reached the Ground Floor. He carefully made his way to the hall before the entrance to the dungeons, quietly hissed out the password, and slipped through the shimmering, half transparent bit of wall. Once inside the sitting room, he pulled off the cloak, and deactivated the map. Taking a moment to just breathe, Harry rolled his shoulders, stretched his arms above his head, and sighed. Then, with the invisibility cloak thrown over his shoulder, and the Marauder's Map shoved into his bag, he hitched up the bag and stalked towards the library.

He had spent the last two weeks occasionally coming to these rooms and exploring them more. He had been positive that there would be a secret room or two, being Salazar Slytherin's and all. He had searched every room in the suite and looked for every possible place a secret room would be. Three days before Easter break, tired and prepared to give up on finding anything, if there was anything, he'd gotten a breakthrough. He had been sitting in the chair in the library, relaxing back with his head tilted to the ceiling, tired, frustrated and disappointed. After a while he had risen from the chair and began walking around the room.

As he was walking past the bare stretch of wall next to the bookcase closes to the door something flashed in the corner of his eye. He turned to the wall and looked at it intently for a long while, but saw nothing that could have been anything important. As he turned back to keep walking he saw the object again, and froze, looking out the corner of his eye at the spot on the wall that he saw it. At first he really couldn't see anything so he tilted his head slightly and caught it, the faint glint of something on the wall.

Getting the position of it memorized and putting his hand just under it, finger tips touching the bottom of it a bit, he turned around and stared hard at the spot. At first he saw nothing, but upon closer inspection he could see the faintest design, hardly a shade darker then the rest of the wall. Looking closely, what he had thought was just a circle was really an ouroboro's – a snake eating its own tail. He could see the lightest of glimmers to it, and he had touched it lightly, very curious about it. He had been sure that whatever it was, it was the most likely thing to use for a secret room. After many, many attempts at pushing on it and then spouting off possible passwords – both in English and Parseltongue – he had been about to give up when a voice had made him freeze.

Flashback

"I can help you out, you know, you silly human," a soft voice spoke quietly from somewhere. Whipping his head around, Harry looked frantically for the source of the voice. He could hear the hissing and knew that it was a snake.

"Who are you? Where are you?" he asked in parseltongue.

"Ah another snake-speaker I see," the voice said, sounding faintly happy. "Look in the corner, snake-speaker." He looked into the corners of the room and then saw it. It was a moving, white marble snake statue with glinting blue diamond eyes.

"As for whom I am? I'm Seraphina and I'm a guardian that's just been reawakened. And you are?" Seraphina asked.

"My name is Harry," he said, "Where did you come from? You weren't there before. And what do you guard?"

"Hello Harry," she greeted and nodded her head. "I was invisible and silent until the trigger was touched, which you did. As for what I guard? I guard a few things," she said vaguely.

"Would you show me the things you guard?" Harry asked politely, but cautiously, not wanting to anger her. There was silence for a long moment as the snake statue looked at him. Then...

"I haven't been used in so long and would gladly like to be of use once again, Harry. There are two hidden rooms that I guard," she tilted her head to the side. "And they have two separate passwords..."

End Flashback

Once there he walked in and sat the cloak onto the desk, then turned, and looked at the back right corner. "Seraphina?" he called softly to the marble statue that looked asleep, coiled around herself. He had asked her to remain visible unless he asked otherwise.

Blue diamond eyes, previously dim, began to sparkle at him as she raised her head. "Oh hello Harry, how are you?"

"I'm fine lovely," he said, stroking her back gently. He had fallen in love with the beautiful living statue, and adored her greatly already. "Hmm, I'm going to be using one of rooms for a bit.Double-edged" he said. Seraphina nodded and a section of bookcase rotated inwards with only a slight grinding noise. He had changed the passwords to his own as the others had been just too confusing. He gave the statue a last stroke before gathering his bag and cloak, and slipping through the bookcase, which closed behind him.

