Disclaimer: See Chapter 1.
Author's Note: …at the bottom.
Note on the Timeline: I've moved back the start of Winter Break by a few days because canon had them still at Hogwarts during Yule and I don't see purebloods like Lucius Malfoy standing for something like that. At least, not in my AU in which wizards and witches don't follow religions that do not "suffer a witch to live". Well, some of the liberals do because they're idiots and conformists.
Thursday, 19 December
"Mr. Potter. Stay after class," Severus drawled malevolently as he gazed into the boy's cauldron at a nearly perfect potion. At least the brat had gotten over whatever urge it had been that had prompted him to play dumb in his first few lessons. He never raised his hand in class, but he answered every question asked and the vast majority of them were correct answers. Unlike Granger, Potter didn't recite verbatim passages from textbooks, either. His answers tended to sound like conclusions drawn from reading several sources on the same material.
Severus couldn't help but find it incredibly annoying that he found the boy somewhat impressive. He didn't want to find anything about the brat impressive. He didn't want to worry about him either, but then, life had never been fair.
It took only a few minutes for the students to bottle and turn in their potions, clean their stations, and vacate the room. A few of the Slytherins – Draco, notably – took the opportunity to jeer Potter on the way out. Severus mentally sighed at the sight. He loved his godson dearly, but that boy had no acquaintance with the harsh realities of the world, having been reared in a carefully crafted bubble of Malfoy superiority. Someday, that bubble was going to pop and Draco was going to have a very difficult time with it. He just hoped that it didn't get him killed.
Soon, he was alone in the room with Potter. A flick of his wand sealed the door and silenced it. The very last thing he needed was for Draco to listen at the door and infer anything from this conversation that he could spread around the school or send to the Daily Prophet. Only because he was watching the boy so closely did he notice the subtle tensing that highly suggested the boy was aware of the fact that he was now trapped in the room alone with his harshest professor.
"Was there a problem with my potion, Professor?" Potter asked after a moment of silence. The brat looked and sounded genuine in his question though Severus didn't doubt for a moment that the child was perfectly aware of the answer to that question.
"You didn't sign up to spend the holiday at school," Severus observed bluntly after a brief pause.
The little menace didn't even flinch at the subject. His brow rose just a little. That was all. "No, sir," he said, as though it should have been patently obvious. "I haven't seen my family in months. I'm really looking forward to seeing them again."
Severus didn't let himself frown at the fact that he detected no lie in that. Neither was he able to discern any bit of fear or dread. The boy really seemed perfectly content with going home to see his family. It didn't make sense. Potter exhibited many signs of an abused child. Pain tolerance. Reclusiveness. The ability to lie exceptionally well. Lack of trust. Those bright green eyes that he could scarcely even compare to Lily's for the utter lack of warmth in them. Potter had been through something terrible and it had happened over an extended period of time.
"Was that all, Professor?" Potter asked innocently. "I'm really hungry." His body turned slightly toward the door, telegraphing his wish to depart.
Another tell. If Potter truly had a perfectly normal home life, he'd certainly be more confused about having it questioned. Potter had remained perfectly calm and answered all of the questions he'd been asked believably, but he hadn't really seemed bothered by the fact that they were asked in the first place. Someone who cared for their family likely would have been insulted on their behalf by the insinuation. No, Potter was still lying. But Severus doubted that he was going to get anywhere by continuing the line of questioning.
"No, Potter. That was all." Severus waved his wand to open the door and Potter headed that way at once.
The boy paused just inside the door and turned back to him with a tiny smile. "Happy Holidays, Professor," he said quickly before leaving without expecting a response.
Severus frowned after the brat. Yet another piece of the puzzle that didn't fit. Despite the fact that he was unfailingly foul to the boy during class and whenever they met outside of it, Potter had never been hostile toward him. He'd been very, very cold the first couple of months, but always perfectly polite. After Halloween, however… Since then the boy had been much more neutral toward him. Increasingly so. It was as if something that had happened that night, or perhaps his presence in the infirmary with Poppy the next morning, had convinced the boy that Severus was not as out to get him as Severus tried to pretend. All of his insults just rolled right off the boy as though he could not hear them or did not understand them, and now the brat was wishing him happy holidays as though he liked him!
Severus could only conclude that the boy was better at reading people than he had guessed. The boy had realized that the majority of Severus' animosity was contrived and had therefore ceased to take offense to any of it.
With a sigh, Severus tried to clear his mind of the boy as he moved to his desk to put away the vials from his last class before going to lunch himself. He'd spent far too much time this year thinking about Harry bloody Potter. Sadly, he knew that he'd find no peace until he'd solved the puzzle the boy had presented to him. With that in mind, he resolved to stop by the boy's family home over the holiday and have a look at the situation for himself. He remembered Minerva had mentioned that Potter lived in Surrey. He doubted that it would be too difficult to locate Petunia Dursley there.
Harry left the potions' classroom with a pensive frown. He could not pin down Snape's interest in his home life. The man was extremely vexing. Snape, Harry suspected, wore as many masks as he himself. In public, the man could not possibly have loathed him any more. He constantly picked on him, snarled at him, and judged him unfairly.
Then he found himself alone with him and the man acted like he was worried about him.
Harry's best theory at the moment was that Snape didn't really have anything particular against Harry, but he wanted everyone to think that he did. He could only guess that the man wanted people to think he hated him for supposedly killing Voldemort, even though he didn't. Maybe a lot of his friends were supporters and he didn't want them to think he didn't feel as strongly? Or maybe it was something to do with being Head of Slytherin and wanting his students to think that he was… But that didn't make any sense because the majority of the Slytherins didn't seem to hate Harry on principle. Oh, they picked on him and mocked him when they had the chance, but Harry thought that was more a combination of House rivalry and Harry's public stance against Draco. Even Draco hadn't hated Harry on principle. Their animosity had only come around after Harry had insulted him on the train.
He wasn't sure what to make of Snape, but he wasn't overly worried about it. He'd already figured out that Snape wasn't a bad person – not like the Dursleys were. Whatever game the man was playing, Harry wasn't going to take it personally. He just wished the professor would stop prying into his life away from Hogwarts. It was kind of nice to know that someone cared enough to try to do something about the Dursleys, but the man was ten years too late to give Harry the help he'd needed.
