The Well of Serpents
Harry woke up early the next day and waited for Lyra in the common room. Somehow in the past week, a few birds from outside had made a nest in one of the trees and Harry heard them chirping as he watched the sunrise on the wall. When the sun had cleared the horizon, some of the other students started coming out of their dorms.
When Lyra came out, she ran over to where Harry was standing next to the east wall.
"Where'd you go last night?" she asked.
Harry just pulled an orange and black feather from his pocket and gestured for Lyra to come into the empty dorm with their formal clothes wardrobe. Once they had their silencing ward activated, Harry recounted his adventure of the previous evening; starting with delivering the flobberworm mucus and his brief encounter with Draco to exploring with Daphne and Tracey and finding the portrait of Malcolm Constantine - The Bloody Baron.
"Professor Snape told me to keep this quiet, so don't tell anyone," Harry told his sister.
"I bet he's hiding something," Lyra told him, "like Sir Daucourt and the silent portrait across the hall."
"Definitely. We can go back if we finish our Transfiguration exam quickly. Severus told us to keep it quiet but said nothing about going back."
Lyra nodded and they headed for breakfast. Harry shared a nod with Blaise who must have been told by the girls as well, and he tilted his head towards the staff table at the front. When Harry looked up there, the only teachers missing were Snape and Dumbledore.
When breakfast was over, Harry got an idea and ran over to Gemma at the Slytherin table.
"Yes, Mr. Potter?" she asked as she saw him coming.
"I need a quick favor, same as helping us out with dueling next semester, Lyra and I just need a prefect for about twenty minutes in the dueling room."
Gemma was curious, and she had already agreed to help them with being their designated prefect for using the dueling room, so she came along with them back to the dueling room. Using her prefect badge as a key, they were able to walk right in.
"So what are we doing?" she asked.
Lyra had already run down to the platform and hopped up onto it, so Harry told Gemma, "Augustus Stevens told us that it would help Lyra to exhaust herself a little bit before doing transfigurations, I'm hoping we can exhaust her enough now that she'll still be a little worn out in the afternoon."
Harry walked Gemma over to the side of the seating by the obelisk. Meanwhile, Lyra had activated and taken out three large stone pillars from the yellow corner of the platform and placed them spread out on one side. Harry went ahead and cast a small magic bolt at the obelisk to activate the dueling wards.
While Gemma had heard of Harry's propensity for stabbing Slytherins in the shoulders, she hadn't heard much at all about Lyra except for her meetings with Seamus, the Gryffindor pyromaniac, and the incident with Draco in the courtyard. She conjured two cushions for herself and Harry to sit on and waited for Lyra to begin.
Lyra stood on the far side of the three pillars and pulled out her wand and staff. Just like she had done before, she used both hands to point the base of her staff toward the pillars while also holding her wand against the tip of her staff with her left hand and began and concentrated on her magic. After nearly twenty seconds, her hair started to spark, then burst into flame causing Gemma to jump up and draw her wand but seeing Harry just smiling had her sit back down. After her hair was a raging inferno, she called out "Incendio!"
The spiral of red and orange flame shot out and impacted the pillar on Lyra's far left, with the residual flames splashing against the wards. After ten seconds, she called off the flames showing a black and cracked pillar where they had impacted. Next, she cast a warming charm on the pillar to the far right, causing it to glow orange, then shot many small bits of fire towards it which stuck to the pillar and started burning larger and hotter on top of the orange glow of the warming charm.
In the last few days, Lyra had looked up a slightly less powerful version of the Incendio Solem that Stevens had shown them, then practiced it a few times in the reinforced bunkers of the study room. So she channeled her magic for a few moments and incanted, "Incendio Orbis!"
A ball of fire accumulated about the size of a watermelon on the tip of her wand before it launched towards the middle pillar where it exploded and knocked the top of the pillar to the floor. As it did, the burning pillar on the right with the warming charm cracked and crumbled to the ground.
Lyra had fallen to her knees in front of all the destruction breathing heavily and sweating. Harry was smiling and Gemma was staring with her mouth open. Harry gestured with his wand toward the obelisk and shot a bolt towards it to deactivate the wards. The blackened pillar must have been leaning on the wards because as soon as they were gone, half of the pillar fell off the platform and into the pit around it.