Immediately upon entrance the dim light in the room brightened, and, taking out his wand, Harry lit the torches to provide a bit of warmth. The room was rectangular in shape and large with bracketed torches along the top of the walls at about two foot intervals. Every third torch had a glowing glass sphere atop it that provided more light to the room with the everlasting Lumos charms encased in them. The walls had faint, light green vines painted on them going straight up them on the four walls, crossing onto the ceiling and weaving together to form an open circle lined in leaves a little less than half the size of the ceiling. In the middle of that circle was a symbol – a triquetra, Harry had found out after looking it up. It was painted black among the rest of the green twisting vines in the middle of the blank circle.

Harry set his things down on the soft black rubber matting that graced the floor that he had charmed and placed there, and turned back to the rest of the room. Pulling a quill from his pocket he deposited it on the floor and stepped back a few paces. Taking a deep breath he stared at the quill intently, raised his hand and moved it like he would his wand. "Wingardium Leviosa!" he said the spell firmly, but the quill only twitched slightly before stilling. He was half frustrated that it didn't work and slightly encouraged that it moved at all. It was still a promising beginning to being able to do wandless magic.

Squaring his shoulders and taking another deep breath, he looked at the quill again, swished his wrist ending with a crisp flick and intoned, "Wingardium Leviosa!" The quill twitched and then began to slowly float into the air. It floated up and Harry felt excitement creep up his spine before the quill wavered and then fell to the ground. He breathed out slowly through his nose, endeavoring not to become angry or frustrated, and really, there was no need to. The quill had floated almost five feet or so into the air, on his second try. That was enough to bring a small smile to his face.

He knew it would be slow work in some places, but he was hopeful that he could accomplish his goal of being able to do wandless magic. Focusing his mind firmly on his task he concentrated on getting the levitation spell to perfection. It took a while but he was able to master the charm wandlessly and keep the quill floating for an extended amount of time.

Feeling way too excited for the circumstances and not caring one bit about it, he substituted the quill for something a bit heavier, and tried the charm again. He was happy to see some of his theories were right, and that he COULD do wandless magic. He would spend time over the rest of break working more on his theories, and wandless magic, and slowly learning to control it. He was determined to.

March 31

The four of them were on their way to the Great Hall for lunch, and all too eager about it. They kept exchanging amused, excited looks occasionally as they went. They had snuck back into the Great Hall after breakfast, and after everyone had left to put the plan in motion, and they couldn't wait to see the results.

Harry smiled to himself as he walked along, happy and excited for so many reasons. Last night had gone well, though things had run into early morning hours before he had quit. In the end he had been able to levitate five large books easily, which gave him the thought that he could probably levitate heavier things with practice. Having been so pleased with that outcome he moved on to another spell to try. It had taken him a bit longer to Accio things to him, but finally he was able to accomplish it. He was exhausted after only those two spells, tired and drained, both physically and magically, but ecstatic all the same. He was right about part of his theories; he could – and would – be able to do wandless magic with a bit of work and determination. He had felt so happy that morning at last night's proof and progress that he had little irritation towards anything. He was just too excited and happy.

They reached the Great Hall, and entered, sitting down at their table. Once the Hall filled up the food began to appear on the tables. As they began eating Harry passed a few surreptitious glances at the Head Table, and around the Hall. The spell should be activating soon, and Harry couldn't wait. Soon there were several 'pops' echoing loudly around the Hall, and Harry looked up to the Head Table, and burst into laughter along with many other people. Along the length of the table every professor had brightly colored hair styled like that of the Troll Dolls. It was immensely funny to see.

Pomfrey, the school Medi-witch, had bright, sunshine yellow hair that glinted in the light from the enchanted ceiling. It shined like a bright beacon. Next to her Professor Sprout was sporting a bright, violently orange color reminiscent of the Chudley Cannons. Sinistra's hair was vivid magenta and next to her Vector's was lime green. McGonagall's hair was green, Slytherin green, with silver streaks, and Harry nearly choked on his saliva at the picture she made.