Irritation aside, Harry was rather pleased with his performance. Not only had he remained calm and thought on his feet, he'd avoided telling any outright lies, a feat he'd been practicing this last week since Salazar had confided in him that particularly skilled legilimens were capable of detecting lies.
Disturbing fact: Passive legilimency was always active. Once a legilimens reached a certain level of expertise, his magic was always attuned to picking up inconsistencies in the minds around him to determine if they were lying and even pick out strong emotions that may be hidden. On Salazar's advice, Harry had started to try to avoid lying all the time since one could never be certain when he was in the presence of a legilimens – plus it was just good practice. With Snape just now, Harry had told the truth. He hadn't seen his family in months, and he was looking forward to seeing them again. Of course, the next time he planned to see them was when he was ready to employ some of the "games" he'd spent the last five years dreaming up.
Thoughts of Snape fled his mind as he stepped into the Great Hall a few minutes late for lunch and found his eyes immediately drawn to a head of pale blond hair. He blamed that stupid mirror for his growing obsession with the Slytherin. Oh, he'd found him interesting before and certainly pretty, but he was pretty sure that he hadn't been nearly as interesting before that blasted mirror had shown him a scene from a possible future. The idea of the kind of relationship that the mirror had portrayed was both exhilarating and terrifying. Whether he'd ever actually allow it to come to fruition or not didn't matter. The mere possibility would not leave him alone.
Draco was smiling – well, smirking – with his friends. They seemed to be in the midst of some very entertaining conversation and Harry felt a sharp stab of jealousy and regret. If he'd snubbed Ron that first day as he'd wanted and taken Draco's hand – if he'd allowed the Hat to place him in Slytherin… If he'd just come to the wizarding world as himself, he could have been a part of that. He could have surrounded himself with people he actually found interesting rather than tolerating the bossy mudblood and the spineless blood traitor spawn.
Oh, the Gryffindor misfits were tolerable enough. Hermione was smart, but she was such a good girl. And Neville was getting a little better as he spent more time with them. He talked more, now. They were not, however, the sort of people that he could imagine ever agreeing with his opinions on magic and the wizarding world – and bloody Dumbledore. The Slytherins very well may have.
He shook himself from his melancholy and allowed no more than a few seconds looking at the Slytherins before making his way to the Gryffindor table. He'd made his choice and he still believed it had been the right one. The Boy-Who-Lived was meant to be a Gryffindor. He was meant to be funny and polite and terribly brave. Anything else would have drawn scrutiny. Had he been a Slytherin, there would have been very little doubt in anyone's mind that he was an evil little Dark Lord in training. The fact that that belief would have been at least partially correct would have only made matters worse. People saw what they wanted and expected to see. Reality could only temper that. He'd rather not have everyone constantly scrutinizing him for "Dark" leanings when they very well may find truth there.
The Light shone so brightly here that even the darkest shadows could hide within it. He was perfectly content to remain concealed among them for now. Maybe one day he'd let them see the truth, but not until he was powerful enough to protect himself.
Friday, 20 December
The train ride back to London for winter break was magnitudes more pleasant than the ride to Hogwarts had been. The cause of the positive change could easily be attributed to the company. He shared his compartment now with Neville and Hermione rather than the eminently annoying Ron Weasley. They were made even more pleasant by the fact that they were reading silently to themselves and allowing him to do the same.
Neville with his nose in a book was an increasingly common sight since he'd started spending time with Harry and Hermione. His grades had improved drastically, as well. Harry spent most of his free time in the library or doing homework – well, the free time that he spent with Hermione and Neville, at least – and Hermione usually did the same. If Neville wanted to spend time with them, he had little to do but follow their example. Seeing as the kid had no one else willing to hang out with him, it wasn't surprising he'd latched onto them at the opportunity provided by Harry calling in the Life Debt. Hermione had apparently decided that she and Neville were both part of some exclusive Harry Potter Life Debtor club, and hadn't hesitated to include the boy in everything she possibly could the morning after what Harry mentally dubbed the Cerberus Incident.
Consequently, Neville spent a lot of time reading. Hermione was also always eager to help him out when he was confused. When she failed to explain something in a way that Neville could grasp, Harry tended to get irritated enough listening to them that he stepped in and helped the boy himself. Hermione was a perfectly intelligent girl, but she also existed on her own plane of existence and couldn't always bridge the gap to comprehend the way normal kids their age thought. Harry had less difficulty with that. He's survived as a child by his ability to read people – to understand what and how they thought and why they did what they did. Whether it was knowing when Dudley and his friends would try to ambush him, knowing when Petunia was about to swing a pan at his head, or silencing himself before he could push Vernon over the edge, it was a skill he'd learned well. He'd never before realized that the same ability could translate into something as simple as understanding which part of Hermione's explanation was stumping Neville and how to make him get it.
He even took some enjoyment from teaching the other boy. Neville truly wasn't a stupid person regardless of what Ron liked to insinuate. His self-confidence was just so incredibly low that he'd never tried very hard, assuming that he couldn't possibly succeed, so why bother? Harry found it entertaining to watch as Neville grasped what he was explaining. The boy always got this look of wonder, as though he could barely believe that he actually understood. That was always immediately followed by a vaguely worshipful look for Harry himself, as though Neville was crediting Harry entirely with the success.
Admittedly, receiving that look may have had something to do with Harry's enjoyment of the entire process.
The shy boy still wasn't very strong in the practical aspect of his classes, but he had been getting a little better since Hermione and Harry both had coached him through the concept of finesse.
Judging by the warm smiles sent their way, Harry suspected that a number of the professor approved of their taking Neville under their proverbial wing. Hermione had even started partnering with the boy in potions, which prevented any number of catastrophes. That left Harry with Dean Thomas by process of elimination, but the other boy was tolerable. He mostly just did what Harry told him to do and let Harry handle the more delicate parts of the preparation. Ron worked with Seamus now, which was a frightening combination over a cauldron, but they meshed well for the fact that they seemed to hate Snape with an equally blazing fury.