Harry looked towards Gemma who was still regaining her composure, "We would appreciate it if you didn't talk about what Lyra can do."
Gemma just nodded and watched as Harry climbed down the seats to the platform and jumped on, passing his sister a wrapped candy, and then started to levitate all the chunks of the pillars into the pit. Once he was done, Harry and Lyra walked Gemma back out to the hallway.
"Thanks for helping," Lyra told her. "It will be great to do this in the spring with the others."
Gemma just nodded and walked off.
The written portion of the Transfiguration exam was relatively simple. They had to write down all the rules for transfiguration from the first chapter of the book and explain why the subject was so dangerous. There was a question to write out the transfiguration formula and explain all the variables. For an extra credit question, they had to guess what the Z variable in the formula was. Since even their book said it was unknown, Harry felt perfectly fine with writing 'I don't know' as the answer. They also had to answer questions about incantations, and potential uses for the transfiguration spells they had already learned.
When Harry was done, he saw that Lyra had already finished and must be waiting outside. After turning in his paper, he saw they had less than an hour left before lunch. That wouldn't be enough time to revisit Malcolm - The Baron's portrait, so they just went to eat.
The afternoon was the practical portion of Transfiguration. Harry hoped Lyra's power was still a bit depleted so she didn't set anything on fire. Their exam started with their first free transfiguration of turning a match into a needle. That was cake now for Harry, and he thought he smelled a little smoke from Lyra's direction, though he didn't see any when he took a glance.
From that point, they took turns trying larger and larger wood-to-metal transfigurations. They started with sticks and eventually worked their way up to staves. Harry thought he could get a log to turn to metal, but something about the layer of bark on top of the wood in the center of the log threw him off. The last part of the test was transfiguring objects into birds. Lyra seemed to be doing OK and had been able to change a stationary ball into a bird that looked like a hoohoo chick. Harry was able to do about the same with his and turned his ball into a parakeet that was able to whistle a tune.
They were given a chance to try to use the spell against a moving target. Harry was able to hit three out of five, each one turning into an owl but none of them was able to fly, and just hit the floor with a thud and squawk. One managed to move its wing after it hit the floor.
The practical portion took much less time than the written, so when they were done, they had an hour and a half before dinner. With that much time, they took off down to the second sub-level. Trying to remember the path from memory was a bit difficult, and as they turned the last corner, they ran into Blaise, Tracey, and Daphne.
"I guess you three had the same idea as we did," Harry smiled.
"Great minds think alike," responded Blaise.
"Lyra, what did you do to spook Gemma?" Tracey asked.
"Huh?"
"We saw the two of you go off with her to the Scamander common room and assumed you were going to the dueling room," Daphne explained. "When we asked her later, she said you asked her to not say anything but a couple of other Slytherins overheard us and started pestering her as well. Finally, she told us, 'All I'm going to say is, don't mess with Miss Black.' That was it, and she looked a bit scared."
Harry chuckled, Lyra blushed, and said, "I just burned some things. Well, I burned a few things."
"OK, well, there's no use trying to go to the Baron now," Tracey told them. "There's a gargoyle guarding the hallway."
Harry and Lyra still wanted to see it, so the Slytherins led them back to the end of the hall with the sconce lock. There, sitting in the middle of the hallway was a gargoyle. It appeared to be sitting on a tree stump made of the same color stone that it was. It was resting its head on one fist and had the other one flat on its lap. The wings were folded on its back and he almost looked to be asleep.
The gargoyle wasn't that large at all while sitting, maybe as tall as Lyra. There was also space for two people to pass by on each side with ease. With caution, Harry and Lyra approached it, one step at a time.
When they got close, the head tilted up and said, "Hey! What's the password?"
Harry and Lyra looked at each other before Lyra said, "Chocolate Frogs."
"Yeah, that's not the right password, buzz off!" the stone imp replied and put its head back down on his fist.
Lyra started to inch around to the side only for the gargoyle to extend the hand resting on its lap to the side with his fingers growing six-inch-long metal claws.
"I don't think you want to go that way," it said without lifting its head. Lyra took a few big steps back.
"Why'd you guess Chocolate Frogs?" Tracey asked.
"The gargoyle guarding the Headmaster's office had that password back in September," Lyra informed her.
Tracey scrunched up her face in thought, then approached the gargoyle, who perked its head up, and said, "Yeah, what do you want now?"