By now Dumbledore had conjured a long mirror on the wall behind them, and the professors' were looking incredulous and furious and amused at their reflections. After McGonagall came Dumbledore who was looking greatly amused at his rainbow colored hair, fingering it with a long finger and smiling. The DADA professor, Devington, had a disturbing shade of sky blue hair which looked even odder with his dark coloring. Harry gasped, and bit his lip when he saw Snape, red-faced, with bright red hair streaked with gold. Next to him Flitwick had shiny turquoise hair, and beside him Hooch had bright pink hair that could have competed with Flitwick's and Pomfrey's for shiniest. The complete sight was too hilarious for words.

Then Harry looked around the Hall to see random students sporting outrageously colored hair. Looking to his friends, cheeks hurting from laughing so hard and choking on more laughter he saw the results of their decision to also do themselves, so as to relieve suspicions on their parts. Ron and Hermione had done the spell for each others seats, picking the colors and keeping it from the other to add surprise, as did Harry and Ginny. Ron and Hermione, who sat across from him, had purple and sea green hair respectively, Ron's freckles made it even funnier. Turning, Harry looked at Ginny beside him whose hair was an intense violet. Harry tuned back to look at the two opposite him, and saw Hermione transfigure a fork into a mirror, looking in it, before passing it around. When Harry looked in it he saw that his hair was neon blue with the tips bright green.

The laughter in the Great Hall was punctured by the furious yell from the Head Table. Snape was standing and seething, alternately glaring around the Hall, occasionally focusing more on the Gryffindor table, especially around where Harry and his friends sat.

"I know he did it!" the man spat loudly over the noise.

"Now Severus," Dumbledore could be heard vaguely. "You don't know that it was him. Do you think he would do this to himself?" Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Ginny snickered to themselves. That day, Harry hadn't laughed that hard in a long time.

Severus scowled as he stalked the Halls that night. The spell had long since worn off, and his hair was back to its usual greasy black, but he felt no better than when he had first saw his hair in those atrocious colors. He was sure that Potter, and his friends, had something to do with it, even if Dumbledore thought otherwise. The boy was outrageously like his bastard of a father, and his disgusting godfather; Severus knew he was. But Dumbledore wouldn't allow him to give the boy detention, and he felt distinctly upset about it. But he could always punish the boy in other ways.

Walking down another corridor he let his thoughts shift to other, more important things. Like his godson, Draco. He felt a lump of unease in the pit of his stomach that had been there since the boy had left for the train. He didn't like the idea of him being there with his mother alone. He didn't know Draco's stance on the Death Eater issue, but had been subtly trying to bring the blond around, away from that path. The uncertainty about his stance, and the fact that he was around his mother for five fays of the break, didn't set well with him.

He happened upon a couple in a nook, and berated the couple he found locked in a passionate embrace, criticizing them harshly, then deducting points, and sending them on their way. But even this did little to relieve the uncomfortable feeling he felt. With an aggrieved sigh, he ignored the portraits who complained about being woken up, and continued on his way. He knew that if Draco was still looking to make Lucius proud – they really didn't talk about certain things – then becoming a Death Eater would be his last, desperate attempt. He didn't like the thought of Draco following that madman, and he couldn't exactly say what he would do, feel even, if his godson joined a man Severus discovered too late was not the path to take. He still regretted his naivety from back then; his actions of joining the Dark Lord. He didn't want Draco to do what he did just to try and please Lucius. He didn't want the boy making the same mistakes he had.

No, Severus Snape would try everything in his power to sway Draco from that path; everything. And if he failed to do so...he'd worry about that when, and if, he had to. Until then he would try to persuade his godson otherwise. He couldn't lose him. He wouldn't if he could help it.