Harry was just getting to a really interesting part in his book – the only occlumency book in Salazar's library that was written in modern English – when the compartment door slid open sharply. Draco Malfoy sauntered in like he owned the place, sneering at Neville and Hermione as though their very existence insulted him. Crabbe and Goyle lurked in the doorway behind him.
"Well, well, well," he drawled arrogantly. "The Boy Hero with his Mudblood and Blood Traitor retainers on their way home for Christmas. How… quaint. What are you doing for the holidays, then?" he asked with faux politeness. "Oh, wait. I know," he interrupted despite the fact that no one was saying anything. "The Mudblood will be reading stories and singing carols about the muggle messiah, who, by the way, advocates the extermination of wizardkind. And the Blood Traitor will be at St. Mungo's celebrating with dear mummy and daddy."
Harry blinked. St. Mungo's was the wizarding hospital, he knew that. He did not know why Neville's parents would be there. He was slightly bothered that the other boy would have neglected to tell him something so important. It wasn't because he cared about the boy or anything absurd like that. No. He just… would have thought it would have come up with all the time they'd been spending together and the holiday season and all. Surely, people talked about such things, right?
Neville, Harry noted, had gone very pale since Draco had mentioned St. Mungo's, so he likely hadn't wanted them to know about his parents. Hermione was, conversely, very red and she looked furious. Harry wasn't entirely sure why. Draco hadn't actually said anything to her that wasn't true.
Harry was about to open his mouth and snap something suitably Gryffindor when it occurred to him that Hermione and Neville were sworn to secrecy and no one that mattered would believe anything Draco, Crabbe, or Goyle said about him. With that in mind, Harry smirked instead of pretending to be angry.
Closing his book in his lap, Harry lifted his hands to give slow, mocking applause. "Well done, Malfoy. You're so very witty, you've left us all shaking with shame and fury," he ignored the fact that his words had done that very thing to his two companions. "Truly, you've put us Gryffindors in our place. Excellent job. Thank you for stopping by, but I'm afraid we weren't expecting visitors. We were rather in the middle of something. Have a pleasant Yule."
The totally gobsmacked look on the Slytherin's pretty face was more than worth it. Harry probably could have stripped naked and danced the length of the train and gotten exactly the same look.
"Weren't expecting… pleasant Yule? What are you playing at, Potter?" the boy demanded as though he was commanding the world to start making sense again.
Harry set aside his book and stood with a smile, taking a step closer to Draco and placing himself in the other boy's personal space. "No game, Malfoy," he said pleasantly. "Perhaps, I've merely been beset by the spirit of the holiday and find myself incapable of being unpleasant." It wasn't until he was close enough that he was sure Draco could feel his breath on his face as he spoke that the other boy seemed to contemplate the fact and stumble back, bumping into his bodyguards.
"You're mad, Potter," he muttered, his cheeks burning red and looking immensely confused as he turned and shoved through the heavier boys to flee the compartment. Crabbe and Goyle followed right after and Harry closed the door with a decisive snap before returning to his seat and his book.
A long moment of tense silence followed. Well, it was tense on the other side of the compartment. Harry was rather at ease as he pretended to read whilst privately savoring the reactions he'd garnered from the blond boy. Merlin, he'd been wanting to do something like that all term. Draco was so emotional. So easily manipulated. It was torture to deliberately avoid the many openings Draco offered in their verbal sparring, but Gryffindors reacted to goading with angry displays of temper, not sly demonstrations of wit.
"What just happened?" Hermione finally asked.
Harry glanced up innocently, but didn't completely repress his satisfied smirk. "I got rid of him, didn't I?"
"But why… Why didn't you get mad at him?" Her face screwed up in consternation then, and she irritably added, "What does 'mudblood' mean?"
Neville blushed bright red when she directed her questioning look at him and he immediately began stammering excuses along the lines of, "I couldn't… not proper… I never…"
"It is a slur against muggleborns," Harry interrupted, slightly amused by Neville's discomfort. "It refers to your magical blood being muddied by that of your muggle parents."
"That's horrible," Hermione gasped.
Harry shrugged, "I wouldn't get so worked up about it."
"How could I not?" Hermione demanded. "It's insinuating that there's something wrong with the fact that my parents are muggles. Like it's shameful!"
Harry sighed and closed his book on his lap again. He resisted the urge to tell her that it was shameful to be closely related to those forsaken by Magick. It was shameful that her magic was stolen for her from some other helpless baby. "Their prejudice isn't completely without merit, Hermione," he pointed out instead.
"…how can you-?" She looked utterly betrayed by his statement.
"Halloween," he interrupted.
"What?" she murmured uncertainly.
"Halloween is a muggle monstrosity made out of a Christian religious holiday, Allhallowtide, which was adopted into their religion from some pagan muggles who had picked up on the wizarding holiday, All Soul's Day. In the time of the founders, school would have been suspended for the day and the one immediately before and after for preparation, observance, and reflection. It is the day of the year when the veil between the living and the dead is the thinnest – that bit of modern muggle lore is actually true. Wizards used to – and some of the conservatives still do – use the day to conduct rituals possible only on that one day each year to connect with honored ancestors and lost loved ones. Depending on the strength and desire of the caster, the connection can be literally a face-to-face conversation with the dead or merely an impression of thoughts and feelings or sometimes just a sense of a presence. It was considered one of the most sacred days of the year.
"Then, some liberal politician got it into his head that these poor muggleborns coming into the wizarding world were feeling uncomfortable with rituals that call forth the dead. Muggle lore confused such things with necromancy, which is the binding and control of the dead in body, soul, or sometimes both. And so it was made illegal to celebrate All Soul's Day. Instead, we are expected to recognize the muggle's mockery of their own bastardization of our holiday. Instead of communing with lost loved ones, witches and wizards are expected to eat large amounts of sweets and carve silly faces into gourds.
"It's an insult. A grave one. And it's all being done in the name of muggleborns. And All Soul's Day isn't the only sacred day to suffer. We're now expected to celebrate Christmas, which is touted as the birth of the Christian messiah instead of the winter solstice and Easter has overtaken the celebration of the vernal equinox. Traditions that have stood for more than ten thousand years are being banned. Just to make you comfortable. We are expected to honor celebrations of a religion that not only demonizes magical beings, but actively participated in burning us at the stake."