"Sugar quills," Tracey said.
"No," replied the gargoyle.
"Fizzing whizbees."
"Go away."
"Every-flavor beans."
"Leave me alone."
"Pumpkin pasties."
"I'm going to kill you."
"Acid pops."
"Correct, now leave me alone," the gargoyle stood up, showing its true height. It had long, skinny legs which ended up making it over six feet tall. It walked to the side of the hallway and leaned against the wall, giving them space to pass by.
The five children went by as quickly and cautiously as they could, as far to the other side of the hall as they could get.
"What made you think to try those passwords?" Blaise asked.
"My mom and I used to watch a TV show called The $100,000 Pyramid, you would have to get a partner to guess a word or phrase without saying what it was. We didn't need to guess the phrase but I thought if the Headmaster uses wizard candy as passwords, I just needed to say as many as I could until one matched. I was right."
Harry smiled and passed her a small candy, "Good job!"
They continued to head down to the sconces and put them out in the right order to open the secret wall. At the end of the hall was the portrait of Malcolm Constantine, The Bloody Baron.
He looked up as they approached, "Good evening again Mr. Potter, Miss Davis, and Miss Greengrass. I assume the other two are the previously mentioned Lyra and Blaise."
Blaise performed a sweeping bow before the portrait, "I am indeed. Blaise Montessi Zabini and this is Lyra Cassiopeia Black, founding student of House Scamander and Heir Apparent of House Black."
"Your formal greeting could use some work, your rear foot needs to be about two inches further back and your front toe needs to be pointed straighter ahead of you. Though, I appreciate the gesture. I am Malcolm Constantine, and according to the Headmaster and your Professor Snape, I am also known as 'The Bloody Baron.' The 'Bloody' because of my ghost's bloody appearance and 'Baron' seemingly for no reason other than alliteration and sounding impressive. How may I help you tonight?"
"We were hoping to get to whatever is on the other side of your wall," Harry asked.
"So did your Headmaster Dumbledore and Professor Snape when they were here earlier. I will tell you what I told them. Behind this wall is the private office of the Head of Slytherin. Only someone who has been appointed by the previous Head or a true Slytherin can enter here."
"Professor Snape wasn't appointed by the last head?" Lyra asked.
"No, he was appointed by the Headmaster," Malcolm replied.
"A true Slytherin?" Daphne asked, "Blaise here is the most annoying and cunning of all Slytherins, will you permit him to enter?" Everyone else giggled except Blaise who looked a bit annoyed.
"The most cunning?" Malcolm asked. He reached up behind him to the weapon rack and pulled off a dagger, then tossed it forward. Amazingly, the blade fell out the front of the portrait and clattered onto the floor. "Prove your worth to Slytherin. Your friend Daphne insulted you, stab her in the back, and you shall have gained entrance to this office."
Everyone was shocked at his statement and backed away from the fallen dagger. Daphne looked a little fearful at Blaise. No one said a word and after nearly a minute, Blaise approached the fallen knife and picked it up. With his back to the portrait, he drew his wand and performed what looked to be a long series of diagnostic spells, then winked at everyone else.
After the wink, he lunged forward and grabbed Daphne quickly whispering loudly in her ear, "Fall down and die." Then he plunged the dagger into her back.
Just as he did so, Harry's staff responded to his thoughts and launched itself out of his pouch. Wink or no wink, Blaise had just stabbed a friend of his. Tracey screamed and Daphne just fell to the floor with the hilt of the dagger visible on her back. Lyra just stood there frozen.
Harry's fury radiated and a pulse of magic blasted Blaise into the portrait with Harry's staff on Blaise's neck, drawing a trickle of blood. He was beyond words and trying desperately to keep from killing Blaise.
Blaise was terrified as well, looking at the black-tipped antler nearly penetrating his neck, looking up at the portrait, he demanded, "I did it! Now let me in."
"No, I will not. You sacrificed someone you know for nothing. Salazar Slytherin would not have done something as despicable as what you just have done. Cunning is not stabbing a friend in the back, it is finding a way to do it without such brazenly Gryffindor behavior. Now I will watch as Mr. Potter runs you through."
"Wait!" Daphne yelled, quickly standing up, "I'm not dead!"
Everyone froze, or in Lyra's case, unfroze. She jumped to Daphne and hugged her. Harry pulled his staff away from Blaise's neck and looked back and forth between him and Daphne. Tracey was just smiling for some reason.
"What did you do?" the portrait of Malcolm Constantine asked.
Harry was still confused as Blaise began to speak, "First of all, Harry, I'm never going to kill someone for such a ridiculous reason. Though I'm also never going to do something like that in front of you again." He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the blood away from his neck. "When I picked up the knife, I did a quick diagnostic charm on it and found it had the properties of a conjured object, making it easy to further manipulate. Along with more diagnostic spells, I cast a subverbal softening charm on the blade and a sticking charm on the hilt. Essentially I mumbled the incantations so they fit with the diagnostic spells I was doing. Then I tried to wink at all of you to tell you I was doing something and told Daphne specifically to 'Fall down and die.' Though it seemed like only Daphne understood I was trying something and Tracey figured it out after a few seconds."
The portrait of Malcolm nodded, "Very good work, I am impressed. I have not heard of a softening charm or sticking charm, so I assume they just do what they sound like. It is probably a good thing that Mr. Potter attacked you or I would have quickly noticed the lack of blood on her robes."
"I'm sorry Blaise," Harry said, looking ashamed.
"Malcolm said your reaction sold the bluff, so I can't hold it against you. Just try not to kill me in the future," he held out his hand to Harry to shake.
Harry reached out and shook it, both of them nodding.
"So, will you let us in?" Lyra asked.
"Am I correct to assume that if I tell you to come back alone to show you how to enter, you will just come back another time with the rest of them?" Blaise nodded. Malcolm reached to the back of his frame and did something, causing a long needle to extend outwards from the middle of the frame on the side. "Prick your fingers and give the needle some blood."
One by one, they poked their fingers and let the blood run over the needle. Harry and Lyra were the least hesitant of the group to do so. Once they were finished, the needle retracted into the frame.
"When you visit here again, simply ask to enter, and the door will open. Do not bring anyone else." As he spoke, the wall to the right of his portrait turned black, "Just walk through the opening."
Letting him enter first, Blaise stepped through the blackness, followed by the other four.
When they got to the other side, they were in an incredibly expansive, almost completely empty room. On the far side of the large room were windows looking out into the lake, with an empty bookcase and a large desk next to it. The only other object in the room looked like a well in the center of the room. It had bronze snakes on the sides around it and a golden lid over the top. There was also a steel railing running around the top edge.
Ignoring the strange well, the five children raced over to the desk. Harry and Lyra went straight for the window and looked out into the murky lake.
"I'm confused," Lyra said, "the main level is about 200 feet above the lake, why are we underwater just at just the second sublevel?"
The three Slytherins were going through the desk and finding nothing but at Lyra's question their heads popped up to look.
"I have no idea," Tracey responded.
"Maybe it's like the windows in the first-year dorm that we had when we arrived," Harry postulated. "Maybe it just looks like the lake but it's really a wall."
"No," Daphne said, "those are just an illusion, and don't show you people that are out on the grounds. You can occasionally see merfolk and the other animals in the lake from the windows in the Slytherin common room."
"Well, we are either underwater or we're not," Blaise surmised. "Either the windows show the true image of underwater or somehow we are actually below the surface of the lake. We can figure that out later, let's take a look at that thing in the center now."
The five of them stood around the well. On the golden lid, there was a handle, Tracey reached over and grabbed it but it didn't budge. Daphne pulled out her wand and cast an unlocking charm on it.
"I felt resistance, maybe if we all try to unlock it?" she pondered aloud.
They all pulled out their wands and pointed at the handle. Blaise held up three fingers and counted them down before they all incanted, "Alohomora!" which caused an audible click.
Tracey grabbed the handle again, and with Lyra's help, the two of them pulled the lid open. The inside of the well was dark but after a moment, it lit up to show a room below them with students in green robes wandering around under the well.
Tracey, Blaise, and Daphne just stared and Harry asked the obvious, "Is that the Slytherin common room?" The three Slytherins just nodded.
Lyra grabbed onto the rail around the outside and pulled herself up to have a better view but the whole well just shifted forward causing everyone else to stumble. Blaise recovered quickest and stood next to the well and pushed the railing again, causing it to move more smoothly over the top of the floor, giving them a view of the room below, a few feet to the side of the spot they were in before.