Hermione blushed faintly, but couldn't help interrupting with, "But they never actually killed any witches during the witch trials, because they just cast flame freezing charms…"
"Lies!" Harry spat. "Propaganda and lies. You think everyone is capable of casting a flame-freezing charm? Well, come on then," he urged, drawing his wand and pointing it at her. "Cast one now. You've got five seconds before I light you on fire."
She paled drastically and fumbled for her wand, which he immediately leaned forward and snatched from her hand.
"Well?" he demanded when she just looked at him in horror. "What? Don't tell me that you're completely helpless now just because I took away your wand? Don't you suppose that muggles actively hunting witches and wizards may have cottoned on to that tactic as well? What about children too young to have a wand? What about those too weak to even cast that charm? What about the ninety percent of the magical world that is too weak to attend Hogwarts?"
"Ninety percent?" the pale girl whispered in horrified disbelief.
Harry huffed humorlessly and tossed her wand back to her. "In all that reading you do, Hermione, you might devote a little time to studying the world you've joined. Yes. Ninety percent. Hogwarts only accepts the top ten percent of magical humans."
"It's true," Neville muttered quietly. "My Gran didn't think I'd be powerful enough. Sometimes I think they made a mistake."
Harry didn't mention it, but he'd wondered the same thing. Neville's practical performance was dreadful still, despite the fact that Harry could now definitively say that his execution of certain spells was perfect, having coaching it himself. "People who go to Hogwarts don't become janitors or maids. They don't cook at a pub or wait tables. They become craftsmen, inventors, potioneers, politicians, Wardmasters, spellcrafters, and healers. Who, exactly, did you imagine was cleaning floors and making beds and cooking meals?" House-elves were ridiculously expensive and only the elite could afford to keep them, but he wasn't going to get into house-elves with Hermione if he could help it.
Harry shook his head dismissively, "That's not the point. The point is that the purebloods don't hate muggleborns without cause. No, it's not really a just cause. It's not entirely your fault that our world is being changed to suit you, after all. It's people like Dumbledore…" He glared when Hermione interrupted to add the old man's title to his name and she swiftly shut up. "It's people like Dumbledore," he said again, pointedly neglecting the title a second time, "who are pushing for these changes in your name."
"Blood traitors," Neville recognized quietly.
"Exactly," Harry nodded.
"So, do you hate all muggleborns, too?" Hermione asked tartly, her back ramrod straight and her eyes burning with betrayal.
Harry didn't bother replying to that, simply fixing her with a supremely disappointed look.
Her cheeks pinked under his stare and she looked away for a moment before returning her eyes to him with determination. "Well, maybe not me, but muggleborns in general, right?"
"I'm not racist," Harry promised with a vaguely amused laugh.
Her eyes remained somewhat distrustful, but she finally let the subject drop, perhaps afraid of what he might say if she kept pressing him. She turned to Neville instead, "So, what did Malfoy mean about visiting your parents in the hospital?" she asked with her usual complete lack of tact.
Neville blushed a deep red and turned his face down as though his hands in his lap had just become the most fascinating thing in the room. "Um… M-my parents are in the J… the Janus Thickey Ward at St. Mungo's. That's… it's for incurable spell damage," he almost whispered, the words wrenched from him as though completely against his will. "They w-were cursed. A few days after You-Know-Who was… after Harry defeated him… Some of his followers… Death Eaters… they came to the Villa where we lived, and… They wanted to know where You-Know-Who was… thought my parents could tell them because they were Aurors, but they didn't know any more than anyone else… They… The C-cruci-iatus Curse… It drives you mad after a while. B-breaks your mi-ind."
"Oh, Neville, I'm so sorry," Hermione gasped, scooting across the bench to wrap her arms around the boy.
Harry kept his face neutral as Neville glanced up at him nervously over Hermione's shoulder. The boy was beginning to make more sense to him now. His parents were heroically wounded in battle, Gran never got over it, put too much pressure on Neville to fill his father's shoes, and Neville was crushed beneath the expectations. Deep down, Harry wouldn't be surprised if Neville actually resented his parents for being so much better than he could ever imagine himself being. For getting themselves hurt and leaving him with such a difficult childhood. He probably hated himself for feeling that way, too.
He didn't want his friends to know because he hated being compared to them and found wanting. He didn't want them to know because he was so ashamed of himself for how he felt about them, both loving and hating them for the parents they could have been under other circumstances.
Or, so he guessed. Maybe he was just projecting his own fucked up mummy and daddy issues.
So, he didn't react strongly to the news. Instead, he just nodded. "I'm sorry to hear that, Neville. It sounds like they were very brave people. Just don't forget that All Soul's Day is about remembering the past. Yule is about new beginnings."
And there was that worshiping look again.
Harry preened internally as he opened his book once more and resumed his reading about organizing and controlling his mind. A minute later, Hermione finally let go and they both went back to silently reading as well.
When the train finally pulled into the station, Harry said a quick goodbye to his companions, wishing them both a happy holiday before making haste back to the muggle side of the station and slipping into the crowds. With the upcoming holiday, the station was positively packed with muggles, and Harry was glad to use that to his advantage. Neville wouldn't be coming this way, but Hermione would and he'd just as soon avoid any awkward questions about where his family was waiting for him.
He quickly located a secluded corner near the trolley return. The area was a dead end and therefore most people were avoiding it. Harry made quick work of opening his animal compartment and waiting for his invisible familiar to extricate himself, which he did quickly. Rhast really hated being stuck in that compartment.
"That is a terrible way to travel!" Rhast complained – a statement he was fond of repeating.
Harry shook his head and glanced around quickly for witnesses before shrinking down the trunk and stuffing it in his pocket, "Honestly, Rhast, you're a snake," Harry couldn't help but point out.
"I know that!" Rhast shot back indignantly.
"No," Harry chuckled, "I meant: Don't snakes usually live in cramped little dens under rocks?"
"Snakes, perhaps," Rhast said with his nose pointed up in what Harry personally considered a rather good imitation of Draco, "I am no mere snake. I am a basilisk, and we demand a higher standard of living."
Harry frowned as he started out of the station. He'd worried, before, that Rhast would get trampled in a crowd. Apparently, the snake had taken that as a challenge and had been practicing maneuvering busy corridors. Harry hadn't been pleased when the snake had told him that, but his familiar had been clever enough to wait until he'd become accomplished at it before telling him, so there hadn't been much to say at that point. Rhast used the skill now to keep up with him through the busy station. He was rather massive, but it was his speed that kept him safe. That and a preternatural awareness.
Knowing that the snake was not enjoying the icy cement beneath him, Harry held his questions until he'd climbed into one of the taxi's waiting outside the station. He showed the skeptical driver a few twenty pound notes and gave an address near the Leaky Cauldron.
Once they were moving, with the road noise and the quietly playing radio covering up his quiet hissing, Harry inquired, "Basilisk? You've never told me that before." It sounded terribly familiar to him, but he couldn't place the word. He was fairly certain that it wasn't any muggle breed of snake because he'd searched every book about snakes he could find when he was little and had never been able to identify his friend. Well, there was also the fact that muggle animals could not, to his knowledge, turn invisible at will.
"Great Snake Man told me," Rhast said dismissively, then went on with pride again. "The basilisk is the King of Serpents, Master. We do not live in holes in the ground. We bond with Speakers and they provide for us as we deserve."
"I'll have to ask Salazar about it when we get back," Harry muttered. He couldn't help but wonder if all basilisks bonded with speakers. Surely all speakers didn't have basilisk familiars. According to what Salazar told him, James Potter must have been a Speaker, a parselmouth, but he couldn't believe the historically Light wizard would have bonded with any kind of serpent, much less the king of them. They weren't well-regarded in the magical world, but considered a creature of the Dark, which was just stupid, not least because "the Dark" itself was nothing more than propaganda.
After paying the driver, Harry and Rhast made their way quickly through the Leaky Cauldron and directly to Gringotts. The snake bitched and moaned about the cold the whole way, but wouldn't hear a word about finding someplace warm and waiting for Harry to get him when he was done, so Harry tried to ignore the whinging.
Harry had arranged this appointment with Grubrok via owl as soon as he'd decided to leave Hogwarts for winter break. There was no way that he was going to be completely without magic for two and a half weeks. Being on time for his appointment, it took only a few minutes to make his way down to the same ritual room he'd used during the summer. After spending a little time under the goblin's waterfall, Harry made his way back to the muggle world, less the Trace, which would have been restored on the train ride back to London.
Once back in the muggle world, he stopped to do a little shopping. He got himself a proper coat and a new scarf, gloves, and hat. He had his school scarf, of course, but he'd prefer that anyone with any knowledge of the magical world wasn't able to identify him as a Hogwarts student at a glance, so that scarf would be staying in his trunk with his school robes during break.
His last stop was a grocer to stock up on the most perishable food items that didn't survive the term, such as milk and eggs.
Finally, he settled into a nearby park, setting up his Abode amidst some bushes and crawling inside. He was, by that point, both exhausted and starving. He hadn't thought to pack a lunch for the train in all the chaos of getting ready to go. It had taken him forever to properly learn the spell for copying books, so he'd had very little time to actually copy the ones he wanted to take with him. Since there was absolutely no way he was going to eat any of the candy they offered as sustenance on the train, it had left him suffering through the first real hunger pangs he'd experienced since leaving the Dursleys and he did not care for it at all.
That's why he whipped himself up a pair of sandwiches with a tall glass of icy cold milk despite his exhaustion. It wasn't until he was pleasantly stuffed that he crawled into the lovely double bed and tried not to shiver as Rhast wove his chilly body through and around Harry's limbs.
It eventually occurred to him to cast a warming charm on his blanket and he was finally able to fall asleep.
Monday, 23 December
The day before Yule, Harry made his way back to Diagon Alley. Rhast followed, of course, swathed in warming charms and determined that it was his duty to protect Harry. Considering how many people would probably love to see the Boy-Who-Lived not living anymore, Harry didn't have anything against the protectiveness, nor was he inclined to discourage it. He didn't spend long. He made one stop at Madam Malkin's to buy a new robe and cloak. He wanted something dark and concealing, so he made sure to get an extra-deep hood on the cloak.
His other stop was at a cosmetic shop. There were a pair of witches working there doing hair and makeup, but Harry was interested in the other part of the shop. The part that sold cosmetic potions and enchanted items as well as spell books and a selection of magazines, including the popular Witch Weekly. Disturbingly, the front cover of that particular magazine seemed to be running a story on him.
Is Our Savior Camera Shy?
Above that screaming headline was a picture of a green-eyed baby with a cut on his forehead in the shape of a lightning bolt.
Both alarmed and morbidly curious, Harry cautiously picked up the magazine and flipped to the cover story. He'd never seen a picture of himself as a baby before. Come to that, he'd never seen a picture of himself, full stop. It was like Petunia thought photographic evidence of his existence to be somehow blasphemous, the way she'd gone out of her way to ensure he didn't end up in their pictures even by accident. When pictures were taken at his primary school, he'd always been absent those days. Admittedly, though, Harry thought that probably had more to do with the fact that his rags would stand out all the more when everyone else was made up to look their best.
He wasn't sure what to make of the fact that someone had apparently snapped a picture of him after his parents died and before he was shoved off with the Dursleys. It was the only way to explain the picture on the cover, and it was certainly a wizarding photo going by the way the baby kept blinking and looking around.
The story didn't merit enough of his attention to read properly but he did skim through it to gain the general gist. Apparently, they were lamenting the fact that there was no more recent photo of him available to the public despite the fact that he'd been in the open for nearly half a year already. He wasn't sure if he should be flattered or disturbed by the "eye-witness report" of the fact that he was a "quintessential cutie" according to one Annabella Smith who appeared to be one of those idiots who'd mobbed him in the Leaky Cauldron on his birthday. The author of the article pointed out that he was spotted wearing glasses on that day, yet some "internal source" at Hogwarts had confirmed that he did not wear glasses. There was speculation that the glasses had been an attempt at concealing his true identity on that trip through the Alley.