"Amazing!" Tracey declared. "We could spy on the whole common room from up here." She grabbed the railing and started pulling it over towards the window to the lake, the rest following. When she stopped, they all looked down to see a high-backed chair and two sofas around a table. The Slytherins recognized it right away as the spot they had taken from Draco.
And there he was, Draco was standing next to the chair, slowly backing up towards it, casting glances all around the room as he went.
Tracey pulled out her wand, "I've got to try this." She pointed her wand down the well at Draco and called out, "Pungo!"
Draco yelped and grabbed his shoulder, they could hear him say, "What the bloody hell was that? I didn't even say something." He looked around and whispered, "Squib." He yelped again and hopped on one foot before lightly putting it back down. He started inching his way towards the chair again and this time Daphne cast the stinging spell through the well and hit Draco on his back causing him to spin around and draw his wand, looking for his unseen attacker. Not wanting any more pain, he stomped off and Blaise pulled the well after him until they saw him sit down angrily on the couch where he, Vincent, and Pansy had been banished to.
"Well, it sucks that there are no ancient scrolls or forbidden grimoires in here but this portal is amazing. We could spy on everyone from here," Blaise said with a sinister grin.
"Then there's also jinxing Draco and making him go crazy," Tracey said while spinning her wand in her fingers.
Harry didn't like the idea of spying on his classmates, though he also realized that his classmates weren't Slytherins. Suddenly, a thought occurred to him, "Does the well go both ways?"
Everyone else looked shocked by the idea. "I think it does," Lyra answered. "Otherwise there would be no need for a lid."
"We will need to test it," Daphne said. "We can keep it above your room, Blaise. Then we can see if we can pass things up and down, or if it is possible to travel up and down through the floor."
Blaise nodded and started dragging the well across the floor. It went past a few walls dividing up the lower rooms and stopped over a small room with a single bed. The room was very clean, with nothing on the dresser or floor, and the desk had organized stacks of papers and a few textbooks. The bed had a green canopy over the top of it.
"I've always wondered why all the beds have canopies, I guess it was to keep Salazar Slytherin from spying on us as we slept," Blaise chuckled.
Daphne let out a peep and grabbed the railing of the well and started dragging it away, eventually, she ran into a wall on their floor and let out a large sigh of relief. "I just needed to check this, on the other side of this wall and below us the second-year girls' bathroom."
"So that's out of the question," Blaise chuckled and pulled the well back over to his room. He centered it over a spot next to his desk chair and cast the same spell twice, "Coelios! Coelios!"
Looking down, one of the stones on the floor had a small X engraved into it. "We can try casting spells upwards later tonight and check them tomorrow," Blaise told the Slytherin girls.
Harry asked to look around the common room and after realizing that he could come back and do it anytime, the Slytherins relented. Harry and Lyra dragged the well around looking at various things, in particular the snakes. Blaise had a calculating look on his face as he asked again about the different types of snakes that were there. There were two cobras in a sealed terrarium that Harry recognized as a type from the island; he would need to come back without the Slytherins and try to talk to them from up here.
After looking around some more at different snakes, they moved the well back to the spot above Blaise's room and they all went to dinner. They were able to avoid the gargoyle completely by using one of the one-way hallways that Tracey and Daphne had discovered previously.
The next two days of exams went by quickly. Harry and Lyra got a report from Tracey that spells could go upwards through the well, as well as transfigured birds. Daphne was going to purchase a few creatures called puffskeins over the break to see if living animals could pass through as well. They hadn't been back themselves yet because there wasn't a need to and other than the well, there wasn't anything special about the room.
After their final exam on Friday, Harry and Lyra returned to the common room and noticed their names on a piece of parchment pinned to the bulletin board. Approaching closely, their smiles grew as they saw:
Unicorn Feeding
Saturday, January 9th, 1993
Scamander House
Lyra Black
Daria Delacroix
Meliandra Draghici
Luna Lovegood
Harry Potter
Patricia Stimpson
Please meet Professor Kettleburn next to the Gamekeeper's hut at 10:00 p.m.
They both jumped up and down, Harry a bit more enthusiastically, "We're going to see the unicorns!"
Harry enjoyed spending time with the Lampong on the island but he was just one creature of light. Hopefully, many of them will be even better. Though he suddenly remembered the thestrals the last time he was in the forest and his anxiety started to build.