With a quiet snort, Harry closed the magazine and returned it to its shelf. He couldn't help but feel that he'd actually lowered his I.Q. by reading that drivel. If he ever did become a Dark Lord, magazines like that were going on his list of things to change to better the wizarding world. Merlin, were people really so bored that they had nothing better to do than read that nonsense? Surely, they could spend their time being productive members of society instead.
It did quite neatly illustrate the reason for his presence in that particular shop, though. While his face was obviously not greatly known at this point – at least, after the age of one – that day in the Leaky Cauldron proved that plenty of people were capable of putting it together if they really looked. He wasn't entirely sure which frightened him more at this point, people looking to kill the Boy-Who-Lived or the sort of idiots who actually liked reading crap like that article.
After reading that, he ended up spending probably twice what he otherwise would have in that shop.
He then spent Yule in his Abode, relaxing with Rhast and reading. He'd been right. It felt fantastic to be able to fully relax again without worrying about snooping portraits or nosy dorm mates or staring, gossiping classmates or overly watchful professors or creepy headmasters. Just him and Rhast and Athena and a pile of fascinating books.
He received only one present on Yule. Curiously, it was from Neville. The boy had sent him a book. A shockingly fascinating book entitled, 1001 Spells Hogwarts Used To Teach: What Dumbledore Learned at School that Your Children Won't. The gift had come with a brief note.
Heir Potter,
I'm not sure if you celebrate Yule or not, but from what you said on the train, I didn't think you much liked Christmas. For that reason, I decided to send your gift for Yule. I know that you're always reading extra books, so I thought you might like this one.
In Your Trust,
Heir Longbottom
The salutation at the end was curious and Harry made a mental note to research formal letter writing and see if he could find exactly what that meant in the wizarding world. It could have just been a variation of Yours Faithfully or something of the sort, but then again, it could be something important.
The book was both enthralling and annoying as hell. Had Hogwarts really taught all of this a hundred years ago? A good bit of it was far too advanced for Harry to manage just yet, but he wanted to learn it all. Well. Most of it. Really, he thought he was unlikely to need to know how to transfigure a housecat into an umbrella. First, he didn't like cats, so he couldn't imagine he'd often have one on hand. Second, the water repelling charm was a second year spell and this transfiguration was a sixth year spell, so…
Getting the present on Yule, though, did prove that Neville was more clever than he generally let on. He made a mental note not to forget that and underestimate the boy in the future.
It was the day after Yule that he made his trip back to the magical world. He used a potion to grow his hair a good six inches longer, then strung a pair of beads into the hair at the nape of his neck. A tap of his wand and a muttered activation word and one bead turned his hair into a pile of spiral curls and the other made it a light, sandy brown color. The unruly mop of curls bounced about his head, hanging over his forehead and shading his eyes. His distinctive emerald eyes were also changed with an absurdly expensive, tiny little bottle of Color Changing Solution specialized for use on irises. Just one drop in each eye and his light green eyes became dark brown for about a week or until the antidote potion (included) was administered. The final touch was a layer of concealer over his scar. The magical ointment was quite handy in that it automatically changed color until it perfectly matched his skin tone whilst covering up the blemish. The outline of the scar was still visible to close inspection, but combined with his newly longer hair lying over his forehead, he wasn't worried about it being spotted.
Feeling suitably disguised, he packed his trunks in his pocket as always and hopped a bus to the vicinity of the Leaky Cauldron. Busses were generally more comfortable because he was able to blend in with other passengers. He always felt terribly singled out in the back of a taxi. Also, it was easier to chat with Rhast without anyone noticing. People didn't tend to pay much attention to other people on a bus.
When he reached the Leaky Cauldron, he popped into the loo and changed his muggle clothes for the new black robe and cloak he'd picked up yesterday. He couldn't help but smirk at himself in the mirror. Despite his damnably miniscule height, he looked basically nothing like himself between the potions and the outfit. He was willing to bet he could run into Neville or Hermione in the Alley and not be recognized.
With his valuables tucked safely into a sealed inner pocket in his robe, Harry made his first foray into Knockturn Alley with Rhast close on his heels. On Salazar's advice, he'd timed his visit so that he was arriving after supper. According to the painting, who'd heard it from Tom, Knockturn Alley didn't come alive until evening, and then it would be bustling full-force until dawn. Half the shops weren't even open during the day and those that were showed only a token selection of their stock. Not many did business down this Alley during the day unless they were the rare Light wizard wandering down in need of something useful that most of their kind disdained or someone with an appointment.
Harry kept his shoulders loose and his gait confident, hoping he'd look like he belonged. He only made it a couple dozen meters into the narrower Alley before he found himself set upon by a hag. She was selling a selection of fingernails – whole fingernails – both human and creature on a large tray, and she stepped right into Harry's personal space, yammering about her wares and eyeing him like a tasty morsel. Looking rather like the cartoon version of an evil witch – green-tinted skin covered in warts and moles and sores and yellow, jagged teeth – she leaned down to put her hideous face right in his. Her breath should probably be classified nearly as dangerous as a dragon's, he really could not help but notice as he leaned away from her and fumbled in his robe pocket for his wand.
The hem of his new robe caught the back of his wand and a wrinkled, scabby hand clamped around his wrist, preventing him from drawing it properly.
"Now, now, sonny. You wouldn't want to threaten a poor old lady like me, would you?" she crooned, followed by a sound halfway between a giggle and a cackle that frankly sounded positively mad.
"Poor you may be, but a lady you are not," Harry hissed in her ugly face. "Now, unhand me, crone, or I will remove your hand the painful way." He could feel Rhast at his side, awaiting his word to bite the Hag, but Harry really would rather avoid his familiar outing himself in the middle of the street by killing some wretched cretin.
Despite the fact that she was nearly twice his size, she must have believed him because she dropped his hand with a frightened hiss and scuttled back into the shadow of an awning.
Harry stared after her for a moment before scanning the Alley for any further threats. He found a lot of people and creatures looking at him but they were all keeping their distance. With an irritable huff, he stuffed his wand back into the pocket made for it and made a mental note to buy a good wand sheath before a situation like that got him killed. When he resumed his trek down the Alley, Rhast was just a bit closer to him.
It only took another minute in the Alley to figure out his mistake. He'd purchased his robe and cloak new just a few days ago. The vast majority of the occupants of the Alley were dressed in little more than rags. Even the nicer clothes looked well used. He'd have blended in much better if he'd shopped at a secondhand store. The outfit he was wearing had cost him a mere ten galleons with the charms to allow them to grow a couple sizes with him. He hadn't thought anything of spending it given his fortune, but it was making him stand out here.
Silently cursing his oversight, he decided to stop at a secondhand shop before his next venture, but he wasn't going to go back now.
He kept a closer eye on the people around him after that. One or two looked like they were thinking about approaching him but a hard glare made them hesitate long enough to make his way passed them.
After walking for a while, he located a bookstore. The shop did not seem to have a name. Just a sign hanging over the door with a picture of an open book with a bound scroll lying across the pages.
Inside, Harry found a room roughly twice the size it appeared from the outside. There was a shining mahogany counter against the wall to the right. The man behind the counter looked around sixty. He was wearing dark brown and gray robes of a quality around the same as those Harry was wearing. The man looked up from the book he was reading and his brow drew down slightly as he looked at the boy. Then his hazel eyes flitted down Harry's outfit and back up. When he spoke, his tone was neutral, "Are you looking for something specific, good sir?"
"Just browsing," Harry replied curtly. He could practically feel his familiar relaxing in the sudden warmth behind him.
The man nodded and seemed to go back to his reading though Harry could feel the eyes following him back into the warren of tightly packed shelves.
Well, there was one upside to wearing decent robes, he had to admit. To a shopkeeper, he had to look like he could actually afford to buy something, which would surely make him a much more welcome customer.
Browsing the wares for quality books was a rather different experience. Salazar had given him a lecture on the written word in the wizarding world last week when he'd mentioned a desire to explore Knockturn Alley.
Unlike in the muggle world, books here did not have handy copyright dates and other such useful information universalized inside. They didn't have publishing houses here, either. Instead, there were distributers, who worked in creating the physical books and copying the material into them, but their main purpose was, as expected, distribution. They had contacts with booksellers who would be more likely to buy from a trusted distributer than any idiot capable of casting the right spells for copying an unprotected book. Distributers guaranteed that the work wasn't stolen and provided certain facts about the work, such as when it was written, etc.
The wizarding world hadn't needed the printing press to mass produce books, after all, and they'd been doing it for sixteen millennia in one form or another.
The process probably wasn't quite as neat and clean as the muggle variant, but it worked when there was magic to ease the way. If you wanted more information about a book, you needed a codex of distributers and their clients. These books were automatically updated quarterly and they were easy enough to come by, but even with them, one had to be careful to avoid buying books that were printed with the proper author and title, but without the correct content, which was a relatively common scamming method for the unwary buyer. Top name booksellers, like Flourish and Blotts, checked to make sure they didn't sell that kind of trash, but when you were looking in private, secondhand shops in search of older, rarer books, it was a very real concern.
He spent an hour or a little more perusing the books. Those that looked interesting, he scrutinized for authenticity. It wasn't that difficult, with magic, to make a book appear antique when it was not, but Salazar had taught him what to look for in spotting the fakes. For example, truly aged books tended to be weak in the binding whereas artificially aged books did not. There was also the language. Modern English was not very old.
He ended up with three books in modern English and two in Latin – which he was learning relatively quickly thanks to Salazar's rather demanding tutelage. The books looked interesting and all of the sort that weren't quite banned, but also not something a "respectable" bookseller would dare openly sell in Britain.
The shopkeeper eyed him somewhat suspiciously as he tallied up the books, tucking them into a gray cloth bag as he went. "That'll be twenty-five galleons," he announced expectantly when he was done, clearly skeptical that Harry could provide it.
Carefully not rolling his eyes, Harry reached into his robe and coin purse without actually removing it from the pocket. He fished out a handful and counted them, then did it once more to accumulate the requested sum.
The man was eyeing him with open curiosity by the time he was done, but Harry ignored him. He wished that he'd managed to learn a shrinking charm, but he hadn't thought to try it until a few days ago and it was a third-year spell. It seemed like it always took him at least a week to learn any spell above his year level. Sometimes it took several. The spell used to copy books had taken more than three weeks for him to get down. It was incredibly frustrating.
"Can you shrink that for me?" he asked the shopkeep instead.
The man just nodded and twisted his wrist, causing his wand to jump out of his sleeve and right into his grasp.
Harry's eyes widened as he watched the man murmur the spell quietly and shrink down the bag and its contents easily. "Can you tell me where I could get a wand sheath like that?" he couldn't help but ask as he put the bag in his pocket. He'd thought of buying a sheath so that he could wear his wand under his sleeve, but he hadn't realized they made them to jump out like that. It would make it so much faster and easier to get his wand into his grasp if he was in trouble. He seemed to find himself "in trouble" with disturbing frequency, so it would be a good investment in his survival.
The man stared at him briefly before giving a small nod. He then gave directions to a shop a good ways further down the Alley, on the corner of something called the Dame's Walk off Grindelwald Square. Harry left the bookshop feeling rather impressed by the bollocks it must have taken to name something in Britain after the former Dark Lord that had terrorized so much of Europe before being taken down by Britain's own hero, Dumbledore.
The evening was bleeding toward night, now, and the Alley was really beginning to come alive. Virtually every window along the Alley was alight. Music and laughter wafted through the street from numerous buildings. Somewhat ironically, the street seemed considerably more welcoming and less ominous as the night progressed than it had done earlier.
After a few more minutes of walking, he found his way to Grindelwald Square, which was bustling with business. A wide variety of people and some creatures and halfbreeds were hawking wares to anyone who glanced at them for more than a second. Most of them were dressed poorly enough that it was unlikely they made a lot of money that way. The majority of the buildings around the square had signs displaying their business and their doors thrown open despite the cold night air. He suspected there was a spell that kept the warmth in and the cold out.
Dame's Walk drew his attention well before he saw the street sign painted at the corner.