"What if the unicorns don't like me? Like thestrals?" he asked his sister.
She could see it in his eyes and tried to reassure him, "It will be fine, maybe you'll get to fight with them too, like The Protector."
Harry reached into his pouch up to his elbow and rubbed the tip of the antler on the staff. At that moment, he felt like this pouch was one of his favorite possessions. It would always have what he needed readily available, even if it was just to reach in and touch but not pull out. It was crazy to think that you could just buy something like this in a store but they were also in a magic castle and he had a little brother who could see the future and was covered with hair. Focusing on these things calmed his anxiety about the unicorns.
"Well, we have nearly three weeks, no use in worrying about it now," Harry smiled at Lyra.
With that, they headed to dinner, and being the last night of the term, they had a feast. While they had started with more conservative choices for their food at the beginning of the term, Harry and Lyra started experimenting with the different options available to them starting in October. There were so many different types of food, though they stayed away from the fried dishes. Something about them just didn't feel right.
The sweets and desserts were amazing. Harry had barely had any growing up with the Dursleys and they both had nothing on the island. Harry would have cake whenever there was the option to do so, savoring every bite and trying as many kinds as possible. Lyra would check the other tables when cakes were served and she brought him different types from the other house tables.
As the desserts started winding down, Dumbledore stood up from his spot and approached the podium. Two students next to the Weasley Twins slapped them in the head before the headmaster even reached his destination. When he arrived there was barely a whisper and he smiled before speaking.
"Tonight draws to a close the fall term of the school year. It has truly been a momentous and historical school year. Gaining a new house at Hogwarts for the first time in nearly a thousand years is astounding. Hogwarts will always welcome new changes and new developments and I feel many new things will come to these halls in the coming years. With that being said, I wish you all good luck in receiving your exam scores, use them to focus on improving your final scores at the end of the year."
Dumbledore looked out at all the students looking up at him and smiled, "Tomorrow, the train departs after breakfast at 9:30. Make sure to do at least some packing tonight so you are not rushed in the morning." The headmaster took a long look towards the Gryffindor table.
"Just for the fun of it, one more cake for each table before you head back to your rooms!"
As he said it, platters of food vanished from the center of each table, and five sheet cakes appeared in their places. Each cake had colored frosting representing their house - red, yellow, orange, blue, and green. Everyone cheered and started helping themselves with the cakes. Lyra ran to each table and gathered small pieces of everyone else's to bring back to Harry.
When they had eaten their fill, they returned to the common room. Upon arrival, they found Newt, Tina, and Dougal sitting at the side of the fire pit opposite the door. Dougal was wearing a knitted beret of orange and pale green. Whispers had been in the common room during the feast and joined Harry and Lyra when they entered. As the rest of the house gathered, they all sat silently around the firepit and waited.
When everyone had gathered, Newt stood and addressed them.
"I want to thank all of you for helping me build this house. I have so many good memories in this castle, a few bad ones as well, but they all make me who I am. You all will have many extraordinary experiences at Hogwarts and I am going to be delighted in helping you with them. This room is a marvel of magic, and it will be even better in a few weeks after Harry and Lyra perform their blessing over it. In that regard, make sure all of your belongings are put away by the time the train leaves tomorrow. The dorm rooms will be sealed off to prevent residual magic from getting into them but just to be safe, anything you leave here will be put into storage until you return and all the magic has settled."
He looked around the students and smiled at them all.
"This term, I wanted all of you to settle in with the new house and give you some independence to observe you in the wild, so to speak. Next term, I will be sharing some of Hogwarts' secrets and getting to know each of you much better. Now, as a special treat, I'm going to show you one of my favorite magical creatures. All of you need to keep very still as I bring him out."
Everyone in the room grew very still as Newt opened the bag next to him and pulled out a small teapot, drawing looks of confusion.
"In this teapot is an occamy," gasps of wonder were heard from those who knew what that was. "When I release him, he will grow immensely. Stay still and let him explore the room. He will not hurt you if you don't make any threatening moves," this caused everyone to freeze in place.
Newt took the lid off the pot and a small head stuck out. He looked around at everyone before launching himself out of the pot, tiny blue wings following him out as he flew away. As his tail escaped, the occamy grew, and grew, and grew, and continued to grow until he was at least three times the size of the Usurper, floating through the air around the ceiling of the room. It was then that Harry heard it.
§What is this place?§
§It is outside, but it is not§
Harry fought against speaking back and just whispered to Lyra that it could speak, her eyes lighting up at his statement. Everyone was looking in awe at the magnificent serpent lazily gliding around the room, occasionally touching the walls and tasting them with its tongue.
"This occamy is thirty-four years old, he will grow and shrink to fit where he wishes to be. Younger ones will often grow more than they need to and get stuck in different places," Newt informed them. "You all have the potential to grow to fit in wherever you wish to be. Find where you are comfortable and be the greatest you can be."
The occamy started to float down towards the group and spoke again.
§Hatchlings with the keeper§
§They are young, but they have potential§
He hovered right over the group, his coils almost grazing the hair of the students. Dougal reached into a black backpack next to him and pulled out a large rat and held it over his head. The occamy positioned himself over Dougal, picked up the dead rat gently with its mouth, then tossed it into the air, and swallowed it whole.
After it had swallowed it, the head turned towards Harry and it sniffed the air, then extended its tongue and tasted the air.
§You have snacks and a strange smell§
Harry reached into his pouch and pulled out a piece of his mango flobberworm jerky. Looking at Newt, he asked, "May I give him some food?"
Newt slowly nodded and Tina raised an eyebrow while scratching her ear. Harry just nodded back and scratched his ear as well.
He held up the jerky and the occamy floated closer as the other students watched with bated breath. He tasted the air with his tongue near the snack before rearing back slightly.
§You have the scent of the kingsbane!§
Harry didn't know what to do, the occamy continued, as it moved closer to smell and taste Harry.
§Where did you encounter the kingsbane?§
§Hatchling! I know that you can speak, answer me!§
Harry was getting nervous and it showed on his face. Newt and Tina stood up and walked to the side where Harry was seated. Dougal also approached while holding the teapot. The flying serpent looked towards him and spoke again.
§Speak to me later then...§
Then he dove back into the teapot, shrinking as he went and Dougal placed the lid back on once he was inside.
"What was that?" Cedric asked.
"I'm not sure myself," Newt responded, and took the jerky that Harry still had in his hand and sniffed it. "I'm guessing he just doesn't like mangos," he said with a chuckle. "I'm going to bring him back to my office, Harry please join me."
Whispers went over and sat with Lyra as Harry, Newt, Tina, and Dougal left the room.
The four of them walked in silence until they got to the office. Once inside, Tina cast several privacy spells around the room and asked, "So, what happened?"
Harry responded, "He asked for a snack and when I pulled it out, he smelled the Usurper and demanded answers about it, saying that he knew I could speak to him."
"I'm going to take him out again, is that alright?" Newt asked, and Harry nodded.
Pulling out the teapot again, Newt took off the lid and the occamy jumped out expanding to a large size, but not as big as before since the room they were in now was smaller.
Harry spoke to the occamy,
§Hello there.§
The serpent floated down and looked him right in the eye,
§Hatchling! Why did you not respond before?§
Harry was a bit scared of the imposing flying snake but responded,
§I've been told to keep it a secret that I can speak.§
§I've always been able to do so and those who know that can tell me that others will not like me if they know.§
The occamy was almost nose to nose with him now.
§The kingsbane, why do you have its scent?§
Harry tried to pick his words carefully
§I carry a staff with its shed.§
§The Usurper I know lives on the other side of the world.§
§I have not met another magical snake before, are you a king?§
The snake seemed to be assessing him as well, it hesitated a bit before responding,
§I am a lord of serpents, though I am not a king.§
§Do you represent the kingsbane?§
Harry let out a breath he had been holding and said,
§My sister and I are its emissaries.§
§I have designated two others in this castle as my agents.§
§It does not seek out any who is not a king.§
The occamy too seemed to let out a breath it had been holding as it visibly shrank a few sizes,
§I have no allegiance to any who are not myself or my clutch.§
§I will protect those that threaten the keeper and his family.§
§I will not help your Usurper with its hunt, and I will not help you with yours.§
Harry reached into his pocket and pulled out the jerky again,
§That is agreeable, would you like something to eat?§
The occamy took the jerky from his hands and ate it with a smacking of its jaws as it swallowed.