Women of the Night and their male counterparts lined the street in a variety of alluring clothing, calling out to passersby and trying to tempt them to enter the brothel along the street to which they belonged. There appeared to be a number of brothels in competition there. Harry probably wasn't quite as discreet as he'd have liked in his observation of them judging by the way some of them winked at him. A few even propositioned him when he drew near, which he found mostly embarrassing, though a little bit funny. It was hard not to stare though. He'd never in his life seen people dressed like that. Most of them were good-looking, too.
He classified the experience as an exercise in personal awareness. It was rather enlightening, after all, to note that he couldn't help staring somewhat longer at the males than the females. Some of them were barely older than him. It confirmed what he'd been suspecting about himself since he'd stumbled across those two boys snogging in the library at the start of term.
When he managed to tear his eyes away from the skin on display, he located the building he was seeking on the corner next to the where Dame's Walk met Grindelwald Square. Happily, most people in the square didn't seem to pay any attention to him as he made his way to the shop with a pair of crossed wands on the sign over the door. He was beginning to suspect that shops down here just didn't have names. Every place seemed to have these signs with descriptive pictures, but he'd not seen one written name on any shop or inn or pub he'd passed beyond the first hundred meters into the Alley.
Inside, the shop was almost alarmingly small. Or rather, narrow. There was clearly no expansion charm on the width of the room but there must have been on the length because it might have gone back a kilometer by how it looked. Rows of shelves containing small boxes stretched back into the distance, but it was clear that the customers were meant to remain in the small rectangle of space between the front door and the sales counter. There were a pair of beat-up old wooden chairs that he assumed were for those waiting and a wall covered in what looked, at a glance, to be licenses or permits of some kind. What made it legal for him to sell wands, perhaps?
Rhast rubbed his chilled body against Harry once the door was fully closed and Harry cast a discreet warming charm at the snake as the other must have been wearing off.
"What do you want?" was the greeting he got when a man entered the room through a door that would have exited into the pub next door, though going by the lack of music and rowdy voices coming from it, he was betting that there were more expansion charms or something of the sort going on here.
"A wand sheath," Harry replied, sensing that this man wasn't in the mood to waste time.
The man gestured impatiently to the wall where a few varieties of sheaths were displayed. They seemed to be suited to the ankle, thigh, belt, or wrist. "Seven sickles," the man demanded.
"Um," Harry muttered uncertainly, because surely an enchanted sheath could not be a mere seven sickles, "I was actually looking for an enchanted sheath. One that can kick your wand out into your hand when you want to draw it?"
The man eyed him for a long moment before huffing. "Tha's five galleons, kid."
"That's fine," Harry assured him. "I have the money."
The man eyed him suspiciously, but just grunted as he leaned down to reach under the counter. He was up a moment later with the complicated strip of leather. "Wrist sheath. Extra small," he said with an ugly leer at Harry's small stature that he really didn't appreciate at all. "It's enchanted with a retrieval spell that responds to the will of your magic. Want it to be in your hand and it will come. Can take a bit of practice to get the hang of it. Five galleons."
The description of the enchantment was said mechanically, clearly something he'd repeated many times. The demand for galleons was almost a challenge.
As he'd done in the bookshop, Harry drew the money from his pouch without taking it out of his pocket. He put the coins on the counter and made sure to snatch up his merchandise before the man could get the coins in hand. There wasn't anything about this man that said honorable or trustworthy to Harry. He then turned and left without a word.
It wasn't his bloody fault that some nine-year-olds were taller than him. It wasn't! Bloody Dursleys. All those years of never having enough to eat… that must have been the cause. He was sure he'd have heard about it if either of his parents had been as tiny. Someone wouldn't have been able to resist making the comparison. Just like he'd heard a million times that he had his mother's eyes and his mother's talent in Charms and his father's knack for transfiguration and his ease on a broom. It was irritating. It was like Harry could never do anything and be credited because he was just that good. No, it had to be inherited from people stupid enough to get themselves killed barely into adulthood. Stupid enough to leave their kid without any proper guardian.
Merlin, he hated his parents. He hated when people compared him to them.
Thinking about his parents had him scowling harshly all the way back out of Knockturn Alley. That might have been why he was able to get all the way out without anyone approaching him. Or maybe they were all just busy with other things. Either way, he was glad when he'd made it back to the Leaky. A quick stop in the loo to change back into muggle clothes and Harry hailed a taxi back to the area in which he was staying. He preferred busses but it was late and cold and he didn't want to make Rhast sit at the bus stop and wait.
He had the taxi drop him in a residential area near the park he'd chosen for the week. The man wouldn't ask questions if he appeared to be going home, but he might if he dropped Harry at a park. With his nice new coat and matching hat, gloves, and scarf, Harry really didn't look like someone without a home.
Of course, he did have a home, he remembered as he ducked down an alley between houses and crossed a street into his park. He had a home that he could carry around in his pocket, which was the very best kind. He could take it with him wherever he went.
Author's Note: Okay, I officially loathe OneDrive. It ate more than 9/10 of my files. They're just gone. Like they were deleted except that only I could do that and I very much didn't! I, of course, had all my files backed up locally, but I hadn't actually updated my backed up files in like a month, so I lost a bunch of my more recent stuff. Luckily for you guys, Language of Snakes was one of the few that OneDrive didn't molest. I'm so terribly angry. I wish very, very bad things on them! Take my advice, and don't ever trust them!
(None of the above is meant as a threat of any kind to OneDrive, its parent or affiliate companies, or any personnel associated with the aforementioned companies, nor is it meant to incite anyone else to harm them in any way not supported by all applicable laws.)
Moving on… Terribly sorry for the late post. As I warned you (and apparently jinxed myself) I would update barring a catastrophe. Well, my dad got sick. He was bedridden for like 40 hours and still can't get around without help. Don't worry, it's nothing terminal and he is recovering. What this meant for my writing was that I spent two and a half days away from my computer. My dad's computer doesn't even have Word. It was horrible…
I will try to keep the next update in line with my normal posting schedule, but as that day happens to be Thanksgiving for those of us in the ol' U.S. of A.(and Puerto Rico), I'm not sure if I'll get it up that day. If not, I'll try for Friday the 27th.
As ever, humble gratitude for all of the reviews. You guys are exceptional. Please continue to share your thoughts with me and I shall continue to share this world with you. And sorry for the long A/N.