§If you wish to converse in the future, bring more of this snack§
With that, the occamy turned back towards the still open teapot and dived back inside, curling up on the bottom.
"I could use an explanation now if you don't mind, Mr. Potter," Newt requested.
Harry explained what had happened but left out the details of the hunt of the Usurper. He just explained that they had reached an agreement that the kingsbane would not try to kill the occamy.
"I am very much looking forward to meeting this creature," Newt mused. Tina still looked at him with a bit of suspicion.
She informed Harry, "When you go back to your dorm, I suggest that you inform the others who are probably all still waiting around the room for you, that the occamy caught a whiff of the snakeskin on your staff. Once we tried feeding him away from you, he was more agreeable to the offer."
That sounded close enough to the truth for Harry and he agreed to it. At that point, he walked back to his dorm to let them all know that story.
Across the country, Nymphadora Tonks was arriving back home from a long day of Mad-Eye training her until she wanted to kill someone. Today they were continuing an assignment to infiltrate a smuggling group. Two days prior, they had arrested a man who was delivering a shipment to one of the smaller syndicates in the British Isles. Since then, he had been in interrogation while Alastor and Tonks learned every detail of the man's life so that she could successfully impersonate him and make the delivery he had supposed to have completed.
While the man was smart, ruthless, and had broken quite a few laws, it was the delivery that was giving Tonks her problems. The man had been trying to smuggle in a shipment of cauldrons that didn't meet the thickness standards for the British Ministry. It was torture for her to memorize the laws and requirements for cauldron thickness along with the different types of alloys that went into crafting the imports she was going to be delivering. However, after reviewing everything, Alastor gave her the task of explaining everything to a group of cadets, who were still in their basic training, and told her that they would be given an exam on their understanding of the subject. So she needed to be able to know everything well enough to teach it.
The cadets had fallen asleep almost half a dozen times before Alastor came in and dismissed them. He then surprised Tonks by telling her that no one should be able to stay awake during something so mind-numbingly boring and she must know the subject pretty well to get such a perfect response from them. The next thing she knew, she was waking up on the floor after trying to curse her instructor for making her do all of that without warning her first.
Now, she entered her home to find her mother and father waiting for her in the kitchen with a small ornate box between them on the table.
"Is this some kind of intervention?" she asked with a smirk.
"It's about Arcturus," her mother said seriously, "he's plotting something."
"I figured that," she said. "He started fire calling you right after Dumbledore's party. Trying to make amends or something like that. So what's going on now?"
"He called tonight with a request," said Edward Tonks. "He wants you to escort Lyra Black to the Abbotts' winter soirée. The Gryffindor girls that helped her at the last party were unable to make it, and he wants a strong female role model to assist her with preparations for the party and to make sure she doesn't get hassled by undesirable suitors."
Tonks gave a light sneer, "So no commoners, foreigners, or mudbloods? Maybe I could introduce her to some nice muggle boys after the party is over?"
"That's probably what he meant," Andromeda Tonks confirmed. "But he would also know that telling us that would goad you into responding in exactly that way. So he's either testing us or he's got some other game that I can't figure out."
"So, what's in the box?" Tonks asked. Her mother opened it to reveal a large spool of silvery thread, a small scroll, and a stack of gold coins. She gasped at the sight, "Is that spun acromantula silk?"
"It is indeed," her father said. "The old man is requesting that you visit Yves Beaumont in London who will make you a bespoke dress for the party. The silk is to be used as a liner for whatever you decide to have made, the scroll is a letter of introduction, and the gold is for anything extra you need to have made. That he is providing you with so much is incredibly suspicious. If you accept, take note of everything that happens at the party, we will try to figure out what he's up to when you get home."
The silk alone could be used to line at least three garments with some to spare. Back in Hogwarts, Charlie had raided the acromantula nest in the forest once to get enough raw silk for an elbow-length pair of gloves as a present. She still had them in her closet, and whenever she wanted to feel posh, she would put them on and let the feeling of the luxurious silk wash over her. So seeing this much in front of her made her a bit greedy.
Snapping out of it, she told her parents, "I'll go, in full auror mode. If I don't attend, he'll probably try something less conspicuous to get whatever he's after." She closed up the box and took it up to her room while thinking about what she would want to wear to the party as well as how to corrupt Lyra away from the path of pureblood idiocy that Lord Black was trying to set her on.